Speaker 1: So when Joe Biden won in November, we started a conversation about what will
Joe Biden be able to get done?
What will be the parameters and the limits of what Joe Biden can do.
And I made the case that Joe Manchin, the Democratic senator from West Virginia, who
is arguably the most right wing of the Democratic senators, was really going to be a problem,
was really going to be an impediment, was really going to be a major obstacle.
And some people in the audience got it.
But many wrote to me and said, David, you know, I think you're overstating the case
about Joe Manchin here.
And I maintained, no, I'm not.
No, I believe that Joe Manchin really is going to be this big of a problem.
And we are now learning just how big of a problem Joe Manchin is going to be.
CNN reports Democratic Senator Joe Manchin on Sunday yesterday defended his decision
to vote against a sweeping voting rights bill and reiterated his opposition to gutting the
filibuster, declaring in the strongest terms yet that he is not willing to change Senate
rules to help his party push through much of Joe Biden's agenda.
Manchin said they call him a moderate Democrat, which is a very favorable term.
Manchin said, quote, I believe that partizan voting legislation will destroy the already
weakening binds of our democracy.
And for that reason, I will vote against the for the people act further.
I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.
This is what's so sick about this position.
It's basically a both sides type position.
What I mean by that is Joe Manchin is saying, well, if I am going to do voting rights legislation,
I don't want it to be partizan or one sided.
But the problem is that the other side, the Republican Party, is using disenfranchisement
as a tool to try to win elections.
Joe Manchin seems to think and maybe he believes it or maybe he's just saying it, that if one
side wants to pass partizan legislation to prevent people from being able to legally
vote and the other side wants to pass legislation to ensure everyone who's entitled to vote
can vote, they're both simply partizan voting rights, pieces of legislation.
This is it's hard to imagine a more depraved sort of both sides type argument.
And this is exactly what I feared would happen with Joe Manchin.
And it is indeed happening.
Huffington Post is also reporting about this, saying that Senator Joe Manchin said he won't
vote for his party's for the People Act, a bill focused on expanding voting rights.
Again, the idea that.
Limiting voting rights, which is against the Constitution, against the law, against what
this country is built on and expanding voting rights for people who can legally vote are
just two sides of the same political coin.
That is the full end position toxicity level of the idea of the enlightened centrist.
And I'm not going to be super partizan on either side.
When one side is trying to take rights away.
You can't say, well, I don't want to get involved on this side either, because we're just as
partizan and trying to make sure people have their rights.
That's not the way it works.
And this is the sort of you know, I use the term enlightened centrism sometimes to refer
to online commentators or whatever who want to pretend to kind of be above the partizan
fray and see both sides.
But this is one of 100 members of the U.S. Senate who is equating taking voting rights
away as a partizan act by Republicans to giving voting rights as a partizan act by Democrats
when the reality is what the Constitution says and what the law says should be the guiding
principle here.
So it's truly unbelievable and disgusting.
Kirsten Sinema on the Democratic side, also arguably a problem in some areas and will
ultimately see what happens with this for for the people act.
But this does not look good.
Now, I know that many people will say, well, David, then let's primary Joe Manchin.
I'm not against primary anybody, as I've said before, primary, whoever the hell you want,
simply understand what the consequences of that might be.
I don't see how a more progressive Democrat wins in West Virginia.
My instinct is based on the Pew polling data I've seen out of West Virginia, that if you
successfully primary Joe Manchin with a more progressive Democrat, which I don't even know
if one would win, but if Joe Manchin loses a Democratic primary to a more progressive
Democrat, it seems almost certain that more progressive Democrat loses the eventual general
election.
And then you have a Republican in that seat.
So obviously, this is disgusting.
Obviously, I find all of this completely disgusting and counterproductive and retrograde.
And it's exactly what we predicted in November was going to happen.
So I'm not surprised by it.
But Manchin still mostly votes for Democrats.
So I'm not defending the guy.
I'm merely saying you're playing with fire.
If what you might do to fix the Joe Manchin problem loses Democrats, the majority in the
Senate.
Now, of course, there will be other races as well when Joe Manchin is up.
So it's more complicated than that.
But I'm curious to hear from you about it, because it's not at all clear to me that the
wind the way to win this is by removing Manchin and putting at risk that seat maybe being
taken over by a Republican.
I would be you know, my instinct is Biden talks about how great a negotiator he is.
Well, negotiate with this guy.
Biden brags about negotiating across the aisle, negotiate with your own side to get this guy
on board if you're really the great diplomat and negotiator you claim to be.
And in some senses, Joe Biden is a good negotiator.
He's done some some good things negotiating, then convince this guy.
What are we waiting for?
I think we need to find a way to push mankind into supporting at least some of this stuff
because the risk of losing him to a Republican in that seat to me seems great.
I'm curious if the risk is great.
It's not a good thing to be clear.
Let me know what you think.
I want to hear from you about it