'Bulls---': How a Manchin-Bernie blowup helped unstick Dems' agenda

[Celerity]

A cathartic breakthrough between the West Virginia centrist and Vermont progressive paved the way for growing momentum towards a deal after months of infighting.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/21/bulls-how-a-manchin-bernie-blowup-helped-unstick-dems-agenda-516561


Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin patched things up after a cathartic exchange during a Democratic meeting. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders tangled in a private Democratic meeting this week that helped set the stage for growing progress on President Joe Biden’s agenda.

As Democratic leadership gathered Monday ahead of a pivotal week of negotiations on the party’s social spending bill, Manchin (D-W.Va.) laid out what he could accept to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s team. Universal pre-K was in, he said, but no tuition-free community college.

Sanders (I-Vt.) was not pleased. “Bullshit,” Sanders said, according to a readout of the meeting provided to POLITICO. Sanders said Manchin was telling the rest of the Democratic caucus to go “F themselves” and bend to one senator's agenda. Manchin disputed that, recounting that he’d told Biden the president did not win West Virginia and his very presence in the Senate is remarkable.

Shortly after that tussle, Manchin and Sanders met privately, posed for a photo together and publicly reconciled. They’ve met four times so far this week, each softening their rhetoric toward one another and speaking more hopefully of a deal even as they continue to spar behind the scenes. Yet the cathartic blowup helped spark a significant breakthrough after a dayslong feud between the two that began when Sanders leaned publicly on Manchin to support Biden’s agenda.

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