Joe Manchin Wants to Bring Gun Reform Back to the Senate

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Sen. Joe Manchin wants to bring that ol' background check bill back to the Senate floor, he revealed on Fox News Sunday. "The only thing we've asked for is for people to read the bill," the Democratic Senator said. "I truly believe that if we have time to sell the bill and if people will read the bill," Manchin said, then it will pass. He also expects his old partner, Republican Senator Pat Toomey, will be along for the ride again. (Toomey has said in the past that it's time to move on.) "I don't think he's done," Manchin said. "I was with Pat last night and Pat's totally committed to this bill. And I believe that with all my heart. And we're gonna work this bill," he added. Host Christopher Wallace asked Manchin to clarify whether what he was saying really means he's going to bring the bill back to the Senate floor. "Absolutely," Manchin replied. So we're going to do gun control again. Fun!

Sen. John McCain argued the Syrian conflict is going to get out of control now that the U.S. passed the "red line" threat of chemical weapons and didn't act while appearing on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday morning. "The president drew a red line on chemical weapons, thereby giving a green light to Bashar al-Assad to do anything short of that, including Scud missiles and helicopter gun ships and air strikes and mass executions," McCain said. He thinks the U.S. needs to "change the balance of power by not using incrementalism when then there's every risk of a stalemate that could go on for months and months while the jihadists flood in." If it were up to John McCain, the U.S. would have intervened long ago. "Our actions should not be dictated by whether Bashar al-Assad used these chemical weapons or not," he said. "Sooner or later, he probably would in order to maintain his hold on power."

Sen. Lindsey Graham thinks the U.S. surveillance system failed to do its job when it comes to Tamerlan Tsarnaev. This all came out during an interview on CBS's Face the Nation. "The FBI investigated the older brother but never shared the information with the fusion cell in Boston so people in the Boston area could be on the lookout," the Republican said. "When he goes back to Russia in January 2012, the system pings at the Department of Homeland Security, but DHS doesn't share their information with the FBI or CIA. And when he comes back in 2012, he creates a YouTube channel of his own making where he's got radical extremist videos that he's watching and interacting with. It's a failure to share information and missing obvious warning signs." Graham couldn't believe that officials could have missed the obvious warning signs of that one guy on the internet looking at some things. Like, who misses that stuff? "We've got to up our game," Graham said. "When one of these guys goes into the system and they leave the country, we need to make sure where they're going and interview them and when somebody in the database like this begins to openly interact with radical Islamist websites, an FBI agent should knock on his door and say, 'You told us before that you wanted to be an Olympic boxer. You love this country. What the hell is going on here? We're watching you.'"

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

About the Author

Connor Simpson is a former staff writer for The Wire. His work has appeared in Business Insider and City Lab.

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