The Bulwark Podcast - Joe Manchin: The Man in the Middle

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

The former senator and former Dem has some not-very-nice things to say about Schumer and Obama—as well as progressives—who he blames for hounding Biden to move left and diminishing his will to fight. And while he's proud he helped protect the filibuster while he was in the Senate, Republicans just invoked the nuclear option to get Trump's nominees approved. Plus, what's with all the Confederate flags in West Virginia? And why aren't West Virginians more angry that conditions in the state have not improved since flipping red under Trump? Sen. Joe Manchin joins Tim Miller. show notes Sen. Manchin's new book, "Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense" Tim's 2021 piece, "An Ode to Saint Joe Manchin" Bulwark Live in DC and NYC at TheBulwark.com/events. Tix for a second Toronto show go on sale for members Tuesday at noon and for everyone else on Wednesday!

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome a former United States Senator and Governor of West Virginia, his new book, titled Dead Center in Defense of Common Sense. It's Joe Manson. How you doing, sir? Hey, Tim. Good.

How about you? You know, it's been a fucking week, to be honest. but I'm doing okay. Got your book right here. Thank you. Between this and the LSU game, gave me something to distract myself with over the weekend. I want to get to the news with you,

but just really quick at the top, why did you decide to do this? You don't have to do it. You could have just gone fishing, you know? I know. It took about two years. This all came about during the 50-50 cents, the 117th, 117th Congress,

when they were split down the middle. Yeah. Okay. And I got thrown in a very high-profile area because I was always been centrist. Yeah, right. And they all expect everybody, if you've got a D by your name, whatever the D's wants you do.

If you got an R by your name, whatever they always want you do. Well, the Ds knew I didn't do what they wanted me to do for many, many years, so now they were really concerned. Yeah. And how do you get through something like that? And I think it's basically on kind of where you were raised, how you were raised, and who raised you in, and you never leave that. And that gives me the ability and the strength to get through all that.

All right. Well, I'm going to get into a couple of the passages from the book, and talk to you about that. But first, I feel like I'd be remiss not to get your reaction. Obviously, the assassination of Charlie Kirk late last week, and that has caused just a lot of turmoil in the country. And, well, I just wonder what your thoughts are on it. My sympathy for his wife and children and his family is unbelievable,

because I can tell you, there's no place for this in the political arena. We can defer. You can say you like Charlie, you didn't like Charlie. you agree or you didn't disagree. But to take these types of actions for people to go and how they get that extreme and hyped up and then start blaming it on because of this or that. What I said before, Tim, I said, you know, we're at an age now.

And after all this, I've heard some associates and friends start talking. I'm defriending this person. I'm defriending that person. I'm thinking, I'm not big on social media. I said, you know, with one click, you can just wipe somebody out and without even talking to him. That's the way it is today. I mean, you don't have to confront anybody.

You don't have to sit down and talk to him. You can be radicalized coming from a very conservative or very liberal side and be radicalized to the other side in their social circles. No one's talking. And you were in Washington. You saw it. It was hard to get groups together. It was hard to sit down and know each other or have dinner with each other or any of that.

They just come and go and it's passing in a night. Yeah. I mean, I do think a lot of that changed after Trump, and we could talk about who's to blame for that. I just haven't been in Washington, that element of it at least did get worse, like the idea of being able to talk across sides. Part of it is we've got the vice president right before we start taping here, we're taping this Monday afternoon, was on. And he said, it's a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics are proud members of the far left. He went on to say when you see somebody celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out, call their employer. Like, I don't know, man.

Some of the leadership in this is coming from the White House is pretty concerning to me. Let me just say this, Tim, that basically, you know, I'd like to think we all have a better angel inside of us that says, wait a minute, you're going a bit too far on this. Yeah, sure. And you're hoping that better angels will come out. We need leadership. And every person who has elected position, okay, this representative form of democracy that we have, that to people that we can govern ourselves by picking people we want to speak. speak for us. And when they're speaking for themselves because of their own political ambitions of what it may be, and not speaking of who we are as human beings right now, the empathy

and sympathy we have for Charlie Kirk's family should be universal. Okay. The political end of us starting to put the blame game? That's not right. Because look at what's happened all over the country, just the last period of a few years. Look at all of the children and the shootings in schools in between all the political attacks we've had. and the horrible carnage that's going on. This has got to stop, and it doesn't stop unless people who are elected as leaders representing people all over this country starts thinking with a little civility and a little empathy about a human being and not a position to try to better yourself or make someone else

look a little bit more, you know, in an opposing factor. I just would like to think, this is not the time and place for that. The time and place for this, how do we heal? And I would say all the better angels from the present on down. I hope you're listening to them and saying, wait a minute, this is not helping. It's not making things better. For me to call somebody out and say, it's your fault. To me to call somebody that says, it's all started over here.

It's because of this side here. You think it's going to strengthen your side? The country's divided right now. But the country's divided because basically the middle doesn't have anywhere to you can go and coheser round. You know, Tim, you only have about 23 to 24 percent of the people. that are registered to vote and participate in elections in America, Democrats. You only have about 26 to 27 percent, the Republicans. The rest are like where I am now, no party affiliation independent.

But there's no middle for them. That's what we've got to fix. Some of those no party independents are because they want the parties to be more crazy, though, I worry about. But, okay, some of them are in the middle like you. You mentioned the guns in the school shootings. And you wrote about this in the book, and you tried to pass the mansion to, Um, Bill, um, that was going to do background checks and other gun reforms, got 54 votes in the Senate still failed, uh, because the filibuster, you know, you look back on that now,

there's not even any conversation around that. I mean, the Charlie Kirk shooting hasn't been the only shooting recently. The same day, there was a school shooting in Evergreen. Uh, we talked with the Minnesota, the shooting in Minnesota, the shooting at the CDC, other school shootings. And it's like people aren't even talking about whether there's a compromise on guns anymore. How do you kind of reflect on your role and all that? Well, you know, I have said the thing that probably moved me more than anything since I was in Congress from 2010 until I left in January 2025 was the Sandy Hook with all these little children. I could never imagine how children in school, first and second graders, get just slaughtered. It was awful.

It just went through me. And I was on national television Monday after that happened. And my staff said, don't go on. And I said, what do you mean? You want to talk about it? I said, so I went on there, and I said, you know, I come from a gun culture, West Virginia. I've had guns growing up. I got my first bold action 22 single shot, and I thought I was really something special.

Then I got a single shot 410, and then I went up to a pump and automatic. And, man, I was really big. But I had been taught guns since all the way through, to do's and the don'ts. I knew how. I knew what it was about. I knew the purpose. I knew the culture of guns. So I said, you know, it's a shame that we're in this situation.

I said, and then I found out, well, you know, we have gun shows to where people that if you're an FFL dealer, if you're a fellow firearms dealer, you have to do a background check. But if you have a table and you have four or five hundred guns because you're a collector and this and that, but you're not a licensed dealer, you can go ahead and go to a gun show. You can buy a table, rent a table, and sell your wares there without ever having a background check. And I said, don't you think we ought to be able to at least know who and for what purpose and what the background might be? And I thought that was a no-brainer. 80% of Americans supported.

People I hunted with, everybody had a background check. All of a sudden, now, no, couldn't get it passed. And people said, what do you think about this horrible tragedy of the Charlie Kirk? You think it's going to change things? I says, I would like to think that I'm an optimist, okay? I want to say, yes, we're going to tone it down now. We're going to understand we have to get together here and unite this country again. And then I'm thinking, 20 children get slaughtered, babies, and nothing could come about.

The simplest thing that we could do was just a universal background check. Couldn't get that done. So the realist in me says this might be a heavy lift to fix things. It's depressing. You mentioned that gun culture you grew up in. And I didn't really. I used to be a Republican, so I was around gun. through that sense when I was working in campaigns.

But growing up, I grew up in the Denver suburbs. And we didn't have a ton of cunt in my neighborhood. And so it's always been a little foreign to me, right? And I look at this stuff and I look at the pictures of this shooter. I did I kill Charlie. And, you know, man, like there's some social media pictures that his parents were posted when he looked like he's maybe 11, this huge weptom smiles on their face. We've all seen the Christmas card pictures where everybody's got.

the guns. And I don't, I respect and understand that for some people, hunting is part of the culture. Dad takes son out, you know, you learn the weapon and all that. But don't you think even the gun culture is a little out of control, you know, in some communities? That's like just the gleeful celebration of it, kind of the treating, treating them like their toys. I don't know. What do you think? Is that just the live in me? Well, the only thing I've said, The only thing I've said is that I've never gone hunting with an hour, 15, or have ever been hunting with any of my friends that use that for hunting. People that I know have bought them for, I guess, they want them as their collectors or whatever.

You know, that's fine. The thing that I've said, if you look back, the 1934 Gun Act, okay? Yeah. In 34, the Tommy Gun, you remember all the mafia pictures you hear? Oh, yeah. Dick Tracy. Yeah, with a big round. It's Tommy.

And you can still buy one. So when Democrats start talking about we're going to outlaw, we're going to band. I said, why don't you think about basically categorizing certain guns that if people are going to buy these certain guns, which it shouldn't be for every young 18, 19, 20, 21 year old or whoever else might have mental conditions, they have to go through a proper check. They have to be properly, they're paying a higher price for that. but still collectors and really true gun people. We've never had a killing with a Tommy gun since 1934 that I know of. Okay? And maybe AR-15s and some of those that we don't think that should be on the street for everyday people,

basically they have so much mass destruction to them, could be to where you don't ban them. You just put different requirements on who can own them and how they can, you've got to show the competency. You've got to show that you have the stability and the wherewithal is to own them. Don't you think in West Virginia there'd be a backlash to that, though? Don't you think people would get pretty... There's a backlash to everything to a certain extent.

But the bottom line is that there was a backlash when I did the mention to me, Bill, thinking... Yeah, for sure. So I had to go around the state and talk to all the gun stores and says, let me tell you, you all have to have a background check for everyone who comes to your store. But if they go to a gun show, then you have unfair competition. They doesn't have to have a background check. That's not fair. I said, we're not taking any of your rights away.

We're just trying to make sure that we have people with guns that can do harm that know exactly who they are and where they come from, what they've done the past. I know I'm supposed to not have favorites, but I do, you know. And as I mentioned on this podcast, I'm a fan of ranking. So I'm not going to rank exactly where this sponsor is. I'm my favorite sponsor, but it's quite high. It's our friends at Wild Alaskan Company. Wild Alaskan Company is the best way

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For 35 bucks off your first box of premium wildcut seafood, that's wildelaskin.com slash bulwark for 35 bucks off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan company for sponsoring this episode. So I'm reading the book. I'm going to move off the guns back to the book and to what's happening now in the country. Was it between halftime or quarter or a quarter? It's a quarter. Just a quarter.

First quarter. Second quarter is going to be all tougher. I'm bringing the blitz in the second quarter. We're going to get to Nick Saban at the very end. But you wrote a lot in the book about how you didn't like the way that your fellow Democrats in the Senate were attacking some of the norms around filibuster and other. rules. You criticized Obama pretty intensely. You criticize Biden pretty intensely. Trump kind of doesn't really get talked about that much in the book. You mentioned him talking about how he won West Virginia. You praised him for stopping the war on coal. You made fun of him a little bit for saying he's reactive

and he'd go with the most recent idea. Somebody told him. You compliment him. So he's a good schmoozer, good kind of politician. You did criticize him for killing the Langford bill. And that's about it. Like, that's all that you mentioned of him. And he's why? But, Tim, here's the thing. I didn't work with that side. I was in the Democrat caucus. I've been a Democrat all my life up until 2024. So I'm in a Democrat caucus, and I saw the Democrats going areas and in a direction I never could ever imagine. Okay? I come from an area that was basically the northern, most southern state in the nation on Mason-Dixon line. We're the last Dixie state to flip. I have a question about that coming. Let's just do that now. Can we do a quick side question on that? The last Dixie, sure, sure. And then she's in the green room.

My husband's from West Virginia, Monroe County. Very far from an airport, Monroe County. They used to be able to find that Louisburg. Roanoke's not that bad. Roanoke's not that bad. That's true. But it's a hike. It's a drive.

You're driving through. So I get to see a lot of West Virginia is my point. Driving in from Roanoke or Charlotte, wherever I drive in from. And I see a lot of Confederate flags. I see a lot. And I kind of just want to stop with the door some of the places, knock on the door and be like, you realize that y'all were a union state, right?

Why do you think that is there are so many Confederate flags? You're in a part of the state that really wasn't Union. Okay. My husband's from Union. The town is called Union, and there's a Confederate soldier in the town. I know it will. I know it well. Why is there a Confederate soldier statue in the town of Union do you think? That was a part that came unwillingness.

They came unwillingly. When we broke up, they just had to be part of us, okay? It was the way the line was drawn. So there's some resentment, you think, is the reason why. Abraham Lincoln drew the line. You understand? If you look how funny the shape is of the state, we got a panhandle over here, panhandle up here.

Well, it was done, you know, cut out because we needed the eastern panhandle for the arsenal we had. We needed the rural roads, and then we had to basically Appalachian Mountains for the protection. And Monroe got thrown into it. Okay, so you think it's resentment that they got thrown in? I don't know. I don't know what it is. It's a little confusing.

Well, it could be a racist-type situation. We don't know. We don't have a very diverse state. We're the least diverse state in the nation. I don't know if you knew that. I knew it wasn't at the top, but a diversity. You don't see a lot of African-Americans. You don't see a lot of Mexican.

You don't see a lot of Spanish. You don't see any. And it's just nothing. It's just, and, you know, we're a state that needs an infusion of good legal immigration. It brings people for the right reason. It happened back in the early 1900s for all the coal mines and steel mills. But then it kind of subsided. and we haven't had a good influx since.

Now you're speaking my language. I'm sorry, I distracted us, but I had a little note on my list because it's something that always bugs me to go to Union and see the Confederate statue. I know exactly what flags. I know where they are, too. I want to be like, well, but there's still some diehards. I get it in Mississippi, you know, but it wants Virginia to get a little confused. Anyway, so back to the trouble.

I understand what you were saying was you're trying to work with the Democrats. It's frustrating. You're writing the book about that, right? about that frustration, that tension, which I totally get and want to get into that more. But I just do, like, Trump is the main figure of the last decade of the politics when this is there. And I'm just, it's just kind of noteworthy to me that, like, you don't kind of lay out where your, where your disagreements are with him. Okay, well, let's start, first of all, when you ask me about the Democrats.

Sure. In 2008, when Barack Obama was running, and he won. I knew him before when he was a U.S. senator and a little bit as a state senator, okay? But, you know, when he was a U.S. Senator from Illinois, we worked because of coal is a factor of Illinois, a big coal producing state, and West Virginia. So we understood the whole, you know, the whole energy thing that we've done. And also the history of what we've been able to do for our country to provide the energy we needed to win the wars, build, you know, says our state, we mined the coal that made the steel that built the guns and ships. We've done everything we could for our little country. Then all of a sudden he becomes president.

And, man, I mean, we just got slammed. We being West Virginia. The state of West Virginia got slammed because, remember the war on coal they talked about? Yeah, sure. Where the war was, Tim, on that was, is that basically they had benchmarks in the EPA that we had no technology to get us there. We couldn't meet their benchmarks. So that means we were done. And there was no sympathy or sympathy about, okay, here's some other ways we're going to be trained.

Here's some jobs we're bringing some industries we're bringing in West Virginia to help you. We got no help. We got left behind. And Joe Biden finally his, leave no one behind, remember his first, okay, and 20. That was what that was all about, because people did get left behind. And so we started going down, cratering down from 2-9, 210, and by 214, our state flipped from it used to be a reliable, a blue state of 70, 75 percent, always produced democratically, to now, it flipped a 30 percent being Republican.

Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by almost, well, twice he's won the state by more than 40 points. You know, and it's just unbelievable. Three times he won by 40 points. He lost to one election in 2020, but he still won by 40 points. I do wonder, though, because I think about this a lot, and I understand why it flipped. And I think that you kind of alluded to it earlier, I definitely think that there was some racial elements. And there's always racial. Yeah, of course, so.

Yeah, but they're also the economy. You're right. Like, the economic issues were there as well. I look at things now, though, and Trump, you know, sometimes it gets a pass, I feel like. It's like, well, he was an outsider. He didn't, you know, it took him a little while to figure out the way around and, you know, the deep state trying to stop him and all that. But it's been 10 years now since he was first elected, nine.

And West Virginia's economic situation hasn't gotten better. It's gotten worse. The state now is totally red. You know, the Earl Tomlin was the last Democrat governor. That was nine years ago now. So it's one party rule in the state of West Virginia. Why isn't there any back? Why aren't people in West Virginia now saying, you know, we're not really getting,

I don't know, I'm not really seeing the results here from this. Yeah, we haven't seen things get better. And that's true. I don't know how long that would take, but it tells me the strength of the personal issues people start talking. I'll give you a couple of reasons. First of all, I was asked by a Democrat, a Democrat one time, what happened to the Western Democrats.

And I said, nothing. I wonder what happened to the Washington Democrats. Okay? What do you mean by that? The question was said to me. And I said, well, basically, if I can be brutally honest with the person I'm talking to, I'm brutally honest, and I said, here's what the Western Democrats believe and what I hear all the time.

The Democratic Party in Washington, D.C., basically spends more resources, effort, and time on people that are capable, able-bodied, people that don't work or won't work, than those who do. So you want to know why you lost the unions? You want to know why you lost all the factory workers? You want to know why you lost people that basically get up every day and try to make it? It's because they get very little attention from the Democratic Party. But if you're on any type of assistance or if you even think you're on an assistance or like to be on assistance, you get better care than you do if you're trying to work and make it. That's what I hear all the time. And I was hard time defending some of the social expansions that we were having at that time or in a Democratic Party.

And they believed that very strongly. I've heard this before, and I'll put it to you in this term. The West Virginia, especially the mine workers, they said, Joe, we feel like they're returning Vietnam veterans. We've done everything our country asked us to do. We never complained. We did the tough jobs. We did a dangerous job. did the dirty jobs.

We did everything to provide the energy this country needed. Now we're not good enough, clean enough, or green enough, and they threw us to the side. So they held with them. Now, that's them talking to me, and I've been born and raised in this. And now I've got to, okay? I'm with you.

So I guess this is my question. So I understand the resentment. I do. I mean, I think that sometimes it's, you know, like just like anything, the assistance thing that you're complaining about. There's some legitimate complaints about that if you're working hard in a community

and you see some, you know what I mean, you see your fellow, you know, somebody that's on assistance and they're getting better services than you are. You feel like you're- Well, they go into the food store and the snap cards buying better than what they're buying. They worked all right. I get, I totally get that resentment. I get the resentment of the coal miners had. It's not their fault that, you know, the climate change, like, became an issue and rendered

the work that they've been doing legitimately obsolete. It's not like they had chosen it per se. I mean, you know, that was the work that was in their community. So I get that resentment. I don't get as much, though, like. like what they feel like they're getting out of Trump, right, and like what the inverse is. And I do wonder if there's a way for Democrats to reach them again by demonstrating that they care. And if so, could they do it just on economic issues or do you think the cultural gap is too wide?

It's social issues. Social issues. Social. Totally social. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So that tells me that actually it isn't really, though, the coal. Well, it was.

That's what started. That's what started. But like right now, it's like Democrats came back and said, okay, we'll do, we'll make sure that you get higher wages. They've made the people believe. We'll do the economic populist stuff that Bernie wants to do and that, you know, Dan Osborne is pushing for in Nebraska. We'll do economic populist. But if you came to them with that, but you also are doing woke stuff, doesn't matter. That's it.

Well, yeah, I don't know all about this woke stuff and everything. The only thing I can tell you about is this, Tim, is that basically people in West Virginia, you can help them. you could be for them and against them and all this, they'll decipher all that. But when you start telling them what to think or what they should believe and who they should support or this or that or social, whether it's in their church

or the religion or their sex or whatever and you start making them believe, I said, so I have to tell them, I go home, I said, listen, I've taken an oath to guarantee your pursuit of happiness. You be whoever you want to. You love whoever you want to. Do what you want to that makes you happy.

hate whoever you want to for that matter yeah for whatever to but the bottom line is if it don't mainstream don't try to mainstream something that maybe i don't want to believe okay or i don't want to accept i will accept it because that's the guarantees you have and i have but other than that don't tell me what to think don't tell me what to accept don't tell me you know they talk about boys being in a girls bathroom or competing against you hear all that stuff none of that's happening in west virginia though this is my thing let me just tell you one time When I was governor, one time, Tim, there was a transgender, okay, a child. We had one of this, someone called.

The school was up in the, scared of death. I said, what's the problem here? So I called superintendent. And I asked them, they said, well, you know, this could be a big problem. And it could go all the way through our state. I haven't been built new bathrooms. I said, Christ, we can barely keep the schools going now. I said, you know, it's tough.

And this and that. And I said, let me ask you something. you have men and women teachers you have separate bathrooms for them or they kind of use the same bathroom well he says no they're kind of all we use the same bathroom I says why can't you go talk to that family

of a transgender kid and say rather than he or she being sought out or being ostracized tell them to come in here and if he's a bathroom we'll take care of it yeah solve the problem it's human humanity

Yeah. So I guess this is this is what makes me kind of despair. And I love that you did that. That's optimistic. But this is what makes me kind of despair about the situation in a place like West Virginia is like, the Democrats weren't doing anything to them. I mean, on the jobs, they work. But on these social issues, right? Like I said, I spent a lot of time in West Virginia. It didn't seem like anybody there was scared to raise their maga flag or scared to live their Christian beliefs or scared to carry a gun. Like everybody was, everybody was living pretty free. And, the free state of West Virginia, the last 10 years, as best as I can tell. And people were free to say nasty stuff on Facebook. My mother-in-law, show me that. And there wasn't any issues either. And so, like, what was the problem? I don't understand what this, what is the solution? If you had a deed by your name, they demonized them.

So what's the solution, I guess, is my point. Like, if a Democrat went into, like, what would even, could you imagine a Democrat that could get people of West Virginia to listen to them again? Like, what would that person even look like? I can't, I can't even think of it. Well, I mean, I was the last one to ever get elected in West Virginia when the state was an R-40. Right. In 2018, Trump had already won the state in 2016 and become president and beat by a Democrat by 40 points.

2014, our state had flipped over 80%. Right now, in the House of Delegates, 100 members in the House of Delegates, there's 89 Republicans and 11 Democrats. in the Senate, 34 state senators, I think there's, it's either 34 to 2 or 33 to 1. This is crazy. This is, I guess this is my point, Senator. It's like there's this big conversation happening in the Democratic Party and on anti-magicide, broadly, independence. And it's like, well, part of the reason that Trump is doing better, Republicans are doing better, is that the Democrats, like, run these big cities and they do so in a way that's not great, right?

There's too much crime. There's too many issues. But, like, West Virginia is a total one-party state now. And it's not doing well. I mean, if you look at the numbers, last in life expectancy for women, 48th in poverty, last in educational attainment and quality in a recent poll, I saw highest drug overdose rate to one-party state. And you're the last person to get elected there as a Democrat,

and we're struggling to think about how Democrats could gain a foothold there. I don't understand why that doesn't work on the inverse. Why aren't people mad about the Republican governance there? They're not doing well. He said it took 80 years to get in this. This is what this. I'm just telling you with that. Yeah, no, please.

I'm just looking for the real answer. They're telling them it it took 80 years to get to this, and we can't undo what the Democrats did for 80 years to undo it in 10. That's what they're saying, which is bullshit. Okay, right. Right. Now, with that being said, if the thing was so bad, then make it better. If the Democrats did certain things, fix it and make it better than what it was.

It hasn't gotten better, and I know that in my state. But on that being said, I'm telling you, the social, it's been indoctrination, into people that they believe they have more freedoms and it's their way of life and they can live their life better as a Republican or with an R running the state than they can with a D because the D brand in Washington is so bad to him. Yeah. It has filtered down. So I tell everyone, if you still have that compassion and you still have the empathy for people

and you still have, you know, to where you like the fiscal responsibility and smaller governments when, as the Republicans have always been, supposed to be. So you'd like for the grand old party to be grand again. You want the Democrats to be responsible and still be compassionate. If that's the case, then run as an independent Democrat. Don't identify yourself as Democrat. I'm an independent Democrat. Right. Okay. Well, basically, you can't make them think that you're part of the establishment that's running this Democratic Party on a national level. That's the problem. I wrote an article that got what you'll like that got me, you know, some mixed reviews among the commenters. It was headline called St. Joe Manchin.

So we're not canonizing you yet. But the point of the article was that like the Democrats need people like Joe Manchin, right? Like the nature of the Senate is such that like when everybody, we can complain about the way the Senate is. And I'll get to that next. And there are, I think, legitimate things to complain about and potential reforms and all that. But like, it is what it is right now. The rules are what the rules are. And if the Democrats won every state that Joe Biden won in 2020,

they got both senators from all those states, they have 50 senators. Joe Biden only won 25 states when winning the country. So you've got to win in other states if you want to actually be able to govern and do stuff. You were an example of somebody that was in a state that, obviously, Republicans had won in a landslide, and you were there, and you were at times annoying to them and did things that they didn't like and all that. But that probably served you, really, in West Virginia. you needed to do that to be able to stay in there. And it was better for you to be in there than somebody else

if you're just looking at things of the big picture. And so my question to you is like, how those are, you're the last of your kind, though. Is that even possible to do any more? Like, if somebody called you and asked you for advice, like what would you tell? You know, you've got to be who you are. The bottom line is if a D or an R by your name

makes you a different person than who you really are, not in West Virginia, we're not going to accept that. Okay, you can't be somebody that you're not and make me believe it. Yeah. We can look in your eye and shake your hand and see your soul. So that's all we got. But with that being said, I said on the other hand, how we've gotten so far away from our purpose of serving.

Yeah. You know, public service is a calling and not just fame and fortune anymore. I mean, people are jumping in there because they get all the airtime they want, and especially if you go to Washington, you can get on television every minute of the day if you want up here. But any other thing, you can have a fundraiser every hour on the hour by just saying, something crazy. No doubt. So we're rewarding bad behavior. The whole system is upside down. And how do you correct that? Well, you know, you can talk a lot. Citizens United, let the genie out of the box when that much money could be thrown into it. There's closed

primaries in West Virginia, our little state. Okay. My book goes into all of the things that we're talking about. How did I come from a little community of Farmington, West Virginia, and 500 people in Farmington, West Virginia, be setting at the seat of power, at the pentacle's seat of power, going toe to toe to toe with the president and say, Mr. President, I'm so sorry. I just can't get there. This piece of legislation you call your bill-back better bill is going to change the psychic of our nation. I said, you and I are the same vintage. You're a little bit older than me, but we're still the same vintage.

And I says, I'm a John Kennedy type of a Democrat. That's not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And I said, you pass this piece of legislation, what you call is your legislation, which I know is something I've heard, Bernie and Elizabeth and people talk about for the last 10 years, you'll change the psychic of the nation to how much more can my country do for me? I'll tell you, I wasn't raised that way. I don't believe that way, and I sure as hell can't vote that way. I'm with you on probably most of those reforms in the book, and we can go through one

at a time, and the electoral reforms and things affect the system. I do just, it's kind of depressing, though, because it means that you can't do it, right? Like, that it's hard to be to Joe Manchin now, and that's challenging for the Democrats. Hey, do you struggle with procrastinating? I used to. I was a bad procrastinator in high school and college and I don't know, all the way up until middle age probably. But now that I've got to do a daily podcast, I have no choice. There's like there's no option to procrastinate. I got to be ready for you every day at night in the morning. But I know the instinct to procrastinate. And I know the instinct to procrastinate on something that's going to cost me money. That happens to me on plane flights a lot. So if I were you, I wouldn't procrastinate on this offer for Mitt Mobile. their best deal of the year is ending soon. 50% off unlimited premium wireless for new customers. You can stop over spending with big wireless and cut your bill to 15 bucks a month when you switch.

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You mentioned Joe Biden. I want to ask you one thing about it. I mean, you can tell in the book that you got frustrated. with him, but also have a great respect for him, you know, at times. No need for a long time. So, when you know a person in a long time, I know I always like Joe, he had a good heart, I always got a long fine with him and everything. And when he first wanted to do the American Rescue Plan, when he first got elected,

I said something, or have he lost their mind? He just got elected. And now he wants to go to reconciliation. He wants to drop the nuclear bomb. Yeah, right. And run it without any participation from our Republican friends. And he heard one of the senators went right. right back to the White House and how by two o'clock that day, I'm in the White House.

Joe, why are you talking about my bill? Why are you trying? I said, Mr. President, I'm begging you not to do this. You're the only one on that stage. You just ran for president out of all the Democratic contenders that said, you know how the place worked. You weren't far left at all. You were kind of center, right in the center, center, center left, where you've always been, or I believe you were.

Now all of a sudden, they've convinced you that you have to do this. without any Republican participation. I says, why don't you just break your bill up, your American Rescue Plan, put it in the jurisdictional committees, give them 90 days, see if the Republicans actually don't want to do anything or we'll work with you. You said you've been here 35 years. You've worked across the aisle. Let's try it again.

See if it works. I mean, did you think those guys were really going to work with them? I wasn't sure if they would or not. I think there were some things that they could have probably agreed to, but we could have watered it down a little bit and made it more. I think a little bit. You talk about during the Biden things about how he had a bad temper and snap at you and stuff, which is kind of interesting to hear that behind the scenes.

But one of the interesting parts about it, though, is it like, it goes in contrast with this other narrative that is out there about Biden right now, is that he was, like, really diminished and that he was getting old and that he couldn't, that he couldn't perform. And so I'm trying to just rectify those two visions, like for you. Did you notice that? Or like, because you kind of paint a picture of somebody who's sharp-tonged and coming at you. All something with me, maybe I brought it out and I don't know what the, I don't know how You brought up the Irish.

You know, anything I knew is that we had, I could tell. He'd, if we were together, he called me to talk about something. He said, hey, Jojo, how's it going? That means are pretty good, Jojo, okay? Hey, Joe, what's up? He's getting a little bit pissed. Okay, I know we're going the wrong direction. So then we got to work through that.

But no, when I was with him, and I've said this, and so many people, have called me, have written books about this and everything. I said, I can only tell you the only thing I've ever said is that I thought he had lost a will to fight because he had to go through so much to become president. And he had to basically try to bring the far left Bernie and this. And you start thinking about, here's Joe Biden, he comes out of Iowa, gets the living crap beat out of him, goes up to New Hampshire and gets beaten that primary. He's really, he's ready to say, call it a quiz. Let's go home. We give it a good try. And they said, nope, bring you down to South Carolina.

Let's see how this works out. Changed everything. Within three weeks, everybody's out. That means you had to make, somebody had to make a lot of deals. Who's putting all this together behind the scene? And I just think that he just lost a will to fight with his staff to say, I want this done. You know how that works. Well, that could be kind of a sign of age, though.

I mean, at some level. It's different than what people are saying. It doesn't mean that's dementia. It just means, like, you get tired, you get tired. And basically, if you have to convince your staff, what you want done, every day and then fall up to see they did it or not. It takes a lot of effort and work, especially as president. And that's all I said, but I always had cohesion.

I mean, there's cohesive speaking. I mean, people that went with me sometime. I said, did you ever see anything different? They said, no, I just don't, I don't know if he's going to follow through what he just said he's going to do. Okay, so that's what I told someone, because I'd go back a month later, and I said, Mr. President, we talked about this, you agreed. Nothing happened.

Hey everybody we are going on the road this fall and I want to see you sadly our Toronto tickets have already sold out so I'm plotting a return to Canada you guys just wait on that but there's still tickets left for our events in Washington DC and New York City in October come join me Sarah JVL for two nights of camaraderie and joy and resistance and podcasting and maybe some special guests at the DC event we might give a big middle finger to the mass agents of Donald Trump that are roaming, the city's free streets. And we'll be back in New York a couple times later. First time we've been in New York in ages, the last time we had a live New York event,

it was, I can remember because it was during the Nuggets title run. And me and a handful of the folks who came out, went and watched Jamal Murray, like, put up 40, I think, on the Lakers after the podcast, was quite enjoyable. Maybe we'll have a similar night. We'll see. And if you really want more time with us and you, You don't want to just place a bet that you'll end up at the same bar with me after because you never know.

You could pay for VIP tickets. They're included in the sale. It'll give you earlier entry into the show, and you can hang with us for an intimate Q&A. You can check out all the details and get tickets at the bulwark.com slash events. For more, that's the bulwark.com slash events. See you all on the East Coast. I want to go back to what's happening in the administration now and kind of related to what you read about a lot in the book, because you read a lot about, obviously, this big controversy

was around the filibuster and how you, you know, were on the side protecting it, how that pissed off a lot of people on the left. You know, my colleague Sarah was always very with you on that. I mean, we'd mixed views here on the filibuster, but I understood that perspective, for sure. I just kind of look at this administration, though, now. And that argument feels a little quaint. I mean, right? Because on the one hand, you want to, you know, to protect the filibuster to protect the institutions, to protect Congress's ability to legislate and work together. And with Trump you have right now, like, they're just not legislative. They don't need to get rid of the filibuster because they're not legislating.

Tariffs, sending of the National Guard, birthright citizenship, TikTok ban, shutting down USAID, banning trans people from the military, renaming bodies of water. None of those things happened by legislation. I could go on. Those are just a couple that come to my mind. He's just doing it by Fiat. That's got to piss you off, kind of, right? Well, it's awful. I mean, here's the thing about it is, you know, as I told you before, I had to tell Harry Reid, you didn't hire me, you can't fire me.

I don't work for you and I don't work for the president. I took an Othelic Constitution to protect and defend, and I work for the people of West Virginia. I got to be able to explain. If I can't explain it, I can't vote for it, period. And right now, I know there's a lot of good people on both sides, still you have to know right from wrong. I know that they know that the executive branch has to be the executive branch, but they cannot control the legislative branch. But you want to work with them. You always want your president to succeed.

But speak truth to power when it doesn't make sense, and you can't defend it. And right now they're keeping quiet because they think of the retaliation. So I've come to the conclusion, it is time, it is truly time or past time, to have term limits. And I'll tell you about term limits. 15 years ago, I'm a little town hall down southern West Virginia, close probably to Monroe County. And a little lady got in the back and said, Joe, I wish you were for term limits. And I told her all the reasons I wasn't at that time because I thought you'd lose good institutional knowledge, you lose experience, boom, boom. she finally said, listen, Joe, if you were for term limits, maybe we get one good term out of you.

Tim, I couldn't argue with that. She was absolutely right. Maybe one good term that you knew that you didn't have to worry about getting reelected, no retaliation, that you would have enough courage to do the right thing. So I am four term limits. I'm also for him, but can I off you a counter to that theory? It sounds nice. I'm going to give you a West Wing kind of thing here. You tell me, this is my West Wing dreaming right now.

But you're talking about this and about how, you know, there's not a lot of courage that's speaking out against Trump. You want the president succeed. But also how you speak out. Yeah, the executive branch has totally like run roughshout over the legislative branch. And the legislative branch basically might as well not exist during this administration. I mean, they've done a couple of the one big, the tax bill, but like basically it. Yeah. And they've done some things that some of your old friends would disagree with, particularly, let's just say tariffs in Ukraine.

Let's just say those two. If you're Susan Collins, they've got 53 senators, if you're Susan Collins, you are running against re-election, but it's probably good for you to be able to independent. If you're Lisa Murkowski, you just got reelected. If you're Mitch McConnell, you're retiring, if you're Tom Tillis, you're retiring. That's four of them. The four of them could just say, I'm going to do what Joe Manchin did. And I'm going to become an independent. And by the way, you can't do these tariffs by Fiat anymore.

You've got to bring it through Congress because now we're going to make whatever, Lisa Murkowski, the majority leader will work with, right? Like, it's a crazy West Wing story, kind of, but it also could, they could do it. They're retiring. If they were really upset about the tariffs and the treatment of Ukraine and any of these other issues I just mentioned, why don't they do it? Do you think it could be maybe the violence and the threats within the political system? You think they're scared? You think Mitch McConnell is scared? I mean, he's...

No, I'm not saying, but I'm just saying, could that be a factor? Because they're talking now about getting security for all. I don't know. J.D. Vance, the vice president just said the only current. crazy people are on the far left. So I don't, I don't understand why these guys would be that concerned. Maybe that's it. I don't know. But like, you did it. You said you became an independent. Why couldn't they retire? If they just needed the freedom of term limits to be able to do the right thing, well, the retiring ones could just do the right thing now, right? Why aren't

they? Well, that's the whole thing about the whole term limit thing. At least you'd be retired on your second, you know, your last term. So if you had six terms as House, that's 12 years, two terms as Senate. And I think president should be one six-year term. I don't think a president should ever have to run for re-election. I don't hate that. Could you ask them for me? Why they don't do it? I know.

Ask them. Yeah, ask them. None of them want to come on and talk to me. But I'm genuinely curious. It feels like the right political move for all of those guys. And they don't do it. They just go along and do nothing and complain. If you recall basically the first Trump term, okay, him and Mitch, it just fell out horribly.

It was a bad situation. You knew that. Yeah. And the bottom line was, it was. It was because President Trump didn't understand the whole filibuster and why it took 60 votes for cloture. And he was just basically, they locked horns on this one. And Mitch, I always credited Mitch with just not breaking or bending. You know, he wasn't going to caltale to that.

And now in the situation, I'll never forget they all come to me. And remember there was going to be Republicans were thinking about. not voting for the budget, and they were going to close, shut it down. And Schumer was negotiating, and I'll never forget. Mitch McConnell wanted Chuck to guarantee you wouldn't get rid of the filibuster. Chuck wouldn't guarantee it, because Chuck wanted to get rid of the filibuster to get what the far left wanted. So I heard about that, and I said, Mitch, listen, ain't going to happen.

It's 50-50, okay? They need my vote. Yeah, right. And then they had Christian sent him his votes, too. I said, this won't happen. And you have my guarantee. He says, do I have your, I says, you have my guarantee. That's all you need my word.

It will not happen. We will not kill the filibuster. That's the holy grail. That's how I was taught. That's what I learned. That's what I've studied. That's what I know. And I said, I'm not going to do that.

Because it's the only chance we've got to at least talk to each other a little bit or believe we have to talk. If not, we're no different in a glorified house, flip and flopping back and forth every two years. Well, you should call him up and tell him that Donald Trump basically killed the filibuster this time because he's just doing stuff himself from D.C. Well, what he's doing also, they're nipping around, you know, snipping around the edges right now

with this whole thing, the group thing. Yeah, yeah, or instead of confirming appointees one at a time kind of batching them together. But Tim, what we talked about back then, 2013, when Harry Reid wanted to get rid of because Obama companies, you know, Republicans were stone rolling everything. Yeah. Remember when Mitch McConnell says his main objection was to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I know.

President? Okay. Well, the bottom line was is they weren't getting anything approved. So, and that's when Harry says he got to go to the mat to get rid of the filibuster on appointments and judges. I says, well, I says, Harry, forget about judges. Those are lifetime appointments. Why don't you just go and talk about will and pleasure? Yeah, sir.

You come in. You're there with the senator of your will and pleasure. You're not going to be any longer than their term is. Okay. The president brings his staff in. They're going to come in and go out with him. Will and pleasure should have been a 51 vote threshold. Simple, boom, get it over with.

Now that it is a 51 threshold, okay? Now the Democrats are holding all them and not letting anything, just killing the time. So they ought to just, if it comes out of the committee in a bipartisan fashion, it automatically has to go to the floor. That's the way it should be. Last thing, just on this administration, just broadly, I mean, I'm wondering their appointments,

Trump's cabinet appointments, what you've seen from Trump the first nine months, How'd you grade them? What do you think you've seen? I don't know. I mean, there's a few that we have, you know, the few that you know of that's been high, high visibility, whether it be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whether it be Tulsi or whether it be Heggseth.

Yeah. And we'll just see how that plays out. Do you think you would have confirmed them? I'd have been privileged to the FBI report. I used to based it on that. And if I had the FBI report done a deep dive on it, and it didn't, I wouldn't, they couldn't pressure when you vote for someone. But it's just broadly, not just the candidate. Like, what do you think about Trump's term? Well, basically here it's the thing. Everybody wants a secured border.

And I beg the Democrats not to open up asylum at the border. And they did. Okay? Can't they just say we made a mistake? I want to work with President Trump. I appreciate all the effort we're putting towards the border now. Will he at least work with me on an immigration, legal immigration plan now? Doesn't seem like it. It seems like they're doing mass deportations now. I'm just saying. and if you're going to target those who came here and have criminal charges against them. Well, they're not doing that, though. I know. That would have been by far, okay. So, and everybody wants a safe neighborhood.

If I'm in a state that has a high crime rate, I'd say bring in the National Guard, the Marines, the Army, the Navy, bring them all in. I'll need all the help I can. But when you leave me, don't leave me back where I began. Try to make sure I have the resources to take care and keep my strength. streets, crime-free. So you've got to do something along those lines. That's what's happening. And I think he's targeting some of these sanctuary cities and that type of mentality. Everything's based on de on wholeness, okay? Everything. Everything. Well, I don't know if you'll find the first one fun, but I got two fun ones to end.

And this one is this. I'm listening to some reading it. We have a lot of similar complaints, actually. Did you like the book? Well, you know, I'm kind of biased, you know? Like, I like the parts of the book that are, you know, talking about the, I like I'm hearing the inside stories. And I am kind of biased towards you on the complaints about what you were trying to do. I'm sympathetic to what you're trying to do. I got frustrated, which leads to me this question, but like, I just don't really think it's a close call. Like, I'm, I get frustrated,

I was frustrated by Joe Biden a lot. I got, I get frustrated by Chuck Schumer. I opposed Obama. I was a Republican back then. But I don't, I think that the threat that Donald Trump poses to our democratic system, to our institutions, and norms is just so far beyond them. And I feel it sometimes in the book where it's like, it feels, yeah, that there's the same. And so that's kind of what my last question is for you. Like, do you, do you not agree with that? Do you kind of look at Obama, Biden, Trump, Bush, and lump them all together? Or do you think Trump stands out as being particularly worse than the others? They all have a different approach of how they were one to govern. Who do you think's the worst, I guess, is my question. Well, I think there's bad. I like

to rank. You know, I'm a big fan of ranking. Who do you think would be the worst of those four? You know, let's just say all of us that serve made mistakes, okay, and all of us served differently. Donald Trump serves with a whole different approach than any of us have ever seen in modern times. Yeah. Yeah, bad, the worst approach. Yeah, there's no schmoozing going on from the standpoint in that. When you're with him in person, it's a different person than what we see on television. Yeah, but who cares. Completely different. I'm telling you from that there. And that's why I'm hoping that someone can get to him and say, listen, it starts at the top. You've got to type this down. So you don't think he's the worst. Would you tell me who you think

the best was out of those, Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump? Well, let me just say this. The most engaging, the two of the most engaging that you could talk to. Yeah. Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Yeah, well, sure. Being able to talk to him as a senator isn't really the most important thing. I hear you. Yeah. But what about best and worst? Trump is maybe Trump is the most engaging, but also the only one that like stick to mob on the Capitol, though, you know? Yeah. I think it's a little overreaction in certain things. But basically, he is more. more of an action-type person from the standpoint. Energy, okay?

You have to have all-in-energy policy. We've gone from basically Biden, who didn't want any fossil whatsoever, wouldn't any permits out, and I'm chairman of energy and natural resources, to basically Trump that doesn't want any type of renewables and basically no guardrails and anything else. So you follow me, we've gone from the yin-the-yang. Some in between, we've got to have a little bit of everything, and we have to have more energy than what we've ever had before in order to run the country.

But you can't throw caution to the wind. I said, you can innovate your way to a clean environment. You can't eliminate it. You can't just say, I don't like this. So from that standpoint, Clinton was by far, I thought, the most well-rounded. I didn't include Clinton because that was easy. That lets you off the hook to say that Clinton was the best one of those five. But that's why I just gave you the 21st century once, Bush Obama, Trump, and Biden,

wait a minute, no. You're not going to rank those for me? He made the front end of the 21st century. I don't know 20 days. The last 20 days of Clinton were the best presidency of the 21st century. That'll tell you what you need to know about the last four presidents, I guess. All right, fine. I'll let you off the hook. Final thing, your buddy Nick Saban. Yeah. Of Alabama, which, you know, we don't like very much down here in Louisiana, but you got to hand you on, I guess. You liked him when you won a national championship. We did like him when he was here, but, you know, then he abandoned us. and I went to Alabama and beat our ass every year. So I didn't love that.

But we are enjoying the post-Sabin era in Alabama so far. I'm wondering how you think your buddy's doing on the college campaign. I think it's unbelievable. He's a teacher. You think he's doing unbelievable? You have no notes for him? I don't have to. I wish I could.

I don't have to because I'm learning every time. He spends 25 hours a day and 25 hours a week getting ready for that game. For the game day. You can tell. 25 hours. He's teaching you exactly what he goes in. That's how he's methodical. It's been that way since he's a kid, and I told you, I didn't know his name was even Nick.

I thought it was brother, because we never called him anything but Brother Saban. Because we grew up, and his dad was Nick Senior. He'd have been Nick Jr. His mother didn't want to call him Jr. They said, so she would tell her his older sister, Deanie, go get your brother and tell him to do this. Go get a little brother and tell him, I need this or this and that. So that's where we grew up. So he was, when I first met Nick, he had to be four or five, maybe six years old.

was eight, nine, or ten. And his dad used to bring people over to play, teach us how to play basketball, football or whatever. And so I've known him all my life. And we've been very, very close, and we're still very, very close. He's just a good guy. If anyone could, anyone knows me as well as they know me, he knows me as well as anybody. I love that. That's lucky to have that type relationship. And we, three miles apart. One cold camp here is called Worthington, where he's from. He was on a corner of intersection where his dad had a little golf station, golf filling station, and his mother had a little dairy queen. Three miles over, two hills, three miles over is Farmington, my little.

I had a big town, four to five hundred people. He had 100 to 200 people on a good day. So my dad had a little furniture store, grandfather, a little grocery store. And one thing our dad's had in common, which he and I've talked about, not good enough. Anything we did was not good enough. we could always do better. I don't think he's ever owned a black car because every time a black car came in

to get washed and waxed, his dad made him waxed again because there's too many streaks in it. Man, it's a different era, you know? Different. I mean, me tell you. I would say this. We grew up in an error where you, you know,

you had to be, you were held responsible and accountable for your words and your action. If you said something to harm somebody, God help you with your family and all that. friend you knew because they'd be on you. If your action showed irresponsibility that made someone else in danger or harmed them, God help you again. So that never leaves you. You have a responsibility. Your words mean something and your actions can follow by a lot of

turmoil. And we're in that word and action period of our life. That's a good place to leave. Yeah, I appreciate that very much. We could use a little more of that. Thank you so much. Former Senator Joe Manchin. Let me know when you're coming back to Monroe County. Yeah, come on. We may meet in Lewisburg. You know, there's a couple good meals you can get in Lewisburg.

Well, what we'll do is we'll check out when the flags are too. We got a house together, vacuum in the door. Is there a problem? Is there a problem? Explain this one to me. Guys, basically, this has been over about almost 200 years. Let's let it go. Thank you, sir.

Senator Joe Manchin. Everybody else will be back here tomorrow for another edition of board podcast. Yeah, see you all then. Peace. Appreciate you. Run I do no more that's walking Haunted Why a person just can't see

Anymore, any more But let me tell you I have a man to let go of the head I think by six countries here To my yellow country tea To my yellow country tea Far. I'm trying to york city

explaining that the sky holds the wind the sun hudgeoning and shine with a shot and shoot down all the beams that sting oh this boy can use a little sting all right The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.