Congress
The left’s House leader is prepared to cut the centrist out of social safety net talks. Others in the party are prepared for concessions.
While Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) didn’t say Democrats should outright refuse to negotiate, she made clear that they shouldn’t put all their bets on Joe Manchin. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Image
By NICHOLAS WU and SARAH FERRIS
12/20/2021 06:54 PM EST
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The House’s fiercest liberals are — so far — showing little to no interest in the Build Back Better remodeling required to win over Joe Manchin.
A day after Manchin’s bombshell rejection of their party’s social spending plan, leaders of the left are so frustrated that they are now calling on Democrats to ignore him altogether. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who helms the roughly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Monday she would push the White House to take executive actions to enact some of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, despite widespread doubts among fellow Democrats about the effectiveness of such an approach.
After sustaining months of concessions meant to placate the Senate’s centrists, progressives say they are in no mood to substantially alter their bill any further. As they see it, the package Manchin rejected was already the scaled-back version of their ambitions.