Progressives block infrastructure vote before Biden trip, but back reconciliation plan: LIVE UPDATES

The Congressional Progressive Caucus got the best of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Biden yet again Thursday after the pair pushed for a vote on the infrastructure bill before Biden's climate summit in the U.K. next week.

The caucus forced the House to put off a vote on the bill yet again.

The group and Chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., are demanding more progress on the passage of Democrats' reconciliation spending plan before they will let the bipartisan infrastructure bill pass, because they don't trust Senate moderates to pass it.

"The reality is that while talks around the infrastructure bill lasted months in the Senate, there has only been serious discussion around the specifics of the larger Build Back Better Act in recent weeks, thanks to the Progressive Caucus holding the line and putting both parts of the agenda back on the table," Jayapal said in a Thursday statement.

"Members of our Caucus will not vote for the infrastructure bill without the Build Back Better Act. We will work immediately to finalize and pass both pieces of legislation through the House together," she added.

But Jayapal and her members also endorsed the framework for a reconciliation bill that President Biden released Thursday morning, which would cost $1.75 trillion.

$1.75 trillion is an exorbitant amount of money. But it's half of the $3.5 trillion progressives were pushing for at the beginning of the reconciliation process. And some progressives had their sights set even higher, on a bill that might cost $6 trillion or more.

The price needed to drop because Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., as well as other moderates in the House and Senate, were concerned about spending too much money as the economy is coming out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Neither Sinema nor Manchin have explicitly endorsed the Biden reconciliation framework yet. And Democrats admit that there is still a lot of work to do to turn the president's proposal into a final bill that will pass both the House and the Senate -- any one senator, or just a handful of House members, can tank the whole endeavor.

But with progressives' support for a plan that represents massive compromises on many of their biggest priorities, Democrats appear to be inching closer to a deal that could see both infrastructure and reconciliation pass in November.

"The Congressional Progressive Caucus just overwhelmingly voted to endorse in principle the entire Build Back Better Act framework announced by President Biden today," Jayapal said Thursday.

"We are excited about the framework. We are excited about the progress that has been made," Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said.

"The Five" panel ripped President Joe Biden and the Democrats Thursday for pushing an agenda that no Americans want and warned of the political fallout of the mounting failures under the administration. 

The panel discussed Democratic infighting between moderates and progressives that was halting the infrastructure bill from moving forward. Most Americans, Jesse Watters said, would not be positively affected by the provisions in the trillion-dollar "monster" bill.

He said the bill "does nothing" for the border, inflation, the supply chain, and job growth. The effect of that, Watters continued, is that Democrats are going to "own" their failures, i.e. it was going to cause them political damage. 

Click here to read more on Fox News.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Rome-Fiumicino International Airport to attend the G-20 leaders meeting, Friday, Oct. 29, 2021, in Rome.

President Biden arrived in Italy Friday morning, leaving behind a delayed infrastructure bill and social spending package after his attempts to ratchet up pressure on Democrats failed Thursday.

The president will be attending two international summits, including a G20 meeting, during the overseas visit. After Rome, Biden will leave for Scotland for a U.N. climate summit.

“When the president gets off that plane we want him to have a vote of confidence from this Congress," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had said earlier Thursday before talks stalled. “In order for us to have success, we must succeed today.”

While Biden was in the air, Pelosi, facing opposition from progressives who also want assurances that the scaled-back social spending plan will pass, pulled the plug on a Thursday vote and instead set out to pass yet another stop-gap funding measure for a range of transportation initiatives.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.