house and the senate that the white house supports that should get an up or down vote. this is common sense and what the american people want. it may be what the american people want but when you listen to the leaders of both parties they sound entrenched. let me play for you something mitch mcconnell just said. this is going to be done on a bipartisan basis. this is going to be a hell of a fight over what this country ought to look like in the future. i don t think we ve had a bigger difference of opinion between the two parties over the best thing to do for america than we have right now. so i want to ask both of you really quickly and i ll start with you, congressman gottheimer, how do you get there to agreement where the problem solvers caucus is, when you have both sides, the leaders on both sides as far apart as they are. in fact, and you just heard what he had to say, they ve never been more far apart on what the future of the country looks
bipartisan problem-solvers caucus backed the bipartisan senate proposal negotiated with the white house. but there s a catch. the group said they want a stand alone vote on it asap and house speaker nancy pelosi only wants a vote if the families plan goes with it. joining me now to out co-chairs of the caucus, josh gottheimer and brian fitzpatrick. congressmen fitzpatrick, let me start with the basic question. have all 29 republicans in your caucus agreed to vote yes if it reaches the floor? thanks for having us, chris. we endorsed the package so our caucus rules are if 75% of the overall caucus agrees and 50% of the party members agree, we agree to stand together as a block. we en, toed this go round. we had our own plan the building bridges plan we endorsed, a framework that we came up with and just endorsed is a statement
and should get it to the floor. congressman fitzpatrick, let me dig deeper on this standalone vote. the second proposal is expanding child care, fighting climate change. is there no support in your party for either of those things? of course, chris. we support those concepts. the question is what is in the final bill, what does it look like and is it a product of bipartisan input. our caucus stands for something very faithful, two-party solutions. we don t think one party has a monopoly on good ideas. our families operate and personal relationships operate and businesses function, the normal common sense americans wants us to govern. do we support child care and protecting our environment? of course. i was one of two republicans that supported the phrain instruct trur bill that was put on the floor by the house. i support both of the concepts very much but what we re here to announce today is we have a bipartisan agreement in the
on and doesn t prevent us from doing something further down the road on another package. we have great momentum here, roads, bridges, rails, tunnels, water infrastructure, clean energy going. this is a great chance to get that done and i believe we can get it done so i believe we should get a standalone vote. back to the question, which is have you had a conversation with nancy pelosi? could she derail this? of course i m always in touch with the speaker and let her know we are working on this and i ll leave it to you to talk to her. you ve got democrats and republicans who are speaking clearly together this is something we can get done and again this is rare. we ve been working on this as brian said with our senate colleagues, democrats and republicans for months now, able to get to an agreement. you saw president biden said we should get a bipartisan package done so ultimately if that s what we get to, she with you get a vote done and i believe we it
of support of the senate plan for a standalone vote, that s the key here, what we want. the bills should be up or down voted based on its own merits, no strings attached. as you know, congressman gottheimer, speaker pelosi said she wouldn t put anything on the floor until the senate passes both bills. it s a risky strategy on both sides. have you had conversations with speaker pelosi about it? thank you so much for having me and it s great to be here with brian. something that s rare here, democrats and republicans in the house and the senate actually coming together and agreeing on something and there s nothing more pressing than fixing the infrom structure. what i believe and members of the caucus endorsed yesterday, let s get together and get a vote on this bipartisan infrastructure package the white house backed and we ve been working together now for months