Briahna Joy Gray, former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2020 presidential campaign, said President Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday night was a “wish list” of initiatives Biden “isn’t able to pass.”
Gray, during a Wednesday appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was correct in criticizing Biden’s attempt to revive key elements of his Build Back Better agenda during his address Tuesday night.
“The speech was a wish list of things that Biden has already demonstrated he isn’t able to pass. It would have been a great campaign speech but the man hasn’t been campaigning for a couple of years now,” Gray said.
“So to the extent that, you know, Joe Manchin is pointing out that fact that hey, he’s just reciting a bunch of things that are dead in the water, I can’t say that the man is wrong,” she added.
Biden, from the House chamber, claimed that his agenda will help counterbalance the impact of rising prices by lowering costs for middle-class families — an apparent appeal to Manchin, who tanked the party’s chances at passing the roughly $2 trillion social spending and climate package in December when he said he would not vote for the measure.
Asked if he was surprised by Biden’s efforts to revive the behemoth bill, Manchin told reporters “They just can’t help themselves.”
“I don’t know where that came from,” he joked. “Nothing’s changed.”
The West Virginia Democrat added, “There might be parts they want to talk about. I don’t know. That was a little bit far.”
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