Vox Sentences - Build Back Better by breaking apart

Democrats will have to get Joe Manchin on board to pass stripped-down Build Back Better priorities; the US and allies prep for a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

Is there any spending deal Manchin could support?

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced in a speech that he was open to breaking up his signature legislation, the Build Back Better Act, into separate pieces of legislation targeting issues like clean energy and universal prekindergarten. Democrats have struggled to find a way to pass these legislative priorities — something they likely need to do to stand a chance in midterm elections. [Wall Street Journal / Ken Thomas, Katherine Lucey, and Natalie Andrews]
• The original bill failed in December, before the holiday break, because Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) refused to support a bill with a roughly $1.75 trillion price tag. Manchin’s vote was crucial; in a Senate split 50-50, no Republican supported the legislation. [Vox / Li Zhou]
• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) admitted last Sunday that the Build Back Better Act as Biden sold it last year is “dead” but expressed optimism. “I think we have to go into that Build Back Better bill and do the core provisions that reduce costs for Americans,” Kaine told CBS’s Face the Nation. [Axios / Yacob Reyes]
• Manchin does not appear in a rush toward even a smaller deal. He told a CNN correspondent on Thursday that he wants Democrats to "get your financial house in order. Get this inflation down. Get Covid out of the way. Then we'll be rolling." He added: "We will just be starting from scratch" with any new spending legislation. [Manu Ranju / Twitter]
• Democrats’ strategy — carving away at legislation until it fits in with Manchin’s priorities — hasn’t worked thus far, though a recent push by the West Virginia coal miners’ union to have Manchin support the Build Back Better Act may bring more urgency. [CQ Roll Call / Paul M. Krawzak and David Lerman]
• How Democrats plan to move forward with the effort to pass smaller bills is unclear. However, there is potential movement on a bill to address clean energy and climate change, which Manchin has signaled he might back. [NYT / Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman]

The US is preparing for Russia to invade Ukraine

• In his Wednesday speech, Biden said he anticipates a Russian incursion into Ukraine. On Thursday, he clarified that should that happen, the US would enact a “severe and coordinated economic response.” [Washington Post / Amy B. Wang]
• On Thursday, the Treasury Department issued targeted sanctions against four people, including two members of Ukraine’s Parliament and two former government officials, which it accuses of being “pawns” of the Russian security service, the FSB, and holds responsible for “destabilization activities” in Ukraine. [Treasury Department]
• In anticipation of a potential incursion, the State Department will allow the three Baltic states — Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — to send US-made weapons, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger missiles, to Ukraine. The State Department has also approved third-party weapons transfers from Britain. [Reuters / Andrea Shalal]
• Ukrainian officials warn that smaller, covert measures aimed at destabilizing the nation and eventually topple the anti-Russia leadership could be part of Russia’s plan in Ukraine, given how costly a large-scale invasion would be. [WSJ / Vivian Salama and James Marson]

The House January 6 Select Committee has requested testimony from Ivanka Trump regarding the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol last year, and her communication with her father as the insurrection ensued. [Politico / Nicholas Wu, Betsy Woodruff Swan, and Kyle Cheney]

• Pope Benedict XVI, otherwise known as Josef Ratzinger, has been accused of failing to act when he learned of sex abuse in the Catholic diocese of Munich, where he was archbishop from 1977 to 1982. [BBC]
• The government’s case against Gang Chen, an MIT professor accused of hiding research he was doing for China, is falling apart, and the federal prosecutor has asked the charges against him be dismissed. [Axios / Erin Doherty]
• British-Belgian teenager Zara Rutherford completed a five-month, five-continent journey Thursday to become the youngest woman to complete a solo flight around the world. [Reuters / Christian Levaux and Johnny Cotton]

“We assess it is unlikely that a foreign actor, including Russia, is conducting a sustained, worldwide campaign harming U.S. personnel with a weapon or mechanism.”

[A senior CIA officer, telling the Washington Post that most of the Havana syndrome cases US diplomats have been suffering from for years probably aren’t due to widespread campaigns by a major power]

Weeds co-hosts Jerusalem Demsas and Dara Lind talk with Robinson Meyer (@yayitsrob), staff writer at the Atlantic, about the climate provisions in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill. [Spotify]

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