Top GOP senator: ‘Far-left Democrats are driving the bus and Joe Biden is just along for the ride’

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) lambasted President Biden on Sunday for his inability to broker a compromise between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion reconciliation spending package.

“What we’re seeing is like watching an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone,’ I thought Joe Biden went to the Hill on Friday to try to get that bipartisan infrastructure bill passed and instead he surrendered to the radical wing of his party and now you have this big government, socialism, reckless spending bill being basically used to hold hostage the things that the American people want: our roads and bridges, highways, all of those things,” Barrasso said while appearing on “Fox News Sunday.”

Barrasso argued that the wide margin with which the infrastructure bill passed through the Senate would have ensured that it would be signed by the president by now, two months after.

“This was before Afghanistan, when the president lost a lot of political muscle. Now we’re at a point where the president is weak and really, Bernie Sanders, the far-left Democrats are driving the bus and Joe Biden is just along for the ride,” said Barrasso.

Host Chris Wallace noted that Barrasso himself was not one of the 19 Republican senators who voted for the infrastructure bill and questioned whether his apparent outrage stemmed from the merits of the bill or if he was “just playing partisan politics.”

“I had some concerns with some of the gimmicks that were used to fund it. I thought it spent too much and there were some issues that I didn’t like in terms of — I thought it was going to make energy more expensive and undermine our grid,” Barrasso conceded.

Wallace asked if Barrasso and his Republican colleagues were enjoying watching the Democratic in-fighting that has stalled the passage of both the infrastructure package and the reconciliation bill.

“The thing is Joe Biden ran as a centrist and is competent and what we’re seeing is that he is neither. And people across the country are feeling less safe with Joe Biden as president,” Barrasso responded. “Joe Biden has now walked the plank for the socialist, Bernie Sanders budget. He’s man overboard and he can’t swim.”