Biden kicks off Dems' arduous path forward with Senate 'homecoming'
President Joe Biden returned to the Senate on Wednesday to celebrate clinching a budget deal with Democrats, though it’s just the beginning of a long process that will test his prowess with his former colleagues.
During a closed-door lunch that Biden, who served in the Senate for decades, called his "homecoming," he encouraged the Democratic caucus to be ambitious on both the bipartisan physical infrastructure package and a larger $3.5 trillion social spending package. He also emphasized the need for the party to engage with working-class voters in rural America, arguing that delivering on his families and jobs agenda could help Democrats reverse losses in those areas, according to two sources familiar with his remarks.
Attendees said they also sensed Biden knows he has work to do in recruiting two key moderate senators to sign on to the deal while keeping the support of progressives that aspire to go much bigger. In a sign of those challenges ahead, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the Senate’s most conservative Democrat, said after the lunch that he has concerns about inflation as well as Democratic language in the spending package that relates to fossil fuels.
Biden “understands this is a process,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in an interview. But the president is “rightfully confident in our ability to get something over the line.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-kicks-off-dems-arduous-path-forward-with-senate-homecoming/ar-AAMc6J6
