West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin lamented how far left Joe Biden has moved since becoming president and hopes he can become more moderate soon.
"Joe Biden has been pulled so far to the left after he was elected that it was not the Joe Biden I knew all these years, and I kept saying that. I’m hopeful that my friend who I’ve known can come back to where I know he always has been, where his comfort is, in the middle," Manchin told the New York Times Sunday.
Manchin was one of many members of Congress who called on Biden to step down after his first debate with former President Trump back in June. Although he criticized Biden's political shift, Manchin celebrated his decision not to run again.
"But I’m happy for him and the peace of mind he has and his health and well-being. He’s going to have a heck of a legacy, I believe. He’s got a chance to do some things here in four and five months. See, I believe the presidency should be a one six-year term," he said.
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Manchin, a former Democrat turned independent senator, also described his frustrations with both the far-left and far-right attitudes in Congress, explaining how he tries to be a voice for the moderate middle.
"I’m trying to make people explain. They come to me, and I said, ‘Do you understand that only 23 percent of Americans are Democrats, only 25 percent are Republicans and 51 percent are, like me, no party affiliation?’ I said, ‘You can’t win without the middle. Why are you continually throwing meat at the extremes? They’re fine. They’re well fed. But you’re not going to win that way,’" Manchin said.
He continued, "It just doesn’t make any sense to me at all that you can’t find that moderate middle, to where people say, ‘Yeah, that’s how I live my life. That’s what I expect you to do.’ And it’s not exciting. You expect us to do the right thing. When someone talks common sense, no one gets excited. No one sends money at the fund-raisers. But if you say something stupid and crazy, I guarantee you you’ll be flooded."
As a former Democrat who would sometimes break away from party lines in a deadlocked Senate, Manchin insisted other politicians on both sides agree with him privately.
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"There’s an awful lot of people in the Democratic caucus that feel like I do, to a certain extent. They need to speak up more. And there’s a lot of people in the Republican caucus that aren’t Trumpsters that need to speak up more. And hopefully they will," Manchin said.
Manchin announced back in November that he would not be running for re-election in 2024.
