GOP senators to seek compromise in meeting with Biden, or "this is just a joke"

Much of Washington was focused this week on a closed-door meeting of House Republicans to oust one of its leaders and on President Biden's confab with the four top congressional leaders. But an Oval Office gathering scheduled for Thursday is perhaps the most critical event to watch this week – in terms of setting the capital's agenda for the next few months.

Five Republican senators – West Virginia's Shelley Moore Capito, Missouri's Roy Blunt, Wyoming's John Barrasso, Idaho's Mike Crapo and Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey – are visiting Mr. Biden to sort out whether there's any hope left for a bipartisan compromise on federal infrastructure spending. The White House invited the quintet because they're the top Republicans on committees overseeing spending, infrastructure, or transportation issues. White House aides say the meeting, the second time this year the president has met personally just with a group of Republican senators, is part of aggressive congressional outreach that includes more than 500 conversations with lawmakers in both parties since the Biden administration began. Republicans say they expect the president to signal a willingness to truncate his ambitious $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill and $1.8 trillion education and childcare proposal. And everybody agrees there will be no final agreement yet.