Transcripts For LINKTV Inside Story 20240711

Information to substantiate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 Australian Special forces personnel, predominantly from the special air service regiment. A u. S. Drug firm will apply for emergency authorization for its Coronavirus Vaccine within days. Pfizer says late stage trials for its candidate shows it was . 95 effective 95 effective, an improvement on the other trial last week. The u. S. Continues to see an acceleration of covid19 cases. The number of deaths has crossed 250,000 and more than one million new infections in the past week alone. Three people have been killed in protests in uganda after an opposition president ial candidate was arrested. The popstar turned politician says he was forcibly dragged out of his car by police. Armenias Prime Minister remains under pressure after his country was forced to hand territory to azerbaijan. Protests have been taking place in the capital. U. S. Secretary of state mike pompeo has praised the normalization of ties between israel and her normal number of countries. He made the comments in a press conference with israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and bahrains foreign minister. Hes expected to become the top foreign u. S. Diplomat to visit an illegal settlement in the occupied west bank. Those headlines continue after the bottom line. Im Steve Clemons and i have a question paired the democrats won the white house, but are ey going to be torn apart between progressives and interests . Lets get to the bottom line. When the American People ske on election day, they sent a mixed message. In many places, they voted they voted for other republican politicians in their district and state. The democrats went into the selection thinking they would pick up an easy 15 seats in the house, but wound up losing seven seats to the republican party. They will keep their majority, but it will lead to many more votes that what i call our squeakers or just getting by. Last week we focused on some of the lessons republicans might be learning and this week we will talk to a leading democratic senator to see what soulsearching his party is doing these days. He is senator joe mansion who represents the state of West Virginia where he previously served as governor and the only democrat still standing, elected to a federal position from his state. Let me put it to you. Which agenda won . The agenda of wiping out Student Loans and health care for everyone . Did that Progressive Agenda win or did a more cautious, deal breaking centrist agenda win . Im not sure anybody won from that standpoint because theres nothing overwhelmingly supported by either side. We were split down the middle and we still are. I can only speak of West Virginia. Basically on the opportunities they are given, they are appreciative any the government is involved that gives them an opportunity whether it be health care, employment, jobs. Those are always very welcome. But when the scare tactics, you scare the be jesus out of them by making them believe there is going to be some energy shift, they will take jobs away and not even give them recognition for what they have done, and an opportunity to continue to live in West Virginia, it scares them. And then they get mad, like anyone else, if you lose the opportunity to provide for your family and yourself. That is scary. With all of that, it is a tremendous challenge we have right now. I still am of the belief there is more that unites us then divides us as a country. We are still the united states. We might be a little fragmented right now but we always come back and i think we will come together. But i heard, you were talking briefly there about where we stand. As a country. Basically, the different direction we are going to go, because the house did not win seats, it lost seats. Still has a majority, but slimmer. The senate did not get the majority of thought it would get and we are not sure if we will get it or not because we are still waiting on the results of two elections in georgia in january. But no matter what happens, we are much closer in numbers that makes it harder for anyone side to have the fringes in control. The hard left or the hard right has very little control over a very narrow margin that is the either house or the senate. I think it gives us a tremendous opportunity, and come to the realization we have to Work Together versus just fighting for our respective sides, because theres no comfort. Theres nobody if the Senate Becomes 5248 or becomes 5050. If the house has to rely on not losing some of their moderate democrats to stay in control, then that will bring them back to the middle. The moderate middle is where we run our lives, where we run our businesses, and where we run our country from and we have to get back there. So maybe its a blessing in disguise. Steve let me ask you, i mentioned, senator, that you now, in terms of those elected to federal office, the last democrat in West Virginia. You also happen to be overwhelmingly popular in West Virginia, in a state that is conservative, you stand out. Im interested whether we can derive any lessons from that as now president elect biden thinks about reaching out to those 71 Million People who voted for president trump. Sen. Manchin as i saw the last figure, there are 73 million. And 78 million voted for joe biden. So it is a tremendous, overwhelming victory, but theres an awful lot of people that may be are not in sync. How many of those will start looking at reality . I have said this before, the bottom line is we need to cure the poor country of this pandemic. We need to read it with the vaccine and antibodies. Until that, it will be back to the normal we had before. I dont think the new normal will be the old normal. There might be greater opportunities. We have to be prepared to do that. I think the more reliance we have on science and not denying it and getting people false hope , it will not harm them and basically its a hoax, dont worry about it, i think we have seen this is serious. This is a killer, not just in the united states, all over the world. We need to be attacking much more seriously than we have. Hopefully we will come together on that. Next of all, we need a bipartisan bill. What is the best bipartisan bill you can start with that everybody agrees needs to be done . I have said this. If you have a bad road, a pothole, if you have a bridge falling down, trust me, that pothole ambridge and bad road doesnt know if you are a democrat or republican. It will bust your tire, tear your car up, and may endanger your life. That is something democrats and republicans can agree on. Lets do something that unites us. Lets do a major bipartisan bill, connecting all of america. The divide between rural and urban america is deepening. The chasm is growing. You do it with Broadband Connectivity and rural connectivity, the same way fdr brought us together during the great depression. Thats what we need to do so thats what we are working on and hopefully, with the biden administration, work in the most pragmatic way to start repairing and uniting not only opportunity was, job wise, but truly the emotional generational gap we have and making sure we understand each other a little bit. Steve thank you for that. Art of the trauma of this year has not only been covid, but the murder of george floyd, protests over racial divides and Economic Justice issues in the country. Do you think there is a program out there that can address some of this Racial Justice and Economic Justice issues without losing the center and play to that area . Sen. Manchin well, i think we have all heard basically, defund the police. That is the most ludicrous thing ive ever heard. Why would you defund when you know you have a problem . You would invest more but expect better results. That would be, why we do less training than other civilized nations with the police forces. Continued education should be coming, demanded by every police force. To know the social challenges and changes that are happening and areas they police. Most of these areas are transforming themselves with the new influx of population growth and shifts going on, i think they should be basically experiencing that and educated toward the needs they have. So when they use that, they scare the bejeezus out of a lot of people that they will defund the police and accept looting and rioting. That is not a democrat i know if in favor of that, we are in favor of more funding and better and targeted training for the police. And in the areas hit hardest, we have to get in and Start Building a social gathering, if you will. I will never forget after 9 11 in rural West Virginia, probably the least diverse state, we started bringing all the denominations and churches so we can understand from our brothers and sisters, whether it be rabbis, priests, preachers, we wanted to know what was going on. We had them all together, from the rabbi to the imam, the priest, the pastor, we had them all trying to explain the social challenges and how we could better embrace that to understand it better. That needs to be done more now than ever. Steve you talk about defunding the police and i want to read a tweet you sent out, and representative alexandria ocasiocortez retreated retweeted with her giving you the devils stare. It says defund the police, defund my butt, im a proud West Virginia democrat. We want to protect americans jobs and health care. We do not have a crazy socialist agenda and we do not believe in defunding the police. She sent that out with her just staring at you, no words. [laughter] i guess that cuts at the point of the question of the divide, what is happening at the soul of the Democratic Party, where that struggle is and what role you are going to play in that . I remember, your you are in an interesting place. When you ran two years ago, donald trump junior was campaigning against you in that state and you still won with the trump machine, but now you have donald trump, jr. On one side and alexandria ocasiocortez on the other. How does that feel . Sen. Manchin first of all, the president himself came six times. The president came six times campaigning against me came six times campaigning against me. Afterwards, i said, i was not running against my opponent, and running against you. And the people of West Virginia say we want our senator, not your senator, mr. President. It has been tough. And now to have that, when you say the soul of the Democratic Party, i truly believe the soul has been silent. It has been silent. Sometimes silence has been deafening. Thats what i believe has happened. But people such as aoc, they are aspirational, thats fine. They have ideas and they want to express it. Thats not who we are as a Democratic Party that i know. I can only speak for myself and the people i know within the caucus. But we should have denounced immediately when we said defund. We are not defunding the police, we are going to express more spend more and train more. It was not spoken by leadership. For whatever reason, they were silent, not knowing how to tiptoe around it, talking about looting and rioting. I would have brought in the National Guard. I have the National Guard at my beck and call. I was commanderinchief of the West Virginia National Guard. I dont need the federal government to command officers that come in. We will not tolerate that. But you prevent that by happening because in areas that you know you have hotbeds of dissent, or this kind of anger and hatred buildup, you have to go there and bring those people to the table first and diffuse that before it gets lit. Thats what wasnt done. But again, the soul of the Democratic Party did not denounce looting and rioting. So the republicans picked it up and made it think that democrats are acceptable to looting and rioting. And antifa, have never heard of that. And black lives we all saw what happened to george floyd. It should have shook everyone to their core, to watch the police with authority, basically took the life of a human being, in front of the whole world to watch. In the most callous and insincere way, as a matter of fact, this is what i do every day, it was beyond our imagination Something Like that could happen, let alone the confirmation of watching it happen in front of our eyes. So these are the things we speak about. And yes, black lives matter. And yes, all lives matter. But when people have been treated, dont you think you have to step up and defend and say we are not going to tolerate that . Its not who we are and not how i was raised. I think we need to speak up. Steve has senator schumer really analyzed with those of you who have been complaining about the Democratic Party, have you done an assessment . Sen. Manchin let me tell you, i want to give senator schumer all the credit in the world for coming to the realization we have to be heard. Any senator representing any part of this that we want to be heard. Those in difficult areas and what they are seeing, what has not been set. And for two days, two days, every democrat senator has been on a zoom and was able to speak as long as they wanted to and get off their chest, whatever they think is wrong and right. It has been a deep soulsearching that we have to Work Together. Chuck is trying to hold all of this together. When you have a tent as big as our tent with all the different people we have, they say from Bernie Sanders to joe manchin or Elizabeth Warren to joe manchin. The thing is, i think, i come from a pride master pragmatic, realistic area. West virginia was never given a lot and always hardworking and never complained a lot. We never complained. We were happy and we expect everyone to pull their own weight. We never wanted anyone to be slackers and if they were capable of doing something, they should work and provide value. And those who couldnt, you should have the empathy and sympathy of the more responsibility of taking care of those i think the good lord put there for us to see if we would react as human beings. And thats what West Virginians are. I have said today, i have talked to West Virginians, they said, you know, we believe the Washington Democratic National Party is more concerned about people who dont work or wont work versus people who do work and will work. And that was about it. We have to make sure the people who are working and want to work, that we are the party for them. But also we have the compassion to help those who have hit on hard times, but not handouts to where it subsidizes them and doesnt give them incentives to go back to work and making sure we have the resources to take care of those who we absolutely can because of the challenges they may have physically or mentally. I think we have to define ourselves better. Steve i know you will be talking about eventual President Biden frequently, but part of the struggle right now between the different factions in the Democratic Caucus is what the five primary the core message of what the Democratic Party should be. I think you are focusing on jobs and the economy as the lead. What is that tension like . What is the battle brewing over the messaging of the Democratic Party . Sen. Manchin we have to get back to what James Carville has always said. Its the economy, stupid. Thats exactly what it is. And for some real dust reason, thats what we got tagged, washington democrats must be socialist. They want to do this for everybody and that for everybody. I want people that want to perform and work and provide for themselves to have the greatest opportunity and the most capitalistic, open society you have ever seen. Im not going to say everyone will live the same or get the same amount of resources, and have the same type of homes or cars and all that. You will determine that. But i have i want everyone to have the same opportunity to have the same car i have or the beautiful home we all have. They should all have that opportunity. Thats what we fight for. Thats what capitalism is all about. Not socialism. People are coming from the left because they are fleeing socialism. So when they got tagged and democrats never push back and we never defined that we are not for socialism, we dont believe in socialism. We need to talk about the capitalism we believe in. Steve do you think the Democrat Party a risk essentially of being taken over by those people who do believe in socializing, a difference between socialism, but further socializing problems like health care, education, further i think its fair to say the wing of Bernie Sanders and alexandria ocasiocortez is comfortable with that description. Do you think the Democratic Party is at risk of that wing taking control of a biden presidency and leadership. Sen. Manchin i know joe biden, thats not who he is. It is not how he was raised. Not who he is or what he believes. I have no fear of joe biden, but i have fear they get too loud in the megaphone and paints us with a broad brush. Its not who we are. The bottom line is they can talk all they want to end theres not going to be room for them, and what i call a Democratic Party, we are losing democratic principles. What we just talked about. They can start their own party. If they are happy with that. But as democrats, we always have a big tent, we want to hear from everybody. Always look at the far left as my conscience. They are bringing something up maybe i didnt think about in a way i did not think about or didnt see it. So when i hear these new green deal, medicare for all, i have said about medical for all medicare for all, we cant even pay for medicare for some. We have social security, every one of our trust funds are going to go broke if we dont make changes. The quickest change we can make to social security, take the cap off the tax. Take the cap off the tax. If you want the wealthy to pay their fair share, take the cap off the tax. It gives Financial Stability for many years. There are Little Things we can do that doesnt harm anybody. Steve thank you. I can see that twitter hashtag coming from that. One last question. Donald trump recently tweeted out, we wont let a rigged election still our country. This is well after the election had been held, well after the election was called in joe bidens favor. You know president trump. What do you think going dutch is going on and where do you think we will end up . Sen. Manchin it is not surprising. Im not surprised at all. He started building this fall scenario long before the election because he knew he was in trouble. They have seen it coming, they have been pulling it and they know. He said the only way that joe biden can win it, is if they defraud it and they steal it. Truly thats the only way donald trump knew he could win. So he just reverse the scenario and put joe bidens name in it. Thats the only way they could win because the public overwhelmingly was saying a change needs to be done. Those people that he lost might have liked some of the things he had done policy wise, they just couldnt take the chatter on the daily basis. They couldnt take the tweets denigrating every human being. They couldnt take, who did he fire today . What country are we basically discriminating against . What country did we embarrassed by saying something that was offensive . It is just awful and its not who we are. Americans are looked upon as united, the united states, and working with them to improve their long life and proved democracy does work when people are putter head of the government are put ahead of the government. It is a government by the people and for the people, not by and of and for donald trump. He had a hard time understanding that so we will see where it goes, but there is still following it i can understand why, but i guess if you have 70 million followers on twitter, that is a force it would like to avoid if they can. I still believe theres enough good republicans to stand up and basically put the country first. I think theres an awful lot of people that will help joe biden put a government thats allinclusive together. You can see republicans and democrats working. You will see some farleft movement in the Democrat Party mad at joe biden for bringing people together, or the likes of colin powell, those people of stature who have been around, some Diverse People who really want a government that is united, we will see how it works out. But i am counting on joe biden rising above all of that and bringing us together. I hope that happens. Steve senator joe manchin, we will leave it there. I know you worked hard to get republicans and democrats to talk to each other and pass legislation. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your candid thoughts. Sen. Manchin thank you steve for having me and all of your viewers and listeners there, that remember, we have a united states, not the divided states. I know countries we can take advantage of this great democracy of ours and we will unite once the dust settles here. I hope it settles sooner than later and you will see more people coming out of the woodwork and speaking. Its time to move on with our new president elect, joe biden. Im anxious to do that. Steve thank you, senator. So what is the bottom line . The Democratic Party has been elected to lead america for the next four years, sort of. President elect joe biden will have a tough time in the senate, and dont forget, donald trump will still be out there speaking directly to the 70 Million People who voted for him, a real thorn in bidens side. American politicians are at a fork in the road. Either they figure out how to compromise and play the center, or are they going to retreat to party redlines and go nowhere . It will be a bumpy, actionpacked four years. Stay tuned. And thats the bottom line. Xxxxxxdnooooooooooooooo hey, im darius rucker, coming up onreel south. I had always thought, oh wouldnt it be great to have a pet cougar . And then as you get older youre like, yeah, thats really not such a good idea. But i can take care of them. [darius] behind the glass at the memphis zoo. Nobody really understands the kind obond youorm to the animals. I cant imagine getting up in the morning and not having this to come to. You can see that 18inch long tongue, get it out there girl. [darius] from dragons to lions, witness a zookeepers life of unconditional love. Yes, i do clean up poo for a living. But then i get to do this, you know, i get to have baby penguins that think im mom. [darius] come, see the keepers, onreel south. 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