During today's briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki blasted Senate Republican attempts to feign bipartisanship in order to muck up the reconciliation process. She went on to suggest that Bernie Sanders could give them a lesson since they seem lost on how the process works.
A White House reporter asked Psaki what she thinks about Republican plans to sign on to bipartisan talks on the jobs plan in order to derail the rest of their policies because of the time factor involved with also using reconciliation..
"I don't think that's how the process works fundamentally," Psaki replied.
The reporter tried again. "So it will not stop the White House from enacting--"
"Well, we can just go to our episode of how a bill becomes a law," she said. "There's a budget reconciliation process led by the budget chairman, it's proceeding, it needs a certain number of votes that's different from the number of votes needed for other pieces of legislation. The budget reconciliation process is proceeding."
She went on to acknowledge that there will be discussions and disagreements within the Democratic Party about what should be included in the bill, but reassured the reporter that the process is continuing and proceeding independent of whatever "bipartisan" efforts are underway.
One more time, he came back at it, once again conflating the "bipartisan" effort with the budget reconcilation process, and asking if "it could realistically gum up the works."
Psaki shot back with her famous question-to-a-question. "How would it gum up the works?"
By now the reporter should have gotten a clue that Democrats are actually capable of running dual tracks on the infrastructure/budget issue, but no, not this time.
"I mean, this is their -- this is their plan, their hope," the hapless reporter answered.
"It sounds like they have more explaining to do about what they mean or maybe they need to go to a class on how a bill becomes a law, how budget reconciliation works," she clapped back.
"Senator Sanders could go to the caucus and teach them," she said with a mischievous grin.
Boom.
Psaki drops mic right on the heads of those Republicans and the stenographers who parrot them.
Karoli Kuns contributed to this report
