He said much the same thing discussed in the Daily Kos article. He also said that he had gotten a lot of questions on single payer in the town halls in Martinsburg, Charleston, and here in Huntington, and that he was directing his staff to hold another town hall specifically on that subject.
The biggest dissension at the meeting concerned his votes for Sessions and Pruitt. He defended his votes by talking about the three criteria that he required (background check, and two other things that I don't remember at the moment), as well as his conversations with the candidate. He has known Sessions for six years, and has never heard any racist remarks from him. Joe also knew that his vote didn't really matter, because all of the Republicans intended to vote for Sessions. When all of the mess about Sessions' contacts with the Russians came out, Manchin went to Sessions to insist that he recuse himself on any investigations of Russian contacts with the election crew, transition team, or Trump government. Sessions listened to him, as Manchin was the only Democrat who had voted for him. A slightly thin excuse, but I can live with it.
The thing about Manchin is that he is willing to listen, and even, to change. You have to give him reasons. He was usually a stanch supporter of Planned Parenthood, till the edited videos from James O'Keefe came out, the ones that "proved" that PP sold body parts of fetuses for profit. When the proof of O'Keefe's lies came out, Manchin returned to PP support. Joe really seems to be affected by personal stories. One of the speakers in Huntington was the mother of a young woman who overdosed and was revived back in August of 2016. The mother tried for 41 days to get her daughter into an in-bed rehab facility, away from the daughter's druggie boyfriend. She heard back from the first group three days after her daughter's death from another overdose. She heard from another facility six months later. Joe took her testimony, and intends to read it on the Senate floor.
I know that the "purists" here at DU want to primary Manchin with some holier-than-thou, way left of Bernie Sanders type. That's a no starter. The thing to do is re-elect Manchin in 2018, and then continue to feed him the data on the positions that we would like him to support. He was particularly moved by the speakers in Huntington who told their personal stories about healthcare. His staff took their names and contact information, and Manchin would like to use them to sell the public and Congress on the reasons to keep (but repair!) the ACA.
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