FIFTY-SEVEN
As Biden mingled with departing senators in the Oval Office, Senator Portman approached Steve Ricchetti. This was a good, constructive, meeting, Portman said. Ricchetti, who rarely uses email and is uber-careful in any setting, was curt in reply. Portman then turned to Ron Klain.
“This was a good meeting,” Portman said. “Thank you for inviting us down.” If we can move forward on this, he said, that would be a turn in the right direction.
“But if you go forward on reconciliation, that will just set a bad tone.”
“Senator Portman, look,” Klain said, “we spent a lot of time thinking about this package and I’m not going to tell you that every single dollar in here is life or death. But I am going to tell you that something very close to what we proposed is absolutely needed to beat this virus and save this economy.
“This isn’t just some giant ask,” Klain said. “This is a plan we’ve put together. And at $600 billion, really $500 billion, if you count the real money in it, we are miles and miles apart.
“You guys came in here and gave us a take-it-or-leave-it offer. That’s not a good meeting.”
“Ron,” Portman said, “that’s not at all what happened here. It’s not take it or leave it.” We heard you make your case. You heard us. We could come back together again, keep this discussion going.
“Okay,” Klain said. “Okay.”
Portman believed Klain was misreading the entire meeting. Republicans were feeling Biden out, not presenting an ultimatum. This was a gang of 10 senators, moderate in temperament, not McConnell or the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus.
Klain took Portman’s remark, that this was not a take-it-or-leave-it gambit, as a potential opening down the line. Portman was close to McConnell and a veteran fiscal negotiator. As trade representative he had negotiated with 30 countries and gone toe-to-toe with China. Portman would not express an openness to more talks unless he meant it.
Collins was delighted. “It was a very good exchange of views,” Collins told reporters, standing in her winter coat outside the White House that night. “I wouldn’t say we came together on a package tonight. No one expected that in a two-hour meeting.
“What we did agree to do is follow up and talk further,” she said.
“I practically gushed,” she later said in a private meeting, “and I meant it because the president had given us two hours! He listened carefully to us. It was an excellent, productive meeting from my perspective.”
Later, The Washington Post asked the White House press office if Biden’s socks with blue dogs were telegraphing something about his politics. Blue dogs are the mascot for moderate Democrats.
“It is extremely unlikely that was done with any subtle purpose in mind,” an adviser told the Post, requesting anonymity to discuss the socks.
“I’m almost positive,” the adviser said. “It’s interesting. But accidental, I think.”
Unbeknown to the Republican senators leaving the White House on February 1, Biden had invited Manchin, probably the most conservative member of the Democratic Party in the Senate, for his own private Oval Office meeting that same evening.
Manchin had been waiting on the ground floor of the White House as the Republican meeting had dragged on an hour over schedule. He was almost hiding so that he would not be seen by reporters or by the Republicans.
Manchin previously served as West Virginia’s governor from 2005 to 2010, when he was elected to the Senate. At 6-foot-3 with broad shoulders, he had the confident air of a former college athlete. He won a football scholarship to West Virginia University and was a childhood friend of fellow Farmington, West Virginian, Nick Saban, the legendary football coach at the University of Alabama.
Manchin was also a notorious wild card in Democratic ranks. He was gregarious with his colleagues but relished a lone-wolf style of politics. He lived on a houseboat, Almost Heaven, docked at the Washington Channel of the Potomac River, when the Senate was in session. His good-old-boy manner helped him survive in West Virginia, where he was the only Democrat to hold statewide office. Trump had won the state in 2020 by 39 points.
Manchin bragged that he had such good relations with the other party that he had never campaigned against a Republican.
In a 50-50 Senate, Manchin’s independence gave him immense power. Lose him and any vote would be at risk of falling apart. Biden would have to find a Republican to get a bill back to 50 so Harris could break the tie. But with McConnell holding an iron grip on the Senate GOP, that was always a long shot.
Manchin and Biden knew each other when they worked together during Manchin’s early years in the Senate and Biden’s time as vice president. “Joe, I get it,” Biden had said to Manchin about being a Democrat in a conservative state. Delaware was widely considered the most business-friendly state in the country. “Tell me what I can do. I can be for you or against you, whatever helps you the most.”
Biden knew it would be hard to persuade Manchin, even if West Virginia was slated to receive lots of money. You had to win him, not buy him.
Manchin’s mantra was, “If I can go home and explain it, I’ll vote for it. If I can’t explain it, I can’t vote for it.” But he was also stubborn and if he started as a “no,” he often stayed a “no.”
In declining to join a party-line vote, Manchin once told Harry Reid, then the majority leader, “Harry, on my best day I can’t sell this shit in West Virginia.” His deal with Reid: “Harry, I think it’s best if I just tell you how I’m going to vote so there’s no surprises, so you always know where I’m at.”
Biden and Manchin sat down in the Oval Office, alone late on February 1. Joe to Joe.
Joe, Biden said, I’ve lived through these situations and I’m trying to work through this. I prefer the bipartisan path, but that takes time. Unfortunately, we don’t have time here because of the pandemic and the economy. There was a deadline ahead, March 14, when supplemental unemployment benefits would begin to lapse.
“This is so important,” Biden said. He recalled working the Affordable Care Act for Obama in 2009. “I worked across the aisle, you know that.”
“I know you do, Mr. President,” Manchin said. “I know what’s in your heart.”
“I understand where you are,” Biden continued. “But I want to explain to you. I had worked with them for seven or eight months trying to get a compromise on the Affordable Care Act, and at the end of the day I didn’t get any Republicans. Now we have a Covid pandemic and it’s time sensitive. I can’t negotiate for six or eight months.”
Manchin said he wanted President Biden, like all presidents, to succeed and would not let him fail.
It was not a negotiation. Few details were discussed. Manchin said he would want some changes, but he would help get something done.
Later that evening, Biden and Klain reflected on the separate sessions with the Republican senators and with Senator Manchin.
“I thought it went well,” Biden said of the GOP meeting. “We’re obviously very far apart.”
“They never once in those two hours, never, came off their 618 billion dollars!” Klain said angrily. “They never once said, well, maybe we will go farther, or maybe we’ll give you more money for that, or maybe we’ll meet you halfway on schools.”
The president was seeking $170 billion for school reopenings, the Republican offer was $20 billion. “Yes, it had been an amiable meeting,” Biden said. But zero movement.
Klain did report that Portman said there would be a counteroffer.
“Well,” Biden said, “that sounds good.” Biden said he thought there was a 20 to 25 percent chance that something could be done with the Republicans. Low chance, but still possible.
One thing was certain. They did not want to get “Charlie Browned.” They had seen this play before with the football snatched away at the last minute by the Senate Republicans. They could not wait indefinitely. Even if eight of the Republicans at the meeting voted with Biden, 58 total votes would not be enough—two short of the 60 needed to defeat a filibuster.
Both agreed the Democrats-only reconciliation path was maybe inevitable. The 10 Republicans were too far below Biden’s number. What Biden had needed from them was a vivid overture, a sign of compromise—a recognition of his political capital and Democratic power in this new Washington. That could have maybe caused a spark. But there was none.
Even when Biden had brought up the Georgia win and his promise on the checks, it was as if the Republicans did not want to acknowledge it.
Klain soon communicated privately to congressional leaders. They would keep the door open for Republicans to come back and work with them on aspects of the $1.9 trillion proposal, but Biden was determined to keep moving forward. No pause.
Speaker Pelosi was on board, telling her allies in the White House and at the Capitol she thought it was fine the Republicans had paid Biden a visit. But $618 billion? “They’re not serious,” she said.
“They don’t understand what the president was saying,” Pelosi said. She could not sell a modest deal to her members. “Who are you cutting out? Are you going to cut out the food for the children? The housing for their families? The direct payments? The unemployment insurance? You’re going to cut out the vaccines?”
Pelosi had already expressed her feelings to Biden, one Sunday before the inauguration. They had been through decades of ups and downs in Washington. She had urged him to go big and fast, for the country and for Democrats, rather than waiting around for Republicans.
“Of all the times you have run for president, this is your time,” Pelosi said. “We have always said of us, ‘the times have found us.’ The times have found you.”