The meeting came after both Manchin and Sinema made clear publicly on Thursday there has been no change in their position against changing Senate rules to clear the way for voting legislation to pass with a simple majority.
“I hope we can get this done. The honest to god answer is I don’t know whether we can get this done,” Biden said. “I hope we can get this done, but I’m not sure. But one thing for certain, like every other major civil rights bill that came along if we miss the first time we can come back and try a second time.”
“I don’t know that we can get it done, but I know one thing: As long as I have a breath in me, as long as I’m in the White House as long as I’m engaged at all, I’m going to be fighting to change the way these legislatures are moving,” the President added.
The problem facing Democrats is that they don’t have the votes to pass voting legislation under current Senate rules due to Republican opposition and they also do not appear to have the votes to change the rules.
Manchin and Sinema have long expressed opposition to eliminating the 60-vote threshold required to pass most legislation.
But Democratic leaders have so far been pressing ahead anyway with a plan to bring up voting legislation in the Senate. In the first step toward that, the House of Representatives passed voting legislation Thursday morning ahead of Biden’s visit.
The Democratic-controlled House approved a measure that combined key provisions of two voting bills: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It will next be sent to the Senate where a high-profile fight awaits.
In a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Sinema warned against further partisan division and calls to do away with the filibuster.
“Eliminating the 60-vote threshold on a party line with the thinnest of possible majorities to pass these bills that I support will not guarantee that we prevent demagogues from winning office,” she said. “Rather, eliminating the 60-vote threshold will simply guarantee that we lose a critical tool that we need to safeguard our democracy from threats in the years to come.”
Manchin later praised Sinema’s speech, telling reporters it was a “very good, excellent speech.”
Democrats are under intense pressure from grassroots activists and their voters to pass legislation to safeguard voting access but have continually hit a wall in the Senate, where at least 10 Republicans would need to join with all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus to pass voting legislation in order to overcome a filibuster. Most Senate Republicans have dismissed attempts by Democrats to pass voting bills as reckless partisan overreach.
Biden’s decision to make a high-profile push on voting rights comes as a major pillar of his domestic agenda has stalled out, raising questions over what Democrats will be able to accomplish now, while they still control the White House and narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Thursday.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly, Kaitlan Collins, Manu Raju, Sam Fossum and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.
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