Transcript of Joe Manchin on the Fight for America’s Future: Term Limits, Bipartisanship & the 2028 Election

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the All In podcast. We are super pleased to have with us today. Senator Joe Manchin is joining us today here on the All In interview, and Shamath and I will be interviewing him on his new book, Dead Center in Defense of Common Sense. A great book. Welcome to the program, Joe Manchin. I know you like to be called Joe. So Joe, welcome to the program.

Jason, thank you. It's great to be with you and Shamath, and I've followed you all, and you've been unbelievable what you've put out and some of the people you've had on have been very entertaining, very interesting, and very thoughtful. So I'm anxious to be. Thanks.

And we have a tradition here. I don't know how often you watch the interview show, but we always try to get a personalized gift for each of our guests. And so in the book, you talked about your first car, your 1964.

If you could find that, if you could find that thing for me, it was a bullet bag, I can't find the car.

Well, there it is with the white interior.

Oh, my God. Can we buy it?

No, you got it. It's in your driveway right now. When you get out of your office there, it'll be waiting you by your yacht.

Let me tell you that car, oh, by my yacht. Yeah, I got a bit. I got a bit.

Also, it's a $200,000 trawler. It's a fishing trawler, correct?

It's Joe, but it's a trawler. Listen, Joe, what Jason has just proved is he has not read the book, but he looked at the pictures in the middle. That's all he's done. No, I did the- It's ripping off the pictures in the middle.

No, I don't have the physical book. I did the audio book. But Joe, you did the right thing. You read it yourself. I did. Which a lot of authors, they try to get talk about it doing it, but it makes it so much more personal.

Hey, Jason, I didn't know I was supposed to do that. And all of a sudden, my daughter Heather says, Dad, you got to show up at the studio and start reading your book. I said, Why do I have to do that? She says, It's in the contract. I said, I didn't see that. She said, I didn't show it to you. It's a part of the contract.

It's like six or seven hours of reading.

It took 20 hours.

So three days, three, four days.

Four days. And let me tell you what's the best thing I've ever done that made me reminisce everything we put in the book.

It's just Chamatha, you haven't done this yet because you haven't written your book.

I'm not really into audiobooks. I read the book, look, I have it. I like to have the physical pages. I mark them. I'm old school.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes I do both. But when you're in the session, I'm sure you had this where the producers got the button and then you're like, And then I got my Maserati and I came out of the garage and they're like, A garage? Yeah, I came out of the garage. Because you have to do every word perfectly to sync it on Amazon, right? So they have to correct over and over again if you just miss one word.

Jason, the most unbelievable thing is the first day I start doing it and I'm sitting there and all of a sudden I'm just talking and reading the book, and I crossed my legs. They said, Stop, cross your legs, didn't he? I said, What? They said, We heard you cross your legs. I said, My God, I'm in trouble.

You're basically in a Faraday cage. If you literally hit anything. Yeah.

Oh, no.

But the book's fantastic. Everybody go, Pause the podcast here, and I just absolutely go buy it because it's so important. I mentioned when we were just on the pre-show, Irish Catholic Boy Scout, and you start the book out with an Irish Catholic Boy Scout getting in a brouhaha, a Donnybrooke, with an Italian Irish boy scout. You were an Eagle Scout.

No, I wasn't.

Wait, you were an Eagle Scout? That's what the Internet said. Where did you get to? First class?

No, I wish. No, I got up to life. And what happened, I was right next to it. Let me tell you what happened. 1959, I'll never forget it. The coal mines got automated in West Virginia. I lived in a little coal mining community, 400 people. And there was three of the largest coal mines you've ever seen. And everybody worked in the coal mines. And all of a sudden, I come home one day and my dad had a little furniture store. My grandfather had a grocery store. And there was all these guys sitting on the curb. They got laid off because it got automated. They lost their job. Pat Keener was my scout leader, the best of best of the best. If you have a good scout master, a scout leader, you're going to make it. If you don't, you don't make it. And what happened? He had to go to Lordstown, Ohio, to get a job in the auto factory, and we lost it, and I was done. You lost your scout master, yeah. I lost my guy.

Well, this part of your story, I think, is the crucible moment for you because I'm Catholic and Irish, and I know the Italian Catholic. That's quite a fight. If an Italian Catholic and an Irish Catholic get in a fight, just step back is what I would- Oh, yeah.

Is what I would. My best advice to everybody.

But you got in a heater with Joe Biden over the Bill Back, Better Bill. To the extent that I believe the Democrats or operatives were sending people to your trawler, your house boat that you're living on. They're sending people a little bit at your family, maybe- Everywhere.

I had the death threats run real, Jason. Crazy.

Your own party. So maybe you could take us to maybe tell that story, because it feels to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that this is a seminal moment in your political career, or perhaps the.

I don't recommend anybody getting caught in a 50/50 Senate in the United States, because United States Senate is supposed to be the most deliberate body in the world, and the reason it's deliberate, because you have to have a 60 vote threshold to get on a bill. And with that, that was intended from our founding fathers, is that the house is going to be a simple majority, 218 out of 435. Don't even talk to the other side. You don't have to, just shove it through. And George Washington said, it's going to be like a hot cup of tea, and it goes over to the Senate, should cool itself off so we can drink it. Well, that's the whole premise. And people keep saying, get Out of the filibuster. That's the Holy Grail to democracy as we know it, because without it, we wouldn't be the country we are now. It forced us to sit down in one of the bodies to calm things down and talk to our friends over in the house and say, guys, This is how it's got to be. We've got to moderate this some. And that's what I'd always known from Bob Bird, Senator Robert C.

Bird, our Senator forever, 50 years plus in West Virginia. When I became governor, he kept I think he knew in his mind that I would probably run for the Senate, and he was getting to the end of his career, or his age was creeping up on him pretty hard. Anyway, he kept telling me all the different things of why he did certain things, why the rules were the way they were. So I had a real understanding of the purpose of the Senate and my responsibilities. So here we go. And then the whole thing on reconciliation. There's a reconciliation. It's a movement. It's that we operate under, and it's basically stopping. It stops anybody from preventing us to make sure we can take care of our financial responsibilities. And so reconciliation only takes a simple majority. Well, in the Senate, that's the only vehicle that you can have a 51 vote threshold without a clôture vote of 60 votes getting to the bill. So then Joe Biden gets elected. And I think the story in the book, it starts out. Schumer kept calling me, then all Every hour on the hour the night of the election.

And I'm thinking, why is he so worked up? Because in the Senate, in all honesty, if you're not the majority leader, but you're one of the senators in the caucus of the Demand of the Republicans, you have the same power, you have the You can participate. Every senator can participate. They're all important, 100 of them. So he keeps saying, Joe, he says, you understand this Georgia thing could really happen. I'm thinking, well, I don't think we're going to win Georgia. We hadn't, then it wasn't predicted. But Donald Trump put him in play, to be honest with you. Him going down there and getting into a tiff with everybody he did. And so all of a sudden, we got two senators that are running from there. And boom, the first one calls Raphael Warnock. He wins. Ossoffs later on that night, boom, they call that. And Schumer says, You know what this means, don't you? And I said, Well, Chuck, I think it means you're the majority leader. He says, No, it means that you can probably have anything you want. And I said, I just want my country to do well. If my country does well, my state will do well.

That's all I care about.

What do you think he meant when he said that?

I know exactly what he meant, Schumann. I know exactly Chuck Schumer basically coming from where he comes from, just whatever you can take back home. And And, of course, Bob Bird was always criticized for taking so much what they call pork back home. And that was the situation. He thought, well, I'm in a cat bird seat now. I could outdo Bob Bird. I just never thought that. I just never thought of tipping the scale so unfavorably to where we all should be doing well. If we can move our country for it. But that's what he thought. Okay, what do you want? I just want my country to do well.

When that happened, there was a lot of thought that the filibuster, and maybe just to take a step back for the audience. The whole point is that, as you explain, basically, laws can get passed in one of two ways. The real way, which is that you have to find some compromise with folks on the other side, get to 60 votes, or The other way, which is more of a budgetary process called reconciliation, which is a simple majority. There's been a lot of talk that one party at some point will try to eliminate the filibuster so that when they have a simple majority, they can pass any law they want. There was a moment, I think, in that point where you came under a lot of pressure to get on board with trying to eliminate the filibuster. Can you just give us a window into that and what happened and how you made the decision and what the reaction was from party loyalists?

Well, let's go back to 2013 when Harry Reid, because of Barack Obama, couldn't get his appointments done for his cabinet and things of that sort and some judges. So So the majority party can change the rules. If they want to blow it apart, they can blow it apart. Well, Harry Reid decided that he wanted to get rid of the filibuster. And I just said, Harry, I never do that. I mean, my goodness, just because you can't work with someone, I said, you and Mitch don't even sit down and talk. You don't have a cup of coffee, let alone discuss what should be important for both sides. And that time, I even told Harry, I said, Harry, the only thing that the President is wanting, he won re-election in 2012, gets re-appointed in 2013, re-inaugurated, and here we go. He wants to put his team together. That's will and pleasure. And I always believe that will and pleasure, that will and pleasure means you get elected, you're the executive, Shemoth, and you said, Joe, I want you to be part of this. I'm going to come and go. It's your will and pleasure. I'm not staying over.

Once you're gone, I'm gone. Why not let you have your team? And they can do a FBI background check, find I doubt if I'm a sound character and moral values and no criminal records, and let me go. So I begged Harry, just go over and cut a deal with Mitch and say, Mitch, let's together do this unanimously, that 51 vote threshold for all of the President's appointment, people that will be will and pleasure, no holdovers whatsoever. But you can't do it to judges to get lifetime appointments. You can't do it for other different agencies that have a six year or a nine year term, just will and pleasure. And I thought that would be very simple, and he wouldn't do it. They said, oh, no, we got to get the judges. I said, you're going to basically change the confirmation process to 51 votes for a lifetime? Are you crazy? But they did it. And then guess what happened? They did it for district and circuit judges. Okay? Then do it for Supreme Court. Guess what happened as soon as Republicans took over? They were in control. Mitch McDonald says, fine. We'll do it for Supreme Court.

Now we have a 6-3 court. It didn't work too well before he did it, whether it be Harry or that. And during this, Chuck Schumer just come out directly and said, he wanted to get rid of the filibuster. That's how they were going to run it with Joe Biden. Well, Joe Biden had always been a defender of the filibuster. How can you flip on your values when all of a sudden now because you're in charge and you want to just shove things down people's throat? I said, I'm not going to do that. So myself and Kirsten Sinema voted against the filibuster, which stopped all that. I was all for the voting. I mean, all the concern, the Voting Rights Act, all that. But I said, we have to find a pathway that we have some Republicans, 10 Republicans that will work with us.

I want to go and ask you a very specific question that's framed in the book about Obama. But before I do that, let's just stay on Biden for a second.

I'll get to where Jason asked me how we got to because it really, how it led up to what happened is unbelievable.

Yeah, I think maybe finishing that big bill back better.

Patrick, in fact, please go ahead.

Because It gets spicy.

It gets spicy because what happened, Jason, the first thing they did was an ARP, the American Rescue Plan, was his first bill. As soon as Joe Biden gets elected, boom, he gets sworn in. And in February, he comes out with the ARP, American Rescue Plan, which is this big overhaul. We had just done, you all know the finance is better than probably anybody observing. We had put $3. 2 trillion into the market as COVID in 2020, March from March 2020 up until the end of the year, and then Joe Biden takes over. So we already put 3. 2 trillion. He comes out with the American rescue plan. They want to put another 1. 9, a minimum, 1. 9. Now we're at 5. 1. Well, our cash flow is about a little over $5 trillion a year that we run the country on. They're doubling the amount. You can't digest that. The market can't take it. But they were doing it. And I said, are you people crazy right now? We don't even know what the three 2. 2 is going to do, let alone... But they were chasing a social reform. And I told them, I said, Mr. President, they heard me grumbling in the hallway, and one of the senators called the White House immediately and says, Manchin making trouble already.

What was 50/50? They had to have me. So they called me right over to the White House. And I'm sitting there, I said, Mr. President, I'm begging you, please don't do reconciliation on this bill. If this is your bill, which I know it's not, this is a Bernie Sanders and this is Elizabeth Warren, because I'd heard them respectfully. I can agree in some and I disagree, but it was just too big a bite coming right out of COVID. And we had a vaccine that was working. So I said, please don't, sir. I said, you're the only one on the stage running for President with all that big lineup that says, you know how the place work. You work on both sides, you can make a deal. And I always known you to be that person. And now all of a sudden, you're thrown the nuclear bomb out. You're saying, we can't work with the Republicans. We got to do it. And I said, Schumer's got you all fired up thinking that's how you're going to run it. And I knew in my mind they wanted to run what we call the 117th Congress. The Congress is a two year stand.

Every two years, you have an election. So Congress, we were in 117th, just starting it. My thought process was that Schumer had convinced the President that we could run this Congress for two years with four reconciliation big bills, two in 2021 and two in 2022. And I said, Over my dead body, that's not going to happen. That's not what we're here for, and that's not how this place is supposed to work. So they called me over in the White House, and they grab me always Jason, you're sitting there and you see it on television. He made everybody leave the room and we're sitting there, and then President reaches over and grabs your arm, and he says, Joe, your country needs you. I'm thinking, what the hell do I say now? And I said, Mr. President, and I grabbed his arm, country needs you, too. It needs us all. And I said, sir, I'm begging you not to. Why don't you just put this bill that you call your American rescue plan, put it in the jurisdictional Committees and let us work it. Give us a shot clock. Say, guys, I'm going to give you 60 days to work these bills.

Then if they don't because they just don't want you to have any success at all, do what you got to do then. Oh, no, got to do it now, Joe. Got to go, got to go. Okay, so we go. And then we shut it down there for about 12 or 14 hours one day because I thought they lost their mind. They wanted to expand the unemployment benefits. I said, do you understand what you're dealing with now? You got inflation coming at you so hard because people We've been cooped up. We've sent everybody a check. And I told him this, he giggled. I said, Mr. President, we've sent everybody a check. And if we've missed anybody, it was by a mistake because you intended to send everybody a damn check. And I said, they want to go spend money, and there's nobody working. The supply chains are shut down. There's nothing. They're going to pay exorbitant amounts to get what they want. You're just fueling it, sir. Oh, God, we went through all of that, and that's when he got pretty vulgar and just told me, If you kill my effing Bill, I'll never talk to you again.

I said, if I could kill this effing Bill, you shouldn't talk to me again, because if I could, I would. But I can't, the way your thing is moving. But I can tell you, We're never going to go this way at root again. So this is how we work things out. Then sure enough, one month, they come back with a BBB, Build Back Better. Now, they're talking six trillion dollars. That bill was 10 trillion if it was a penny with all the revamping, I couldn't get there, guys. And I told him, I said, Mr. President, I'm sorry, man, I can't get there. And they tried for eight months, beat up me. I mean, I had to have security.

What is that like? What is the What does the pressure campaign look like? Because it's not just the President exactly as you write in the book, it's people showing up at the house. It's people with little kayaks with protest signs around your boat. It's pretty intense.

It's pretty intense, Shemal, but I can tell you one thing. When every day the Capitol Police call you and says your death threats are serious right now, so we'll meet you down at where you live and we'll bring you to work and we'll take you back home. You know things are pretty serious. I never wanted to know the extent, but I knew they were serious. And then one time they said, this is really getting serious now because now we got things. They know where your children go to school. They know where your grandchildren are, where your kids live. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is crazy. And then I had a bunch of boaters come down, canoers. I got attacked by canoes. And I just said, guys, listen, we just disagree. It was all climate people. And I said, listen, I want a clean climate. I just know we need energy to run our country, and there's got to be a balance. And so I said, Come up to my office. They said, What? I said, Come to my office tomorrow. We can sit and talk. You don't have to be out here in the water.

But they thought that was the show they put on. When they came the next day. We talked, we agreed to disagree on some things, and we agreed on some things.

But Joe, I just want to understand, though, do you think that these are just random acts, or do you think that it's an organized pressure campaign?

Oh, no, that was organized. They were paid, Shamath, because a lot of my friends who live down at the river, on the Potomac River with me, on the boat, they They played like, How can I get a job with you? How can I do this if I want to protest? They said, I'll just sign up and get $15 an hour. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. They're telling me that.

But doesn't the message have to go from the White House? Doesn't Biden's team, somebody has to say, Like, go.

No, I'm going to be honest with you. Ron Klane, okay? Smart guy, good guy and everything. But he'd gone so far to the left, and he pushed Joe left because I kept telling him. When I first went over to the White House, I said, Mr. President, I said, You have the The most liberal staff that I've ever seen. First time I went over. And he said, well, Joe, they tell me I have the most diversified staff. I said, we're not talking about diversity, sir. We're talking about batshe crazy. We're talking about people I've known, I've worked within the hallway forever. And I Where they came and where they came and where they work before. These are people real far left. And Ron put that team together. And I know that because I kept saying, your staff is pushing you too far left, Mr. President. You've never been that far left. And I just someone says about I've always liked Joe Biden. We always got along well. Good man. I just don't think he lost the will to fight.

Okay, do you think it's that? Or can I just ask you all of these rumors, the comments about the autopend, the mental faculties?

Never sold that. Never. And I've been with him a lot. Okay, we always had good conversations. Now, with that said, I just said, I know how much energy it takes if you've got to fight with your staff every day to do the things you want rather than the staff saying, we'll take care of that, Mr. President. Because I would ask him, we agree on something, and I'd ask him a week or two later, and nothing had happened. So I know there was no follow up. So I knew Ron was driving the train. And with that, I'll tell you how this thing came to head. I said, I'm not voting to get on the BBB. And this goes on for a while. There's just pressure and pressure me, and they need my vote to even get on reconciliation. So it finally came down to I said, you've got some good things in that BBB bill. The one thing you really need is infrastructure. Remember the bipartisan infrastructure bill? Yeah. I said, this country, we haven't done anything for 30 years. I said, why don't you just... Let's pull that bill out. So Schumer, being the person he is, he said, I'll tell you what I'll do, Joe.

I'll pull that bill out. And I said, let me work that bill, Chuck. And I said, we'll get you a good bill and it'll be bipartisan. I'll show you it can be done bipartisan. He says, I'll tell you what, I'll do that and pull that out if you'll vote to get on BBB. So the reason I'm leading up to this So that's when people say, well, Joe promised to vote for it. I never promised to vote for BBB. I said, I'll get on and let you work the bill. I'm never going to be for this bill. So anyway, we get the bipartisan infrastructure, but we work it. And we pass it. And the night we were passing the bill sitting on the Senate floor, Bernie Sanders says, come over and talk to me, Joe. And I sit down, he said, Joe, are you going to vote for this BBB bill? And I said, hell no, Bernie, you know I've never been for that bill. And he says, well, at least you're being honest with me. I said, I've been It's the same as with everybody. I said, you guys want to work until the cows come home?

That's fine. I can't do this. And he says, I've cut it down from six trillion to three trillion. I said, Bernie, you and I know the game that's played here. You didn't cut it down. All you did was cut the timing down from 10 years to five years or three years to make it look like you were cutting them out. You know they're never going to get rid of any of this once you start giving everything away. Went through all of that. So he says, I can kill this bill. And I'm thinking at first when he said that, I said, well, Bernie, if you're saying you can kill the bill here in the Senate and Vermont doesn't need any infrastructure, your roads and bridges, Internet connections, your water and sewer, everything's great, then you should vote against it. He said, no, I'm not talking about here, Joe. I'm talking about on the other side in the house with all the liberals, with the progressives over there. So I didn't think of anything. We passed it that night. And boom, the bill gets held You remember that? It kept getting held up. And they kept sending him as President to talk to him to pass the bill, and they wouldn't pass.

And they kept saying, Manchin lied to us. And I said, Schumer, you better tell them the truth. You know exactly how you got on this bill. And you know I never, ever said I would ever vote for this bill.

Let me, Joe, if it's possible, I want to just go a little bit back, and I want to start with Obama. So you wrote in the book that Trump was the most engaged President you ever worked with, and that in the first two- No, I said two of them.

Two. Two of them, okay. Clinton, Bill Clinton. If you tell me people that are engaging with you and talk, Bill and President Trump.

Then you said in the first two years, you spoke with Trump more than you ever did under eight years of Obama.

Correct.

Contrast and compare Obama and Trump for us, and just help us understand the positives and negatives of both as you saw it.

I think Barack Obama is a very good man. But his politics, I knew him when he was a US Senator representing Illinois, and he knew about the coal industry. And, of course, I come from the coal industry, being governor of West Virginia and growing up in the coal fields. And we talked about Fossil and why we needed this, that and everything. He wanted me to help him and vote for something that would help his called FutureGen, which is the new coal-fired plant that was going to be CO2 capturing all this and that. They called it back. There was a billion project the government was sponsoring. And I told him I couldn't participate. I was one of the four states. I pulled out and put my support behind Illinois, and they got it. Never built a plant, but they got the award. So I knew he knew it. And then all of a sudden, he becomes the nominee from the Democratic Party and switched everything to renewables. And I'm thinking, well, what are we going to do with all the things that the coal miners have done and all we've done for our country? Does that mean you're going to bring new jobs or this Did you remember that?

There was no plan to replace any opportunities to live the quality of life and to live where they wanted to live with their culture and who we are and family oriented in the Appalachia. And I'll tell you, we had a meeting about one year afterwards, and I was in the National Governors Association leadership, and we had Democrats and Republicans. I finally got a meeting with him in the Roosevelt Room. And I'll never forget that. And And we were going around the table and different governors were speaking. He came to me and I said, Mr. President, you've done one hell of a good job of villainizing coal. And he jumped up and went nuts on me. I'm thinking, oh, boy, here we go. And he said, why would you say something like that? And I said, because it's true. I said, you have basically put benchmarks that we can't make because there's no technology that we can get our industry to meet those. That gives you the right to shut it down. And he made a statement, if you recall, So go ahead and build a coal-fired plant and we'll break you. He knew that the technology wasn't there.

So I'm thinking, Christ, what happened? You're leaving us behind. These people have nothing. And they said, What happened to the West Virginia Democrats? I said, I tell you exactly what happened. They ran them off. Now, all of a sudden, they've done everything like a returning Vietnam veteran. We've done everything our countries ask. Now, all of a sudden, we're not good enough, clean enough, green enough, or smart enough. They're the hell with them, just by the wayside. So you remember the slogan, Don't Leave Anybody Behind? At least Joe Biden picked up that slogan in 2020. And he has done a lot of things there, trying to have incentives to bring businesses into cold country, if you will.

So is it that Obama is just an incredibly strategic political calculator?

He was elusive. He was elusive.

What does that mean as a politician?

I don't know. When I talk to Bill Clinton, it was always What about this? He was always so inquisitive about this and that. What am I thinking about this and that? And we always had a couple of good jokes to tell each other and broke eye. We had a lot of fun. And with President Donald Trump, you go meet him. He's charming as can be. Charming. He sat down, talks with you. He said, Hey, Joe, what about this? What about that? We talk about a lot of things. And then one time I told him, Mr. President, just call me last. I was the only Democrat he was talking to. Come over, have breakfast, come over to lunch or do whatever, come to a movie. And And had a lot of fun. And I said, Just call me last. He said, Why you say that? I said, I don't know who in the hell you talk to last, but that seems to me what happens. I'd like to have one of those dates.

So a lot of this profile following courage around spending. And entitlements in the book you talk about comes from this rugged individualism, personal responsibility.

Accountability.

Yeah. And this accountability that you grew up with as a Catholic as well. I had that as well. A little bit of guilt, if you don't work hard as well, sprinkled in there as a backstop. We're looking at a country now where it seems the operating principle is, how do I get mine? You got something, I need to get something, and now you've got Mondami in New York. He's going to give free pizza and bagels and bus trips and whatever it is, whatever people want. He's going to give it to them for free.

Yeah.

You have not been able to, you failed in some ways, to turn this around in the country, this entitlement, as many of us have who have been screaming from the rooftops, ask not, and you can talk about this in the book, ask not what your country can do for you, what can you do for your country, you bring it up, go it over again.

That's exactly right. Yeah.

So I think we failed in the last two decades and socialism is on the rise. Why is that?

How do we turn it around? Let me just say at the BBB, the last time President Biden and I had met, where he calls me up into the White House, and he takes me up in stairs to the living quarters. And when you go up there, that's really going to the wood shed, if you will. And we were talking and everything. And I said, Mr. President, I can't get there. I really can't get there, sir. And I said, You and I are both at the same Vintage. You're a little bit older, but not that much. And I said, We're in the same vintage. And I said, I remember very vividly as a 13-year-old kid watching television, inauguration, 1906, of John Kennedy, asked, Now what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country. If we pass this piece of legislation, you're asking me to vote for, the BBB, you're changing the psychic to the nation of how much more can my country do for me. I wasn't born that way. I wasn't raised that way. I don't believe that way, and I can't do it. You can put a gun to my head and say, I'm going to pull the trigger.

I can't vote for it. And then all hell broke loose after that. So how it happened is this. My grandmother took everybody in. Okay, we lived by the railroad tracks between the Cric and the railroad tracks in a little three-room garage apartment. And my grandparents had a little home right beside us. She took everybody in. I never knew. I just watched. And I was the eldest of the boys, about 20 of us grandkids. We had to whitewash her basement, keep it clean in a nice place for people to stay. There was no social network back in the '50s. We had people that would ride the train. You can call what you want to. These were people that fallen out of society. They were all intelligent, smart, craftsmen, this and that, and alcoholics, probably, most of them. And they'd come down, they knew they could get off and go to a Mama K, and she'd take care of them. She said, I got three rules. You can't drink, you can't swear, and you've got to work. So my first introduction was there was rules, and they were all good rules.

Pretty basic operating system.

Okay, so you know what? After about a while, we had some of the best painters and carpenters you've ever seen. But we'd lose them every now and then. I said, Mama K, we had names for everybody, Schmott. We had Wilbar Willy, Peg Leg Peggy. You name it, we had them. They were all characters.

Peg Leg Peggy, especially.

Peggy had a Peg leg. Fire cracker. He had a Peg leg, a wooden Peg leg. And he got caught in That was in my building. I got caught in the tracks one time. We had to pull him out. Anyway, so I said, Mama K, what happened to Deloitte? Where'd Deloitte go? Oh, honey, he's on a tooth again. And the tooth was always the bottle. And when you see the old timers, on the tooth, they go like this. And And she said, Don't worry, honey, he'll be back in six weeks. And just got the cycle. That was it. So I learned that. My grandfather, people come in, Papa. My grandfather never kept books. He just kept all his money in his pocket. And he worked. That's how he worked. Immigrant from Italy. And Papa say, they came and say, Hey, pop, no matter who they were, Hey, Papa, can I borrow five? Can I have five? He said, Sure, honey. He called everybody, honey. He said, Here's a broom and shovel. Go up and clean the parking lot and I'll give you the five. I understood you had to do something for the five. Okay? Right.

They say, Papa, I'll be right back. He looked at me and he smile. He said, Don't worry, Joe. He said, Only about half of them take me up on it. So I knew you had to do something.

Now, that's a- That's a filtering mechanism. Yeah. And it relates directly to your belief, though, in having a work requirement.

I wanted a work requirement for anybody capable, able-bodied to work. And here's the thing. They got on me, said, mansions killing child tax credits. I said, I'm killing child tax credits? First of all, you have child tax credits up to $400,000 of income. You really want to know who needs a child tax credits? People right above the poverty guideline, mostly single females, above $25,000 a year, up to about $75,000. They need it, okay? And they're working. Please help them, okay? And I'd go into all of this, Jason and Shemoth, and then they said, Oh, no, we got to do this, that, cross the board. I said, Don't you think that rather than just sending buying checks to people that have children that don't work and won't work and sitting at home, why would they need childcare money when they're sitting home with their children? I said, it makes no sense to me at all. I can't go home and explain it. And my North Star has been this, as long as I've been in political life, if I can't go back to my little hometown of Farmington, to the people I grew up with and explain it, because I knew they wouldn't let me get by with anything.

They'd hold your feet to the fire. And that's how it is and never changed.

Do you think that we're now in this intractable period where there can't be any centriism? There can't be this idea that you work and then you earn something, that there's that dignity of work? Instead, it's these extremes that are constantly about what giveaway can I give to people to get them on my side? Is that where we are?

Let me give you the other thing about me and Bernie one time talking. And Bernie wanted free tuition, right? Always wanted free tuition. And then they finally thought, well, we'll get it free if we go junior colleges. I said, I'm not for anything free. I'm for earning it. Here's what I'm going to tell you. If they talked about free college, I said, Bernie, my son's, at that time, 47 years old. I said, my son's 40 years old. If you had free education, free tuition, he'd still be in school. He liked it so much. I said, he liked it so much. He'd still be there.

Or PhDs later.

So anyway, I said, no, I'm not for that. And so I said, let me tell you about free. If we identified skill sets that we're needing, and we can teach them in junior colleges, have them sign up, get a Stafford loan, guaranteed federal loan. They don't pay it back until Basically, until they finish their education. So if they finish in two years, they took a staff loan, they took what they needed to get educated on. They took a staff loan in a two year community college, they get a degree in a skill set. We forgive it. They've earned it. You didn't give it on the front end, because let me tell you what happens on the front end. Only half of them ever get through it, maybe a 25 %. They go for four years. And I don't know if you know how they give money. There's no financial literacy required at all. You all have to do a show the income of your family, and they have a scale they go by, or you can get 12,000 a year. You might only need four. I'll guarantee you. You tell the kid that comes from poverty, you tell them they can get 12,000, they'll take it all.

They're going to take They don't know what accrued interest is. They don't know about paying this back. It's a death trap. They don't know any of that. They drop out in two years for one reason or another, then it all comes due. They had a payment up until then. No one's explaining anything. And I said, told Elizabeth Warren, I said, Elizabeth, can't we just change the Stafford program to where you have to have financial literacy? You cannot get a loan without financial literacy. What was her answer? Well, it didn't happen. Let's just put it that way.

Yeah, put it that way. What's driving... I mean, I understand populism. I understand trying to buy votes. But what at the core, in your opinion, drives these individuals who think that not learning to sustain yourself in society and to get all of these freebies, what's in their mind? What are they missing about just the basic human condition that we have to work for stuff? The human operating system is we need challenges. And when you don't have purpose in life, it's a road. That's the primrose path. It's not a good place to go. I don't mind. It's devil's playground, as my grandmother would say.

Rest in peace. Let me say to both of you all about what has happened in this political process. And I've come to the conclusion, we need to have term limits. And I'm going to tell you how I came to that conclusion. When I was a governor, I was doing a town hall meeting in Southern West Virginia. A little lady got stood up in the back and she said, Joe, I wish you were for term limits. And I said, well, tell me why, Sue. I knew her. And Susie, I said, tell me why. She said, I just think this would be It's better for us to have turnover. And I wasn't for it. And I gave her all the reasons. I said, you're going to lose your most experienced people with the talent and the know-how and boom, boom, boom. I went through everything. She said, Joe, think of it this way. If we had term limits, maybe we get one good term out of you. I had no comeback. She convinced me right there. And from that point on, I've been for term limits. And I'm more for it today than I've ever been for it.

And the reason I'm telling you, yeah, maybe we'd one good term where you'd have the courage to do the conviction with the oath you took to defend and protect the Constitution. Do the job. Put country before party. Quit playing this game. Quit worrying about getting reelected. And it's gotten to the point now, public service, truly, when they said, John Kennedy says, the most noblest of all profession, public service, that's gone. It's Fame and fortune now. I get in there, I can keep churning it and churning it and churning it. And I've just said that basically the Senate Two six-year terms is enough. Twelve years is enough.

Let's actually look inside the political parties for one second.

Oh, boy.

Let's start with maybe an easy one, but it's actually quite maybe a nuanced answer. Tell us who you think are the two most dynamic senators, one Democrat, one Republican.

I was thinking about that because if I was you, I would have been asking the same question. I can name six or seven on both sides.

Oh, please. Yeah, let's take it. Yeah, let's go.

And when I'm saying that people that I've worked with, I know their DNA, okay? First of all, I'm going to always be, always be, deferential to former governors. A governor can't afford to be a governor of one side. And I'll give you the most perfect, simplest answer to that is, that pothole that busted my tire and basically bent my rim and messed my car did not have a Democratic Republican name on it. But I was responsible for making sure the repairs on the roads didn't do that. Okay. So you're like Senator King, Angus King from Maine, former governor. You have Mark Warner, Virginia, former governor, Tim Kaine, former governor. You have Jean Shahin, former governor, Maggie Hassan, former governor. You have Mike Rounds, former governor, John Hoeven, former governor. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were always my go to people on the Republican side, and Mitt Romney, three of the best of the best. You could always work with them because they were always looking to do the right thing. They didn't care about politics. And then I always had... You got Senator Cortez Mastow. You have... There's so many, Jackie Rosen, Tom Tillis on the Senate side, on the Republican side, Bill Cassidy is one of the best of the best.

Bill Cassidy is bright, sharp, always wanting to do the right thing, always very, very articulate. And he will get down to the nitty-gritty and go into the depths of it to find out an And you got Mike Rounds, former governor, great guy, South Dakota. These are people that I know have the ability to do it, to make it happen. You got to push, push, push. I was asked a question the other day, Shemoth, about what would you do, Joe, if you were still there? If I was king for a day and I had the ability to use the Roosevelt Room in the White House, I'd bring them over. I'd put them in the room. I'd put Schumer and put John Thune and put their team together and say, Guys, you're not getting out until you come to deal. This is not that hard. Here's what we're not... Everybody's wanting to blame, who's whose fault is it? Let's look at whose responsibility it is, not fault. Who's responsibility? My Friends in the Republican Party have the trifecta. President's Republican, House's Republican, Senate's Republican. You have the mantle. You have the gavel. You've got to keep the train running.

You got to keep this place open. And I've said this, I know that the President has the ability to do that, but you can't always have politics driving the end result to do your job. And that's to keep it open. I've never voted for a shutdown Yeah. I've gotten caught in a couple of shutdowns, but I never voted for them. And they're tough to get out of because people get ingrained and they get in like their feet are in cement, can't get out. So I think the President has to move this. And I've said this, our great country in the present with his leadership over the Middle East is able to get Hamas and Israelis to sit down and make a deal. Surely to God, I know the President can get a Democrat and Republicans to make a deal. I know that. But everybody's got to quit playing the politics, because of what the outcome of the '26 election, it'll take care of itself.

Which group hates each other more? Democrats, Republicans?

Oh, that's a good question.

I was going to say, which one hates each other more?

It's a shame. Let me tell you, this is such an easy lift. You know what happened with this health care thing? I was right in the middle of this whole thing. I know exactly. When they did the Affordable Care Act, remember in 2017 that John McCain made the famous vote, voted down? Okay. I was in the back hallway when all that unfolded, back at the center before John came out and made his vote. And John had been getting pressured heavily by the White House, President Trump and his staff at that time. John finally walked out and getting ready to walk out, and he was sitting there, and I came through the hallway And I said, John, listen, I'm not crazy about this Affordable Care Act the way you have to be forced to buy a product, whether you like or not, you can't shop it and you're fine if you don't, the penalties. It makes no sense. I said, but, John, if the Republicans have anything they can give us, I probably support it and vote for it, but they don't have anything to replace it with. And what it did do, it helped poor working people that were using the emergency room and we're using workers compensation for the only deliveries that they had for their health care.

And then pre-existing condition, we stopped that from being eliminated from the process so people could get for the first time any type of care. So that was good. But somebody had to pay for it. So they switched it. Once you got above the 150 percentile of poverty, then you were hit pretty hard to pay for what we're giving away on this end. That means you have a broken system. Sooner or later, you got to fix the system, and no one was willing to fix it. They're just moving it around. So the Democrats, COVID hit, hot dog, that's our time to shine now. Let's go ahead. And man, they went to 400 % and even greater. Republicans are saying, can't we just get back, which is a normal thing? Can you get back to pre-COVID? Well, it's hard to take something back, Jason. And Shemoth, once you got up there because now what you can do is say, okay, for one year, we're going to extend this for one year. We're going to come from 400 to 200. We're going to gradually get back and we're going to try to fix our delivery system of health care.

The insurance companies, insurance companies are running health care. It's not the professional doctors, the professional health care. It's insurance telling you what you can, what you can't, what you're paying for, chasing the dollars. That has to change, but someone has to be willing to do it. So that's where we are.

There's an issue, Joe, which is that they're also talking about the unintended consequences of the costs we have to bear for folks that don't have a legal immigration status. That there's a burden that includes. Can you give us your opinion on... And you can expand this.

Immigration, whatever.

Immigration. But maybe you can start with the health care, because I think that's the wedge issue that seems to be slowing everybody down and maybe give us a...

Well, the Democrats are telling you that it's not in there, that illegal immigrants who've come to this country are not getting the benefits of the citizens of our country when they hit hard times. And people will say, well, why did you write this, this, this in your declaration of what you want done as far as to bring it back? And let's get going. Again, you put that in one of your demands. There's some reference to that in the demand. So it show what their intentions were. The bottom line is that, no, there's no way immigrants that come here illegally and don't have a pathway forward or we've been into a working walking pathway forward. That should ever happen. You should never be able to have benefits coming here. There should not be a traction for that. And that's what they're saying had happened. I beg the Democrats, are you crazy about doing asylum at the border? We've never done that. We had a 2013 piece of legislation by bipartisan ship at that time. It was a bipartisan gang of eight to put it together. And we passed it with 68 or 69 votes in the Senate.

Sent it to the House. John Boehner, I beg John Boehner to put it on the floor. I like John Boehner. He's a friend of mine. John says, Joe, I can't put it on. Eric Cantor just got defeated in Richmond because the person from the far right accused Eric Cantor for supporting this immigration reform. And they said, this amnesty. And by God, anybody that came here the wrong way has got to get out of here. We got to send them back. That bill that we put together in a bipartisan way that basically gave you so many days, let's say, 60, 90 days or more, I forget the term, the amount right now, to go to the courthouse and turn yourself in. Pay a fine for misdemeanor, let's say it was $750, and then you would get in the back of the queue. But once you turned yourself in, we would know if you had any criminal record or not. Then we knew who to go after because there's people who've been here for 10, 20, 30 years. They brought little children here now who are adults, serving in the military and basically professing, teaching in our schools.

These are production collective, supportive. They love the country as much, if not more than Americans that were born here. So this is what gets me. We had that bill and couldn't get it because they were afraid that he would lose the right. He lost them anyway. The far right wasn't going. Tea Party at that time wasn't going to go, but John could have put it on the floor and it would have passed. And I think if you talk to John- Do you think Americans would be shocked if we really knew the inner workings to understand that at the end of the day, Bipartisan coalitions and reforms literally stop on a dime on all number of issues because a person one day interprets and reads the tea leaves and says, yes, no, yes, no.

Is that really basically what happens?

Well, let's look a little... Here, let me give you the easiest thing we could have done. There's two things, don't ask, don't tell. And then you have the Dobbs Act as far as on abortion. Okay, the Supreme Court.

Sure.

Well, the Supreme Court, on that, we've lived with Roe v Wade for 50 years of unprecedented law. It was unprecedented law, I mean. We never codified it through the legislature, but the courts, it was precedent. Now, all of a sudden, that blows apart and everybody gets torn apart. All they had to do was just codify Roe v Wade. That's all we had to do. And I teamed up with Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, and we had a bill that All we did, simply codify. It wasn't pro-life enough and it wasn't pro-choice enough. But it's something we learned to navigate for 50 years. Well, guess what? Our Democrat friends wanted to open up wide, open abortions up. They can tell you what they wanted, what they intended, but that's exactly what they were trying to do. And I told them, I called them out and said, are you going to try to explain to people to make them believe this piece of legislation you're trying to put through on the freedom of choice is going to be just codifying Roe v Wade. That is so insincere, and I will not have any part of it. And then the Republicans wanted to just double down.

I mean, make it criminalizing abortions. We couldn't because of politics. I've seen things like that that we had it right in the palm of our hand and let it slip through. And we could have done that, and that's on it. We could have done the immigration. Right now, you'd never be in this immigration fact.

A lot of this history gets swept under the rug because nobody really knows what was possible, because people like you typically don't leave and then write a book like this to just share all of it. And then part of it is then when you do share, unless people like us help amplify these stories, it's never said and it's never really well understood.

The biggest problem, Shemoth, is this. Very few people who have been in political life and had any notoriety at all, they have almost an impossible responsible time of saying, I got it wrong. I made a mistake. I tried. I thought I had the answers, but I didn't. I misread that one. How many times have you heard anybody in politics today or have been in politics can still say that I screwed up Raleigh on the Don't ask, don't tell. And I'll tell you why. I was there in my first 2011. All the Joint Chiefs of Staff were there and explaining, and Obama wanted to get rid of it. Because before, everybody kept it Don't ask, don't tell. That was a Bill Clinton thing. Let's let bygones be bygones. Let the sleeping dog lie. Well, it came out now. Obama wanted to get rid of it. And then I'm listening to everybody talk. I got down to the Commandant of the Marines. And the Marine Commandant said, Listen, General, he says, I've got 50 % of my troops on the battle lawn right now. This is a heck of a policy change could jeopardize the welfare and well-being of my troops.

So I was against it. I said, Don't get rid of it. No, no. That means if you were known to be gay, then you could not serve. I was totally wrong on that because they went ahead and passed it, thank goodness. And then I found out that it didn't change anything. Everybody already knew. Everybody knew who was who and what their sexual preferences were. It didn't affect their ability to fight or defend our country. So I made a mistake. I got that wrong. And I lived up to it. And I said, I made a mistake. I'm sorry, but I thought I was doing the right thing listening to a professional. Those things happen. But I don't know how we get to that. And that's why I kept saying, if we had two six-year terms for a senator, six two-year terms from a house member, one 18-year term for the United States Supreme Court, and one six-year term for the President. Maybe we could all do a better job but not worrying about the next election.

As we get towards the end of our time, I want to talk to you a little bit about how dysfunctional and unpopular the Democrats and the Republicans have been in the last couple of years since Nixon. I think Trump's first and second term, both... I think it's about 37% approval rating right now Biden ended with 34 %. He was averaging about 40 %. People really are not happy with their choices. And there's a no labels group. I've been mocked and dismissed here on this very podcast talking about, I there's a perfect time for a third party. And we had Ross Perot. People forget he got 19 %, I believe, of the popular vote. You are in my camp. You believe there's a possibility in that we're primed for it. Give your best explanation of why you think now is the time for a third party to challenge these two extremely unpopular parties.

Jason, we've got to change the process of how... You have a duopoly right now. A duopoly is a business monopoly, almost, but it's a duopoly. You have the Corporation of the Republican and Corporation of the Democrat, and that's a business mode. And if they can control the flow, so how do you control the flow? By the primaries. You can say, well, it's by redistricting and all this. It's really the primary process. The primary process is this. I cannot, being a no party affiliate right now an independent, that's my registration. If I want to vote for a friend of mine who's a Republican in West Virginia, the Republican Party in West Virginia will not let me vote in their primary unless I register a Republican. The Democrats do the same all over the country. They do that. They close them down because if they can control the flow and you have maybe during, let's say, the 2024 election, let's say, 2024 A million people, maybe 11 or 12 on each side, D and R, participated in the national primary. But 160 million of us voted in the general election. But 24 million people made a decision on our choices.

That's it. And so what I said, this is our democracy is still an experiment. We thought we could govern ourselves. And by governing yourself, that means we can pick representatives that represent us. I can't even vote. So I can't participate. 45 to 50 % of us can't participate in the primary process. We're the largest denomination of registered voters who can't participate.

You're referring, of course, to independence.

Independence, no party affiliation, independence. There's only about 23, 24% that are registered Democrats, about 27, 28, I think, registered Republicans. The rest are like myself. And I said, wait a minute. The Voting Rights Act, they took that to the court about the African-Americans not having the right to participate and vote, and they won that one. Why don't we take this to court? Why don't we do this on this podcast? You all take off with it and run with it. It should be, I am not able to be represented, and I can't pick a representative because I can't participate.

Let me just summarize what you're saying. You think there's a legal avenue under the Voting Rights Act that says what we really need is first past the post or some form of electoral form Otherwise, if you just do it via these primaries, we're getting disenfranchized.

My position is this, that the majority of people who are registered to participate in a general election in the United States of America are basically prevented from participating in the primary process of electing who you're going to vote for in the general. I think there definitely is a court procedure that could remedy this and basically stop these close primaries.

Let's talk about '26, just specifically, what do you think happens in the Senate and the House? What is the balance of power in your mind coming out of the '26 election?

The only thing I have said, and I will continue to say this because my Republican friends are the only ones that are saying, we will not get of the filibuster in the United States Senate. And I hold them to their word. These are my friends, John Thune and his staff and all of his people on his leadership team. And I hope the Republicans keep the Senate. Now, for that, if you want a little bit of balance of power to challenge a little bit, calm it down a little bit, then you'd want the Democrats to win the House, the Congress. And if that could happen, then it might calm it down. We've got to calm down. We got to turn down the temperature. And if that would turn it down, maybe fine, because when you have the trifecta, you can keep throwing stuff up there and pushing things pretty darn hard.

Joe, I know that Jason has a final question, which I'll let him do, but I want to give you my question.

Okay.

Let's start from when you went into the Senate to now when you're leaving. President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, and now President Trump. Give us the expectation Expectation versus the outcome on what you've seen from these four presidential terms, if you will. Expectation versus outcome for these four periods.

Expectation on Obama was that he was bringing a complete different scenario to it, an all-inclusive scenario, as you will. Now, it was a possibility for all of us to participate, no matter what your gender, what your race, where you, boom, boom, boom. So with that, we were expecting an awful lot. And I think he had a lot of compassion, but it just didn't communicate well with the legislature. I didn't know that because I didn't serve with him until I got there at the end of 2010, 2011. And I could see, you've got to participate. You've got to get involved. You got to call them over to the White House and work him. I thought he could have done a lot more with that to get better participation. And basically, we got rid under him. They got rid of the filibuster. We lost the filibuster for the judges, judicial system. And I wasn't upset by losing them for basically appointments that were will and pleasure, but it went further than that. So I think that helped erode a lot of the checks and balances we had. Then it went further after that, too. So with that being said, then you would go right in from there.

And then we have Trump. We didn't know what to expect, but we were thinking, here's a businessman. Always told us how to successful in things of this. We were expecting some things. And I met with him from day one in 2016 and talked to him. And then I met with him in 2017, 2018. And there's a cute thing in the book there when you go through my book about he said he wasn't going to campaign against me in 2018. He liked me. I'm his friend. Well, he ended up coming six times in my state, and they spent an extra 25 million trying to beat me. And then afterwards, he calls me one week later, Come have lunch with me. And I walk in. He He said, I told you we couldn't beat him. I'm thinking, well, Jesus, what the hell am I going to say? Well, it wasn't for a lack of trying. He says, oh, Joe, you know I didn't want to beat you. I said, I knew you weren't serious, Mr. President. If you were serious, you'd have spent 50 million and came 12 times. So that's what I'm dealing with. But a lot of the things he did, I was more in sync with what he was doing because he understood we had to have an all-in energy policy.

Yeah. Well, I still would tell him, Mr. President, we need everything. We need oil, we need gas, we need coal. We need to use the technology. I said, you cannot eliminate your way to clean an environment. You can't innovate it, but you can't eliminate it. You've got to use technology. Boom. So he was more in tune with what I was trying to push through than my Democrat base was and the people I was working with. And then we have Joe Biden, who I had an awful lot of, oh, man, here's a guy I've worked with for a long time. And then Joe Biden, when there was a shutdown with Ted Cruz in 2013, I'll never forget this. It was a bomb Obama sends Joe Biden to make a deal. Open this government up, get a deal done. Joe Biden goes directly to Mitch McDonald, sits down old buddies, no friends. They cut a deal. We open the government back up. And I went into caucus the next week, we're in the caucus with the Democrats. And Harry Reid says, I told President Obama, don't ever send that damn Joe Biden back to make a deal.

We don't want him here at all making a deal for Democrats. Now he's the President, okay? Going to be the President. I think, boy, we got it now. And boy, was that a let down? Went far to the left. And I don't think that was in his heart. But he came out of Iowa bad, came out of New Hampshire even worse, went to South Carolina, got resurrected. And within three weeks, Everybody drops out. Hadn't make a deal, I think, with the wrong side of that, and try to calm it down. And just for the sake of being President, I think he had to sign up, and his people took him to the promised land of the far left, which has no return. Now with, I think President Trump has a chance to be monumental in what he can do because he has that support from a real strong base. I want to see the band that could just charm you when you walk in and talk to him. I want to see that being shown now. He is the perfect President for the Middle East. Strong man, strong arm. I say what I mean, I mean what I say, and boom, boom, boom, using my military might.

That doesn't work in the Western part of the world, where we have diplomacy. We work, we give and take a little bit. He's a good enough of a negotiator to understand that, but they're still playing his people are pushing him to stay hard, hard, hard. And it's not what we need right now in America. We need a leader with that compassion, but the ability to bring us together and make us work together in the United States.

Last question before I give it to Jason for the last question. If you had to think about 2028, people that are on both sides, I I think the Republicans, mostly the die is cast, but let's not front run that. But on the democratic side, maybe, if you will, who are some people that you think could bring some normalcy, try to veer that party back to more of the center? Are there younger, emerging people that you see in the Democratic caucus and in the Democratic Party that you think has this potential?

I'm not sure it's going to come out. If we have anybody in the United States Senate on the Democrats side, people that are capable. Mark Warner, my dear friend, I know he's capable all the get out, but I'm just not sure you're going to break loose because you get identified, you get labeled. You're in that Democrat Party that was just so far to the left and this and that. It's going to be somebody coming, whether it's going to be a governor or an up and coming statesman within the party, or it could be someone's talked about Stephen A. Smith. You know Stephen?

I mean, you were on his show. He is incredibly dynamic.

I'm going to tell you one thing.

He's incredibly dynamic.

He's as center, left, center, right as you want. He can go both. He's not going to go extreme as good as it gets. There's a lot of good people, I think, could rise up now with the Democrat Party, except him. The Democrat Party has been basically taken over by the extremes. And they say, well, the MAGA Party is taking over the Republican Party. Grand old party wants to be grand again. Democrats want to be responsible and compassionate again. I tell people I'm fiscally responsible and socially compassionate, which I think most Americans are. And then you have, I know Stephen Besheer. I mean, I know Andy Besheer because I serve with his dad. We were governors together. I know a good family. I know those people. So there's going to be some people rise up that might be surprising. Shapiro.

Do you think that there are entrepreneurs like Donald Trump, but on the left? Or do you think that that avenue is closed for business people on the Democratic side?

I wouldn't think so because a business person on the Democratic side could come across with a heart and a soul and be a little bit more softer in their approach, and I think be able to hit a nerve there. We have someone with the smarts to do it, and we have someone with the compassion, but also the strength to make sure that we remain. My biggest concern I have is what Mike Mullen told me in 2011, my first armed services meeting, Shemot and Jason. I sat there. They asked the question, what's the greatest fear the United States of America has right today? And that's 2011. I thought he was going to talk about China, about North Korea, about Iran, on and on and on. He never missed a beat. Within one second, he says, the debt of the nation will take us down. We will fold because the debt we have, and it's going to be unmanaged debt, which will lead us to make cowardly decisions. And we're at 37 trillion. Every five dollars that we receive for revenue to run our country takes one dollar of that 20 % just to pay the debt on our interest, our interest on our debt.

It's horrible.

Jamie Dimon, Bob Iger come to mind.

Absolutely. I would be receptive to all... There's a lot of good people. I think it's going to be very interesting. The Democratic Party will have to get out of its own way in its ideology left. People aren't going that direction. Let me give you one other thing, Jason, and think about. Bernie and AOC is going around the country with these rallies and rallies. If that was effective, and that's where the country is going, why has a Democrats lost, basically, people who were registered. They lost registration of over 100,000 people who've left the Democratic Party since they started that crusade.

Nobody wants it. It's a road to nowhere.

No, that's exactly right.

Wow, Big Joe, you've been so honest and candid here. It's okay if I call you Big Joe?

I don't know. I've been called Big Joe. You know what? Joe Biden called me. He says, Jojo. I could always tell if he was in a good mood with me. He said, Hey, Jojo, what's going on? And if he was pissed, Hey, Joe, what's wrong?

Yeah, I'll just call you Big Joe because I got a lot of respect for you. You've been so honest today, and so you can be permissioned to be totally candid here. How close did you come to running as an independent for President? And you could be especially candid about this. How would you, now that you got this great book and a great track record, obviously, Profile and Courage, how would you make the decision to run yourself in 2020?

Walk us through both. I think about, first of all, I I would have loved to have been, and I beg the Democratic Party to have a mini primary, 30-day primary when Joe Biden- Steven. Love it. I beg them. I said, You had to dispel some of the things that they were labeled with. And on every Democrat believed in that. That would have been a time to dispel a lot of that stuff. But, boy, when he come doubled down and came right back within, what, an hour or two and threw everything behind Kamala Harris, it was over. And I knew we were in trouble then. I would have loved to been on that diocese.

Would you have run in a speedrun? Would you have put yourself out there in a speedrun?

I'd have been right in there. I'd have done everything I could. To be talking about things that we're talking about now. Do we need energy? Absolutely. Don't turn your back on energy. This is make sure we do it better than anybody in the world. Do you need a strong border? Well, let me ask you something. You all have property lines. When you buy a piece of property in a house, you either build a fence or you live in a gated area, you want to protect your property. Why can't we protect our borders? But also have a legal immigration policy that works. I got to brought all of that stuff out. And I think a lot of Democrats believe like I do, but they've gone so far to the left, they can't retreat. And if they don't get out of their way, they're going to go down and defeat.

And so 2028, Jason's question? Yeah.

Well, 2028, guys, we have to say I'll do anything I can to help my country. But I want to make sure, 2028, I will be what? I'm 78 years old right now.

You're going to be 81, same as Biden, close to Trump. Yeah. And you're sharp as a tack.

And I'm a year younger. I'll give you something. Mitt Romy and I were talking about running. I said, Mitt, he said, Joe, we have to start a new party. I said, What would it be, Mitt? He said, We'll call it the NotStupeitParty. I said, Hell, they might question us why we're involved in. What are we doing here? Yeah. And then I said, Well, man, what do you think? He said, Joe, listen. He said, They don't want two old white guys running. And I said, We're the youngest ones out there right now.

Yeah, you're representing snappers.

We were both a year younger. We have a lot of fun with that. We talk a lot. Anyway, we'll just see what happens. I'm going to be involved every way I can, and good Lord gives me the health and strength to participate any way I possibly can. I will, but I guarantee you I'll be trying to find the right people that put country before party and all the bullshit behind them, and let's get this country back on track.

Heck, yes. Joe, on behalf of the All-In community, I just want to say thank you for your years of service. By the book.

Yeah. Dead Center. In defense of common sense. Don't be stupid.

Your daughter is incredible. Heather is the best.

Heather is a force, and you know that. She's the best. She thinks the world of you and your wife. She's the best. I'm just so happy that we got to spend a little time together. And I look forward to coming out with you all and Jason. Yes.

Come do a live one.

Let's do a live one. We'll have one hell of a polka party.

That'll be great. That'll be great. Ladies and gentlemen, there's your hour with Joe Manchin.

Thank you. I'm doing all in.