As we previously reported, there was a lot of drama last night after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to offer the Democrats a short-term extension deal on the debt limit, saying that would not block a vote on debt ceiling increase by $480 billion, which is what the Treasury Department says it needs to get the nation to Dec. 3. While this gives them some breathing room, it doesn’t remove the pressure from the Democrats who still have to decide how to deal with the debt limit after Dec. 3 as well as how to pass Joe Biden’s massive spending spree bills.
Schumer accepted the deal, and 11 Republican senators went along with a procedural vote, which then allowed the vote on the extension for which only Democrats voted.
But instead of being gracious about McConnell giving him that breathing room, Schumer was still mad knowing that Democrats are still stuck between a rock and hard place having to make a decision on the debt ceiling in the very near future.
While this did give the Democrats a temporary extension, it didn’t give them a Republican vote on a debt suspension which would have enabled them to go up to any number, which was what Schumer wanted. He ripped into the Republicans during his remarks on the vote last night and you could see Manchin flipping out behind him. Manchin later ripped Schumer to reporters, saying his remarks were inappropriate and that that that was not the way to respond to the situation.
Now, the word is that Manchin didn’t just vent with his facial expressions and to the reporters, as we explained earlier; he also let Schumer have it personally, after his crass and classless remarks. Manchin told Schumer that his remarks were “f**king stupid,” four sources allegedly told Punchbowl News.
It was very clear that Manchin was furious with how Schumer responded during what should have been a civil moment of moving forward, in his opinion. Now, this was typical Schumer, who’s always been a petty crank. But it may just have further solidified Manchin’s position to stand against such lack of “civility,” in his words, and the extremism in his own party.
It’s also solidifying how different he is from the other Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who would rather drive the country over an economic cliff to get all the agenda items they want. According to CNN, Sanders also took a cut at Manchin, which shows how far apart the progressives are from the moderates. “I can’t speak for Mr. Manchin. I’m not a psychologist,” Sanders said to CNN when asked about Manchin’s objections to the massive spending in the Build Back Better bill.
Sanders also refused to sign aboard a condemnation statement from some members of Congress on the harassment of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) — because he wanted to add criticism of her policy positions against the bill in the condemnation. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who was behind the condemnation, refused, and so far, the letter hasn’t been made public.
It shows how far over the edge they are, when they can’t even agree to simple basic norms, like it’s bad to harass a woman by following her into a bathroom while filming. Because they’ve failed to speak out, Sinema was harassed again by Code Pink crazies on Thursday.
As much as Manchin would like to pull them back from the cliff, they just want to keep driving the country there.