Joe and Heather Manchin on their push to elect more independents

[0:00] And we're joined now by former West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and his daughter Heather Manchin. [0:06] They are the heads of a new effort which aims to elect independent candidates to public office. [0:11] It's good to have you both here. Good to be with you, Margaret. Thank you. [0:13] Well, let's talk about this. Senator, let's start with you. [0:17] There's a market for what you're selling. According to CNN's polling, 47 percent of American adults identified as political independence. [0:25] That's the highest level in a decade. But over time, we have seen these attempts to break through [0:31] the two-party system just haven't really panned out. So what do you think is going to happen with that 47 percent now? [0:37] Well, everyone depends on the independents to get elected now. That's all you hear. [0:40] All the polls that are taken. To swing one way or the other. [0:42] You know, in the last presidential election, it came down to seven battleground states. [0:47] That means 43 were predetermined. 435 congressional seats, 395 were predetermined. [0:53] There's no competition whatsoever in the system because the party, the strength of the two-party system, [0:58] the Democrat and Republican, prevents that from happening. They have total control of how the primaries [1:04] are put up. And when I said this, if you look at the last election of all the primaries across the [1:11] country, only about 21 percent of the people showed up. 21 percent. The lowest ever. So they're controlling [1:17] it. And guess what? MAG has taken over the Republican. And now you have the DSA. Seems to be having a lot of [1:24] energy on the, on the Democrat side. What happened to the people that live their lives in the middle, [1:29] that make decisions, that make things work in America? They got nobody speaking for them. [1:32] What do you think? They stay home? [1:35] I think they do give up. They just said this doesn't matter because the parties have control. [1:39] They're going to do what they want to do. There's no openness at all. Try, if you're an independent, [1:43] try to get on the ballot. They make you jump through every hoop in the world, go out and get [1:47] thousands of signatures. Where if you're a Democrat or Republican, you want to run, you pay a fee. [1:52] You pay a fee, just get on the ballot. That's it. But they make it almost impossible for anyone else [1:57] to compete against them. You know who says it's a rigged system? Bernie Sanders. He's an independent. [2:01] Bernie, you know. Bernie's a socialist now. And I respect Bernie. I respect where he's coming from. [2:06] Bernie's always been who he is. But he's had to use the Democratic Party to get on the ticket. [2:10] Yes. He took that. He took that path. We're saying be an independent, be a pure independent, [2:15] run as an independent, come to Washington, do not caucus with either side. Be an independent. [2:20] And I'll guarantee you, maybe you're going to make a difference of how they make their decisions [2:24] because they're going to need you. They need you to get elected. They're going to need you also to make [2:28] law. Heather, is there anyone in Congress right now who you think is truly an independent? [2:33] Because there are only three with an eye next to their name. [2:35] No. And as Dad pointed out, they're caucusing with one side or the other. So, you know, [2:40] I think we have seen, and just in stories today, that the parties have literally sucked out any [2:48] independent thinking, any political courage. And so, unfortunately, we believe that perhaps [2:55] all of that gives an opportunity to say, can we get someone elected outside the two-party system [3:00] and go to Congress and stay independent? That really to have that independent thinking [3:06] and bring some negotiation conversation to the bills that, unfortunately, it's a party-line vote. [3:12] It doesn't matter what could be negotiated to get anything done. It's a stalemate and everyone [3:17] picking a side. So, for you to back a certain candidate, [3:20] you are not requiring any kind of policy platform. You would support anyone. [3:26] Right. Well, we- If they show independence? [3:27] We did. We actually put a Declaration of Independence together that asked for three things. [3:32] That you're for opening competition, opening primaries, things that would restore competition [3:37] to the system, not the gerrymandering of districts and so forth. To be for solutions. That you want [3:44] to work with anyone. You want to take good ideas from both sides of the aisle and make something [3:48] happen and get done. And the last one is accountability. That you'll explain your vote. [3:53] Just simply explain your vote when you take it and why you took it. And we think that's pretty, [3:58] pretty low table stakes. Well, I'm going to say one thing. [4:01] There's only one pure independent that basically ran as an independent, governed as an independent [4:05] as governor, and that's Angus King. Yeah. [4:07] But there's no support. When Angus comes there, you know, he has to pick, well, he picked the [4:10] Democrat side because there was more things that he believed in that would be good for Maine. [4:14] So, we worked together. But Angus, you know, if he had a little bit more support, I'm telling you, [4:19] he's as independent as it becomes. You can work with him on any issue. [4:22] We just found that there's no structured support for somebody just remaining independent. [4:28] Can you imagine if they don't caucus with either one? What's going to happen? [4:32] They wouldn't get any committee positions. [4:34] Is the committee doing anything anyway? No. [4:36] You liked your committee position. [4:38] I liked my committee position. [4:39] I'm allowed you to do it a lot for West Virginia. [4:41] Yeah, but the bottom line is that bills didn't come to the floor. [4:44] We passed things in a bipartisan way. And it was always controlled by the majority leader. [4:47] But they're going to have to vote. They can't deny them to vote. And I'll guarantee you, [4:51] they can go to any committee meeting they want to. And there's going to be times when they'll say, [4:55] well, if you were just caucus with us today, we'd get this passed or that. [4:58] They can moderate an awful lot. We think it's a way to start bringing the parties. [5:03] I believe the Republican Party wants to be the grand old party again. [5:07] And I believe GOP, but I believe the Democrats would like to be responsible. [5:11] They've got nowhere to go and they've been pulled to the left and the right. [5:14] Something's got to change. They opened the primaries up. Let's have competition. [5:19] But now what we can do is get a couple of people elected that can sit there and say, [5:22] listen, this doesn't make any sense at all. It's not the oath I took to defend and protect [5:26] the Constitution. It doesn't make sense for my country. And it's not a way to get things done [5:30] for my state. We give them the support once they get there and we'll change things. [5:34] Heather, could you ever support a self-described socialist candidate? [5:39] No. No way. My God, no. [5:42] Even if they have some good ideas? [5:43] I support the good ideas, but how could you support some of the crazy stuff they're for? [5:47] Have you seen their platform? They're for dismantling everything that we know, [5:51] whether it be the structure of government, Congress itself, or the Senate they want to get rid of. [5:57] And then they start talking about all the crazy things. No police, no this, no this, no that. [6:01] Are you crazy? We want, we want a crime-free area. We have to have police for that. [6:07] We want a strong defense. We want a strong border. But if Democrats can't say that, [6:12] and they start lining up with the socialist demands about what you are to be a socialist, [6:16] energy will be gone. There'll be no energy, okay? We have right now a tremendous amount of energy [6:21] we're producing, and the world depends more on us than ever before. We can do more. [6:26] I'm sorry, doesn't it surprise you that even leadership in the Democrat Party can't just say [6:31] no? They can't say no? That they, it, it, it. [6:34] Well, they're seeing an appeal, apparently. [6:36] But it shows that. [6:37] An appeal to the far left. [6:38] But control has now completely outweighed character. If you're more interested in control, [6:45] and that's the, that's all that it matters, your vote count, versus the character of the person [6:50] and what the platform they're running on, I think we're living with the consequences of that. [6:53] Margaret, the Democrat Party has lost more registration, more people identifying as [6:58] Democrats than ever before. So if that was going to be the case, what would be the whole, [7:01] right now you have high polls, right? [7:03] Yeah. [7:03] Democrats should be 20, 30 points ahead if that's where the country's going. [7:06] They're not, they're still behind. The bottom line is we're not getting anything accomplished [7:10] because the two-party system has drowned out everything. They have just choked it out. [7:14] Well, when you were talking about why you did not run in 2024 for president, [7:20] you said you didn't want to be a spoiler. [7:21] I couldn't get on all 50 ballots. You put me on 50 ballots and I have a platform, [7:24] I can speak. But if I have no chance of winning because I'm only on 16 ballots or 20 ballots [7:30] statewide, national-wide. [7:32] So it's really ballot access versus polling support that would have benefited Trump. [7:34] That's exactly right. I would have loved to have been able to sit and say, [7:37] come on, Donald, do you really believe that? Is that true? Or Joe or Kamala or whatever. [7:43] We had so many differences. But there's a way that basically people just want some normality. [7:47] The chaos is just ruining people's lives today. And when you look back in West Virginia and all [7:52] other rural areas, I mean, the cost of living, the cost of groceries, the cost of doing everything, [7:58] the energy, how you live your life is too high. [8:01] I mean, who are you getting financial support from? You have a background in the business community. [8:06] Do you want more sort of small-dollar donations? Like, how do you counter some of these? [8:11] You're right. It's David and Goliath's story for sure. But we think, being strategic, we're not [8:16] trying to get behind 20, 30 candidates. We're getting behind a handful. A few in Congress. If we [8:22] could get two or three elected, think of what the difference that independent bloc can make. One or two [8:26] in the Senate. And yeah, we've seen tremendous support, actually. We'd like there to be more. I think [8:33] the business community needs to lean in and not try to put their head in the sand and say, well, we hope this [8:39] passes. We need people to get engaged and participate and think it's going to be great for the country. [8:45] Thank you for sharing the initiative with both of us. We'll track how it does. We'll be right back.