Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) raged at Democrat President Joe Biden after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced over the weekend that he would not support Biden’s Build Back Better Act, thus dashing Democrats’ dreams of jamming through the trillion dollar partisan social spending bill.
“The fact that Biden has the power to provide student debt relief to millions, had to be forced into extending the eviction moratorium,& has yet to aggressively campaign against the filibuster shows us he has more power than he’s using,” the far-left Democrat tweeted on Sunday. “It’s time to take off the gloves & govern.”
On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez claimed without providing evidence that she was attacked after she says that she warned that Manchin that would not support Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.
“Biden needs to lean on his executive authority now,” she continued. “He has been delaying and underutilizing it so far. There is an enormous amount he can do on climate, student debt, immigration, cannabis, health care, and more. Time is running out – we need to move and use alternative paths.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s claim that Biden “has been delaying and underutilizing” his use of executive orders is patently false as he is currently on pace to use more executive orders per year than any other president since Harry Truman.
Biden needs to lean on his executive authority now. He has been delaying and underutilizing it so far. There is an enormous amount he can do on climate, student debt, immigration, cannabis, health care, and more.
Time is running out – we need to move and use alternative paths.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 20, 2021
AOC also fumed at Manchin over the weekend after Manchin said, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.”
“This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do,” Manchin told Fox News on Sunday. “And the president has worked diligently. He’s been wonderful to work with. He knows I’ve had concerns and the problems I’ve had and, you know, the thing that we should all be directing our attention towards, the variant, a COVID that we have coming back at us in so many different aspects in different ways, it’s affecting our lives again.”
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Manchin on Sunday, writing on Twitter that she knew “months ago” that Manchin would do this.
“Where we need answers from are the leaders who promised a path on [Build Back Better] if [the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework] passed: Biden & Dem leaders,” she wrote. “*They* chose to move BIF alone instead of w/ BBB, not Manchin. So they need to fix it.”
“Maybe they’ll believe us next time. Or maybe people will just keep calling us naïve,” she continued. “Either way, we cannot accept no for an answer. Dem leadership — incl but not limited to the President himself and House Dem leadership — wrote a massive check on their credibility the night of the BIF vote in order to secure the votes they needed, *promising* passage of BBB.”
“To every member who brought up Manchin, they personally promised they had a solution & BBB would pass. It is simply not an option for Dem leaders to walk from BBB, voting rights, etc. They must find a way, just as they promised they would when we raised this inevitability,” she continued. “Some of us don’t have the luxury of giving up. We serve working, middle class, & poor people. We serve everyday workers getting ripped off & immigrants & Black communities & queer kids needing shelter. We will not walk away from them. And leadership can’t walk from them either.”