Manchin: Negotiators to miss Friday target for deal on reconciliation bill

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he does not believe negotiators will be able to meet a goal laid out earlier in the week by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to reach a deal on the framework of the budget reconciliation package by Friday.

“This is not going to happen anytime soon, guys,” Manchin told reporters Thursday afternoon.

Manchin, who doesn’t want to spend much more than the $1.5 trillion on the social spending package, said there’s still a massive amount of work to be done.

“There’s a lot of work to do, everybody’s working hard, everybody’s communicating, working hard. A lot of meetings going on,” he said.  

Asked if the talks will drag past Friday, despite an effort by Schumer to get a framework deal wrapped up this week, Manchin said, “I believe so, yes.”

He added that it will take longer than this week to reach a deal but stated, “I believe they’re making good progress.”

“There’s a lot of details. Until you see the text and the fine print, it’s pretty hard to make final decisions, until you actually see,” he said, adding that he wants to make sure “the text matches the intent.”

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) seemed puzzled that some Democrats think getting a framework deal by Friday is even possible.

“Where did you come up with tomorrow?” he asked. “It must be an aspiration.”

He described the talks as an “evolving situation.”

On Tuesday, Schumer said the caucus was unified behind the goal of getting an agreement by the weekend.

“There was universal, universal agreement in that room that we have to come to an agreement, and we got to get it done and want to get it done this week,” Schumer said after the Tuesday caucus lunch.