Stonewall Manchin

Over the first five months of Joe Biden’s Presidency, with the Democrats holding the slimmest possible majority in the Senate, Biden has consistently run into the resistance of one man: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Biden’s policy agenda requires coöperation from every Democrat in the Senate, but Manchin, a moderate who values bipartisanship above almost all else, has broken with the President on staff appointments, raising the corporate tax rate, and eliminating the filibuster, and he has forced the Democrats to change legislation on COVID relief and election reform. Evan Osnos joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss Manchin’s emergence as the most powerful man in the Senate, and how Biden is attempting to get him on board.