Bipartisanship is a dirty
word in some circles in Washington.
Just ask Speaker Mike Johnson.
So I sat down with two long time
Senate veterans to discuss
how they view their parties
and what they believe has gone wrong.
Democratic West Virginia Senator
Joe Manchin is not seeking
reelection this year,
and he just launched a new group
with his daughter
called Americans Together.
Former Republican Ohio
Senator Rob Portman
is working on his Portman Center
for Policy Solutions
at the University of Cincinnati.
Now, I spoke with both lawmakers
after moderating that panel
with them at the University
of Chicago's Institute of Politics.
They had tough words for their parties
and the top of their tickets.
But we began by talking
about the changing makeup
and views of the Senate GOP,
such as over Ukraine.
Portman, a staunch advocate,
was replaced by Republican Senator J.D.
Vance, who is fiercely opposed.
We agree on a lot.
We disagree on some.
And one is Ukraine,
and we have a strong disagreement there.
But I have a disagreement
with other colleagues, too, on that.
It's not just J.D..
There are more Republicans now saying
let's allow
Vladimir Putin to have his way.
And the consequences of
that would be disastrous
for our national security.
We talked
about
just the changing nature of the Senate.
Are you concerned that the moderates
are being dropped out of your party?
What I'm really concerned about
is if we lose the filibuster,
you won't create any new moderates.
You will not have a middle at all.
It will be swinging from the left
and the right.
That's not who America is.
That probably scares me
more than anything.
Every one of us should be ashamed
of what we're
what we're living through now.
And 118th Congress,
every Congress up
until this 118th Congress
has basically
produced about 500 bills
that we could work on and agree on.
And pass some form of a piece
of legislation. 500 to 520.
We've only passed 69 bills.
When you look at this,
this Congress on the outside,
are they doing their job?
Well, no, in the sense that the Congress
isn't doing much legislating
and they've been rather dysfunctional.
The border policy,
I think, has become
sort of the poster child of what
I'm talking about,
that it's hard
to solve policy issues these days
because both the right
and the left seem to get some advantage
from things being unsolved. From the.
You clearly disagreed
with Senate Republicans
blocking that bipartisan secure border
security deal.
I think it was a step in the right
direction incrementally.
Was it perfect? No.
But let's face it, we have done
nothing since 1986 in this area.
It's a disaster
on the border
to deal with the asylum
issue, as they did,
I thought was incredibly important.
Did you think Trump just wanted
this issue?
That's why he killed us?
Yeah, I think that's part of it.
Part of
it was some substantive differences.
But here's the deal.
It was incrementally
good for the country.
Are you comfortable with him
as the nominee?
Well, that was not my decision to make.
You're an. Ohio voter.
Yeah.
I mean,
he's he's
definitely gonna be the nominee.
I you know, I would imagine that
he has a very good chance
of being president.
Who are you going to vote for him?
Well, I'm looking at the policies
you've made.
I'm not going to vote for
for President Biden.
Was that the right decision,
do you think, to impeach my office?
No.
My problem with that
impeachment
is that if you were to impeach somebody
for following the policy direction
of the White House
rather than focusing on the White House,
then you're going to have
that happening again
and again, tit for tat.
Make no mistake about it,
I think Joe Biden has been
has done a bad job on the border.
Now, with that being said, he's
to blame for the border.
You think Biden supply for the border.
He made the decision.
It opened up
and they haven't closed it down.
He has to take blame for what is wrong,
but he's accepting it now to fix it.
And then it's not being fixed
because of politics.
That's what people don't like.
They're going to vote
for President Biden.
I'll go vote for President Trump.
And I've known Joe Biden for a long time.
And it's not the Joe
Biden I'm seeing today.
The way he's being pulled so far
left by his administration.
I want to see him take charge again.
I want the President Biden
to be the president
when he was running in 2020.
That's not a yes or no. I mean, yes.
Do you want to wait?
I don't want Trump to win.
So then you guess
you want to know where I won?
Want President Trump?
I love my country too much.
Do you look back in the two impeachments
that you had with Trump and regret
any of your votes to acquit him?
No.
I mean, I would apply the same standard.
In other words, President Trump was
was not in office,
which I think is not constitutional,
which I think is not
what the founders intended.
After January 6th. Yeah.
Have we reached the bottom
in American politics?
I think the fever will break here.
And I think that the parties,
you know,
don't represent the country anymore.
Shouldn't you, you know,
you retiring,
stuck around for try to problem.
I mean, 42 years.
How long are you optimistic?