Manchin Calls Democrats 'Toxic' on His Way Out

The party has moved away from its roots, outgoing senator says
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 22, 2024 3:45 PM CST
Manchin Calls Democrats 'Toxic' on His Way Out
Sen. Joe Manchin is joined by family, friends, and staff just before delivering his final address to the Senate at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

As he leaves the position he was elected to as a Democrat before officially becoming an independent this year, Sen. Joe Manchin suggested it's his former party that changed. Progressives have pulled the party away from basic issues such as "good job, a good pay," he said, and made its brand a focus on contentious social issues instead, he told CNN in an interview aired Sunday. "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,'" Manchin said.

The result, per Manchin—who also served as the governor of West Virginia from 2005 to 2010—is that "the D-brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of, it's just, it's toxic." In an interview with the Washington Post, Manchin said his status as a swing vote in the divided Senate made him subject to pressure from Democrats to support President Biden's agenda. "They tried with all their might to convince me to do things that they knew I wasn't going to do," he said.

He irked congressional Democrats one last time by voting this month to block the effort to keep the party's majority on the National Labor Relations Board for the next two years, along with outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Manchin, first elected to the Senate in 2010, told Face the Nation he's not sure what he'll do after he leaves office. "I'm going to be involved," he said, per CBS News. For years, he's hosted members of both parties on his houseboat docked in Washington. He said that will continue: "The boat's staying here." (More Joe Manchin stories.)

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