Omar: Manchin’s excuse for not supporting Build Back Better is ‘bulls—‘

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said on Sunday that Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) reasons for not supporting Democrats’ social spending bill are “bullshit” after the West Virginia moderate shocked lawmakers Sunday by announcing he was a “no” on the legislation.

“Let’s be clear: Manchin’s excuse is bullshit. The people of West Virginia would directly benefit from childcare, pre-Medicare expansion, and long term care, just like Minnesotans,” Omar tweeted.

Omar said Manchin’s position was what progressive House lawmakers had warned for months — that the Senate did not have all 50 Democratic votes needed to pass Biden’s spending package. 

“This is exactly what we warned would happen if we separated Build Back Better from infrastructure,” she said.

Let’s be clear: Manchin’s excuse is bullshit. The people of West Virginia would directly benefit from childcare, pre-Medicare expansion, and long term care, just like Minnesotans.

This is exactly what we warned would happen if we separated Build Back Better from infrastructure. https://t.co/dhzcSk0qUV

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 19, 2021

During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Manchin shockingly announced he would not be supporting the Build Back Better bill despite months of negotiations with the White House and his Democratic colleagues.

“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there,” he told guest host Bret Baier. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that Manchin’s statements demonstrated a betrayal to previous commitments he had made directly to Biden.

“Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to reach that common ground. If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate,” Psaki said.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who had also pushed for the two pieces of legislation to be coupled through Congress, said on Sunday, “We have been saying this for weeks that this would happen, and we took the hits.”

“We were told that we were anti- our caucus, we were anti-democracy, we were anti- this and that, when actually what we were and what we still are is pro- the people because the people have to be first, the people have to win,” Bush said.

“And so what we had was a bit of leverage, which was having the coupling of the two bills, the BIF, the infrastructure package, as well as the Build Back Better Act,” she said. “Having those coupled together was the only leverage we had, and what did the caucus do? We tossed it, you know, and for me, it’s really, it’s sad.”