On the morning of September 17, 2025, former Senator Joe Manchin found himself once again at the center of America’s political conversation. Appearing on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” Manchin, now an Independent after a long career as a Democrat, did not mince words about his disillusionment with his former party’s quest for what he called “raw political power.” His remarks, echoing themes from his newly released memoir, Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense, provided a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the mindset of a man who has long walked the line between party loyalty and personal conviction.
Manchin’s latest media tour coincides with the release of his memoir, which, according to The New York Times, is as literal and plain-spoken as the senator himself. The book pulls back the curtain on Manchin’s upbringing in Farmington, West Virginia, his deep-seated need for order, and his philosophy that “good politics transcend party lines.” In his own words, “My principles don’t swing with the political winds.” This steadfastness, he claims, has been both his greatest asset and the source of his most public battles in Washington.
During his Fox Business appearance, Manchin reflected on the high-stakes debates that defined his final years in the Senate. He recalled the pivotal moment in 2021 when, alongside Senator Kyrsten Sinema, he refused to support then-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s push to eliminate the filibuster. “I was watching up close and personal, and when Chuck Schumer basically had said he wanted to get rid of the filibuster, it was myself and Kyrsten Sinema that refused to do that,” Manchin told host Maria Bartiromo. “Then that changed everything. They had to work with the other side.”
Manchin’s defense of the filibuster—a Senate rule requiring a supermajority to pass most legislation—has often put him at odds with his own party. He insists that this rule is essential for ensuring minority input, a dynamic he says is absent in the House of Representatives, where a simple majority can push through legislation. “The Senate is basically set up that the minority has to have input. The House does not,” Manchin explained. “They go on raw super—I mean, simple majority, 218. Do whatever you want if you have Democrat or Republican control. And the Senate has always been, calm things down, cool it off.”
Yet Manchin’s warnings were not directed solely at Democrats. He cautioned Republicans, who now hold the Senate majority, against “picking away at the edges” of the filibuster. “You’ve got to be very careful, because what goes around comes around,” he said, urging both sides to preserve the institution’s bipartisan spirit. “I’m hoping that we can keep the Senate basically in a bipartisan manner, that we have to work together. This visceral attack has to be calmed down. It cannot continue.”
Perhaps most strikingly, Manchin called on President Donald Trump—now back at the helm after a tumultuous election cycle—to serve as a unifying figure. “There is only one person I think can set the tone for us right now, and it’s our president, President Donald Trump. And I’m asking President Trump, we need you to be the comforter-in-chief. We need the commander-in-chief to be the comforter right now, to calm it down and keep this country united and don’t let it get divided any further.”
Manchin’s complicated relationship with both major parties is a recurring theme in his book and recent interviews. On the “Brian Kilmeade Show,” he contrasted his cordial working relationship with Trump to his more distant ties with former President Barack Obama. “From the start, President Trump had an open line of communication with me,” Manchin wrote in Dead Center. “I spoke to him more in the first two years of his presidency than I did to President Obama during all eight years of his time in office.”
Manchin recounted how, during his 2018 re-election campaign, Trump—despite immense pressure—ultimately refrained from campaigning against him. Trump visited West Virginia five times, but Manchin still emerged victorious. The senator recalled a memorable Oval Office meeting where Trump, in front of then-Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump, declared, “I told you we couldn’t beat him.”
His recollections of Obama were less generous. Manchin described Obama’s refusal to campaign in West Virginia during the 2008 election, citing demographic challenges. “But he didn’t come, and that night belonged to Hillary,” Manchin wrote, referencing Hillary Clinton’s primary victory. The relationship soured further as Obama’s administration pushed for green energy policies that Manchin viewed as a “war on coal”—a direct threat to West Virginia’s economy and identity. “That’s exactly how Democrats handled West Virginia, and no one embodied that disconnect more than President Obama,” he wrote.
Manchin’s book, reviewed by The New York Times as “dead serious” despite its punning title, delves into his formative years in small-town West Virginia, his early business ventures in coal, and his approach to politics as customer service. “Every constituent is a customer,” he writes. “That was how I learned to lead.” He remains unapologetic about his defense of coal, calling it “the lifeblood of the region and the state,” and dismisses what he terms the “new religion, climate change.”
His refusal to support President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is recounted with particular indignation. Manchin bristled at what he saw as an “entitlement attitude” from party leaders who, he felt, pressured him to abandon his principles. “Why should I have to change who I am or what I believe?” he asks in the memoir.
Despite his frequent calls for “conversation” and “compromise,” Manchin’s brand of bipartisanship has drawn criticism for its ambiguity. As The New Yorker once noted, his “constant triangulation makes him mercurial.” Even when Democrats offered concessions for West Virginia, Manchin often held out for more, seeking elusive Republican support.
In a particularly candid admission, Manchin revealed that he had hoped Republicans would win the Senate majority in 2024, believing it was “the only hope for preserving the Senate as an institution.” This, he argues, is because he trusts Republicans—at least for now—to uphold the filibuster, the “last guardrail preventing total partisan rule.”
As America’s political landscape grows ever more polarized, Joe Manchin’s insistence on centrism, order, and the sanctity of Senate traditions stands as both a rallying cry and a lightning rod. Whether his vision of bipartisan compromise is a path forward or a relic of a bygone era remains to be seen, but for now, Manchin is determined to have the last word.
