WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., on Sunday in Delaware as Democrats work to secure a deal on legislation that would enact the administration’s social safety net agenda, according to three officials.
Biden met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Schumer on Friday to continue negotiations. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would prefer to get a deal before he leaves for an overseas trip late next week.
“I think we’re pretty much there now,” Pelosi said on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ on Sunday. She added that Manchin, Schumer and Biden are meeting “on some of the particulars that need to be finalized.”
“The plan” is to hold a vote this week on the nearly $2 trillion social spending package, Pelosi said.
The Sunday morning meeting was first reported by Politico.
“Failure is not an option here,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said on MSNBC on Sunday. “We make promises to the American people and we need to deliver on those promises.”
Warren said many of the “basic elements” Democrats wanted are in the bill, “not every single one of the things we wanted, but we got a lot of them.”
The White House meeting Friday with the leaders followed Biden’s town hall on Thursday night in Baltimore, where he offered new details on how the spending package is coming together, touching on some items that appear to be set in stone and others that are still up in the air.
The president confirmed at the CNN event that he hasn’t been able to get 12 weeks of paid family leave included in the bill because of opposition from a few moderates in his party. That provision will now be reduced to four weeks.
“It’s all about compromise,” Biden said on CNN. “I think we can get there.”
In anticipation of a potential deal, House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., informed lawmakers Friday that Democratic leaders “aim” to hold votes next week on both the safety net legislation and the Senate-passed $550 billion infrastructure package. Hoyer said the goal is to get the two measures passed before their next recess, which is slated for Nov. 8.
Winston Wilde contributed.
