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Hey it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.
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Taxes and fees extra. See Mintmobile.com. Welcome back, everyone. It's my privilege to have in the author, Senator Joe Manchin. His book is now out.
It's called Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense, of course, the former U.S. Senator from West Virginia and governor from West Virginia, who I first met because he had a coal mining accident. We met this governor, we're going live, and we said, This guy is fantastic. Then he ends up running for senator, where he questioned himself almost every day. I used to be able to run a sane state, and now I've gone to this insane District of Columbia.
Senator Manchin, welcome. Congratulations. Thanks, Brian. Good to be with you. I'm glad to get it done.
You know, I didn't know if I was ever going to do it because I'm not a type of person to start talking about people, but I wanted to put it in writing. How the place what used to work, how it doesn't work now, and what it takes to get it back. The decisions I had to make in tough situations when it was a fifty-fifty Senate I had to reach back to where I came from and how I was raised. To be able to withstand that type of pressure and be able to do what I thought was right for the country. And you open up with that story.
Yeah. I I was it the uh the Rescue Act, the Rescue Bill? No, it was the Inflation Reduction Act. Inflation Reduction Act. But it was the original version.
And the original version would have put six trillion dollars. It was going to cost us about six trillion dollars. The Build Back Better was basically Joe Biden's signature. It was a Democrat's signature. We had the ARP First American Rescue Plan.
And I begged them not to do that. They did it. They did that one.
Okay. And I told the President that times was the first time. And just to refresh everyone's memory, coming out of the pandemic, we had to tell the whole country to stop working. But we were writing checks already. In fact, whatever Trump put out when his last year, when Trump was there, the year that Trump was his last year in 2020.
We ended up okay. The end of twenty twenty we put three point two trillion dollars into the market. Bipartisan, President Trump, all of us working together. Trying to keep the comp uh the country from crashing. That was done 3.2.
We run the country on about a little over $5, $5.5 trillion of cash. That's what it takes to run the country.
So 3.2, Joe Biden gets elected. Comes in office in January. First first bill out of the chute was American Rescue Plan. 1.9 trillion. And I said, mister President, don't do this with a nuclear option.
You just did three point two. That's five point one now. We put enough out and we put we doubled the amount of cash flow in circulation in one year. You can't digest that. The system wasn't built for that.
and we saw what came from it. And they wanted then they wanted to do BBB, which was another six to ten trillion. Right. And they Where did you put the brakes on? That one.
After eight months of getting beat up, so you took the rescue plan. I took the response.
Well, the rescue plan, I tried to do exactly what you said. We've got a Uh pandemic. We have a pandemic going on. We have a vaccine that worked. The President and Trump should take credit for getting a vaccine to market quicker than ever been done that was needed, save millions of lives.
So he did that, and then we had people that had money. We sent a lot of money, I just told you, $3.2 trillion.
So they had money, they couldn't go anywhere, now we had a vaccine to work and they start moving. They wanted to go buy things, they wanted to do things. Nobody was going back to work. Prices were skyrocketing. I said, You people were crazy.
We're going to have one heck of an inflation problem. And we went through all of that, and I said, You want to come out now with another bill? It basically is going to put more. Can't you let this let us digest this first? And I've always been differential to a new President coming in.
Republican, Democrat makes no difference. Whoever that new president is, he's been elected, she's been elected, whoever, through the process, I want to help you. And they always have something that they said, Well, I just got elected. I ran on this, you got to help me. And I said, Mr.
President, I said, Mr. President Biden, I said, why don't you put it in their jurisdictional committees and let them work it? Give them ninety days to see if they're going to work with you or not before you do down this road. But I knew at that time, probably Chuck Schumer says, we got to do it. Got to go into reconciliation, which is a nuclear option.
Republicans are starting to do the same thing now. And these are my friends. I say, guys, be caution. Be very cautious. What goes around comes around.
And. We're trying to tap it down a little bit because you start usurping and going around the checks and balances that we have in the process. The Senate is unlike any institution in the world. This Senate is the most deliberate body. As it's hard to get things passed, it's even harder to get rid of things.
Can you start? Circuit, you know, short-circuiting that you got a problem. When he invited you to the White House, what was that for? The BBB, Bill Beckbetter. Bill Beckbetter.
He kept saying, I said, Mr. President, let me meet eight months I've been getting a letter. Do you want me to read the excerpt from your book? Said after President Biden and I sat down and exchanged brief pleasantries, this is in the family room of the White House, Jill Biden stopped by to say hello. My presence immediately set the tone for the meeting, as I had already made it clear in my prior meeting with the President that I did not support the free community college tuition plan, a cause that she champion.
Let's just say the atmosphere started off chilly. What do you mean? Here's the thing. Did she yell at you? No, no, not at all.
I could just tell. And they've always been very kind to me. Unspoken tension in the room was. Yeah, you could feel it. It was palpable.
And the only thing about it, here was my difference about free college. I'm all for if I identify I need workers as community college Then basically says go into school. Take your loan out. Go to school, finish up, you finish, you graduate, I'll take care of it. I discount it.
Pay nothing. Do something for it. You earn it. Yeah. I'm not going to give you the money on the front end because most of the kids basically drop out after a year or two until they find themselves.
I wasn't going to waste more money.
So that was the difference we had. I wasn't opposed to what they wanted to do. I was opposed to how they were doing it.
So there's a better way. But anyway, that started off a little bit chilly, but then she was very kind, shook hands, she left, and just the present hour there. And then when you thought about it, You let him know? I told him this. I said, Mr.
President, listen, you and I are about the same vintage. You're a little bit older than me, but not that much different. I come from the school, John Kennedy. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. I think that basically public service is the noblest of all professions.
I got into it 'cause I wanted to do something. I wanted to give something back. I said, Mr. President, we passed this piece of legislation, which you say is your marquee, your Build Back, Better bill. You're going to change the psychic of the nation to how much more can my country do for me?
I wasn't raised that way, and the book basically goes into how I was raised. You know, and I says, I don't believe that. nor can I vote for it or explain it back in West Virginia.
So I can't do it.
So you made a call. And you call to um Uh somebody back in the White House, Lance? You called Lance? Lance is my Lance. Lance is your guy.
So Lance. He called Lance right before the interview. He told me to call the White House. No, that was when I was going for Brett Baer. Afterwards, let me tell you how that came about.
The president says, Joe, I'm going to make an announcement. I'm going to put a statement out. We're going to basically wait for until we come back after Christmas vacation. He told you to think about it. And he said, I said, Mr.
President, If you want to wait, that's fine. I'm not going to change. But I said, you do whatever you think you have to do.
Okay, I understand that.
So, Bill Clinton calls you all the time. Everybody calls me. I had calls from everybody. Everybody called. You know, and the bottom line is I I listened to him, I said, I appreciate all that, but I said I've got some concerns.
I never jumped and ragged on anybody, but I wasn't going to get there. They knew that for a year. I'm going to tell you subtext. The subtext wasn't to save the country. The subtext was to push an agenda, and it was a green agenda.
You're in a coal state and an oil state. You're an environmentalist, but you're a rational environmentalist. You can't destroy the country and go green. Or destroy the combustion engine and go green. That's not the way it's done.
Brian, we're all environmentalists. We all want clean air and clean water, okay? The bottom line is we have to work to take care of ourselves. Yes, money we didn't have for programs we didn't need. That's not a good combination.
Well, the social agenda, giving everything away. I'll give you a little one. They said, well, Joe Manchin's against child tax credits. I'm not against child tax credit. I just think that basically the parents should have a job that needs the credit to help take care of their kids.
If you're setting home, why should we be giving you money? for child tax credit when you're sitting home with your children.
Okay? And I said, I know. Is it supposed to be in theory for nursery school, for daily? It's supposed to basically allow you to have freedom to go to work and earn a living for your family. And I said, I want that.
But I said, we need it on from $25,000 to $75,000. Single moms, they're out there trying to make it. They need that help. That's where our most attention should be.
So the incentive was: go to work and we'll help you take care of your child.
So you can work in peace. They didn't they didn't like it about that. And I said, Listen, guys, can't get there.
So then His staff put out a statement. I said, I want to see the statement. And they said, well, the President still has to do Do some more work with Joe Manchin. And I'm thinking I've just been getting all these death threats. Why would you say and put me in the crosshairs?
Coming up to your boat? I've had everything. Anything I'm thinking.
So I'm thinking, listen, I can take this arrestment. Don't bring my children and my grandchildren in. I had to hire private security to protect them. For a long time. And I said, so I had Lance Lance West, my chief of staff.
I said, Make an amendment there and send it back and say, listen, just a bit generic. Say the President needs more work to do. He needs more time for more work. We not sent we not only sent it back, it went back to the Pres President the White House. Had to be his chief of staff and nurse staff there.
It no sooner got there than it came right back. Nope, we can't change it at all. Got to be Joe Manchin. I said, Oh, you gonna play this game? You want to threaten me?
That's what's oh no.
So then I'm thinking, okay. Calm down. I'm going down. I was hot.
So I'm going on Brett Bear. Yeah. He had a Sunday show that morning. That's after Chris Wallace had left. Everybody was jockeying around.
So I said, sure, Brett. Two weeks before that, he called me and I said, Hey, Brett. I don't have anything to say. I had nothing to say. I said, we talked about everyone.
He said, well, We'll just see what's going on, okay? I said, buddy, if you think it'll help you, I'm happy to do it.
So I already committed to Brett. It wasn't like I called Brett and I want to go on. I was already scheduled. I wasn't going to cancel.
So it ended up working out perfect, though.
So I'm sitting there at 8 o'clock in the morning, how you send the mobile homes, the mobile studios to us. And I had two press releases ready to go. I was sitting in that van at eight o'clock in the morning. I couldn't do it no more. I said it's over.
My family is worth more than that to put me in threat. And I and I already warned everybody. Whether the President Joe Biden knew about this or not, his chief of staff definitely knew about it. And that's who was running the show. And they were coming to put the hammer on me.
I said, Okay, yeah, big boy. And I so I made a m decision. I told my chief of staff, I said, Lance. I says, call the White House and call Chuck Schumer and tell him I'm going to kill BBB. Yeah, turn off my phone 'cause I knew it was gonna blow up.
So I'm getting ready, getting my mind ready, I go on and here's my Here's Brett. Joe, well, you know, there's a lot going on right now, and this bill is still being negotiated, and they're trying to get push it for Christmas and this and that. I think this was on Sunday, like the 17th or 18th. December. And he says, and I don't know, are you still having problems?
I says, No, I'm I said, I'm I'm I can't do it, Brett. And I thought he was stunned. I thought he was going to fall off his chair. He says, What? And I said, I cannot but I cannot do it.
He says, you telling me you're not going to vote for it? I says, I cannot vote for this bill. And I say, I'm not going to vote for that bill if it came up. But once I said that, I knew it was dead. And he says, Oh, my goodness So anyway, my phone blew up.
Missing that. I forgot to turn it on. I turned it on. There was a Uh pretty uh explicit uh direct uh message from President Joe Biden. And I've known him for a long time.
We're friends. I still I like him. Good person, we always got along well. We just disagreed, okay? We respected you, is what your point was.
That's exactly this is not your bill. You're right. I told him that. This is not your bill. This is Bernie Sanders' bill.
Yeah. Okay, so anyway, but anyway, so. And did he have an answer when you said that? He said, no, no, no, Joe. He said, no, no, it's my bill.
I said, Mr. President, I've been there for ten years. This is every Tuesday during a caucus, Democrat caucus. This is what I heard every Tuesday. All this social reforms, giving everything away.
Okay, giving college free. Everything's free. Where I come from, you had to work and earn it. But you had to have compassion to take care of people who couldn't help themselves. That's it.
And this is not with the Democrat Party I know. Anyway. This the voicemail from the President was rough. It was still happening. It was rough, and And I pretty give it to you right exactly.
Is this when you said if you kill this effing bill? Is this it? We'll never speak to you again. No, that was an ARPA plan. That's a different one?
That was a different one. That was the first AAR American Rescue Plan. Oh, okay. Because I slopped it down because I said, you're going to extend unemployment benefits when people should be going to work. He said, if you kill this effing bill, he says, I'll never speak to you again.
I said, Mr. President, if I could kill this bill, it would be a miracle because I can tell you why. You've sent a check to everybody. And if you missed somebody, it was by mistake, it wasn't by intent. You want everybody to get a check.
And this is crazy. You got to put them back to work.
So that's how that one went. That didn't go well.
Now, this is even more. This is after the BBB. This is eight, nine months after that. And he just went off. I mean, hard.
And I said, Oh, wait a minute. He says, What you've done to me, no one's ever done before. He says This is absolutely horrible what you've done, and to go on Fox and do this. To me, Oh, and then I heard it about eleven o'clock, I called. And he starts whoa, wait a minute, Mr.
President. You say what I did to you? You want to know what you did to me? What your people did to me, whether you know it or not. Put my family in the crosshairs, and I was hot.
So it's kind of too hot. He finally says, listen, Joe, we got a pissed-off Irishman and a pissed-off Italian. Maybe we better let this cool off for a while. Back in a moment. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
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So it's always great for me. One of the finest people I've met since I got this job is Joe Manchin, and he's finally putting his career on the printed page. It's called Dead Center. In defense of common sense. It's coming out there.
You can get it now. Start making your orders. It's Susan. Yeah, it's Susan. Yeah, no, it's 16th.
Oh, sixteen. Yeah, we're coming out. I think it should be Wednesday here, isn't it? What's the date? No, no, you're out today.
Today. Yeah, you can buy today. Yeah, you better buy today. Are you kidding? Yeah.
You don't have to wait anymore. I downloaded it this morning. I prefer to read everything on the iPad because I can read it. And also, I did audio. I read my own book on audio, so you can get audio.
Not AI. Not eight hours.
So you just finished that story. You were constantly fighting. He said, You guys got to both calm down after you clash with Joe Biden. I clashed with him, I said, and he said you better calm down.
So three months go by, the Ukraine war starts. We have no energy. I come back and I said, Listen, I'm Chairman of Energy. And I told Schumer, I said, You got a problem with energy in our country. We're not producing under John Podesta, Joe Biden, all these people paying Venezuela to go.
It was horrible. Yeah, and ask no taking sanctions off, letting them come back into the market. turning a blind eye to the ghost ships coming out of Iran. 'Cause he wouldn't put Mark it's all crazy. And I told him that.
And Schuman said, Well, you're a chairman, write a bill. I didn't want to be back in the crosshairs, I already killed BBB. Death threats came aw came fell off. When I killed the bill, all the death threats come off.
Okay, it's over.
Well, I wasn't getting back in that situation, but I knew I had a responsibility to make sure our country was producing energy. This bill should have been called as my fault. I should have named the bill. The Energy Security Act. Because that's exactly what it did.
We start producing more gas inflation reduction act. And it just had a bad connotation. And these are, I put all the stuff that I talk to my Republican friends. in my energy committee into this bill. But they couldn't vote to it for it because it came up through the reconciliation.
That's the bad thing. And that's why reconciliation separates you, pushes apart. And my good friend John Thune and all my Republican. And my good friend John Thune and all my Republican friends, I said, guys, listen. You can't go down this road.
We protected filibuster, okay? You always basically said that you would always protect the filibuster. Don't start nibbling away at the edges because what goes around comes around. And I'll guarantee you, the Democrats already told me back in 2024, before the election. And Kamala Harris said, I'll get rid of the filibuster.
That's when I said there's no way I could ever. Vote or support her any way, shape, or form. Because it would change everything. It would be exactly like the house. It's a flip-flop and back.
And we have no stability in the world market. None. Right now, we do. When we pass something, it stays there. It's really secured.
When we want to get rid of something, we have to work hard to get rid of it, we got to make positive changes. That's what gives us a stability in the world as they view us. And that's why you wanted Republicans to win the Senate. I told him I wanted the Republicans to win the Senate. I told Chuck, I said, Chuck, you've already told me your game plan.
You're going to go with Commonwealth Harris and get rid of the. Get rid of the fellowship. Do you think he's going to shut down the government now because of the heat he got for not doing it last time? Forget about the heat. They're all leaders, whether it be present.
You know, right now, President Trump I've said this about President Trump. He's our leader.
Okay, he's your president. Do everything you can to help him be successful. But speak truth to power in a respectful way. And I'm begging the President right now I'm praying for his better angels to say, Mr. President, let's calm it down.
Let's calm everybody down right now, okay? All this rhetoric going out. My heart bleeds for Charlie Kirk's family. and all of us should. But this is too frequent acro across the country.
It continues to happen, and all the little children in schools are not safe. We've got to just calm it down. I hear you. Senator, we'll have you on again and have you on TV. Dead Center, baby.
Come on. Dead Center, pick it up. Line up today. Make them number one. Number one, please.
Senator Joe Manchin, thanks so much. Thanks, Brian. Hey, I'm Trey Goutdey, host of the Trey Goutde Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcast.com.
