After months of deliberation and long conversation with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia. I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to United States Senate. [00:00:18] >> Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds maybe like good news. Not necessarily for the Democratic majority in the Senate since 2024 was already going to be an incredibly difficult cycle. It almost certainly will revert to the Republicans now. But, look at least if you're sick of Joe Manchin, you don't have to deal with him anymore, right? [00:00:34] Not so much. He's not gonna be running for re-election in the Senate, but he's still hanging around and he's got some plans, listen to this. >> Speaker 1: What I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together. [00:00:52] Every incentive in Washington is designed to make our politics extreme. The growing divide between Democrats and Republicans is paralyzing Congress and worsening our nation's problems. The majority of Americans are just plain worn out. [00:01:08] >> Speaker 2: He's accurate in that last point. I'm worn out. I'm worn out by people like him doing things like what he's talking about doing there. So he's gonna be wandering across the country trying to see if he should run for president. He doesn't have, I guess, the guts to just put it out there and say that. [00:01:25] Is he gonna be with no labels? We don't know, but he's just wondering, is there an interest? What is the game that we're playing, Brett? Everybody who is going to know who and what Joe Manchin is already knows. We know how popular, unpopular he is. [00:01:44] He's not going to wander into Nashville and suddenly the country is calling out for him to save us from Biden and from Trump, it's a myth. Any third party candidate has a difficult road because of the structure, the nature of our elections. [00:02:01] At least a far left or far right candidate in theory, could have the effect of pushing one of the two party candidates, even if they themselves aren't able to make it on the ballot and actually win this thing. But these centrist candidates, to me, make way less sense because at least the far left and the far right candidate [00:02:20] might not have a major party candidate that reflects their stances. But Joe Manchin already effectively has that. His economic policies, I think, are well represented by the candidates that are already in there. So anyway, look, it's not like this is the first hint we've gotten that he could be [00:02:35] running for president, but it looks like he's moved a big step towards it. What do you think? >> Speaker 3: I don't know. When people don't seek re-election, it's either cuz they have a better job lined up that could be president, but it could be some random energy sector lobbyist scheme that he's got going on. [00:02:52] It's definitely not news because he's so boring or they can't win their re-election. And I don't know what's gonna happen with that. I think he's just kind of been in there for long enough and he's done, Joe Manchin is important thing for long enough. [00:03:11] But the one thing we need to just point out, in America when certain people say moderate, they just mean moderate vibes. They're just talking vibes. They're just talking. They wanna cater to that thing that a lot of Americans have in their soul, which is, [00:03:27] why can't we all just kind of take the temperature down and get, why is it so polarized? But what he doesn't understand is that a lot of the policies that people want are not gonna be favored by a guy like Joe Manchin. Most people want better nationalized health care. [00:03:43] Joe Manchin is not for that. A lot of people want cleaner air and water. Joe Manchin's not for that. And the policies that are moderate are not policies. These guys who are just for moderate vibes are gonna get for anybody. >> Speaker 2: Yeah, 100%, you could have a candidate who is like [00:04:03] a human version of Brett's most Americans agree segment. Forget about the Democrat and Republican, we're just gonna find the things that actually poll really well and we're gonna push for those. But that's the exact opposite of what Joe Manchin is. If you actually just listed the positions he cares about and prioritizes, [00:04:22] they're not popular and they're already well represented in government. If there is a unity candidate, he is on substance and popularity, the exact opposite of what that would be. He is effectively just a more corporate version of the mainstream parties, [00:04:41] which are already predisposed to do what the corporations and what the richest individuals want. So, again, it's why I don't know if this is true for our audience. Just when you hear centrist, when you hear moderate, it is just so utterly not meaningless necessarily. [00:04:58] It has been given a meaning that it does not deserve by the media class that largely agrees with the status quo. So to put forward a candidate like this and say that it is anything other than another tool for the status quo to maintain itself is just utterly ridiculous. [00:05:14] Polling wise he's not gonna have a chance. Some of his votes that he has taken, like helping to kill the child tax credit, voting against codifying Roe v Wade, voting against the voting rights bill, he's just done a lot of really reprehensible stuff. [00:05:31] None of it screams unity to me. >> Speaker 3: I just like to say he's facing Jim Justice, who is a guy who used to be a Democrat and turned to becoming a Republican when the realignment happened. West Virginia is very interesting, and he just hasn't done the realignment yet. [00:05:48] But this will solidify the final realignment in American politics. >> More than likely. [MUSIC]