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Joe Manchin on the Fight for America’s Future: Term Limits, Bipartisanship & the 2028 Election Podcast Episode Description
(0:00) Chamath and Jason welcome Senator Joe Manchin!
(4:20) Blocking Build Back Better, defending the filibuster while dealing with paid protestors and death threats
(19:39) How Biden’s staff pushed him to the far left, mental acuity, how he “lost the will to fight,” why Obama was an “elusive” president
(28:12) Why socialism is on the rise in America, entitlement culture
(37:06) Importance of term limits in Congress, Joe’s favorite current senators, cascading issues from the loss of bipartisanship
(52:25) Breaking the Dem/Rep duopoly by opening up primaries, thoughts on midterms in 2026
(57:18) Expectation vs reality for Obama, Trump and Biden presidencies; thoughts on the 2028 election
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Joe Manchin on the Fight for America’s Future: Term Limits, Bipartisanship & the 2028 Election Podcast Episode Top Keywords
Joe Manchin on the Fight for America’s Future: Term Limits, Bipartisanship & the 2028 Election Podcast Episode Summary
Based on the provided context, the phrase “has joined the group” refers to someone becoming a member of a group, band, club, or team. Throughout the conversation, there are multiple references to joining various groups, inviting members, and welcoming new people. Specific examples include:
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– “we joined the band”
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– “Join the team.”
– “Welcome to the club.”
– “add one more bestie.”
– “they’re in, they’re in.”
– “invite you to…”
These statements all indicate the act of someone joining or being added to a group or collective. However, the context does not specify exactly who “has joined the group” in a particular instance. The general meaning is clear: it signifies the addition of a new member to a group. If you are looking for a specific individual who joined a specific group, that information is not explicitly provided in the context.
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Joe Manchin on the Fight for America’s Future: Term Limits, Bipartisanship & the 2028 Election Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
Speaker: 0
00:00
Alright, everybody. Welcome back to the All In podcast. We are super pleased to have with us today senator Joe Manchin is joining us today here on the All In interview, and Chamath and I will be interviewing him, on his new book, Dead Center in Defense of Common Sense, a great book.
Speaker: 0
00:18
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Welcome to the program, Joe Manchin. I know you like to call Joe. So, Joe, welcome to the program.
Speaker: 1
00:23
Jason, thank you. It’s great to be with you and Chamath, and and I’ve Yeah. Followed you all, and you’ve been unbelievable what you put out and some of the people you’ve had on. It’s been very entertaining, very interesting, and very thoughtful. So anxious to be here. Thanks.
Speaker: 0
00:35
And we we have a tradition here. I don’t know how often you watch the interview show, but we always try to get a personalized gift for each of our, our guests. And so Ai in the book, you talked about your first car, your 1964.
Speaker: 1
00:46
If you could find that if you could find that thing for me, there’s a bullet back, I can’t find the car.
Speaker: 0
00:51
Well, there it is with the white interior.
Speaker: 1
00:53
Oh ai god. Where can we buy it? No. No. You got it.
Speaker: 0
00:56
It’s it’s in your driveway right now. When you get out of your, office there, it’ll be waiting for you by your yacht.
Speaker: 1
01:00
Let me tell you that oh, by my yacht. Yeah. I got a bit taller
Speaker: 0
01:03
than you. $200,000 trawler. It’s a fishing trawler. Correct?
Speaker: 1
01:09
It’s Joe. Joe,
Speaker: 2
01:10
listen, Joe. What what Jason has just proved is he has not read the book, but he looked at the pictures in the middle. That’s all he’s done. Yes.
Speaker: 0
01:17
No. I did the
Speaker: 2
01:18
he’s ripping off the pictures in the middle.
Speaker: 0
01:20
No. I don’t have the physical book. I did the audio book. But, Joe, you did the right thing. Oh, you did the audio. Read it yourself, which a lot of authors, you know, they get try to get talking out of doing it, but it makes it so much more personal.
Speaker: 1
01:31
Hey, Jason. I didn’t know I was supposed to do that. And I and all of a sudden, my daughter, Heather, says, dad, you guys show up at the studio and start reading your book. I says, how how did I said, why do I have to do that? She says, it’s in the contract. I says, I didn’t see that.
Speaker: 1
01:41
She said, I didn’t show it to you. It’s the part of the contract.
Speaker: 0
01:44
It’s ai six or seven hours of reading.
Speaker: 1
01:47
It took twenty hours. Twenty hours.
Speaker: 0
01:49
So three days. Three, four days.
Speaker: 1
01:51
Four days. And let me tell you what’s the best thing I’ve ever done. The make me reminisce everything we put in the book.
Speaker: 0
01:56
It’s just Chamath, if you you haven’t done this yet because you haven’t written
Speaker: 2
01:59
ai yet. I’m not really into audiobooks. I read the book. Look. I have it. I I like to have the physical pages. I mark them. I
Speaker: 1
02:06
Okay.
Speaker: 2
02:06
I’m old school.
Speaker: 0
02:07
Yeah. I mean, I sometimes Sai do both, but, you know, when you’re in the session, I’m sure you had this where the producers got the button and then you’re ai and, you know, and then I got my Maserati and I came out of the garage, and they’re like, a garage? And you’re
Speaker: 1
02:22
like, yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:22
I came out of the garage. Ram like,
Speaker: 1
02:23
a garage.
Speaker: 0
02:24
Because you have to do every word perfectly to sync it on Amazon. Right? So they have to correct you over and over again if you just miss one word.
Speaker: 1
02:32
The most unbelievable thing is the first one I sai the first day I started doing it, and I’m sitting there, you know, and all of a sudden, I’m just talking and reading the book, and I cross my legs. They said, stop. Cross your ai. Meh in there. I said, what? They said, we heard you cross your legs. I said, my god. I’m in trouble.
Speaker: 0
02:48
You’re basically in, like, a Faraday cage. Like, if you literally, you know, hit anything.
Speaker: 1
02:52
Yeah. Oh,
Speaker: 0
02:53
my. But, you know, the the book’s fantastic. Everybody go pause the, podcast here, and I just absolutely go buy it because it’s so important. And, you know, I mentioned, when we were just on the preshow, Ai, Catholic, boy scout, and you start the book out with an Irish Catholic boy scout getting in a brouhaha, Donnybrook, with an Italian Irish boy scout.
Speaker: 0
03:20
You an Eagle scout.
Speaker: 1
03:21
No. I wasn’t. Pres wait.
Speaker: 0
03:23
You were an Eagle scout. That’s what the Internet said. Where’d you get to? First class? No.
Speaker: 1
03:26
No. I got up to I got up to life. Oh. And what happened, I was right next to it. Let me tell you what happened. 1959. Never forget it. The coal mines the coal mines got automated in West Virginia. I ai within I lived in a little coal mining community, 400 people, and there was three of the largest coal mines you’ve ever seen.
Speaker: 1
03:44
And everybody worked in the coal mines. Okay? And all of a sudden, I come home one day, and my dad had a little furniture store and my grandfather had a grocery store, and there was all these guys sitting on on the curb. They got laid off because it got automated. They lost their job. Pat Keener was my scout leader, the best of the best of the best.
Speaker: 1
04:00
If you have a good scout master scout leader, you’re gonna make it. If you don’t, you don’t make it. And what happened? He had to go to Lordstown, Ohio to get a job at the auto factory, and we lost it, and I was done. You
Speaker: 0
04:11
lost your scout master.
Speaker: 1
04:12
Yeah. I lost my guy.
Speaker: 0
04:14
Well, this part of the of of your story, I think, is the crucible moment for you because I I’ve I’m Catholic and Irish, and, I know the Italian Catholics. That’s that’s quite a fight. If an Italian Catholic and an Irish Catholic get in a fight, just step back is what I’m gonna my best advice to everybody.
Speaker: 0
04:31
But you got in a heater with Joe Biden over the the Build Back Better bill Yeah. To the extent that, like, I believe the Democrats or operatives were sending people to your trawler, your houseboat that you’re living on. They’re sending people, you know, a little bit out your family, maybe
Speaker: 1
04:49
Everywhere. I was and I had the death threats were unreal, Jason. Incredible.
Speaker: 0
04:52
Your own party. So maybe you could take us to maybe tell that story because it feels to me, and correct me if I’m wrong, that this is a seminal moment in your political career ram perhaps the.
Speaker: 1
05:04
I don’t recommend anybody getting caught in a fifty fifty senate in The United States because Ai States sana is supposed to be the the the most, deliberate body in the world, and the region’s deliberate because you have to have a 60 vote threshold of cloture to get on to get on a bill. And with that, that was intended from our founding fathers is that the house is gonna be simple majority, 218 out of four thirty five.
Speaker: 1
05:30
Don’t even talk to the other side. You don’t have to. Just shove it through. And George Washington said, you know, it’s just gonna be like a hot cup of tea and it goes over to the senate. It should cool itself off so we can drink it. Well, that’s the whole premise. And people keep saying, get rid of the filibuster.
Speaker: 1
05:45
That’s the holy grail to democracy as we know it. Because without it, we wouldn’t be the country we are now. It forced us to sit down in one of the bodies to calm things down and talk to our friends over in the house and say, guys, this is how it’s gotta be. We’ve gotta moderate this some.
Speaker: 1
06:03
And that’s what that’s what it was that’s what I’d always known from Bob Byrd, senator Robert c Byrd, our senator forever, fifty years plus in West Virginia. And when I became governor, he kept I think he kinda knew in his mind that I would probably bryden for the sana, and he was getting to the end of his career or, you know, his age was creeping up on him pretty pretty hard.
Speaker: 1
06:25
Anyway, he kept telling me all the different things of why he did certain things, why the rules were the way they were. So I had a real understanding of the purpose of the senate and my responsibilities. So here we go. And then the the whole the whole thing on reconciliation, there’s a reconciliation. It’s it’s a movement.
Speaker: 1
06:44
It’s a that we operate under, and it’s basically stopping it stops anybody from preventing us to make sure we can take care of our financial responsibilities. And so reconciliation only takes a simple majority. Well, in the senate, that’s the only vehicle that you can have a 51 vote threshold without a cloture vote of 60 votes getting to the bill.
Speaker: 1
07:05
So then Joe Biden gets elected. And I think the story in in the book, it starts out, Schumer Schumer kept calling me then all every hour on the hour the night of the election. And I’m thinking, why is he so worked up? Because in the senate, in all honesty, whether you’re in the if you’re one if you’re not the majority leader, but you’re one of the senators in the caucus of the Democrat Republicans, you have the same power.
Speaker: 1
07:29
You have the same you know, you can participate. Every senator can participate. They’re all important, 100 of them. So he keeps saying, Joe, he says, you don’t understand. This Georgia thing could really you know, it could happen. I’m thinking, well, I don’t think we’re gonna win Georgia. We hadn’t, and then it wasn’t predicted.
Speaker: 1
07:44
But Donald Trump put him in play, to be honest with you. Him going down there and getting into a TIF with everybody, he did. And so all of a sudden, you know, we got, two senators that are running from there. And boom, the first one calls, Raphael Warnock. He wins.
Speaker: 1
08:02
Allsoff’s later on that ai. Boom. They call that, and Schumer says, you know what this means, don’t you? And I said, well, Chuck, I think it means you’re the majority leader. He says, no. It means that you can probably have anything you want.
Speaker: 1
08:14
And I said, I just want my country to do well. If my country does well, my state will do well. That’s all I care about.
Speaker: 2
08:20
What do you think he meant when he said that?
Speaker: 1
08:22
I know exactly what he meant, Shema. I know exactly Chuck Schumer, basically, coming from where he comes from. It’s just whatever you can take back home. And then, of course, Bob Byrd was always criticized for taking so much what they called pork back home. And that was the the situation he thought.
Speaker: 1
08:37
Well, I’m in the Catbird seat now. I could outdo Bob Byrd. I just never thought that. I just never thought of tipping the scale so unfavorably to where we all should be doing well if we can move our country forward. But that’s what he thought.
Speaker: 1
08:51
Okay. What do you want? I just want my country to do well.
Speaker: 2
08:55
When that happened, there was a lot of thought that the filibuster and and maybe just to take a step back for the audience, the whole point is that as you explained, basically, laws can get passed in one of two ways. The real way, which is that you have to find some sort of compromise with folks on the other side, get to 60 vatsal, or the other way, which is a more of a budgetary process called reconciliation, which is a simple majority.
Speaker: 2
09:19
And there’s been a lot of talk that one party at some point will try to eliminate the filibuster sai that when they have a simple majority, they can pass any law they want. And there was a moment, I think, in that point where you came under a lot of pressure to get on board with trying to eliminate the filibuster.
Speaker: 2
09:40
Can you just give us a window into that and what happened and how you made the decision and what the what the reaction was from party loyalists?
Speaker: 1
09:48
Well, let’s go back to 2013 when Harry Reid, because of Barack Obama, couldn’t get his appointments done for his for his, cabinet and things of that sort and and some judges. So the majority party can change the rules. If they wanna blow it apart, they can blow it apart. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
10:05
Well, Harry Reid decided that he wanted to get rid of the filibuster. And, Ai just said, Harry, I’d never do that. I mean, my goodness. You can’t just because you can’t work with someone I said, you and Mitch don’t even sit down and talk. You don’t have a cup of coffee, let alone discuss what should be important for both sides. And at that time, I even told Harry.
Speaker: 1
10:26
I said, Harry, the only thing that the president’s wanting, the he got he won reelection twenty twelve, gets reappointed 2013, reinaugurated, and here we go. He wants to put his team together. That’s will and pleasure. And I always believe that will and pleasure that will and pleasure means you’re you get elected.
Speaker: 1
10:45
You’re the executive, Shemant, and you said, Joe, I want you to be part of this. I’m gonna come and go. It’s your will and pleasure. I’m not staying over. Once you’re gone, I’m gone.
Speaker: 1
10:54
Why not let you have your team unless I then and they can do a FBI background check, find out if I’m of sound character and moral values and no criminal records, and boom, let me go. So I I begged Harry, just go over and cut a deal with Mitch and say, Mitch, let’s together do this unanimously, that 51 vote threshold for all of the president’s appointment, people that’ll be willing pleasure, no holdovers whatsoever.
Speaker: 1
11:19
But you can’t do it to judges to get lifetime appointments. You can’t do it for other, other, different agencies that have a six year or a nine year term, just will and pleasure. And I I thought that would be very simple, and he wouldn’t do it. They sai, oh, no. We gotta get the judges.
Speaker: 1
11:35
I says, you’re going to basically change the confirmation process to 51 votes for a ai? Are you crazy? Mhmm. But they did it, and then guess what happened? They did it for they they did it for district and, circuit judges. Okay? Didn’t do it for supreme court. Guess what happened as soon as Republicans took over?
Speaker: 1
11:56
They were in control. Mitch McConnell says, fine. We’ll do it for Supreme Court. Now we have a six three court. Didn’t work too well before he did it, you know, whether it be Harry or that.
Speaker: 1
12:06
And during this, Chuck Schumer just come out directly and has said he wanted to get rid of the filibuster. That’s how they were gonna run it with Joe Biden. Well, Joe Biden had always been a defender of the filibuster. How can you flip on your values when all of a sudden now because you’re in charge and you wanna just shove thing down people’s throat?
Speaker: 1
12:24
I said, I’m not gonna do that. So myself and Kyrsten Sinema voted against the filibuster, which stopped all that. I was all for the voting, I mean, all the concern, the Voting Act, Voting Rights Act, and all that. But I said, we have to find a pathway that we have some Republicans, 10 Republicans that’ll work with us.
Speaker: 2
12:41
I wanna go and ask you a very specific question that’s that’s framed in the book about Obama. But before I do that, let’s just stay on Biden for a second.
Speaker: 1
12:48
I’ll get to where where, Jason asked me how we got to because it really how it led up to what happened is unbelievable.
Speaker: 0
12:56
Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe finishing that big Ai it
Speaker: 2
12:58
back. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
12:59
Because it’s it gets spicy. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
13:01
Yeah. Yeah. Spicy because what happened, Jason, the first thing they did was an Arya, the American Rescue Plan, was his first bill. Soon as Joe Biden gets elected, boom, he gets sworn in. And in February, he comes out with the ARP, American Rescue Plan, which is this big overhaul. Okay?
Speaker: 1
13:18
We had just done you all know the finances better than probably anybody observing. We had put $3,200,000,000,000 into the market as COVID in ’20 in 2020, March from March 2020 up until the end of the year, and then Joe Biden takes over. So we already put 3,200,000,000,000.0. He comes out with the American Rescue Plan. They wanna put another 1.9, a minimum, 1.9. Now we’re at 5.1.
Speaker: 1
13:45
Well, our cash flow’s about a little over $5,000,000,000,000 a year that we run the country on. They’re doubling the amount. You can’t digest that. The market can’t take it. But they were doing it. And I says, are you people crazy right now?
Speaker: 1
13:58
We don’t even know what what the three point two’s going to do, let alone but they wanted it was a they were chasing a social reform. And I told him, I said, mister president, they heard me rumbling, in the hallway, and one of the senators called the White House immediately and says, Manchin making trouble already.
Speaker: 1
14:18
Well, it was $50.50. They had to have meh. So he called me right over to the White House. And I’m sitting there. I said, mister president, I’m begging you.
Speaker: 1
14:25
Please don’t do the don’t do reconciliation on this bill. If this is your bill, which I know it’s not, this is a Bernie Sanders and this is Elizabeth Warren, because I’d heard them respectfully. I, you know, I can agree in some and I disagree, but it was just too big a bite coming right out of, COVID, and we had a vaccine that was working.
Speaker: 1
14:45
So I said, please don’t, sir. I said, you’re the only one on the stage running for president with all that big lineup that says you know how the place work. You can work on both ai. You can make a deal. And I always known you to be that person.
Speaker: 0
14:57
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
14:57
And now all of a sudden, you’re throwing, you know, the nuclear bomb out. You’re saying Mhmm. We can’t work with the Republicans. We gotta do it. And I said, Schumer’s got you all fired up thinking that’s how you’re gonna run it. And I knew in my mind they wanted to run the what we call the hundred and seventeenth Congress. The Congress is a two year stint.
Speaker: 1
15:15
Every two years, you have an election. So Congress we were in the one seventeenth, just starting it. My my, thought process was is that Schumer had convinced the president that we could run this congress for two years with four reconciliation big bills, two in two, two in 2021 and two in twenty twenty two.
Speaker: 1
15:37
And I says, over my dead body. That’s not going to happen. That’s not what we’re here for, and that’s not how this place is supposed to work. So they called me over in the White House, and they grabbed me always, Jason, sana when you’re sitting there and you see it on television, they made everybody leave the ram, and we’re sitting there.
Speaker: 1
15:53
And then president reaches over and grabs your arm, and he says, Joe, your country needs you. I’m thinking, what the hell do I say now? And I said, mister president, and I grabbed his arm. Country needs you too. It needs us all. And I said, sir, I’m begging you not to.
Speaker: 1
16:06
Why don’t you just put this bill that you call your American Rescue Plan, put it in the jurisdictional committees, and let us work it. Give us a shot clock. Say, guys, I’m gonna give you sixty days to work these these bills. Then if you they don’t because they just don’t want you to have any success at all, do what you gotta do then. Oh, no. Gotta do it now, Joe.
Speaker: 1
16:27
Gotta go. Gotta go. Okay. So we go. And then, we shut it down there for about twelve or fourteen hours one day because I thought they lost their mind.
Speaker: 1
16:36
They wanted to expand the unemployment benefits. Ai said, do you understand what you’re dealing with now? You got inflation coming at you so hard because people have been cooped up. We’ve sent everybody a check. And I told him this. He kinda giggled.
Speaker: 1
16:49
I said I said, mister president, we’ve sent everybody a check. And if we’ve missed anybody, it was by mistake because you intended to send everybody a damn check. And I said, they wanna go spend money, and there’s nobody working. The supply chains are shut down. There’s nothing. They’re gonna pay exorbitant amounts to get what they want.
Speaker: 1
17:06
You’re just fueling it, sir. Oh god. We went through all of that, and he’s that’s when he got pretty vulgar and just told meh, I’m gonna you’re gonna you know, if you you kill my effing bill, I’ll never talk to you again. I said, if I could kill this effing Yeah. Definite. Kill this effing bill, you shouldn’t talk to me again, because if I could, I would.
Speaker: 1
17:27
But I can’t the way you think is moving. But I can tell you, we’re never gonna go this way at Root again. So this is how we work kinda work things out. Then sure enough, one month, they come back with BBB.
Speaker: 2
17:38
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
17:39
Build Back Better. Now they’re talking $6,000,000,000,000. That bill was 10,000,000,000,000 if it was a penny with all the revamping. I couldn’t get there, guys. And I told him, I said, mister president, I’m sorry. Man, I can’t get there. And they tried for eight months, beat up me.
Speaker: 1
17:56
I mean, I had to have security What is that
Speaker: 2
17:58
what is that like? Like, what does the pressure campaign look like? It’s because it’s not just the president exactly as you write in the book. It’s people showing up at the house. It’s people with little kayaks with protest signs around your boat. It’s pretty intense.
Speaker: 1
18:11
It’s pretty intense, Sharmat, but I can tell you one thing. When every day, the Capitol Police call you and sai your death threats are serious enough right now, so we have to get you know, we’ll meet you down at where you ai, and we’ll bring you to work, and we’ll take you back home.
Speaker: 1
18:28
You know things are pretty serious. I never wanted to know the extent, but I knew they were serious. And then one ai, they said, this is really getting serious now because now we got things. They know where your children go to school. They know where your grandchildren are or where your kids live. And I’m thinking, oh ai god. This is just crazy.
Speaker: 1
18:43
And then I had a bunch of boaters come down, canoers. I had a I got attacked by canoes. And I just said, guys, listen. We just disagree. It was all ai people. And I said, listen. I I want a clean climate.
Speaker: 1
18:54
I just know we need energy to run our country, and there’s gotta be a balance. And, so I said, come up to my office. They said, what? I said, come to my office tomorrow. We can sit and talk.
Speaker: 1
19:04
You don’t have to be out here in the water, but they thought that was the shah they put on. When they came the next day, we talked, we agreed to disagree on some things, and we agreed on some things.
Speaker: 2
19:12
But, Joe Joe, I just wanna understand the, like, do do you think that these are just random acts, or do you think that it’s it’s an organized pressure campaign?
Speaker: 1
19:20
Oh, no. That was organized. They were paid, Shamath, because a lot of my friends who live on the down at the river on the, Potomac River with meh, on the boat, they they play ai, how can I get a job with you? How can I do this if I wanna protest? They said, oh, just sign up and get $15 an hour. Ai couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
Speaker: 1
19:39
They’re telling me.
Speaker: 2
19:39
But doesn’t the message have to go from the White House? Like, doesn’t Biden’s team somebody has to say, like, go.
Speaker: 1
19:46
Oh, no. Ron I’m gonna be honest with you. Wrong claim. Okay? Smart guy, good guy, and everything, but he’d gone so far to the left, and he pushed your left. Because I kept telling, when I first went over to the White House, I said, mister president, I says, you have the most liberal staff that I’ve ever seen.
Speaker: 1
20:01
First time I went over. And he said, well, Joe, they tell me I have the most diversified staff. I said, we’re not talking about diversity, sir. We’re talking about bat crazy. We’re talking about people I’ve known, I’ve worked with in the hallway forever, and I know where they came and where they worked before.
Speaker: 1
20:16
These are people real far left. And Ron put that team together. And I I know that because I kept saying that your staff is pushing you too far left, mister president. You’ve never been that far left. Right.
Speaker: 1
20:28
And I just someone says about, you know, I’ve I’ve always liked Joe Biden. We always got along well. Good man. I just don’t think he lost sai will to fight.
Speaker: 2
20:37
Okay. Do you think it’s that or can I can I just ask you all of these rumors, the comments about the auto pen, the mental faculties?
Speaker: 1
20:44
Never saw that. Never. And I’ve been with him a lot. Okay? We always had good conversations. Now with that said, I just said, I know how much energy it takes if you’ve gotta fight with your staff every day to do the things you want rather than the staff saying, well, take care of that, mister president.
Speaker: 1
20:58
Because I would ask him we agree on something, and I’d ask him a week or two later, and nothing had happened. So I know there was no follow-up. You follow? Sai I knew Ram was kinda driving the train. And and, with that, I’ll tell you how this thing came to the to a head.
Speaker: 1
21:13
They didn’t I said, I’m not voting to get on the BBB. And this goes on for a while. They’re just pressuring pressure me, and they need my vote to even get on reconciliation. Right. Right. So it finally came down.
Speaker: 1
21:23
So I said, you know, you’ve got some good things in that BBB bill. The one thing you really need is infrastructure. Remember the bipartisan infrastructure bill? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
21:32
I said, this country, we haven’t done anything for thirty years. I said, why don’t you just let’s pull that bill out. So Schumer being the person he is, he sai, I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Joe. I’ll pull that bill out. And I sai, let me work that bill, Chuck.
Speaker: 1
21:45
And I said, we’ll get you a good bill, and it’ll be bipartisan. I’ll show you can be done bipartisan. He says, I’ll tell you what. I’ll do that and pull that out if you’ll vote to get on BBB. So the reason I’m leading up to this, that’s when people sai, well, Joe promised to vote for it. I never promised to vote for BBB.
Speaker: 1
22:04
I says, I’ll get on and let you work the bill. I’m never gonna be for this bill. Sai, anyway, we get we we get to be we get the bipartisan infrastructure bill. We work it, and we pass it. And the night we were passing the bill sitting on the senate floor, Bernie Sanders says, come over and talk to me, Joe. And I sit down.
Speaker: 1
22:21
He said, Joe, are you gonna vote for this BBB bill? And I said, hell no, Bernie. You know I’ve never been for that bill. And he says, well, at least you’re being honest with me. I said, I’ve been honest with everybody. I said, you guys wanna work until the cows come home.
Speaker: 1
22:33
That’s fine. I can’t do this. And he says, you know, I’ve cut it down from six, from ram 6,000,000,000,000 to 3,000,000,000,000. I says, Bernie, you and I know the game that’s played here. You didn’t cut it down.
Speaker: 1
22:45
All you did was cut the timing down from ten years to five years or three years to make it look like you were cutting them out. You know they’re never gonna get rid of any of this once you start giving everything away. Right. Went through all of that. So he says, you know, I can kill this bill.
Speaker: 1
23:00
And I’m thinking, at first, when he said that, I says, well, Bernie, if you’re saying you can kill the bill here in the Sana and and you’re and and Vermont doesn’t need any infrastructure, your bryden roads and bridges, Internet connections, your your water and sewer line, everything’s great, then you should vote against it.
Speaker: 1
23:18
He said, no, I’m not talking about here, Joe. I’m talking about on the other side in the house with all the liberals or the progressives over there. So I didn’t think of anything. We passed it that ai. And boom, the bill gets held up. You remember that? Yeah. It kept getting held up.
Speaker: 1
23:32
And they kept sending it to his president. I’d better talk to him and pass the bill, and they wouldn’t pass it. And they kept saying, Manchin lied to us. And I said, Schumer, you better tell him the truth. You know exactly how you got on this bill.
Speaker: 1
23:42
And you know I never ever said I would ever vote for this bill.
Speaker: 2
23:46
Let me Joe, if it’s possible, I wanna just go a little bit back, and I wanna start with Obama. So you wrote in the book that Trump was the most engaged president you ever worked with. And that in the first
Speaker: 1
23:59
two of them. Two two.
Speaker: 2
24:00
Two of them. Okay. And then
Speaker: 1
24:01
Clinton, Bill Clinton. If you tyler ai people that are engaging with you, Bill and, and and president Trump.
Speaker: 2
24:08
And then you said in the first two years, you spoke with Trump more than you ever did under eight years of Obama.
Speaker: 1
24:15
Correct. Correct.
Speaker: 2
24:17
Contrast and compare Obama and Trump for us and just help us understand the positives and negatives of both as you saw it.
Speaker: 1
24:25
I think president president Barack Obama is a very good meh, you know, and and but his politics I knew him when he was sai US senator representing Illinois, and he knew about the coal industry. And I and, of course, I come from the coal industry being governor of West Virginia and growing up in in the coal fields.
Speaker: 1
24:43
And we talked about fossil and why we needed this, that, and everything. He wanted me to help him and vote for something that would help his called, FutureGen, which is the new, coal fired plant that was gonna be, c o two capture and all this and that. They called it back. There was a billion it was a billion dollar project the government was sponsoring, and I told him I couldn’t participate.
Speaker: 1
25:03
I was one of the four states. I pulled out and put my support behind Illinois, and they got it. Never built a plant, but they got the the award. So I knew he knew it. And then all of a sudden, he becomes a number he becomes the the nominee from the Democratic Party and switched everything to to renewables.
Speaker: 1
25:20
And I’m thinking, well, what are we gonna do with all the things that coal miners have done and all we’ve done for our country? Does that mean you’re gonna bring new jobs or this or that? There was no plan to replace any opportunities to live the quality of life and to live where they wanted to live with their culture and and and who we are and family oriented in Appalachia.
Speaker: 1
25:42
And, boy, I’ll tell you, we had a meeting about one year afterwards, and I was, in the National Governors Association leadership. And we had Democrats and Republicans. I finally got a meeting with him in the Roosevelt Room. Ai I’ll never forget that. And, and we were going around the table, and different governors were speaking.
Speaker: 1
26:03
He came to me, and I says, mister president, you’ve done one hell of a good job at villainizing Cole. And he jumped up, and Ai went nuts on me. Ai I’m thinking, oh, boy. Here we go. And he said, why would you say something like that? And I said, because it’s true.
Speaker: 1
26:17
I said, you have basically put benchmarks that we can’t make because there’s no technology that we can get our industry to meet those. That gives you the right to shut it down. And he made a statement, if you recall. Go ahead and build a coal fired plant, and we’ll break you.
Speaker: 1
26:33
He knew that with technology wasn’t there. So I’m thinking, Christ, what happened? You’re leaving us behind. These people have nothing. They and they they said, what happened to the West Virginia Democrats? I said, I’d tell you exactly what happened. They ran them off.
Speaker: 1
26:46
Now, all of a sudden, they’ve done everything like a returning Vietnam veteran. We’ve done everything our country’s asked. Now, all of a sudden, we’re not good enough, clean enough, green enough, or smart enough. The hell with them. Just don’t by the wayside.
Speaker: 1
26:58
So you remember the slogan, don’t leave anybody behind? At least Joe Biden picked up that slogan in 2020. And he has did done a lot of things there ai to have incentives to bring businesses into coal country, if you will.
Speaker: 2
27:12
So is it that Obama is just a an incredibly strategic political calculator?
Speaker: 1
27:18
He was elusive. Sana was elusive.
Speaker: 2
27:20
What does that mean as a politician?
Speaker: 1
27:23
I don’t know. I mean, I just you know, when I talked to Bill Clinton, you know, it’s always it was always, what about this? And he was always so inquisitive about this and that. What am I thinking about this and that? And then we always had a couple good jokes to tell each other and kinda broke ai. You know, we had a lot of fun.
Speaker: 1
27:39
And with with and with president Donald Trump, you know, you go meet him. He’s charming as can be. Charts down, talks with you. He said, hey, Joe. What about this? What about that? No. That’s and I you know, we talk about a lot of things.
Speaker: 1
27:51
And then one time, I told I said, mister president, just call me last. I was the only Democrat he was talking to. Come over and have breakfast. Come over to lunch or do whatever, come to the movie. And, had a lot of fun. And and Ai said, just call me last.
Speaker: 1
28:03
He said, why you say that? I said, I don’t know who in the hell you talked to last, but that seemed to be what happens. I like to have one of those dates.
Speaker: 0
28:11
Mhmm. Lester. So a lot of your this ai courage around spending and entitlements in the book you talk about comes from this rugged individualism, personal responsibility.
Speaker: 1
28:26
Accountability.
Speaker: 0
28:27
Yeah. And this accountability that you grew up with Yeah. As a as a Catholic as well. You I had that as well. A little bit of guilt if you don’t work hard as well sprinkled in there to as a backstop. We’re looking at a country now where it seems, the the operating principle is, how do I get mine? Hey. You got something. I need to get something.
Speaker: 0
28:48
And now you’ve got Mondami in New York. Yeah. He’s gonna give free pizza and bagels and bus trips and whatever it is. He whatever people want, he’s gonna give it to him for free. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
29:00
You have not been able to, you failed in some ways, to turn this around in the country, this ai, as many of us have who have been screaming from the rooftops, like, sai not and you talk about this in the book, s not what your country can do for you. What can you do for your country? You bring it out and over again.
Speaker: 1
29:16
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
29:18
So I think we’ve failed in the last two decades, and socialism’s on the rise. Why is that? How do we turn it around?
Speaker: 1
29:24
Let me just say the last at at the BBB, the last time president, Ram, president, Biden and I had met where he calls me up into the White House, and he takes me up in stairs to the living quarters. And when you go up there, that’s really going to the woodshed, if you will. And we were talking and everything. And I said, mister president, I can’t get there.
Speaker: 1
29:40
I really can’t get there, sir. And I said, you know, you and I are both at the same vintage. You’re a little bit older, but not that much. Ai said, we’re we’re in the same vintage. And I said, I remember very vividly as a 13 year old kid watching television, inauguration ai sai of John Kennedy, asking all what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country.
Speaker: 1
29:59
If we pass this piece of legislation you’re asking me to vote for, the BBB, you’re changing the psychic to the nation of how much more can my country do for meh. I wasn’t born that way. I wasn’t raised that way. I don’t believe that way, and I can’t do it. You can put a gun to my head and sai, I’m a pull it pull the trigger. I can’t vote for it. And then all hell broke loose after that.
Speaker: 1
30:19
So how it happened is this. My my grandmother took everybody in. Okay. We ai by the railroad tracks, between the creek and the railroad tracks in a little three room garage apartment, and my grandparents had a little home right beside us. She took everybody in. I never knew. I just watched. And I I was, eldest of the of the boys of the about 20 of his grandkids.
Speaker: 1
30:40
We had to whitewash her basement, keep it clean and a nice place for people to stay. There was no social social network back in the fifties. We had people that would ride the train. You can call what you want to. These were people that had fallen out of society.
Speaker: 1
30:54
They were all intelligent, smart craftsmen, this and that. And they they and alcoholics, probably, most of them. And they’d come down, and they knew he could go off and go to a mama k, and she’d take care of them. She said, I got three rules. Can’t you can’t, you can’t drink, you can’t swear, and you’ve gotta work. So my first introduction was there was rules, and they were all good rules.
Speaker: 0
31:21
Pretty basic operating system.
Speaker: 1
31:22
Okay. So you know what? After about a while, they’d be we had some of the best painters and carpenters you ever seen. But we’d lose them every now and then. I said, well, okay. We had names for everybody, Shmott. We had Will Barr Willie, Meh Leg Peggy. You name it, we had them.
Speaker: 1
31:36
They’re all
Speaker: 0
31:37
characters. Oh, Peg Leg Peggy, especially.
Speaker: 1
31:39
Peggy, firecracker.
Speaker: 0
31:41
He had
Speaker: 2
31:41
a firecracker.
Speaker: 1
31:41
He had a firecracker. Bryden pegleg. And he got caught in the he kinda caught that was in my building. He got caught in the tracks one time. We had to pull him out. Right. Anyway, so Ai said, meh, okay, what happened to Deloitte? Where’d Deloitte go? Oh, honey, he’s on a toot again.
Speaker: 1
31:53
And, you know, the toot was always the bottle. And when you see the old timers, they’re on a toot, they go like this. And I says she said, don’t worry, honey. You’ll be back in six weeks. And ai cycle, that was it. So, I learned that.
Speaker: 1
32:06
My grandfather, people come in, and sana. My grandfather never kept books. He just kept all his money in his pocket, and he worked. That’s how he worked. Immigrant from Italy, and Sana say, they come and say, Hey, Pop. No matter who they were, Hey, Papa. Can I borrow five? Can I have five?
Speaker: 1
32:21
He said, Sure, honey. Called everybody, honey. He said, Here’s a broom and shovel. Go up and clean the parking lot, and I’ll give you the five. I understood you had to do something for the five. Okay? Right. But he’s and he says that they sai, papa, I’ll be right back.
Speaker: 1
32:34
He looked at me and he ai. He said, don’t worry, Joe. He said, only about half of them take me up on it. So I knew I knew you had to do something. Now that’s
Speaker: 0
32:42
sai filtering mechanism.
Speaker: 1
32:44
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
32:44
So that directly to your belief, though, in having a work requirement.
Speaker: 1
32:50
I want the work requirement for anybody capable able-bodied to work. And here’s the thing. They got on meh, sai, Manchin’s killing child tax credits. I says, I’m killing child tax credits? Right. First of all, you have child tax credits up to 400,000 of income. You really wanna know who needs a child tax credit? People right above the poverty guideline, mostly single females, above 25,000 a year up to about 75. They need it.
Speaker: 1
33:15
Okay? And they’re working. Please help them. Okay? And I’d go into all of this, Jason, and Shamoth, and then and then they and they said, oh, no.
Speaker: 1
33:24
We gotta do this, that, across the board. I said, don’t you think that rather than just sending checks to people that have children that don’t work and won’t work and sitting at home, why would they need ai money when they’re sitting home with their children? I said, it makes no sense to me at all. I can’t go home and explain it.
Speaker: 1
33:44
And my North Star has been this as long as I’ve been in political life, if I can’t go back to my little hometown in Farmington or the people I grew up with and explain it, because I knew they wouldn’t let me get by with anything. They’d hold your feet to the fire. And that’s where that’s how it is and never changed.
Speaker: 2
34:01
Do you think that we’re now in sort of this intractable period where there can’t be any centrism? There can’t be this idea that you work and then you earn something, that there’s that dignity of work. Instead, it’s these extremes that are constantly about what giveaway can I give to people to get them on my sai? Is that where we are?
Speaker: 1
34:20
Let me give you the other thing about me and Bernie one time talking, and Bernie wanted free tuition. Right? Always wanted free tuition. And then they finally see what they thought, well, we got we’ll get it free if we go junior colleges. I says, I’m not for anything free. I’m for earning it. Here’s what I’m gonna tell you. If for they talked about free college. I says I says, Bernie, my son’s at that time, 47 years old.
Speaker: 1
34:44
I said, my son’s 40 years old. If you had free education, free tuition, he’d still be in school. He liked it so much. I sai, he liked it so meh, he’d still be there.
Speaker: 0
34:56
Go read the HV’s later.
Speaker: 1
34:59
So anyway, I said, no. I’m not for that. And I so I said, let me tell you about free. If we if we identified skill sets that we’re needing, we can teach them in junior colleges, have them sign up, get a Stafford loan, guaranteed federal loan. They don’t pay it back until, basically, you know, until they finish their education.
Speaker: 1
35:17
So if they finish in two years, they took a Stafford saloni, they took what they needed to get educated on, they took a staff for loan in a two year community college, they get a degree in a skill set, we forgive it. They’ve earned it. You didn’t give it on the front end. Because let me tell you what happens on the front end.
Speaker: 1
35:34
Only half of them ever get through, maybe at 25%. You know, they go for four years, you know, and you I don’t know if you know how they give money. There’s no financial literacy required at all. You all have to do is show the income of your family and your they have a a scale they can go ai, or you can get 12,000 a year.
Speaker: 1
35:52
You might only need four. I’ll guarantee you. You tell the kid that comes from poverty and you tell them they can get 12,000, they’ll take it all.
Speaker: 2
35:59
They’re gonna take it all.
Speaker: 1
36:00
They don’t know what they don’t know what a accrued interest is. They don’t know about paying this back. It’s a death trap. They don’t know any of that. They drop out in two years for one reason or another, then it all comes due. They hadn’t had a payment up until then. Right. No one’s explaining anything.
Speaker: 1
36:14
And I says told Elizabeth Warren, I says, Elizabeth, can’t we just change the Stafford program to where you have to have financial literacy? You cannot get a loan without financial literacy.
Speaker: 0
36:24
What was her answer?
Speaker: 1
36:27
I don’t well, it didn’t happen. Let’s just put it that way.
Speaker: 0
36:29
Put it that way. Well, what’s driving I mean, I understand populism. I understand trying to buy votes. But what at the core, in your opinion, drives these individuals who think that not learning to sustain yourself in society and to get all of these freebies what what’s in their mind?
Speaker: 0
36:48
What are they missing about just the basic human condition that we have to work for stuff? The the human operating system is we need challenges. And when you don’t have purpose in life, it’s a it’s a road. It’s that’s the primrose path. It’s not a a good place to go.
Speaker: 0
37:02
You know, Ai don’t mind. It’s devil’s playground as my grandmother would say. Rest in peace.
Speaker: 1
37:06
Let me say to both of you all about what has happened in this political process, and I’ve come to the conclusion we need to have term limits. And I’m gonna tell you how I came to that conclusion. When I was a governor, I was doing a town hall meeting in Southern West Virginia.
Speaker: 1
37:19
A little lady got stood up in the back, and she said, Joe, I wish you were for term limits. And I said, well, tell me why, Suze. Sai I knew her and Suze. I said, tell me why. And she said, well, I just think this would be it’d be better for us to hit have turnover.
Speaker: 1
37:32
And I sai and I wasn’t for it, and I I gave her all the reasons. I said, you’re gonna lose your most experienced people with the talent and know how and boom, boom, boom. I went through everything. She said, Joe, think of it this way. If we had term limits, maybe we meh one good term out of you. I had no comeback.
Speaker: 1
37:49
She convinced me right there. And from that point on, I’ve been for term limits. And Ai more for it today than I’ve ever been for it. And I’m I’m and the reason I’m telling you, yeah, maybe we’d get one good term where you’d have the courage to do the conviction with the oath you took to defend and protect the constitution.
Speaker: 1
38:07
Do the job. Put country before party. Quit playing this game. Quit worrying about getting reelected. And it’s gotten us to the point now, public service truly, when they said John Kennedy says, most noblest of all profession, public service, that’s gone.
Speaker: 1
38:22
It’s fame and fortune now. Ai get in there. I can keep churning and churning and churning it. And I’ve just said that, basically, the sana, two six year terms is enough. Twelve years is enough.
Speaker: 2
38:33
Let’s actually look inside the political parties for one second.
Speaker: 1
38:36
Oh, boy.
Speaker: 2
38:37
Let’s start with maybe an easy one, but it’s actually quite maybe a nuanced answer. Tell us who you think are the two most dynamic senators, one Democrat, one Republican.
Speaker: 1
38:51
I was thinking about that because if I was you, I would have been asking the same question. Ai I can I can name six or seven on both sides?
Speaker: 2
38:58
Oh, please. Yeah. Let’s take a look.
Speaker: 1
39:00
Let’s go. And ai I’m saying that, people that I’ve worked with, I know I know their DNA. Okay?
Speaker: 2
39:05
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
39:06
First of all, I’m gonna always be always be, deferential to former governors. A governor can’t afford to be a governor of one side. And I’ll give you the most perfect, simplest answer to that is, that pothole that busted my tire and basically bent my rim and messed my car did not have a Democrat or Republican name on it.
Speaker: 1
39:29
But I was responsible for making sure the repairs on the roads didn’t do that. Okay? Sai you’re like senator King, Angus King from Maine, former governor. You have Mark Warner, Virginia, former governor. Tim Kaine, former governor. You have Jean Shaheen, former governor. Maggie Hassan, former governor. You have Mike Rounds, former governor.
Speaker: 1
39:50
John Hoeven, former governor. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were always my go to people on the Republican side and Mitt Romney, two of three of the best of the best. You could always work with them because they were always looking to do the right thing. They didn’t care about politics.
Speaker: 1
40:04
And then I always had you got senator Cortez Masto. You have, you know, there’s so many Jackie Rosen on the Tom Tillis on the on the senate ai, on the Republican side. Bill Cassidy is one of the best of the best. Bill Cassidy is bright, sharp, always wanting to do the right thing, always very, very articulate, and he will get down to the nitty gritty and go into the depths of it to find out an answer.
Speaker: 1
40:30
And you got Mike Rounds, former governor, great guy, South Dakota. These are people that I know have the ability to do it, to make it happen. You just vatsal push, push, push. I was asked a question the other day, Shamath, about what would you do, Joe, if you were still there?
Speaker: 1
40:46
If I was king for a day and I had the ability to use the Roosevelt Ram in the White House, I’d bring him over. I’d put him in the room. I’d put Schumer and put John Thune and put his, their teams together and say, guys, you’re not getting out till you come to deal. This is not that hard.
Speaker: 1
41:03
Here’s what we’re not everybody’s wanting to blame. Who’s whose fault is it? Let’s let’s look at whose responsibility it is. Not fault. Whose responsibility?
Speaker: 1
41:13
My friends in the Republican party have the trifecta. President’s Republican, House is Republican, Senate’s Republican. You have the mantle. You have the gavel. You’ve gotta keep the keep the train running. You gotta keep this place open. And I’ve said this.
Speaker: 1
41:32
I know that the president has the ability to do that, but you you can’t always have politics driving the end result to do your job, and that’s to keep it open. But I’ve never voted for a shutdown. I’ve gotten caught in a couple shutdowns, but I never voted for them. And they’re tough to get out of because people get ingrained and get they get in ai there’s fee feeder and cement can’t get out.
Speaker: 1
41:56
So I think the president has to move this. And I’ve said this, our great country and the president with his leadership over in The Middle East is able to get Hamas and Israelis to sit down and make a deal. Surely to God, I know the president can get a Democrat and Republicans to make a deal. I know that.
Speaker: 1
42:13
But everybody’s gotta quit playing the politics because of what the what the outcome of the twenty sixth election. It’ll take care of itself.
Speaker: 0
42:20
Let’s let’s let’s hate each other more. Democrats, Republicans, or
Speaker: 2
42:24
Oh, that’s a good question. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
42:26
I was gonna say,
Speaker: 0
42:26
like, which one hates each other more in your opinion?
Speaker: 1
42:28
It’s a shame. Let me tell you. This is such an easy lift. You know what happened with this health care thing? I was right in the middle of this whole thing. I know exactly. When they did the Affordable Care Act, meh in 2017 that, John McCain made the famous vote? What wrote it down? Okay. Yep. Yep. I was in the back hallway when all that unfolded, back of the senate before John came out and made his vote.
Speaker: 1
42:49
And John had been getting pressured heavily by the White House, president Trump and his staff ai that at that time. John finally walked out and getting ready to walk out, and he was sitting there. And I came through the hallway, and I said, John, listen. I’m not crazy about this Affordable Care Act the way you you have to be forced to buy a product.
Speaker: 1
43:06
Whether you like or not, you can’t shop it, and you’re fine if you don’t. The penalties makes no sense. I said, but, John, if the Republicans have anything they can give us, I probably support it and vote for it, but they don’t have anything to replace it with. And what it did do, it helps it helped poor working people, that that were that were using the emergency room and were using workers’ compensation for the only deliveries that they had for, for their health care.
Speaker: 1
43:32
So and then preexisting condition, we stopped that from being eliminated from the process sai people could meh, for the first time, any type of care. So that was good, but somebody had to pay for it. So they switched it. Once you got above the 150 percentile of poverty, then you were hit pretty hard to pay for what we’re giving away on this end.
Speaker: 1
43:52
That means you have a broken system. Sooner or later, you gotta fix the system, and no one was willing to fix it. They’re just moving it around. So the Democrats, when COVID hit, hot dog, that’s our time to shine now. Let’s go ahead. And, man, they went to 400% and even greater. Right.
Speaker: 1
44:07
Republicans are saying, can’t we just get back, which is a normal thing? Can you get back to pre COVID? Well, it’s hard to take something back, Jason. And Shamath, once you You got up there because because Ai know. Now what you can do is say, okay. For one year, we’re gonna extend this for one year.
Speaker: 1
44:23
We’re gonna come from 400 to 200. We’re gonna gradually get back, and we’re gonna try to fix our delivery system of health care. The insurance companies insurance companies are running health care. It’s not the professional doctors, the professional health care. It’s insurance telling you what you can, what you can’t, what you’re paying for, chasing the dollars. That has to change, but someone has to be willing to do it.
Speaker: 1
44:44
So that’s where we are.
Speaker: 2
44:46
There’s a an issue, Joe, which is that they’re also talking about the unintended consequences of the cost we have to bear for folks that don’t have a legal immigration status. Right? That there’s a burden that that includes. Can you give us your opinion on and you can expand this.
Speaker: 1
45:05
Whatever.
Speaker: 2
45:05
Immigration and but maybe you can start with the health care because I think that’s the that’s the wedge issue that seems to be slowing everybody down and maybe give us
Speaker: 1
45:14
Well, the Democrats are telling you that that that that it’s it’s not in there, that that illegal immigrants who’ve come to this country are not getting the benefits of of of, the citizens of our country when they hit hard times. And people will say, well, why did you write this, this, this in in your, in your, declaration of what you want done as far as to bring the you know, to bring it back and let’s let’s get going.
Speaker: 1
45:41
Again, you put that in one of your demands. There’s some reference to that in the demand. So it kinda shah what their intentions were. The bottom line is, is that no, there’s no way immigrants that come here illegally and don’t have a pathway forward or we’ve bryden, you know, into a working pathway forward.
Speaker: 1
46:01
That should ever happen. You should never be able to have benefits coming here. There should not be attraction for that. And that’s what they’re saying had happened. I beg the Democrats, are you crazy about doing asylum at the border? We’ve never done that. Mhmm. We had a 2013 piece of legislation by bipartisanship at that time.
Speaker: 1
46:21
It was a bipartisan gang of eight to put it together, and we passed it with 68 or 69 votes in the sana. Sent it to the house. John Boehner I begged John Boehner to put it on the floor. I like John Boehner. He’s a friend of mine. John says, Joe, I can’t put it on.
Speaker: 1
46:36
Eric Cantor just got defeated in Richmond because a person from the far right accused Eric Cantor for supporting this immigration reform. And they said it’s amnesty. And ai God, anybody that came here the wrong way has gotta get out of here. We gotta send them back. That bill that we put together in a bipartisan sai, that basically gave you so many days, let’s say, sixty, ninety days or more, I forget the the term ai the the amount ai now, to go to the courthouse and turn yourself in.
Speaker: 1
47:06
Pay a fine for misdemeanor. Let’s say it was $750, and then you would get in the back of the queue. But once you turned yourself in, we would know if you had any criminal record or not. Then we knew how who to go after because there’s people been here for ten, twenty, thirty years.
Speaker: 1
47:21
They brought little children here now who are adults serving in the military and basically professing teaching in our schools. These are productive, supportive. They love the country as meh, if not more than Meh that were born here. So this is what gets me. We had that bill and couldn’t get it because they were afraid that he would lose the right. He lost them anyway. The far right wasn’t going.
Speaker: 1
47:47
Tea Party at that time wasn’t gonna go. But John could have put it on the floor, and it would have passed. And I think if you talked to John Do
Speaker: 2
47:53
you think Americans would be shocked if we really knew the inner workings to understand that at the end of the day, bipartisan coalitions and reforms literally stop on a dime on all number of issues because a person one day interprets and reads the tea leaves and says meh, no, yes, no. Is that Ai mean, is that really basically what happens?
Speaker: 1
48:12
Well, let’s let’s look a look. Here, let me give you the most the easiest thing we could have done with, the, there’s two things. Don’t ask, don’t tyler. And then you have, the the Dobbs Act as far as on on abortion. Okay. With the Supreme Court?
Speaker: 0
48:30
Sure.
Speaker: 1
48:30
Well, the Supreme Court, you know, on that, we’ve lived, with Roe v Wade for fifty years of unprecedented law. It was unprecedented ai, I meh. Fifty we never codified it through the legislature, but the courts, it was precedent. Now all of a sudden that blows apart and everybody gets torn apart.
Speaker: 1
48:48
All they had to do was just codify Roe v Wade. That’s all we had to do. And I I teamed up with Lisa Murkowski and and Susan Collins. And we had a bill that all we did simply codify. It wasn’t it wasn’t pro life enough, and it wasn’t pro choice enough.
Speaker: 1
49:05
But it’s something we learned to navigate for fifty years. Well, guess what? Our Democrat friends wanted to open up wide. Why open abortions up? Okay?
Speaker: 1
49:14
They can tell you what they want, what they intended, but that’s exactly what they were trying to do. And I told tyler, I says I called them out. I says, are you gonna try to explain to people to make them believe what you this piece of legislation you’re trying to put through on the freedom of choice is going to be, just codifying Roe v Wade.
Speaker: 1
49:32
That that is so insincere, and I will not have any part of it. And then the Republicans wanted to just double ai. I mean, make it criminalizing abortions. We couldn’t because of politics. And and I’ve seen things like that that we had it right in the palm of our hand and let it slip through.
Speaker: 1
49:51
And we could have done that, and that’s on it. We could have done the immigration, and right now, you’d never be in this immigration fact.
Speaker: 2
49:59
A lot of this history gets swept under the rug because nobody really knows what was possible because people like you typically don’t leave and then write a book like this to kind of just share all of it. And then part of it is then when you do shah, unless people like us help amplify these stories, it’s never sai, and it’s never it’s never really well understood.
Speaker: 1
50:19
The biggest problem, Shamarth, is this. Very few people who’ve been in political life and had any notoriety at all have a they they have almost an impossible time of saying, I got it wrong. I made a mistake. I tried. I thought I had the answers, but I didn’t. I misread that one.
Speaker: 1
50:39
You how many times have you heard anybody in politics today or have been in politics can still say that I screwed up really on don’t ask, don’t tell, and I’ll tell you why. I was there my first twenty eleven. All the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there and explaining, and Obama wanted to get rid of it. Okay?
Speaker: 1
50:57
Because before, everybody, kind of kept a don’t ask, don’t tell that was a Bill Clinton thing. Let’s let’s let let bygones be bygones. Let let the sleeping dog lie. Well, it came out. Now, Obama wanted to get rid of it. Okay? And then I’m listening to everybody talk. It got down to the commandant of the marines.
Speaker: 1
51:16
And the marine commandant said, listen, general. He says, I’ve got 50% of my troops on the vatsal line right now. This is a heck of a policy change that could jeopardize the welfare and well-being of my troops. So I was against it. I said, don’t get rid of it.
Speaker: 1
51:30
No. No. That means if you were, you know, if you you were known to be, gay, then you could not serve. I was totally wrong on that because it they went ahead and passed it. Thank goodness. And then I found out that it didn’t change anything. Everybody already knew.
Speaker: 1
51:48
Everybody knew who was who and what their sexual preferences were. It didn’t affect their their ability to fight or defend our country. So I made a mistake. I got that wrong. And I lived up to it. And I sai I made a mistake. I’m sorry.
Speaker: 1
52:03
But I thought I was doing the right thing listening to a professional. So those things happen, but I I don’t know how we get to that. And that’s why I kept saying, if we had two six year terms for a senator, six two year terms from a house member, one eighteen year term for the United States Supreme Court, and one six year term for the president.
Speaker: 1
52:21
Maybe we can all do a better job by not worrying about the next election.
Speaker: 0
52:25
You know, as we get towards the end of our time, I wanna talk to you a little bit about how dysfunctional and unpopular, the Democrats and Republicans have been the last couple of years since Nixon. I think Trump’s first and second term, both, you know, 30 you think it’s about 37% approval rating right now. Biden ended with, like, 34%. He was averaging about 40%.
Speaker: 0
52:49
People really are not happy with their choices. And there’s a no labels group. I’ve been kinda mocked and dismissed here on this very podcast talking about, I think there’s a perfect time for a third party. And, you know, we had Ross Perot. People forget he got 19%, I believe, of the, popular vote. You are in my camp. You believe there’s a possibility and that we’re primed for it.
Speaker: 0
53:14
Give your, give your best, explanation of why you think now is the time for a third party to challenge these two extremely unpopular parties.
Speaker: 1
53:25
Jason, we’ve gotta change the process of how you know, you have a duopoly right now. A duopoly is a business monopoly almost, but it’s a duopoly. You have the corporation of the Republican and corporation of the Democrat. And that’s a business mode, and they can control the flow. So how do you control the flow?
Speaker: 1
53:41
By the primaries. You can say, well, it’s by redistricting and all this. It’s really the primary process. The primary process is this. I cannot being a no party affiliate right now and independent, that’s that’s my registration.
Speaker: 1
53:54
If I wanna vote for a friend of mine who’s a Republican in West Virginia, the Republican Party in West Virginia will not let me vote in their primary unless I register Republican. The Democrats do the same. All over the country, they do that. They close them down. Because if they can control the flow and you have maybe during, let’s say, the twenty twenty four election, let’s say 24,000,000 people, maybe 11 or 12 on each ai, DNR, participated in the ai primary.
Speaker: 1
54:21
But a 160,000,000 of us voted in the general election. But 24,000,000 people made a decision on our choices, and that’s it. And and so what I’ve said, this is our democracy is still an experiment. We thought we could govern ourself. And by governing yourself, that means we can pick representatives that represent us. I can’t even vote. So how am I I can’t participate. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
54:46
45 to 50% of us can’t participate in the primary process. We’re the largest denomination of of registered voters who can’t participate.
Speaker: 0
54:56
You’re referring, of course, to independents.
Speaker: 1
54:58
Independence. No party affiliation. Independents. There’s only about 23, 24% that are registered Democrats. About 27, 28, I think, registered Republicans. The rest are like myself. And I said Yeah. Wait a minute. The the the Voting Rights Act, they took that, you know, to the court, about the African Americans not having the right to participate and vote.
Speaker: 1
55:20
And they won that one. Why don’t we take this to court? Why don’t we do this on this podcast? You all take off with it and run with it. It should be. We’re not I am not able to be represented, and I can’t pick a representative because I can’t participate.
Speaker: 2
55:34
Let me just summarize what you’re saying. You think there’s a legal avenue under the Voting Rights Act that says what we really need is first pass the post or some form of electoral form. Otherwise, if you just do it via these primaries, we’re getting disenfranchised.
Speaker: 1
55:49
My position is this, that the majority of people who are registered to participate in a general election in The United States Of America are are basically prevented from participating in the primary process of electing who you’re gonna vote for in the general. I think there definitely is a court procedure that could could remedy this and basically stop these closed primaries. Mhmm.
Speaker: 2
56:14
Let’s talk about ’26 just specifically. What do you think happens in the senate and the house? What is the balance of power in your mind coming out of the twenty six election? The
Speaker: 1
56:22
only thing I have I have sai, and I will continue to say this because my Republican friends are the only ones that are saying, we will not get rid of the filibuster in Ai States Sana. And I hold that I hold them to their word. These are my friends, John John Thune and his and his staff and and all of his people on his leadership team. And I hope the Republicans keep the sana.
Speaker: 1
56:45
Now for that, if you want a little bit of balance of power to change challenge a little bit, calm it down a little bit, then you’d want the Democrats to win the house, the congress. And if that could happen, then it might calm it down. We’ve got to calm it down. We gotta we gotta turn down the temperature.
Speaker: 1
57:03
And if that would turn it down, maybe fine. Because when you have the trifecta, you can keep throwing stuff up there and pushing things pretty darn hard.
Speaker: 2
57:12
Joe, I know that Jason has a final question, which I’ll let him do, but I wanna I wanna give you my question.
Speaker: 1
57:17
Okay.
Speaker: 2
57:18
Let’s start with ram when you went into the sana to now when you’re leaving.
Speaker: 1
57:21
Yeah.
Speaker: 2
57:21
President Obama, then president Trump, then president Biden, and now president Trump. Give us the expectation versus the outcome on what you’ve seen from these four presidential terms, if you will. Expectation versus outcome for for these four periods.
Speaker: 1
57:43
Expectation on Obama was was that he was bringing a complete different scenario to it, an all inclusive scenario, as you will. Every now, it was possibility for all of us to participate no matter what your gender, what your race, where you boom, boom, boom. So with that, we were expecting an awful lot. And then I think he had a lot of compassion, but he just it just didn’t communicate well with the legislature.
Speaker: 1
58:09
I didn’t know that because I didn’t serve with him until I got there at the end of twenty ten, twenty eleven. And I could see you’ve got to participate. You’ve got to get involved. You gotta call him over to the White House and work him. I thought he could have done a lot more with that to get better participation. And, basically, we got rid under him. They got rid of the filibuster.
Speaker: 1
58:29
We lost the filibuster for the, judges, judicial system. And I wasn’t upset by losing him for, basically, appointments that were will and pleasure, but it went further than that. So that I think that helped that hap helped erode a lot of the checks and balances we had. Then it went further after that too.
Speaker: 1
58:49
So with that being said, then you would go right in from there, and then we have, Trump. We didn’t know what to expect, but we were thinking, here’s a businessman, always told us how successful and things of this. We were expecting some things. And Sai met with him from day one in 2016, and talked to him. And then I met with him 2017, 2018.
Speaker: 1
59:11
And there’s a cute thing in the book there when you go through my book about he said he wasn’t gonna campaign against me in 2018. He liked me. I’m his friend. Well, he ended up coming six times in my state, and they spent extra 25,000,000 trying to beat me. And then afterwards, he calls me one week later, come have lunch with me, and I’ll walk in. He said, I told you we couldn’t beat him.
Speaker: 1
59:31
And I’m thinking, well, Jesus. What the hell am I gonna say? Well, it wasn’t for ai of trying. He says, oh, Joe, you know I didn’t wanna beat you. I says, I knew you weren’t serious, mister president. If you were serious, you’d have spent 50,000,000 and came 12 times. So so that’s what I’m dealing with.
Speaker: 1
59:47
But a lot of the things he did, I was more in sync with what he was doing because he understood we had to have an oil and energy policy. Yeah. Well, Ai still would tell him, I said, mister president, we need everything. We need oil. We need gas. We need coal. We need to use a technology.
Speaker: 1
01:00:02
I said, you cannot eliminate your way to clean the environment. You can innovate it, but you can’t eliminate it. You’ve gotta use technology. Boom. So he was more in tune with what I was trying to push through than my Democrat base was and the people I was working with.
Speaker: 1
01:00:16
And then we have Joe Ai, who I had an awful lot of, oh, man. Here’s a guy I’ve worked with for a long time. And in Joe Biden, when there was a shutdown with Ted Cruz in 2013 I’ll never forget this. It was Ai, Obama sends Joe Biden to make a deal. Open this government up. Get a deal done. Joe Biden goes directly to Mitch McConnell, sits down old buddies and old friends. They cut a deal.
Speaker: 1
01:00:38
We opened the con we opened the government back up, and I went into caucus the next the next week. We opened the caucus with the Democrats. And, Harry Reid says, I told president Obama, don’t ever send that damn Joe Biden back to make a deal. We don’t want him here at all making deal for Democrats. Now he’s the president. Okay? Going to be the president. I think, boy, we got it now.
Speaker: 1
01:00:59
And, boy, was that a letdown. Went far to the left, and I don’t think that was in his heart. But he came out of Iowa bad. Came out of New Hampshire even worse. Went to South Carolina and got resurrected, and within three weeks, everybody drops out.
Speaker: 1
01:01:16
Had to make a deal, I think, with the wrong side of that and they’ll try to calm it down. And just for the sake of being president, I think he had to sign up and his people took him to the promised land of the far left, which has no return. Now with with I think president Trump has a chance to be monumental in what he can do because he has that support from a real strong base.
Speaker: 1
01:01:37
I wanna see the I wanna see the band that could just charm you when you walk in and talk to him. I wanna see that being shown now. He is the perfect bryden for the Middle East, strong sai, strong-arm. He Ai say what I meh, I mean what I say, and boom, boom, boom, using my military might.
Speaker: 1
01:01:54
That doesn’t work in the Western part of the world where we have diplomacy. We work we give and take a little bit. He’s a good enough of a negotiator to understand that, but they’re still playing. His people arya pushing him to stay hard, hard, hard. And it’s just not that’s not what we need right now in America.
Speaker: 1
01:02:12
We need a leader with that compassion, but the ability to bring us together and make us work together in The United States.
Speaker: 2
01:02:19
Last question before I give it to Jason for the last one. Last question sana.
Speaker: 1
01:02:22
No worries.
Speaker: 2
01:02:22
If you had to if you had to think about 2028, people that are on both sides, I think I think the Republicans, mostly the ai is cast, but let’s not front run that. But on the Democratic side, maybe if you will, who are some people that you think could bring some normalcy, try to veer that party back to more of the center?
Speaker: 2
01:02:45
Are there younger emerging people that you see in the Democratic caucus and in the Democratic party that you think has this potential?
Speaker: 1
01:02:53
I’m not sure it’s gonna come out if we have anybody in the United States Senate on the Democrat ai. I have people that are capable. Mark Warner, my dear friend, I know he’s capable. Is is is vatsal the all the get get out, but I’m just not sure you’re gonna break loose because you get you get ai, you get labeled. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:03:10
You’re in that Democrat party that was just so far to the left and this and that. It’s gonna be somebody coming, whether it’s gonna be a governor or an up and coming, statesman within the party, or it could be you know? Someone’s talked about Stephen a Smith. You know, Stephen?
Speaker: 2
01:03:25
Yeah. In fact, I ai, he’s He is incredible. I was on
Speaker: 1
01:03:28
his show. I’m gonna tell
Speaker: 2
01:03:29
you one thing. Incredibly dynamic.
Speaker: 1
01:03:30
He’s as center left, center right as you want. He can go both, but he’s not gonna go extreme. As good as it gets, there’s a lot of good people, I think, could rise up. Now, will the Democrat party accept him? The Democrat party has been has has been basically, taken over by the extremes. Okay? And they say, well, the MAGA party’s taken over the Republican party.
Speaker: 1
01:03:51
Grand old car party wants to be grand again. Democrats wanna be responsible and compassionate again. I tell people I’m fiscally responsible and socially compassionate, which I think most Americans are. But, and then you have, I know Steven Beshear. I mean, I know Andy Beshear because I served with his dad. We were governors together. I know he got a good family. I know those people.
Speaker: 1
01:04:12
So there’s gonna be some people rise up that might be surprising. Shapiro?
Speaker: 2
01:04:16
Do you think that there are entrepreneurs like Donald Trump but on the left? Or do you think that that avenue is closed for business people on the Democratic side?
Speaker: 1
01:04:25
I wouldn’t think so because a business person on Democratic side could come across with a heart and a soul and be a little bit more little bit more softer in their approach, you know, and I think be able to hit a nerve there. We have someone with the smarts to do it, and we have someone with the compassion, but also the strength to make sure that we remain. Sai I’m concerned.
Speaker: 1
01:04:45
My biggest concern I have is what Mike Mullen told me in 2011, my first armed services meeting, Shamat and Jason. I sat there. I I wanted they asked the question, what’s the greatest fear The United States Of America has right today? And that’s 2011. I thought he was gonna talk about China, about North Korea, about Iran, on and on and on. He never missed a beat.
Speaker: 1
01:05:06
Within one second, he says, the debt of the nation will take us down. We will fold because the debt we have and it’s gonna be unmanaged debt, which will make us lead us to make cowardly decisions. And we’re at 37,000,000,000,000. One doll one every $5 that we receive for revenue to run our country takes $1 of that 20% just to pay the debt on our our interest, our interest on our debt.
Speaker: 1
01:05:31
It’s worth it. Jamie
Speaker: 0
01:05:32
Dimon, Bob Iger come to ai?
Speaker: 1
01:05:35
Absolutely. That’d be I mean, I I would be receptive to all. There’s a lot of good people. I think it’s gonna be very interesting. The Democratic party will have to get out of its own way and its ideology left. People aren’t going that direction. Let me give you one other thing, Jason, to think about. Bernie and, and and AOC is going around the country with these rallies and rallies.
Speaker: 2
01:05:56
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:05:56
If that was effective and that’s where the country’s going, why has the Democrats lost, lost, basically, people who were registered. They’ve lost registration of over a 100,000 people who’ve left the Democratic party since they’ve started that crusade.
Speaker: 0
01:06:12
Nobody wants it. It’s a road to nowhere.
Speaker: 1
01:06:14
No. That’s exactly right.
Speaker: 0
01:06:16
Wow. Big Joe, you you you’ve been so, honest and candid here. It’s okay if I call you Big Joe?
Speaker: 1
01:06:21
Because I just I don’t know. I’ve been called Big Joe. You know what? Joe Biden called me. He says, Jojo. I can always tell if he was in a good mood with me. He say, hey, Jojo. What’s going on? And if he was pissed, hey, Joe. What’s wrong?
Speaker: 0
01:06:33
Oh oh, yeah. I’ll just call you Big Joe because I got a lot of respect for you. Okay. You’ve been so honest today, and so, you can be permission to be totally candid here. How close did you come to running as an independent for president? And you could be especially candid about this.
Speaker: 0
01:06:48
How would you now that you got this great book and a great track record, obviously, Ai in Courage, how would you make the decision to run yourself in 2020? Walk us through both.
Speaker: 1
01:06:58
I think about first of all, I would have loved to have been, and I begged the Democratic Ai to have a mini primary, thirty day primary when Joe Biden Love it. I I begged him. I said, you had to you had to dispel some of the things that they were labeled with. Not every Democrat believed in that.
Speaker: 1
01:07:16
That would have been a time to dispel sai lot of that stuff. But, boy, when he come doubled down and came right back within, what, an hour or two and threw everything behind Kamala Harris, it was over. And, you know, her I knew we were in trouble then. I would have loved to have been on that ai.
Speaker: 2
01:07:32
Would you have run-in a speed run? Would you have put yourself out there in a speed run? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:07:36
I’d have been right in there. I’d have been I’d done everything I could to be talking about things that we’re talking about now. Do we need energy? Absolutely. Don’t turn your back on energy. This is make sure we do it better than anybody in the world. Do you need a do you need a a strong border?
Speaker: 1
01:07:50
Well, let me ask you something. You all have property lines. When you buy a piece of property and a house, you either build a fence or you live in a gated area, you wanna protect your property. Why can’t we protect our borders? But also have a legal immigration policy that works. I could have brought all of that stuff out.
Speaker: 1
01:08:05
And Ai I think a lot of Democrats believe ai I do, but they’ve gone so far to the left, they can’t retreat. And if they don’t get out of their way, they’re gonna go down and defeat.
Speaker: 2
01:08:14
Mhmm. And so twenty twenty eight, to Jason’s question?
Speaker: 1
01:08:18
Yeah. Well, twenty twenty eight, ai, I mean, if we have to sai, I’ll do anything I can to help my ai. But, you know, I wanna make sure 2028, I will be what? I’m 78 years old right now.
Speaker: 0
01:08:27
You’re gonna be 81, Ram Bryden, close to Trump. Yeah. And you’re sharp as a tack.
Speaker: 1
01:08:31
And I’m I’m a year younger. I’ll be the I’ll give you something. Mitt Romney and I were talking about running. I said, Mitt Mitt. He said, Joe, let’s look. We have to start a new party. I said, what would it be, Mitt? Meh he said, we’ll call it a not stupid party. Ai said, hell, they might question us why we’re involved then.
Speaker: 1
01:08:46
And
Speaker: 2
01:08:48
and then So
Speaker: 0
01:08:49
what are we doing here?
Speaker: 1
01:08:50
Yeah. And then I said, well, Mitt, what do you think? He said, Joe, listen. He said, they don’t want two old white guys running. And I said, we’re the youngest ones out there right now.
Speaker: 0
01:08:59
Yeah. You’re whipper snappers.
Speaker: 1
01:09:01
We’re both a year younger. We have a lot of fun with that. We talk a lot. Anyway, look, we’ll just see what happens. I’m gonna I’m gonna be involved every way I can, and the good lord gives me the health and strength to participate. Any way I possibly can, I will? But I guarantee I’ll be trying to find the right people that put country before party and all the bullshit behind them, and let’s get this country back on track.
Speaker: 0
01:09:23
Heck yes. Joe, on ai the
Speaker: 2
01:09:24
on behalf of the Yeah. All in community, I just wanna say thank you for your years of service. Buy the book.
Speaker: 0
01:09:30
Yeah. Dead center. You’re in defense of common sense. Don’t be stupid.
Speaker: 2
01:09:34
Your daughter is incredible. Heather is the best.
Speaker: 1
01:09:37
Heather is a force, and you know that she’s the best.
Speaker: 2
01:09:39
She’s in the
Speaker: 1
01:09:39
world of you and your wife
Speaker: 2
01:09:41
and your family, but
Speaker: 1
01:09:42
I’m just so happy that we got to spend a little time together. And I look forward to coming out with you all and Jason to meet
Speaker: 0
01:09:47
with ai. Do a live live one. Yeah. We’ll talk
Speaker: 1
01:09:49
about it. Live one. Oh, we’ll have one hell of a polka party.
Speaker: 0
01:09:52
That’ll be a big break. That’ll be a bar b bar. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s your hour with Joe Manchin.
Speaker: 1
01:09:56
Thank you ai.