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Melissa Harris-Perry: Hey, everyone, and how you be. This is The Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry, here and you there, and my control room squad on the other side of the glass. We got an hour-long political schmooze here on the show, so let's drop the needle.

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Biden: I did something that's long overdue that long has been talked about in Washington, but never actually been done. House of Representatives passed an Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That's a fancy way of saying a bipartisan infrastructure bill. A once in a generation investment that's going to create millions of jobs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Finally, it's done. Candles were burned on both ends. Noses were scarred on the grindstone. Tigers were grabbed by the tails and cats were herded into alignment.

Speaker 3: Mass hysteria.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It wasn't easy, elegant, or pretty, but reconciliation was achieved. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed both chambers of the US Congress promising historic investments in roads, bridges, energy, broadband, and more. Now, the final house vote, 228 to 206. That was with six progressive Democrats in opposition and 13 Republicans in favor. Before those 13 Republicans, the last has been rough.

Former President Donald Trump has said they should be ashamed of themselves for helping the Democrats representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called for challengers to mount primary campaigns against the 13 members who voted yes, and some of those members have reported receiving threats of harm and violence from those who are angry about their decision to break partisan ranks. With me is Brendan Buck, a Republican Strategist at Seven Letter, and a former aide to Republican Speakers of the House, John Boehner, and Paul Ryan. Brendan, thanks again for being here on The Takeaway.

Brendan Buck: Yes. It's great to be talking with you again.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. Let's start with the bill and then we'll talk about the way it got passed. Can you just say a bit about why the infrastructure bill might matter to Americans regardless of their partisan identification?

Brendan Buck: Sure. Infrastructure is one of the most basic things that Congress does, and what this bill actually is, is a plused up version of the kind of infrastructure bill, the highway bill that Congress does basically every five or six years. We did one about six years ago and it was expiring and Republicans and Democrats came together and used this as an opportunity to do a broader infrastructure bill. They took the normal bill that's about $500, $600 billion and tucked another $550 billion on top of it.

What you have is just this monster sprawling infrastructure bill that'll touch roads, bridges, those normal things that you consider, but also broadband, and a lot of other things that are important to communities these days. It's one of those things that, usually, is not controversial, and typically, when you pass a large infrastructure bill like this, you get pretty big majorities voting for it, but perhaps the size and some of the politics associated with it made it a little different this time around.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Brendan, it's exactly that little different this time around that I want to dig into it a bit, because I feel like what you've communicated here is if you're going to go work in Congress 101, you pass a bipartisan bill where folks can actually show the people back home, "Look, I brought this project. See how your road is clear. Notice how your internet is faster. See how the water is coming out of your pipes more swiftly without lead. I did that. " There was always this idea that like service to constituents through this kind of infrastructure was a win for everybody, but somehow by connecting this with politics, it actually moved us away from that. I'm wondering what that tells you about how Washington is working or not working this days.

Brendan Buck: Sure. The old Axiom is that all politics is local and you're right. You used to be able to just say, I've delivered for my constituents, here's what I've done for you locally, and that was enough to get by. That doesn't really hold true as much anymore. I think reality is that all politics is national now, and there is a national trend that moves certainly in the Republican party that anything big is bad. Anything working with Democrats is bad, and that's what you saw here, but really, I think the biggest dynamic that makes this different is less to do about the infrastructure bill at all, and it is that the infrastructure bill was perceived as tied to the separate social spending bill that Democrats are pushing through Congress.

I think Republicans and Democrats too bought into what I think is a fiction, that the outcome of the infrastructure bill in any way changed what is going to happen with the other social spending bill. It wasn't so much that Republicans are getting heat for voting for an infrastructure bill, it's that they are somehow perceived as advancing and helping the other bill that every Republican frankly is against.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This is interesting to me. Do you think that heat is about misunderstanding or is it about actual confusion about what it is that just got passed? I always have to remind myself not everyone is obsessively pouring over every detail of the congressional record on a daily basis.

Brendan Buck: Look, I think there are definitely the Republicans who will say I'm opposed to a bill that is this large, it adds something like $200 billion to the deficit. It's just too much government spending. That is not an unusual Republican position, but that's really not what the debate has been about. The debate has been that shortly after the Senate passed the the infrastructure bill with, remember 69 votes in the Senate, there were 19 Republicans who voted for it in the Senate, and there really wasn't much uproar at all, but right after that happened, Nancy Pelosi said that the house was not going to vote on it right away.

They were going to wait until this Build Back Better Act was ready to pass as well, and that immediately changed the dynamic. From that moment on, infrastructure and the social spending bill were tied together, and so Republicans have bought into this idea that passing one passes the other. I think that is just wrong. I think that infrastructure, a bill like this that is pretty basic that passed the Senate with almost 70 votes was always going to become law.

Whether it became law recently, or whether the fighting went on for another year, at some point, Democrats were going to be able to put up the votes to pass that. I just think that they read the politics wrong, or at least they read the legislative process wrong, but perception is reality, and right now the perception is that 13 Republicans helped advance the Joe Biden agenda and that's why they're getting some heat.

Melissa Harris-Perry: For those 13 Republicans, how likely is it that they may, in fact, lose their seat either to a primary challenge or across partisan lines?

Brendan Buck: Well, you have to look at the makeup of these 13. Half of them are from New York and New Jersey. This is a Republican Party that is increasingly at risk of becoming a rural Southern party, and it's a Republican Party that's trying to take back the house, and I think to be a viable majority, you have to realize that some of your members in different parts of the country need different things. I think in the Northeast and some of these Midwestern districts people that voted for it, they still expect you to come home with money to fix that road, fix that bridge, fix that dam.

I think that those folks were doing what is good for their district and is probably not terribly damaging to them. Three of them, at least have already announced they're retiring. That frees them up a little bit, but I don't think there's actually going to be too much trouble for them. I actually predict this is going to blow over just based on the makeup of who they are, where their district is, that people there actually care about those things, but also a handful of those other members are ones that are really the majority makers.

If you're going to have a majority, you can't lose a John Katko of Upstate, New York, or Fred Upton of Michigan who voted for this. These are members that when I was there, we always had to convince to run again because their district is tough. Their reelection is always tough, and we always feared that if they didn't run again that the seat would go to democratic hands. I think that what you're going to see is probably a leadership stepping in and saying, hold on, let's leave these guys alone. We need them if we're going to take back to the majority.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. That actually leads me, because I'm always presuming that it's more complicated than whatever it is we see on the surface. If you've got a couple of folks who were already not seeking reelection, more than half who are in what should be at least ideologically safe based on these vote districts.

Is this, in fact, in part, performative, in other words, does it help the more conservative members to convince others, not to run against them in a primary by shouting at, yelling at their colleagues, even though they acknowledge and recognize, even if they won't with a wink, wink and a nod, that it's not actually going to harm those 13, but it allows them to, again, continue to stand against Biden?

Brendan Buck: Certainly, it helps the more conservative members in deeper red districts to make the point that over their dead body were they going to vote for something like this, but I do want to say this is different. The fact that you had Marjorie Taylor Greene posting the phone number of these 13 members on Twitter, encouraging her followers to call them. That is not normal to have your conference openly shooting at each other like that.

I don't want to say that this is just them playing to their local politics, it is relatively dysfunctional, and I think they're probably going to be some pretty hurt feelings. A lot of those 13, who voted for it are some of the more popular members in the conference and I wouldn't be surprised if when they come back in session soon, that there is a conversation about how this is incredibly unproductive, not only just being a team, but also again, trying to threaten the ability for members to come back when you are so close to taking back the majority.

I think that is largely what is driving this Republicans are so convinced that they are going to take back the house that they almost feel like some of their less conservative members are expendable at this point and I just don't think that's a very wise approach.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Is there a fight for the soul of the Republican Party underway?

Brendan Buck: I don't think so. I think the soul of the Republican Party is has been pretty much in the Trump camp for a while now. There may be a fight for what is the best political approach to regain power but I think the base of the party is still very firmly in the Donald Trump camp. What happened in Virginia with the governor's race aside, you can't really advance in Republican politics by being on the other side of what I call the Trump question, whether you support him, whether you can at least tolerate him. I wish there was more of a fight going on, but I think that fight has already happened and Donald Trump and his supporters have won it.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Brendan Buck is a Republican strategist at Seven Letter and a former aide to Republican Speakers of the House, John Boehner and Paul Ryan. Brendan, thank you so much for joining us.

Brendan Buck: My pleasure.

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