On her MSNBC show Wednesday afternoon, worried and frustrated anchor Andrea Mitchell bemoaned moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema refusing to support wasting trillions on socialism. The left-wing host channeled radical House Democrats demanding President Biden “get tougher” and tell the lawmakers to “get in line.”
“And in the Senate, moderates Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin holding all the cards. And they’re still resisting pleas from President Biden,” Mitchell proclaimed at the top of the 12:00 p.m. ET hour program. She noted that the President was “under pressure from House leaders to start twisting arms.”
Moments later, correspondent Garrett Haake similarly touted: “I spent a lot of time yesterday talking to House progressives who say they are right where they’ve been the whole time on this....And they’re increasingly frustrated at Joe Manchin and in Kyrsten Sinema...” He then highlighted his effort to harass Manchin on Capitol Hill: “I tried to talk to Joe Manchin about this a little while ago, about his meeting with the President yesterday and about that sense of frustration that I’m hearing back from progressives.”
In the clip that followed, Haake was shown scolding the West Virginia Senator for not buckling to the far-left base of the Democratic Party:
SEN. JOE MANCHIN [D-WV]: We have the most important piece of legislation that we’ve had in the last 30 years or so, which is the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It does so much in so many ways, clean energy, everything we talked about. Why wouldn’t we take that as a win and move on and negotiate –
HAAKE: Because progressives don’t trust you, sir, they don’t trust you that you’re going to be with them on the reconciliation bill.
MANCHIN: I trust that they’ll negotiate in good faith so I trust them to negotiate in good faith, we just have a different position.
Mitchell continued wailing: “...there’s growing frustration on the House side with the President. Debbie Dingell, Congresswoman Dingell on Way Too Early today talking about, ‘He’s got to get tougher.’” The anchor didn’t bother to hide her contempt toward Senator Sinema: “That Kyrsten Sinema is going back to the White House today....That’s extraordinary, a freshman senator saying no repeatedly after multiple meetings with her own party leader.”
In full panic mode, Mitchell later urged: “And what a lot of the House members are saying now is that Joe Biden can’t be asking, ‘What can I do for you?’ The President has to be saying to her, ‘I am your president, you’re about to take down my presidency, and you’ve got to get in line.’”
These are not the comments of journalist, they are the comments of a desperate left-wing activist lobbying for radical legislation.
Mitchell’s partisan hysteria was brought to viewers by Progressive and Subway. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.
Here is a transcript of the September 29 discussion:
12:01 PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: And in the Senate, moderates Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin holding all the cards. And they’re still resisting pleas from President Biden. Under pressure from House leaders to start twisting arms, the President today has taken the unusual step of cancelling a planned trip to Chicago, to be here for another meeting – or here in Washington for another meeting with Sinema.
(...)
12:02 PM ET
GARRETT HAAKE: I spent a lot of time yesterday talking to House progressives who say they are right where they’ve been the whole time on this. They do not want to move forward on the infrastructure vote until they get at least some kind of serious assurance that the Senate is gonna move on reconciliation. They’re clearly trying to get to yes. They want to vote for both these priorities, I am told time and time again, but they’re getting nothing back from the Senate. And they’re increasingly frustrated at Joe Manchin and in Kyrsten Sinema, not just for not moving or appearing to move, but not even talking about the things they want different in this bill. I tried to talk to Joe Manchin about this a little while ago, about his meeting with the President yesterday and about that sense of frustration that I’m hearing back from progressives. Listen to what he told me.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN [D-WV]: We have the most important piece of legislation that we’ve had in the last 30 years or so, which is the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It does so much in so many ways, clean energy, everything we talked about. Why wouldn’t we take that as a win and move on and negotiate –
HAAKE: Because progressives don’t trust you, sir, they don’t trust you that you’re going to be with them on the reconciliation bill.
MANCHIN: I trust that they’ll negotiate in good faith so I trust them to negotiate in good faith, we just have a different position.
HAAKE: You see the problem here, Andrea, it’s a good old fashioned stand off. And this is why the President’s involvement is going to be so important. Because both Manchin and Sinema seem to have taken the position that that’s the only person they’re willing to negotiate with and so the involvement of President Biden, I think, will be key to seeing whether that Thursday vote on infrastructure happens or gets pushed yet again.
MITCHELL: And Peter Alexander, there’s growing frustration on the House side with the President. Debbie Dingell, Congresswoman Dingell on Way Too Early today talking about, “He’s got to get tougher.” That Kyrsten Sinema is going back to the White House today, we understand, and the President himself has still not gotten a top line from her as to what she actually wants. That’s extraordinary, a freshman senator saying no repeatedly after multiple meetings with her own party leader.
PETER ALEXANDER: Yeah, Andrea, I think you’re exactly right.
(...)
12:06 PM ET
MITCHELL: And Yamiche, you’ve been watching this president for so long, and he was, you know, campaigning as the ultimate negotiator. The guy who knew the Congress best. All of the attributes that have been, you know, placed at the feet of Joe Biden, the moderator who can bring people together, what is happening here? Him going to the Hill, as Peter’s just reported, going to the Hill instead of Kyrsten Sinema coming to him, canceling that trip to Chicago today? This is a very different playbook.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR [PBS NEWSHOUR]: This is a very different playbook and this is a ultimate test of President Biden and his ability to bring his party together. As you just said, Andrea, he ran on this idea that he was an elder statesman who could work across the aisle, who could bring people together, who could leverage all of his decades in government in order to make transformational change for the American people and American lives.
And here is the President now being put to the test. And it is a sign of urgency that the President decided to postpone this trip in Chicago, where he is supposed to be talking about vaccine mandates and is supposed to be highlighting companies who have taken vaccine mandates and have instituted vaccine mandates. And now he’s here, supposed to be meeting with Senator Sinema today, I was told. The White House staff is also supposed to be meeting with her. From my understanding, the way that these conversations are going are that the President is going in and saying, “What can we do to get on the same page with you?” And Senator Sinema is seen as a person who’s closer to getting to a yes than Senator Manchin.
My understanding also is that lawmakers are looking at Joe Biden and saying, “You are the closer, you need to get this done.” But as of now, he’s not getting it done. It doesn’t mean that it won’t get done, it just means that the president understands that this is really his agenda on the line, and these are going to be a really tough and intense few hours, the next 24 to 36 hours could make or break the Biden agenda. The President fully understands that and that’s why you see the President fully engaged in trying to make sure lawmakers are on the same page.
MITCHELL: Well, Yamiche and Ashley, let me pick up on that with you, on what Yamiche was just saying, because a closer in baseball or a closer in politics is the same. You’ve got to really get it done. And what a lot of the House members are saying now is that Joe Biden can’t be asking, “What can I do for you?” The President has to be saying to her, “I am your president, you’re about to take down my presidency, and you’ve got to get in line.”
ASHLEY PARKER [WASHINGTON POST]: That’s exactly right. You are hearing increasingly from frustrated lawmakers that they would like to hear the President say, “This is specifically what I need and what I want, how it needs to be done and you need to get on board.”
(...)
