Brett Winterble, Guide Host on the EIB Network, commented on the infrastructure talks with President Biden falling apart. “Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) is the latest Republican to try to go over to the White House and talk some sense into them: Listen, this infrastructure thing you all are pushing is really not infrastructure. It’s really not working out.”

These supposedly bipartisan infrastructure talks have “imploded” according to Politico — although they didn’t implode so much as Biden detonated them and walked away. Surprisingly, the New York Times headline is more accurate: “President Biden Cut Off Infrastructure Talks with Top Senate Republicans, Turning to a Bipartisan Group of Centrist Senators to Try to Salvage a Deal.”

But ,who are these moderate, centrist, middle-of-the-road people who are going to cut a deal if not Capito? She represents West Virginia, which benefits from federal spending when it comes to infrastructure and a whole lot of other projects. Capito is the counterpart to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who Democrats are savaging over his opposition to ending the filibuster and passing H.R. 1, this For the People Act to nationalize and federalize elections.

Biden can get a simple majority of 51 votes because the vice president breaks ties, but he needs 60 to overcome the filibuster on this sort of legislation. If the president can’t get Republicans to play ball, he needs to kill the filibuster so he can ram through his unpopular agenda. But Manchin won’t budge on that or H.R. 1.

Fox News writes, “‘Squad’ Democrat Cori Bush to Joe Manchin: Fall in Line or ‘Get Out of Our Way’ — The progressive Squad is lashing out at Sen. Joe Manchin after the West Virginia Democrat announced his opposition to congressional Democrats’ highest priority piece of legislation, known as the For the People Act.”

The Democrats are not going to give an inch and they’re frustrated as heck. Brett said, “The Democrats are in a tough spot right now. Joe Biden really has nothing to show for all of this effort that he’s been putting into trying to ‘secure a W'” (meaning a win). “You’ve got a guy who came out and promised all these big, bold things.

“The problem is, when you do the math, you have a five-vote majority in the House, you have a tie in the Senate… You’ve gotta get past the 60-vote threshold to have a bunch of people get on board with these plans before you go for the conventional vote, which is why they’re talking about blowing up the filibuster. But Manchin opposes it, and so does Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ).”

Sen. Capito tried to be a voice of reason, but she’s soured, saying Wednesday in a Fox News interview, “I’m a bit disappointed and frustrated that the White House really kept moving the ball on me and then just finally brought me negotiations that were untenable and then ended the negotiations altogether.”

Republicans like Capito suggested trying to do this and then trying to do that together, and every step of the way, Biden said, “No.” He’s essentially sabotaging the conversation. Brett pointed out, “The president has to make the case that the stuff that he’s selling as infrastructure is infrastructure.

“There’s a conventional understanding of what infrastructure is: Roads, bridges, highways, airports, what have you. It’s not child care. It is not home health aides. That’s not infrastructure.” He went on to break down what Democrats are trying to pass under that banner: The Green New Deal, dismantling coal-fired power plants, and packing the Supreme Court, to name a few.

You’ll remember that Manchin made the rounds on the Sunday shows after his op-ed piece in the newspaper in West Virginia’s Charleston Gazette-Mail: “Why I’m Voting Against the For the People Act.” He doesn’t want to do H.R. 1, an 800-page bill that includes nothing the American people are clamoring for, nothing we want.

Along the same lines, 99% of what’s in this infrastructure plan is nothing the American people asked for or need. “If Joe Biden keeps moving the goalposts,” Brett concluded, “he’ll find himself right outside that stadium before he knows it. It’s madness. Let’s get back to work, Washington! Let’s get back to work.”