One month to the day that Democrats in the House of Representatives passed “the largest expansion of the social safety net in decades,” U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) on Sunday morning declared on Fox News he will now not support the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill that would have provided child care support for parents, protected the environment with climate change actions, expanded Medicare, lowered the cost of prescription drugs – like capping insulin at $35 – provided for universal pre-K, and created affordable housing, among many other programs Democrats, including President Joe Biden, ran on.
“I’ve always said this, Bret,” Manchin said less than a week before Christmas to Fox news host Bret Baier, “if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, then I can’t vote for it. I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.”
“This is a no,” he told Fox News viewers.
Manchin has spent months wheeling and dealing, reconstructing the Build Back Better legislation while slashing the cost – and the benefits – and even managing to get the House Progressive Caucus to agree to vote for President Biden’s infrastructure package. The two bills from the start were supposed to be linked so those who opposed one would find a way to vote for both. Manchin effectively managed to sever that deal.
Outrage on the left was swift and massive.
“BREAKING,” tweeted former NY State prosecutor Tristan Snell. “Man with Maserati and yacht against child tax credit, maternity leave, child care, and $35 insulin.”
Sawyer Hackett, the former deputy national press secretary to Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro, now the co-host of Our America podcast called Manchin’s move “one of the most stunning betrayals of a sitting president by a member of his own party in history.”
“Manchin just shoved a knife in the back of a flailing Biden presidency less than a year away from the midterms.”
Voting rights expert and Mother Jones writer Ari Berman:
Hugo Lowell of The Guardian noted that “Senate Dem Joe Manchin accepted more than $1.5m from Republican and corporate interests opposed to Build Back Better as of September, Guardian US reported this month.”
“It’s notable he made this announcement on Fox during a congressional recess, not at a party lunch or at a news conference on Capitol Hill,” said Punchbowl News’ Max Cohen.
“This is devastating on climate change. the US almost certainly won’t get another chance like this this decade,” wrote Vox senior reporter Rebecca Leber. “Whatever you do don’t call this the moderate approach.”
“Don’t forget: this isn’t just about Joe Manchin,” MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan tweeted. “It’s about the dark money and billionaires and coal interests behind him, which keep winning at ours and the planet’s expense. Manchin is a living breathing reminder that America is often more oligarchic than it is democratic.”
Political satirist Jeremy Newberger:
“Joe Manchin is a lying liar who lies,” wrote Jennifer Taub, law professor and author of “Big Dirty Money.”
Former Bernie Sanders Deputy Campaign Manager:
Mississippi Free Press senior reporter Ashton Pittman: