Watch: Joe Manchin defends Mitch McConnell's abuse of the filibuster

03 November 2022

United States Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) on Thursday defended Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and his abuse of the filibuster, which Republicans have exploited to obstruct the agendas of President Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Manchin, the most conservative member of the Senate's Democratic caucus, delivered his remarks via video at a Fortune conference for corporate bigwigs, where he praised McConnell and incorrectly suggested that the filibuster was employed at the time of the American Founding Fathers.

While the concept of the filibuster does indeed date back to 1806, it was not used in its familiar form until 1837 – but it does not appear in the Constitution.

"You're seeing this villainization in the political process we're going through right now with this midterm election. And but still, yet, you can't get anything done. That's why I defended the filibuster. You get rid of the filibuster in the Senate and you've lost democracy as we know it because you will not have a check and balance on the Executive Branch of the government," Manchin said.

"That's the only thing, because, just, if – go back to 2016, 2017 – [former President] Donald Trump wasn't aware of how this process worked. He kept saying, you got fifty-four Republicans, why don't you just pass whatever we want? And, you know, to Mitch McConnell's credit, he says, no, that's not how the institution works," Manchin continued. "The institution basically is a check and balance because if you get all Democrats, then you could push through things that we couldn't stop and they have to bring us to the table."

The Senate, Manchin added, "is the most unusual body in the world, and the brilliancy [sic] of our Founding Fathers is still holding by a thread. But it's still holding."

Watch below or at this link.

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