The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future by Franklin Foer

Author:Franklin Foer [Foer, Franklin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

29

The Big Ask

October 24

Joe Biden was rushing, but there were some things that couldn’t be rushed. They required a personal touch. On October 24, he invited Manchin and Schumer out to his house in Wilmington for Sunday breakfast.

Scranton Joe loved his real estate. For much of his adulthood, he kept stretching his credit and surpassing his bank account to build familial estates, a series of white elephant projects that consumed him. His house was the incarnation of his pride, a sprawling rebuke to his doubters, material proof of how far Joey had come. When he took Manchin around the place, he didn’t bother tempering his boastful self. It was a tour in service of a mission, the sort of intimate gesture that he thought might mean something to Manchin.

For three hours, they sat and went through all the hard choices that would edit down a $3.5 trillion piece of legislation into a bill nearly half that size. For Biden, this wasn’t a sentimental exercise. He knew that Manchin held all the leverage and that he had no choice but to surrender programs. But he also felt obliged to try one last time, to take one final stab at getting Manchin to accept a more robust extension of the child tax credit and a plan that would penalize utilities for using dirty energy. Schumer pushed hard on funding for public housing. But there was no budging the senator. That meant precious priorities fell to the side, but it also allowed for a sense of closure.

Biden felt as if they had worked through their differences in the spirit of genuine compromise. The bill landed at $2.3 trillion. It wasn’t a deal, since so many details needed to be worked out, but it was close.

And when Joe Manchin shook the president’s hand, he told him, “I will get this done.” That was enough for Biden—a big thing to say in his house, with a shake of the hand, two men of the old school, dealing in the spirit of yore. At last, the president believed that he could look skeptical progressives in the eyes and assure them that he would be able to deliver Manchin. It would just take a little more time.

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