« I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, » Biden said Thursday before walking back that statement.
President Joe Biden said Saturday he never intended to portray the idea he would veto a bipartisan infrastructure plan. He said Thursday while making the announcement of a bipartisan agreement, he wouldn’t sign the infrastructure deal if his American Families Plan was not part of the package. « I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, including clean energy, » the president said. « That statement understandably upset some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked; they are hoping to defeat my Families Plan—and do not want their support for the infrastructure plan to be seen as aiding passage of the Families Plan. « My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent. » Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy accused the president of holding the bill « hostage » by saying the Families Plan has to be tied in with infrastructure. « There’s a lot of conversations taking place right now as to what the president meant, » Cassidy said Friday. « That was not the understanding as we began upon these good faith negotiations.
