Manchin, Collins once swayed to Nathaniel Rateliff tune on houseboat

They’re on opposite sides of the aisle, but Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) once bonded over a NSFW song.

In an upcoming interview on SiriusXM’s “Julie Mason Mornings,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) recalled once watching the unlikely duo swinging and swaying together during a party on Manchin’s houseboat to the Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats song, “Son of a Bitch.”

The lawmakers were “both kind of dancing” and “snapping their fingers” to the Denver-based musician’s tune, Hickenlooper told host Mason with a laugh.

The pair was “building musical bridges,” Hickenlooper said, crediting songs with helping to “bring people together.”

Hickenlooper offered a glimpse inside one of Manchin’s oft-buzzed-about shindigs aboard his floating residence while trying to come up with a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

“It’s very difficult in this environment — this partisan-obsessed environment — to do a bipartisan bill,” Hickenlooper said during a discussion on aiding music venues amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“But Sen. Manchin has this kind of funky houseboat, and he had a couple of pizza parties on his boat. And he’d have like six, or eight, or 10 Republicans and six, or eight, or 10 Democrats.”

“We talked about the bill, but then [Manchin would] also turn on the stereo,” Hickenlooper said.

After turning on “Son of a Bitch,” Hickenlooper said, he was mesmerized by the dancing scene starring his colleagues.

“They put that song on, and it was so amazing to watch.”

Collins and Manchin, Hickenlooper said, “clearly had disagreements on their politics.”

“But I think music helps,” he said.

The full interview with Hickenlooper airs Monday on “Julie Mason Mornings.”

Tags Joe Manchin Joe Manchin John Hickenlooper John Hickenlooper Susan Collins Susan Collins

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