Former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) is out with a new book on Tuesday titled “Dead Center.” Manchin is doing a media blitz starting this morning and lasting throughout the week. This includes appearances on CBS, “The View,” Fox News, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CNN, plus lots and lots of podcasts.
We got an advance copy of Manchin’s book. In it, Manchin — a longtime Democrat who very publicly broke with his party before retiring last year — has a clear message he wants to get out: I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.
The 78-year-old Manchin, who briefly flirted with a presidential run last year, repeatedly bashes former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Manchin even declared that he wanted Republicans to win the Senate majority in 2024 due to their support for maintaining the filibuster, saying it was “the only hope for preserving the Senate as an institution.”
Manchin was especially biting toward Schumer over the Democratic leader’s push to eliminate the filibuster in 2022. Manchin and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) voted no despite enormous pressure from Biden and Schumer:
Schumer wasn’t interested in debate or persuasion. He wanted a spectacle. He wanted a vote he could weaponize, a moment he could broadcast to the radical left to prove his loyalty. This wasn’t about governing or principle. It was about power.
Manchin does slam President Donald Trump, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republicans, but his most biting criticisms — by far — are saved for his former party’s leaders:
I don’t say this lightly, but under the leadership of President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid, and later President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrats have systematically tried to weaken the very guardrails that have protected our democracy for generations — all in the name of advancing their agenda.
Manchin was a perennial thorn in the side of Democratic leaders throughout his 14 years in the Senate. He stifled the party’s agenda on multiple fronts, especially during the Biden administration when Democrats had a 50-50 Senate majority.
The former pol has some choice words for Biden, including that the former president had “a very bad temper.” Manchin recalled that he once called Biden “reckless” to his face over the American Rescue Plan negotiations, telling Biden that he was “sending a fucking check to everyone.”
But Manchin also expressed some regret over key issues, including his initial opposition to Obamacare when he was serving as governor of West Virginia.
Manchin slams “woke” Dems. Manchin spends a considerable amount of time criticizing the Democratic Party for its ideological shift during the last 10 to 15 years. The party was “once a big tent that welcomed diverse perspectives” but “has increasingly shifted toward ideological purity tests,” he writes.
“When the party pushes hard on woke ideology, DEI mandates, and other social agendas, it creates unnecessary divisions, alienates everyday citizens, and moves us further away from the commonsense middle ground where most Americans actually live their lives,” Manchin said.
At one point, Manchin suggests he should have switched parties when Trump was elected in 2016. Manchin went on to say that his home state of West Virginia turned against Democrats due in part to the demonization of the coal industry, adding that Democrats lost their way not just on policy but “in spirit, culture, and trust.”
“What I failed to recognize at the time is that there were enough reasons to change my political affiliation to Republican right then and there,” Manchin wrote.
Here’s more:
I never thought that for my political life or livelihood I should change my party affiliation, which is what I should have done if I was focused on what was politically advantageous. Instead, I just kept thinking that I would continue to be so independent that the Republicans wouldn’t like me any more than the Democrats.
