Overtime – Episode #707: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Alex Wagner

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO Late Night Series, Real Time with Bill Ma.

All right.

He's a former independent senator from West Virginia and author of Dead Senator Joe Manchin, and she's an MSNBC senior political analyst and contributor to the Pod Save America podcast.

Alex Wagner.

Okay, here's what the people want to know.

The people, a center-left think tank third way, recently calculated, circulated a list of 45 words, oh, I read this, and phrases that want Democrats, they want Democrats to avoid using, including privilege, microaggression, unhoused person.

Is this good advice for the party?

Not at all.

Let the person be who they are.

Now, there's only a voter out there that can't tell you, I believe, if you're real or not real.

And I've always said in West Virginia, growing up, people could shake your hand, look in your eyes, and see your soul.

It's all they had.

If you are who you are, they'll know it.

If you're in it for the right reason, they'll know it.

And if you've got to basically explain to them that you're maybe not radicalized or a complete different far left that they don't understand, you know, the Democratic Party has lost 160,000 registered Democrats since this November election.

If they think the country is going more left, why is the Democrats losing their own people?

They've got to come back to center.

Center left, center rights where you were in the country.

And all these types of things are saying, well, this makes this person non-electable, or basically it drives people away from the party.

The thing that drives them away is we're not getting the character and the quality of the person we used to get.

But I think the point here was that the words themselves

are connected to ideas that people...

I was asked, I've got to tell you this, I couldn't even believe it.

Now I come from West Virginia, okay, and it's a wonderful, beautiful state with great people.

I'm getting interviewed at one of the college campuses and the beautiful young person who did that, they says, now, how do you want to be addressed?

I says, I'm Joe Manchin.

And he says, no, he or it or, I say, what are your pronouns?

And I said, what are your pronouns?

I said, it is not one of them, but yes.

They.

She gave me that option.

They.

She gave me that option.

She didn't say it.

She said, they.

You want to be they.

I wanted to be Joe.

Right.

And I kept saying, Joe.

And she had a hard time with that.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Well, Joe.

Well, maybe because she was a little bit of a child.

Not to be.

Never to make big changes in life.

The interview didn't go that well to that.

Okay.

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Is the government headed toward a shutdown?

Ooh, I'm furious.

It's ridiculous.

There's no one.

Is it not?

I'm going to say it's not.

I think there's enough Democrats that'll work with Republicans not to shut it down.

They're just not talking.

This whole thing's blown apart, and they said, we're going to use this and wedge this or wedge that.

If you vote to shut down, you're basically telling the American people, I can't do my job.

And what's funny, I can't do it.

Who runs the legislative branch?

The Republican Party.

Yes.

The idea that Democrats need to...

Listen, I understand there would be a political cost.

The Senate or the Congress?

Listen.

House.

It's the Senate.

That's going to go to the Senate.

It passed the House.

It passed the House, but the Senate is basically the...

Well, what passed the House?

The shutdown?

The

CR is the problem.

The CR is going to have to be a problem.

No, they passed it to basically.

Let me just set the table first before you say this.

For years, it was the Republicans who threatened to shut down the government when the government, and they did sometimes.

Now it's the reverse.

The Democrats, the reason why this is an issue is because some people in the Democratic Party are saying this is the only leverage we have against the President and the Congress, which is on his side.

This is the only thing we can do is shut down the government, which is ironic a little because, again, they were always forced not to it.

They won't even talk so.

I'm sorry, Alex.

But

there is a sense that the Democrats are up against a wall.

They have nothing.

This president has run roughshod against the Constitution.

He does not care about bipartisanship.

He doesn't care about arguably half the country.

And people are saying, where the hell are the Democrats?

Democrats have a series of talking points that haven't really resonated.

You have a few singular Democrats who are out there fighting the good fight as joyful warriors.

I'm not going to name names.

But

those in the legislative branch, where are they?

If this is their only lever, shouldn't they pull it?

If that's what they're concerned about, when you shut the government down, how many people are harmed by that?

Down the chain.

I mean, so many different ways.

How you get your service.

Well, that was always their argument.

That is the argument there.

And I've told them I said.

And does it really change it?

It doesn't change.

Because at some point, you have to go back to the back.

You have to open it back up.

You have to go back up.

And whoever is harmed is going to hold that against.

I know when Ted Cruz shut it down one year, we couldn't figure out.

I said, Ted, what are you proving here?

We have to get back and let's get working things.

And they finally did.

You know who came up and made the deal with

McDonald, Senator McConnell from Kentucky was Ted Cruz.

I mean, was Joe Biden.

And the Democrats got mad.

He says, Don't you send that Joe Biden up here anymore to make a deal.

I have a hard time.

I imagine that Chuck Schumer is going to do a redux of what he did last time, given the blowback that he got from his own party.

But we'll see.

He got it from the left.

He got it from the extreme.

He's a Democrat.

He has to be the leader.

If he's going to be the leader, he has to stand strong.

This does not, don't punish the country for not doing your job and sitting down working with people.

The whole thing about the winner.

What do you mean doing a redux of what he did?

Chuck Schumer,

Chuck Schumer kept the government open by rallying Democrats and passing a budget.

He did the right thing.

He's not going to do it.

But it got an extraordinary amount of blowback.

And we're talking about, it's not just, like, let's just be clear.

Yes, it is funding the government.

It is also funding Trump's agenda, which there are masked agents pulling people off the streets.

It's like the handmaid's tail down in the South.

I mean, people are looking at a country that they don't recognize.

Half the people feel like this is.

Shutting it down is not going to change.

I understand.

I'm not an elected.

You give the president more discretion.

That may be more powerful.

I'm luckily not a person that has to decide that.

I just think that it's more complicated than just,

you know, we don't like this and we're going to shut the government down.

It's a tape.

The Senate was designed for the minority to have a voice.

That's the thing.

The difference between the House and the Senate is the House operates on 218, simple majority.

The Senate was never designed that way.

The Senate was designed to cool things down.

It's going to come hot as a firecracker for Democrats, Republicans.

Yeah, we haven't done too good at that.

No.

But you're talking about the bottom line is this.

Do your job.

Talk to each other.

Get to know each other.

They don't do that.

In her new book.

In her new book, Kamala Harris said she wanted to pick Pete Buttigieg as her BP, but didn't because she didn't think America was ready for a ticket with a black woman and a gay man.

Was she right?

Yeah.

I mean, I wish we were, but I don't, I mean, I think based on what we saw,

that was probably the right calculation.

I was the person that kept saying, why don't you have a 30-day mini-primary after Joe Biden dropped out?

Well, yeah.

Find out that the cream will rise.

Find out what the new issues are and get rid of some of the old issues that you're dragging along with you that the Democrats have been saddled with.

They don't want to do that.

They do.

There are gay people in the Trump administration.

Yeah.

And they're really standing up for them.

One of them is always fighting.

Scott Besant.

Yeah, one of them is always like saying, I'm going to punch you in the fucking face.

Literally.

No, really.

Literally.

Yeah, okay.

So there, yeah.

Well, I'm just saying.

I know Scott is a good person.

I didn't hear that.

Pete Woodigitz is an

extraordinarily talented politician and maybe could run for the presidency himself one day, maybe will.

But I just think her calculation about where the country's at.

His support among African Americans is zero.

Well, so, you know, the strategy and the thinking is maybe not off.

I'm just saying politics is complicated.

Yeah.

Okay.

People are complicated.

I mean, I know the Republicans would say, well, if you had the right politics, we don't care if you're black.

We've had Herman Cain run.

We've had lots of people run.

We have, you know, 20% of black men voted for Trump in the last election.

And gay, we don't care about that either.

I mean, Trump was in the news recently.

They asked him about that.

And he's like, some people like spaghetti, some people like steak, that's why they have menus.

You kind of have to love that answer.

So maybe it's just, I mean, this is what they used to say about Hillary, and people say, oh, you just hate Hillary, and we're not ready for a woman president.

And they would say, just not that one.

We just don't like that one.

You keep insisting.

And I liked Hillary.

I voted for her.

I thought she'd be a fine president.

But, you know, I can't look into them and say, you know,

you don't think the Republicans would vote for a woman?

I just think misogyny runs deeper and stronger than you'd like to imagine.

I'm not.

I think if the country is ready for a change, bill, and if it has a good woman and a good, strong woman, I think

every time I had to negotiate a bill and I had senators, female senators, I always got, I thought, a better bill.

The compassion they brought to it, the understanding they brought to it was different than what a man thinks.

And they had so much more.

So maybe.

But then why are we so far behind most other countries in the world?

I don't know.

White women keep giving elections to Donald Trump.

So, you know, there's that reality, too.

It's not just we're talking about a binary here where it's men and women.

Just misogyny knows no joke.

I'm just saying, but why is America, you're saying America is so misogynistic they wouldn't vote for a woman leader.

And I'm saying Pakistan did.

So why are we behind, and I think maybe 100 countries

at least have had a woman leader.

My daughter, Heather, when I said, when I,

she said, Dad, you know what kind of business you're in?

I said, I'm not in the business.

I'm in

ideology and trying to do things right in public service.

She says, no.

You got two business.

You got a Democrat, you have a

Democrat and a Republican business.

It's billions and billions of dollars.

And they close it down.

They control the primaries.

They can basically control who you're voting for.

Think 160 million people voted in the last general election, 2024.

Only 20 million people decided who you're going to vote for.

You can't even get in the primaries closed.

And now if you in a state, and I will say this about California, thank God, California is an open state.

You have to have 51%.

They are basically as open as it gets.

And some of the states and most of the states are closing down.

If you're 51% of the people registered, no party affiliation like me, which you call independents.

Only 23% are Democrats.

Only 26% are Republicans.

Okay, 51% no party affiliation.

They got no representation when you get to Washington.

You got to pick a side.

And that side says you better be a good enough Democrat, a good Republican.

And if you're not, Bill, they'll come after you and primary you and get rid of you.

We've got to change the system that allows the people truly to choose who they want.

All right, we'll leave it there.

Thank you very much.

You were a great audience.

I appreciate it.

We'll see you next week.

John Willie.

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