Biden to speak to Senator Manchin on spending bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday that he was going to speak with Senator Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat from coal-rich West Virginia whose vote is crucial to the passage of the budget reconciliation bill pending in Congress.

Asked by reporters at the White House how he planned to get Manchin to agree to support his agenda, Biden pointed at the Oval Office and said: “We’re doing that right now. That’s what I’m doing.”

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)