Former Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said he warned former President Joe Biden that his advisers were directing him toward far-left policies during the 2020 election.
Manchin, who changed his party affiliation to independent over changes within the Democratic Party, argued on Fox News’s The Story With Martha MacCallum that Biden wasn’t this progressive before his 2020 White House bid.
“I told Joe Biden, who had been a friend for many many years, I never thought that President Biden was ever that far left but … this 2020 election his staff took him so far left that I said, ‘Mr. President, they are taking you down the primrose path [that] you can’t return from,” Manchin said. “And it just got worse and worse and worse.”
“Now [the Democratic Party] is even further left than I ever thought it could get,” Manchin added.
Since leaving the Democratic Party in 2024, Manchin has been critical of the party’s direction, arguing that progressive policies don’t align with its history.
Manchin, who changed his party affiliation to independent, said the values of the Democratic Party he grew up with are ones most people share.
“I don’t think that’s part of the Democratic Party,” Manchin said. “They really ought to start their own party if the Democrats I grew up with [and] the Democrats I knew all my life were hard working, fiscally responsible, and socially compassionate.”
Manchin’s remarks come at a time when progressive and socialist candidates are gaining influence in the Democratic Party, a trend that started with Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York City.
Since Mamdani’s win, progressive and socialist candidates who criticize the Democratic establishment have won primaries and defeated incumbents in New York and Colorado.
Manchin said Democrats lost West Virginia because the party became too progressive.
“It became to the point where [Democrats] wanted to take care of more people that were able-bodied capable people that could work and should work that didn’t work,” Manchin said. “That’s what they lost, all the labor in my state, and my state flipped completely within a one-decade period.”
Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) flipped Manchin’s seat to the Republicans with overwhelming support, winning 68.8% of the vote, according to NBC News.
Notably, Justice also left the Democratic Party. In 2017, Justice joined President Donald Trump on stage and announced he was changing his registration to Republican, after he won the West Virginia gubernatorial election in 2015 as a Democrat.
Manchin said he tried to explain to Biden that his Senate seat flipping “so quickly” had never happened before, cautioning the president against progressive policies and warning of their impact.
“I tried explaining that to him,” Manchin said. “You have to have a very, very tough border … you have to have a pathway forward to citizenship when the people come the right way. That’s just part of who we are as a country.”
“If a Democrat can’t say that, then you’re not going to be able to get back in control,” Manchin added.
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Manchin argued the Democratic Party has lost “focus,” explaining that’s why he voted against Biden’s wide-ranging infrastructure bill, the Build Back Better Act. The bill passed in the House but stalled in the Senate.
“The thing is about the Democratic Party [is that] they have lost basically the focus,” Manchin said. “There has to be accountability and responsibility … you just can’t give everything away.”