The act of governing seemed to happen at the speed of presidential tweets when Donald Trump was in the White House. But President Joe Biden is settling in for a summer slog of legislating on his big infrastructure proposals.
Congress is grinding through the details, trying to shape Biden’s ideas into bills that could become law. At the same time, the president is negotiating with Republicans over a potential bipartisan deal.
On Monday, the White House will launch a fresh week of new talks. The new talks with Republicans are the first he's held since returning from a foreign trip to Europe.
Earlier this month, shortly before leaving for Europe, the White House announced it had broken off talks with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia. In a statement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Capito's final offer "did not, in his view, meet the essential needs of our country."
Biden is also keeping his options open for a Democrats-only approach, but the path to such a deal is narrow. With Democrats only holding power in the Senate by virtue of a tie-break vote from Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden would need to have all Senate Democrats on board with his plan to have any hope of getting his plan passed.
