(Scott Johnson)
Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell sat for an interview with Bret Baier on Particular Report final evening. Senator McConnell himself has posted the video beneath on YouTube. In it he explains the Schumer/Manchin Bummer Past Perception gentle invoice as past his energy to have an effect on. It’s a reconciliation package deal that requires solely the Democratic majority for adoption. “Reconciliation is one thing completed by one social gathering solely,” McConnell defined. “There’s nothing we might have completed to stop the Democrats from doing a invoice that solely they are going to vote for — so it’s not a query of being performed right here,” he added. Translation: Republicans are harmless bystanders.
Nevertheless, Senator McConnell vowed to cease any reconciliation invoice earlier than he and 16 different Republican Senators joined the Democrats to cross the CHIPS spenderama. The CHIPS spenderama was the predicate to the Schumer/Manchin deal. It was to be held hostage to stop any reconciliation invoice. See Senator McConnell’s tweet beneath.
Let me be completely clear: there can be no bipartisan USICA so long as Democrats are pursuing a partisan reconciliation invoice.
— Chief McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) June 30, 2022
Baier took up the query as posed by Joe over Twitter: didn’t Republicans get performed? That was the purpose of Kim Strassel’s Wall Avenue Journal column “Manchin and the GOP dupes.”
In his remarks to Baier Senator McConnell implied that the Spenderama 17 relied on the earlier public protestations of Joe Manchin. Actually? Baier merely strikes on from McConnell’s rationalization quoted within the first paragraph above.
The 17 GOP Senators may need been dupes. They could have been collaborators. What have been they pondering? Who did what to whom?
That query deserves a solution that ought to be reported out, however it seems to be past the scope of the Washington press corps. In any case, Senator McConnell ought to be pressed for a solution with specifics past the pat self-exculpation he served as much as Baier.
