Joe Manchin claims Biden will be ‘pushed’ ‘far left’: Not ‘where the country is’
Senator Joe Manchin, in an interview with NBC host Chuck Todd on Sunday’s Meet the Press, argued that President Joe Biden has been pressured to lean further left politically than most Americans.
“He was pushed all the way to the left,” Manchin said of Biden.
“And this extreme left is basically not where the country is,” he continued. “And the far right is not where the country is. If we get back to the center, we can continue to bring people to the center and do our job.”
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Senator Joe Manchin, in an interview with NBC host Chuck Todd on Sunday’s Meet the Press, argued that President Joe Biden had been pressured to move further to the left than the rest of America. (NBC / Screenshot)
Manchin has positioned himself as a centrist Democratic leader in a party increasingly defined by figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., a member of the so-called progressive “squad” in Congress.
When asked about “No Labels,” a third-party political group that claims to represent the “reasonable majority” of middle-class Americans, according to its website, Manchin agreed that it’s important for politicians to remember that it there is a middle ground.
“What the No Labels movement has done, which I think is admirable, is to say that there is a middle,” Manchin said.
“There are more people in the silent majority of the center who don’t have a voice at all, so they’re being forced into their respective corners, far left and far right. You don’t feel comfortable there. They show that there is now a place in the middle. And if the center can show: “You cannot go to the left, you will not be elected and you will not rule from there, decisions are made from the center.”
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“What the No Labels movement has done, which I think is admirable, is to say that there is a middle,” Manchin said of the third party group. (Screenshot/World Economic Forum)
Manchin also commented on the debt deal, applying the same “middle” principles. “Don’t you think we should do a risk assessment of our financial condition as a country?” he asked Todd.
“Stay in that center and pull people back into the center,” Manchin said.
Biden signed the debt deal Saturday after weeks of congressional Republicans and Democrats bickering over the deal.
Texas Republican Chip Roy, a deficit hawk, referred to the deal as a “shit sandwich”.
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Texas Republican Chip Roy, a deficit hawk, called the debt deal a “fucking sandwich.” (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“The passage of this budget agreement was crucial. The stakes couldn’t have been higher,” Biden said Friday night in the Oval Office. “Nothing could have been more catastrophic,” he said, than being unable to service the country’s debt.
“No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed,” Biden said, emphasizing the “compromise and consensus” in the deal. “We averted an economic crisis and collapse.”
Notably, Manchin successfully pushed for the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the debt deal. He said West Virginia will benefit from the 303-mile natural gas pipeline, which he added “will increase domestic energy production.”
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Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.