This is ridiculous and untrue. Playbook projecting a favorite narrative, as they do. This isn’t how the vast majority of Members and staff felt at all.
It isn’t what the President did, it isn’t how the Members understood it, it isn’t what they said coming out of the meeting (you can see large numbers of counterfactuals in politico’s own reporting!) and it isn’t how aides perceived this at all. Just a terrible take
The full story is actually worse, a person reading this in its entirety would have a poorer understanding of what happened and what it means than someone who didn’t.
At the core of why this is bad and wrong is the view that only passing BIF and never passing BBB would be an acceptable if not desirable outcome. This bias pervades the piece. There are exactly 12 Dems who feel this way out of 270 in Congress. Should talk to some of the others!
Originally tweeted by Aaron Fritschner (@Fritschner) on October 2, 2021.
Fritschner is the comms director for Representative Don Buyer. He echoes what every other person I’ve seen or read interviewed about this. It’s possible there are some outliers who are speaking in this Politico reporter’s ears but I have zero reason to believe it is a common belief in the caucus.
This is so easy to understand and so obvious to any observer that you have to assume that Politico is doing this on purpose. As Fritschner says, Politico’s own reporting refutes it. It’s ridiculous.