Manchin signals he’s not ready to buck Republicans on key issues

Anderson Cooper 360

CNN

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3.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin holds a powerful position as a pivotal swing vote for the party and he’s made it clear he’s not ready to abandon Republicans for Democrats to try and push legislation on their own. The senator from West Virginia said bipartisan infrastructure talks should continue even as pressure builds for Democrats to move forward without any Republican support. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders joins AC360 to discuss Manchin’s stand on bipartisanship and says “I want to make the Senate work.” Plus, former Vice President Mike Pence said he’s spoken to former President Trump “many times” since they left office but “I don’t know if we will ever see eye to eye” about what happened on January 6 when rioters stormed the Capitol. He added he’s proud of their accomplishments and won’t let Democrats and “their allies in the media” use “one tragic day” to discredit millions of Americans. CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins tells Anderson Cooper it’s “stunning” for Pence to make these comments considering the rioters were chanting “hang Mike Pence” and he had to be escorted out. Airdate: June 3, 2021 Guests: Sen. Bernie Sanders Kaitlan Collins To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And good evening. Thanks for joining us. We are focused on two powerful lawmakers standing
0:05.0	between President Biden and virtually everything he hopes to accomplish in his presidency.
0:09.3	One of them is Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The other is a Democrat. In just
0:13.3	a short time ago, he spoke with CNN. West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, despite
0:17.9	having many of the same goals as the president, is refusing to change the way the Senate works
0:22.5	to achieve them, not on infrastructure or voting rights or even a bipartisan commission
0:26.5	to investigate the attack on the Capitol. It is deeply held belief that giving the
0:30.7	minority the power to block important legislation will bring compromise and not paralysis is
0:36.0	why the bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection could get
0:40.4	54 yes votes and just 35 no votes and still fail. Yet even in the face of that, Senator
0:46.4	Manchin has stood firm against eliminating the requirement that most legislation needs.
0:50.8	60 votes, in other words, 10 Republican votes, even reach the floor. It would take just
0:56.1	51 votes to change the rules. This evening under intense pressure to bend, he spoke with
1:01.0	CNN's monoragia.
1:02.0	Can you just take it off the table and say you'll never reduce the 60 votes I showed on
1:09.3	the filibuster? Let me just tell you one thing. We're going to make the Senate work the
1:13.2	way it was intended to work. I'm totally committed to that. And I'm not going to caution to the
1:18.6	wind. I have never desired to do that. I've listened to everybody's point of view. But
1:23.4	the bottom line is this country has got to unite it. We can't divide it. It has to be
1:28.5	united. And right now there are people that want to divide it further. This is useless.
1:32.6	It can't work. Well, I've never given up on our country.
1:35.7	What evidence do you have that the Mitch McConnell wants to work with his last week he
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