Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd and this is the Chuck Todd cast on Capitol Hill, the moderates

and the progressives on the Democratic side continued to negotiate over that massive domestic

spending. Timing on a vote for infrastructure, there's government funding in the debt ceiling

as well, and then of course voting reform is sitting on the back burner. But with all

the back and forth over what Democrats want, there's one voice that seems to be missing

from this conversation. And that's the voice of the president of the United States. Yes,

he's held closed door meetings with senators mansion in cinema. Yes, he's invited congressional

leaders and competing caucuses to the White House publicly. I think quite absent. Some

Democrats have been quietly and now some not so quietly saying, we'll support the president's

position. Just need to know what is your position, Mr. President. Tell us what to do.

So join me today, Karen Tomlety, Connist and Deputy Editorial Page Editor for the Washington

Post and Evan Osens, staff writer for the New Yorker and author of a new book, Wildland,

the Making of America's Fury and has spent a bunch of time with Joe Biden. So welcome

to both of you. And thank you, Karen, you know, before you were columnizing, you were reporting

and you were certainly covering the hell and spent a lot of time covering Joe Biden

too. Joe Biden is acting like he's the Senate Majority Leader, it seems like and not the

president here. What's your sense of why he's been so reticent about having a heavier

public hand? It's it's mystifying actually. And certainly his own experiences by his

president during the run up to the Affordable Care Act suggested that kind of leaving this

in the hands of Congress for too long and really jeopardize your chances of getting anything.

In talking to people in the leadership in Congress, I think the expectation is that he

will very soon announce a price tag on this massive infrastructure program that is a lot

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