Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Wednesday said Attorney General William P. Barr should resign or face impeachment in light of the Justice Department's recent about-face on the sentencing of Trump associate Roger Stone.
"For the president to interfere in this and for the attorney general to evidently carry out ...
The Abbreviated Pundit Round-up is a daily feature at Daily Kos.
Jefferson Morley at The New Republic writes—Is the CIA’s Director Going Full MAGA? Gina Haspel is not a typical Trump toady, but recent moves suggest a dangerous dynamic between the runaway president and his spy agency:
While there’s no way to know what’s in Haspel’s mind, her Trump-supportive public actions provide clues. “Some contend this public stance provides Haspel a better ability to privately influence the president,” Douglas London, a 34-year veteran of CIA’s Directorate of Operations and former Haspel colleague, wrote this week for Just Security. “In practice, however, her actions reflect a continued unwillingness to spend any of her political capital on encouraging the president to be more supportive of the Intelligence Community’s views, priorities or its workforce’s morale.”
Yet, as London also points out, the arc of Haspel’s career shows her State of the Union performance was not that surprising. Despite her reputation as a low-key, apolitical director, Haspel could not have made it to her office on the seventh floor of the Langley headquarters without being skilled at cultivating patrons and dodging proverbial bullets. [...]
Haspel’s very reputation in the press as “apolitical” reflects a certain mastery of spin. Her leading role in the waterboarding of suspected terrorists (and the destruction of video evidence) was so political that it motivated President Obama to cancel the program on his first day in office. While passionate opposition in the Senate to the torture program “nearly derailed” her nomination, it was her deeply political embrace of “enhanced interrogation techniques” that secured Trump’s admiration.
When Haspel was first considered for the top job at the CIA, Don McGahn, Trump’s White House counsel, was so disturbed by her résumé that he suggested Trump withdraw her nomination. Trump not only disagreed but “actually liked this aspect of Haspel’s resume,” according to Axios.
This is actually WORSE than doing nothing. This is doing nothing while PRETENDING otherwise for the base. #ImpeachBarrNow https://t.co/fXS5utmhzL
— Paul Rosenberg (@PaulHRosenberg) February 13, 2020
Randall D. Eliason at The Washington Post writes—The Justice Department confirms things are even worse than we feared
Tuesday morning, I began to write about how things seemed to be okay at my old workplace, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. True, Attorney General William P. Barr had recently installed his close aide, Timothy Shea, as the new U.S. attorney. And there had been rumblings that the office might soften its position on the sentencing of convicted former national security adviser Michael Flynn. But the government’s tough sentencing memorandum concerning Roger Stone seemed to be a good sign. I wrote that, at least when it comes to interfering in the cases of those convicted during the investigation conducted by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, maybe my worst fears about Barr’s Justice Department were not going to be realized.
By midday, that draft column was in the trash. It didn’t take long for the Justice Department to demonstrate that, on the contrary, things are even worse than many have feared. [...]
One day, Trump will leave office. But the damage he has done to the Justice Department will endure — and may be irreparable. For those of us who cherish the department and the ideals for which it stands, this is heartbreaking. For the country, it’s extremely dangerous.
Elie Mystal at The Nation writes—They Rocked New Hampshire—but Pete and Amy Still Can’t Win Over Black Voters:
The latest national poll from Quinnipiac University shows former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg polling at 4 percent among African American voters. This, amazingly, counts as good news for the Buttigieg campaign, which in the past has polled at 0 percent among black voters. In this most recent poll, that dubious honor goes to the current white centrist darling, Senator Amy Klobuchar, who polled at 0 percent in the survey conducted between February 5 and 9. [...]
It’s not because they’re white. Joe Biden is so white they probably have to hide the shoe polish in his house on Halloween, but he does okay with black voters. It’s not because people think they’re racist. Mike Bloomberg probably tried to frisk Barack Obama before he put him in his campaign ad, and yet he’s polling at 22 percent with African Americans. And it’s not because people don’t think Buttigieg or Klobuchar can win. All the media does is tell people that actual progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren can’t win, yet those two consistently receive more black and brown support than the allegedly “electable” Midwestern white candidates.
It’s not their color. It’s not their gender or sexuality. It’s not even their policies or records that are holding them back with voters of color (their records are not great, but they’re still not Mike Bloomberg). It’s their unexamined white privilege, buoyed by their unearned status among the white media, mixed with their unnerving and incessant prattle about “Midwestern values” that has black and brown voters casting about for other options. It’s not that people of color haven’t “gotten to know” Buttigieg or Klobuchar. It’s that we know them all too well.
Every black person up in this mess has a Pete Buttigieg in their lives.
Fully aware I might be entirely wrong, here's my prediction on the Stone sentencing: Judge Jackson will impose a sentence no lower than 60 mos, no higher than 87 mos. She will remand Stone into custody immediately. (Trump will go berserk, but won't pardon Stone immediately.)
— Elizabeth de la Vega (@Delavegalaw) February 13, 2020
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at The Nation writes—Budgets Don’t Lie, but Trump and His Enablers Do:
Since budgets don’t lie, the folks crunching the numbers at the White House had to acknowledge there is no plan to get America out of the red anytime soon. They hang their economic hopes on long-term growth projections that make the failed projections of Trump’s first three years seem modest. But they also make clear that Trump wants poor and low-income Americans to pick up the bill for his shortcomings in the meantime.
While Trump touts unemployment rates, which have been trending down since the economic recovery of Obama’s first term, his budget does not address the soaring costs of housing, education, and health care that have created an economic crisis for most Americans. The Poor People’s Campaign, a national movement led by poor people and their allies, has published a moral budget that demonstrates that 140 million Americans—42 percent of the nation—are no more than one $400 emergency away from not being able to pay their bills the next month. [...]
In the same vein, Trump’s new budget proposes $181 billion in cuts to food stamps over the next decade, in addition to slashing $800 billion from Medicaid. If he had his way, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) would see a total decrease of 15 percent, Health and Human Services 9 percent, and the Department of Education 8 percent. In the House of Representatives, where Pelosi shredded Trump’s speech last week, such a proposal is dead on arrival. But in an election year, Trump’s message is clear: No matter whose stories he told at the State of the Union, he is not running to represent poor and low-income Americans. He is dedicated to propping up an economy where the rich get richer and the poor get medical debt.
Rebecca Leber at Mother Jones writes—Trump’s Biggest Vulnerability Is His Climate Change Denial:
A Politico/Morning Consult poll released in late January—smack in the middle of the impeachment trial—asked 2,000 voters about Trump’s performance on a number of issues ranging from jobs, economy, and terrorism to trade, climate, immigration, foreign relations, health care, and draining the swamp. They were the least impressed with climate: More than half—54 percent—gave Trump a D or F, while just 21 percent gave him an A or B.
Then there was an August survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. The research group found that 64 percent of the 1,058 people included disapproved of his record on climate, while 32 percent approved—”the lowest among six issue areas that the poll asked about, including immigration (38%) and health care (37%),” the AP reported. And in July a poll by the Washington Post-ABC News poll found Trump’s lowest rating was on climate: Just 29 percent approving, with 62 percent disapproving, the widest spread in the poll.
The problem with this kind of polling is that the issue is widely polarized, so while climate change is a top-tier issue for Democratic primary voters, it ranks far lower in importance for Republicans. In swing states, it’s unclear whether climate will turn out voters.
Alan Dershowitz is on TV right now trying to convince people that it's entirely normal for presidents to steer the Justice Department to go after some and not others. What a disgrace he is to the legal profession.
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) February 13, 2020
Paul Heideman at In These Times writes—Yes, Michael Bloomberg Is Definitely an Oligarch:
Throughout his administration, Bloomberg was also a vocal defender of the interests of the rich. In classic trickle-down fashion, he argued that helping the poor was best accomplished by helping the rich. Want to address poverty? “Attract more very fortunate people. They’re the ones who pay the bills,” he said in 2013. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, Bloomberg ran interference for the banks, repeating right-wing lies that blamed fair housing laws for the mortgage meltdown. When Occupy Wall Street put inequality into the national spotlight, Bloomberg dismissed the protests, arguing that the country had been “overspending” and social services should be cut. And though he’s singing a different tune now, in 2012 he was a dogged opponent of raising the minimum wage.
It would be bad enough if Bloomberg were just a New York problem. However, because of his vast wealth, Bloomberg has secured a role as a player on the national stage, backing politicians and causes that protect the wealth of the billionaire class. He supported George W. Bush for reelection in 2004, after Bush passed massive tax cuts for the rich. He donated money to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and backed a host of ultra-conservative politicians, ranging from religious zealot Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to racist loudmouth Rep. Peter King (R-NY). Though he donated to Democrats as well, up until the 2018 midterms, Bloomberg’s super PAC Independence USA spent more money funding the campaigns of Republicans than Democrats.
Charles M. Blow at The New York Times writes—The Notorious Michael R. Bloomberg. His racist stop-and-frisk policy as New York mayor can’t be forgotten:
Let’s state some facts: Michael Ruben Bloomberg notoriously expanded stop-and-frisk in New York City to obscene proportions, violating the bodies and constitutional rights of mostly minority men and boys, and not only defended the policy, but mocked his detractors and bragged about it.
What Bloomberg did as mayor amounted to a police occupation of minority neighborhoods, a terroristic pressure campaign, with little evidence that it was accomplishing the goal of sustained, long-term crime reduction.
Nearly 90 percent of the people stopped were completely innocent. He knew that. They were the collateral damage in his crusade, black and brown bodies up against walls and down on the ground, groped in the middle of the city by strange men with guns, a vast expanse of human psychological wreckage about which he couldn’t care less. [...]
In 2012, after million of stops, Bloomberg stood up in a church in Brownsville, Brooklyn, among the neighborhoods hardest hit by the policy, and declared that racial profiling was banned in the Police Department. “We will not tolerate it,” he said.
That was a Donald Trump-level lie.
Sustained standing ovation for Marie Yovanovich at Georgetown University where she accepted the Trainor Award for excellence in diplomacy. �� pic.twitter.com/dqFrrAj9Ox
— Agenthades (@Agenthades1) February 13, 2020
Nancy Le Tourneau at The Washington Monthly writes—The State of Georgia Is in Play:
Paul Waldman recently challenged the meme about Democrats being in disarray. He made some great arguments, but a lot of it comes down to this.
People in politics suffer from a kind of myopia, in which what’s right in front of them, being in sharp focus, seems like the most important thing that has ever happened or will ever happen. This Changes Everything, we say over and over, despite the fact that the last 10 or 15 events that were supposed to Change Everything turned out to be so inconsequential that we’ve already forgotten what they were. [...]
Stories that combat the Democrats in disarray notion abound if you dig deep enough. For example, almost every day the state of Virginia is reminding us of what happens when we elect Democrats. While Trump constantly rails about the “do-nothing Democrats,” the House is about to vote on making Washington, DC the 51st state.
But in a story more directly tied to the 2020 elections, it is what’s happening in Georgia that caught my eye. That state is not only significant because of the presidential race. There are also three open House seats in play, along with both Senate seats.
Donald Trump won Georgia in 2016 by about five points. According to Morning Consult, his current net approval rating now stands at zero. However, the big news coming out of Georgia is that, even as Republicans in that state lead the nation in purging voters, they can’t do so fast enough to keep up with new registrations.
Jonathan Chait at New York magazine writes—Joe Biden’s Campaign Was a Disaster for Liberalism and the Democratic Party:
Candidates who flame out early in presidential primaries, almost by definition, do not make history. But Joe Biden may be an exception. Biden’s presidential campaign is now almost certain to fail, but he has done more than any other candidate to shape the outcome. And the result is likely to be disastrous — for Biden’s personal legacy and political agenda.[...]
Biden’s candidacy almost single-handedly stunted the growth of every other center-left alternative. Cory Booker ran the Freaks and Geeks of campaigns — praised by critics, but never registering with the broader public. Booker might well have attracted Biden’s constituency, before low polling forced him off the debate stage and out of the race. [...]
Biden’s campaigns in 1988 and 2008 ended in disaster for Biden. His 2020 campaign is going to end in a disaster for the whole party.
Redlining was an explicitly racist policy that ensured that until 1968 98 % of federally insured loans went to white Americans. It created one of largest white affirmative action programs we�ve seen and is a direct cause of the devastating black/white wealth gap. https://t.co/P8WjFKyzZ2
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) February 13, 2020
Andrew Gawthorpe at The Guardian writes—William Barr's efforts to protect Roger Stone are another blow to rule of law:
The extent to which Barr has bent his knee, and increasingly that of the justice department, to Trump is profoundly troubling. Attorneys general have almost always gone to great lengths to avoid even the appearance of political interference in ongoing investigations. For Barr to dance so openly to the tune of Donald Trump’s Twitter feed suggests that not only has he been deeply corrupted, but that he doesn’t care who knows it. His shamelessness puts him in league with the Republican senators who voted to acquit Donald Trump despite clear evidence that he had committed impeachable offences.
But Barr is more dangerous than any senator because he wields more power. If he continues to allow the department to become an instrument of the president’s will, then he can do grave damage to American democracy and the rule of law. Autocrats always seek to corrupt the criminal justice system in order to give themselves and their subordinates legal cover as they attempt to undermine democratic institutions and norms. Another Trump subordinate – Rudy Giuliani – is currently under federal investigation for his involvement in the president’s illegal scheme to sway the outcome of the 2020 election. We can have no confidence that Barr will allow this investigation to go where the facts lead it.
By seeking special treatment for the president’s cronies, Barr creates the impression that future lawbreakers will be able to get away with their crimes so long as they further the interests of the president. Given that the president himself cannot be indicted for a crime, the exposure of his associates and subordinates to legal jeopardy is a key check on the growth of tyranny. As soon as political favoritism begins to play a role in whether or not criminals are prosecuted, the rule of law – and democracy – cannot last.
UPDATE: We tried to prove Eric Trump right. We asked experts: is there any way that Mar-a-Lago is just charging the govt its costs � and it just costs $650 per day to clean one of their rooms? Experts said....no.https://t.co/85oZKi2wL1
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) February 12, 2020
John Patrick Leary at The New Republic writes—What Wall Street Really Means When It Talks About “Climate Risk”:
BlackRock, the world’s largest money management firm, with over $6 trillion in assets, certainly intends to soldier on. Anticipating that climate change will provoke a “fundamental reshaping of finance,” BlackRock’s chairman, Laurence Fink, recently announced a new policy to make “sustainability” a central factor in evaluating investments. In a letter to investors published on the firm’s website, Fink wrote that “the investment risks presented by climate change are set to accelerate a significant reallocation of capital, which will in turn have a profound impact on the pricing of risk and assets around the world.” The move has received mixed responses, both from the financial press and from climate activists. The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote that such a move from a firm of BlackRock’s size “could reshape how corporate America does business,” while others were more circumspect. An investor in Barron’s observed skeptically that BlackRock is still the world’s largest investor in fossil fuels, with over $19 billion in Exxon stock alone, as well as large interests in Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP.
Nicole M. Aschoff at Jacobin writes—Wall Street Can’t Fix the Environment. BlackRock’s recent divestment promises are self-serving measures, not meaningful steps in the fight against global warming:
Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, recently sent another one of his famous letters. Building on previous promises to value all stakeholders, this year’s message to CEOs outlines BlackRock’s new role as a responsible champion of the environment — it vows to both safeguard people’s money and promote a “sustainable and inclusive capitalism.”
The world’s largest asset management company says that beginning this year it will divest from thermal coal and “mak[e] sustainability integral to portfolio construction and risk management.” Fink insists that in the future BlackRock “will be increasingly disposed to vote against management and board directors when companies are not making sufficient progress on sustainability-related disclosures and the business practices and plans underlying them.”
But on closer examination, the details of BlackRock’s plan are less exciting. The company’s vow to pull back from thermal coal refers to its actively managed portfolios. Roughly three-quarters of the company’s portfolios are passively managed, their assets automatically selected to track the global marketplace. (BlackRock’s strong growth over the past decade owes almost entirely to investment flowing into its exchange-traded funds and other types of passive investing.) The vast majority of BlackRock’s more than $17 billion investment in coal sits in passively invested portfolios.
Fink’s letter also says little about the company’s massive presence in other sectors of the fossil-fuel industry. BlackRock is the world’s largest shareholder in oil and gas. Just last year, it completed a $4 billion investment (along with KKR) in the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. The company also pours money into industries associated with deforestation, such as palm oil.
Dana Milbank at The Washington Post writes—As health experts sound the alarm, Trump fights coronavirus with alternative facts:
This is the time for a Manhattan Project, to put all public and private energy into vaccine and antiviral development, diagnostics and expanded hospital capabilities. If the worst happens, we’ll be better prepared. If not, we’ll be prepared for the next pandemic.
Instead, Trump this week proposed cutting U.S. funding for the World Health Organization in half. He has also proposed a nearly 16 percent cut to the CDC and a nearly 8 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health, though officials say they won’t cut from infectious-disease work. Trump’s budget director says the virus isn’t being taken into account in economic forecasts. And Trump is parroting advice from the Chinese regime.
Maybe he’ll also endorse North Korea’s plan to fight the virus with “burdock roots.”
Trump administration officials were asked to participate in the Senate hearing; they refused, instead cooperating in a closed briefing later with senators. [...]
Had they come, they would have heard the experts knock down Trump’s claims that we’re in great shape, that there are only 11 cases here and that China has handled the outbreak well.
By David Kamioner | February 13, 2020
Running and beating Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California may seem like an impossible task, a David versus Goliath mission. But the GOP sports a 34 year old entrepreneur that has the right stuff for the job.
DeAnna Lorraine was born and raised in California and went to Cal State at Chico, where she studied marketing and organizational communications.
For the last ten years she has owned her own personal counseling firm and has had a thorough private sector education in the free market and the challenges facing small businesses everywhere. Her particular job has also given her a unique perspective on the current status of the American family. That’s why her first priority is making sure government does all it can, within common sense limits, to “restore the family unit.”
Lorraine comments, “Even though I’m running as a Republican, so many of the issues we are dealing with cross political lines and affect all Americans – like rising homelessness, broken families, and fatherless homes. Our country is in a crisis of broken families and fatherless homes right now and we need to restore these crucial elements, because strong families create a strong America.”
And of her Goliath-like opponent? Well, DeAnna Lorraine is not reticent.
“Pelosi has been at the head of disastrous federal policies that have done a great deal to result in the continuing destruction of the city of San Francisco….Her priorities are all wrong. While we here in the 12th district deal with the problems of homelessness and broken families that are a product of her failed policies, she focuses on a doomed impeachment. In fact, last year her office sent out 380 press releases. Not one dealt with the ongoing economic crises here in her own backyard.”
Lorraine comments that, “Pelosi has engaged in a downright betrayal of Americans and the Constitution.” The challenger also says that stopping the scourge of illegal immigration is one of her top tasks, noting that “violent illegal immigrants have taken lives in this state and are a tremendous burden on the taxpayers of California. We’ve got to do better in protecting our families from this problem.”
Those who discount Lorraine’s chances, taking into account her climb is certainly uphill, forget Agincourt, the Battle of Britain, and Valley Forge.
Sometimes the goods guys, even though serious underdogs, can win the battle. Her campaign website is www.DeAnnaForCongress.com.
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
Read more at LifeZette:
Mitt Romney hit with new Republican resolution that would force him to support Trump or give up his seat
Pete Buttigieg demands all drugs be decriminalized, even meth and heroin
CNN’s Brian Stelter tries to attack Fox News for ignoring major Trump story – it immediately backfires
The post Meet The Woman Challenging Nancy Pelosi Who May Just Take Her Seat appeared first on The Political Insider.
Joe Manchin thinks President Donald Trump abused his power and voted to remove him from office. But he also thinks Trump can still be a “tremendous president” and is eager to reconcile.
The West Virginia Democratic senator surprised his Republican colleagues by denying Trump a bipartisan acquittal last week. But he can’t quit Trump entirely — and is even open to supporting Trump’s re-election campaign.
“I don’t rule anything out. I really don’t rule anything out,” Manchin said in an interview in his office amid a series of attacks from the president. “I’m always going to be for what’s best for my country. Everybody can change. Maybe the president will change, you know? Maybe that uniter will come out, versus the divider.”
While it may defy logic that Manchin could support a president he voted to kick out of office, Manchin sees things differently. Trump did everything he could to defeat Manchin in 2018 and Manchin forgave him a week later. It might take Trump longer to forget Manchin’s vote, but the third-term senator is hopeful as always.
“It’s not different when he wanted to have lunch the week after I was elected. And he said: ‘I knew we couldn’t beat you.’ And I said: ‘it wasn’t for lack of trying.’ Boom, it’s over, let it go. I did. I’m asking him to do the same thing I did,” Manchin said. “He tried to remove me.”
The episode is vintage Manchin — keep everyone guessing and find a way to stay in the mix of the 2020 election, despite the dearth of opportunities to cut deals with Republicans and deploy his back-slapping brand of bipartisanship. Making peace with Trump would also help if he runs in 2024 for yet another term representing West Virginia, one of the strongest Trump states in the country. Manchin isn't ruling that out either and said his vote to remove Trump is “no signal at all about my political career.”
Manchin also plans to hold a series of town halls to explain his impeachment decision to West Virginians.
“I owe it to them. Hell yes, I’m going back home to do town halls,” he said.
Republicans and Trump have tried to recruit Manchin to switch parties several times but have always failed. And they’ve generally been frustrated with Manchin’s record of cooperation on legislation even though he’s the most receptive Democrat to the Trump agenda.
While he’s supported most of Trump’s nominees, including both Supreme Court picks, he opposed the GOP’s tax overhaul and Obamacare repeal and now has voted to convict the president in the impeachment trial.
“Lindsey [Graham] had talked about the fact that we were going to get several Democrats. And Joe was one,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). “He kind of walks this line. There are those in our conference who say he’s always with you except when you need him.”
Trump has lately attacked Manchin as a “Munchkin” and Manchin has criticized Trump for not mounting a defense during the impeachment trial and for his name-calling. Manchin said he hasn’t reached out to the president or the White House yet about putting his trial vote behind him, saying he wanted things to “simmer down” a bit before making that move.
Still, Graham has tried to aid Manchin’s bid to reconnect with Trump. The South Carolina Republican said in an interview he’s spoken to Trump about his attacks on Manchin and argued that the West Virginia moderate is one of Trump’s best shots at getting anything done with Democratic support.
Graham reminded Trump that he and his aides campaigned against Manchin barely more than a year ago and that politics is “a business.”
Trump “doesn’t believe it today. But there will come a time when we need Joe tomorrow,” Graham said. “We still have a lot to do here. Prescription drugs and a lot of things are gonna be right on the cusp of 60 votes.”
Democrats were buoyed by Manchin’s vote to convict. He was clearly the most likely Democratic senator to cross party lines in the trial. And he admitted in the interview that he started off inclined to vote against conviction but found that the burden of evidence made that impossible as the trial went on.
“Joe really struggled,” said Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who had discussed the trial with Manchin and fellow Democratic moderate Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. “Joe did what he felt like was the absolutely right thing to do. And that’s what Joe Manchin does.”
A few days before the final vote, Manchin took to the podium in the Democratic caucus room and relayed how wrenching the impeachment vote had become for him. He’d never stood in that spot before in a closed-door party meeting, and most senators left with the impression that he would acquit Trump.
Yet by the State of the Union address last week, a day before the impeachment vote, Manchin had made his decision. And Trump’s partisan performance didn’t help make the president’s case.
“I saw the State of the Union, and I said: ‘It’s not who we are.’ There’s so many good things that we can do better,” Manchin said.
For so long, Manchin has faced skepticism in Washington for his attempts at triangulation. His vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh came just weeks before his 2018 election, and it is widely credited with saving his seat in deep red West Virginia.
Manchin still bristles at the suggestion he voted for Kavanaugh to save his hide. He said the case was not proven that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford. The House impeachment managers’ case against Trump, on the other hand, was proven, Manchin said. And he became more certain by the president’s opposition to hearing from new witnesses.
“Witnesses might have made me to the point where I have doubt. I would have reasonable doubt. Maybe,” Manchin said. “I had no doubt when everything [came] the way it came across.”
Manchin is equally sensitive about efforts to cast him as someone who blindly follows along with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) remarked last week that his vote against Trump showed Schumer had “pulled the noose a little tight” on him.
Manchin texted Capito minutes after her TV hit on Fox News: “I think you know me better than that.” Capito declined to comment on her colleague’s relationship with Trump: “I just don’t want to get in the middle of that. I really don’t.”
Yet if liberals are looking for Manchin to now delight them on a weekly basis, they’ll be disappointed. Manchin has already endorsed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and is unlikely to do much, at all, against Capito or any other incumbent Republican on the ballot in November.
And he said he still intends to support many of Trump’s conservative judges, provided they are experienced and are deemed qualified by the American Bar Association.
“Do you think the Democrat caucus has been pleased with my votes?” Manchin asked. “I vote 56 percent of the time with the Republicans.”
Yet even as he looks to make nice with Trump, he’s still opposed to many of the president’s policies. Manchin is angry about the Trump-supported lawsuit that would gut the Affordable Care Act and livid about the president’s budget and what it would do to West Virginia.
Moreover, he said he needs to do a full analysis of whether his state is truly better off than it was three years ago and if Trump’s rhetoric matches his results in his state. In the end, he may end up being neutral in 2020, especially depending on whom Democrats nominate. But he’s still keeping his eye on Trump.
“I hope he changes,” Manchin said. “I’m looking for that person that has heart and soul and compassion.”