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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

This is a massive week for President Joe Biden’s quest to cut a bipartisan infrastructure deal. And we expect the president to lean in and try to move the process along.

Here’s the news we have after relentlessly bugging people on Father’s Day (sorry!):

→ First of all, the White House truly seems to believe a deal with the bipartisan group of 20 senators is doable and perhaps even likely. We can’t tell how much of this is sunny optimism and how much is reality. 

→ The White House’s main focus this week is to try to figure out the right mix of offsets so the bipartisan group of senators will back off its insistence on hiking the gas tax and instituting a tax on miles driven by electric vehicles. These fees seem to be red lines for the administration, and the White House has made suggestions to the group on different ways to drop these provisions while continuing to pay for the entire package.

→ We got the sense yesterday that there will be a White House meeting with senators this week.

On the House side, the Democrats will begin preparing to meld a $574 billion surface transportation bill coming out of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with some water-related legislation from the Energy and Commerce Committee. This will head to the floor next week, delivering on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s promise to pass an infrastructure package by the July 4th recess.

ELECTION REFORM

Crunch time for Democrats’ For the People Act this week

The drama has been building for weeks on the Democrats’ big election reform bill, and it will come to a head on Tuesday when the Senate votes on whether to move ahead with debate on the Former The People Act.

Technically, it’s a cloture vote on a motion to proceed to a substitute of the original legislation — yes, this is really what it is, and no it’s not as complicated as it sounds. This legislation is principally authored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and it is backed overwhelmingly by the Senate Democratic Caucus.

We can tell you what the outcome will be — the Democrats won’t get cloture and the bill will stall.

The drama, though, will come in two parts: 1) Does Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) vote for the motion to proceed? We imagine that he will, but Manchin has made clear he doesn’t support the underlying bill without revisions. Manchin circulated a list of proposed changes last week, and some Democrats reacted favorably. It doesn’t much matter, because even if Manchin votes for cloture, there aren’t 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. Meaning there will be no Senate debate on the For The People Act.

Which brings us to the second part of the drama — the fate of the filibuster. There will be loud calls to dump the filibuster on Tuesday from inside and outside the Senate. It’s not going to happen. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) won’t support it, and they are backed by other quiet Democratic moderates at the moment. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will face demands that he bring it to a vote, but this doesn’t make sense either. Schumer is not going to make his vulnerable 2022 senators — like Mark Kelly of Arizona or Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire — vote on blowing up the filibuster unless there’s really a chance it can happen. And since it can’t happen with Manchin and Sinema opposed, there’s no reason to do it.

So what does Schumer do? This is the big question. Democrats will have an issue to motivate their base, and Schumer can try to bring the bill up again in the future to try to score more political points. But we don’t see how Democrats can move forward.

Even Manchin’s push for an amended version of the underlying bill, or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act — a much narrower bill — can’t overcome GOP opposition. It doesn’t matter if Democrats back it unless there are 10 Republican votes. Manchin hasn’t shown he can do that yet.

THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET EXPANDS

Schumer backs expanding Medicare for dental, vision and hearing

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is now backing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) plan to add dental, vision and hearing coverage to Medicare, which will cost an estimated $350 billion to $400 billion over a decade.

Schumer’s office wouldn’t say whether Schumer is also backing Sanders’ call to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60, or even 55.

Here’s Schumer’s tweet from Sunday night:

Schumer said this during a press conference Sunday in New York, per the NY Daily News: “If you talk to family medicine or primary care doctors, they will tell you with certainty that ignoring medical issues related to dental, vision and hearing often devolves into far more serious medical problems for people — especially seniors — that cost more to treat and are harder to remedy … With the current Medicare platform, those three things are just left out, like it’s no big deal. But it is a big deal and we should fix it.”

If these new benefits are added to Medicare, it’s unclear when they could be implemented. Some Democrats on the Hill were speculating about 2024, which might help a Democratic presidential candidate with seniors.

Sanders is drafting a $6 trillion reconciliation bill  — wrap your mind around that number — that will include President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan. Those two proposals have a combined $4 trillion price tag.

But Sanders wants to go even further, including expanding Medicare, as well as provisions on prescription drug pricing.

The White House envisions paying for its proposals over 15 years by raising corporate taxes and making the rich pay more. It’s not clear whether Sanders’ plan will be offset, and if so, how.

But this is clear — there’s no way this will get through Congress. If it somehow made it out of the Senate, it’s not certain that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could pass it with a four-seat margin in the House.

Yet let’s play this out. Say Biden cuts a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure deal with the bipartisan G20 Senate group, which is something that the White House is clearly interested in. This will be fully paid for in whatever fashion the two sides can agree on. At that point, a $1 trillion-$2 trillion reconciliation bill focused on “human infrastructure,” like Medicare expansion, prescription drugs, child tax credit and child care, possibly community college funding, fully offset by tax increases, could be something many — if not all — Democrats could live with heading into 2022. Biden would have to move some votes to get it done, but isn’t that what presidents are supposed to do anyway?

WHO NEEDS LEADERSHIP ANYWAY?

Cheney gets Leibovich treatment on A1 

Mark Leibovich of the New York Times profiled Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney — with a Casper, Wyo., dateline. It’s very much worth the read. Cheney continues to show Republicans that she’ll get tons of press coverage whether she’s in leadership or not.  Read the story.

MOMENTS

9:50 a.m.: President Joe Biden will receive his daily intelligence briefing.

10:05 a.m.: Vice President Kamala Harris will fly to Pittsburgh.

Noon: Jen Psaki will brief reporters.

12:35 p.m.: Harris will speak about the Child Tax Credit at the Brookline Memorial Recreation Center. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will also speak.

1:45 p.m.: Biden will meet with financial regulators “for an update on the state of the country’s financial system and institutions.”

2:30 p.m.: Harris and Walsh will hold a roundtable at IBEW Local Union 5.

5:30 p.m.: Harris will leave Pittsburgh for D.C.

CLIP FILE

Check out this terrific clip from "Axios on HBO," of Jonathan Swan pushing the prime minister of Pakistan on why they are silent about China’s treatment of Uyghurs.

NYT 

→ Ben Smith: “Tucker Carlson Calls Journalists ‘Animals.’ He’s Also Their Best Source.”

→ “In Rift With Biden, a Dramatic Show of Force by a Conservative Catholic Movement,” by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham

WaPo

→ “The economy isn’t going back to February 2020. Fundamental shifts have occurred,” by Heather Long

→ “Joe Manchin, at the apex of his power, finds few allies in his quest for bipartisanship,” by Annie Linskey and Mike DeBonis with a Fairmont, W.Va., dateline

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

→ “Ron Johnson made an appearance at Milwaukee’s Juneteenth Day celebration. It didn’t go well,” by Talis Shelbourne: “[A]s more people recognized him, he was drowned out by a chorus of boos. Members of a growing crowd swore at him and said, ‘We don’t want you here.’”

WSJ

→ “Tight Labor Market Returns the Upper Hand to American Workers,” by Eric Morath and Greg Ip

→ “Iran’s New Hard-Line President Poised for Pivotal Role in Nuclear Talks,” by Sune Engel Rasmussen and  Laurence Norman

AP

→ “Iran’s sole nuclear power plant undergoes emergency shutdown”

USA Today

→ “US borders with Mexico and Canada will remain closed through July 21, DHS says,” by Josh Rivera

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Editorial photos provided by Getty Images