The Democrats Who Might Block Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

The first year of a Congress is usually the best time for a president to put forward any sort of ambitious policy. For President Biden, whose control of Congress is fragile, the urgency is particularly intense. But now members of his own party are threatening to block one big part of his agenda — his $1 trillion infrastructure plan — in the name of protecting an even bigger part. We speak to Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State, the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, about why she is willing to vote no on the infrastructure bill. Guest: Emily Cochrane, a correspondent covering Congress for The New York Times; and Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm a Steadhurned in for Michael Barbarra. This is the Daily.
0:12.0	Today, Congress faces a key vote on one of the president's top priorities. His $1 trillion
0:19.2	infrastructure bill. But now, members of his own party are threatening to block it.
0:26.0	I spoke with my colleague Emily Cochrane about the infighting in Congress, and with one
0:32.9	progressive congresswoman about why she's willing to vote now.
0:42.5	It's Thursday, September 30th.
0:49.2	Hey Emily, how are you? It's another damn paradise.
0:52.4	Yes.
0:54.4	On the scale of one to ten, how bad is today?
0:58.8	You know, the limit does not exist. I'm sure it's like wherever you are right now, you already
1:04.4	know tomorrow will be worse. I'm afraid if I give something specific, the Congress
1:11.6	Gods will just challenge me. Yeah. Right. Well, we do appreciate you helping us out on
1:18.0	an amazing week. And I feel like everything I've read from the Hill over the last couple
1:22.5	of weeks has required a professional translator. So thank you for letting us use you as a professional
1:30.2	translator. I hope I can deliver because unfortunately there's a lot of garble right now.
1:37.4	I know that there's a lot of moving parts happening at once. So can you just lay out for me?
1:42.5	What are these moving parts? What is the current state of play in Washington?
1:46.5	So I think the easiest way to think about this is for Democrats who control both the House and
1:53.0	the Senate. This is a week where they are juggling two things. They are juggling the basic
1:59.4	fiscal responsibility of governance, the basic thing Congress always has to do every single year.
2:06.0	And then they are juggling that with their own ambitious domestic proposal.
2:11.0	Well, let's start with the first thing, the basic governance stuff. So the end of September is
	...

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