Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Sunday told ABC host Martha Raddatz that there is a sufficient amount of support within the Democratic Party to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package and warned that failing to immediately distribute aid to struggling households throughout the country would represent an unconscionable betrayal of the millions of voters who handed Democrats unified legislative and executive power with a directive to improve people’s lives.
“We made promises to the American people,” said Sanders. “We’re going to keep those promises.”
“Does your party have the votes to pass the relief package through the reconciliation process, if you decide to go that route?” asked Raddatz.
“I believe that we do,” Sanders, an independent member of the Democratic caucus, replied. “It’s hard for me to imagine any Democrat… who doesn’t understand the need to go forward right now, in an aggressive way, to protect the working families of this country.”
While acknowledging that Democratic lawmakers have “differences and concerns” about Biden’s $1.9 trillion opening offer, Sanders stressed that “we’re going to support the president of the United States, and we’re going to… do what the American people overwhelmingly want us to do.”
Although polling shows that the U.S. electorate overwhelmingly supports “an expansive government effort to combat Covid-19,” Raddatz drew attention to tensions within the Democratic Party about moving forward unilaterally, if necessary.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.)—a right-wing lawmaker who last week reassured Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that he would never vote to end the filibuster, a “Jim Crow relic” that requires 60 votes to pass major legislation and thus facilitates anti-democratic rule—on Friday emphasized his desire to “find a bipartisan pathway forward.”
Sanders—who is the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and has signaled his willingness to use the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to circumvent GOP obstructionism—wasn’t having it.
“Democrats have a majority [in the Senate] because of the fact that we won two seats with great candidates in Georgia,” said Sanders. “That campaign in many ways was a national campaign.”
Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won in Georgia and by extension, Democrats won nationwide, Sanders said, because the party pledged to deliver relief checks, extend unemployment benefits, and “address the needs of working families.”