Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm believes Manchin and Sinema will support reconciliation bill - "The Takeout"

While two factions of President Biden's own party are warring over his domestic legislative priorities, contained in two separate bills, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said she believes Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, two moderate Democrats, will ultimately vote for the massive reconciliation bill championed by progressives and aimed at bolstering the nation's "social infrastructure."  Paying for Biden's infrastructure bill: "The president does not want to jack up deficits and debt. He wants to ensure it's paid for and it's going to be paid for by those who have benefited the most from our country's largesse. Those who are the wealthiest, those who have the corporations who have not paid their fair share, corporations who have paid zero in taxes. Come on, that's not right.... We should all be contributing, and that's what the president believes. So, but people who make under $400,000 a year, to be very clear, will not see one dime in tax increases."  Manchin and Sinema vote prediction: "I think they will. It may not look exactly as it looks right now, but I believe for their constituents they want to see something significant happening too."  Biden presidency at stake? "No, I don't agree. I do think that it's very important to get his agenda through. But I also think that most of us have a memory as long as that of a gnat... It is really important, no doubt, to get these very significant bills through, especially since we don't know what's going to happen politically in 2022. And you want to have something solid in that first two years of an administration."  U.S. possibility of default? "I don't think that's going to happen this time because we do have the president's party in control, even albeit slim of both chambers, and reasonable folks on both sides of the aisle who know how devastating it would be for financial markets, for the reputation of the United States globally, not to mention the functioning of government for critical services that people need. So this is why I do not think it's going to happen."  Institutional racism: "I would say that it is almost easier to amend the stuff between the covers of a law book statutes than it is to amend the stuff between the ears. And when people are afraid, they do horrible things, afraid of loss, afraid of whatever. And I do think that. That as I'll speak for myself, I feel like as a white American, I have an extra responsibility to make sure that in my own realm and to the extent that I have a voice that I speak and in and in a way that calls other white people to understand their responsibility, not that white people alive today are to blame for what happened during the civil rights movement, but there is a a scar on our soul. And we all need to play a role in healing of it. Particularly, I think there is a special responsibility on the part of white Americans to do that."

"I think they will," Granholm told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett in this week's episode of "The Takeout" podcast. "[The final bill] may not look exactly as it looks right now, but I believe for their constituents they want to see something significant happening, too." 

Right now, that bill is estimated to cost $3.5 trillion and would be offset by tax hikes on the wealthy.