Jim Justice sees backing Trump as his Senate mandate
WASHINGTON — West Virginia's new Republican senator, Jim Justice, is already unmissable in the Capitol — standing 6-feet-7, moving around the complex using a bright red mobility scooter and never far from his 62-pound bulldog, Babydog.
But don't expect him to start his time in Washington as a key swing vote like his predecessor.
Justice replaced Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Joe Manchin, who was one of the most influential — and unpredictable — members of the Senate. Manchin regularly frustrated his party by breaking with Democrats over key priorities, but he was also a bipartisan dealmaker who helped broker significant legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, which appropriated funding for projects in his state.
So far, Justice is more inclined to follow the lead of his party leader, who, as he did, carried West Virginia by 40-plus points in November.
'At the end of the day,' Justice said, President Donald Trump 'will make the right decision.'
But he was adamant that he won't go along with everything Trump wants to do, saying he plans to evaluate Trump's agenda piece by piece while calling him a personal friend and a 'good man' who 'cares' about the American people.
'I didn't come here to be a rubber stamp. If you wanted that, you could just get Babydog to vote all the time, you know?' Justice said in an interview, pointing to the droolly sidekick seated in a chair next to him. 'But at the same time, I'm going to be very supportive, because my values are conservative values.'
He defended the Trump administration's sweeping pause on foreign and domestic aid, the latter of which could certainly affect his state, one of the poorest in the country.
'The way you tackle a problem is first of all, you freeze everything, you stop everything for a time period where you can really get your hands around it and make the right decisions,' he said, adding that West Virginians are 'not confused' about the halted programs and that they trust and support Trump, who got 70% of the vote in the November election.
'Do you really, honestly, believe that President Trump is going to take away the free lunches of kids? There's no way. There's no possibility,' he argued.
'I really am a commonsense guy, all about reason and logic,' Justice said. 'I'm going to be respectful to both sides of the aisle all the time. I will be the guy that absolutely believes at the end of the day, Washington, in so many ways, needs what I'm talking about.'
Justice was first elected statewide in 2016, winning the governorship as a Democrat but changing parties the next year. Before he served eight years as governor, he was known as the heir to a West Virginia coal company, Bluestone. He campaigned on boosting American energy production when he ran for the Senate.
'Energy is our best defense mechanism,' he said, acknowledging that Trump's proposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China 'could' have a negative impact on West Virginia, where coal and petroleum are the top exports.
With the departures of Manchin and other moderate dealmakers like Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema and Utah's Mitt Romney, the Senate lost some of its most prominent regular aisle-crossers after 2024. Republican leadership recruited Justice to run for Manchin's seat, but he said Tuesday he 'would have gladly been the governor of West Virginia for 10 more terms if I could live that long.'
Some of Trump's ideas could cause issues back home. West Virginia has one of the highest percentages of Medicare beneficiaries in the country, and potential cuts to entitlements to pay for border security and tax cuts could be a significant damper on the state's aging population.
Justice said he doesn't believe cuts to Medicare and Social Security are really on the table.
'I really believe that it's almost impossible to cut your way out of a problem,' he said. 'As far as making just wholesale cuts on things that people really, really depend on, I don't think it'll ever happen.'
Asked whether he would vote against cuts to programs his constituents rely on, Justice said, 'We'll see.'
'If we're just cutting in the bone to cut in the bone, I'm not there,' he added. 'But if we're eliminating just waste, I'm there 100%.'
Trump's executive orders to pause the disbursement of funds from the Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act could also have sweeping impacts on West Virginia, which received millions from the bills Manchin secured.
When Justice was governor, he ushered in a hydrogen energy hub, ARCH2, with a $925 million federal investment granted to his state through the Inflation Reduction Act. The Appalachian hub is expected to bring 18,000 jobs to the state.
Trump has also floated repealing that law in its entirety, but Justice, who said he embraces 'all forms' of energy, said: 'I really believe that President Trump will make the right moves.
'He'll make the right moves on the chess board, but we've got to give him time to get his arms around it. You can't get your arms around if it's a moving target,' he said.
Justice, who has been in the Senate for less than two weeks, has already missed two votes — both on amendments related to the Laken Riley Act. Justice blamed his absences on being new to Washington and not knowing about the votes.
'The votes I missed, you know, I guess we were, we were new to what we were doing here. It's hard to imagine that nobody on my staff had any idea that the votes were going to happen, or I'd have been there, you know. I had no idea,' he said.
Attendance issues aren't new for Justice. When he was governor, he declined to live in the state capital, Charleston, a violation of the state constitution that ultimately resulted in a lawsuit.
Justice said he's not interested in 'a gold star' for perfect attendance in his new job. Instead, he said, he's focusing on results for his state.
'I don't sit down there in Charleston and just rack up the gold stars. I'm out with the people, because I believe the people are what need me more than anything,' he said.
'I love West Virginia, and I love our people beyond good sense, you know, but at the end of the day, I'm made up with being a patriot. ... I don't need a hot tip, or I don't need the next invite to the Oval Office or the next invite to some fancy party or whatever, maybe. I don't want anything for me.' he added.
Justice, 73, committed to serve out his full term and even raised the possibility of running for re-election: 'I'm going to do it. You know, as long as the good Lord gives me the ability to be here.'
As for Babydog, Justice doesn't plan to introduce legislation that would make it possible for the 5-year-old bulldog, who regularly eats the same meals he does (including chicken nuggets and steak and egg biscuits), to join him on the Senate floor as he casts his votes.
Babydog 'loves everybody,' Justice said. 'It doesn't matter if you're Black or white or rich or poor — God forbid, a Republican or Democrat — she loves everybody.'
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