It sure sounds like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) may be running. Either that or he’s putting on a pretty good look of it, attacking Joe Biden and refusing to endorse him for 2024.
Manchin hit three different networks on Sunday and his message was clear that he was not happy with Biden. As we have reported, he has repeatedly refused to endorse Biden and he’s been blocking Biden nominees. So he was asked on CNN if he was open to running.
Democrat Senator Joe Manchin repeatedly dodges on if he's considering a run for president in 2024: "There's a movement going on" pic.twitter.com/0sOuOlkbxW
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 2, 2023
Manchin said he was against the division and quoted Abraham Lincoln, saying that a house divided against itself cannot stand. We cannot have a divided country, he said, we cannot withstand that. “There’s a movement going on,” Manchin declared, of people who want to bring the “extremes” back to the middle. Dana Bash pressed again if he was running and he ducked the question. But when you start talking about a “movement” and act like you’re the guy who can bring people back to the center, it sure looks like you’re intending on doing something about it.
When Manchin went on Fox, they got right to the heart of the matter on his deal with Biden for the Inflation Reduction Act. Shannon Bream cited our friend over at our sister site, Ed Morrissey, who said that Manchin got rolled on the Inflation Reduction Act by Biden. Manchin called that “ridiculous.”
West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin says the idea he got rolled by the Biden administration on the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act" is "ridiculous." pic.twitter.com/tdx1gEZY8Z
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 2, 2023
Manchin expects Biden to stick by what he agreed, rather than Biden going around him. But has he been watching? Doesn’t he know Joe Biden is an inveterate liar and will do whatever the powers behind the throne want? Manchin claims it’s “ridiculous” that he got rolled because it’s written in the bill. Yet he’s the one now complaining that Biden isn’t adhering to what’s written in the bill.
Here he is on “Meet the Press,” saying exactly that, proving what Morrisey wrote.
Democrat Senator Joe Manchin is mad the Biden administration is "writing rules and regulations that are totally foreign" to what he thought the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act" would do pic.twitter.com/9uZRNU0YJW
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 2, 2023
And if this isn’t a big flashing red light that he’s thinking about running, I don’t know what is.
WATCH: @Sen_JoeManchin (https://t.co/A9qEVDhA58.) says he won't decide on a presidential run until "the end of the year."@chucktodd: "Do you know for sure whether you'll be running as a Democrat?"
"The party identification is not going to change me." pic.twitter.com/xfH41irmVX
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) April 2, 2023
As I reported, Manchin is even threatening to sue the Biden administration if they don’t adhere to the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act as to electric vehicles as written. He’s afraid that the Biden team is trying to get around restrictions trying to reduce reliance on China and keep production within the U.S. or U.S. trade allies. But who could not have anticipated this? If you couldn’t anticipate that Biden was going to run around you on the provisions, you’re a fool.
Here’s what he wrote in a blistering op-ed this week blasting Biden.
“Instead of implementing the law as intended, unelected ideologues, bureaucrats and appointees seem determined to violate and subvert the law to advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and fiscal security,” he said.
“The administration is attempting at every turn to implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually passed. Ignoring the debt and deficit implications of these actions as the time nears to raise the debt ceiling isn’t only wrong, it’s policy and political malpractice,” he continued.
Manchin added that Biden was the only one who could “rein in this extremism.”
Except he’s blasting Biden and then calling on the dog to change his spots. It’s Biden who has allowed all this, it’s Biden (or whoever pulls his strings) pushing the anti-energy agenda.
Manchin torched Democrats who view the act as a vehicle to fight climate change rather than an “energy securing measure.” He called their perspective “bulls—” and accused them of seeking to “starve” Americans “out of energy.”
Exactly. Which is why he should never have signed aboard it.
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