reckon siltiation package. a lot going on. joining us, secretary of transportation, pete buttigieg. mr. secretary, good to see you this morning. the debt ceiling question is in front of us, but let s look ahead to infrastructure. stand-alone infrastructure package $1.2 trillion then the bigger build back better. as that begins to get pared down, mr. secretary what do you think is crucial from your point of view that stays in? what has to be there, in your eyes? well, the bottom line is that we ve got to deliver on the president s vision that, by the way, america agrees with on how to make life easier for families. how to improve access to health care. how to tackle climate change and do that alongside what we ve already got that bipartisan agreement on which is the importance of infrastructure. these are things that have been needed for a long time. things that command enormous support from the american people, and as we work to get this done, this isn t just going to be about pullin
debt ceiling question, that they would win republican votes throughout the major, so the first step of course would be four republican senators to make good on that. and agreed to pass whatever it is the democrats come up with in terms of just the clean spending bill for later this week to avoid the shutdown. but looking forward, this is all going to be a political gain. and mcconnell is trying to basically trap the democrats, and show that they can t govern competently, that they have these majorities, the majority said they are, but majority is nevertheless. and they are having trouble passing the signature agenda items. of the democratic president, he s trying to use that to the robert cook ends. advantage and of course win back the senate majority of 2022. lisa lerer, i want to play for you some comments from the man always described as the plainspoken democratic senator
going to use it politically against the democrats in the midterm elections next year. this is a pure political calculation by mcconnell and by the other republican senators. mcconnell has indicated that if democrats were to put forward just the spending measure, the budget measure that would insure the government stays open in decouple it from the debt ceiling question, that they would win republican votes for that measure so the first step of course would be for republican senators to make good on that and, you know, agree to pass whatever it is the democrats come up with in terms of just the clean spending bill for later this week to avoid the shutdown but looking forward, this is all going to be a political game and mcconnell is trying to basically trap the democrats and show that they can t govern competently, that they have these majorities, thin majorities as they are, but majorities nonetheless, and yet they brought the country to the brink of a shutdown, and they re having trou
country, you know, for a lot of people around the country this all comes out of the blue. what are you talking about. why are with own the edge of a crisis on paying our bills and i think she s going to get people stirred up. the real issue politically is, again though who winds up taking blame for all of these deficits and the rewards that comes from passing a major democratic bill, do the re-wards outweigh the costs of driving up the deficits more in the future? that s what s at stake and i don t think we have the answers yet, but, again, i think we should be reasonably confident that the debt ceiling question will be worked out but what effect it has on the rest of the biden agenda is very unclear. david gergen and catherine rampell, thanks so much for joining us. thank you. coming up, for the first time in two decades a peacetime president on the world stage. we head live to the united nations as president biden makes his case that america is ready to lead, but our other worl
but it will run into problems in the senate. senate republicans are super dug in on the debt ceiling question. with mostly what is frankly a bad faith argument about who racked up the debt, when, and whose responsibility it needs to be to clear it. that being said, democrats will have to find some way around it because without at least some republican votes to lift the debt ceiling, it becomes politically perilous. that is the most complicated. we ll set that aside for now. the self imposed deadlines are also tricky. they are almost absolutely house focused. in this case you will see that infrastructure vote come on monday. senior democratic leaders have all said today it is happening. and we expect a meeting at some point this afternoon between nancy pelosi and head of the house progressive caucus about whether or not that will be acceptable to progressives who say they are not voting for that until the bigger budget bill is done. and that being looks almost impossible from where i st