President Joe Biden abandoned infrastructure negotiations with Republicans on Tuesday night, letting go of his promise to make the legislation bipartisan. GOP lawmakers met the president’s fiscal requests with their infrastructure counter offer, but Biden still called it quits on bipartisan talks.
Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was at the center of the GOP negotiations and worked directly with the president, only for the administration to bail. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took note of Biden’s failed promise to keep infrastructure talks bipartisan, arguing that the president is “unwilling” to compromise on “radical promises” he made to progressives.
"I was disappointed to learn yesterday President Biden had walked away from negotiations on infrastructure spending with Senator Capito..They met and exceeded the President's own threshold demands, and then they were left at the table," McConnell said. “An agreement requires that actually each side is willing to give up some of what it wants. And as we learned yesterday, President Biden is unwilling to let go of some of the most radical promises he made to the left-wing of his party."
McConnell on infrastructure talks: "An agreement requires that actually each side is willing to give up some of what it wants. And as we learned yesterday, President Biden is unwilling to let go of some of the most radical promises he made to the left-wing of his party."
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) June 9, 2021
The Democrat-led infrastructure package, with a nearly $2 trillion price tag, has no GOP support thus far and has no viable path to passing the Senate.