Welcome to Off Message. I'm Isaac Dover.

I say, be man enough to go after me.

Don't be chicken shit. And that's what they are.

Today's guest, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, but as you'll hear, or if you know anything about him, not your run of the mill go along to get along Democrat.

He should be the most endangered politician in America.

Donald Trump won West Virginia up by 42 points last year. The state, which wasn't even a question

for Bill Clinton to win all of 20 years ago, then wasn't even a question for Hillary Clinton

to have a shot in last year. It's changed, more reliably Republican than almost anywhere else.

And yet, Mansion is still there. Thirty-five years in, running for a It's changed, more reliably Republican than almost anywhere else.

And yet, Mansion is still there, 35 years in, running for another term in the Senate and hoping to remain the only statewide elected Democrat and really the only prominent Democrat the state has left at all.

He loves the image of himself as a guy who talks bluntly, says what he wants to say.

And it's more than an

image. It's really what he is, who he is. I already put out a story ahead of the posting of this

podcast about what he said about not wanting Al Franken to resign. That didn't come until the

very end of the podcast, which you'll hear him say, and I didn't even ask him about it.

And check out that story, which is up on our site, and which I also talked to two other senators

who agreed with him, but weren't willing to say it publicly like he did.

But the main reason I wanted to talk to Manchin now is that he's locked in, a hard no on

the Republican tax bill throughout, just like he was for Obamacare repeal, despite that

Trump margin last year. And the way that he's approached it is a window into next year,

the midterm campaigns, and into how the other nine Senate Democrats who are in states Trump

one are looking at it themselves. Basic politics would tell you that they should be working

...