Manchin Deepens Democrats’ Impasse on Biden Agenda

Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key centrist holdout, panned the prospects of reaching a deal on Thursday on a framework for an expansive domestic and social policy package, holding firm to a $1.5 trillion price tag that liberals have said is too small.

Emerging late in the evening from a lengthy huddle with top White House officials and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Mr. Manchin said, “I don’t see a deal tonight, I really don’t.”

The comments underscored just how far apart the intraparty factions were as they struggled to salvage both pieces of President Biden’s sprawling economic agenda. On a day when Congress united to pass a bill raising the government’s debt ceiling, divisions within the Democratic Party threatened his $1 trillion infrastructure bill as well as the social spending bill.

Hours after Mr. Manchin confirmed that he would not support anything larger than $1.5 trillion in social spending — less than half of what liberals have sought — efforts to hammer out a framework had yet to deliver a deal.

“I’m at $1.5 trillion — I think $1.5 trillion does exactly the necessary things we need to do,” he said. Ms. Sinema did not comment as she left the meeting.

Liberal House Democrats have so far refused to support a final vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan bill Mr. Manchin helped negotiate without a vote on the sprawling domestic policy package carrying many of their legislative ambitions. White House officials — Louisa Terrell, the director of legislative affairs, Brian Deese, the director of the national economic council, and Susan Rice, the director of the domestic policy council — shuttled between meetings with Democratic leaders and the two centrist holdouts.

In a letter to her caucus late on Thursday, Ms. Pelosi offered few updates, but counseled that “It has been a day of progress in fulfilling the president’s vision.”

“All of this momentum brings us closer to shaping the reconciliation bill in a manner that will pass the House and Senate,” she wrote. But she delayed the vote on the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill she had pledged to bring to the House floor on Thursday.

External pressure was intensifying on both sides of the entrenched debate. The AFL-CIO and other labor unions issued statements in support of immediately taking up the bipartisan infrastructure bill, while grassroots organizations were cheering liberal lawmakers to “hold the line” and hold out for a reconciliation bill.