During an appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) criticized the Senate GOP’s recent blockade of a bill that would have created an independent commission to investigate the deadly January riot at the Capitol. When the bill recently came up for a vote, Republicans filibustered it, since according to the 100-member chamber’s procedural rules, the agreement of 60 Senators is required to move forward on most legislation, providing an opportunity for the chamber’s minority party to block substantive progress.
Manchin blamed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for the filibuster against the riot investigation bill, although only a total of seven of the chamber’s 50 Republicans have expressed support for the proposal. With the current party breakdown in the chamber, 10 Republicans would have to back the bill to reach the required 60-vote threshold and move forward.
Manchin also appeared to reiterate his past suggestion to try again on the passage of the riot investigation bill. As he put it to host John Dickerson:
‘I think that my Republican friends and colleagues see the deadlock also. This is not something they desire or wish. Why they haven’t been able to break from Leader McConnell… they’re gonna have to dig deep into their soul and the oath that we take and why we’re there. I can say this, that I will commend Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for agreeing in a commission that was truly absolutely more bipartisan than anything I’ve ever seen. And they did that in the spirit of trying to get Republicans to vote… I don’t think you give up on the first try just because you fail on something that you know you did right.’
Manchin also outlined the importance of finding a way to move forward with a meaningful accounting of the circumstances of January 6, commenting as follows:
‘And I’m thinking that there’s Republicans that know that the concessions [that] were made [were] the right thing to do to try to start healing our country. We can’t heal and unite this country if we don’t know for sure what divided this country, and to have an insurrection, that most every Democrat and Republican sat there together to watch happening from the inside of that Capitol, should have been enough of an alarm of saying, This is the first time in the history of our country anything coming close to this [happened].’
When even Joe Manchin, a consistent champion of so-called bipartisanship, is willing to substantively criticize the Republican Party’s position, the GOP has clearly crossed into extremes. Check out his CBS comments below:
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has said it is “unconscionable” that GOP senators voted against the January 6 commission: “We can't heal and unite this country if we don't know for sure what divided this country.” pic.twitter.com/vdj3TydT2X
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) June 6, 2021
