March 8, 2021

Calling it "a win" for the American people, Stephanie Ruhle spoke to Claire McCaskill about how the pandemic relief bill got passed.

"Well, I think it was remarkable. It's like everybody was on the same page. And let's give a little tip of the hat here to Chuck Schumer. It is harder than it looks to keep a caucus together that has both Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders in it," McCaskill said.

"And before everybody starts, you know, raining down on the head of Joe Manchin, remember, he makes our majority and he's from a very, very, very red state. So this isn't like some progressive could come in there and, you know, get rid of him and win a statewide election. So Schumer has to keep everybody together. They took a little haircut on some of the unemployment benefits in order to appease some of the moderates in the Democratic caucus but at the end of the day this went really quickly. It was done by March 14th. and it's going to be very, very big for the American people. And that's the win Biden was looking for."

"Claire, to that very point we have watched Joe Manchin on a national stage get slaughtered, really, by fellow Democrats in the last week. Do we not understand who that West Virginia voter is?" Ruhle asked.

"Well, keep in mind that what we really need to be focused on as a party is the 2022 elections where we have the opportunity to pick up a seat in Pennsylvania and pick up a seat in Wisconsin, where Biden won his election," she said.

"But we also have three senators to make that 50 majority that are some states that trump won easily, Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. So trying to keep this together in a way that appeases the really left base of the party is something that Chuck Schumer has been training for his whole life and between him and Nancy Pelosi, they'll figure out another way to use reconciliation to get another big bill through, probably on infrastructure, before the end of the year."

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