Senate Democrat Joe Manchin Tells Fox & Friends He’s Against Blowing up Filibuster, Packing Court: ‘Why Would You Go Down That Path?’
Democratic West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin appeared on Fox & Friends on Wednesday to talk about the Supreme Court fight in Congress and said that he opposes both nuking the filibuster and plans to “pack the court.”
Those plans have been floated by Democrats and in the media in the wake of President Donald Trump and the GOP made clear their intention to nominate and hold confirmation hearings on Trump’s choice to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Manchin his take on that.
“I was going to ask you to speak for Joe Manchin for a second,” said Kilmeade, to narrow down the response. “If [Democrats] win the Senate and it’s January and February, is Joe Manchin going to say ‘let’s blow up the filibuster on all legislation and let’s pack the court because I don’t like what Republicans did with their nominee and in theory they passed this nominee because they seem to have the votes?’ What does Joe Manchin do?”
Manchin first expressed that he’s the most bipartisan member of the Senate, and pointed out his record of having voted for a number of Trump’s judicial nominees to date.
“I want to work in a bipartisan way. It comes down to that Brian,” he said. “Here is what happened. If you look back when Harry Reid exercised the nuclear option, which did away with the 60 vote threshold, I think every Democrat should evaluate: how did that work for us? Has that been a good decision?”
“No!” blurted co-host Steve Doocy.
“Okay,” said Manchin. “So basically going down the same path. I will make every decision I can that keeps the Senate bipartisan. Simply that.”
“So you’re answering me, you’re not going to vote to get rid of the filibuster entirely, and you’re not going to look to pack the court?” Kilmeade asked.
“I do not believe that would help anybody, basically,” Manchin replied. “No one’s working together. So if you have 11 or 13, it’s going to flip the other way no matter who comes in power. So why would you go down that path?”
“It didn’t work in 2015 with the nuclear option, and I would have doubts it would work this time,” he continued. “We’ve got to fight for basically who we are as a senate. Can we represent the people in a bipartisan way? Democrats and Republicans?”
Watch the clip above, via Fox News.
