Joe Biden.Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty
While PresidentJoe Bidenpromotes the programs in a new$1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, he’s pushing back on the backlash Republican supporters have faced from members of their own party opposed to the legislation.
“I’m hoping,” Biden said Tuesday during a virtual grassroots event with Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, “that we can get back to a place where there’s more civility in politics. I really mean it. And I’ve never seen it this way.”
Many of the Republicans opposed to the spending insisted it was overly broad and wasteful, far beyond what they argued was meaningful investment in “infrastructure.”
However some leading conservatives, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,have praisedthe bill as a “godsend” for his state. (A small group of progressive Democratsvoted againstthe legislation because they also wanted it to be passed alongside a still-being-negotiated spending package.)
“For four years … the last president told us we’re going to get the infrastructure done, but he couldn’t get it done,” Biden said Tuesday, taking a jab at former PresidentDonald Trump’s administration’s failure tobroker a similar deal. “So, it was left to us, and we got the job done.”
That sense of victory did not sit well with many Republicans, including Trump, who slammed the GOP’s supporters of the bill. “All Republicans who voted for Democrat longevity should be ashamed of themselves,” Trump said in a statement Sunday.
“If they’re a chairman of a committee, they’re trying to strip them of that chairmanship,” Biden said Tuesday of those Republicans. “I’ve never seen it like this before. It’s got to stop for the sake of America.”
President Joe Biden.Ken Cedeno/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Biden characterized the backlash as purely partisan, saying threats against Republicans who voted for the bill were “because it looked like the Democrats were going to be given credit for something.”
“It’s just not right,” the president said. “We’re going to change it though.”
Michigan Republican Rep. Fred Uptontold CNN’s Anderson Cooperabout “disturbing” and “frightening” messages he’s received since he voted in support of the bill. Cooper played one threatening message on the air: “I hope you die. I hope everybody in your f——- family dies,” a caller said.
Biden’s push for “civility in politics” don’t only serve as an attempt to lighten the mood in Washington. His next legislative fight is for the social spending portion of his administration’s agenda, a pending$1.85 trillion planto address issues like child care, climate change, immigration and more.
That bill is expected to pass through Congress along party lines, though Biden continues to publicly press the case that conservatives should consider voting for it as well even though many say they disagree with its provisions.
“We got some help from some Republicans who had to courage to vote for it initially and vote for it in the House,” Biden said, referring to the infrastructure bill. “And now we need to do it again with my Build Back Better plan. And I’m confident we’re going to get it done.”
Biden also acknowledged that in a country that’s so politically divided, it can be unpopular for Republicans and Democrats to work together on finding common ground.
“I know I get in trouble when I talk about ‘bipartisan,’ because people say, ‘Why the devil would I like any Republicans?’ Well, it’s important,” he said. “Unless we get — generate — consensus in America, we’re in trouble.”
source: people.com
