Old and busted: You have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it! New hotness: We’ll pass a bill before it even exists! Joe Manchin’s eruption at House progressives over their holding the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) “hostage” should have killed any forward momentum on that bill and Joe Biden’s reconciliation proposal.

Instead of shooting the hostage, however, it appears that progressives may have blinked:

She says on CNN that once the final negotiations are done on $1.75T, they will be ready to vote for both bills.

And she'll let Biden try to get Manchin on board as he promised.

"I trust the president."

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 1, 2021

Bear in mind that while the BBB has some legislative language, Manchin made it clear that he’s not supporting it in its current form. Voting to pass it as is ensures nothing better than another vote to pass it in another form, assuming that the Senate can get any version of this bill through, even via reconciliation. At some point, House Democrats would have to take a second vote, likely at a time when this bill has been changed so much that it has less popular support than it does now, and closer to the start of the midterm cycle. Have fun getting House Democrats in competitive districts to sign onto the massive spending bill at that time.

Of course, Jayapal now says she trusts Biden to get Manchin on board on the bill as it stands now. Trusting Biden to handle Manchin is a new direction for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, notes Heather Caygle. When Biden asked them to trust him with that task last week, Jayapal and other progressives balked:

I know I’m a broken record at this point but CPC was NOT comfortable letting the president handle Manchin last week.

And today he seems even less onboard than last week. https://t.co/cEk4nZLG1n

— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) November 1, 2021

Why not just “let the president” deal with Manchin from the beginning? The obvious answer: Biden wasn’t dealing with Manchin at all, at least not effectively. Don’t forget that House progressives thought that Biden was bringing them a turnkey BBB with support from both Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on Thursday, only to feel “bamboozled” when it turned out that Biden hadn’t bothered to nail down those votes.

The White House didn’t add much today to boost confidence in the idea that Biden would roll up his sleeves and take charge. Jen Psaki offered this take-it-or-leave-it announcement after Manchin’s rant:

NEW: Press sec. Jen Psaki says White House remains “confident” that reconciliation package will gain Sen. Joe Manchin's support. https://t.co/xRGbTmKnVJ pic.twitter.com/UPrn2Ab8y3

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) November 1, 2021

So where does that leave Biden’s BBB? On life support, at least for now. If the House passes the BIF, Biden will sign it into law as soon as possible, although not soon enough to help Terry McAuliffe out in tomorrow’s election in Virginia. (Assuming the BIF would have helped at all, that is.) That will remove all of the leverage that progressives have on Manchin, even if it might help get Sinema to get to an aye on reconciliation. In exchange, Jayapal only gets a symbolic-at-best vote on a not-quite-a-bill that has zero chance of passing the Senate, leaving progressives empty-handed after two months of grandstanding.

CNN’s Manu Raju understands the surrender:

Newsy afternoon:

1) It's going to take time to get Manchin behind $1.75T bill
2) Jayapal says progressives ready to vote YES on both — and will no longer demand Manchin/Sinema commit to larger bill. They'll leave the sens to Biden

3) Infra bill has a clear path to become law pic.twitter.com/hBAE9M0d3f

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 1, 2021

Ironically, the BIF would have been a glorious victory for Democrats and the White House had progressives not blocked its passage in an attempt to win everything at the cost of anything. Democrats, including Biden, could have used it as an example of governance from the center and effective collaboration led by their majorities. Instead, it’s an example of what happens when setting expectations far higher than reality allows. Like the rapidly shrinking BBB itself, passage of the BIF is clearly a surrender now, while Democrats spent the last two months demonstrating their inability to govern themselves, let alone the nation.

And this all starts with Joe Biden, whose dilettante approach to agenda implementation got badly exposed in this debacle. Biden doesn’t want to do any work, not even with Manchin, preferring to keep insisting that he’s the smartest guy in the room and everyone else needs to just recognize his brilliance. Psaki’s statement may not reveal much, but Biden’s absurdly inflated ego comes through loudly and clearly.

Update: Pelosi will take the W, such as it is, while paying lip service to continuing the work on the reconciliation effort:

Pelosi: "The House, Senate and White House continue to move forward with the Build Back Better Act." pic.twitter.com/WY2vNdrGyt

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) November 1, 2021

Have fun storming that castle …