Moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) snapped at a reporter Wednesday over accusations that he wanted to strip the child tax credit from the Biden administration’s $2 trillion “Build Back Better” spending bill.
“’This is bull****. You’re bull****,’ Joe Manchin just told me,” HuffPost Politics reporter Arthur Delaney tweeted Wednesday.
“This is bullshit. You’re bullshit,” Joe Manchin just told me
— Arthur Delaney 🇺🇸 (@ArthurDelaneyHP) December 15, 2021
“I had asked if it was true he wanted CTC out of BBB. ‘I’ve always been for child tax credits,’ he said. So I asked if he wants it to continue paying parents $300 a month, and he said he was not going to ‘negotiate’ with me and that I’m bullshit,” Delaney continued.
I had asked if it was true he wanted CTC out of BBB.
“I've always been for child tax credits,” he said.
So I asked if he wants it to continue paying parents $300 a month, and he said he was not going to "negotiate" with me and that I'm bullshit
— Arthur Delaney 🇺🇸 (@ArthurDelaneyHP) December 15, 2021
Delaney was one of several reporters following Manchin in the Capitol subway, where the exchanges between Manchin and the press became heated, according to The Hill. Reporters were asking Manchin whether he wanted to remove the child tax credit from the legislation, a position which has reportedly become a sticking point in negotiations with President Joe Biden. Manchin dismissed the reporting as “a lot of bad rumors.”
“I’m not opposed to child tax credit, I’ve never been opposed to child tax credit,” he said, via The Hill.
At some point, Manchin had enough. “Guys, I’m not negotiating with any of you all,” he reportedly said. “You can ask all the questions you want. Guys, let me go. This is bulls***. You’re bulls***,” he snapped, reportedly at Delaney, before walking away from the press gaggle, muttering under his breath.
Manchin had a similar exchange with reporters in the halls of the Capitol on Monday. As The Daily Wire reported, Manchin expressed his concerns with the cost of the “Build Back Better” bill. He said that Democrats should curb the bill even more than it has already been, selecting their highest legislative priorities and funding them over the full 10-year life of the bill, rather than place arbitrary short-term funding plans in the bill to mask its true cost.
“It shouldn’t just be one year here, three years there, five years there,” Manchin said. “I think everybody has to choose, basically, what we can sustain. And that’s a ten-year program.”
Manchin also said he wanted to keep the cost of the bill at or below the $1.75 trillion dollar price tag that Democrats have placed on it. He voiced significant concern about rising inflation as well, saying: “Inflation is real, it’s not transitory. It’s alarming. It’s going up, not down. And I think that should be something we’re concerned about.”
Manchin’s comments also come amid reports that the Democratic-majority Senate has tabled the spending bill for the remainder of this year over Manchin’s objections, in favor of another push for legislation that would overhaul the election system in the country. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had planned to put the bill to a vote before Christmas, but those plans appear to have stalled out.