West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announces he won't run for president in 2024

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, *** Democrat has announced that he is not going to seek re election to the United States Senate. This is obviously *** major development from the Capitol. He is saying in *** statement, quote to the West Virginians who have put their trust in me and fought side by side to make our state better. It has been an honor of my life to serve you. Thank you. Of course, we Democrats have *** very slim majority in the Senate and Senator Manchin is so crucial to passing President Biden's agenda and he's also stood in the way at times. The interesting thing is he has not been shy. He's actually been quite vocal about the possibility of perhaps being the candidate for president in 2024 as *** third party saying that he's not going to make any decisions about that. But this latest news saying the door is open. Certainly *** sign for just that. Let's head right out to Capitol Hill with our congressional correspondent, Nathaniel Reed quite the bombshell here, Nate. Yes, that's exactly right. I was actually in the chamber on an unrelated effort. *** couple of senators trying to move forward on some military nominations this afternoon, unlikely they'll be able to do so. But just to give you an underscore of the fact that no one saw this coming in terms of this announcement coming today. We had known for *** very long time and Manchin had told us all the way, even before the summer, he was going to make *** decision on his re election at some point this year, he was going to do it before the end of the year. The filing deadline for the Senate race in West Virginia isn't until next January. So he had some time to make this decision. This was always going to come at some point at the end of the year after conversations with his family, I actually caught up with Senator Manchin earlier this afternoon asking him whether he had gotten any closer to reaching *** decision on re election. At that point, my framing of my question to him was look, Andy Beshear, the Democrat in Kentucky just won in an otherwise quite red state. Does that buoy your chances? Does that encourage you when you're looking, whether you want to seek re election in *** Ruby red state, West Virginia, probably one of the most red Republican states in the nation. And he told me I want to get the quote here. Exactly. But when I asked him whether he would seek re election, given the success of *** Democrat in Kentucky another, of course, red state, he told me, quote, there's nothing as red as mine. So Senator Manchin really recognized here that West Virginia was going to be an uphill battle for him to seek re election once again, especially in *** presidential year when there's *** wholly unpopular democratic candidate in the White House. Remember Joe Biden lost West Virginia. Pretty much every democratic president chill candidate has lost West Virginia for quite *** long time. The state used to be heavily democratic. The statehouse itself didn't shift until 2014. Now Republicans have *** supermajority. There's *** super minority of Democrats in the State House there. It is *** red Republican state. There's not much that can be done to change that if there was any Democrat who could have potentially kept that seat in democratic hands. It was Joe Manchin. The fact that he's not seeking re election probably means the next time that West Virginia votes on *** senator, which will be 2024 that senator will likely be *** Republican, meaning that this is almost surely going to be *** seat pickup for Republicans unless they have *** candidate quality issue. That being said Manchin's retirement from the Senate effectively, meaning West Virginia will have *** democrat serving it in the Senate no longer. And Nate as far as what this means for President Biden's agenda, should he win re election? We know that Senator Manchin has stood in the way his ties to the fossil fuel industry have gotten him plenty of pushback and flack from the more left side of the Democratic caucus. Talk *** little bit more about the impact on the president's agenda. I remember Senator Mitt Romney once joked in the elevator calling him President Manchin because of how much of *** influence he has on the Biden agenda. Well, look, his, his influence is certainly diminished. *** little bit given that Democrats now have 51 seats back when it was an even 5050 split. Any single senator could choose to vote no on *** bill and effectively send it back to the starting line. So, you know, Joe Manchin has had *** lot of power, an uncharacteristically large amount of sway in the upper chamber for the last several years. That being said, he certainly had *** lot of influence within the, within the Democratic Party. Just given that anything that Joe Biden wanted to pass the Senate pretty much had to go through Senator Manchin. That being said, look, this is an interesting situation here because Democrats would prefer to have *** Democratic seat, even if it's someone who needs *** lot of changes to *** bill in order to get it across the finish line than have that Democratic seat be filled with *** Republican. So even though there is so much that is said about how different Manchin was from other Democrats in the Senate, if you look at the percentage of times that Manchin has voted along with Democratic candidate with other Democratic senators and with President Biden, it's *** very high percentage. I'd have to take *** second to look that up. But again, I think Democrats would prefer *** Democratic senator in West Virginia than no Democrat in West Virginia at all. And so certainly, even if Manchin was *** thorn in the side of President Biden's agenda, he was certainly far more helpful as someone in accomplishing Biden's agenda in accomplishing so many pieces of legislation that any Republican was not willing to sign on to. So Democrats likely will be sad to see him go. Even if he was kind of *** thorn in Biden's side for *** good part of his presidency. Just *** fascinating development from Capitol Hill. Thank you for that thorough breakdown. Nate Reed uh from the Capitol for us on this breaking news that Senator Joe Manchin will not seek re election.