Joe Manchin

I was not elected to take a side.

I was elected to represent all sides.

That's why we left.

Abdication.

They've abdicated basically responsibilities of what their purpose of being there.

The Senate is in a most unusual body.

in the world.

Our framers designed it to be that way, and it was ingrained in me.

The filibuster is the only thing.

It's the holy grail of keeping us talking and working and becoming friends.

Jeff being on the Republican side, Tina and I at the time on the Democrat side, but we were all friends because we wanted to get things done, and we knew the Senate was the place to do it, and they've abdicated that type of responsibilities.

You want us to call them cowards?

What do you want us to say, Liz?

Well, first of all, my state's an R40 state.

There's not a redder state than mine.

And it got to the point where the people in West Virginia, when you have a total working class people coming from the lower echelon of the financial rung, okay, hardworking, poor people, why did they all leave the Democrat Party?

It just kind of left them behind.

And really, if you want to know, the underlying motive was that a lot of these people would tell me, they said, Joe, listen,

The Washington Democratic Party basically has spent more effort, resources and time for able-bodied, capable people that should be working, that don't work or won't work than those of us who do.

And I've had enough.