• Joe Manchin has suddenly changed his mind about backing President Joe Biden’s top priority.
• He now supports a bill to raise taxes on corporations and fight climate change.
• If the bill becomes law, it would be a big win for Mr. Biden in the legislature.

A US Democratic senator Joe Manchin who has been a political pain for the White House has shocked Washington by announcing his sudden support for President Joe Biden’s top priority.

Joe Manchin says that he now supports a bill to raise taxes on corporations, fight climate change, and lower the cost of medicine.

Before, the West Virginian was against the plan because he was worried that more spending would make inflation worse.

If the bill became law, it would be a big win for Mr. Biden in the legislature.

Saving a key part of his domestic agenda could also give his fellow Democrats a much-needed boost in the polls as they fight to keep control of Congress ahead of the midterm elections in November.

“If enacted, this legislation will be historic,” the president said.

It’s not clear why Joe Manchin suddenly changed his mind and decided to back the new bill. He is a bit of an oddity in politics because he is from a conservative state that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump when he was president.

This week, the 74-year-old was found to have Covid in his system. He has had all of his shots and wrote on Twitter that he was feeling a little sick.

n a statement he made with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday night, Mr. Manchin didn’t say much about why he had changed his mind about the bill.

Democrats first proposed a $3.5tn (£2.9tn) plan, which is said to be much more expensive.

Probably would help the US cut its carbon emissions by about 40% by 2030.

Would spend $369 billion on climate policies like tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars, as well as on helping low-income communities deal with the effects of pollution.

Mr. Schumer said, “By a wide margin, this legislation will be the greatest pro-climate legislation that has ever been passed by Congress,”

Mr. Manchin and Mr. Schumer also said that the measure would pay for itself by bringing in $739 billion (£608 billion) over a decade by raising the minimum tax on big companies to 15%, making it easier for the IRS to collect taxes, and letting the government negotiate the prices of prescription drugs.

To get the bill through the Senate and to the House of Representatives, where Democrats have a razor-thin majority, President Biden needs the support of all 50 Democratic senators and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

If the bill passes, it would be a big win for the president. It would make a number of his most important policy goals official and could save a domestic economic agenda that has been stuck for months because of failed negotiations.

The bill is still a lot less than what the White House wanted to do with its original $1.9tn Build Back Better plan, which was an ambitious plan to change all of the US’s health, education, climate, and tax laws.

That old plan, which has been stuck in the Senate for months with no clear path forward, is now “dead” Mr. Manchin said on Wednesday.

Just two weeks ago, the senator made the White House angry when he said he could only support the parts of the plan that dealt with drug prices and healthcare subsidies.

Mr. Manchin said on Wednesday night, “I have worked diligently to get input from all sides,”

He had said before that he was worried that policies that helped develop clean energy without also making more fossil fuels would hurt the US by making it more reliant on imports.

Tens of thousands of people in West Virginia work for oil and gas companies. Over the past five years, the industry has given Mr. Manchin $875,000 (£718,000) in campaign donations.

Mr. Schumer hopes to get the bill passed with just 51 votes by using a budget trick that would let him get around rules that say 60 out of 100 senators have to agree with the bill. If all of the Democrats in the chamber vote for the measure, it will pass.

Mr. Schumer said that the bill would be discussed in the Senate next week. Then, later in August, the House of Representatives could take it up.

But Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate Democrat from Arizona who has stopped President Biden’s plans in the past, could still stop the plan. She didn’t say anything about the agreement when the news came out Wednesday night.

In April, US news outlets said that Ms. Sinema told Arizona business leaders that she was still “opposed to raising the corporate minimum tax rate”

Republicans, who had tried to get Mr. Manchin to join their party in the past, attacked him.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “I can’t believe that Senator Manchin is agreeing to a massive tax increase in the name of climate change when our economy is in a recession,”

Last year, before the Glasgow climate conference, Mr. Biden said that the US would give $11.4 billion (£9.35 billion) a year in climate finance by 2024. This money would help developing countries deal with climate change and get ready for it.

But in March, he was only able to get $1 billion from Congress, which was only a third more than what Trump had spent.

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