“It’s hard for Chuck right now, dealing with the Bernie-Warren faction and the Manchin-Sinema faction. I don’t want to add to that,” Tester said. “They’re going to hear me complain and bitch and holler and scream when I don’t like it, but it’s not going to be in front of you. And I’m going to be very specific in what I want.”

There’s no one in the Senate like Tester these days, both physically and politically. He’s a hulking presence as he ambles through the chamber’s marble halls, dispensing plainspoken wisdom and pushing what he calls “positive vibes.” When he sips a bottle of beer, he cradles it in between his pinky finger and thumb — a necessary habit since he lost three fingers in a meat grinder as a child…

And the Montanan was a leading negotiator of this year’s bipartisan infrastructure deal. During that lengthy negotiation, Tester befriended Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the former businessperson and GOP presidential nominee. Asked about their yin-and-yang relationship, Romney deadpanned: “He and I are almost the same.”

“He cuts through the B.S. that’s around here. And says what makes sense,” Romney said. When a Utah project was nearly excluded from the bipartisan bill, Romney added, Tester stood up and said: “’No, that’s not fair to Mitt’ … he went to bat for me without me even having to ask.”