Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday challenged Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who is refusing to support filibuster reform to pass a voting rights bill and other progressive initiatives.

“You said you oppose scrapping the filibuster,” Wallace noted. “The question I have is whether or not — and you say that you hope that will bring the parties together — the question I have is whether or not you’re doing it exactly the wrong way?”

“Hear me out on this,” the Fox News host continued. “If you were to keep the idea that maybe you would vote to kill the filibuster, wouldn’t that give Republicans an incentive to actually negotiate because old Joe Manchin is out there and who knows what he’s going to do? By taking it off the table, haven’t you empowered Republicans to be obstructionists?”

“I don’t think so,” Manchin said cautiously. “Because we have seven brave Republicans that continue to vote for what they know is right and the facts as they see them, not worrying about the political consequences.”

The West Virginia senator insisted that many of his “Republican friends” agree with him.

“I’m just very hopeful and I see good signs,” Manchin said. “Give us some time.”

Wallace interrupted to point out that Republicans had recently used the filibuster to kill a commission to examine the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Republicans blocked that,” Wallace reminded the senator. “Sen. McConnell, the head of the Republicans in the Senate, says that he’s 100% focused on blocking the Biden agenda. Question: Aren’t you being naive about this continuing talk about bipartisan cooperation?”

“I’m not being naive,” Manchin objected. “I think he’s 100% wrong in trying to block all the good things that we’re trying to do for America. It would be a lot better if we had participation and we’re getting participation.”

“I’m going to continue to keep working with my bipartisan friends,” he added. “There were 33 Democrats in 2017 that signed a letter to please save the filibuster and save our democracy. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Watch the video below.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Steve Bannon that Donald Trump would have lost the Lone Star State in the 2020 presidential election if Texans had been allowed to vote by mail.

“Yeah, I think it’s certainly critical to my state and that’s why we fought off these twelve lawsuits,” Paxton said. “We had them in Houston, we had them in San Antonio, we had them in Austin — we had them in the counties where you have the most liberal judges. And it was a concerted effort, nationally, with lots of money going into it.”

“And just knowing that we had twelve lawsuits that we had to win. And if we had lost one of them, if we’d lost Harris County — Trump won by 620,000 votes in Texas. Harris County mail-in ballots that they wanted to send out were 2.5 million, those were all illegal and we were able to stop every one of them,” he explained.

“Had we not done that, we would have been in the very same situation — we would’ve been on election day, I was watching on election night and I knew, when I saw what was happening in these other states, that that would’ve been Texas. We would’ve been in the same boat. We would’ve been one of those battleground states that they were counting votes in Harris County for three days and Donald Trump would’ve lost the election,” Paxton said.

Texas AG Ken Paxton said yesterday that if he hadn’t been successful with lawsuits to block mail-in ballots, Trump definitely would have lost the election in Texas. pic.twitter.com/2dVDiEAY1L

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 5, 2021

Image via Ken Paxton/Facebook
 

Donald Trump’s Saturday night speech in Greenville, North Carolina, has some Republicans in the state on edge over fears the unpredictable ex-president will make their jobs harder in a state that can no longer be counted upon as a Republican stronghold.

With a key U.S. Senate seat open — and questions about whether Trump will endorse his daughter-in-law Lara Trump — there are concerns some of his endorsements will be the kiss of death when it comes to appealing to independent voters who have overwhelmingly abandoned him.

According to a report from the Fay Observer, one political scientist said Trump’s visit will be a litmus test demonstrating how popular he remains.

Explained Chris Cooper at Western Carolina University, “Obviously this was a swing state that he won. So if he wants to remind people that he can win in divided America, there’s no better example than North Carolina.”

State Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley added, “We invited him. With North Carolina having been a true battleground state in 2016 and 2020, … and the fact that we delivered for him in both elections, you know, was really important,” before admitting he expects another fight at the ballot boxes on 2022.

However, according to longtime GOP political consultant Carter Wrenn, Trump’s visit could come at a cost.

“In 2020, you had a group of swing voters at the end who disliked both Trump and Biden, and so that helped Trump win North Carolina,” Wrenn explained. “But the fact is, you’ve still got two-thirds of independents who dislike Trump. … His endorsing a candidate in a general election, it’s gonna hurt with those swing voters, and that’s who you have to have to win the election. So I think, I think there’s some problems with it. Yeah.”

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