'The Interview': 3 Senators Who Quit on Why Congress Won’t Stand Up to Trump

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “The Interview: 3 Senators Who Quit on Why Congress Won’t Stand Up to Trump”

Podcast: The Daily (The New York Times)
Host: Lulu Garcia Navarro
Guests: Former Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Joe Manchin (I-WV), and outgoing Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN)
Air Date: December 13, 2025

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Overview

This episode of “The Interview” brings together three high-profile senators—Jeff Flake, Joe Manchin, and Tina Smith—each of whom has recently left or announced departure from the Senate. Host Lulu Garcia Navarro conducts a roundtable discussion probing why Congress, particularly the Senate, has struggled to act as a meaningful check on executive power during the second Trump administration. The conversation candidly explores the decline of Senate collegiality, partisanship, rule changes, leadership failures, political incentives, and the inability to solve pressing national issues.

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1. The State of the Senate: One Word (02:50–03:57)

• Lulu asks each senator for a one-word assessment of today’s Senate:
  • Tina Smith: “Broken.” (03:09)
  • Jeff Flake: “Retreat… just willingly give up Article One.” (03:10)
  • Joe Manchin: “Abdication… they've abdicated… responsibilities... their purpose of being there.” (03:25)
• All three express bleak views on the institution’s current state and willingness to surrender its core powers to the presidency.

Joe Manchin: “You want us to call them cowards, or what do you want us to say, Lulu?” (04:05)

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2. Personal Reflections & Political Departure (04:13–10:24)

• Jeff Flake discusses longstanding warnings about authoritarian tendencies and Congress’s willing surrender, especially on war powers and tariffs.
  • “Congress has abdicated its responsibility… senators have willingly kind of given that up. And you have a president who is eager to take just about everything he can get.” (04:42)
• Joe Manchin reflects on leaving a deeply red state and why Democrats have lost touch with working-class voters:
  • “The Washington Democrats… have spent more effort… for able-bodied, capable people that should be working, that don't work or won’t… I've had enough.” (05:53)
• Tina Smith truthfully admits her main motivation was to spend time with family but acknowledges recent political violence and toxicity (e.g., assassination of a friend, local school shooting, threats from the president) also weighed on her. She expresses faith in Minnesota’s Democratic “bench” and importance of passing the torch. (07:31–09:05)
• Flake: “I would have liked to have served another term… But the price… would have been… to say, you know, those principles I said I believed in, I no longer do. The cost… was too steep to pay.” (09:20)
• Manchin and Flake lament the loss of a Senate culture where election rivals could become partners in governance.

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3. How the Senate Became What It Is (10:31–13:38)

• Manchin traces the transformation to an influx of House members with simple-majoritarian instincts and rising partisanship, referencing the “Hastert Rule” (only passing bills with majority of majority support). (11:14)
• Flake and Smith agree that increased partisanship and leadership choices (citing McConnell’s focus on defeating Obama) have “supercharged” division and inaction.

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4. Congressional Abdication and Executive Power (12:50–15:46)

• The group agrees that the current crisis is not inevitable but the product of recent leadership failures, misaligned incentives, and reluctance to check presidential overreach.
  • Flake: “We've never seen a time when presidential powers have been given back. The president… has amassed far more power than the Supreme Court has granted him.” (13:43)
• Smith: Many behind-the-scenes Republican senators don’t like the status quo but “are just waiting for the right moment” before pushing back. Meanwhile, institutional powers “are gushing out of the Capitol.”
• Smith also blames the Senate's procedural rules (not just the filibuster) for stymying action.

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5. The Filibuster & Senate Reform Debate (15:46–17:17)

• Smith advocates for requiring real filibusters (“at least have to stand on the damn floor and talk”). (15:48)
• Manchin agrees with Smith about filibuster reform, but Flake pushes against eliminating the filibuster entirely, deeming it vital for bipartisan cooperation.
  • Flake: “Every Senate ought to resist [removing the filibuster]… because it is one of the few mechanisms left that forces people to work together.” (16:02)
• Smith says the filibuster doesn’t inherently reduce partisanship and sometimes prevents necessary action.

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6. Party Leadership and Senate Dysfunction (16:48–20:59)

• Smith criticizes both Democratic and Republican leadership for unprecedented partisanship and for manipulating candidate selection.
  • “The informal group I am a part of… [complains] with the ways in which the leader has been identifying what candidates he wants to run in what states.” (17:17)
• Discussion of Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s record, and Smith’s “fight club” seeking new leadership.
• Manchin: Loss of “middle grounders” like Susan Collins threatens the institution.
• Flake notes that even leaders branded as hyper-partisan have “reached across the aisle in the past” (e.g., Gang of Eight immigration reform).

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7. Political Incentives, Primary Reform & Term Limits (20:59–23:06)

• Discussion of Majority Leader John Thune’s balancing act between institutionalism and political reality—deference to pressure from President Trump and fear of primaries.
• Manchin calls for term limits and open/“ranked choice” primaries to break the dominance of extreme partisans and the President’s grip over candidates:
  • “If we had term limits, maybe we'd get one good courageous term out of you.” (21:27)
• Flake: “If you had five or six states with open primary laws like Alaska has, that would create a whole different power structure in the Senate.” (22:43)

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8. The Senate’s Inability to Deliver for Voters (25:39–27:35)

• Lulu challenges the idea of bipartisanship by raising concerns about Senate incrementalism and lack of major reforms for voters:
• Smith: “Americans… think that things are terribly on the wrong track… the status quo is not working for them… paid family and medical leave, childcare that people can afford, minimum wage… a majority of Americans want to see a complete revamping of our healthcare system.” (26:16)
• Smith suggests polarization on “moderate/progressive” lines obscures a deeper division: preservation vs. change.
• Flake defends incrementalism as a conservative virtue but concedes the Senate needs bipartisan efforts.

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9. Partisanship, Accountability, and Policy Stalemates (28:24–36:49)

• Manchin decries the new “guilt by conversation” culture—bipartisanship itself is subject to attack. (28:24)
• Debate over whether requiring supermajority votes creates obstruction or necessary consensus.
• Smith: Filibuster and Senate rules often “mask accountability because you can advocate for something, but you never actually get it done.”
• Extended exchange on Obamacare: Flake calls it a case of overreach; Smith notes its current popularity but concedes it didn’t address healthcare costs.

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10. Senate Powerlessness in Foreign Affairs & Tariffs (37:15–40:45)

• Discussion shifts to tariffs, foreign policy, and the U.S. response in Venezuela, with recent military actions going without debate or oversight.
  • Flake: “There are sufficient votes in the House too, but they just haven't because they're afraid of what the president can do to them.” (38:03)
• Manchin: “The Senate can fix it. The Senate can right the ship… if it does its job.” (39:09)

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11. Final Reflections: Do They Miss the Senate? (39:37–40:31)

• Manchin: “Not at all.” He feels he may be more effective influencing from the outside now. (39:38)
• Flake: “I miss some things. I miss the people… but I knew that in order to win re-election, I would have to change who I was and say things that I didn't believe.” (40:01)
• Flake’s “unvarnished truth”: Most senators “don’t agree with the policies they’re pursuing… The political incentives are not aligned with them to speak truth to power here.” (40:19)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Let us recognize as authoritarianism reasserts itself in country after country, that we are by no means immune.” — Jeff Flake (01:27, reflecting on his 2019 speech)
• “I was not elected to take a side. I was elected to represent all sides.” — Joe Manchin (01:45)
• “I actually don't think that's the right continuum at all. I think it's a question of whether you actually think that the status quo is pretty much working, whether you think that it needs to be fundamentally changed.” — Tina Smith (23:12)
• “The cost, the price for that was too steep to pay.” — Jeff Flake (09:20)
• “If we had term limits, maybe we'd get one good courageous term out of you. Maybe you'd be willing to do the right thing, at least one good term.” — Joe Manchin (21:27)
• “You can have a strong response on drugs, but you can have that with some kind of humanity as well, and this wasn’t it.” — Jeff Flake on Venezuela (38:03)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:50 — Single-word assessment of today’s Senate
• 04:42 — Flake on Congressional abdication and authoritarianism
• 05:53 — Manchin’s critique of Democrats losing working-class voters
• 07:31 — Smith on family reasons and toxicity in modern politics
• 11:14 — Manchin and Flake discuss House-to-Senate shift and partisanship
• 13:43 — Flake on presidential power amassing
• 15:48 — Filibuster reform debate
• 17:17 — Democratic “fight club” and leadership critique
• 21:27 — Manchin’s story on term limits
• 26:16 — Smith: “Status quo” vs. “needs fundamental change”
• 28:24 — Manchin: From “guilt by association” to “guilt by conversation”
• 38:03 — Jeff Flake: “Frustrating” lack of oversight on military action
• 39:37 — Would they return to the Senate? (No.)

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Conclusion

All three senators agree on the acute dysfunction afflicting the Senate: rising presidential power with little resistance, party leaders prioritizing political survival, rules that mask real accountability, and a breakdown of genuine bipartisan compromise. While each hopes for restoration, they admit that current political incentives—especially primary challenges fueled by party bases—keep the Senate from fulfilling its constitutional purpose. Despite their differences on policy, all believe profound change is required, whether through process reforms (such as open primaries/term limits) or cultural renewal.

For listeners seeking an honest, behind-the-scenes account of why the Senate is failing as a check on power, this episode is both sobering and deeply insightful.

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Transcript

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[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

From the New York Times this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Since the founding of our democracy, there's been a separation of powers. The Senate in particular was created to act as a stabilizing force with its own important responsibilities. But after almost a year of the second Trump presidency, during which time he's pursued an aggressive agenda, the Senate is arguably weaker than ever, with some critics and senators saying it is abandoning its role in checking presidential power. So today I'm having a different kind of conversation than we usually do on the show, a roundtable about the state of the Senate with three lawmakers who all decided to leave it. Jeff Flake, a Republican, represented Arizona and left office in 2019 warning that the influence of Trumpism on the GOP would be corrosive to his party.

[Jeff Flake]

We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our Democratic norms and ideals.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Joe Manchin represented West Virginia, first as a Democrat who frequently voted with Republicans and later as a registered independent. He left the Senate at the start of this year.

[Joe Manchin]

I was not elected to take a side. I was elected to represent all sides.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

And Tina Smith is a Democrat who currently represents Minnesota and earlier this year announced that she won't be seeking re election in 2026.

[Tina Smith]

After 20 years of hard and rewarding work in the public sector, I'm ready to spend more time with my family.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I wanted to gather these three to get their read on the state of the Senate and our politics and democracy more broadly. So here's my conversation with Senators Flake, Manchin and SM.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I want to thank you all for being here. It is a great pleasure to have you here on this sort of gray winter day in Washington, D.C. you are all three former or soon to be former senators, and you all left at different periods of the last 10 years. And I'm hoping frankly that because you are leaving or have left, you will feel a little bit more unleashed in being able to discuss your true feelings and thoughts.

[Joe Manchin]

That's what we're doing left.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

So I want to start by asking you all to give me a word or a sentence, something brief that Describes the state you think the Senate is in right now. And I want to start with you, Senator Smith, because you are actually sitting in said body.

[Tina Smith]

Broken.

[Jeff Flake]

Senator Flake probably retreat, you know, in this system presidency, just by virtue of the system, gains more power over time. But what's been frustrating is to see the Senate just willingly give up. Article one.

[Joe Manchin]

Authority, Abdication. They've abdicated, basically, responsibilities of what? Their purpose of being there. The Senate is the most unusual body in the world. Our framers designed it to be that way, and it was ingrained in me. The filibuster is the only thing. It's the holy grail of keeping us talking and working and becoming friends. Jeff being on the Republican side, Tina and I at the time on the Democrat side. But we were all friends because we wanted to get things done and we knew the Senate was the place to do it, and they've abdicated that type of responsibilities.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I mean, those are all pretty bleak words. I think.

[Joe Manchin]

You want us to call them cowards, or what do you want us to say, Lulu?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I want you to say what you think.

[Tina Smith]

Pretty straightforward responses here.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Pretty straightforward responses and not terribly optimistic. Senator Flake, when you left the Senate, you had been serving in Congress for 18 years, first as a representative in a speech you gave on the floor, you gave this warning, and I'm gonna quote here, let us recognize as authoritarianism reasserts itself in country after country, that we are by no means immune. Do you think you were right to be concerned?

[Jeff Flake]

Yes, most definitely. I'm not saying that we're under an authoritarian system now. We're not. But that tendency, and certainly Congress has abdicated its responsibility on a number of areas, whether it's war powers, whether it's tariffs, issues that rightly belong in the Senate. And senators have typically, over time, jealously guarded their prerogative, but they have willingly kind of given that up. And you have a president who is eager to take just about everything he can get. Now, every president, Republican and Democrat, will push some limits somewhere in terms of executive orders. This president is doing that in spades, obviously. But that's why you need a Senate willing to stand up. And we've seen inklings lately that you might see some of that coming, but, boy, it's been long in coming, and I was concerned then. I'm more concerned today.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Senator Manchin, just before you left the Senate, you turned away from the Democrats, you registered as an Independent, and in some of your final words, you called the Democratic brand toxic. Have you seen anything lately that has changed your mind on the direction of the Democratic Party?

[Joe Manchin]

Well, first of all, my state's an R40 state. There's not a redder state than mine. And it got to the point where the people in West Virginia, when you have a total working class people coming from the lower echelon of the financial rung, okay, hard working, poor people, why did they all leave the Democrat Party and just kind of left them behind? And really, if you want to know, the underlying motive was that a lot of these people would tell me, they said, joe, listen, the Washington Democrats, Democratic Party basically has spent more effort, resources and time for able bodied, capable people that should be working, that don't work or won't work than those of us who do. And I've had enough. I can't go home and explain what we're doing as far as the Democratic Party. So people that are still Democrats in my state, I just says, you better make sure they understand you're an independent West Virginia Democrat. Because if you get tagged as a Washington Democrat, you're underwater 15, 20 points before you start.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I mean, that's a warning to the party.

[Joe Manchin]

Well, I've tried to be as nice as I can, try to be as truthful as I can. Because in some states they, some blue and really blue areas, they still can survive and still have a strong, you know, New York City, in different places like that may be still strong. But I can tell you if you want to know why you'll never be in the majority again, because you're losing most of the working rural areas. And that is what has happened.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

All right, Senator Smith, I'm gonna turn to you because you've said you're stepping down to spend more time with family and that it has nothing to do with politics. A lot of politicians who leave say that. That is the classic line.

[Joe Manchin]

Come on, tell us the truth.

[Tina Smith]

When I say I want to spend more time with my family, I actually mean it. Cause I really like my family.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Sure.

[Tina Smith]

But I've also said a few other things about why I'm leaving.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Yeah, whenever you leave a job, it can be for personal reasons, but there's always professional reasons. I noted that Representative Jared Goldin, who is also stepping down from the House, he talked about political nastiness and the political violence that we're seeing for reasons that he's not seeking reelection. So I'm just wondering, are those issues weighing on you too?

[Tina Smith]

You know, I made the decision not to run for reelection, you know, in December, January of 2024, 2025, and then everything that has happened this year has certainly not made me wonder whether I made the right decision. I mean, I had, you know, this horrible political assassination of my dear friend Melissa Hortman, the speaker of the emerita of the Minnesota House. We had the shooting of the Annunciation School, which is literally 10 blocks from where I live. And so the reality of these political attacks, and of course, in this moment, fueled by the President of the United States, who just a couple of weeks ago said that two of my colleagues and four members of the House of Representatives should be tried for treason and executed. Of course, these things all have impact, but, you know, there was another part of it for me, which is that I'm gonna. I'm. What is my 68, roughly? I will be 68 next year.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Pretty young for a Democratic senator.

[Tina Smith]

Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

[Joe Manchin]

She's on the low end of the spectrum right there.

[Tina Smith]

I am not burdened by the belief that I am the only one who can do this job. I feel really confident in the bench that is there in Minnesota to carry on, and I'm actually quite invigorated by making space for those.

[Jeff Flake]

When I left, I never said I want to spend more time with family. I love my family. But I would have liked to have served another term. I mean, you don't get all the way to the most exclusive club in the world and just want to stay one term. So I would have liked to, but the price for doing so. Yeah, would have been. Yeah, it would have been for me to say, you know, those principles I said I believed in, I no longer do. And that the cost, the price for that was too steep to pay.

[Joe Manchin]

Those of us who've been in these tough races before, when you're facing something, you know what's going to turn you into a different animal than you're not? I know you, and I know Tim. That's not who we are, I don't think. But we'd have had to turn into another animal if we wanted to go on. I've never faced an election where I thought the other side was the enemy. I learned from every election I was in a debate, and after the election was over, I won most of them. So I'd call the person. I said, you know, you had some good ideas in that debate. And I said, can we talk about that and start building relationships? That's gone.

[Jeff Flake]

I'll say that's not in vogue now, but I don't think it's gone. I think it can return.

[Tina Smith]

That's right. I don't think it's gone either. And I haven't given up hope on that, Joe. I believe that it's still there.

[Joe Manchin]

I never give up hope. I'm just dealing with reality today. The thing that I see, Jeff, and you can talk about this, you came from the House. I came from being a governor, which is the most collegial of all institutions. You can go to a governor's National Governors Association. If I didn't know that that person was a Republican Democrat, you could not tell the difference. We're all working for the same, curing the same problems. The House, you all operate on simple majority. 218. Okay. Don't even have to acknowledge the other side. Don't even have to let them be involved if you don't want to. Okay. I kept noticing more and more Congress people that kept coming to the Senate with that mindset made it harder for the Senate to stay collegiate.

[Jeff Flake]

Oh, definitely.

[Joe Manchin]

Am I right?

[Jeff Flake]

Yes.

[Joe Manchin]

Speak about it.

[Jeff Flake]

I mean, the real turn in the house came 2005. 6. I got there in 2001 when we adopt formally, but basically lived by the so called Hastert rule. And it wasn't Hastert. It was really Tom delay and a few others who basically said if you're gonna bring something to the floor as the Republican and we had a bigger cushion at that time in the majority, but that you should be able to pass it just with Republican votes and if it might gather bipartisan support, then knock some provisions off so it won't be attractive. And then you use that as a cudgel during the next election and that you had people kind of mature as politicians. I gu under that system. And some of them have gone to the Senate.

[Tina Smith]

I mean, this is what Mitch McConnell said. Like, my purpose is to beat Obama. And gradually the partisanship just ramped up.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

You know, it's funny listening to you all and it's one of the reasons I wanted to bring you here because you have the long view of how we got here. And clearly all of this predates the era that we're in now. But this era has supercharged all of what you're discussing. And you've touched on one of the main critiques of the Senate right now. And it's something I heard when I sat with Senator Lisa Murkowski, which is that the Senate is now, regardless of the partisan nature, it's just not doing its job. It's not acting as a check on the executive. And I would love for you to just discuss. Do you think that this is an enduring shift away from Congressional power.

[Jeff Flake]

I don't think it's an enduring condition. I think it has to do with leadership. I look at the potential field on the Democratic and Republican side, and you see some who will try to replicate what President Trump has done in terms of amassing power and kind of stiffening the House and the Senate. But the vast majority of Republican senators who I'm most familiar with, don't like this at all. They want to reassert their prerogatives. They know that the Senate has the reputation of being the world most deliberative body, and they'd like to get back to deliberating. So I do think that this isn't a condition that has to stay. But we've never seen a time when presidential powers have been given back. The president, as I was saying before.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Seeing the Supreme Court ruling on this and making it law, essentially, yeah.

[Jeff Flake]

But the president has amassed far more power and is using far more power than the Supreme Court has granted him. Now, it's not been codified and, yes, not yet. So you'll.

[Tina Smith]

I think it's, you know, my sense of it is that I completely agree with Jeff, that you, behind the scenes, you will hear many Republicans in the Senate say, I don't like this. I don't think this is right. But then they also say, we're just waiting for the right moment. We're waiting for the right moment to actually do something about it. And meanwhile, the powers of the Senate and the powers of the legislative branch are. I mean, they're gushing out of the Capitol. I mean, and it's not just the Senate. I mean, what the speaker did to keep the US House of Representatives out of session for how many days was it? You know, seven weeks was really an incredible abdication of responsibility and authority. So it's interesting to me because I'm always so fascinated by the interpersonal relationships of everybody in the Senate. And the people that I see that seem to feel the most betrayed right now are my Democratic colleagues who stake their careers on working across party lines to accomplish things. They were part of the gangs. They were in the, you know, so much of the work that you did, Joe, around the Infrastructure Act. And they feel as if the bonds of trust between Democrats and Republicans have been so broken because of the ways in which Republicans in the Senate have just basically kowtowed to the president, not only on the fact of basically allowing him to undo our budget bills, but I mean, on the ways that they have kind of confirmed against their better judgment. I would argue some of these really terrible nominees like RFK Jr. And like the Secretary of Defense. Part of the problem. I believe this, where I think Joe and I differ, maybe I differ from both of my colleagues here. I think that the Senate rules have so completely stymied the ability of the Senate to do anything. And I'm not just talking about the filibuster. I think there's gotta be a way of figuring out how to make the systems of the Senate work better.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Cause you'd like to get rid of the filibuster.

[Tina Smith]

I mean, I would at least like to reform it so that if you're gonna filibuster a bill, you ought to at least have to stand on the damn floor and talk.

[Joe Manchin]

And we're exactly alike on that.

[Tina Smith]

Instead of just, just saying, oh, I don't like this, so I'm gonna object and then, you know, go out for dinner.

[Jeff Flake]

Every president who has a majority sure is gonna wanna get rid of the filibuster. And every Senate ought to resist that, totally resist it, Republican or Democrat, because it is one of the few mechanisms left that forces people to work together.

[Tina Smith]

I've watched the Senate for the last eight years and I have not seen that the filibuster is the pill to cure partisanship. What I see is that partisanship is in. I mean, sometimes, certainly the need to find a 60 vote majority creates strong pieces of legislation like the Infrastructure and Jobs Act. But sometimes it creates the very systems that make it very difficult for the things that Americans want to get done to actually get done.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I want to come back to this, but before we do, I am curious about the problem of party leadership. For example, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader, isn't popular with the Democratic base. And Senator Smith, you are part of a so called fight club that is looking to get new leadership. Can you explain what you think is needed? And is the leadership of the respective parties part of what's going on here?

[Tina Smith]

Well, so in a functioning legislative body, you would think that the Democratic leader and the Republican leader would talk to each other all the time, right? To try to figure things out, try to try to get things going. The level of partisanship in the Senate is at such a degree that, that it just doesn't happen anymore. The informal group that I am a part of is a group of Senators who have been complaining and unhappy primarily with the ways in which the leader has been identifying what candidates he wants to run in what states. It has been primarily about that. Kind of like how the elections of the work of the DSCC which is.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Interesting, because when I spoke to Senator Schumer, he touted that as his greatest sort of strength, that he really can choose candidates that win. And so, you know, you get a governor, Janet Mills, running in Maine at 77 against Graham Platner, who's 41 and more progressive. And so, you know, that sets up an intraparty fight.

[Tina Smith]

Yes, I think it does. To be clear, I haven't endorsed anybody in Maine, but I haven't endorsed anybody in Minnesota yet either, because I think that it should be up to the voters to decide.

[Joe Manchin]

I'm endorsing Susan Collins in Maine.

[Planned Parenthood Advertiser]

Okay.

[Tina Smith]

Yeah.

[Joe Manchin]

They get rid of a Susan Collins, then you're really losing the Senate. People that have that mindset, we can't even get them to run anymore. Good people in the middle.

[Jeff Flake]

If you look in the Senate and you mentioned Chuck Schumer, and some people look at them and say they're too partisan to get anything done, they won't ever reach across the aisle. Well, they have in the past. I was part of the Gang of Eight with Chuck Schumer and Dick Durham. Yes. On immigration, we passed a bill, 68.

[Joe Manchin]

32.

[Jeff Flake]

68 to 32. That was one of the last examples we've seen of the Senate working how it used to work. My point is some of the same characters that we now look at and say they could never do this. They can and they have in the past, but the incentives are so misaligned right now.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I'm wondering what you think of Republican Leader John Thune, who broadly, people view him as being less obsequious to Trump. Right.

[Tina Smith]

That.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

He'S not exactly like speaker of the House Johnson, according to critics, who really takes everything that he's doing from the White House. That said, he has been accused of sort of chipping away at the filibuster by allowing a number of simple majority votes, ushering in what the New Yorker called the age of Senate irrelevance. So, Senator Flake, I mean, why do you think he's so weak? Is he so weak?

[Jeff Flake]

Well, when I mentioned before that there are still a core of Republican senators who want the Senate to be like it used to be, a deliberative body, and not have the president control that. He's one of them and he's institutionalist. But when John Thune said the other day, when the president said, get rid of the filibuster, John Thune's response was, we don't have the votes, which is true. I would have liked him to say, that's a terrible idea, Mr. President, we're not going to do it. So, yeah, from the outside, I certainly am frustrated sometimes when they won't just say what they're going to do are on tariffs, actually pull your power back there and certainly get ahead of the Supreme Court. You don't want to see you're weak enough for the President. You don't want to be weak and follow what the Supreme Court does or have them fight your battles for you. So. So, yeah, I'm frustrated sometimes, but I do think that he certainly is a senator that is in some ways and often doing the best he can, given the political situation, to get the Senate back.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Getting his power back, though.

[Tina Smith]

Why?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I mean, he is the Senate Majority leader. Why isn't he doing it?

[Joe Manchin]

Well, he's caucus, I guess. He has to look at his caucus. Yeah.

[Jeff Flake]

And you get angry tweets every day if you do the president, you mean? Yes, oh, definitely. And so that's difficult. And up to now, the President has been able to, in any Republican seat in the country, say, I can get a primary opponent for you. If you don't do what I say, that's a powerful political incentive. We may like it to be different, but that's the incentive structure that most of my former colleagues are working under. They don't like it, but they're in it now.

[Joe Manchin]

I've come to the conclusion there's two things that'll change, that would change politics in America. First, as far as in Congress, would be term limits. Ten, 15 years ago, I would have never been supportive of term limits. Okay? And I was at a rally one time, I was governor. I had a big town hall rally. Little lady got in the back, she says, boy, Joe, she says, we wish you were for term limits. And I said her name was Susie. I said, susie, I said, I understand where you're coming from. I said, but you're going to lose a lot of the institutional knowledge you have and the power and this on and on, all these good people. She said, think of this, Joe. If we had term limits, maybe we'd get one good courageous term out of you. Maybe you'd be willing to do the right thing, at least one good term from you. She sold me. I couldn't. I didn't have any argument back. I said, fine. And I've been for it ever since. And open primaries. And I'll give you an example of open primaries. Our friend Lisa Murkowski would not get elected through the primary process in Alaska if it wasn't for the ranked choice voting or open primaries, when you can control a primary, and that's what gives President Trump or it gives a Democrat president the power in a real blue state or red state, knowing that they have that power to name who they want or primary you or this or that, an open primary, boom, you know you're out there. The best will succeed.

[Jeff Flake]

If you had five or six states with open primary laws like Alaska has, that would create a whole different power structure in the Senate.

[Joe Manchin]

Well, here you're a perfect example of that, because your type of primaries in.

[Jeff Flake]

Arizona are what, yeah, if we had the Alaska style thing, then I would run for reelection.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

After the break, we talk about why Congress has so much trouble fixing the things voters care about most.

[Tina Smith]

We often kind of get sucked into this sort of is this Are you moderate? Are you progressive? Like, where do you fall in the continuum? I actually don't think that's the right continuum at all. I think it's a question of whether you actually, actually think that the status quo is pretty much working, whether you think that it needs to be fundamentally changed.

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[Joe Manchin]

2.

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[Interviewer/Moderator]

Let me give you the counterpoint to this dream of bipartisanship, which is, did we get here? Perhaps because the Senate's been ineffective at responding to the real problems that voters have because it's incremental. There's just not any big swings anymore. I mean, people at the moment seem to be clamoring for these ideas that can solve their very real problems. Does incrementalism, which can read as bipartisanship, actually get the job done at a moment like this?

[Tina Smith]

I think that this is exactly the issue. If you look at Americans over the last probably, what, 20, 30 years, significant majorities of Americans have said that they think that things are terribly on the wrong track, that they're working as hard as they possibly can, and nothing is really changing. And so if you have a governing body that isn't capable, hasn't been capable of making the big changes that need to be made, of course people are going to be frustrated. And what I think is so interesting, because we often kind of get sucked into this sort of, are you moderate? Are you progressive? Like, where do you fall in the continuum? I actually don't think that's the right continuum at all. I think it's a question of whether you actually think that the status quo is pretty much working, whether you think that it needs to be fundamentally changed. And Americans are telling us that the status quo is not working for them. And they're telling us that things that maybe would be seen as being, like, progressive, it's actually like 75% issues, paid family and medical leave, childcare that people can afford, raise the minimum wage. I mean, even Medicare for all, which was seen as being incredibly radical. A majority of Americans want to see a complete revamping of our healthcare system. So all of that argues to me that we need a body, a Senate and a Congress that's capable of making those kinds of big changes.

[Jeff Flake]

I make the case for incrementalism. Being a conservative means preserving conservative or institutions that work. And the Senate has worked over time. And so incrementalism is what you want. That's why I like the filibuster, for example, because it helps. Doesn't cure it completely, but it helps from having wide swings of popular opinion back and forth like you have in the House. And that has served the country well. So I don't think that that's the problem. I think I look at Joe Manchin was always in the middle of every bipartisan fight, every bill that looked for bipartisan support, saying, hey, compromise is the coin of the realm here because you don't want to have these wide swings.

[Joe Manchin]

You know, there used to be an old saying, you're guilt by association. If someone was a bad actor and you're working or talking to them, they think, well, you must support that. Now it's guilt by conversation. You can't even be seen having a convers with someone who might not be on the same. That is so ridiculous to me that I never did subscribe and the Democrats chastised me for working across.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I mean, there's this perception that those people who are fortunate enough in a closely divided Senate to wield a lot of power because they.

[Joe Manchin]

I don't recommend that on anybody. I do not recommend it. But if it happens, be ready, fair.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

But they sit in this position and they are obstructing. I'm giving you the counter argument, obstructing actual progress. I mean, you've seen James Carville, the longtime Democratic strategist who is self described as a centrist, obviously worked for Bill Clinton, and he recently argued that, for example, Democrats need to run on and presumably eventually legislate on, and I'm going to quote her, a sweeping, aggressive, unvarnished, unapologetic and altogether unmistakable platform of pure economic rage.

[Tina Smith]

When I read what James Carville said, I was thinking about how my view of it is that for the last 10 years, I think the Democratic Party, the national Democratic Party, has been kind of stuck in a. It's like we're stuck in a bad relationship. We've so defined ourselves by being opposed to Trump that we have not. It's like we've forgotten how to do the other part of our job, which is to put forward an aggressive, strong, positive vision. You know, that is about where we think the country ought to go. And I think we need to break up with this old relationship that we have and we need to be much more bold about what it is that we're proposing. And I think that's what Carville is getting at.

[Jeff Flake]

When I hear economic rage, that kind of suggests that it's this very leftist, far left platform, Mondami kind of thing. That's what it speaks to me. And I hope the Democrats don't do that because. Because we need two strong parties and we don't. They would be responding to that subset of a subset of a subset of voters that votes in Democratic primaries just like too many Republicans respond to that subset on the right. But it doesn't do much for the country and it allows the Republicans to be more extreme than they could otherwise be. I think if the Democrats would be more centrist, would force the Republicans back into that more centrist mode as well.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I mean, that's the other side of this coin. You know, you certainly can't accuse the Trump administration of moving incrementally. I mean, should the Democrats be emulating what the Trump administration's doing because Republicans are really taking the ball and running with it.

[Tina Smith]

Well, super interesting question, right. Because I mean, what Trump is doing is he is seizing, you know, massive amounts of power to do. Let's just take, for example, his policy around what to do about people who are, you know, inside the country, maybe without documents, maybe illegally, maybe they are here illegally. And so he's doing something very radical when it comes to his immigration policy. The last time I saw that's dramatically unpopular. People do not like it. Yes, of course, people want to see secure borders. They do not want people who are criminals. They don't want dangerous products to come into. They don't want drugs to come into our country. But it is highly unpopular. So I think that the thing that's missing is in your question. What I'm responding to is we ought to be able to meet the needs of Americans and what they want, and that's not been happening.

[Jeff Flake]

Well, I don't disagree with your, you know, the immigration overreach. I think it is significantly, you know, talk about going after criminals. Everybody wants that, but he's gone far beyond that. Every president coming in exaggerates the mandate that they were given. And they're usually usually given a whoopin in the midterm elections coming up, almost always. This time it'll be significant, I think. And so you'll have now a period of divided government, which I, as a fiscal conservative concerned about debt and whatever else am looking forward to. Divided government is generally more fiscally prudent government, but it also, and maybe inspires.

[Tina Smith]

That it does that collaboration and compromises.

[Jeff Flake]

Precisely because no president thinks that they can get it all. They may be able to get all what they think they're going to get for a couple of years, but then the pendulum swings, and we're seeing that swing in a big way. And that's I wrote a piece the other day called the Great Migration Has Begun, GOP migration. We're seeing it on a few things. Marjorie Taylor Greene, A few outliers.

[Tina Smith]

There's cracks in the facade.

[Jeff Flake]

There are. There are. But now, when people realize that it's popular now to be against the president on a couple of issues and they will need to in order to survive Some of these generals coming up. You'll see a different attitude coming up.

[Joe Manchin]

The Democrats have lost registered Democrats. And what happened immigration, this immigration push and how tough he got on immigration is the greatest cover he could ever ask for because he says, did you like what you had? That's what you get. And we've got. And the Democrats could have said, listen, we made a mistake. We made a mistake on the border. We want to work with the president, but we want him to work with us on legal immigration.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I don't want to get too much on a tangent on immigration, but immigration, you're right, has been an enormous failure of Congress. I mean, there has not been immigration reform for a very long time. And that has allowed both parties actually, in different ways, to make it into an issue that they campaign on, they use to sway people. Obama used it with the DACA issue, and we're seeing President Trump use it.

[Joe Manchin]

As well in 2013. What happened in 2013? John Boehner. You need to talk to John Boehner. Why it didn't go on the floor?

[Interviewer/Moderator]

This is the issue. There's always a reason why it doesn't go on the floor, and there's always a reason why it doesn't get resolved. But that is the actual question here. Again, coming back to this idea of when things have really moved in the Senate, it's because a party has said, we are going to put, put all of our power behind this issue, whether it be Obamacare or something else, and we're going to make this a priority for us. Or am I wrong about that?

[Jeff Flake]

You could make the alternate argument, which I would make with Obamacare, that swung too far. And if you look at the next election, I mean, Democrats got clocked, took the shellacking that President Obama famously said, because I think that was moving too far. They shouldn't have tried to just push it through even with 60. They should have got a few Republican vot and had a better product in the end. So I don't know that. Do you agree with that estimation?

[Tina Smith]

Well, so it's interesting because now today, the Affordable Care act is one of the like. I mean, it's very popular, people like it, and I strongly support it. But there's an element here of accountability. The Democrats pass it with a bear, you know, with 60. And then you could argue if you didn't agree with that legislation, we got held accountable. Accountable because people saw what we did and they told us what they thought. A lot of times, I think that the filibuster and the rules of The Senate broadly mask that accountability because you can advocate for something, but you never actually get it done. And then you're never really held accountable for what you're advocating for. And as a result, nothing ever really changes. But what happens is you have these, like, passionate arguments on Fox News and MSNBC about what you really wanted to do if only the other side had left.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I mean, it really is sort of astonishing that we're still having this discussion so many years after it passed.

[Joe Manchin]

Well, no one wants to fix it. They just want to talk about and defend it.

[Tina Smith]

I mean, the Affordable Care act was basically a piece of pretty important insurance reform. It changed the rules around how insurance companies could provide insurance and what they had to do. But it never really got at the core underlying problem, which is that health care costs too much in this country. And do you take though Senator Flake's.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Point that it would have been better legislation if they would have waited some more and talked to Republicans, or do you think nothing would have happened at all?

[Tina Smith]

Well, I mean, it's so hard for me to know because I wasn't there in the moment. And I always am of the mind. You try to figure out what is the best possible thing that you can do and if you can do. And trying to do that in a bipartisan way is always, I think, the right approach, if you can put it together. But, you know, how long do you have to wait before you can get to the bipartisan agreement? If you see something that you think is really gonna be good, I think you have to do it.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I wanna end with this question about how much power the Senate has right now, because as you've discussed, they've ceded control over tariffs, but also over foreign affairs. I mean, there's uproar over the double tap strike on a boat allegedly carrying drugs. And we've seen a group of Democratic lawmake send a video message to the military urging them to ignore illegal orders. There are marines, There are Navy ships in the Caribbean. Now, I mean, do you feel like the Senate's response to the very real questions about what we're doing in and around Venezuela is sufficient? And why isn't there more oversight? Why isn't there more questioning of something? Again, that was a core purview of the senior Senate?

[Jeff Flake]

Yeah, that's been the frustrating thing. Yeah. I do think that this double tap strike, the second strike, particularly if that video is released, I mean, there will be revulsion, I think, on most Americans part. Sure, they want a strong response on drugs, but you can have that with Some kind of humanity as well, and this wasn't it. And so I do think that that's coming. But it has been frustrating because in all areas of foreign policy, whether it's tariffs, whether it's war powers, whether it's support for Ukraine, there's a bill in the senate now with 85 co sponsors that the Senate could, if it wanted to assert itself, pass that veto proof bill. And there are sufficient votes in the House too, but they just haven't because they're afraid of what the president can do to them.

[Joe Manchin]

Bottom line is, is that Pete Hegseth. I think someone needs to ask them. Your commander in chief. The president said he wanted to, he'd like people to see the second, the rest of the video.

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Video.

[Joe Manchin]

Do you not take that seriously? You're not obeying the commander in chief's.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

Would you like to see the senators do more from both parties?

[Joe Manchin]

Sure. They have to do more. Both parties. The senators have to do their job. There's not another body can fix this. The House is not going to fix it. Okay, forget about that. It's. The Senate can fix it. The Senate can right the ship and it can, if it does its job. And they have to come to the grips that are they waiting for another election to see what's going to happen in the midterms or is it so serious right now? We just need to do something. Something. And I'm praying to God that we can put the politics aside and reach across for the sake of the country and do the right thing. And we'll see if that happens.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

You miss it?

[Joe Manchin]

Not at all. And the reason I don't miss it is from the standpoint, I could tell that I could get more done on the outside than I can on the inside. I've been there for a long time in the senate for almost 15 years, tried everything humanly possible to make those changes. So I think I can maybe give a little voice to that from this side. Better than I could from the inside side.

[Jeff Flake]

No, I miss some things. I miss the people.

[Joe Manchin]

Oh yeah, we miss that.

[Jeff Flake]

Oh, yeah. And, and I, like I said, I, I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay another. I didn't get defeated. But I knew that in order to win reelection, I would have to change who I was and say things that I didn't believe.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

So what's an unvarnished truth that you weren't able to say then that you could say now?

[Jeff Flake]

Well, I can say that most of my former colleagues don't agree with the policies they're pursuing on tariffs and foreign policy and this Venezuela stuff. They don't.

[Joe Manchin]

That's correct.

[Jeff Flake]

The political incentives are not aligned with them to speak truth to power here. That's the bottom line. Like I said, I think that's shifting. But as of now, you know re election is a strong poll.

[Interviewer/Moderator]

I want to thank you so much for your time. This has been really enlightening. I really appreciate it. Thank you all again. Thank you.

[Jeff Flake]

Lilla Foreign.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

That's Senators Jeff Flake, Joe Manchin and Tina Smith. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube [e-mail] betheinterview podcast this conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon. Mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Dan Powell, Alicia Baish and Marian Lozano Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya, Matthew Wyatt, Orem, Paola Neudorf, Andrew Karpinski, Eddie Costas and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Alison Benedikt. Next week, David talks with Palestinian lawyer and writer Raja Shahade.

[Joe Manchin]

I used to be able to speak to the settlers or to the army in the west bank and have a conversation with them and ask them why are they doing this? And so on. And now it's impossible.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro and this is the interview from the New York Times.

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