Infrastructure Talks Fall Apart Again After Republicans Refuse To Budge

Republicans are still refusing to come to the table with a "real" infrastructure plan, and negotiations continue to fail as they lack the desire or willingness to take the issue seriously. Biden is still going to try to come up with a deal that appeases Republicans, but at this point it might end up being a fool's errand. The problem is that Biden is stuck on the issue, and has to deliver something or else he'll be torched for spending months on a project and then abandoning it. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Find our merchandise at Teespring

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

Follow more of our stories at

Subscribe to our podcast

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Yesterday, infrastructure talks between the Biden administration and Republicans in the Senate once again fell apart after he and Senator Shelley Capito were unable to come to any kind of agreement because the plan that the Republicans came back to Biden with was woefully inadequate. So back to the drawing board, right? Biden has other meetings scheduled, he's going to go try to work with another group of Republicans and it's gonna be the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over. Biden has been trying to entice Republicans to join onto his plan or even come up with any kind of plan that was mildly suitable to actually address the infrastructure problems here in the United States and they have repeatedly failed because they're not coming at this with a good faith effort.

They don't care about improving infrastructure here in the United States. At least not right now while Biden is president, because that gives Biden a win. Mitch McConnell said it clearly in front of a camera, their goal is to stop this administration's agenda and infrastructure is part of that agenda. So you're never going to get them to come on board with it. And the problem that Biden has is that he is in a position now where he can't stop. He has to continue to try to work out a deal, to come up with some kind of negotiation to get something done, because if he doesn't and he gives up because he's not going to have Republican support, hell he may not even have all the Democrats supporting it, thanks to Manchin and Sinema. But if he does not get something, then Republicans will attack him for wasting roughly the first six months of his administration on something that he ultimately abandoned, infrastructure.

So Biden is now the one stuck between a rock and a hard place. He can't give up on it. But he also has to negotiate with people who want him to fail. There's no good outcome from this for either Biden or more importantly for the American public. When you look out in the public at large, and you look at the polling data, a majority of people across the political spectrum want this infrastructure package to pass. Okay. There, there's little descent out here in actual America that we want this thing to happen. Like I said, even a majority of Republicans say, we want this thing and we actually want you to do it without, you know, Republican support in Congress. Problem is the numbers aren't there to do It again because of people like Manchin. So Biden is going to have to keep cutting this thing back to the point where even if it passes, it's going to be so small that we're not even going to notice it.

But he has to get that win or else that loss is going to haunt him trmndously from now till the midterms and it's going to end poorly for the Democrats. Biden essentially backed himself into a corner here, even though I know he didn't actually mean to, but this is what happens when you negotiate with people who are coming to the table with bad faith, with bad intentions, with the intention of making you fail. Had we not done that to begin with, we wouldn't be in this situation. So I guess to a degree, yes, it is his fault that he decided to do this.