WASHINGTON — Democrats are struggling to pick up the pieces after Sen. Joe Manchin effectively crushed President Joe Biden’s big domestic policy bill. But they face serious questions whether the $2 trillion initiative can be refashioned to win his crucial vote or the party will be saddled with a devastating defeat.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed Monday that the chamber would vote early in the new year on Biden’s “Build Back Better Act” as it now stands, so every senator “has the opportunity to make their position known on the Senate floor, not just on television.” That was a biting reference to Manchin’s TV announcement against the bill Sunday.

But the conservative West Virginia Democrat and his party are so far apart, his relationships so bruised after months of failed talks, it’s unclear how they even get back to the negotiating table, let alone revive the more than 2,100-page social services and climate change bill.

“We’re going to work like hell to get it done,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, repeating the phrase several times at a briefing but never saying how.

Schumer on Monday also gave the clearest sign yet that he would try to force a fundamental change in Senate rules if needed to enact federal laws to offset voting restrictions being imposed by Republican-led legislatures around the country.

In a letter to colleagues, Schumer said the Senate would take up stalled voting rights legislation as early as the first week of January and that if Republicans continued to filibuster, the Senate would “consider changes to any rules which prevent us from debating and reaching final conclusion on important legislation.”

But it is not clear how far Democrats will be willing or able to go in working around the 60-vote requirement for most legislation and finding a way to pass voting rights legislation with a simple majority. While several formerly reluctant senators have in recent weeks endorsed rules change for voting issues, at least two Democratic senators — Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have resisted.

From the White House on Monday, Psaki struck a more conciliatory tone than her weekend hard-ball reaction to Manchin, saying Biden is a “longtime friend” of the senator and the president is focused on moving forward.

In a radio interview Monday, Manchin reiterated his position that the social and environment bill has far too much government spending — on child care, health care and other programs — without enough restrictions on incomes or work requirements.

While he refrained from directly criticizing Biden, he had harsh words for members of the president’s staff, who he charged “put some things out that were absolutely inexcusable.” Pressed further, he refused to specify what infuriated him, beyond that it had pushed him to “the wit’s end,” and he believed it had been driven by White House staff members.

He ticked off a list of unaddressed concerns with the measure, including the lack of guardrails on new spending and its possible effect on inflation. And he said that he had only agreed to take up the bill in hopes of rolling back parts of the 2017 Republican tax cuts, an effort that faltered amid opposition from Sinema, another key centrist.

“I knew where they were, and I knew what they could and could not do — they just never realized it because they figured, surely to God we can move one person,” Manchin said. “Surely we can badger and beat one person up, surely we can get enough protesters to make that person uncomfortable enough they’ll just say ‘OK, I’ll vote for anything, just quit.’ ”

Manchin added: “Well, guess what, I’m from West Virginia. I’m not from where they’re from, and they can just beat the living crap out of people and think they’ll be submissive. Period.”

But the lifelong Democrat was less clear when asked if the party still has room for him — describing himself as “fiscally responsible and socially compassionate.”

Manchin said: “Now, if there’s no Democrats like that then they have to push me wherever they want.”

The next steps remain uncertain for the president and his party as lawmakers assessed their options with Congress on recess for the holiday break.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a leader of the progressive caucus, spoke with Manchin early Monday, but emerged warning her colleagues the senator was an untrustworthy partner who “went back on his word.”

Jayapal said Democrats were working with the White House on alternative means of reaching the bill’s goals through executive or administrative actions, without legislation.

“We cannot make the same mistakes twice,” she said on a conference call with other progressives. “We cannot hang the futures of millions of Americans on the words of one man.”

The White House appeared to take interest in Manchin’s preference for a reimagined bill that would tackle a few top priorities, for longer duration, rather than the multifaceted House-passed version.

The New York Times contributed.