Sen. Mark Warner, (D-VA), Is Interviewed About Joe Manchin
Interview
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Well, Wolf, Joe and I are great friends. Matter of fact he and I were governors together. I was the guy he called when he was thinking about coming to the Senate. I encouraged him to come. And I hope your viewers remember he replaced Robert Byrd who was a icon in what Just Virginia.
And Joe Manchin has delivered for the people of West Virginia in ways that I'm not even sure all the folks in West Virginia realize. And I think he's had an incredible record. I mean, every one of these bipartisan efforts, whether we thinking about the CHIPS bill, the infrastructure bill, obviously the IRA, some of the final efforts, even under COVID funding under President Trump, and Joe was part of, he was integral to. I was part of all those groups as well. And I think he's left a great legacy, I'm going to miss him.
Now in terms of what happens in 2024, you know, I'm not going to try to tell your audience or you that West Virginia is not going to be a steep, steep hill for a Democrat to climb. But I'd also say this, you know, four days ago, people didn't think, in Virginia, that we'd win the House and the Senate and the legislative races. So I'm going to keep an optimistic view going forward.
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I think that I cannot imagine a world in which Joe Manchin would do anything to help Donald Trump get reelected. So, give him his space to advocate processes and bipartisanship. I think that's a positive thing. But I can't imagine any world in which he does anything that will help Donald Trump get reelected.
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Well, listen, I think it's an humanitarian interest to provide these pauses, and I heard your previous reporter, in terms of the semantics of we're going to call it a pause or a cessation of hostilities. You know, I think at the end of the day, they ought to be judged on can we get assistance to Palestinians who've been under, you know, enormous strain over the last month with the bombing, with the amount of deaths? And I would argue, this make -- is in Israel's best interest. They're going to need to keep American support and world support to go after the Hamas leaders, the terrorist who created the atrocities on October 7.
But it's also important in terms of not opening up a second front on this war. I have been concerned, I contacted with a number of senators, the administration and they have put pressure, I think, finally on the Israeli government to try to stop some of the settler violence in the West Bank against Palestinians. Because if the West Bank security services, the Palestinian security services, all quit, that would create the possibility of a huge conflict on the West Bank. And part of that keeping the temperatures under control is trying to make sure that the non-Hamas Palestinians in Gaza get the kind of humanitarian assistance that is civilized and appropriate. And I think this is a step forward.
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Well, one thing you know, Wolf, I was chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I'm not going to share any intelligence that we or the Israelis might have about the hostages. I think anything that get hostages free is a step in the right direction. I think it is also, as I'm sure most of your viewers, and I know, you understand, the vast majority of these hostages are still held by Hamas. It's one of the reasons as they -- as the Israeli forces now surround Gaza City.
You know, the real challenge is going to be how do you get into some of those tunnels and eliminate some of the Hamas leadership without putting all of these hostages in further in harm's way? And that's something that obviously the Israelis, I think, are focused on.
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I think, Wolf, Democrats won a lot of times based on specifics in their individual state. And abortion in Virginia was a big issue. But I think a bigger issue, frankly, than President Biden pro con is the fact that in Virginia we obviously are affected a lot by the federal government, a lot of federal workers, a lot of defense establishments, they've seen the craziness that's been coming out of the house MAGA crowd, they've seen the extreme positions.
And even when you had folks in Virginia that were saying, hey, no, we're not that kind of extremist. We're going to try to bid reasonable limits on say, a woman's health care choices. Virginians just didn't believe it. And I think there is this seepage of the Republican brand being taken over by the MAGA crowd, they're driving the bus. And I can tell you in Virginia, no matter what the governor or some reasonable Republicans said, there was a fear that if they won that extreme group, not just on women's health care choices, but on voting rights, on gun laws, and on basic Democratic tenets could all be in jeopardy.
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Thank you, Wolf.
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