Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Now back here in our Washington, d C studios. I'm
Speaker 2: pleased to say Joe and I are joined by a
Speaker 2: very important guest, the former Senator from West Virginia, first,
Speaker 2: a Democrat, that an independent, Joe Manchin is here with
Speaker 2: us on balance of power. He of course also is
Speaker 2: author of Dead Center in Defense of Common Sense. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much, Senator.
Speaker 1: For thanks for having your time with both of you, and.
Speaker 2: We do want to get into the politics of today
Speaker 2: and your dead Center thesis here, But if we could
Speaker 2: begin with Ron, the conflict that the President pursued and
Speaker 2: that Congress, frankly, to this point has played very little
Speaker 2: role in. I wonder if you're looking at your former
Speaker 2: colleagues who had no say in the start of this war,
Speaker 2: have had no say in the conduct of this war
Speaker 2: to this point, but some are suggesting should have a
Speaker 2: say in how it ends, if this is to end
Speaker 2: in some kind of formalized treatment.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, in any of these conflicts, if
Speaker 1: you look back through history, even if they did not
Speaker 1: go the way we intended them to go, there always
Speaker 1: knowledge of what was going to happen. And if you
Speaker 1: had a chance you could agree, and you could agree
Speaker 1: to disagree. This had no input whatsoever or any knowledge
Speaker 1: of what was going to ear the end game, what
Speaker 1: was going to happen, And I think it's been hard
Speaker 1: to dissect what was our main purpose. Everyone was concerned
Speaker 1: about them having nuclear arsenals and if they did, and
Speaker 1: their prolific terrorism support around the world. It was something
Speaker 1: we all should be concerned. The free world should be
Speaker 1: concerned about that. And you could have brought more people
Speaker 1: along if we could have proven that they were at
Speaker 1: this enrichment that we had to do something at that time,
Speaker 1: we could have had a multi, multi nation of Okay,
Speaker 1: how do we keep the straits open, how do we
Speaker 1: secure free shipping? How do we make sure they do
Speaker 1: not have access to nuclear weapons? They can do harm
Speaker 1: to everybody, And we're not going to basically force a
Speaker 1: regime chain because we've never been good at that. It's
Speaker 1: an ideology, it's not just a position. So with that
Speaker 1: being said, could we have neutralized them so they could
Speaker 1: not add that reach that they've had so with the
Speaker 1: hoodies and amas and and all their different has belong,
Speaker 1: all their different sanctions, if you will, as far as
Speaker 1: around around that part of the world, and also making
Speaker 1: sure that the Gulf States. You know, I've said, this
Speaker 1: is not going to be a gentile country, a Jewish country.
Speaker 1: They can go into the Muslim world and government that
Speaker 1: can't do it. What they can do is help prepare
Speaker 1: the basis for a Muslim basically a regime that is
Speaker 1: more agreeable with the world order. So we've got to hope, now,
Speaker 1: how do we get out of this? But they can't
Speaker 1: return right now unless you know, you've stopped the main
Speaker 1: intent of having nuclear weapons, and that means where is
Speaker 1: the rich you know, I hope it's not another Iraq.
Speaker 1: We had wars of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't find its right, So we're hoping that's
Speaker 1: not the case. And I don't they've just I mean,
Speaker 1: we thought we've newted them, if you will, But my goodness,
Speaker 1: they keep firing and they keep having missiles. And I'm
Speaker 1: understanding China has really come in strong in help and
Speaker 1: defense of our end. That's not a good sign.
Speaker 3: But so the extent you think Congress has abdicated its
Speaker 3: duties so far, there will be another inflection point coming
Speaker 3: when we reach the sixty day mark of this conflict
Speaker 3: that'll be on April twenty ninth, and we've heard from
Speaker 3: a number of members it said, look, you know, the
Speaker 3: president's got some bandwidth here. Does the debate change at
Speaker 3: that point in the parlance of war powers, when we're
Speaker 3: sixty days into this and there might not be an
Speaker 3: end insight.
Speaker 1: Well it should. You know, we've up until Iraq and
Speaker 1: Afghanistan wars, we paid for every wars and dedicated funds
Speaker 1: that paid for the wars that we had, so we
Speaker 1: didn't incur any more than debtedness. We saw what the
Speaker 1: Afghanistan Iraq war did to us as far as it's
Speaker 1: accumulating more debt, and now we're at thirty nine pushing
Speaker 1: forty trillion dollars. A civilized country cannot survive that because
Speaker 1: sooner or later it's going to be such a burden
Speaker 1: on the people, the citizens, that they will reject what's
Speaker 1: going on. And when that happens, you just get total dysfunction.
Speaker 1: We're close to that, and we're an inflection point now
Speaker 1: to where okay, no one's talking about the debt. We've raised.
Speaker 1: We've increased the debt more in the last five months,
Speaker 1: faster than any history. As I'm understanding, it's over one
Speaker 1: trillion dollars. This is whenever the debt exceeds the cost
Speaker 1: of defending your country. So we're one trillion dollars. We've
Speaker 1: passed a one trillion mark. That's greater than what we
Speaker 1: have as far as what we pay to defend the country.
Speaker 1: I know the President wants to increase that to one
Speaker 1: point five trillion dollars. That's going to be a very
Speaker 1: very heavy lift. The power of the purse is still
Speaker 1: in the House, okay, and it has to have agreement
Speaker 1: with the Senate. That's the balance you have. The Senate
Speaker 1: has the filibuster, the sixty vote threshold, which is a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing for our country up until now. It's the
Speaker 1: only time it's not wonderful is if you're in power,
Speaker 1: if you're in the majority, you want total absolute power.
Speaker 1: So the Democrats wanted to get rid of the filibuster
Speaker 1: when they had it last twenty twenty with Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: I would not do it under any circumstances, and Christian
Speaker 1: Simon did not do it. So without us two, or
Speaker 1: without even one of us, they could not get rid
Speaker 1: of the filibuster. Now the President wants the Republicans to
Speaker 1: get rid of it because they want a voting right,
Speaker 1: and both of them want to get rid of it
Speaker 1: because of a voting of a voting law that that's
Speaker 1: both one Deersions Save America Act. Yeah. So with that
Speaker 1: being on, I said, wait a minute, the bottom line
Speaker 1: is you're going to be flip flopping back like most
Speaker 1: European parliaments do. If you do that, we have stable government.
Speaker 1: When we pass legislation, it's going to be there for
Speaker 1: quite some time. It's harder to get rid of it. Yeah. Two,
Speaker 1: and what happens is that we won't be that superpower
Speaker 1: with the predictability instability that the world has looked towards.
Speaker 1: And right now I'm concerned about that. Well.
Speaker 2: And your defense of the filibuster has been well documented
Speaker 2: to this point. The Senate Majority Leader John Thune has
Speaker 2: also tried his best to defend it. Refuse the talking
Speaker 2: filibuster that President Trump asked, for example. But I wonder
Speaker 2: what you make of the notion that to get around
Speaker 2: the filibuster, we're just doing a bunch of budget reconciliation packages. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you are a critical vote for Democrats and the Biden
Speaker 2: administration and a reconciliation package. We've seen Republicans already successfully
Speaker 2: pursue one this Congress. They're talking now about two point
Speaker 2: zero and three point oh. Was this just the way
Speaker 2: we're going to do something?
Speaker 1: Well, this is exactly what the Democrats try to do.
Speaker 1: And I told Chuck Schumer, I said, Chuck, the establishment
Speaker 1: of the Senate is the most liberate body in the world. Okay.
Speaker 1: It was not designed to run on simple majority fifty one.
Speaker 1: It was designed to run on more of a consensus,
Speaker 1: and that means that the minority would always have input.
Speaker 1: As a senator. It didn't really make that much difference
Speaker 1: to those of us who might not be the majority
Speaker 1: leader or in leadership, because we still had input. We
Speaker 1: could talk, our voice was important, and our vote was
Speaker 1: very important. So you always were needed to sit down
Speaker 1: and negotiate and work through things. Now they're getting to
Speaker 1: the point where they said, we'll just disregard that. And
Speaker 1: I told President Biden. I said, President, what you're doing
Speaker 1: here and allowing this to go into reconciliation coming in
Speaker 1: with American Rescue Plan ARP is wrong. I said, you're
Speaker 1: the one on the stage as I recall running for
Speaker 1: president that said, I know how it works. I've worked
Speaker 1: with these people. I know how to bring people together.
Speaker 1: And now you're throwing a nuclear option, what we call
Speaker 1: the nuclear option, just coming out of the gate. And
Speaker 1: I believe they would have ran the one hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeenth Congress, which is twenty twenty one through twenty January
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, with four reconciliation bills two and twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one in two and twenty two, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to you need my vote, You're not
Speaker 1: going to get it. Not going to happen. And I
Speaker 1: killed the build back better because it was basically thrown
Speaker 1: so much. It had been a ten trillion dollar bill,
Speaker 1: we'd have thrown the world, I believe into a recession,
Speaker 1: if not a depression. It was awful. You cannot digest
Speaker 1: that much money in the system when they did the
Speaker 1: When American Rescue Plan was passed in January of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, that means within one year we put five
Speaker 1: point one trillion dollars of government spending. The end of
Speaker 1: the system, we run the government about five and a
Speaker 1: half train dollars. During that period of time, we doubled
Speaker 1: the amount of money we couldn't digest it. You talk
Speaker 1: about fraud, abuse, some waste, that's how it happens. And
Speaker 1: you see what's happening when.
Speaker 3: We were all chasing you around every day up there,
Speaker 3: trying to get a number from you. And I mean,
Speaker 3: you really held the cards at that point, Senator, who's
Speaker 3: the Joe Manchin?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Because they're talking about two point zero and three point zero,
Speaker 3: the President's already backed one of these plans. They're talking
Speaker 3: about Save America maybe being in the next one, and
Speaker 3: everyone wants to know how many limbs we can get
Speaker 3: on this Christmas tree?
Speaker 1: Is there a mansion or a set? I would like
Speaker 1: to I think there is. I truly believe in my
Speaker 1: heart of hearts there is. Yeah. But what they have
Speaker 1: to come to realization what's your purpose? Is it about
Speaker 1: your country or about your party? So once you get
Speaker 1: that in your mind, who do I serve? I said,
Speaker 1: I told Harry Read one time. I said, Harry, I
Speaker 1: can't vote for that. He got upset and I said, Hary, listen,
Speaker 1: you didn't hire me, and you can't fire me. And
Speaker 1: I said, I don't work for you. I don't work
Speaker 1: for the president. I don't work for anyone here except
Speaker 1: my oath to the Constitution to protect and defend it.
Speaker 1: I took that oath and the people back home in
Speaker 1: West Virginia, and if I can't go home and explain it,
Speaker 1: I'm not voting for it. I was never afraid of
Speaker 1: getting defeated to go home because I had to live
Speaker 1: with my and I know there's enough good Republicans and
Speaker 1: enough good Democrats that feel the same way. They seem
Speaker 1: to have the courage. This might be my last hurrah.
Speaker 1: But if I'm going to go out, I'm going out
Speaker 1: on my terms and do what's right for your country.
Speaker 1: But you know, you can be respectfully. The president has
Speaker 1: a temper. I know him pretty well, but you can
Speaker 1: work with him. Just be respectful, and said, mister President.
Speaker 1: If he gets mad and calls you dumb, stupid and
Speaker 1: ugly and everything else, just say, oh, he doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean that. He's my friend. He'll get over it. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but do it respectfully, because I think he would respect
Speaker 1: that more. Knowing that you feel very strongly about your position.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing in the political arena today. It's easy
Speaker 1: to be against something. Tell me what you would be
Speaker 1: for if we could change it help me before you,
Speaker 1: I'm against it. Have you thought about this? Would you
Speaker 1: try this? I think it might work better. I've done
Speaker 1: what you're going to do right now, and I've made
Speaker 1: that mistake. I'm asking you not to repeat it. You know,
Speaker 1: be positive, don't be negative, don't call people names, don't
Speaker 1: say saw the Democrats fault or it's all the Republicans fault.
Speaker 1: It's all of our fault for allowing the Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republicans to mess the system up this bad.
Speaker 2: Well, it gets back to your dead Center book and
Speaker 2: our final moment here a senator candid dead center candidate
Speaker 2: survive the primary system to have a successful run at
Speaker 2: the presidency? Would you try, sir?
Speaker 1: I would have loved to been able to be on
Speaker 1: the stage, to be able to talk what was normal
Speaker 1: and common sense to people, how they live their lives,
Speaker 1: what's important to them, and how we treat people around
Speaker 1: the world, and how we have people that want the
Speaker 1: same quality of life the same economies that we have
Speaker 1: here in the US. That's what you prosper To be
Speaker 1: a superpower the world takes more than being just a
Speaker 1: super military or a super economy. You have to have
Speaker 1: supercompassion for those less Fortunately, and if you don't show that,
Speaker 1: people won't follow you. We've got to change and the system,
Speaker 1: the process, whether it's a third candidate, change the process
Speaker 1: of how we elect. Open up your primaries, let more people,
Speaker 1: don't let the Democrat Republican Party control everything because they're
Speaker 1: screwing it up.
Speaker 3: You got to love that Kaylee's still asking you whether
Speaker 3: you're going to run, right, that's the point there. Joe
Speaker 3: Manchers and us live in Washington.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Joe. Good to be with you
Speaker 1: only here. Thank you, thank you.