What they’re saying: “I weakened their hand. They have n0 leverage now,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who had shaped a GOP-friendly spin on her vote by the time she exited the chamber: “I voted against AOC and the squad tonight.”

Malliotakis told Axios that progressives will no longer be able to hold the bill hostage and predicted Build Back Better will be “drastically weakened” in the Senate or “die altogether” as a result of the infrastructure bill passing.

A damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t choice is what Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told Axios he faced, so he said he did what felt right. “You vote one way, maybe it hurts in the primary. You vote the other way… in my district, it’d hurt me in the general.”

With Republican leadership whipping against the bill as “inextricably linked” with a larger social spending package opposed by all Republicans, Bacon says he faced “pressure” on the House floor from GOP colleagues to sink the bill.