Biden can’t deliver for even his own party.
Despite suggesting the Senate create a carve-out on the filibuster to pass abortion rights legislation, President Joe Biden conceded on Friday (July 1) that the Democrats don’t have enough votes to pass such legislation. Instead, he emphasized that the party would need to add two seats in the midterms to get the legislation passed.
On Thursday (June 30), Biden commented that Democratic Senators would have to adjust the 60-vote filibuster so that the abortion rights legislation could pass with 50 votes and Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaker.
Biden reiterated the idea during a virtual meeting with Democratic governors on abortion rights on Friday afternoon, saying, “Ultimately, Congress is going to have to act to codify Roe into federal law.”
Biden then stressed that “The filibuster should not stand in the way of us being able to do that, but right now we don’t have the votes in the Senate to change the filibuster,” adding, “That means we need two more votes.”
The President’s comments about not having enough votes to carve out the filibuster seemingly refer to the only two Democratic Senators — Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — who have repeatedly declined to change the filibuster and reiterated these positions after Biden’s comments on Thursday.
During Friday’s virtual meeting, Biden also expressed his belief that if Republicans win back majorities in the House and Senate, they would attempt to ban abortion nationwide.
“This is going to go one way or the other after November,” Biden said, relaying the rhetoric Democrats are likely to lean on going into the midterm elections, considering that given current polling and history, Democrats would likely lose in the elections.
