On Sunday’s The Weekend on MSNBC, co-host Jonathan Capehart blew a gasket after the show’s interview with ex-Democrat turned independent former Senator Joe Manchin for complaining about the Democratic party moving too far left and trying to eliminate the filibuster. He can’t tolerate an opposing viewpoint.
As the interview began, Capehart quoted from Manchin’s book, Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense, and predicted that some would “have their heads explode” at some of his criticism of Democrats as the ones undermining norms:
I want to read you to you. You write in your book … “I don’t say this lightly, but under the leadership of President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid, and later President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrats have systematically tried to weaken the very guardrails that have protected our democracy for generations — all in the name of advancing their agenda.”
The MSNBC host then posed:
Now, Senator, there are a lot of people who are going to hear that and read that and have their heads explode, especially given what we have seen this current President and his administration do to the guardrails you say have been weakened by their Democratic predecessors. What — how can you say that given what we’ve seen from the Trump administration both Trump 1.0 and 2.0?
As co-host Jackie Alemany followed up, Manchin recalled that in recent years Republicans have tried to preserve the Senate filibuster as Democrats tried to end it completely.
After the interview concluded and there was a commercial break, one had to wonder what the three hosts were saying off air as Capehart appeared exasperated with co-host Eugene Daniels letting out a giggle in reaction. Here’s Capehart:
Can we just talk about Senator Joe Manchin and that interview and his book? I read that what he said about guardrails and him blaming Democratic leaders for “weakening the very guardrails that have protected our democracy for generations.” I’m sorry, Senator, have you forgotten about the fact that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat? Or that it was the Republicans that did the nuclear option that made it possible for Supreme Court justices to be confirmed by a simple majority?
Capehart could not acknowledge that Democrats were the first ones to end the filibuster for most federal judicial nominations before Republicans ended it for Supreme Court nominations. He then accused Manchin of “willful ignorance” as he added: “To lay the blame on Presidents Biden and Obama and Majority Leaders Reid and Schumer, I think, is just, I don’t know, a willful ignorance or wanting to not pay attention to all the factors that have gotten us to this point. I’m done.”
Transcript follows:
MSNBC’s The Weekend
September 21, 2025
8:33 a.m. Eastern
JONATHAN CAPEHART: I want to read you to you. You write in your book — and this is element three for the control room. “I don’t say this lightly, but under the leadership of President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid, and later President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrats have systematically tried to weaken the very guardrails that have protected our democracy for generations — all in the name of advancing their agenda.”
Now, Senator, there are a lot of people who are going to hear that and read that and have their heads explode, especially given what we have seen this current President and his administration do to the guardrails you say have been weakened by their Democratic predecessors. What — how can you say that given what we’ve seen from the Trump administration both Trump 1.0 and 2.0?
(…)
JACKIE ALEMANY: Senator, I want to get to the beginning of your answer and just push back a little bit because you seem to be talking about ideology and political beliefs which is not incongruent with being an institutionalist. And so when you look at when you say Republicans are the keeper and the maintain — have been in charge of maintaining the guardrails of the Senate —
MANCHIN: Hold on, I didn’t say that, Jackie. I didn’t say that at all.
ALEMANY: You write that you — you said that — you paint the Republican party as the keeper of institutional guardrails in the book.
MANCHIN: Okay, hold on, can I explain that real quick?
ALEMANY: Yeah.
MANCHIN: That’s because of the filibuster. You get rid of the filibuster, and you’ve lost all civility, what little bit we have left, we’ve lost it all in the political arena, especially in the Senate. The Senate is designed for the minority to have input — for the minority to be able to have input and make decisions with the majority. That’s been evaporated, and the Democrats have openly said, “I will get rid of the filibuster if we become into power.” Kamala Harris said she would get rid of the filibuster. That’s what set me off —
ALEMANY: Filibuster aside, though, filibuster aside, when you’re looking at what’s happened just in the past year in the past few months — election denialism, attempts to block congressional oversight, undermining U.S. intelligence agencies —
MANCHIN: All wrong.
ALEMANY: — and law enforcement, the ceding of institutional authority to expand presidential power — do you still stand by your original assessment?
(…)
8:45 a.m. Eastern
CAPEHART: Can we just talk about Senator Joe Manchin and that interview and his book? I read that what he said about guardrails and him blaming Democratic leaders for “weakening the very guardrails that have protected our democracy for generations.” I’m sorry, Senator, have you forgotten about the fact that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat? Or that it was the Republicans that did the nuclear option that made it possible for Supreme Court justices to be confirmed by a simple majority? To lay the blame on Presidents Biden and Obama and Majority Leaders Reid and Schumer, I think, is just, I don’t know, a willful ignorance or wanting to not pay attention to all the factors that have gotten us to this point. I’m done.
EUGENE DANIELS: Well, I mean, part of it is, if you are someone who is saying, “I’m here upholding the center,” right — that’s the whole point of the book and him — of course you have to find things to blame on both — things on both sides even if the evidence shows, as Jackie was outlining in her question, that there’s a lot more happening on one side than the other, right? And there is — we get accused of false equivalence — not us three, but I mean the media gets accused of false equivalence all the time from Democrats who are frustrated with these kind of conversations. And there was a — there was a lot of that.
ALEMANY: I would just offer that maybe Senator Manchin should read Project 2025 if he would like to see all of the institutional guard rails that Republicans would like to tear down, and Congress itself is a shell of what it has been in the past. I mean, we have conversations all the time about how the erosion to our institutions might be irreparable in some ways.
