President Joe Biden again claimed victory for his bipartisan infrastructure deal in the Senate Wednesday, despite having no text or votes to demonstrate success.
“I am pleased to join a bipartisan group of United States Senators and announce our deal to make the most significant long-term investment in our infrastructure and competitiveness in nearly a century,” Biden said in a statement.
The bipartisan group of senators announced Wednesday a deal on “the major issues” in the bill, but there is still zero text of the potential legislation available.
Senate Republicans predicted there would be the text of the bill by Monday evening as they passed out summaries of the agreement at their weekly party lunch.
Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) told reporters on Wednesday he expected the text of the bill to be over 1,000 pages.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) told reporters on Capitol Hill that Republican and Democrat negotiators had reached an agreement on the “major issues” and were prepared to move forward on the bill.
He also said that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was “open-minded” and “encouraging” about their progress on the bill.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) expressed skepticism that the text was not released.
“I will not be voting for it until it’s written and we’ve seen the text,” he said to reporters. “I’m not comfortable giving it my vote until I’ve had a chance to evaluate it.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is working to pass the legislation as soon as possible and may schedule a vote as soon as Wednesday night on the bill.
It is unclear whether the full text of the bill will be released before the vote, which requires a 60 vote majority to overcome a filibuster threshold on a motion to proceed vote to commence senate action on the bill.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) said they would release some text and then update it as soon as they finished negotiations.
“We’ve got most of the text down so we’ll be releasing it and then we’ll update it as we get those last pieces finalized,” she said to reporters, noting there were still some details on public transit and broadband to resolve.
But Biden appeared to have seen enough to declare victory.
“I want to thank the bipartisan group for working together and the committee chairs for raising their ideas and concerns with me, Vice President Harris, and members of the Cabinet,” he said.
He boasted the bill would “transform America,” and signal to the world that democracy could “do big things.”
“Of course, neither side got everything they wanted in this deal. But that’s what it means to compromise and forge consensus—the heart of democracy,” he wrote.
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