Joe Manchin is the last person to realize he got played by Joe Biden
Zachary Faria
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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) was the biggest loser in politics in 2022. And only now is he admitting just how badly he lost.
Manchin claims he is concerned about the national debt. When he and President Joe Biden met to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act, he said, “we agreed that the bill was designed to pay down our national debt and shore up America’s energy security.” But now, “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.”
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Manchin is most upset that these bureaucrats are “ignoring the law’s intent to support and expand fossil energy.” He claims that the Biden administration is trying to “implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually passed” and that only Biden can stop this by talking to members of Congress and halting the redefining of the law.
Do you think Biden will stop implementing the bill that his administration wanted just because Manchin is upset with him? Neither do I.
This is the pathetic conclusion to the master class in political incompetence that Manchin has put on under Biden’s presidency. The Inflation Reduction Act was simply Biden’s Build Back Better bill with a new paint job. It was always a climate and spending bill using legitimate concerns about inflation as a mere pretext to become law. Republicans saw this coming. What’s Manchin’s excuse?
What’s more, Manchin gave up his vote on the bill in exchange for an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that the Senate would support his permitting reform bill. Manchin sacrificed his leverage to help the Build Back Better bill rebrand across the finish line, only for Democrats to join Republicans in tanking his bill.
So what is more embarrassing: Manchin getting played by Schumer and Biden? Or Manchin thinking that complaining about it months later will cause Biden to change course?
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Manchin either should have known better, or else he did know better and assumed he could get away with it. Either way, this is nothing more than a belated attempt to shore up his appalling numbers in West Virginia. His approval rating tanked after he folded to Biden — he now sits at 40% approval to 53% disapproval. Gov. Jim Justice, who is term-limited and could potentially pursue the GOP nomination to run against Manchin, has an approval rating of 64% with just 31% disapproval.
Manchin’s political career in West Virginia is almost certainly over, and for good reason. He did everything Biden and Schumer could have wanted of him. He either did it thinking he could play dumb to his constituents, or he was always dumb for real, completely unaware of what was happening.