The Campaign Update: No, Joe Manchin is Not Leaving the Democrat Party
Joe Manchin has always been a liberal Democrat, and that hasn't changed
David Corn, the pedantic leftist activist who writes for the pedantic leftist journal Mother Jones, “reported” yesterday that he has heard from anonymous (because of course they’re anonymous) sources that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is “contemplating” leaving the Democrat Party if he doesn’t get his way on the budget reconciliation bill. Given Corn’s only occasional acquaintance with anything resembling truth, no one should get overly excited about this possibility.
Here’s an excerpt from that story:
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.
Manchin has been in the center of a wild rush of negotiations with his fellow Democrats and the White House over a possible compromise regarding Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better package, and Manchin’s opposition to key provisions—including Medicare and Medicaid expansion, an expanded child tax credit, and measures to address climate change—has been an obstacle that the Democrats have yet to overcome. As these talks have proceeded, Manchin has discussed bolting from the Democratic Party—perhaps to place pressure on Biden and Democrats in these negotiations.
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.
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Corn, in an appearance on MSNBC late Wednesday, bristled when his tale was denied by Manchin himself. Manchin told a gaggle of reporters that he has "no control over the rumors" before calling the Wednesday report "bullshit. Bullshit spelled with a B-U-L-L, capital ‘B,'" Manchin added.
Corn responded to his circus clown host, Joy Reid, that "He has now said it’s B-U-L-L. It’s actually T-R-U-E," Corn said. "He himself has taken it off the table because if he's gonna do it now, then he would actually show that what he's saying it's bull that he was lying then. So he has been outed."
How convenient. Spread a false rumor based on not a single named source, force the Senator to deny it, and then respond that you killed the Senator’s nefarious plan by making it public. The standard MO of a spreader of fake news. Nobody plays that game better than Corn and Mother Jones.