White House to Dems: Tout the $2.4T you got passed, ignore the infighting - POLITICO

The White House is working to sell frustrated House Democrats on a simple pre-midterms pitch: Stop focusing on what hasn't gotten done yet and start touting the two big bills the party has passed so far.

Democrats have already passed a pandemic aid package and infrastructure law totaling $2.4 trillion.

As President Joe Biden nears his one-year mark in office, his administration is urging Democrats nervous about losing Congress in November to talk up the legislative accomplishments that the party has notched so far.

While the Senate nears an ugly clash on election reform, key White House officials spent Tuesday on a pair of calls with rank-and-file House aides, stressing the party's victories on a bipartisan infrastructure law signed in November and a massive pandemic relief bill passed in March.

It's a notable messaging blitz for a party whose left flank repeatedly pushed to delay the bipartisan infrastructure legislation in the hopes of yoking it to a $1.7 trillion party-line social spending bill that's stalled in the Senate.

And many Democrats are embracing the White House’s effort, acknowledging that some of their biggest wins have been buried in Biden’s crisis-packed first year.

The White House-backed push goes beyond mere remarks in D.C.: Vice President Kamala Harris and other senior officials are set to visit Milwaukee next week, among other cities, to discuss the impact of the bipartisan infrastructure law.

But talking up previous achievements isn't enough to bury ongoing worries among Democrats about Biden’s other big legislative aim — the massive spending bill on child care, climate and more, which is sitting in limbo as the Senate pursues a bound-for-failure election reform vote.

Eager for a clearer strategy from the White House, some Democrats are floating their own ideas.

Biden himself endorsed a strategy to split up his social spending plan during a rare press conference Wednesday: "I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now, and come back and fight for the rest later," he told reporters.

Slotkin was among more than a dozen battleground Democrats who held a nearly 90-minute meeting Wednesday with Pelosi on the fate of Biden’s economic agenda — including the sprawling spending package already passed by the House.

White House officials want Democrats to amplify the party’s wins, rather than focus their public comments on process and stalled priorities.

In a Tuesday call with House chiefs of staff, White House legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell and deputy director Shuwanza Goff touted the party’s legislative wins at Biden's one-year mark, according to people listening to the call who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Terrell and Goff also vowed that the White House would do more on Covid while reworking the party-line domestic spending plan to get it through the Senate, but with few specifics