tonight, straight from the source, joe manchin is an outgoing senator. but is he also an outgoing democrat? i asked him that question directly tonight as he now says that he would consider a bid for the white house while insisting he is not going to be a spoiler. president biden just wrapped up a crucial press conference in san francisco after meeting with china's president and fielding questions about israel's war with hamas, backing up israel's claim that there's a hamas command and control center beneath the largest hospital in gaza. nikki haley partially walking back a campaign pledge made just yesterday after setting off a firestorm over suggesting a ban on anonymous social media users. this is "the source." tonight, we begin with our one on one with senator joe manchin who is not running for re-election in the senate but considering running for president. amid a lot of speculation about what he has planned next, he is openly acknowledging that he is, quote absolutely considering a potential run for president. he is dismissing concerns, a lot coming out of the white house right now, that he could be a spoiler for president biden. manchin's departure from the senate is threatening to shake up the balance of power on capitol hill. democrats there have a slim two-seat majority in the senate. let's go straight to the source tonight. joining me now is democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia. senator, thank you for being here. senator schumer -- >> thanks for having me. i appreciate it. >> thank you for being here and for your time. as you know as well as i do, senator schumer wanted you to run again. you announced that you are not going to be doing so. do you think democrats can keep the senate majority without you? >> he with will see. here is the thing. everybody is worried about the majority. i understand that. it does set the committees and sets the agenda. it still takes 60. it takes 60 to pass something. every senator has a tremendous amount of power, whether you are in the majority or minority. majority is the best place to be. we will see. we have good people. >> there's a lot of key races. you have talked a lot in your time on capitol hill about bipartisanship in the senate. senator mcconnell praised you for saving the filibuster, which he said preserved the senate. then he flew to west virginia and directly recruited your most formidable challenger. do you feel betrayed by that? >> that's politics. this is not the most honorable profession in the world anymore. with that being said, it's all about the next election and it's all about the party system. that's the problem. the business of politics has gotten so big because the business model is a democratic business and a republican business. they forgot about the people. all they want is 51 or greater to be in the majority. then they do so much damage trying to get there that when they get there, they are not close to 60. if you want to get something done, you have to have 60. it's a horrible situation when every time you are in cycle, you are up, it could be one of your better friends only the other side. if you have a d by your time, an r by your name, you are supposed to be against the other person. it never used to be like that. it used to be an unwritten rule. now, this is fair game. there's no way that where we come from, whether alabama or west virginia, that you try to get someone fired every day you go to work and expect they will be your best friend next week. it doesn't work. >> that makes it sound like -- are you going to leave the democratic party? >> you know, i'm -- i don't know if i -- i never considered myself a washington democrat. i've been an independent person. >> does that -- that sounds like you are leaving. >> well, no. you have a d or r by your name, it shouldn't identify who you are. if you change who you are because you change, you have a d, then you have an r, or i, people go back and forth, it's more for the person's political than more for what the person is. i'm interest thinking. i vote interest. >> you are considering that? >> sure. absolutely. >> is it likely you will leave the democratic party? >> i'm sure they might throw me out. who knows? i don't know. >> since you made your announcement last week, have you spoken to president biden? >> i have not spoken to him. i got a nice note from him. he has been traveling quite a bit. i'm sure we will be talking. >> what did you make of his statement that he did put out? he was tieing you to all of his big accomplishments that he has had in office. it seemed like he was sending a clear message with that statement. >> the clear message is this, nothing would have happened without bipartisanship. i've been leading the charge on bipartisanship on every piece of legislation. i'm happy that they think some of it has been good. i'm not pleased with how they are trying to implement the ira. i've been keeping -- holding their feet to the fire on that. we have done some great things. we did that with a 50/50 senate. that senate, it was started by bipartisanship, myself, susan collins, mitt romney. we worked on all the bills. we wanted to make sure the insurrection never happened again. then you go down the line. bipartisan infrastructure. it was pulled out -- i pulled that out of the bbb because it was something we truly had to have. we hadn't fixed any of our infrastructure for 30 years. you look at that and you look at all the things we have done. it was unbelievable. >> you have said you were proud of that legacy, not just that, what you have accomplished for the people of west virginia. the question is what you are going to do next. you are very clearly exploring a third party run. are you worried that a third party run for white house could damage that legacy? >> let me just say this. everyone is talking about a third party run. i'm talking about basically trying to resurrect the middle, the moderate middle, sensible, common sense middle. i don't care what you say or what people might be thinking. they are telling me we had enough. we can't take it. it's so much -- you have donald trump normalizing attacks on human beings. anybody that doesn't agree with him he is after. i have said this, the country would be in a horrible situation challenging our democracy if he got re-elected. i said this very clearly. he believes that truly the only fair election is the one he wins. he believes that the law only applies to everybody but him. he attacks anybody that doesn't agree with him. he uses these horrible analogies of so many good americans just because they might not be in his bandwidth, if you will. it would be horrible. no truly concerned for the rule of law who we are as americans, what we are about. and that's the thing we are talking. i have been to a certain extent on president biden, he is not the person we thought that was getting elected being a moderate. he has been pushed so far to the left. if we have this movement in the middle, maybe we can pull people back to a common sense middle. this is a long run. it's not just for the next election. we're in this. we have americans together. my daughter is taking that and running with that. we will help people anywhere we find, democrat or republican, that wants to work for the betterment of the country. >> what you said there about donald trump and then you said you believe joe biden -- president biden has been pushed too far to the left. which one do you think is a bigger threat to america, a second term of donald trump? >> donald trump i think -- we would lose democracy as we know it. he has no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, who we are as a country. basically, the ordinarily transfer of power. so many problems as far as within our system that he has no regard whatsoever. >> that's the white house argument as well as to why they don't believe you should run, because they believe that if you did you would take votes from biden and represent re-elect donald trump. >> i'm not going to be a spoiler. i'm not looking for any spoilers. i'm looking for how we will govern this country from the middle. you cannot run your life from the extremes. you will not be successful. it's very difficult. you will not have a successful business if you are in extremes. you can't continue to run this country. you can't have open borders, runaway debt, the problems we have, the challenges, crime and all the things we have to fight. we have two of our allies fighting for their life in israel and ukraine that we are trying to prevent ourselves from getting pulled into a war. there's so much going on. president biden has worked well overseas with our allies. he has done a good job. right now, it's going to be serious. we have to get our financial house in order. we have to secure our borders. we have a lot of people that come here that need to have work visas to pay their own way and pay taxes rather than sucking off the system. >> you said you never want to be a spoiler. how and when would you know if that's the case? >> i think -- as i said before, this is the long run. we are out there trying to say, hey, are you happy? why did you leave? i have friends that left. why did they leave so early? are they frustrated with the system? i know their answer. i'm saying, i want them to be more public. if they can come out and start talking about what they saw, what was wrong, and what had to be fixed, then we can start building from that core again. right now, there's not that many in the middle. you know that. not that many centrists. we're not sure how they will vote. you pretty much know most will vote party line. whether democrat or republican. they never did know for me because i was going to look at the issue and vote what i thought would help my country, my state and i could go home and explain it. if i couldn't explain it, i don't care whether democrats or republicans come after me, i wasn't going to support something or be against something just because they wanted me to do it. >> you said -- you are clearly not going to vote for donald trump. you said it would be bad for democracy. you want president biden to make changes. what changes are you -- do you want to see from the white house? >> first of all, we don't know who -- we have suspected that it looks as if we will have a rematch. we don't know where that's going to go. the bottom line is that i believe that president biden has been pushed to the left. he feels like that's where the base -- where he thinks he has to go. how many times have they spoken about the inflation reduction act as an energy security. have they said about it paid down $230 billion of debt? >> are you saying you don't think president biden should run again? >> i'm not asking or telling anybody what to do. my goodness, no. i'm hoping they see there's a movement and he can come back to where he started from. that's the election in 2020. or anybody else. i want to make sure we have a movement of senators that we are bringing here, democrats and republicans, that will be happy to be in the middle because they have support. >> do you think that joe biden could beat donald trump if that's the rematch? >> i can't predict. you know what? the only poll i believe is election day poll. i'm seeing all kinds of numbers. >> if it's those two, who would you vote for? >> it looks very challenging right now. i will wait and see where we have -- who we have in this. let's see what happens. there's a lot to happen. >> you are making your decision on whether to enter the race by super tuesday? >> that's been said -- super tuesday is when you are going to know exactly who the candidates are going to be by the respective parties. democrat and republican business machine is going to make their determination what they're going to do. you will have both of them playing to the extreme. >> when do you make your determination? >> that's when anything would be starting, if there's people that we have someone that's going to run for the middle or move into the middle and make a run, that's probably when it would start. i would assume. there's no need to start before that. you don't have to be in a primary. again, i want to tell you, this is the long haul. this is beyond the 2024 election. this is '26 and '28. this is getting people to understand, there is support. the people want you to make reasonable, responsible decisions, not be party line votes. it's awful the way that we have kind of shoved people to their respective corners and expect that's the way we're going to have democracy and have any type of leadership position. i can tell you, if we don't get our act together what you saw yesterday, the behavior -- these are good people. i know them all. how they got themselves worked into a frenzy like that where they wanted to fight, calling each other names, this is not a banana republic, it's not a third world country. this is the united states of america. people are looking at us for leadership. they are looking for us as a superpower of the world to show them how civility, democracy, freedom, how you maintain it. >> senator joe manchin, as always, thank you for your time. >> thanks. i appreciate being with you. >> you heard senator manchin saying he doesn't think he would be a spoiler if he does enter the presidential race. there's a question about the history of what third party bids often have done. we will break down that interview. that's right after this. you saw president biden in san francisco wrapping up a crucial meeting with the chinese president and taking questions on israel. those highlights ahead. you just heard from senator joe manchin. he is not running for re-election, sharing his thoughts on president biden, a possible second term for former president trump, and whether or not he is considering leaving the democratic party all together. joining me now is jamal simmons, the former communications director for vice president harris and esse cupp. >> i'm sure they took them the way they take everything with senator manchin, wait and see what he actually does. i think there's a lit tle bit o theater to joe mananmanchin. i think he's a democrat. he is a legitimate democrat. he has been a democrat his entire life. the question is, does he feel like there's something in it for him running for president other than just supporting joe biden? he says the president has been pushed to the left. i'm not sure what it is that he means. he passed a lot of bipartisan legislation. he talked about some of it, including what we see with israel where he is not going to the left. i'm not sure what the too far to the left biden looks like. >> the left would not always agree. student loan debt, israel. what did you make of the comments about not just that but -- he is worried about what a donald trump second term would do to democracy. he made very clear what he thought. the question is that he could potentially help with that. >> a couple things. i found that interview -- great job. i was confused by what joe manchin was saying. he correctly identified lots of problems. extremism on both wings of the party, the threat that donald trump is to democracy. all that is true. the lack of civility. i'm not sure what he is proposing to do about it himself. he is not telling us if he is running. he is saying, we will be here in the middle. for what? i don't know who joe manchin's fans are. he was popular in west virginia, although, not popular enough now to win re-election. he isn't popular enough to win re-election in west virginia even if he leaves the democratic party. i'm not -- who are manchin's constituents, if he is contemplating a run? yes, of course, he would be a spoiler. of course. with someone like joe biden, whose poll numbers are not great, of course he would be a spoiler for a weak incumbent. >> the thinking is that if it's biden and trump, trump has a solid base of support. biden's is squishier. what do you make of the timing of him saying he believes it's around super tuesday a decision would be made. >> i have seen a lot of presidential campaigns wait to jump in. i have never seen one of them work. usually, when you want to run for president, you go out, raise money, you put a team together and you run for president. >> early. >> you don't sit around and wait to see what the wind is going to do. i worked on one of those campaigns. it's not fun. if joe manchin wants to be president, he should put it together and get into the democratic primary. he has a couple weeks left. get into the primary and see what happens along with the other folks. >> that doesn't seem to be -- if he runs -- he is making it sound like he is going to leave the democratic party. he didn't say yes outright. we pressed him on it and he made clear what he thinks about the democratic party, at least in washington. >> yes. i think obviously if he does, that's an indication that he has a -- he wants a future in politics. there's no point to leaving the party if you are going to leave office. just stay the democrat you believe you are. i think if we do see that switch, clearly he thinks he has a future either running for president or in some -- as a third party voice for maybe future elections. listen, he is a prolific fund-raiser. in the past five years he raised money from 50 billionaires, with a b. he raised a lot of money. corporations love him. fox news loves him. he has a lot more fans on the right than the left. maybe he wants to be a fund-raising juggernaut. he doesn't have no future in politics. i'm not sure he has a future as the president. >> let me say this, i think it's also pretty exciting to be wooed by everyone. everybody wants you to jump in. everybody wants to see which way you will vote. the minute you decide to run for president and it doesn't work out, the wooing ends. i think politicians like joe manchin are very aware that there's a moment where they lose the sexy. i'm not sure he wants do that. >> that's a weird image. we have breaking news that we are following. president biden just speaking. a solo press conference where he backed up israel's claim that hamas does have a headquarters underneath that hospital in gaza, the largest hospital there, that's still being raided by the idf tonight. that's ahead. breaking news tonight, as president biden wrapped up his first conversation in a year with the chinese president xi jinping. big conversations on u.s./china relations. fielding questions in the subsequent press conference on what's happening with israel and hamas. this press conference just wrapped a few moments ago. mj lee was there. you were talking to president biden about this, the high level military communication that he was having and this big headline, the first face-to-face meeting, but he was asked about israel itself and claims over intelligence that israel says it has and the u.s. has backed up about whether hamas has the command and control center under the hospital. what did he tell you? >> reporter: yeah, the very end i tried asking president biden whether he was absolutely confident about the claims that there is a hamas command center under that hospital. he unequivocally said, yes, he was confident. when i pressed him on whether there was anything he could share in terms of details proving that, he said, that's not something that he could talk about. clearly, we are seeing here u.s. officials having to ask -- answer questions about israel's conduct in this ongoing war throughout the press conference. we heard president boydeiden addressing the issue of israel's conduct and whether they are taking enough steps to be careful about minimizing civilian casualties. then just bringing it back to the summit here, you know, what the president and u.s. officials had set out to do in the big picture, of course, was to have a reset of sorts in u.s. /china relations that had badly deteriorated over the last ye