Biden’s soft-touch with Manchin, Sinema frustrates Democrats

A growing number of Senate Democrats are getting impatient with President Biden’s kid-love approach to negotiating with Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

Biden’s approach has involved a lot of facetime and personal attention, but little in the way of public concessions or discernible movement.

After talks on the scale and scope of the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation spending bill stalled in September, Democratic senators expressed hope that Biden’s personal involvement would yield a breakthrough.