commitment? what we re saying, jim, we had a meeting last night with about 30 of us, that when the president can give assurances he has a deal with the senate is when we can vote on both the bills out of the house together with the president assurances that nothing will get messed up in the senate, because originally we said we wanted a senate vote, there is a few senators, we may not have as much trust as we do the president on. nothing has changed on what i or pramila or others in the progressive caucus have said. we want to send the president to europe with a big win on climate. and the big win on climate is in the build back better act. not the infrastructure bill. we have to do both together to give him that credibility that he really needs to be able to go there with. you said publicly you re not throwing lines, red lines out there because you want to negotiate, you want to get a deal done. yes. many of your colleagues are very publicly setting red lines. and beyond the s
don t break off the little piece of it that you thought was your experiment. no, we will do it. all the chair of the pramila of john paul till the washington post last night that the number of democrats in the house, willing to vote against the small roads and bridges bill, if it was on its own and not coupled with the rest of the presidents agenda, she reported that that number was already large and still growing. as of last, night she estimated she had 60 no votes in her pocket. in a democratic caucus where the margin for error is about three total votes in the house, if you have 60 votes that you speak for, that s a ball game. there s one missed conception here that is worth we discussing, it s not like the house progressive caucus is insisting on some plan that is more progressive than what president biden wants. it s not like they are insisting on some plan that is more left-wing than what the president wants.
pass both pieces of legislation, but the problem is how do they get there and it seems like there s not the lack of trust is, of course, between moderates and progressives, but it s mostly between the house and the senate, and that s where senator joe manchin and kyrsten sinema come in because house progressives, they don t just want a commitment from their house moderates, their colleagues in the house. they need a commitment from people like senator manchin and kyrsten sinema and something that they haven t been able to get yet pramila, leader of the progressive caucus, just spoke with some reporters a few seconds ago and she said she spoke with senator sinema today but she has not yet spoken with senator manchin, a key person. and so, i spoke with senator manchin earlier today. there s all these conversations that are happening, but i asked him if he was willing to give a commitment to progressives that he would support this reconciliation bill even though he wants to keep negotia
well, as you know, first of all, thank you so much for having me. what s so important that people should understand is we ve been working for months since april on this bipartisan infrastructure plan which passed out of the senate in august, the beginning of august with 69 votes, 50 democrats, every democrat from bernie sanders to joe manchin, and 19 republicans. it s now been sitting there waiting for action in the house. every single democrat in the house voted to bring it to the floor for a vote this week. we re going to do it. we re going to have the votes. it will come up tomorrow, and we re going to vote this week, early this week and listen, i am very confident that we ll get this done, and as pramila just said, we need to get reconciliation done, both done and the speaker said she ll get the votes, and no one is better at that than the speaker. it s going to be bipartisan, democrats and republican also vote for the infrastructure bill early this week. you said in august you
a deal to hold a vote tomorrow, not just bringing it to the floor for consideration with a vote later. if you don t get a vote on infrastructure tomorrow, that no longer means that you won t support the reconciliation bill? you re giving a little bit here? no. no, no, no, listen, we re going to get a vote early this week. but not tomorrow? it s going to be brought to the floor tomorrow. the vote, the way these things work if you start debating it and it rolls over to tuesday, i think we re all reasonable people. but the bottom line is what s important and the speaker communicated this to all of us yesterday is that we vote on it early this week and that s going to happen and what s really important is that everyone also understands that we are working as pramila said around the clock. i m optimistic we ll get both done. there s too much on the line for our country. you think about infrastructure and the derailment in montana on amtrak last night, and of course