CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Senator Joe Manchin

Interview

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[09:25:00]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back. This may sound familiar, hope for a stimulus deal any time soon fading as the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have big differences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK MEADOWS, CHIEF OF STAFF, WHITE HOUSE: We've continued to make offer after offer after offer, and Nancy continues to move the goal post.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They keep moving the goal post. They -- every time they say we move the goal post, that means they're projecting what they did.

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SCIUTTO: Lots of goal posts moving. This as CNN learns that Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has privately told the White House not to make a deal because it won't have Senate GOP support to pass. That's clear there's division within the Republican Party as well. The Senate now expected to go out of session right after confirming Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. With me now, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Senator, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Thanks for having me, Jim. Always good to be with you.

SCIUTTO: Let's talk stimulus just very briefly --

MANCHIN: Sure --

SCIUTTO: I wonder in your view, you're someone who's worked effectively with both parties. Have both parties blown it on stimulus?

MANCHIN: Well, it seems like that we're not able to come together and whatever the negotiating parties may consist of. Maybe sometimes you've got to shake it up a little bit, change it up, let's get some new people on the field and see if there'll have a chance --

SCIUTTO: We're eight days -- we're eight days --

MANCHIN: Yes -- SCIUTTO: To an election. I wonder, you've got your finger on the

pulse, you're a Democratic senator in a reliably red state. Who do you think pays more on election day for the failure to come to a deal, Democrats or Republicans?

MANCHIN: Well, I think everybody pays to a certain extent. But let me make sure we understand where we are coming from, Jim. Mitch McConnell put a deal together, the Hills deal, I believe he called it, back in August before we left early in July, 1.1 trillion, the house was at 3.2. They came down to 2.2, and they thought well, let's start negotiating, 1.1 --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

MANCHIN: We come from 3.2 to 2.2. Mitch sends -- Mitch McConnell sends everybody home.

[09:30:00]

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): Came down to 2.2 and they thought, well, we'll start negotiating, 1.1 --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

MANCHIN: We come from 3.2 to 2.2. Mitch sends -- Mitch McConnell sends everybody home because he has control of the calendar and says, just go home for August and come back. We come back. He puts a new bill up for 500. So he goes backwards, almost double backwards.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MANCHIN: That's not really good negotiating in an earnest, sincere negotiation.

So what Mitch McConnell's running into, a lot of his members, a lot of my friends on that side, who aren't in favor of a lot of things. So they said, we're not going to go any further than that.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MANCHIN: He wanted to show that he had Republican support for something so small. Well, that's not going do it. Wall Street has said it's not going to do it. Everyone (INAUDIBLE) economists.

SCIUTTO: OK.

MANCHIN: So we need to do something and do it right. And if it can happen between now and election, let's do it.

SCIUTTO: We'll see. You said you need new players on the field? Are you saying there needs to be new leadership, including on the Democratic side?

MANCHIN: No, no, I'm saying whoever -- whoever Nancy and whoever Schumer and them have as their -- as their team that's negotiating, maybe I'll look out -- sometimes it's personality conflicts. I've been in meetings before. No matter how reasonable people were, there was a personality conflict and one wasn't going to give the other. Sometimes you've got to shake it up.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MANCHIN: So they should look within their inner circle and say, OK, let's put some new people involved and see if we can make something happen.

SCIUTTO: OK, the Senate will confirm, by all indications, Senator -- nominee, rather, Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

MANCHIN: There are cases related to this election, eight days away, that may work their way to the Supreme Court between now and Election Day. Do you believe Barrett should recuse herself from any election- related decisions?

MANCHIN: Well, I absolutely do, but that's not going to happen, Jim. Here's the thing that we're talking, we don't have a judicial crisis. We have a pandemic health crisis. We're on the brink of an economic crisis.

What should we have been working with and dedicating all of our time, should have been the economy and the health. And that's what we didn't do because immediately, as soon as that vacancy came up, boom, here we go. I want to make sure that I reiterate to you that this never happened within the history of our country, 240 years.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MANCHIN: If a vacancy came open July to election day, never happened. Abraham Lincoln didn't do it. John Quincy Adams didn't do it. It didn't happen. So here we are.

The only thing I've said -- I've got confidence and faith in the eight, you know, the eight jurists that we have right now on the Supreme Court. Now unless they're just concerned that they have to get this in case this election falls into the hands of the court, they want to make sure that they have a slam dunk, that's the only thing I can figure out because really we could have waited until after the election very easily and not divided our country further.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

MANCHIN: Jim, we're just pushing us further and further apart.

SCIUTTO: We just learned that Senator -- that Vice President, rather, Mike Pence has tested negative for COVID. Does that allay your concerns about him presiding over the Senate for this confirmation?

MANCHIN: Well, Jim, you know, the president -- the vice president does not travel by himself. So there's going to be a cadre of people traveling with him. They always do, no matter where he goes. Five of his staff members have proven to be positive -- tested positive. Those five members I'm sure were interacting with other members of the staff. We just don't know where this goes.

Now, to expose all of the police that we have, protection, all of the staff of both the House -- I mean of the Senate Republicans and Senate Democrat staff, and it's not needed, it's ceremonial today. Sometimes the vice president is needed for a breaking a tie, a 50/50 tie. That's not the case today. So I would ask, with all due respect, Mr. Vice President, please consider all the people that could be exposed, that doesn't have to be exposed today. Please, restrain from coming.

SCIUTTO: I want to ask you about energy, because you're aware the vice president's comments, former vice president, during the last debate. He's now walked back those comments on transitioning away from the oil industry, specifying he's talking about fracking permits for federal lands, et cetera.

MANCHIN: Sure.

SCIUTTO: But I wonder, have his sometimes conflicting statements on this lost him voters? I mean, you know, fracking, energy, is a big issue in your own state.

MANCHIN: Well, the statement the vice president made was very confusing and I'm sure it was a mistake he made because he came back and he tried to correct it.

I've seen the Biden plan. We've talked to the people. They know where I come from. I'm all for innovation. And, Jim, what I mean by that, technology. We're transitioning. As we transition, whether it will be the fuel of the future, we don't know whether it will be hydrogen, fusion, whatever it may be, wind, solar, all the renewables we're for, but we also have to have dependable, reliable, affordable energy. And that means you need baseload, something that runs 24/7 that's affordable and dependable. And you have coal and you have natural gas and you have oil and all of those.

Can we use them cleaner as we transition through another energy? Absolutely. Should we be doing it by investing? We have an energy bill that we're hoping that Mitch McConnell will take up that Lisa Murkowski and I have worked on.

There's a lot of great things that we can do but you need to innovate. You can't just eliminate and say, OK, we're not going to use coal anymore, we're not going to use basically gas or any oil. That's not going to happen. And the rest of the world, it's called global climate, not American climate, not North American climate.

[09:35:00]

So we need to move the whole world further, faster to a cleaner -- a cleaner environment. And we can do that through innovation. We're on the brink of doing that and that's what he really meant and what he's working with us with.

SCIUTTO: You've said again, as we're eight days out from the election, to "Politico," you said, "I think President Trump has worn everybody out. It would be a true relief to my friends on the Republican side ether (ph)." If that's the case, if you're hearing that privately, why aren't more of them speaking out in public? MANCHIN: Well, I understand. He has over 80 million followers on

Twitter, OK. And to have that unleashed on anybody, I understand that. I don't begrudge my -- or fault them at all. I understand, they're trying to survive.

SCIUTTO: It's not exactly courage, though, is it?

MANCHIN: Well, I -- if they want -- if they have a lot of good public service left in them and they want to come to the middle and work with me and others in the middle, that we can move our country forward, then survive, OK? I understand that. But sooner or later someone's got to speak out.

I'm worn out. I have tried harder than anybody, especially on the Democrat side, to work with the president and his staff. And I still want to do good things and I'll work with them when I think something's right. But I'm speaking out because I believe that we're worn out, Mr. President. We can't take it anymore. There can't be this much confusion and disruption.

My life is complicated enough, as every other American's life. Don't throw more on us. And that's what he's doing. I think it's gotten to the point. And when he basically, in my state, having the veterans that we have and saying they're suckers and losers, that tore through me like a knife. Unbelievable.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

Well, Senator Joe Manchin, you're always welcome on this broadcast. Thanks very much.

MANCHIN: Well, Jim, it's always good to be with you. And thank you for having me. Tell Poppy we said hi.

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