Latest news with #JoeManchin
Wall Street Journal
a day ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
No Message From Democrats
Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.) says Democrats can't win by being anti-Trump alone and that the party needs a positive vision for the future ('Democrats Do Know How to Save Themselves,' Letters, July 24). He then launches into a tirade against President Trump, while offering no vision for the future. Today's Democratic vision encompasses socialism, high taxes, open borders, sanctuary cities, identity politics, reparations, softness on crime, feckless foreign policy and other bad ideas that led former Sen. Joe Manchin to say recently, 'It's not the Democratic Party that I knew or that I was a part of for many, many years.' Democrats don't have a winning message because of their progressive policies.
Fox News
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Few presidents have bowed out like Biden. Historians explain what it means
Weeks after former President Joe Biden went head-to-head against now-President Donald Trump, Biden announced exactly a year ago, July 21, 2024, that he would bow out of the race — an unprecedented decision that led to a series of 2024 election plot twists. Biden's announcement came amid increasing pressure from his own party to step aside following his debate performance against Trump June 27, 2024, in Atlanta, where Biden struggled to answer seemingly basic questions. Biden's last-minute decision to exit the race rendered costly consequences for his party and his legacy — at least in the near future, according to experts. "The way Biden handled his infirmity and his reluctant exit from the race will be devastating for his legacy," Tevi Troy, presidential historian and the former deputy secretary of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush, said in an email to Fox News Digital Thursday. "While Biden was once known as the person who slayed the dragon that Democrats see as Trump, he will now forevermore be known as the person who allowed the dragon to return." Even after his rough debate performance, Biden dug his heels in and refused to immediately hand over the baton to another candidate. Initially, Biden, along with his White House and his campaign, said that ending his run for reelection was off the table, and that he wanted to face Trump in November 2024. But after calls from Democrat leaders, including former Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Biden finally issued a statement claiming that he believed "it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term." As a result, Biden endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to take his place in the race. "I think it's very difficult to separate the fact that he bowed out from the fact that he did so belatedly and only after his disastrous debate performance," Alex Keyssar, a history professor at Harvard Kennedy School of public policy, said in an email to Fox News Digital. "That is true now and will also be true for his legacy for quite a while. "He is seen as someone who made an enormous mistake — remaining as a candidate when he could have withdrawn six months earlier — and a mistake that may well have cost his party the presidential election," Keyssar said. Few presidents have chosen not to run for reelection, and even fewer have chosen to do so in the middle of a presidential campaign. The departure from the race marked the first time a presidential candidate had done so in nearly 60 years. Those who've called off their presidential bids in the middle of the campaign season include former presidents Harry S. Truman, who bowed out amid low polling, and Lyndon B. Johnson, who announced he wouldn't run again amid tensions stemming from the Vietnam War and fractures within his own party. Even so, they each withdrew from the race months ahead of Biden. "Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson both pulled out of reelection efforts in late March," Troy said. "Joe Biden did it in late July, throwing the Democratic Party into turmoil." "While incumbents generally have the advantage in running for reelection, the history of incumbent parties after the incumbent chooses to drop out late is not great: Truman's, Johnson's and Biden's party lost in each of the elections in question," Troy said. Since Biden pulled out of the race, multiple books have been written detailing Biden's final days in office, his deteriorating mental faculties, and challenges within the Democratic Party as a result of his decision to withdraw from the election. Additionally, multiple investigations are ongoing on Capitol Hill concerning Biden's mental decline. For example, the House Oversight Committee is examining the cover-up of Biden's cognitive decline and potentially unauthorized executive actions taken during his presidency. Biden's presidential approval rating reached a high of 57% from January 2021 to April 2021 after he first took office, but dropped to a low of 36% in July 2024, according to Gallup. Even so, Keyssar predicted that time would soften public opinion toward Biden's presidency. "As an historian, looking further into the future, I can imagine that his legacy will become more positive, as historians and other analysts focus more on his achievements in office and his basic decency as a person," Keyssar said.
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Watch: Manchin testifies before House on China, critical minerals
Former Sen. Joe Manchin ( returned to Capitol Hill Monday to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on China's critical minerals supply chain and U.S. competitiveness. Manchin, who now serves on the board of critical minerals producer Ramaco Resources, retired from Congress in January. Once considered the most moderate Democrat in the upper chamber, the staunch supporter of oil and gas later decided to leave the party and file as an independent. Tuesday's hearing came weeks after President Trump announced a framework for a deal with China that focuses on rare earth exports to the U.S., building on previous talks between the nations that eased tariffs on imports from Beijing. The event was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EDT. Watch the video above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
15-07-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Watch live: Manchin testifies before House on China, critical minerals
Former Sen. Joe Manchin ( will return to Capitol Hill Monday to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on China's critical minerals supply chain and U.S. competitiveness. Manchin, who now serves on the board of critical minerals producer Ramaco Resources, retired from Congress in January. Once considered the most moderate Democrat in the upper chamber, the staunch supporter of oil and gas later decided to leave the party and file as an independent. Tuesday's hearing comes weeks after President Trump announced a framework for a deal with China that focuses on rare earth exports to the U.S., building on previous talks between the nations that eased tariffs on imports from Beijing. The event is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. EDT.
The Independent
11-07-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Wyoming's first new coal mine in decades to extract rare earths
The developer of what would be the first new coal mine in Wyoming in decades is launching a potentially half-billion-dollar effort to extract rare earth metals from the fossil fuel that are crucial for tech products and military hardware. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, former West Virginia U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, and Wyoming's congressional delegation were expected at a Friday groundbreaking ceremony for Ramaco Resources, Inc.'s Brook Mine outside Ranchester in northeastern Wyoming. Wright's involvement underscores President Donald Trump 's determination to advance fossil fuel projects and mining and reverse former President Joe Biden 's moves to support for renewable energy. Administration officials on Monday moved toward selling federal coal leases in the top U.S. coal-producing region in northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. On Thursday, officials announced a proposal in Utah that they said would be the first coal exploration project on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property since 2019. Those moves came on the heels of legislation signed last week that lowered royalty payments for companies mining coal on public lands and mandated officials make available for potential mining an area greater in size than Connecticut. Meanwhile, local officials in Utah hope the administration will support plans to build a railroad spur to boost oil drilling. A coalition of eastern Utah counties wants Trump's Transportation Department to approve $2.4 billion in bonds for the 88-mile (140-kilometer) spur to export oil from the Uinta Basin, a project that may proceed after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. On Friday, the minerals capturing the administration's attention were not just coal but rare earths — a family of 17 metallic elements with unusual properties that make them useful in modern technology, from electric car batteries and wind turbines to military targeting devices. The only operating U.S. rare earths mine is at Mountain Pass in California. Nearly all of the nation's supply comes from China, the source of nearly 90% of the world's supply. Rare earths aren't especially rare but so scattered they are difficult to bring together in useful quantities. Concern about continued access to them has been a focus of recent negotiations between China and the U.S., and led the Trump administration to try to encourage more production domestically. 'We would intend to mine it here in Wyoming, process it here in Wyoming and sell it to domestic customers including the government,' Ramaco CEO Randall Atkins said Thursday. Manchin, who left office in January after not seeking re-election, joined the Ramaco board in April. The new Brook Mine, though relatively small, offers a glimmer of optimism for Wyoming's coal industry as potentially the state's first new coal mine in 50 years. Massive, open-pit mines east of the Brook Mine supply around 40% of the nation's coal but Wyoming coal mining has shrunk substantially since its peak over a decade ago, as utilities switch to renewable energy and power plants fueled by cheaper natural gas. The Brook Mine has been in the works for over a decade, stalled in part by landowners worried about groundwater depletion. Atkins originally envisioned it as a source of subbituminous power plant fuel like the state's other coal mines. A public company with metallurgical coal mines in Appalachia, Ramaco in recent years received Department of Energy grants to develop coal into carbon-based products such as carbon fiber. This year, it got a $6.1 million grant from Wyoming to build a rare earth and critical minerals processing plant. A consultant report released this week found that fully developing the mine and processing plant to extract rare earths would cost $533 million, a sum that could be recovered in five years if the elements in the coal prove profitable. Ramaco also would sell the processed coal as fuel, Atkins said. Analysis by U.S. national laboratories show the Brook Mine coal contains valuable quantities of the rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium, as well as the critical minerals gallium, scandium and germanium, according to a Ramaco letter to shareholders on July 1. Neodymium and dysprosium are used in the permanent magnets of wind turbines, lanthanum in electric and hybrid car batteries. Yttrium and terbium have critical military uses, including in targeting devices.
