Politics
McConnell Credits Biden for Infrastructure Breakthrough, Dismisses Trump Criticism
But the Senate GOP leader doesn’t anticipate many more opportunities for bipartisan deals
Mitch McConnell dismissed criticism over the infrastructure bill from former President Donald Trump, who said the Senate GOP leader ‘is working so hard to give Biden a victory.’
Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg News
Aug. 11, 2021 5:00 am ET
WASHINGTON—Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell credited President Biden with helping to get the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed in the Senate, but said he doesn’t anticipate many more opportunities for Republicans to work with Democrats.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Kentucky Republican also dismissed criticism from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans that he was handing Democrats a political victory ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
“Infrastructure is popular with both Republicans and Democrats,” Mr. McConnell said. “The American people, divided, sent us a 50-50 Senate and a narrowly divided House. I don’t think the message from that was, ‘Do absolutely nothing.’ And if you’re going to find an area of potential agreement, I can’t think of a better one than infrastructure, which is desperately needed.”
The infrastructure bill, negotiated by a group of bipartisan senators, passed the Senate 69-30 on Tuesday. Mr. McConnell was one of 19 Senate Republicans who voted yes.
Without Mr. Biden’s support, centrist Democrats, led by Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, wouldn’t have been able to get the bill across the finish line, Mr. McConnell said.
“There’s nothing to back you up like the promise of a presidential signatory, if you’re in the same party as the president,” he said. “And so I think the president deserves a lot of credit for getting the Democrats open to reaching a bipartisan agreement on this bill.”
At a press conference Tuesday, Mr. Biden thanked Mr. McConnell for supporting the bill. “I know compromise is hard for both sides, but it’s important—it’s important, it’s necessary—for a democracy to be able to function,” he said.
Weighing on Mr. McConnell’s mind was the growing number of Democratic senators who support abolishing the chamber’s filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation.
“He wanted to help to try to demonstrate that the Senate isn’t completely broken and it can work on a bipartisan basis,” Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) said.
Still, that doesn’t mean a new era of compromise is dawning. Mr. McConnell reiterated that Republicans shouldn’t help Democrats raise the debt ceiling and said he doesn’t see any prospect for bipartisanship on federal voting legislation or other top Democratic priorities.
‘Nobody will ever understand why Mitch McConnell allowed this non-infrastructure bill to be passed.’
— Former President Donald Trump
Infrastructure is the exception, he said.
Three months ago, Mr. McConnell said that 100% of his focus was standing up to the Biden administration, putting a damper on already slim hopes for bipartisan cooperation in Congress on a possible infrastructure deal. On Tuesday, Mr. McConnell said his words were never meant the way the media and Democrats interpreted it, and that he has been clear for months that he saw infrastructure as an area where the parties could do business.
“When the president ran for office, he said he was a moderate, so I was looking for some evidence of it,” Mr. McConnell said. “And we finally, finally found it.”
Mr. McConnell’s willingness to strike an infrastructure deal with Mr. Biden has rankled Mr. Trump, who wanted such a deal when he was president and didn’t get it. Mr. Trump’s latest broadside against Mr. McConnell came in the form of a press release shortly before Tuesday’s vote.
“Nobody will ever understand why Mitch McConnell allowed this non-infrastructure bill to be passed,” Mr. Trump said. He complained that Mr. McConnell “is working so hard to give Biden a victory.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, in foreground, and Mitch McConnell both arrived at the same time last week to speak to reporters about the infrastructure bill.
Mr. McConnell declined to talk about Mr. Trump on Tuesday, saying he is focused on the future.
From the start, Mr. McConnell was kept apprised during the infrastructure talks, according to a person familiar with the matter. He told lead GOP negotiator Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and other negotiators to keep at it and see if they could get a good deal that they could sell to other Senate Republicans.
Mr. McConnell drew some red lines, however, making it clear that he wouldn’t accept any roll back of the tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017. In the end, the infrastructure bill didn’t alter elements of that legislation.
“He’s been pivotal here,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) of Mr. McConnell.
“He’s stayed out of the details and the nitty-gritty,” said Ms. Capito, who led an initial round of talks with the Biden administration on infrastructure this year. “He sort of set the parameters and then he said, ‘Let’s let the process work.’”
As the vote approached Tuesday, more than half of Mr. McConnell’s GOP conference remained unconvinced. “I think any Republican support for this process is making a mistake,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said.
Some Republicans who voted against the bill said they are worried about the national debt. Others said they feared that working with Mr. Biden and Democrats on infrastructure will pave the way for a much larger spending bill that Mr. McConnell and Senate Republicans universally oppose—a separate $3.5 trillion package focused on education, antipoverty and climate programs that Democrats can pass by simple majority using a budget process called reconciliation.
Mr. McConnell argued the opposite is true. “I think it makes it harder, because infrastructure is popular, and what they’re about to do starting today is not popular,” he said. “So it extricates from the reckless tax and spending spree that one issue that could have appealed to the public.”
In a nod to Mr. McConnell’s role, Mr. Portman thanked the Republican leader on the Senate floor Tuesday “for sticking his neck out” to support negotiations, and said he hoped the bill would help fix the Brent Spence Bridge that links their home states.
Mr. McConnell’s support for public works spending is more than parochial. In his first year as Senate majority leader in 2015, Mr. McConnell ushered through a $305 billion highway bill. The five-year package spanned the longest time frame for a transportation measure in 17 years. He has also supported must-pass legislation such as the 2018 farm bill, into which he tucked a provision removing hemp from the federal controlled substances list to kick-start the industry in Kentucky.
Mr. McConnell said he does take pride in killing off legislation that he views as bad policy—years ago he dubbed himself “the Grim Reaper” of the Senate, a nickname Democrats co-opted to attack him for blocking their bills.
But Mr. McConnell said that doesn’t mean he is always going to say “no” to everything. “When they want to try to do something in the middle, we can talk.”
—Siobhan Hughes contributed to this article.
wsj.com
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