Biden confident he will ‘get deal’ done on multi-trillion dollar spending package

White House is still negotiating with Democrats

Joe Biden said he is still confident about securing a deal in the Congress on his two key spending proposals.

“I do think I’ll get a deal,” the president told CNN’s Anderson Cooper at a live town hall event in on the news network on Thursday.

Mr Biden is still negotiating a multi-trillion dollar legislative package that expands social safety net programs and infrastructure spending.

“This is a big deal. We have two plans. One is the infrastructure plan — roads, highway, bridges, buses, trains, etc,” he said.

“And the other one is what I call the care economy. It has a lot of money in there for environmental remediation as well as care economy. For example, you know, we want to get the economy moving but millions of women can’t go to work because they don’t have any child care. That kind of thing,” he added.

“So there’s a lot of pieces in there. There’s a lot that people don’t understand. And by the way, all this paid for. Every single penny.”

Cooper asked Mr Biden if this was the hardest deal he had worked on during his political career and he said that he thought the assault weapons ban he worked on in the US Senate was “tougher.”

The president urged lawmakers to come together to pass the deal for the good of the country.

“It’s all about compromise,” Mr Biden said at the event held in Baltimore, Maryland. “You know, compromise has become a dirty word, but ... bipartisanship and compromise still has to be possible,” he added.

The White House has been negotiating with Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona, whose support he needs to pass his legislation.

And despite criticising the pair for the hurdles they have put in the way of the bills, he did have some kind words for Mr Manchin.

“Joe is not a bad guy. He is a friend. He has always at the end of the day come around and voted,” said Mr Biden.

The president said individual senators have a large amount of power in the negotiations.

“Look, in the United States Senate, when you have 50 Democrats, every one is the president,” he said.

Mr Biden also told the audience that it was time for corporations to “pay your fair share” while discussing tax rates.

He also took a shot at Fox News and its coverage of vaccine and mask mandates. “Do you know the mandate vaccines over there? I find that mildly fascinating,” he said.