Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) met separately Monday with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) as liberals and centrists in the party struggle to cut a deal on President Biden’s sweeping spending plan.
The meetings — he met first with Jayapal and then later with Sanders — come as the two leading progressives have grown increasingly frustrated with Manchin, a key holdout on the social spending bill that is still being negotiated.
A source familiar confirmed the meeting between Manchin and Jayapal, while Sanders and Manchin, leaving the Capitol on Monday night, told reporters that they had also met.
And while Sanders and Manchin have spent days in a high-profile battle over the spending legislation, which is the centerpiece of Biden’s legislative agenda, the two men were on friendly terms as they left the Capitol and paused for a photo outside while surrounded by a gaggle of reporters.
Manchin, chatting with reporters, appeared to notice Sanders heading to a nearby car.
“Get a picture. You want to get a picture of us?” Manchin told photographers as he and Sanders ran back into each other.
They quickly obliged.
“We’re talking,” Manchin said as he wrapped an arm around Sanders.
Sanders echoed that, telling reporters that “we’re talking” and that he’s optimistic congressional Democrats and the White House would be able to work out an agreement on the social spending bill.
“I would hope that we’re going to see some real action within the next week or so,” Sanders told reporters. “We discussed the way forward.”
As Manchin and Sanders broke apart to go to their respective cars, Manchin called out, “Never give up, Bernie.”
The scheduled meeting between Sanders and Manchin, followed by the impromptu one outside the Capitol, comes as the two men have been trading shots at each other.
After Manchin convened a brief press conference earlier this month to reiterate that his top-line figure for the spending bill was $1.5 trillion, Sanders convened two press conferences within days where he urged Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to be more specific about what they wanted.
Sanders also published an op-ed in a West Virginia newspaper over the weekend touting the benefits of a $3.5 trillion bill, which Manchin has said he can’t support, and saying that “two Democratic senators remain in opposition, including Sen. Joe Manchin.”
Manchin issued a fiery statement in response, calling Sanders an “out-of-stater.”
A CNN reporter asked Sanders on Monday night if he apologized to Manchin for his op-ed during their closed-door meeting.
Sanders, who had been walking with a group of reporters, briefly came to a halt, before asking, “Did you apologize for the article you wrote?”
“Why would you ask me that?” he added.