WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden met with divided congressional Democrats on Wednesday in an attempt to broker a deal that would foster passage of trillions of dollars in economic spending initiatives.
Biden's three meetings -- with party leaders and with top members of its liberal and moderate factions -- came five days before the House plans to take up an infrastructure package that will require the support of Democrats of all stripes.
"We are in a pivotal period of our negotiations and discussions" that requires "deeper engagement by the president," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, saying Biden's goal was to hear from the various factions and move the party toward greater unity.
"This is a messy, sausage-making process," Psaki said.
Biden first conferred with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., while the White House's communications team headed to Capitol Hill to huddle with other House Democrats. Biden listened intently, lawmakers said, but also indicated he wanted progress soon, even by next week.
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"We're in good shape," Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol after the hour-plus meeting.
The internal tussle between Democratic centrists and liberals is set to come to a head Monday, when Pelosi has promised to hold a vote on a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan bill to improve the nation's roads, highways, pipes, ports and internet connections.
The party's liberals are backing a separate $3.5 trillion spending bill that proposes overhauls of the country's health care, education, immigration and climate laws, along with a slew of new programs to help low-income Americans. Some centrists reject that price tag as exorbitant, but liberals say they won't support the infrastructure bill without it, leaving Democratic leaders facing a dilemma.
On Capitol Hill, Biden's communications director Kate Bedingfield on Wednesday unfurled a 24-page presentation to House Democrats, much of it focused on the potential economic benefits and popularity of the package with voters, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private session.
Many Democrats in Congress have urged Biden to involve himself directly in these conflicts, but he has often preferred to let Pelosi and Schumer handle the details of negotiations. Asked about the burst of congressional outreach Wednesday, Psaki said the president "wants to hear from everybody on what they're most excited about, what concerns they may have."
After his initial session with Pelosi and Schumer, Biden was scheduled to meet with centrists including Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who helped negotiate Monday's deadline for the infrastructure bill, and Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, leader of the New Democrat Coalition.
Entering that meeting, Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, leader of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, said her camp of Democrats is holding Pelosi to her commitment to bring up the infrastructure bill next week -- and "ensure that the bill passes."
The centrists' meeting also included Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Biden was later meeting with left-leaning lawmakers including Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
All told, more than 20 lawmakers were invited to confer with Biden in Wednesday's meetings.
On Tuesday, Jayapal spoke privately with Pelosi for nearly two hours, then reiterated to reporters that perhaps half of her nearly 100-member liberal bloc is willing to vote against the infrastructure bill on Monday if the shape of the $3.5 trillion package is not agreed to by then.
Democratic leaders have stressed to their rank-and-file members that they must stick together to deliver Biden's economic agenda or risk having that agenda collapse. Some have warned about the optics if their own party takes down a Biden-backed infrastructure proposal Monday on the House floor.
Liberals in the Senate, however, offered support to their House counterparts on Wednesday, as 11 senators led by Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called for the House to delay Monday's infrastructure vote. The package passed in the Senate on a bipartisan basis earlier this year.
"We voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill with the clear commitment that the two pieces of the package would move together along a dual track," the lawmakers wrote. "Abandoning the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act and passing the infrastructure bill first would be in violation of that agreement."
Information for this article was contributed by Tony Romm, Seung Min Kim and Marianna Sotomayor of The Washington Post; and by Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking, Alan Fram, Martin Crutsinger, Darlene Superville, Brian Slodysko and Jonathan Lemire of The Associated Press.