BY CRAIG RICHARDS
At a moment when the nation’s political institutions strain under the weight of escalating polarization, the disappearance of moderates from Congress has become more than a matter of party dynamics — it has become a question of national governance. The legislative branch was designed to function through deliberation, negotiation, and the steadying influence of those willing to bridge divides. Yet today, the center of American politics is thinner than at any point in modern memory, and the consequences reach far beyond electoral maps or partisan scorecards. They touch the country’s capacity to budget responsibly, to legislate with foresight, and to respond to challenges that demand more cooperation than conflict.
Few public figures have occupied that narrowing middle ground as visibly as former Senator Joe Manchin. His career offers a vantage point into how Congress has changed, what pressures now shape its decision-making, and what is at stake when common-sense problem-solvers become outliers rather than anchors. In this conversation, we explore the forces reshaping the legislative landscape, the risks posed by the loss of centrists, and the conditions required for moderation to regain a meaningful foothold in American governance.
Dateline: Washington, D.C., May 20, 2026 — Collier’s sat down with Senator Joe Manchin for a candid conversation about the growing erosion of moderate representation in American politics. What emerged was a portrait of a man whose focus and conviction remain unwavering, grounded in the family values that shaped him from his earliest days in West Virginia.
In an era when modern media often trims interviews to fit a narrative—or simply to save space—we at Collier’s chose a different path. We believe it is essential to present this exchange in fuller form, allowing the Senator’s words to remain intact and in context. Our aim is to give you, the reader, the opportunity to form your own conclusions.
No interview is perfect, and no editor’s hand is invisible. But our commitment remains: to let our guests speak for themselves, and to ensure that nothing in our process obscures or alters the intent of the interviewee.
Senator, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for asking me.
You put out a book recently, which is in essence, a bit of a manifesto of how common sense should work in the government in general.
It’s a good book. I see it right here.
(The Senator reaches for the book on the table.)
Let’s go ahead and plug that book.
Dead Center. Let me tell you how this came about. I had no intentions of writing a book. I find myself in 2020 with Joe Biden getting elected. Being split 50–50, first time in the history of the country that we ever had a senate split down the middle for a whole Congress. The 117th Congress, two years from 2021 to January 2023, was in a split 50–50. Back in the past when things were split like that someone always crossed over to another party to give them a majority.
(The Senator then reflected on his time in Washington)
I never looked at parties identifying who I was, whether a Democrat or Republican, they both had good ideas. Both had ideas I didn’t agree with. So, I was just going to be me no matter where it was. I just happened to be in that position where it really was quite challenging at times. You think about that. People always say, how did you get the courage to do what you did? I said, I don’t think it took courage it just took common sense. How were you raised? Who raised you? Who were you responsible to? Were you held accountable and responsible as a young person. Did that stay with you? Did your grandparents and parents basically expect you to be an upstanding person or let you get by with stuff knowing that you were doing wrong and just let you do it?
But there was still a price to pay politically and personally.
Yes, but I always told my children, when I first got involved in politics back in 1982; You’re going to hear a lot of things. You’ll be in school. They’ll say something. Teachers might even get involved. Who knows. But I said, let me tell you, I want you to think one thing. Whenever you think, that’s so embarrassing. I wish they wouldn’t say that. That’s a small price to pay for the great life in the country that we have and the opportunities and the freedoms that we take for granted.
(The Senator recalled a memorable conveyance of his belief)
At one time, my colleague said, “I wish I could vote like you.” Now, let me tell you, in the Senate, we’ve been voting for 250 years like this, or like this.
(The Senator showed a thumbs up and then thumbs down, signifying the openness of public voting)
There’s no computers. There’s no mechanism. It’s just straightforward. You have to be present. And I said, well, you can do this or this.
(Again, demonstrating thumbs up or thumbs down)
They said, “No, no.” I said, “I know what you mean.” The bottom line is can you look at yourself in the mirror and live with yourself, making a decision you can defend?
But that’s what got us to this point. People think [politically] how they can or can’t vote instead of voting their conscience.
They forgot the purpose and reason they’re there. First of all, when you’re asking people to support you, you’re asking people to let me support and represent you. Not the other way around. [Constituents] want you to “speak for me and understand how I live my life, understand the challenges I have and opportunities in making sure that we can live the best quality life we can.”
(The Senator then turned to the individual constituent)
The Bill of Rights says the pursuit of happiness. I’m not worried about what your sexual preference is, whatever you want to do. The bottom line is that you have that protection. Just don’t try to push your life on someone else that might not agree.
Which is a constitutional foundation.
Yeah, but that’s where the Democratic Party has gone wrong. They’ve gone far to the left on social issues and make you believe that if you want to be a good Democrat, you have to be this, this, this. Well, I thought a good Democrat or good Republican is being held fiscally responsible and socially compassionate. The grand old party wants to be grand again and the Democrat party wants to be responsible and compassionate. Those two, center left and center right ideologies can work very well. They have for over, let’s say 230 years anyway.
Not so much over the last two decades.
Yeah, so that’s a situation we’re dealing with and we’re hoping they get back to it.
What hollowed out the political center and weakened Congress?
The political center started getting hollowed out when you had Citizens United* and unlimited amounts of money could be spent, dark money** coming in. I’ll give you a perfect example. In the last presidential election, in 2024, more money was spent in the history of our country in a presidential election. Let’s say 24 billion. 4.7 billion dollars of that came from one class of people, billionaires. 20% of all the money spent on that election came from one teeny sliver of a percentage, which is not even 1%. This is one tenth or two tenths of one percent.
That’s influence. Not representation.
Not representation. That was never intended. The money has got to have some kind of filter put on it and we need checks and balances. That has to happen. I ask people today do you believe that you have a right to vote because you’re a United States citizen or because you belong to a party? “Oh well I’m a citizen. I get a right to vote.” I said, guess what, I’m a citizen and I couldn’t vote in the West Virginia primary. I have Republican friends I want to vote for, but I had to be Republican. And so, they’re closed primaries. If you want a true system to where the best of the best will have a chance to participate; they might not have all the resources financially, might not have all the connections, but they might be the best qualified with sincerity, the values that they have and hold near and dear, to bring to a public service. And they might be the best person you want to represent you.
You know, it’s an interesting point you saying you had Republican friends I wanted to vote for, We are in an atmosphere where that’s almost taboo — that you’re not allowed to even have friends on the other side.
Oh, remember when we were growing up and people said you’re guilty by association. Someone was a bad character, got in trouble and they saw you associating with them. [They’d say] what happened to you? How come you fool with that person? Now, you’re guilt by conversation. You can’t even have conversations without them saying we’re colluding with the enemy. There is no enemy.
Well, there’s no room for discourse believing guilt by conversation.
Well, what’s happening is we’ve lost that. The problem is in Washington, first, look at the work schedule. For 15 years I came to work, and I was supposed to be at 5:30 in the morning Monday. Okay. But by Thursday, at two o’clock, everybody’s going home. Hardly no one lives here. No one’s staying here. No one’s having dinner. No one’s [getting to know anyone’s] spouse or their children, what their hobbies are. Just knowing others as a person.
No one is building relationships.
You have to build relationships. And I’ve told people on a daily basis, what we’re really celebrating is for 250 years, this has been an experiment. People once afraid, who now have a love of freedom and the ability to do as we please, make our choices, enjoy the liberties that we had. We’ve taken it so much for granted. And all of those sacrifices, all the blood that we shed. We forget our history. We’re not even teaching civics in school anymore. There’s no public responsibility. We’re going to be a country that pretty soon people don’t know what the country’s about or the purpose for this country.
It seems a mentality, for the last decade or two, that we’ve survived 250 years. And it shouldn’t be a game of survival.
No, no. When our founding fathers said we scoured the world and looked at all the history of human time from the beginning. We saw all the flaws. We didn’t want, because of birthright or because of wars, that someone became a king, a monarch, or dictator. George Washington could have been King George. He didn’t want that. He didn’t even want to be president for more than one term. He was reluctant.
A lot of wisdom in that.
George Washington, during his farewell speech said, be wary of political parties, for they can be the engines that allow unscrupulous men to usurp the power from the people.
I’d say that he was foretelling.
He was afraid of the factions back then because he had Adams and Hamilton who hated each other. And he was afraid, so he stayed an extra term. Those factions have been there [since the beginning]. Thomas Jefferson is one that basically said, we need to have districts. So, basically when I’m electing someone and I choose someone to represent me and go speak for me and make sure I’m being represented properly, they should have knowledge of where we live, what type of life we live, how we take care of our family, how we educate, how we pray — how all of these things would be relevant to the districts.
You never heard one time when all this has been going on for the last year about redistricting — “This would be better for the people to get better representation.” The people are not even in the conversation. They’re not in the thought process. And that was the purpose of it. So, when you’re drawing lines and when I said, do you think you have a right to vote because you’re a citizen or because you’re a member of the party, it’s the party picking who they want to vote for. It’s not the citizens picking who they want to represent because it’s not relevant.
That changes the republic pretty quick. In fact, it eliminates the republic.
Oh my, yes. We have got to get back to where this is about us. Absolutely.
You’ve seen a lot of changes through your time in office, in public service. You’ve seen this phenomenon of taking sides. You’ve always been bipartisan. You’ve always reached, the best you can, across the aisle. How did that change your coalition building with that new mentality?
Everyone wants to have personal relationship. That’s human nature. We want to know each other. We want to get together. We want to enjoy each other’s company. We like to break bread. That’s who we are as humans. And humans over 250 years in a free society, it’s an even bigger bond. Now they’re separating and dividing them. Pick a side. We’re not going to have dinner now unless you’re on this side. Don’t come to my house anymore if you want to talk about that.
How did you overcome that? Because you had to deal with that.
I know, but I never got caught up into it. I never changed. I never looked at something — is that politically good or bad? I said, that’s a problem. We got to fix it. It’s not perfect. It’s better. Our Constitution says we’re trying to always make a more perfect union. It wasn’t perfect. They knew it wasn’t perfect. They thought that basically gathering of people who had the love of liberty and freedom would suffice and overcome all odds.
Considering the environment in Washington, what does that reveal about the limited space left for moderates?
Well, it’s hard because there isn’t hardly any identifiable moderates. There are a lot of good people still up there, a lot of good people there for the right reason. But that’s what I’m saying. I’ve almost come to the conclusion of term limits, and I’ll tell you how I got to that. Twenty years ago, I was never for term limits. I thought, well, you lose your most experienced people, the knowledgeable people that can really make the time.
In West Virginia, I think they wanted you for a lifetime.
Well, let me just tell you this. So, I was governor at the time. I had a town hall meeting and I was in Southern West Virginia. A little lady stood up and she said, “Joe, I wish you were for term limits.” And I’m trying to give her every reason. I said, “Susie, let me tell you why not.” I told her all the reasons. She said, “Joe, just think about this. If we had term limits, maybe we’d get one good term out of you.”
(The Senator pauses for a moment smiling at the memory)
I said, “You got me.” I had no defense to that. She’s absolutely correct because people, as you’re seeing it in real time now, are getting the courage as they’re going out to do the right thing.
And they wouldn’t be constantly campaigning for the next term.
No. So I’m saying two six-year terms, 12 years for the Senate is enough. Six two-year terms for the House, 12 years again for the House member. One 18-year for Supreme Court and one six-year for the president. Wouldn’t that be something?
I think it’d be operational for sure.
The president should never have to worry about another election – shouldn’t have to politicize the political process.
In six years, you could put a system together and have time to codify policies.
You’re Commander in Chief, from day one to the end, you’re not worried about the next election. I can tell you, when I was governor, the first year they give you a bye. There are two things you always prepare yourself for, first a mandate. If you get a good turnout, you win by a nice margin. What would you do? What needs to be done that you can do? And then crisis. Well, we had a crisis in West Virginia with all the mine disasters and floods and everything else. How do you prepare yourself to mitigate any type of danger to the people you’re responsible for? I always worried about those two. Today, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case anymore. It’s more “how do I play for the next election?” If you only have one term left, I’m fine with that. I can do it as I please. When you’re going out and you don’t have to worry about it, that would give the courage. Public service is a service. It’s not self-service. It’s not a career. It was never intended for this government to be a career. The other thing our founding fathers knew was that if we’re electing people like us to represent ourselves, then that’s what it would be — representing us. It wasn’t even a fulltime job for many, many years. It was six months in, six months out.
That was a pretty effective system.
Well, it worked. We were able to grow up. In World War I and World War II, we were the arsenal for the whole world. We were able to outproduce the axis of evil, which at that time was Germany, Italy and Japan. Our one country was able to outproduce all the weapons that those three countries could defend themselves with. And we supplied the arsenal for the free world. That’s why we became the leader. That’s why the monetary system became the U.S. dollar. That’s why we were the superpower of the world.
And we were also good neighbors.
And compassionate. The main thing about being a leader and being the superpower people look to for leadership — and they’re looking for it right now in the world — is you have to have a super-economy. We’ve been very blessed with a super-economy because of the creativity we have. You have to have a tremendous defense, be able to defend yourself and protect your friends and neighbors. We can do all that. But also, compassion. I’m afraid that we’re not showing the compassion the world has become accustomed to. Now, if you have a problem with NATO allies, free trade agreement countries or countries that basically have a like-minded love of freedom and the fruits that come with it, we have to be able to help them while also being able to say, “Wait a minute now. You’re not being a good neighbor. You’ve got to help, too.” My father once shared some wisdom. We had a little furniture store and a person buying furniture that Dad always gave credit. And he’d keep saying [to my father], “Now Johnny, I want to make a payment just give me a little bit more time.” And after a while, my Dad would say, “Hey George, your mom only carried you for nine months. How long do I have to carry you?”
(The Senator let out a chuckle remembering the moment)
His Dad said, “I’m not the banker. I got to pay somebody for the furniture you got.” But still doing it in such a compassionate way.
(Expressing the need for compassion and accountability.)
Well, like you said, even babies have term limits.
Well, it’s still a wonderful country. And the only thing I’d say to you and all the listeners, we’re the only country that can fix our problems. Not another country can dig itself out the way we can. They don’t have a robust economy. They don’t have a tremendous defense department. And if we get our minds together of what our purpose is, basically to protect the quality of life that we have, and the pursuit of happiness. Just don’t infringe everybody’s life. Don’t overreach. Government should be your partner, not your provider.
The media is not innocent in any of this.
No, they’ve taken sides. It used to be basically truth in advertising. You couldn’t just put anything you wanted on it. But with Section 230***, it gave total immunity and that means no one can sue. All the stuff you could do, all the danger, all the damage it was done. People could build a bomb. People could teach people how to threaten and do all kinds of crazy things. And now the courts have intervened, but we must put guardrails on. God help us if we don’t put guardrails on AI. The good AI can do is unbelievable for humanity. The damage it can do can take us down quicker than anything else.
Traditional media/journalism was rooted in accountability including verification of facts and balanced reporting. Collectively, I’m still not saying they’ve done it right.
Nope.
Opinions and agendas are being woven into reporting.
CBS, ABC, NBC, those three growing up, that’s all we had. I’ll never forget one night watching returns of John F. Kennedy, when he took the election in 1960. He had campaigned in West Virginia, very hard.
We were a Catholic family, and my family was all excited. We were watching television — a little black and white, about that big.
(Motioning to a sizably small frame compared to today)
As Mom and I were watching it Walter Cronkite said, “It’s been said now, if John Kennedy becomes president, the Pope will run the country.”
(Smiling at the humorous memory)
I looked at Mom, I said, “Well, Mom, they don’t know the Catholics we know.” I knew it could never happen. You can’t tell us [Catholics] anything. So, all of those are taken with a grain of salt, and it was like living in them.
But back then there was a feeling of togetherness in the country.
Purpose.
Is that one of the barriers of the DC machine that hinder common-sense candidates from running – overcoming a lack of unified purpose?
Well, first of all, you have built into it all the stereotype [party] paranoia. You can have your opinion. It doesn’t make it right. And if you’re running on that and you think everyone who has paranoia is going to vote for you, maybe so. I’m going to count on the people who are not paranoid. Understanding there’s not a perfect election. I will tell you one thing. It’s the best election process in the world, what we have. And the checks and balances that we have are good. I’ve lost an election before for governor. And it wasn’t the end of the world. I told my son, I said, “We’re going to lose this election.” And I said, my message was not given strong enough and with clarity where people understood. So, the other person outperformed me, they won. I said, we take full responsibility. My name is on the ballot. You ever watch candidates get defeated? They blame everybody else. “So-and-so double-crossed me.” “So-and-so did this.” [It’s] your name on the ballot. That’s all. The bottom line is that I came back and corrected some of the things I did wrong and got involved. I never lost another election.
You looked in the mirror. Within you was the first place you started, wasn’t it?
Well, you have to hold yourself accountable. I was always held accountable for my family. The family always expected you to do good. If you screwed up, admit to it, fix it. Cicero said “To err is human.” You’re going to make mistakes. You’re a human being. But did you make them intentional? Did you think you were really fixing something and trying to do the best you could? It just didn’t work out. You just screwed up royally. You can fix that. You can fix a screwup. You messed up because you didn’t do your homework. You took things for granted and you should have done a little bit more detail. We all have made decisions like that. That doesn’t ruin you. What ruins you is when you intend to have revenge and retribution. That you cannot fix that.
In our current condition, what reforms or changes do you think are realistic to widen our middle again?
Widening the middle we have to change the process. That means you must open the primaries. So, if states would basically start pushing, we want open primaries. We want a primary where Democrats, Republicans, independents, libertarians all run together. And then we’ll take the top four vote-getters out of that primary.
No matter where they land or what party?
You might have all four Democrats, all four Republicans, or two of each. Then you go into the general election and then we have a runoff. And the winner has to get a majority, not just a plurality. So, if four run, you can’t just win with 28 percent. You cannot represent me or anybody in this country unless you have 50 plus one percent, 51 percent, a representative form of government. We only have seven states that do that. Forty-three states use plurality. They can be 42 percent or 47 percent — they don’t get majority.
Only seven states do… Do you think the 43 probably need to read your book?
Well, the book basically tells you how we got to where we are and it can tell you how we can fix it too.
I hope that our book basically tells people how they can truly look into their life, how they were raised, what was expected of them. And live with those values.
You do a lot of that through the book. You’re going back and explaining that history.
Harry Reid came to me one time and said, “Joe, we’re going to party-line vote.” I never heard the word party-line. I said, “What’s it mean?” He said, “We all got to vote for something.” I said, “Was there a rule or something I missed when I got elected? That if I got elected as a Democrat, to the US Senate that I had to vote with the Democrats all the time?”
A line in the Constitution you didn’t know about?
Yeah, I read the bill he wanted, and I came back and said “Harry on my best day. I can’t vote for this. This makes no sense. I can’t go home and explain it.” He got a little bit huffy and I said, “Harry, you didn’t hire me and you can’t fire me. I don’t work for you. I don’t work for the President. I don’t work for anybody but the people. My oath of office is to protect and defend the Constitution and go home and explain it to the people that elected me.” And that’s it.
And that’s accountability in its essence.
Yeah. That’s what it should be.
Your family history has played so much into that. And we deal with a society now that has a lot of broken, divided families. Do you also think that has played into the cultural difficulties we have?
I always said I was raised as a privileged child. It wasn’t a fancy home, three-bedroom garage apartment. It wasn’t a fancy neighborhood — between the railroad tracks and the Buffalo Creek — but I had unconditional love. They expected me to be accountable and responsible. And they held me to that.
What’s happening is the welfare system that we created gave more incentives to divide a family than to keep the family together. You’ve heard about that. That’s factual. They make more money if the parents are separated than they do if they’re together. You basically disincentivize work, because if you get ahead, they penalize you. I always said, we have a welfare cliff. You go up to this 21–25,000. You drop right off. They teach generation after generation: you stop here. Anything you do beyond it, you’re under the table. You don’t have to say anything about it. You stop here. The cliff should be basically a slope. You remove the cliff, and basically, we will assist you as you work your way to a livable wage. That’s what we should be doing in this country. It would be the cheapest investment we ever made. We hold families together.
You have to struggle. You have to work ahead. And as you work, you keep getting ahead. You’re getting some assistance all the way to where you can take care of yourself. Government was never intended to be your provider. And we have people now that wanted me to vote for child tax credit for childcare. I agree. I said, but you don’t know how poor people basically must struggle and fight. I said, people making two or three or four hundred thousand is going to make it. A person making 35 to 45, up to 75,000 are having a hard time. They’re the ones. They wanted me to give childcare checks, to people who won’t work. They weren’t working, they’re sitting at home. I said, that’s the incentive. We’re doing that to get them back into the workforce. Help them take care of their child. Crazy stuff. I said, I’m not voting for that stuff. And people just come after me. “Oh, you’re taking childcare away.” I’m not taking it away. I want the people that need it to get it. How about health care? We have health care — and poor people got health care before based on if they were working poor, trying — had pride, trying to work. They couldn’t pay the copay to the factory they were working in. They couldn’t afford it. They’d go to the emergency room because it couldn’t be denied. And they’d claim workers’ comp if they got hurt. Then they come along with the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. We never put any guardrails on it. So, it ballooned because people weren’t restricted. You should use it as you need it, not as you want. We don’t give any incentive at all to live a healthy lifestyle. You give me a discount if I drive safe. You give me a discount if I keep my home up and my fire insurance. You give me no discounts at all if I take care of myself. So, what the heck? We’ve got to change things.
You float to where you’re incentivized. That’s human nature. But if you do that too much as a government, don’t you think that changes our character? Eventually, it gets ingrained in us.
I think you should be expected to pull your own weight. Your character is not relying on someone else to take care of you. Take care of it yourself. And the government should be the best partner you’ve ever had. But I’m not going to be your provider when you won’t help yourself.
And I shouldn’t be my government’s dependent.
People say, where’d you get that from? I said, “Well, my grandmother would help anybody. Back in the 50s, there were new social problems. They’d come and they’d stay with my grandmother. She’d take them all in. They needed a place to stay. Food.” She believed the three things you should have: roof over your head, food, and clothing. And she’d help with all those things. She had three rules when you came: you couldn’t drink, couldn’t cuss, and you had to work. I lived with pretty simple rules. To me that’s not hard. Someone came there asking for help. And that was the conditions. Everybody was happy. And then they’d leave. And then maybe they’d come back again. Still the same rules never changed.
If I was looking at a Manchin presidency, you would be driving this commonsense approach. But I think people also need to understand, when we start talking executive orders versus codification, how important is Congress to still make those policies for America move forward?
Well, this experiment is called Representative Form of Government. If I think I can do it without them, then I’m not really following the bylaws of the Constitution or the purpose of our government.
And I think we’ve seen that a lot.
Both sides. They push the power. I’ve seen Democrats and Republicans both, when they have power, they want absolute power. Get rid of the filibuster. The only purpose for the filibuster in the Senate was to give the minority basically the ability to participate. If we lose that, we lose the Holy Grail of civility within our government, the way it should be — even though it’s broken, people aren’t. But you give them a reason to break it completely. You’d be flopping back. There’ll be no standing in the world that they can depend on us because whatever you do these two years can change. And right now, executive orders running the country — we know as soon as the new executive comes in, that’ll change.
And our companies can’t plan on ever-changing requirements.
Stability and predictability are the two main things, in the financial markets or in someone’s life.
In both recent Democrat and Republican administrations, we’ve seen a massive amount of executive orders. We’ve seen a lack of codifying those. So, we’ve never seen a true advantage to that, which leads us back only to common sense and bipartisan participation.
Well, they didn’t want to work together. Our founding fathers believed that we could do it. They knew we would have disagreements. But you’d have to compromise. It wasn’t dictatorship. It wasn’t monarchy. It wasn’t a rule. It wasn’t the King’s word. It was basically compromise. We might start this far apart. We’ll be that far apart unless we compromise and come together. The difference is this. They put in there the brilliancy of saying “a more perfect union,” knowing it’s not perfect. I tell people you go to a basketball game — you want to see a three-point shot to win the game. It’s exciting. But you’ll take a few foul shots to win too. A win’s a win. You go to a football game — you want to see a Hail Mary. Long pass wins the game. But you’ll take some first downs to win too. Politics is the same. It’s what we’re designed to be. But if you’re in a dictatorship, if you’re in a communist country — boom, boom, boom. Immediate. Don’t worry about this person. Don’t worry about that. Just do what we think’s best. No. This process was very deliberately done the way it was done. We’ve tried to skirt around how we’re basically going to say we’re still following the constitution, but we’re not and that means we’re not observing that we need both sides.
Now in the House, we knew it’d be hot as a firecracker. So simple majority, 218, you could do what you want.
The Senate was the cooling force. Cooling the tea off, if you would. And the bottom line for that is the minority could participate. When I was in the Senate for 15 years, I’ve been in a majority, and I’ve been in a minority. Guess what? I had the same participation in both. I was involved in every discussion. I was involved as much as I wanted to be involved and had as much input. And my vote was needed every time. Every time!
Which is the brilliance of our Constitution.
The unbelievable brilliance of it. As a Senator, you’re never ever shunned. The powers a Senator has is unmatched anywhere in the world. Because you’re always needed. You’re very seldom going to have one party with 60 votes in a divided country, divided culture, divided worship. Everything we have is divided. It’s hard to get a super-majority in that type of environment. So that means you had to work across the aisle. It’s hard to pass legislation in the Senate. It’s even harder to get rid of it. That’s the predictability. That’s the stability that the world needs. That’s the leadership the country and the world needs.
There’s a case study out on that. In West Virginia, you were a two-term governor. That state, as I was growing up, was coal, steel, union, dark blue. You and I watched that state change.
From dark blue to ruby red.
In that time, you were still able to gather people together and work together. What worked there that does not in Washington?
Well, I involved everybody on both sides. At the time we were a 75, 78 percent Democratic state — the legislature was the same. Now the legislature is like 85 or 88 percent Republican. But as governor, I would never ever allow the Democrats to beat up on the Republicans. I always had the Republicans come over and meet me in the mansion. We’d do things. Everybody engaged. I think basically they knew that I liked both sides. I just didn’t think there was anybody on the other side. There was only one side. I look at our country. There’s only one side — the American side. We’re all Americans. We may have different ideas of how we can help our country, make it better and fix things. We have disagreements and things of that sort, but they’re not on the other side. The Republicans are not the enemy. The Democrats are not the enemy. The system does not allow us to come together, because you’re a duopoly. You’ve got two major multi-million-dollar corporations called the Republican Corporation and the Democratic Corporation. It’s not about policy and politics and the people. It’s about the establishment of our corporations. They can change the law to protect themselves more. They can change the primary to protect who they are going to get. They can decide if they want to gerrymander, redistrict, so they can find out who can vote for who.
You make an interesting analogy because a corporation’s objective is market share.
Absolutely.
The way to win the game is to own the market.
When you’re the majority you set the agenda. You can keep things on the agenda; you can take things off the agenda. Someone may be saying we need to pass this, and they say, “Well wait a minute. We’ll think about it” They might be watching the market. It might help them a little bit better if they just sit on it and don’t pass it. That’s what’s bad.
Do you feel that there’s still hope that our Constitution still allows for the solution; that the American voter would look at these candidates, investigate how balanced they were? Do you have confidence that it can be fixed?
I’m totally committed. This is what we try to do with AmericansTogether.org, which is my daughter Heather and myself, Clay Deutsch, staff — all of us working together on this. It would allow people to understand what type of government they have. If you’re unhappy and you don’t think you’re represented, then go on AmericansTogether.org and look where you live. It’ll tell you what kind of government you have. It’ll tell you what type of primary. It’ll tell you why you get the same person over and over. Why no changes are happening. Why good people won’t get involved because the system is closed. Maybe we can change that. Right now, there’s a big movement going across the country for a balanced budget amendment, an amendment to the Constitution. That means we have to get 35 states that agree. It has to go into congress and go on the ballot. You’ve got to live within your means sooner or later.
And I would assume something no one should object to?
Most states have a balanced budget. They’ve got to live within their means. But the government has no checks and balances. No auditing. No review. We’re the only country in the world that shuts down when we can’t make an agreement. Other countries basically continue on until they come to an impasse. Then they call for a new election. That’s how it works in other countries. Not here. We’ll shut it all down. And I think if you shut it down, you shouldn’t get paid at all. No one gets paid. We stop it. You’re going to stop it and not pay people going to work? Then you’re not getting paid because you’re not going to do your job.
If you can’t pass a budget, then you shouldn’t get paid. No budget, no pay. These are the type of things that no one will adhere to. No one wants to enforce it.
Again, it comes back to an informed citizenship.
Let me just say one more thing on citizenship. Since we’re not teaching it in our schools the way we should — civics, leadership — it doesn’t start anymore in the school system. I and my dear friend General Stan McChrystal both felt very strongly about mandatory public service of one year after high school. Just one year. Doesn’t have to be in the military. Just service to find different areas of need within the country. They’re everywhere. It will let you connect. You’ll understand how this country comes together as one, but it won’t be if you just do your own thing. I told him that if we can do this, it’s a person’s gap year. We’ll give you one gap year to figure out if you should be in college or not, or in a trade. But we’re going to let you see the rest of the country the way you’ve never seen it before; how we’re all interconnected and depend on each other. They would understand what we in his wonderful experiment. 250 years strong. I want it to be 250 years more. I want to hit that 500 year mark.
That gives them a twenty-thousand-foot view. The world’s larger than their footprint.
We have to work hard on it. It’s just an education. You have to be willing to take time and go out and talk to people. That’s my goal in life right now. What I have left to give is basically the experience. I’ve seen what worked and I’ve seen what didn’t work. And how I can share that and make sure we don’t repeat the sins of the past.
Senator, you’ve stepped away from public service, but you’ve never stepped away from the country.
No. As far as elected service, I don’t plan on being on the ballot anymore. I’ll be 79 years old in August. So I’ve been at it quite a while. You can’t outrun mother time, and you need to get younger blood involved. But you have to educate them. They’re not getting the basics I got. They’re not seeing it the way I saw it when it worked. They’re seeing discourse now. Division and discourse. That’s not how we got to where we are today. We should all think about that.
If we do it right, it’s non-agenda, just the facts.
That’s all. Simply the facts.
Senator, we understand your time is extremely busy so thank you for speaking with us.
Well, I appreciate it. I hope it helps. I wish you the best. Collier’s has an unbelievable reputation and also a heck of an opportunity to bring the facts back to the table that can be discussed anyway.
We certainly consider it an obligation, a privilege, and an honor that we keep that legacy.
That’s great.
Senator, thank you.
All the best, my friend.
Why this interview matters
At a time when the nation’s political institutions face mounting strain, the steady disappearance of moderates from Congress has become a defining challenge for American governance. The legislative branch was built on negotiation, restraint, and the capacity to reconcile competing interests — qualities increasingly difficult to sustain in an era of escalating polarization. As the center thins, the consequences reach far beyond partisan debate, touching the country’s ability to pass budgets, manage crises, and maintain the stability expected of a mature democracy. This conversation examined those pressures with someone who has spent years navigating the narrowing middle ground, offering insight into what is at stake and what it may take to restore a functional, solution-oriented center in American public life.
