Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday slammed the House's passing of the $1.75 trillion social spending bill, also known as the Build Back Better Act, telling "The Cats Roundtable" radio show that "watching the Democrats march right off the cliff with Nancy Pelosi on this multi-trillion-dollar bill this week was just astonishing."
"I was very proud of Kevin McCarthy who spoke for eight-and-a-half hours, which even for a U.S. senator would've been a lot, and for a House member it's unthinkable," Gingrich told host John Catsimatidis.
"He made a lot of points, and he pushed them into a Friday morning vote when [the public] could watch."
Now the bill heads to the Senate, where the upper chamber will debate the bill's components further. In theory, the bill could pass the 50-50 Senate via budget reconciliation and the tiebreaker of Vice President Kamala Harris.
But Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have been skeptical of voting for new spending programs amid rising inflation.
"It clearly will not survive in the form [the House] is sending over," Gingrich said.
"I'm not sure they can pass anything as long as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Sen. Manchin of West Virginia hold out. They don't seem inclined to move. When they see Biden at 38% approval and Harris at 28% approval, and they see four or five consecutive polls that show the Democrats losing Congress by huge margins … they [will understand they'll] have a long long year ahead of them."
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