Joe Manchin Admits He Has Considered Leaving Democrat Party

A day after calling the rumors “bulls**t,” West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin had admitted that he has considered leaving the Democrat Party.

On Thursday the centrist Democrat who has been a thorn in the side of President Joe Biden and his agenda said that he had talked about leaving the party, Reuters reported.

He said he had talked about becoming an independent “if I’m an embarrassment to my Democrat colleagues, my caucus, the president being the leader of the Democratic Party.”

“I said, me being a moderate centrist Democrat, if that causes you a problem, let me know and I’d switch to be an independent. But I’d still be caucusing with Democrats,” he said. “That’s the only thing that was ever discussed. No one accepted that.”

The West Virginia Democrat did not say which colleagues he talked to about it.

Manchin spoke as Democrats struggled to reach agreement on a Biden social agenda that is likely to be reduced from $3.5 trillion to below $2 trillion, as a result of opposition from Democratic moderates including Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

The Senate is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, casting the tie-breaking vote, giving Manchin and Sinema powerful sway over the direction of legislation.

As a senator from West Virginia, a conservative state that relies on coal and has largely backed Republican politicians in recent years, Manchin has been at odds with many of his fellow Democrats over key aspects of Biden’s agenda, including its climate change provisions.

The senator’s admission is a change from what he had said when confronted with the rumor that he had talked about leaving the party the day before.

denied rumors he’s thinking of leaving the Democratic party, telling CNN’s Manu Raju that it’s “bullshit.”

“I can’t control rumors and it’s bullshit, bullshit spelled with a B, U, L, L, capital ‘B,’” Manchin told reporters while walking outside of the U.S. Capitol building.

WATCH:

MANCHIN to @burgessev and me on the report he is threatening to leave the Democratic Party if his demands are not met on infrastructure: “I can’t control rumors and it’s bullshit, bullshit spelled with a B, U, L, L, capital ‘B’”: pic.twitter.com/ex8iHMIiSs

— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 20, 2021

Earlier on Wednesday, a report from Mother Jones alleged that Manchin is considering leaving the Democratic party and has an exit plan to do so.

But Mother Jones and Corn do not believe that it is BS. In the piece Corn said that if Sen. Manchin does not get his way on the Build Back Better plan he could pull the trigger on leaving the party.

“In recent days, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has told associates that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill do not agree to his demand to cut the size of the social infrastructure bill from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion, according to people who have heard Manchin discuss this. Manchin has said that if this were to happen, he would declare himself an ‘American Independent.’ And he has devised a detailed exit strategy for his departure,” the writer said.

“He told associates that he has a two-step plan for exiting the party. First, he would send a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, removing himself from the Democratic leadership of the Senate. (He is vice-chair of the Senate Democrats’ policy and communications committee.) Manchin hopes that would send a signal. He would then wait and see if that move had any impact on the negotiations. After about a week, he said, he would change his voter registration from Democrat to independent,” he said.

Another report on Thursday said that Manchin and Sen. Bernie Sanders got into it in a private meeting with Manchin raising his fist and saying he could live without any of Biden’s social spending plan, Axios reported.

“Joe said, ‘I’m comfortable with nothing,’ Bernie said, ‘We need to do three-and-a-half [trillion dollars].’ The truth is both of them are in different spots,” Sen. Jon Tester said.

Tester said that Manchin said “I’m comfortable with zero,’ forming a ‘zero’ with his thumb and index finger.”