Lulu Garcia Navarro

And Tina Smith is a Democrat who currently represents Minnesota and earlier this year announced that she won't be seeking reelection in 2026.

I wanted to gather these three to get their read on the state of the Senate and our politics and democracy more broadly.

So here's my conversation with Senators Flake, Manchin and Smith.

I want to thank you all for being here.

It is a great pleasure to have you here on this sort of gray winter day in Washington, D.C.

You are all three former or soon to be former senators and you all left at different periods of the last 10 years.

And I'm hoping, frankly, that because you are leaving or have left, you will feel a little bit more unleashed in being able to discuss your true feelings and thoughts.

So I want to start by asking you all to give me a word or a sentence, something brief, that describes the state you think the Senate is in right now.

And I want to start with you, Senator Smith, because you are actually sitting in said body.

Senator Flake?

I mean, those are all pretty bleak words, I think.

I want you to say what you think.

Pretty straightforward responses here, it seems.

Yeah, those are pretty straightforward responses and not terribly optimistic.

Senator Flake, when you left the Senate, you had been serving in Congress for 18 years, first as a representative.

In a speech you gave on the floor, you gave this warning, and I'm going to quote here, let us recognize as authoritarianism reasserts itself in country after country that we are by no means immune.

Do you think you were right to be concerned?

Senator Manchin, just before you left the Senate, you turned away from the Democrats.

You registered as an independent.

And in some of your final words, you called the Democratic brand toxic.