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Basement talk, virtual handshake led to Manchin-Schumer deal

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., talks to reporters about the expansive agreement reached with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that they had sought for months on health care, energy and climate issues, and taxes on higher earners and corporations, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 28, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., talks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 21, 2022. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manchin secreted themselves in a basement room at the Capitol. The two men had been wrestling for more than a year in long, failed rounds of start-and-stop negotiations over President Joe Biden's big rebuilding America package. But talks had jammed up — again. With the midterm elections near, control of Congress at stake, the president and his party were at the end of the line. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks to reporters outside the hearing room where he chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, at the Capitol in Washington, July 19, 2022. Manchin announced Wednesday, July 27, that he had reached an expansive agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer which had eluded them for months on health care costs, energy and climate issues, taxing higher earners and large corporations and reducing federal debt. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Basement talk, virtual handshake led to Manchin-Schumer deal