Outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) destroyed the Democratic Party in an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, describing the brand as “toxic.”
A clip from the CNN interview:
RAJU: Do you still consider yourself a Democrat?MANCHIN: I am not a Democrat in the form of what the Democratic Party has turned itself into. The national brand? Absolutely not. And they know that. They’re all good people on both sides, but..RAJU: What do you think is the reason for? You said you’re not a Democrat. What caused Joe Manchin to divorce himself…MANCHIN: Here’s what I told them. I said you ought to figure out how you lost somebody like me. I was born as a Democrat because of my grandfather’s love of FDR. I was a very strong Democrat because of my families. The other John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I came through the whole iteration and that I was a Democrat in West Virginia, and it was always been a 75, 80% plurality. Of Democrat, registered Democrats. But there was a split. I was never on the liberal side of it. I was never on the establishment side.So I always had to fight my way through.RAJU: What was the shift? Social issues?MANCHIN: Yeah. The brand got so bad. The D brand has been so maligned from the standpoint, of it’s toxic. And the brand is basically this. I told him, I said, first of all, as American and as someone in Senate, and I’m going to take the Constitution, of the Constitution that I take very seriously, I’m going to help every human being pursue the happiest life in their life.It should have happened. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care what color. I don’t care any of the things who they love do it, and that’s you. I’m going to make sure you have the opportunity and right to live your life. Just don’t make your life if it might be on the extreme or in the minority, make me believe that’s the norm or make me and my family believe or my children believe or this or that? No. I will protect you. Just don’t try to mainstream it. And the Democratic Party, the Washington Democrats, have tried to mainstream the extreme.
Manchin also slammed the progressives in Congress for “being out of touch with the majority of Americans” because the “country is not going left.”
At the Army-Navy game, Manchin told President-elect Donald Trump that he wants “to help any way” he can so that Trump can “succeed.”
Manchin did not say who he voted for in November but said “he likes Trump and gets ‘along fine’ with him.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY