WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS

Here’s Why Joe Manchin Is Always Dumping on Other Democrats

Democrats who can win in Republican districts have to think differently, as infuriating as that is for other Democrats.

What the hell is Joe Manchin doing?!

On the latest episode of The New Abnormal, Max Rose, who served in Afghanistan and won a term in Congress as a Democrat representing a red district in Staten Island and Brooklyn, explains where Manchin is coming from. “There’s not another Democrat who could win that seat”—and without it Mitch McConnell is running the Senate, Rose says.

Still, Rose warns host Molly Jong-Fast against people “confusing talking points with economics” as Manchin “sometimes wants to position himself as against Democrats” since “his folks from a cultural perspective are not aligning with Democrats.”

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As for the people who “supported Donald Trump when he wanted” to pull out of Afghanistan but are ripping President Joe Biden for actually doing it, Rose says, “Those folks are frauds.”

“They shouldn’t be even acknowledged”—and neither should “the foreign policy blob establishment, who got us in this mess in the first place,” he says.

THE NEW ABNORMAL

We’re All Just Living Under the Tyranny of Joe Manchin

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Then Molly has a great talk with American Crime Story: Impeachment producer Sarah Burgess about “a really profound story about power dynamics and what emotions can lead us to.” The two also discuss whether anything’s really changed since what boiled down to “an incredibly uncomfortable story about basically a sexual coercion” with Paula Jones, and they look back on “the cheap attacks on (Monica Lewinsky) from older women who are quote unquote feminist that were just beyond the pale.”

Says Burgess: “When you’re in a thing with the president of the United States, you can’t call him, you can’t go to his house. It’s the ’90s, you have to sit in your apartment and wait for a call, and that’s not good for anybody.”

And finally, Molly talks with Arizona secretary of state and candidate for governor Katie Hobbs about Arizona’s insane cyber ninja election audit.

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Harry SiegelEditor

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