Infrastructure
Floor Speech
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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on one final matter, earlier today, a bipartisan group of infrastructure negotiators took the results of their efforts down to President Biden. It was an encouraging sign of progress after leading Democrats had gone out of their way to slow the process.
Remember, at the first sign of an agreement last night and then again this morning, both the Democratic leader and the Speaker of the House made it clear they would hold a bipartisan agreement hostage, demanding trillions of dollars in wasteful spending and job-killing tax increases in return for even considering it. The top two Democrats literally pulled the rug out from under their bipartisan negotiators with these unserious demands before they had even made it down to the White House.
So President Biden's show of support earlier today appeared to be a major breakthrough for earning Democrats' support, but, alas, that optimism was short-lived. Less than 2 hours after publicly commending our colleagues and actually endorsing the bipartisan agreement, the President took the extraordinary step of threatening to veto it. It was a tale of two press conferences--endorse the agreement in one breath and threaten to veto it in the next. Less than 2 hours. It almost makes your head spin. Less than 2 hours. As I said, it almost makes your head spin--an expression of bipartisanship and then an ultimatum on behalf of your leftwing base.
I have no doubt the President is under enormous pressure from some on the left to deliver on a laundry list of radical climate demands. The Democratic leader and the Speaker have already made clear they will do whatever it takes to keep their runaway spending train chugging along all summer, and more and more Members of their party are having to contort their positions to keep pace with the expectations of the Green New Deal fringe. But, really, caving completely in less than 2 hours? That is not the way to show you are serious about getting a bipartisan outcome.
So, look, I hope our colleagues can recover and get their good-faith efforts back on track.
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