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Interview with Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV); Manchin Slams Top House Progressive; Democrats Mull Path Forward in New Trump Era Minority; Senate Confirms Biden's 235th Judge, Surpassing Trump's Total. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired December 22, 2024 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:40]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Capitol chaos. House members vote to fund the government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

RAJU: But stiff arm Trump's primary demand, as the president elect tries to work his will and hits his limits. What does it mean for what's next?

My panel will join me.

Plus, laws of power. Speaker Johnson faces conservative blowback, with his job at stake in just 12 days.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This is a good outcome for the country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He doesn't have my vote.

RAJU: Can Johnson survive what could be his biggest test yet?

And beers with Joe. I sit down with outgoing Senator Joe Manchin, who has some harsh words for his former party.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (I-WV): That's crazy.

RAJU: Plus, one bright spot for Democrats you might have missed.

INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning. Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

Crisis averted, at least for now. What does it mean for when Donald Trump takes power in just 29 days?

This past week, the president-elect sent Washington in a spiral as Congress nearly careened into a government shutdown to meet his last ditch demands. Ultimately, though, his most important demand was not met to raise the national debt limit as lawmakers punted on that issue and instead extended government funding until mid-march, along with providing billions for natural disaster relief and aid to farmers.

All this means there will be major fiscal battles and critical deadlines early in Trump's second term. But why did Trump wait so long to make demands that many in both parties believed were just impossible to meet? And what does it say about his hold on his party as he plots an ambitious agenda with the narrowest of majorities in the House?

Now, Trump threatened to primaries against any Republicans who dare to defy his 11th hour push and called out one GOP hardliner, Texas Congressman Chip Roy, as, quote, very unpopular and accused him of, quote, seeking cheap publicity. But Roy liked 37 other Republicans who voted in opposition to Trump's efforts, shrugged off Trump's attacks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): Everybody with half a brain understands we've got to constrain spending if we -- if we want to save this country. So this was a giant step forward. And I think, you know, credit to everybody. And we had some, you know, a yo-yo here. And I had some fun, you know back and forth with the president yesterday.

RAJU: That was fun.

ROY: You know look you got to have a thick skin in politics. It is what it is.

RAJU: I mean, just the way that he went after you and the fact that you defied him. What does that say about his power or limits of power here?

ROY: Eh, it's not about -- there was no defiance. We just had a disagreement on the bill the other night, and that's fine. You can have disagreement.

I wanted to deliver a debt ceiling solution for the president. So Chuck Schumer can't screw around with the debt markets, which he'll want to do for political purposes.

So the president's right to want to get rid of the debt ceiling issue. But we're right to say not without spending cuts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. So what does this mean for the next two years?

A great panel will help break me all -- break this all down with me this morning.

"Wall Street Journal's" Molly Ball, "Semafor's" David Weigel, "Politico's" Olivia Beavers, and "USA Today's" Susan Page.

Good morning. We are all getting a little bit of rest after quite a chaotic week. I'm trying to at least.

You know, this is what's been interesting actually, is that Trump actually has not said anything about the end result here, which was to keep the government open, did not meet his last ditch demands. He's actually he made a lot of comments from Wednesday to Friday, even said -- suggested shut down the government under Biden, fine, as long as it's done under Biden and not done under my watch.

What does that tell you, Molly, about Trump, how he views what happened here and what it may mean for him and his party over the next couple of years?

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, it is really a reminder of, you know, anyone who lived through the first Trump administration remembers this dynamic. His engagement with Congress was very sort of sporadic and inconsistent, right? For long periods of time, he'd sort of ignore it and let them do their thing. And so they would have to operate in this sort of climate of fear, knowing that at any moment he could suddenly intervene and change the dynamics of the entire discussion.

And so -- and so, from time to time he would do that. He often was cheerleading for a shutdown. In fact, also during the Biden administration, right, you constantly had him sort of lobbing these bombs from the sidelines, saying, shut it down, shut it down.

[08:05:04]

And they ignored him over and over and over again. But it's a reminder, number one, that he views shutdowns as an acceptable tactic. He's not afraid of them.

And number two, that you never know what he's going to do. You know, in this case, he seems to have sort of been pulled into the discussion by Elon Musk. He seemed like he wanted to just stay out of the whole thing until Elon started making interventions into this whole debate.

And then, you know, Trump came in and as you say, had a lot to say about it and then didn't get what he wanted. So there's a feeling, you know, among Republican lawmakers, like they don't know exactly what either of these, some are calling them co-presidents, want or are going to want going forward. But the way that they're using their political capital is not particularly strategic, right?

RAJU: Yeah.

They can't go primary everyone. So -- and if they do say that they're going to primary everyone, then what is the next bit of leverage.

RAJU: Yeah, that's actually a great point. And that was actually my next question is, the political capital is a rare commodity, right. You use it. You may not get it back. And, of course, Trump has a lot of sway over his base. I don't want to discount that. The -- it's very clear -- he's still very powerful within the GOP. But is there a risk of using this political capital so early before he's even president?

This is the 38 Republicans who voted against his -- the bill that he pushed forward on late on Thursday. That bill failed. What do you think, Dave? Do you think that does the risk of using political capital saying, I'm going to go after everybody and then, well, you can't go after everybody, as Molly says?

DAVID WEIGEL, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Well, that's something else he's -- he's always done. He can be very mercurial. Somebody can be guaranteed a primary. In the case of Mo Brooks, somebody can be on Trump's side and then lose it for some reason, and he can go all out to get them. That's unpredictable.

I -- the larger picture of what can you do to get on his side for a year. So you don't know. And a lot of Republicans are not really worried about that. I found -- you probably found on the Hill this week, too. There were a lot of Republicans who did not mind the idea that government was being outsourced from them. the elected representatives of the people to Elon Musk, because Elon Musk is successful. Elon Musk can turn around businesses. Elon Musk has built things people didn't think were possible. What's Congress ever done?

I found almost nihilism from members of Congress about their own ability to solve problems versus the possibility of just handing problems to Trump and to Musk and having them say what to do, having them act on it.

You found members of Congress say, talking about themselves as a board of directors or in Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that, yeah, why shouldn't he be speaker of the House? And for Democrats, they love that message because they think this is a winner for them --

RAJU: That you heard them saying that over and over again this week.

WEIGEL: President Musk, this is an oligarchy. The part of this that struck me so much with so many Republicans saying that would be great. We see -- we have no confidence in our ability of 435 members to run these things. We'd much rather that CEOs, who know how to build big things and break big things come in and tell us what to do.

RAJU: Yeah. And, you know, meanwhile, while this is playing out, I had a chance to ask a lot of these Republicans about the threat -- about the threat. Trump says he's going to come after you if you defy him. Are you concerned about it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Are you worried about backlash from Trump?

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): I have supported Donald Trump. He supported me. We're -- we're good.

RAJU: What do you think Trump may have learned, if anything, by trying to bully Republicans like yourself into backing a debt limit suspension?

REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): I just think we need to stick to what we told our folks back home.

REP. ERIC BURLISON (R-MO): I've never voted to raise the debt ceiling. I mean, I love Donald Trump, but he didn't vote me into office. My district did.

RAJU: Trump has said that people will get primaries if they don't listen to him on the debt limit. And the CR, does that affect how you're thinking about this?

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): I am thinking about what is good for my state and what is good for my country.

RAJU: Are you concerned about your primary at all?

CASSIDY: I am not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Olivia, you've written a lot about this. You've reported about this. What are you hearing from Republicans about these threats?

OLIVIA BEAVERS, CONGRESS REPORTER, POLITICO: A lot of Republicans who voted against the bill, the CR 2, as we like to call it, are big Trump Republicans.

But it's a big difference. If we just got through an election, they have basically two years in the house to avoid Donald Trump actually setting up a primary where they think that memory will disappear. And they also think maybe along the way, they can sort of smooth things over.

So I think a lot of them are sort of saying, oh, I think we're going to be all right. Thomas Massie had some funny words. He says, I have the antibodies because Donald Trump tried to get someone to primary him. He won reelection really easily. And he said, now Chip Roy can work to get it.

And, and sort of had like the survival of the fittest mentality. So it tends to be more painful for Republicans who might be in sort of complicated blue, you know, Biden won seats where they also take the Republican vote. But in this case, some of these Republicans are just shirking it off.

RAJU: Yeah.

BEAVERS: Now, now, that doesn't mean that we're not going to keep seeing this mess. We saw this when Donald Trump came in for his first term, where Republicans, especially the House freedom caucus, started clashing with him on different matters like spending.

[08:10:04]

So I don't think this is the last episode that we see.

RAJU: I mean, speaking of the spending issue, one of the deals they had to cut here because Donald Trump wanted to just, you know, suspend the debt limit, get rid of it. Well, Republicans actually don't. A lot of them have battled for years that they need to have spending cuts tied to any sort of debt ceiling increase.

And the handshake deal that was reached here was that there would be a $1.5 trillion to raise the debt limit next year to once, once they get into power, but that would come with $2.5 trillion in cuts, unspecified cuts. But there really aren't that many places to cut the federal budget that they're talking about from mandatory spending.

So this is going to be incredibly complicated for them to figure out. This is why Trump wanted off the table, because coming in, they're going to have to deal with very difficult issues and have to do it along party lines.

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: You know, the possibility that they're going to reach $2.5 trillion in cuts. It's zero.

(LAUGHTER)

PAGE: To do that, you'd have to go after defense, Social Security, Medicare.

These are things that President Trump and Republicans have promised not to go after. So this is a handshake deal that will not survive and -- but it is interesting I think. The number 38 is an interesting number. That is a higher number than I would have guessed of Republicans willing to say to their president, to the face of their party, to the man who has really enormous power over them, to say, this goes too far. We're not going to do that.

That is, you know, Trump comes into office with a lot of chits, with a lot of power, but it shows that it's not unlimited. And it's not the Democrats who gave him trouble on this. It was his own Republican base.

RAJU: Yeah. And that's such a good point. And we'll -- we'll see what that means for the next two years. It was a very instructive week, shall we say.

All right. Up next, the House will choose its next speaker in just 12 days. Can Mike Johnson hang on to his job after this mess -- this messy week?

Plus, I catch up with outgoing Senator Joe Manchin over a beer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: What do you think about the way that this Congress is ending?

MANCHIN: I need more than this to get me through the rest of this Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [08:16:33]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: By the way, the House Republican conference is committed to never being in this situation again. I'm done with short term CRs. We are -- we're resolved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And that was Speaker Mike Johnson 13 months ago, shortly after he won the speakers race following the unprecedented ouster of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. But confronted with the realities of governing an unruly conference and Democrats leading the Senate and the White House, Johnson has broken that promise repeatedly, as he did again on Friday to keep the government open with yet another short term extension.

But his future as speaker very much hangs in the balance. In just 12 days, he'll need the support from nearly every single Republican in the house to win the speakership, and a number of GOP hardliners tell me they're uncertain whether they'll back him.

My panel is back with me.

So, Olivia, you're talking to these Republicans all the time. And here just to remind viewers about the math, it is very difficult to become speaker of the House given the narrowness of the GOP majority -- 219 to 215. That's assuming Matt Gaetz doesn't take his seat on January 3rd. That means that he really can only afford to lose a vote.

What -- what are you hearing about the likelihood he gets reelected?

BEAVERS: The situation that Johnson is in has changed dramatically over the government funding fight. My colleague and I had asked a bunch of the sort of so-called usual suspects who -- who like to sort of stand up against the incoming speaker and say, you might not have my vote. And almost all of them either didn't have an answer and said they were still figuring out, like Thomas Massie, who's now the only no. Or they said if it was held today, I'd support him. Now some of them are reversing and saying, I don't know if I'm going to support him at the moment. And that's a scary prospect for him.

And Matt Gaetz is also threatening to come back if the ethics report is going to be released, which CNN broke, that it will be.

So I think Johnson is in a tough spot. The other side of this is that Trump world isn't particularly happy with him right now, and we heard from a Trump adviser who said if he faced a challenger, Donald Trump would not jump in and try to help him. He would -- he would let Johnson face a challenge which could be really detrimental to him in just two weeks.

RAJU: What do you think of the way that Trump is playing this? Because he did say on the campaign trail that he supports him saying as speaker, but he has not said anything about that, as we're heading into the critical January 3rd day.

PAGE: Well, he's not -- he's not rushing in to help Mike Johnson, but he's not coming out against him either. And the strong -- it seems to me the strongest position that the strongest argument Mike Johnson has is not vote for me. It's who else are you going to vote for? And do we want to go through another episode like the election after the election of the speaker at the last election where we had those 15 rounds? That was humiliating for Republicans.

So he can't win, except that maybe no one else can win more. And that's his asset.

RAJU: Yeah. And Olivia was talking about Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and he's the one who has come out and said that he will not vote for Mike Johnson. I asked him about whether he could change his mind, and this is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: How would you assess his handling of this?

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Not that great.

RAJU: You told me earlier this week that you -- that Speaker Johnson does not have your vote on January 3rd. Is that still the case?

MASSIE: Even more so, he doesn't have my vote.

RAJU: There's no way you'll vote for him.

MASSIE: I don't -- I don't plan to enter it as a negotiation. I plan to just not vote for him okay? I have no asks. There's nothing I want in exchange for my vote.

RAJU: How are you going to vote for Speaker Johnson on January 3rd?

[08:20:03]

REP. KEITH SELF (R-TX): No comment.

RAJU: So you guys broke your promise here?

REP. CORY MILLS (R-FL): The speaker has.

RAJU: Are you going to vote for him on Jan 3rd?

MILLS: We'll see.

RAJU: Congresswoman, have you decided if you're going to vote for Johnson on January 3rd?

REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO: Didn't I walk away from that question already?

(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: And that was Lauren Boebert. I had asked her on the way in if she was going to vote for Mike Johnson. She didn't answer. And then that was her answer on the way out of House votes. This is a problem for Johnson. He's got his work to do to get these members in line.

BALL: It absolutely is. And I think the bigger picture here is, as we've been saying, that nobody knows exactly what Donald Trump wants, but everybody wants him to lead the party. He is a powerful force of unity for these Republicans if he chooses to exercise it.

But because he has stayed out of a lot of these discussions, you know, the biggest sort of political effort that Mike Johnson has made over the past year is to get close to Donald Trump. We see him with him all the time at the UFC, fights at the Army-Navy game. He has put himself in a very good position with that relationship, but it hasn't really paid any dividends in terms of actually getting Trump to support him in return.

You know, when Trump came to Washington after the election, he did endorse Johnson. But everything is conditional with Trump and --

RAJU: Everything changes with Trump.

BALL: Well, and the bigger and besides not knowing exactly how he wants the speaker vote to unfold, I think the bigger issue for Republicans is they don't know what he wants out of Congress overall, right? It's not clear where he stands on the reconciliation gambits that the Senate wants to do. It's not clear what other legislation he might want Congress to take up if he's about to become president. And Congress still feels like they, you know, they work for him on some level, but they don't have their marching orders.

RAJU: Yeah, I mean, it is such a good point. But, you know, while he did not Trump has not come out and said anything.

But Elon Musk did come out and say something nice about Mike Johnson. He said the speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances, referring to his handling of the spending bill, he praised how it went from the bill was much bigger. It got slimmed down, a lot of things were taken out of the bill, he said. The ball should now be in the Democratic court, so he did praise him.

And then Mike Johnson also made the point when he talked to reporters that not only did he talk to Trump about all the things that were happening behind the scenes, but he also talked to Musk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNSON: Elon Musk and I talked within about an hour ago. And we talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job. And I said, hey, you want to be speaker of the House? I don't know. He said, this may be the hardest job in the world. I think it is. But we're going to get through this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Can Musk save Mike Johnson again?

WEIGEL: Again, that is the Republicans' bet. And to what Susan was saying earlier, no Republican in the House. There are some who have in the Massie mold come up with vast cuts that that Donald Trump did not run on that would indeed balance the budget.

The rest of them are waiting on Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk to say what they would cut, how they would make this, how they'd make this math work. And it's an echo of what you're talking about with Donald Trump, that there is not something that can we had a campaign where Donald Trump was talking about a series of tax cuts he wanted to do, and a series of tax cut extensions and more spending that that was not going to resolve in any way.

He never tried to resolve that. He's won -- he's won two campaigns, run three of them without explaining this. And so that has been their answer. We get used to it that people can just defer to Musk and say, somehow he's going to solve this.

PAGE: So this is a relationship to watch in Washington. It's Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Yeah. Can this marriage survive?

And you know, we see him sort of stepping out ahead of Trump, including on the -- on the continuing resolution, the original one.

And this is I think not a good this is not a look that Trump has traditionally liked because there was some question about whether he was following Musk's lead when it came to being unhappy with that original deal.

BALL: Well, and we saw actually a point of ideological tension between musk and Trump play out over this CR fight, right? Musk was saying he didn't like the original bill because it spent too much money. Trump was saying he didn't like the bill because he wanted the debt limit extension, which fiscal conservatives hate. Yeah.

So you have Elon Musk voicing this very sort of old school Chip Roy style fiscal conservatism. Let's cut it all. Let's slim down the government by drastic degree. That is not Trumps platform at all to Dave's point.

And so, there is I think they're on a bit of a collision course when it comes to policy.

RAJU: When they actually do make some decisions.

Very quickly, January 3rd, does Mike Johnson win?

BEAVERS: Oh, don't put that on me.

(LAUGHTER)

RAJU: I'm asking you to predict the very unpredictable House. That's okay if you don't have the answer. None of us do. What's your -- what's your gut tell you? BEAVERS: I think that if Johnson is working the phones and Donald

Trump comes out for him, it's really a lot more in his favor. But there's so many factors up in play. It's really hard to say right now.

RAJU: That's a good, good answer. I would agree with that as well.

All right. Next, a beer with Joe Manchin. I grab a pint with West Virginias outgoing senator as he reflects on his former party, his relationship with Trump and just how close he came to running for president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANCHIN: This is not mine.

RAJU: This is mine. It's mine. It's a hazy.

[08:25:00]

That's a hazy. Looks lighter, that's a hazy.

MANCHIN: Really?

RAJU: Yeah, yeah, I went to school in Wisconsin. I know my beer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: Perhaps no single lawmaker has been more pivotal or in the spotlight, or faced more blowback from the left over the last four years than Senator Joe Manchin. But after 15 years in the Senate, the Democrat turned independent from the deeply red state of West Virginia is hanging it up.

So I caught up with Manchin at an infamous pub on Capitol Hill, the Dubliner, where we got a beer and got his take on Donald Trump's second term and the state of the Democratic Party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: What do you think about the way that this Congress is ending?

MANCHIN: I need more than this to get me through the rest of this Congress. This has been the worst performing Congress in the history of the United States of America.

And it's all because the House cannot move. That one vote vacate. One person can threaten the Speaker every time. And the only way you can remain Speaker here is to do nothing, because you're going to make someone upset.

RAJU: There are fewer and fewer people like you in the Senate. I mean, is that --

MANCHIN: Well, my colleagues would say "thank God". RAJU: Yes they would, including some in your former party.

MANCHIN: Oh, many in my former party.

RAJU: Do you still consider yourself a Democrat?

MANCHIN: I am not a Democrat in the form of what the Democratic Party has turned itself into. The national brand. Absolutely not. And they know that. They're all good people on both sides.

RAJU: But what -- what do you think is the reason for -- you said you're not a Democrat. What caused Joe Manchin to divorce himself from the Democratic Party?

MANCHIN: Here's what I told them.

I said, you ought to figure out how you lost somebody like me. I was born as a Democrat because of my grandfather's love of FDR. I was a very strong Democrat because of my family's love of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

I came through the whole iteration. And then I was a Democrat in West Virginia, and it has always been a 75 percent to 80 percent plurality of Democrat -- registered Democrats.

But there was a split. I was never in the liberal side of it. I was never in the establishment side. So I always had to fight my way through.

RAJU: But is it -- what is the split? Is it a shift?

(CROSSTALKING)

MANCHIN: Yes. The brand got so bad. the D brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of -- it's just -- it's toxic. And the D brand is basically this, you know.

I've told them. I said, first of all, as an American and as someone in the Senate, and I'm going to take the constitutional oath, the constitution that I take very, very, very, very seriously, I'm going to help every human being pursue the -- pursue the happiness in their life -- pursuit of happiness.

I don't care who they are. I don't care what color. I don't care any of the things who they love and let's do it. And that's you. And I'm going to make sure you have that opportunity and right to live your life.

Just don't make your life if it might be on the extremes or in the minority, few, make me believe that's the norm or make me and my family believe, or my children believe or this or that.

No, I will protect you. Just don't try to mainstream it. And the Democratic Party, the Washington Democrats, have tried to mainstream the extreme.

RAJU: How would you describe what the Democratic brand is right now, in a couple of words. What is the Democratic brand?

MANCHIN: You know, it's basically infringement on me making decisions and let me tell you why/ The Democrat I grew up being, they wanted to make sure that people had an opportunity for a good job, a good pay. They would -- they would make sure he got a decent pay where you have some benefits and you can enjoy your family and make sure you had a safe working condition.

That was one of those things. Ok. That's all. They never got -- they never infringed over -- you can't live your life that way or you can't say this, you can't do this. I mean, there was a fairness in it.

RAJU: You think so? You think it's changed? It's become more --

MANCHIN: It has changed tremendously. They have -- they have basically, expanded upon thinking, well, we want to protect you there, but we're going to tell you how you should live your life on from that far on.

It's the mindset of the left, the progressive left, which was always a minority. In West Virginia, the Democratic Party is perceived to pour more attention and more resources to people that are capable and able- bodied that won't work or don't work than those that do.

RAJU: Ok, this is from the incoming chair of the House Progressive Caucus. He says if the Democratic Party was a little more like Chairwoman Jayapal and a little less than Joe -- like Joe Manchin, I think we would have won this election.

(CROSSTALKING)

MANCHIN: They'd have lost -- they got to be nuts. For someone to say that, they've got to be completely insane.

RAJU: Why?

MANCHIN: They went -- the people in America voted. They had that opportunity, you know, to vote with Kamala Harris and with Donald Trump. Donald Trump -- not much hasn't been said. You know exactly what you're getting. He hasn't made any bones about it. But you might say that's too far right? Ok.

If that's the case, then why did they go too far right when Kamala was trying to come back to the middle a little bit, ok. And they're saying if Kamala would have been who she always has been, pretty far to the left, it would have been better for her. That's crazy.

[08:34:51]

RAJU: Do you -- so why do you think that Harris lost?

MANCHIN: Well, first of all, you know, Kamala had a hard time just getting any type of support or favorability when she was four years as a vice president. I think her numbers were always low for whatever reason. So it wasn't connecting there. Now all of a sudden, they said, and I heard this too, or she only had

100 days. I think that was to her benefit because basically she was having a hard time trying to come back to the middle and then speak about it with any conviction.

RAJU: So you think that she was too far left and she tried to shift to the middle and people didn't believe here?

MANCHIN: If you try to be somebody you're not, it's hard.

RAJU: You had considered running for president. You had waited -- well, take us through your mindset. I mean, you've been you were thinking about running first in the Democratic primary, and then you were thinking about potentially running after Biden dropped out. Why didn't you pull the trigger?

MANCHIN: Here. First of all, I saw every cross section that you could see of any polls, and it was very clear that the people of America did not want a repeat of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. They didn't want that.

And there was a -- there was a -- there was an avenue. There was a middle -- middle road to be had. They would want someone in the -- centrist willing to be a former Democrat who's in the center, former Republican in the center. Put a team together, show them how to reunite America, show them how to make it work.

How we can work together and put our country before our party or our own thoughts and own self-service. We saw that very clearly. But you had to be on 50 ballots.

RAJU: You were having a hard time getting on all 50 ballots. Is that what that --

MANCHIN: No Labels, my friends in No Labels were having a hard time. That was very costly, very expensive. And I said, with all due respect, I'm not going to be a spoiler. I have no chance of winning if I can't participate in all 50 states.

So why would I put myself through that or anyone else and go down in history books as a spoiler?

RAJU: You told me that you were not going to vote for Kamala Harris, so who did you vote for?

MANCHIN: That's mine. That's mine.

RAJU: But you didn't vote for Trump either. That's fair to say.

MANCHIN: I participated in the process. There's many ways to participate, and I've never asked people who they voted for because I could care less.

I've never asked people who they vote for. I never said who I ever vote for.

RAJU: Although I remember you wouldn't say if you voted for Obama the second time either.

MANCHIN: I participated.

RAJU: But you did vote for Biden, and you did vote for Obama the first time.

MANCHIN: Correct. First time.

RAJU: Yes. For the second time, you won't say.

MANCHIN: First time, you're correct.

RAJU: Ok. So you diagnose what's wrong with the Democratic Party. So what's wrong --

(CROSSTALKING)

RAJU: -- what's wrong with the Republican Party?

MANCHIN: Oh my. Well, from the standpoint, just common sense, ok? Some gun sense.

RAJU: So you think they're too extreme on the issue of guns?

MANCHIN: They're too extreme. That's just common sense.

RAJU: But besides guns, what would you say the problem is with the GOP?

MANCHIN: Well, I'm just saying right now from the GOP has gone just -- they haven't taken serious the debt. And they've always been debt -- debt concerned. They haven't taken debt. No one's even talked about it.

RAJU: I remember you told me that you thought Trump was a threat to democracy at one point. I mean, you were very concerned.

MANCHIN: January 6th was a bridge too far for me. And I think they all know that. But I got along fine with him. We had -- we still get along. We're friendly.

RAJU: You were in the box this weekend in the Army-Navy game.

MANCHIN: It wasn't that I was invited, but I wasn't thrown out.

RAJU: You were -- you weren't invited?

MANCHIN: No, I mean, they were just very cordial. I was -- I was up in that area and its very close to that box. And then just kind of walked in. They were very accommodating. The president was very nice to me.

RAJU: You talked to him?

MANCHIN: Yes. We talked.

RAJU: What did you talk about. MANCHIN: No, we just talked about, you know, I want to help any way I

can. I want -- I want you to succeed, which I've said every red- blooded American should want your president succeed whether you vote for him or not, whether the same party or not, whether you like them or not.

I like Donald Trump. I can work with him. I can talk with Donald Trump.

RAJU: You like Donald Trump?

MANCHIN: I get along fine.

RAJU: You voted to convict him twice.

MANCHIN: They should have never have had those. The impeachment should never have been -- censorship should have been done.

RAJU: On both times.

MANCHIN: Yes. Well, the second one is a hard one. That's a hard one.

RAJU: The first one should be censorship.

MANCHIN: The first one should be censorship. For sure.

RAJU: But you -- but you voted to convict him.

You told him that you like HIM -- you like him.

MANCHIN: I still get along. We get along fine. No problem there.

RAJU: But now that you're leaving, you're a dying breed. Let's be -- let's be honest here. Your -- your species is growing extinct. A moderate in Congress is becoming extinct. Would you agree with that?

MANCHIN: Like a moderate Republican and a moderate Democrat. The centrist part of both parties. That's why I think about really ready for a third party.

They called the American Party to bring it all together. So the centrist moderate vote decides who's going to be the president of the United States.

And when they get here, they don't govern that way.

RAJU: Yes.

MANCHIN: Neither side does.

RAJU: Yes.

[08:39:49]

MANCHIN: They go to their respective corners. So if a centrist had a voice and had a party that could make both of

these, the Democrat and Republican Party come back, ok, that would be something.

RAJU: So you think it's time for a third party?

MANCHIN: I think it is.

RAJU: What's it going to be called?

MANCHIN: The American Party.

RAJU: The American Party. Are you going to be the leader of the American Party?

MANCHIN: Well, I'll be out there rooting. I'll be the best cheerleader they've ever had.

RAJU: You said the Senate sucks famously.

MANCHIN: It still does.

RAJU: Still sucks.

MANCHIN: Sucks. Well, the House sucks worse than the Senate. Those poor guys. I feel so sorry for them over there. They can't -- they can't move.

RAJU: Are you going to miss it?

MANCHIN: I don't think so. I really and truly, you know, I believe in term limits now.

RAJU: Next time we should do this on the boat.

MANCHIN: We will after January 3rd, we'll do it there.

RAJU: Ok. After January 3rd. And then with some moonshine too perhaps next time.

MANCHIN: Well, sometimes you need moonshine.

RAJU: All right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: All right, coming up. My panel breaks down Joe Manchin's diagnosis for Democrats.

Plus, some good news for Democrats in the final days of President Biden's term. We'll be right back.

[08:40:49]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) RAJU: The new top progressive in the House says Democrats would have won the 2024 presidential election if they had moved to the left instead of moving to the middle. You just heard what Senator Joe Manchin thought of that idea. So who's right?

I'm back with my panel.

So Susan, is the Democratic brand really as bad as Manchin says it is?

PAGE: It's as undefined. They need to be more liberal. They need to be more conservative. For eight years, the Democratic Party has been defined by being not Donald Trump. And that is maybe enough when you're in the minority. It is maybe not enough to get you back in a majority.

RAJU: It's such a good point. Just a view of how the people view the Democratic Party according to this Pew research poll that came out recently.

23 percent of -- 43 percent of Americans say the Democratic Party represents me. Well, that is down from 2020 and down pretty substantially since 2016, about eight points. So Democrats clearly have some work to do.

BALL: That's right. I mean, it is also possible that not being Donald Trump will be their ticket back to relevance, right?

RAJU: Yes.

BALL: I mean, the Democrats this week were watching what was unfolding on Capitol Hill, just sort of going let them fight.

And they really assume that Trump is going to do things that are unpopular, that are polarizing and that and because the margins are so narrow, it wouldn't take much for them to have a good election two years from now.

So all of these ideological debates are nice, but where the rubber really hits the road is going to be in a presidential primary in 2028. And beyond that, it just doesn't have much effect, you know. There's no way for the party to sort of collectively decide which -- where they're going to go ideologically.

RAJU: What do you make of the left versus center debate that's happening? Saying people like Joe Manchin are the reason why, people on the left say they're the reason why Democrats didn't accomplish more. The reason why we need to stand for core convictions, not watered down like moderates like Manchin.

Who's right? How do you see that debate.

WEIGEL: And specifically that Manchin blocked more progressive, populist proposals that might have gotten through in 2021 had there been -- had there been more funding for child care, had there been some of the Build Back Better agenda, they would have won. That's convincing a lot of Democrats, because when they see Trump's

success, they see him taking ideas that Democrats should have won and run on for years. It had Donald Trump run as the -- I'm going to balance the budget by cutting Medicare guy, h wouldn't have won. He ran as the I'm going to cut taxes on tips. I'm going to side with the longshoremen on automated ports.

That worry they had, the existential worry is that he's just -- he's just running as a social conservative with a bunch of populist economic policies that they believe in.

But when they campaigned about him, voters don't hear from the same channels. And also voters associate a lot of them with the modern Trump Republican Party.

They didn't eight years ago, but eight years, you know, for a lot of voters, they've only known a anti-wall, at least rhetorically, anti- populist anti-elite Republican Party.

And if that's the GOP, what's the Democratic message? That's their crisis.

RAJU: Olivia, how do you think the Democrats are going to position themselves in the minority in the House and the Senate? It's not been as vocal in opposition as they were to a lot of Trump's nominees than we heard from back in 2016 to 2017.

But they also need to speak with a voice and have a contrast. So how do you -- what are you hearing about that debate and how that may play out?

BEAVERS: Well, I think after the election they were trying to do this postmortem review of what went wrong and how do they sort of recalibrate. And they found, I think, that they felt like they were focusing too much on Donald Trump.

That's going to be really hard to do when you're in the minority to not focus on Trump. They want to paint them as chaotic. They want to paint it as, like we said earlier, Elon Musk just, you know, diving in.

So I think that we're going to see their message develop over the next couple of months, especially heading into the next election cycle for the House.

But expect the contrast to exist. They just have to make sure they balance it with also hitting the kitchen table sort of issues that voters really look for.

RAJU: Yes, I think it's going to depend on what they decide to do on the Republican side. But as Molly said, sometimes it's just sitting back and wait and hoping that voters punish the party in power.

All right. Some good news for Democrats this week. In fact, 235 pieces of them as Democrats surpassed one of Trump's signature achievements. That's next. [08:49:34]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: When Donald Trump comes into office, he'll have a chance to once again cement the conservative bent on the Supreme Court. And that's assuming at least one more justice retires.

But as President Biden had the chance to fill just one Supreme Court seat not occupied with Ketanji Brown Jackson, compared to three for Trump in his first term, the lower courts have been an under-the-radar focus for Democrats, who have controlled the Senate for the entirety of Biden's only term.

Now, on Friday night, the U.S. Senate confirmed Biden's 235th judicial nominee. That's officially surpassing the number of judges appointed by Trump in his first term.

[08:54:50]

RAJU: Now Biden touted the moment as a, quote, "major milestone" and the highest number of confirmations for these lifetime appointments in a single term since the 1980s.

The list includes Jackson, plus nearly four dozen appeals court judges and almost 200 others. This means one in four active federal judges on the bench have now been appointed by President Biden.

But here's one other twist that has drawn the ire of top Senate Republicans like Mitch McConnell. Three federal judges, all nominated by Democratic presidents have rescinded their plans to retire after Trump's win last month.

And after one appeals court judge reversed course, GOP Senator Thom Tillis called it a, quote, "slap in the face".

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju, follow the show @InsidePolitics. Follow me on Instagram @manu_raju.

If you ever miss an episode, just catch up wherever you get your podcasts. Please search for INSIDE POLITICS.

Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH". Senators Bill Hagerty, Chris Coons, plus Congressman Tim Burchett will join Dana alive.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

[08:55:55]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)