Katty Kay: Joe Manchin has a tough message for Democrats on Trump

Three months into Donald Trump's second term, Democrats are struggling with how to counter the White House juggernaut.

Some are trying to revive the 2016 resistance. Some suggest "playing dead" in the hope that Trump flames out.

But former Democratic Senator Joe Manchin suggests a very different way, one many Democrats may find unpalatable - work with the president.

In a recent interview, one of the few he's given since leaving Congress in January, he told me:

"[Trump] is the leader of our country. Why would you not work with him? Just because he's a different party? Didn't vote for him? That's not a reason."

For years, Manchin was a unique politician who could win re-election as a Democrat in the deep-red Trump country of West Virginia.

Occasionally, he was a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party, even voting against some of Joe Biden's key policies that couldn't, and didn't, survive without his support.

Before leaving office in January, Manchin changed his official designation from "Democrat" to "Independent."

It's because Manchin is retired both from the Senate and from the Democratic Party that I wanted to get his thoughts on what's happening in Washington and how the Democrats would meet this moment. In my experience of politics, people tend to be more candid once they're no longer running for office.

"I want Donald Trump to succeed," Manchin told me. "I want to help wherever I can help. I want to give them my experience of the mistakes I have made that we shouldn't make again."

Manchin says he hopes President Trump would also "open his arms up" and work with Democrats and Independents, but he clearly believes Democrats would do better with the electorate by working to get things done, rather than working to attack the president at every turn.

Indeed, the most striking thing about our conversation is how he doesn't hold back on criticism of his former party.

Take, for example, the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a 29-year-old from El Salvador who was deported back to El Salvador last month after a governmental error and an immigration judge previously saying he should remain in the US.

"The Democrats are saying, 'what a horrible situation.'...They're making more of a case out of this one person who's an illegal immigrant being sent out of the country that could have been tied to a gang…if I'm a Republican strategist, I am going to keep quiet and just let you all go on."

Ábrego García denies that he was a part of a gang - and the Trump administration hasn't provided any evidence to establish that he was. And, in our conversation, Manchin was also clear that Ábrego García should have had due process and that any attacks on the authority of America's judicial system should not be tolerated.

But, in Manchin's view, many of Trump's actions in the early days of this second term are not as objectionable to many Americans as they might be to Democratic officials in Washington.

"He's doing exactly what he said. People shouldn't be all upset," Manchin told me. "The people who are upset right now lost. This is the system."

Rather than focus on immigration, he suggests, Democrats should focus on the biggest threat to America, the country's outsized debt. It could be an opportunity for them.

"We're 36 trillion dollars in debt. There's no way that we can handle this" Manchin told me. "If the Democrats wanted to reposition themselves, why don't they do it on fiscal policy? Do you ever hear anybody talking about balancing our budget, fiscal policy, living with our means?"

And he has concrete solutions he's keen to suggest for America's calcified political system. Term limits for a start.

"I believe the president should be one, six-year term, Katty. A president should never have to worry about getting re-elected. All they should do is their job."

Manchin also thinks members of Congress should be restricted to 12 years in office, and that Supreme Court justices should have terms of 18 years instead of their current lifetime appointments. It's something many younger Democratic politicians might well agree with as they look at the aging ranks of their party.

Term limits, however, would require congressional approval - from the same elderly members of Congress who are unlikely to vote themselves out of a job.

Democrats aren't in a mood to work with Trump, tackling the debt is on the back burner, term limits aren't likely to happen, but I find Manchin's observations valuable not because they're going to succeed but because they are the unfiltered recommendation of someone with a unique position in American politics.

He is a one-time Democrat who repeatedly managed to get Trump country to vote him into office.