[Editor’s Note: Italics are brief interjections from the other person in the interview.]
Chuck Todd
Joining me now is Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He, of course, chairs the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Senator Manchin, welcome back to Meet the Press. Good to be with you, Chuck. Look, you were on this zoom call [of about 200 U.S. Congressmen] with President Zelenskyy yesterday. Before I get into the details, just, you know, what was that like with him? What did he say to you guys?
Sen. Manchin
It was so surreal, to have the person there on the front, on the front lines, taking mortars every day and basically seeing his people being slaughtered and willing to withstand all of this and fight back and all he asked for was basically just- help me; I’ll fight my own fight; just give me the tools to do it. And for us to hesitate, or anyone to hesitate in the free world, is wrong. And he said that he said, listen, if Ukraine falls, then Europe may fall. Where do you want to stop?
Chuck Todd
So, what does that mean for you? Are you right now? Would you support a no-fly zone? Doing this which could trigger a wide…
Sen. Manchin
I understand that, but right now you don’t signal to your to the nemesis of Putin… this as a Putin’s war. This is not the Russian people’s war. This is Putin’s war, and his quest for whatever it may be. But to take anything off the table, thinking we might not be able to use things because we’ve already taken off the table is wrong. I would take nothing off the table. But I would let [it] be very clear that we’re going to support the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian president and his government, every way humanly possible. Zelenskyy was very clear. He says, we don’t need you to fight our fight. We don’t need you to fly our planes or fly your planes into our war zone. We need the planes that we can fly ourselves, and we have them on the border.
Chuck Todd
Uh, you heard Secretary… Yes. Secretary Blinken that that deal seems to be in motion. Right. I think it is moving… It’s the trading of jets with the Poles in particular. We need to backfill that all right. On the oil and gas embargo. You heard of the Secretary’s answer, basically he said yes, we’re in favor of it, if the entire Alliance does it too which sounds like there isn’t an interest in doing unilaterally. Is there a majority support in Congress for a unilateral?
Sen. Manchin
I believe and I would say this. The people in my State of West Virginia believe it’s basically foolish for us to keep buying products and giving profit and giving money to Putin to be able to use against Ukrainian people. That’s exactly what he’s doing. So why wouldn’t we lead? Why wouldn’t we show the resolve we have? I understand there’s more dependency in the world, but you know, here’s the problem. We have the ability to ratchet up and be able to backfill, we have the energy, we have the resources here and we have the technology. We’re a million barrels short a day right now that we can just ramp up like that [snaps fingers]. We can do certain things. And we don’t have to put any more pain on the American people that are already suffering with inflation now… Right… but I believe the American people would, if they basically pay if they had to, seeing that they’re saving freedom and saving lives of people, innocent people.
Chuck Todd
We’ve seen some polling that indicates that for now. Okay. That’s a difficult one. Let’s see what happens when it’s $5 gas.
Sen. Manchin
Well, look at the gas now $4. It wasn’t because of this. Inflation is already wreaked havoc on it now. And basically we’re gonna say we’re gonna sit back not because we’re afraid of my go up a little bit more. It might go up anyway, we haven’t done nothing. I’m willing to at least do something and say, whatever it would take, we’re going to ramp up our energy. We’re going to basically produce the oil, the natural gas, build the pipelines, we’ve been stymied. We’re not getting anything done from the standpoint energy. We can do both Chuck. We can do the energy that we need as far as, in this fossil world that we live in, and do it cleaner than anybody else in the world in innovation. But we can also transition to cleaner technology.
Chuck Todd
Now. Is this the price of your involvement in new talks on a reconciliation bill with Democrats and with the president, meaning like, look, you you sort of outlined some some top lines that. You said it needs to lower the deficit, I’d like to do prescription drugs and if there’s anything else left, then maybe we can talk about other things. But you also had a big circle around energy independence there. Does that come… you want to see an increase in energy production before you’ll sit down with Biden,
Sen. Manchin
Let me say the most important thing, and the thing I’m worried about every day is inflation. Right now, it’s affecting every West Virginia, every American that I know of, has basically told me the high prices they’re paying, they can’t, they can’t sustain and it’s hurting the people that needed to most, people that are working like they’re Dickens trying to make a living. They need help. So, inflation is the number one thing. Basically, supporting Ukraine and saving freedom and democracy around the world, because it will permeate if we don’t stop it. Next of all we can do all of this, okay, but you got to get your financial house in order. My grandfather always said Joe, he said, unmanaged, that it will make cowardly decisions out of you… you’ll make a cowardly decision. We’ve got to get that under control.
Chuck Todd
Is this war in Europe make it harder to do this deal with the president or easier?
Sen. Manchin
I think it makes us more realistic. This is this is the real world. We keep talking as aspirational things we want to do, whether it’s the far left or far right whatever it may be. Forget about the aspiration. We’re living in a real world. Global climate is global. It’s not North American. It’s not United States only. Its global. And we have to look at this globe. What we can do. Our energy that we produce in America is better and cleaner than anyplace else in the world. So, anything that we backfill is… will be better than what they produce. The gas from LNG that we can send over, expanding the ports we’ve got, basically request for permits that are still standing and we haven’t given. We need to do that. We got pipe… I got a mountain valley pipeline in the state of West Virginia. That takes… it’ll take two BCF, 2 billion cubic feet a day into the marketplace immediately. And you know what? It’s 95% done. I can’t get it done.
Chuck Todd
What do you say to those that say, if we if we continue to expand fossil fuel infrastructure, like pipelines like that, it just makes it harder for us to get to clean energy.
Sen. Manchin
Let me just tell you one thing, they said the pipelines, those can eventually transition into hydrogen pipelines. We can do so much with that as the clean technology that we’re going for. It’s almost like if you don’t stop this, you won’t do this. That’s not the right, Chuck.
Chuck Todd
Alright, who you negotiating with? The president or Senator Schumer.
Sen. Manchin
There’s, there’s no formal talks going on right now. I can assure you. Basically, everybody talks, I talk to everybody. You throw it out there and it’s enough to Get your financial house in order. The only one thing all Democrats voted? We voted against the 2017 Republican tax cuts. We thought they were weighted unfairly. If you have one thing that you’re all united on, fix it!
Chuck Todd
Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, appreciate you coming in.
Sen. Manchin
Thanks, Chuck. Good to be with you.
