Joe Manchin: Democrats Shouldn't Block Trump's Supreme Court Pick

Hmmm.

As you've probably heard, the 2018 Senate battleground map is terrible for Democrats. 2016 was terrible for Republicans, but they weathered it. 2018 is the Democrats' time in the fire, with five Democrat Senators up for re-election in states where Trump demolished Hillary:

Republicans are targeting a quintet of senators from conservative states where Trump walloped Hillary Clinton: Montana, Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota and West Virginia. The GOP could amass a filibuster-proof majority by running the table in those states and other battlegrounds.

To prevent that, Schumer will need to mine his fellow leaders to accommodate vulnerable Democrats with profoundly different ideologies and political circumstances -- from Wisconsin's Tammy Baldwin, who also was tapped for a leadership spot, to West Virginia's Manchin, who has gone out of his way to align himself with Trump voters this week.

On Election Night itself, Joe Manchin told reporters that he couldn't necessarily be counted on to vote with the Democrats to maintain control of the Senate if it shook out as 50-50. (I took that as a major sign that maybe Trump was actually going to win.)

Now Manchin is talking about making nice-nice with Trump on Supreme Court picks.

"We have to be careful how we go down this road," Manchin said during a panel discussion at a centrist "No Labels" conference in Washington.

Manchin was referring to Senate Democrats' willingness to use the filibuster to try to block Trump's high court pick and cautioned against doing so.

"If my Democrat friends just hunker down and say, 'No, no, and hell no'…I can understand that [Republicans] are gong to say, 'Wait a minute, we have a pretty good person here. We need to give him a fair shot,'" he said. "Those types of things, I hope we're going to avoid before we get into this dysfunction that we've been in."

As the article notes, Manchin is also being considered as a pick for Secretary of Energy, which would give his seat over to Republicans, as the governor who'd select his replacement is a Republican.

posted by Ace at 02:51 PM

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