Sen. Manchin Blames ‘Toxic’ Democrats For Their Own Downfall, Says ‘Country Is Not Going Left’

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Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) is leaving office as an independent and he’s taking a few parting shots at his former party on his way out.

The former Democrat sat down for an exit interview of sorts, telling CNN’s Manu Raju that he doesn’t see that party regaining a foothold in American politics anytime soon. Worse yet, he said Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

As The Hill reported, he called the Democratic Party’s brand “toxic,” going on to rail against its current priorities:

“They have basically expanded upon thinking, ‘Well, we want to protect you there, but we’re going to tell you how you should live your life from that far on,’” he said.

Manchin criticized the party’s progressive members and argued they are out of touch with Americans.

“This country is not going left,” he said.

Plenty of Americans clearly agree with his assessment, as last month’s lopsided presidential election results revealed.

During the same interview, Manchin took aim at some Democrats in particular, as CNN reported:

When asked about incoming House Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar’s remarks that Democrats would have won the election if the party was more like outgoing caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal and less like Manchin, the senator told Raju: “For someone to say that, they’ve got to be completely insane.”

“The people in America voted,” Manchin said. “They had that opportunity, you know, to vote with Kamala Harris and with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, there’s not much hasn’t been said. You know exactly what you’re getting. He hasn’t made any bones about it.”

He added: “You might say, ‘That’s too far right.’ OK. If that’s the case, then why did they go too far right when Kamala was trying to come back to the middle a little bit?”

Instead, Manchin blamed Vice President Harris’ loss on her inability to cast herself as a moderate candidate after championing progressive issues during her first presidential run in 2019.

“If you try to be somebody you’re not, it’s hard,” Manchin said. He declined to endorse the vice president ahead of the election.

While he dodged questions on whom he voted for in November, Manchin shared he likes Trump and gets “along fine” with him. He added that during the Army-Navy football game last weekend, he told the president-elect, “I want to help any way I can.”

Here’s a clip of his conversation with Raj:



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