as an independent i am willing to work with anyone to get things done. her decision complicates democrats plans for the future and their hopes of holding control in 2024. my stand today is about joining the many americans who don t believe that any political party fits them perfectly. te i ll talk to democratic senator jon tester of montana who understands the challenges of being a democrat in a red state. plus, freed from russia. ei welcome home, brittney. basketball star brittney griner is free from russia in a prisoner exchange for a convicted arms dealer known as b the merchant of death.nt it was a dangerous concession of vladimir putin and will set a dangerous precedent going forward. rw is the u.s. putting more lives at risk with this deal? i ll talk to former u.s. attorney preet bharara who put the russian arms dealer viktor bout behind bars. and liability. after his hand-picked candidate lost the georgia run-off donaldp trump is increasingly becoming a liab
negatively.r fopr it sounds like you re putting the blame squarely on two u.s. senators for your inability to close that deal, senator sinema and senator manchin. look, i need 50 votes in the senate. i have 48. two more democratic senators in the united states senate. i promise you [ cheering ] i promise you we re going to codify roe. all right. so how are other swing and red states responding? joining me now is senator jon tester the only democrat elected to statewide office in montana. in 2020 donald trump carried oor montana by more than 16 points. in 2012 the last election when tester was on the ballot with the presidential campaign tester was able to run ahead of barack obama by seven percentage points. senator jon tester welcome back to meet the press. good to be with you, chuck. thank you. o a all right. so i guess on a scale of 1 to 10 the complete shock, or this is just another day at the office? where do you put the sinema changing her party affiliation to ind
the filibuster does serve an important purpose and is one of the things that makes the senate different than the house and thank god for that. but you do you think there are even 48 votes for your position in the senate? you know, it s hard to say. i think as with any piece of legislation or any policy or any rules or form, it is about explaining to folks, and by the way i think this has to be done in a bipartisan way and explained to folks about how this is going to make the senate work better. i have always believed that if you re going to obstruct you have to put some skin in the game. i don t think right now folks who obstruct put any skin in the an athe lwayo ob they can object and can walk away and can go home and some of them have. and i think it s more important that they work at their obstruction. and look, if i want to obstruct a bill i m more than willing to do that. i m willing to go down and hold the floor and get people with the same opinion to hold the floor with m
brittney griner s case we ought to say good for brittney griner. i am happy for her, happy for her family, happy for america. we need to continue to work to get the other folks out, too..py all right.oo senator jon tester, democrat from montana, always great to get your perspective on things. i m curious.s. what do you think governor john dutton is doing these days?tt he s out causing problems i m telling you. there you go. we ll find out more tonight. sounds good. all right. of course referring to yellowstone s fictional governor. senator jon tester, thank you. when we come back more on senator sinema s party switch. what is the real impact? the panel is next. wtothe panel.
i don t think so. i think given how partisan the country has become, to kristen s point the party is going to do you more favors than not especially in a 50/50 senate. i think to the degree over the next two years whether we have a functionally 51/49 senate or 50/49/1 will show us. the idea of being a team player. if she operates like bernie sanders or angus king, it is a wash. if she really tries to hold herself apart in the way that evan mcmullen for example held himself out if he had won in utah, we re looking at a very different picture. that is why i thought jon tester s answer was so interesting when you asked him, are you comfortable being a democrat in montana? clearly, he is. he talked about fdr and the importance of continuing that. and so i think that it is a very risky strategy, chuck. it is not clear a lot of people will be following her. especially when she acts like a hermit and does that. that is the issue. no there won t be this