A Monday call between Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and billionaire donors has been leaked — and it has serious implications for the Senate filibuster and other thorny issues.
“The meeting was hosted by the group No Labels, a big money operation co-founded by former Sen. Joe Lieberman that funnels high-net-worth donor money to conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans,” The Intercept, who obtained the Zoom transcript, reported.
“Among the gathering’s newsworthy revelations: Manchin described an openness to filibuster reform at odds with his most recent position that will buoy some Democrats’ hopes for enacting their agenda.”
On the phone call, Manchin is heard discussing a wide range of topics.
“Roy Blunt is a great, just a good friend of mine, a great guy,” Manchin reportedly told the billionaire donors. He implied they could dangle future financial opportunities to help pressure Blunt into backing a commission to look into the January 6 riot.
“Roy is retiring,” Manchin said. “If some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him, that’d be nice and it’d help our country. That would be very good to get him to change his vote. And we’re going to have another vote on this thing. That’ll give me one more shot at it.”
Manchin also implied to the donors that he was open to potential filibuster reform. While he said he remains staunchly against completely removing the filibuster, Manchin said he could tolerate making the filibuster a “talking filibuster” or that he would lower the requirement to overcome a filibuster from 60 votes to 55.
“I looked back … when it went from 67 votes to 60 votes, and also what was happening, what made them think that it needed to change. So I’m open to looking at it, I’m just not open to getting rid of the filibuster, that’s all,” he said.
“Right now, 60 is where I planted my flag, but as long as they know that I’m going to protect this filibuster, we’re looking at good solutions. I think, basically, it should be 41 people have to force the issue versus the 60 that we need in the affirmative,” he said. “So find 41 in the negative.”
“I think one little change that could be made right now is basically anyone who wants to filibuster ought to be required to go to the floor and basically state your objection and why you’re filibustering and also state what you think needs to change that’d fix it, so you would support it,” he continued. “To me, that’s pretty constructive.”
Eliminating the filibuster would allow Democrats to use Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote to push all the bills they want through the evenly 50-50 split Senate, something the far-left portion of the Democratic Party has demanded.
The leak comes at a bad time for Manchin, who is working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill to gather bipartisan support for a slightly watered-down version of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill.
Manchin is leading a bipartisan group working on a $1 trillion infrastructure compromise, that recently more than doubled in size to 21 members Wednesday.
That’s a key threshold that gives momentum to their effort as Biden returns from overseas — and at a pivotal time for the 46th president’s biggest legislative priority.
Biden told reporters he had yet to see the emerging proposal from the group but remained hopeful a bipartisan agreement could be reached, despite weeks of on-again, off-again talks over his more robust $1.7 billion American Jobs Plan.
“I’m still hoping we can put together the two bookends here,” Biden said as he prepared to depart Geneva after attending a summit of European leaders.
The administration dispatched top White House advisers for back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill while the president was away. Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress are proceeding on a two-track strategy — seeking a bipartisan bill while preparing to go it alone if Republicans try to block the spending with a filibuster in the Senate.
The administration officials huddled late Wednesday in the Capitol basement with the Democratic senators in the bipartisan group, grinding through details of the proposal. On Tuesday, the White House team shored up restless House Democrats eager for momentum on a shared domestic priority with the president.
Ahead of Wednesday’s late afternoon session, the 20 senators issued a joint statement backing the emerging bipartisan proposal, doubling their ranks in a show of momentum as Biden is expected to re-engage at home. The list was later updated to 21.
The number is significant: With 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats the group for the first time shows the potential for a bipartisan accord that could theoretically reach the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, which is now evenly split 50-50, that’s needed to advance bills.
“We support this bipartisan framework that provides an historic investment in our nation’s core infrastructure needs without raising taxes,” the senators said. “We look forward to working with our Republican and Democratic colleagues to develop legislation based on this framework to address America’s critical infrastructure challenges.”
Biden has proposed spending a huge amount on U.S. infrastructure through a bill that goes far beyond roads and bridges to include efforts to fight climate change and to shore up what the White House calls the human infrastructure — child care centers, veterans hospitals, community colleges, and elder care.
Together, the American Jobs Plan and the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan make up a wish-list of far-left Democrats that most Republicans say goes far beyond what they are comfortable spending.
As an alternative, the bipartisan group is eyeing a scaled-back nearly $1 trillion proposal that includes about $579 billion in new spending, including $110 billion on roads and highways, $66 billion on passenger and freight rail, and $48 billion on public transit, according to a Republican who requested anonymity to discuss the package. There’s another $47 billion on resiliency efforts to fight climate change and money for electric vehicle charging stations.
Biden has proposed raising taxes on corporations, from 21% to 28%, to fund the jobs plan, and increasing taxes on wealthy Americans earning more than $400,000 for the other investments — tax hikes Republicans flatly oppose.
The bipartisan group includes some of the most watched members of the Senate, some known for reaching across the aisle or bucking their party to strike deals.
The Republicans are Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Todd Young of Indiana.
Besides Manchin, on the Democratic side are Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist who is chairman of the Budget Committee, told reporters that lawmakers “have an enormous amount of work in front of us.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article