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 Chamath 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. And it's great to be with you and Chamath 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. It's been very entertaining, very interesting and very thoughtful. So anxious to be here.

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 I in the book you talked about your first car, your 19...

Oh, if I could if you could find that if you could find that thing for me, it was a bullet back. I can't find the car. Well, there it is with the white interior.

Oh my god. Where can we buy it? No. No. We got it. It's in your driveway right now. When you get out of your office there, it'll be waiting for you by your yacht.

Let me tell you that. Oh, by my yacht. Yeah, I got a big... Oh my god. Has a $200,000 trawler.

It's a fishing trawler. Correct. And it's a trawler. Joe, listen. Joe, what 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... He'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, which a lot of authors, you know, they get try to get talk out of doing it, but it makes it so much more personal.

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

It's part of the contract. It's like six or seven hours of reading.

It took 20 hours. 20 hours. Four days. And let me tell you, it's the best thing I've ever done. The make me reminisce everything we put in the book.

But, you know, the the book's fantastic. Everybody go pause the uh podcast here and I just absolutely go buy it because it's so important and you know I mentioned um 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 brewhaha Donnie Brookke with an Italian Irish boy scout. You an Eagle Scout?

No. No. I got up to I got up to life. And what happened? I was right next to it. Let me tell you what happened. 1959. Never forget it. The coal mines the coal mines got automated in West Virginia. I lived within I lived in 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. Okay. 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 on the curb. They got laid off because it got automated. They lost their job. Pat Keenir was my scout leader. The best of the best of the best. If you have a good scout master, 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.

But you got in a heater with Joe Biden over the the bill back better bill. Yeah. to the extent that like I believe the Democrats or operatives were sending people to your trawler, your your house boat that you're living on, they're sending people, you know, a little bit out your family maybe everywhere. I was and I had the death threats were unreal, Jason.

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 the United States Senate is supposed to be the the the uh most deliberate body in the world. And the reason it's deliberate because you have to have a 60 vote threshold for closure to get on to get on a bill. And with that, that was intended from our founding fathers is that the house is going to be 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, you know, it's just 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 rid of the filibuster. That's the holy grail to democracy as we know it. Because without it, we wouldn't be the a 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 that's what it was 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 kind of knew in his mind that I would probably run for the Senate and he was getting to the end of his career or, you know, his age was creeping up on him pretty 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 the whole the whole thing on reconciliation, there's a reconciliation. It's it's a movement. It's a 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 closure 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 that 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 whether you're in the m if you're one of if you're not the majority leader but you're one of the senators in the caucus or the Dem Republicans you have the same power you have the same you know you can participate every senator can participate. They're all important 100 of them.

So he keeps saying, Joe, he says, you know, understand this Georgia thing could really, you know, it could happen. I'm thinking, well, I don't think we're going to win Georgia. We hadn't and then 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, you know, we got uh uh two senators that are running from there. And boom, the first one calls Raphael Warnock. He wins. Ossoff's 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, Chamath. I know exactly. Chuck Schumer basically coming from where he comes from. It just whatever you can take back home. And of course, Bob Bird was always criticized for taking so much what they call pork back home. And that was the 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 forward. 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 and maybe just to take a step back for the audience, the whole point is that as you explained, basically laws can get passed in one of two ways. The real way, which is that you have to find some sort of compromise with folks on the other side, get to 60 votes, or the other way, which is a more of a budgetary process called reconciliation, which is a simple majority. And 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. And 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 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 for his cabinet and things of that sort and and some judges. 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 uh I just said, Harry, I'd never do that. I mean, my goodness, you can't 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 at that time, I even told Harry, I said, "Harry, the only thing that the president's wanting that he got he won re-election 2012, gets reappointed 2013, reinaugurated, 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're you get elected. You're the executive Chamath 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 unless I then they can do a FBI background check, find out if I'm of sound character and moral values and no criminal records and boom, let me go." So I 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'll be will and pleasure, no holdovers whatsoever. But you can't do it to judges that get lifetime appointments. You can't do it for other other uh different agencies that have a six-year or a nine-year term. Just will and pleasure." And I I thought that would be very simple. And he wouldn't do it. They said, "Oh, no. We got to get the judges. I says, "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 the They did it for district and circuit judges. Okay? Didn't do it for Supreme Court. Guess what happened as soon as Republicans took over? They were in control. Mitch McConnell says, "Fine, we'll do it for Supreme Court. Now we have a 63 court." didn't work too well before he did it. You know, whether it be Harry or that. And during this, Chuck Schumer's just come out directly and has 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 Kyrsten Sinema voted against the filibuster, which stopped all that. I was all for the voting. I mean, all the concern the voting act, 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.

uh the first thing they did was a ARP. The American Rescue Plan was his first bill. 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. Okay, we had just done, you all know the finances better than probably anybody observing. We had put $3.2 2 trillion dollars into the market as co in 20 in 2020 March of 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 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. that the market can't take it. But they were doing it. And I says, "Are you people crazy right now? We don't even know what what the 3.2 is going to do, let alone but they wanted it was they were be chasing a social reform."

And I told him, I said, "Mr. President, they heard me grumbling uh in the hallway and one of the senators called the White House immediately and says, "Manchin making trouble already." Well, it was 50/50. They had to have me. say, "Call me right over to the White House." And I'm sitting there. I said, "Mr. President, I'm begging you, please don't do the 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 cuz I'd heard them respectfully. I, you know, I can agree in some and I disagree, but it was just too big a bite coming right out of co and we had a vaccine that was working." So I said, "Please don't, sir." And 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 can work on both sides. You can make a deal." And I always known you to be that person.

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 that what we call the 117th Congress. The Congress is a two-year stint. Every two years you have an election. So, Congress, we were in 117th, just starting it. My my uh thought process was is that Schumer had convinced the president that we could run this Congress for two years with four reconciliation big bills, two in two in 2021 and two in 2022. And I says, 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 grabbed you always Jason. You're sitting there and you see it on television. They 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 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 this these bills." Then if you 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 cuz 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 have been cooped up. We've sent everybody a check. And I told him this, he kind of giggled. I said, I said, "Mr. President, we've sent everybody a check. And if we've missed anybody, it was by mistake cuz 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 he that's when he got pretty vulgar and just told me I'm going to you're going to you know if you you kill my effing bill I'll never talk to you again. I said if I could kill this 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 you things is moving but I can tell you we're never going to go this way route again.

So this is how we work kind of work things out. Then sure enough one month they come back with BBB. Yeah. build back better. Now they're talking $6 trillion. 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 on me. I mean, I had to have security.

What is that? What is that like? Like, what does the pressure campaign look like? It's 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. But I can tell you one thing. When every day uh the Capitol police call you and says your death threats are serious enough right now, so we have to have, you know, 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."

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

I think it was organized. They were paid Chamath because a lot of my friends who live on the 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 say oh just sign up and get $15 an hour. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. They were telling me that.

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

oh no Ron I'm going to be honest with you. strong claim, okay? Smart guy, good guy and everything, but he had gone so far to the left and he pushed Joe left cuz I kept telling when I first went over to the White House, I said, "Mr. President," I says, "You have 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 bat crazy. We're talking about people I've known, I've worked with in the hallway forever, and I know where they came and where they worked before. These are people real far left. And Ron put that team together. And I I know that because I kept saying that your staff is pushing you too far left, Mr. President. You've never been that far left.

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... I said two of them two two... Clinton Bill Clinton... if you told me people that are engaging with you and talk Bill and uh and President Trump and then you said in the first two years you spoke with Trump more than you ever did under eight years of Obama. Correct. 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 President Barack Obama is a very good man, you know, and and but his politics, I knew him when he was a US senator representing Illinois and he knew about the coal industry and I you of course I come from the coal industry being governor of West Virginia and growing up in 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 uh uh future gen, which is the new uh coal fired plant that was going to be uh CO2 capture and all this and that. They called it back. That was a billion. It was a billion dollar 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 and they got it. Never built the plant, but they got the the award. So, I knew he knew it. And then all of a sudden he becomes a number he becomes the the nominee from the Democratic party and switched everything to 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 or that? There was no plan to replace any opportunities to live the quality of life and to live where they wanted to live with it their culture and and and who we are and family oriented in the Appalachia.

And boy, I'll tell you, we had a meeting about one year afterwards and I was uh in the National Governance 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 uh and we were going around the table and different governors were speaking. He came to me and I says, "Mr. President, you've done one hell of a good job at villainizing Cole." And he jumped up and it went nuts on me. I'm thinking, "Woo boy, here we go." And he said, "Why would you say something like that?" And I said, "Because it's true." I says, "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 And he made a statement, if you recall, go ahead and build a coal fired plant and we'll break you. He knew that we technology wasn't there. So I'm thinking, Christ, what happened? You're leaving us behind.

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

He was elusive.

What does that mean as a politician?

I don't know. I mean, I just, you know, when I talked to Bill Clinton, you know, it's always, it was always what about this and he was always so inquisitive about this and that, what I was thinking about this and that. Then we always had a couple good jokes to tell each other and kind of broke eye, you know, we had a lot of fun. And with with and with President Donald Trump, you know, you go meet him, he's charming as can be. Sits down, talks with you. He says, "Hey, Joe, what about this? What about that?" No. And you know, we talk about a lot of things.

So, a lot of your this profiling 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.

We're looking at a country now where it seems uh the the operating principle is how do I get mine? Hey, you got something. I need to get something. And now you've got Mandami 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 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 like ask not you 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 and over again so I think we failed in the last two decades and socialism's on the rise why is that how do we turn it around

let me just say the last at the BBB the last time President Trump President uh Biden I had met where He calls me up into the White House and he takes me up in stairs to the living quarters and boy but when you go up there that's really going to the woodshed 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 know you and I are both at the same vintage. You're a little bit older but not that much. I said we're we're in the same vintage. And I said, I remember very vividly as a 13-year-old kid watching television, inauguration 1961 of John Kennedy asked not 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 could put a gun to my head and say, "I'm gonna pull it pull the trigger. I can't vote for it." And then all hell broke loose after that.

My my grandmother took everybody in. Okay? We lived by the railroad tracks between the creek 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 I was eldest of the of the boys of about 20 of us grandkids. We had to whitewash her basement, keep it clean and a nice place for people to stay. There was no social 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 craftsman, this and that. And they they and alcoholics probably most of them. And they'd come down. They knew he could go off and go to a mama and she'd take care of them. She said, "I got three rules. Can't you can't uh 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. my grandfather people come in and papa, my grandfather never kept books. He just kept all his money in his pocket. He worked. That's how he worked. Immigrant from Italy. And papa say, "Uh, they come and say, "Hey pop, no matter who they were, "Hey papa, can I borrow five? Can I have five?" He said, "Sure, honey." 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.

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 limit And I said, "Well, tell me why, Suz." I I knew her and Susie, I said, "Tell me why." She says, "Well, I just think this would be it'd be better for us to have turnover." And I says, and I wasn't for it. And I I gave her all the reasons. I said, "You're going to lose your most experienced people with the talent and know how." 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 I'm I'm And the reason I'm telling you, yeah, maybe we'd get 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 he said John Kennley 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 turnurning it and churn it and churning it. And I've just said that basically the Senate two six-year terms is enough. 12 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 I can I can name six or seven on both sides. And when I'm saying that, people that I've worked with, I know I know their DNA. Okay. Yeah. First of all, I'm going to always be always be u differential 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 up did not have a Democrat or Republican name on it. But I was responsible for making sure the repairs on the roads didn't do that. Okay. So you like Senator King, Angus King from Maine, former governor. You have Mark Warner, Virginia, former governor. Tim Kaine, former governor. You have Jean Shaheen, former governor. Maggie Hassan, former governor. You have Mike Rounds, former governor. John Hovind, former governor. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were always my go-to people on the Republican side. And Mitt Romney, two of 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 Masto, you have uh you know there's so many Jackie Rosen on the Tom Tillis on the 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 answer. 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 know, as we get towards the end of our time, I want to talk to you a little bit about how dysfunctional and unpopular uh the Democrats and the Republicans have been the last couple of years since Nixon. Uh I think Trump's first and second term both uh you know 30 I think he's about 37% approval rating right now. Uh Biden ended with like 34%. He was averaging about 40%. People really are not happy with their choices and there's a no labels group. I've been kind of mocked and dismissed here on this very podcast talking about I think there's a perfect time for a third party. And uh you know we had Ross Perot, people forget he got 19% I believe of the uh popular vote. You are in my camp. You believe there's a possibility and that we're primed for it. Give your um give your best um 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 we know you have a duopoly right now. The duopoly is a business monopoly almost, but it's a duopoly. You have the corporation of the Republican and the corporation of the Democrat and that's a business mode and 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 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 Republican. The Democrats do the same all over the country. They do that. they close them down cuz if they can control the flow.

and you have maybe during a uh let's say the 2024 election let's say 24 million people maybe 11 or 12 on each side DNR participated in the p 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 what I've said this is our democracy is still a experiment we thought we could govern Ourel and by governing yourself that means we can pick representatives that represent us. I can't even vote. So how am I I can't participate. 45 to 50% of of us can't participate in the primary process. We're the largest nomination of of registered voters who can't participate.

You're referring, of course, 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 the the Voting Rights Act, they took that, you know, to the court uh 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 we're not I am not able to be represented and I can't pick a representative cuz I can't participate. 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 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 could remedy this and basically stop these closed primaries.

Let's start with 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 versus the outcome on what you've seen from these four presidential terms, if you will. expectation versus outcome for for these four periods.

Expectation on Obama was was that he was bringing a complete different scenario to it. an all-inclusive scenario as you will every now it was possibility for all of us to participate no matter what your gender what your race were boom boom boom so with that we were expecting an awful lot and I think he had a lot of compassion but he just 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. They got rid of the filibuster. We lost the filibuster for the uh judges judicial system and I wasn't upset by losing him for basically appointments that were will and pleasure, but it went further than that. So, that I think that help that hap 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 go right in from there. And then we have uh Trump. We didn't know what to expect, but we were thinking, here's a businessman always told us how successful and things of this we were expecting some things. And I I met with him from day one and when 2016 uh and talked to him and then I met with him 2017 2018. 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.

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 in Joe Biden, when there was a shutdown with Ted Cruz in 2013, I'll never forget this. It was Biden uh Obama sends Joe Biden to make a deal. Open this government up, get a deal done. Joe Biden goes directly to Mitch McConnell, sits down, old buddies and old friends. They cut a deal. We open the Cong We open the government back up. And I went into caucus the next the next week. go in the caucus with the Democrats. And uh 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 dropped south. 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 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 compassion. I want to see the man 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. He I say what I mean. I mean what I say and boom, boom, boom. Using my military might 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. And it's just not 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.

How would you make the decision to run yourself in 2028? Walk us through both.

I think about first of all, I would have loved to have been and I begged the Democratic party to have a mini primary, 30-day primary when Joe Biden... I begged him. I said, "You had to you had to dispel some of the things that they were labeled with." And not every Democrat believed in that. That would have been a time to dispel a lot of that stuff.

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 I'd 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. Uh do you need do you need a strong border? Well, let me ask you something. You all have property lines. When you buy a piece of property and a house, you either build a fence or you lived in a gated area, you want to protect your property. Why can't we protect our borders, but also have an 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 so 2028 to Jason's question.

Yeah. Well, 2028, guys. I mean, if we'll have to see. I'll do anything I can to help my country. But, you know, I want to make sure 2028 I will be what? I'm 78 years old right now. I'm going to be 81. Same as Biden, close to Trump. Yeah. And you're sharp as attack. And I'm I'm a year younger. I'll be the I'll give you something. Mitt Romney and I were talking about running. I said, " Mitt," he said, "Joe, let's we have to start a new party." I said, "What would it be, man?" He said, "We'll call it the not stupid party." I said, "Hell, my question is why we're involved then." Yeah. And And then... 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."

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