The senator Joe Manchin hasn’t quite figured out what he’ll do next once he leaves the Senate next month.
But whatever his future holds, he plans to continue hosting his former congressional colleagues on his popular houseboat in West Virginia. Manchin for years hosted politicians from both parties aboard the “Almost Heaven,” which was docked in Washington, his way of bringing together colleagues from both sides of the aisle.
“I’m going to get involved.” Manchin told CBS News “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan“ “The boat stays here.”
Manchin, who was mulling an independent presidential bid this year, said he would have “loved to have a platform” to talk about centrist common sense, as he put it.
He expressed hope that President-elect Donald Trump would succeed, even though he previously said Trump’s election would be “very damaging” to the country. Manchin said riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021was for him a “bridge too far”.
“When the people speak and make their choices and the election is over, you better pray with everything you have that the president succeeds,” Manchin told Brennan. “And if you’re in a position to help, and you know how the system works, and you can make it work, do it. … This is our country, and I want it to succeed, and I I told him, I will do everything I can to help in any way humanly possible.”
Manchin was governor of West Virginia before winning his U.S. Senate seat in 2010. Since then, he has tried to work with both parties. He officially left the Democratic Party in May, registration as independent.
Manchin still hopes to pass a bill to ease the energy sector’s permitting process through Congress. He said he encouraged Trump to make it happen during a conversation during the Army-Navy game in Maryland last weekend.
His Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 would facilitate a faster permitting process for oil and natural gas, renewable energy, mining and transmission lines. This has not progressed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Manchin said he hoped Trump would watch his interview with “Face the Nation” and seriously consider his bill.
“So now with this interview, I hope, I’m asking President Trump to actually take a look at this authorization bill, because it’s fundamentally a good piece of legislation that we’ve never pushed this far in a bipartisan way , along with John Barrasso, is going to be the No. 2 man in the Republican Senate, a good person, a good friend of mine,” Manchin told Brennan. “We worked hard and negotiated hard, and we have a good bill. It’s ready. We have the bill ready. He could just table it.”
Manchin said he thinks Trump understands the political realities at play in Washington better than when he won in 2016. And the reality is that the Senate remains more independent than the House, he said.
“I think he understands it a lot better now than he did in 2016, when he first won,” Manchin said. “So now he has some experience under his leadership. He understands the process, but he also understands the power he currently wields, the influence he has” with the House and Senate, which will be controlled Republicans in January. Manchin wants to maintain the filibuster; it requires most bills to meet a threshold of 60 votes to be considered.
“I think there are enough Republican and Democratic senators as well, but the Republicans have control because they’re in the majority, they’re not going to let the filibuster explode,” Manchin said. “…I don’t think they’ll do that. And it only takes five, or it takes four, I’m sorry, it takes four Republican senators, just four, and I guarantee it, I think that there are many more than four.
These Republicans, he said, “will protect the institution.”
“They’ve been here long enough,” Manchin said. “What goes around comes around, and in two years the situation could change – 2026, you never know. It’s the power of the people.”
