Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims 'a lot of lobbyists love' Dems opposing reconciliation bill
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insinuated on The Rachel Maddow Show Wednesday, that a small number of her Democratic colleagues in Congress may be looking to sink the reconciliation bill due to their close ties to lobbyists and campaign contributions.
“We have a vast majority of Democrats, about 96%, that are in agreement of the entire agenda. Now, a very small handful of Democrats, about 4% of the party, are trying to essentially split these two priorities up,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I personally don't think it's an accident that the ones that a lot of lobbyists love are in the much smaller, underfunded bill, that don’t make prescription drugs easier to buy and more affordable, etcetera.”
Ocasio-Cortez, along with other progressive Democrats, believe the reconciliation bill, which would address climate change and prescription drug prices, needs to be bundled with the bipartisan infrastructure bill. She believes that Democrats with ties to the fossil fuel industry and the pharmaceutical industry, like Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema respectively, are looking to split the bills so they can pass the infrastructure bill, but not the reconciliation bill.
“What they want is to split them apart,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “force a vote on the first one, and because we have such narrow margins in the Senate and the House, the read that we have is that they'll just dump the second one. Leave the other one out to dry, and just never actually vote on it.”