President Biden rallies support for the Build Back Better plan after infrastructure victory lap
Yahoo Finance's Chief Political Correspondent Jessica Smith breaks down President Biden's strategy after signing into law his infrastructure bill and the highlights from Biden's virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Video Transcript
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- Welcome back. The infrastructure bill is finally inked and focus now turns to the three B's, Biden's Build Back Better plan, which is partly in the hands of, and at the mercy of, the Congressional Budget Office. Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith is here with the latest. What's the latest, Jessica?
JESSICA SMITH: Hey, there. President Biden is taking a victory lap. Continuing to tout the bipartisan infrastructure bill today. He is in New Hampshire at the side of a bridge on a so-called, Red List. So, that is a bridge that is structurally deficient, that the state has been trying to repair for quite some time, and will be fully repaired, the president says, due to the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
He's going to continue taking this victory lap, traveling around the country. It will be Michigan next to tout the electric vehicle provisions in the infrastructure bill. But he is, as you mentioned, also trying to rally support for that Build Back Better plan. The nearly $2 trillion social spending package that's still working its way through Congress.
The House could vote on that bill as soon as this week. Moderates in the Democratic Party have wanted to see how much this would add to the deficit. They want a Congressional Budget Office score before voting on that. We are expecting that score before the end of the day Friday, according to the CBO.
Democratic leadership today did say that they plan on starting debate on the Build Back Better plan tomorrow, and a vote could come potentially on Thursday. That would be the earliest. So, we'll keep an eye on how this moves through the House, but then of course, it still has to make its way through the Senate, if it does pass the House. Guys.
AKIKO FUJITA: Meanwhile, Jess, President Biden holding what sounded like a marathon meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. This was long anticipated, but were there were any breakthroughs coming out of this three and 1/2 hour conversation?
JESSICA SMITH: No breakthroughs here, but that's really what the White House was expecting going into this. The goal, they say, was to set the terms of the relationship of competition between the US and China. The administration says that the meeting was respectful and straightforward. President Biden told Chinese President Xi Jinping, they need to establish common sense guardrails and be honest about where the two countries disagree in areas where their interest might align, like climate change and global health. Here's President Biden.
JOE BIDEN: As I've said before, it seems to me our responsibility as leaders of China and the United States is to ensure that the competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended. Just simple, straightforward competition.
JESSICA SMITH: Now, the White House says, President Biden raised concerns about human rights, Taiwan, and unfair trade. The president urged China to follow through on its end of the deal, the phase one trade deal. President Xi, on the other hand, called President Biden, an old friend. He said the two countries need to do more to communicate.
And then Chinese state media says that he also told President Biden that economic and trade relations between the two countries should not be politicized. He went on to say that the US should stop abusing the concept of national security to suppress Chinese businesses, apparently referencing restrictions that the US has put on Chinese tech companies, like Huawei.
There was also some reporting ahead of this meeting that President Xi might invite Biden to the Winter Olympics, but a senior administration official tells reporters that that did not come up. The two countries both saying that they have agreed to keep discussions going. Akiko and Jerry.
AKIKO FUJITA: Jessica Smith, keeping us updated on the very latest out of Washington. Thanks so much for that.
