BRETT: Tongues are wagging right now, because of what it was, that Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia said yesterday…Well, he wrote it. Let’s be honest. He wrote it in an op-ed piece that appeared in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, published on Sunday. Senator Manchin said he plans to vote against the House-passed For the People Act. We know that as HR1. It was the 800-page monstrosity, or it is the 800-page monstrosity.

That would fundamentally transform the way we conduct elections in this country, essentially federalizing elections, essentially getting rid of voter ID requirements. And most notably, it would create a brand-new — if you can imagine, a brand-new — entitlement for people who want to run for office. They would essentially receive a stipend or a salary to run for office financed by you and me, the taxpayer.

So here comes Joe Manchin, who is somebody along with Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, that have been huge thorns in the sides of progressives and Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, because they have said, “We’re not getting rid of the filibuster. We do not want to get rid of this filibuster. Elections have consequences. There will be another election soon happening, coming up here in about 500 days.

“And we know what could happen, for Republicans, understandably if we scrap the filibuster, decide they want to change everything up. It would create this insane pendulum swinging back and forth from election to election with no break in sight for how it is you handle things.” So here comes West Virginia’s Senator Joe Manchin writing, “I’m not going to support this. I’m going to vote against the House-passed For the People Act,” which is said to be taken up by the Senate at the end of June.

Joe Manchin explained himself on the Sunday programs yesterday. Here’s what he said, the reason he was voting against it was.

MANCHIN: I think it’s the wrong piece of legislation to bring our country together and unite our country, and I’m not supporting that because I think it would divide us further. If we continue to divide it and separate us more, it’s not gonna be united, and it’s not gonna be the country that we love and know, and it will be hard, because it will be back and forth no matter who is in power.

BRETT: He was talking to Chris Wallace over on Fox News Sunday. He made the rounds though. He was on Face the Nation and a number of different outlets. Now, Joe Manchin… I know we used to laugh when we would refer to “the Kennedy seat.” Remember when Rush would talk about the Kennedy seat? “There’s the Kennedy seat in Massachusetts from the Senate.”

Well, Joe Manchin sits in the Robert Byrd seat. I’m only using that as an example. But he’s in the Robert Byrd seat, and he understands — as a former governor of West Virginia — what a precarious position he’s in, because it’s essentially a red state that still votes for Democrats like Joe Manchin. And he understands that if they blow up that filibuster and it becomes a whole-hog kind of situation with Chuck Schumer being able to run amuck with everything, he’s going to have a disaster on his hands. and the people of West Virginia are going to be irate.

But what about the broader picture? I would submit to you — in the spirit of what Rush might say, but I would submit to you — that this is a perfect time to be a conservative. There may not have been a better time in the last few years to be a conservative than right now. It’s wonderful to be winning, right?

It was wonderful to be winning when President Trump was in office and we were racking up tax cuts and we were racking up successes on the international stage, the Abraham Accords, all that. That was phenomenal. But it’s when your country needs you most — it is when we are in a precarious situation — that conservatism really matters and jumps through to the heart of every American patriot.

We’re witnessing daily a testimony to the veracity of liberalism. In other words, liberalism is on full display right now doing what it does best: Over-grabbing, overreaching, underperforming — in essence, failure. Chuck Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, AOC and The Squad, are the impediment of the argument against not just big government, but liberals realizing government at almost any level.

Think about what they promised when Joe Biden was running for president. “I’m gonna be the voice of both sides. I’m gonna represent all of America. I’m gonna get us infrastructure. We’ll get back on our feet. The long winter. We’re gonna do great stuff. It’s going to be wonderful. I’m not a radical like these others. I’m not a radical like Kamala Harris.

“I’m not a radical like Amy Klobuchar. I’m not a radical like Cory booker. I’m not a radical like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. I’m not like that! I’m a moderate guy. I’m Moderate Joe from Delaware. I’m Moderate Joe from Scranton.” They can’t pass infrastructure by putting actual infrastructure in the bill. We know what infrastructure is. We know what it is. It’s roads. It’s bridges.

Okay, I’ll give you some broadband, just to make you happy. But it’s not child care. It is not a Supreme Court justice-packing scheme. It’s none of that stuff. Infrastructure is infrastructure! It’s modern roads and bridges that can be used for generations. They can’t pass that bill by just selling infrastructure. They have to attach all kinds of weird Christmas ornaments, Festivus ornaments on that bill.

They can’t pass a voting bill that deals with voting! The For the People Act? Just the title alone reminds one of something coming out of the vestiges of the old Soviet Bloc. “This is for the people.” What people? Who people? What people are you talking about? Is it for the American people? Why didn’t you say, “This is For the American People Act — this is For the American People Voting Act”? But it’s just a For the People Act.

Who? What people? So they can’t pass an infrastructure bill if they put infrastructure in. They can’t pass a voting bill that deals with voting. They can’t support our allies. (interruption) They cannot support our allies! They cannot stand with Israel, but they can embrace a genocidal regime in Iran. They cannot have a functioning, healthy border.

But what they can do is destroy all the norms and create a surge of desperate human beings who have been led on a perilous, dangerous journey across Central America and Mexico in the hopes of getting a Biden T-shirt and getting some amnesty in the United States. My gosh! They claim that they would be tough on Putin.

But they greenlight his energy deals. They sell out their beloved Ukraine. Remember when President Trump was the mean bully on Ukraine? No longer. I’m starting to think there’s a new nickname on this entire attempt at governance beginning with Joe Biden, continuing with Kamala Harris right over to Schumer and Pelosi. I think it’s the Chaos Crew. I think it’s Biden and the Chaos Crew that we’re seeing here, because we’re not getting any results.

And here comes Joe Manchin, who is making an entirely reasonable request. You want to get your voting rights bill — and we know what this was all predicated on. Because the Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act because it required clearance in certain jurisdictions around the country that had historical issues involving voter suppression.

Joe Manchin comes back out and he counters and he says, “You know what? Let’s just have it for all 50 states. Let’s just have it for all 50 states.” No, that’s a bad answer. We want people to be able to vote. We want people who are, in fact, eligible to vote to be able to vote. If a credit card company would never shotgun out across the country checks to whatever resident lives in whatever location that they can then cash against the credit line, why would we be reckless like that with the enfranchisement of voters?

Because you don’t want to enfranchise people who are not part of the franchise, people that are in the country illegally here in the country, people in the country who are dead in the country, people who are in the country who are incarcerated. These are not people that should be voting, and we should not be sending ballots out to every Tom, Dick, and Harry across the country. Joe Manchin is making a reasonable request.

He’s saying, “I can’t vote this For the People Act. I have 800 pages, and it doesn’t do what it says it does.” What it does do is create a system of permanent entrenched power by the Democrat Party — and the last thing we want from Biden and the Chaos Crew is permanently entrenched power of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Why? Well, you’ve just gotten a taste after five months!

They can’t govern.

If they become a permanent majority, the nation is finished.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BRETT: Rush talked about Joe Manchin over a period of time. Here’s what he said to about Joe Manchin on a couple of occasions.

RUSH: (montage) You may not know this. The Republicans are making a move on West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin to switch parties. He sounded like Ronald Reagan in his campaign. There’s no way Joe Manchin can vote with the Democrats the next two years and have any hope of being reelected. The Republicans are making a move in there to get him to switch parties.

There’s no such thing, by the way. Not really. A conservative Democrat is not a Democrat or he’s a liar. There is no such thing as a conservative Dem… (interruption) You disagree with me on that? You think there are conservative Democrats out there? Joe Manchin? Take a look how he votes. Joe Manchin? There aren’t any conservative Democrats. There’s no such thing as a conservative Democrat!

BRETT: So what’s he doing? So what is Manchin there doing? Is he fooling the Democrats in continuing to vote for them or is he doing something else? This is a very, very tricky situation, that we’re seeing play out in front of our very eyes.