Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Departing West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor paying tribute to longtime friend and Senate colleague Joe Manchin as he bids farewell to the Senate in his retirement. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

This afternoon, another dear colleague of ours will give his farewell address, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. It fills me with great pleasure, and a little sadness, to say a few words here in his honor.

Every now and then, you get to work with someone who reminds us that politics, just like practically all other pursuits of life, is deceivingly simple. It’s about relationships, about strong partnerships, about strong beliefs. And it takes having good friends in this place to get difficult things done.

So today, I wish to pay tribute to a very dear friend, one of my closest friends in the Senate – even when we disagreed we stayed friendly and stayed good friends – and of course a longtime colleague: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Now, on the surface, Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer will appear to have little in common. For one, Joe was born in Farmington, West Virginia, a coal mining town of around 400 people. I was of course born in Brooklyn, where you can walk past 400 people before breakfast.

Joe’s family on his father’s side traces their lineage to hilly enclaves of the Calabria region of Italy. Much of my family, meanwhile, comes from Galicia, in modern day Ukraine.

And while Joe got a scholarship to play football at West Virginia University – he was going to be a great star until he was injured – I was cut from the college basketball team on day one. The coach asked could I dribble, I said it's not my strong suit, sir. He said go home.

Beneath the surface, however, Joe and I have some unexpected common links.

We both have grandparents whose lives were shaped in dramatic ways by union life – my grandfather went as far as helping his employees form a union in Utica, while his grandfather, sadly, was fired for trying to organize a union in Farmington.

Both of our fathers were small business owners. Joe’s dad took over the family grocery store – where Joe himself worked for much of his early years – while my dad ran an exterminating business.

And both our families found home within communities where everyone knew your name and where hard times forced everyone to come together.

For Joe’s family, it was the awful day that the Manchin Grocery store burned down. When Joe has recalls the incident, he has said that moment taught him the value of persistence – that’s something my dad always talked about – and the importance of leaning on your community to rebuild from tragedy. That’s something any New Yorker will relate to.

So yes, it is these common threads that fill me today with gratitude. These are the links that shape who Joe Manchin the public servant is at his core: someone whose wants to keep alive the very same American dream his family got to enjoy – a place where hard work, community, and equal opportunity are the keys to a better life.

Some of the biggest accomplishments of the past few years would not have gotten done without Joe’s help. He was always able to reach across the aisle to help us achieve the kind of bipartisan legislation we're so proud of in these past two Senates.

Without him, we could not have gotten the Inflation Reduction Act done. He was a persistent, he was a tiger on that one. He and I got alone together, in one week, we sat in a room, a little room, and no one knew we were negotiating the IRA. Joe didn't want anyone to know because he would be besieged by people. And so we sat in that room, day in and day out. And all of a sudden, the legislation, after no one knew we were doing it, popped out. As a result, so much was accomplished in a very positive way, tax breaks to help clean energy evolve, and it's growing beyond what either of us thought. This was the first major legislation in decades that lowered the cost of prescription drugs. There was Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer, close friends, colleagues, with a mission: get this done. And we did it in that little room all alone.

At the same time, Senator Manchin was always reminding us that deficit reduction was important. And in the IRA, which he appropriately named the Inflation Reduction Act, for every dollar we invested we also saved towards cutting down the deficit through this bill, to Joe’s great credit, the IRA did.

Joe was also an important player on a number of other key bipartisan wins, like the gun safety bill and infrastructure legislation. Under our majority, even though we had lots of disagreements and a few fights – not physical, he would’ve clobbered me in those – Joe Manchin has been an invaluable partner, a dedicated public servant, and a dear friend until the end.

Of course, Joe and I didn’t always agree on everything. After all, who here thinks New York and West Virginia will agree all the time?

Despite these disagreements, what mattered was this: no matter the issue, I always knew that Joe would be true to who he was, to put the people of West Virginia first, and to seek consensus even if there was just a shred of an opportunity. He was so persistent at it and that's why he was as successful as he was. These things I will always cherish about serving with the Senator from West Virginia.

But also, we were just close friends, aside from politics. We talked to each other all the time. We knew each other’s phone numbers by heart. That 304 number popped up on my phone more than just about any other. And we had some great times together. Some of the happiest times I had in the Senate were on Joe Manchin's boat. He would bring in great Italian food and then he'd turn on his sound system and we all would be singing, Democrats and Republicans, hits from the 50's, 60's, 70's. Joe would just play the first two or three notes and then we'd have to guess what the song was. We were both pretty good at it. What great times they were.

Joe’s the kind of friend who always breaks tension with a sudden joke, the kind of colleague who breaks gridlock with a helping hand, and the kind of public servant who breaks cynicism by reminding everyone that what we do here, we do for the people back home.

So Joe, thank you for the many good years of partnership in this chamber. As you know, I tried to recruit you successfully when you first ran, and you've had great service to our country since then. And I hope you don't regret that I recruited you and you came here. I am a sure you don't, because you've done so much and made so many good friends. Joe, thank you for all you’ve done serving our country, serving the people of West Virginia. We wish the best to you, Gayle, to your beautiful family which you always talk about, and to all the people of West Virginia, who you so admirably serve.

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