Outgoing Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin slammed some of the advice President Biden received during his time in office, arguing that the guidance created blindspots for the president on inflation, immigration and Afghanistan.
Appearing on CBS’s “The Takeout” podcast on Friday, Manchin recounted how he tried to convince Biden to work across the aisle on the American Rescue Plan and how he warned about the dangers of inflation if Democrats went through with plans to extend unemployment benefits through October 2021, but was ignored thanks to the advice of 17 Nobel laureates.
“I warned of that, and I got criticized, as you recall, they told me they had 17 Nobel laureates,” Manchin said, later arguing that they were “17 educated idiots” that were telling Biden “what you want to hear because you paid them.”
Manchin, who in the early days of Biden’s administration was still part of the Democratic Party, played a critical role in determining how much of the new president’s agenda would make its way through the Senate.
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Sen. Joe Manchin stops to speak to reporters in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on June 1, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Democrats held a slim majority in the upper chamber throughout Biden’s term and depended on the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris to pass the administration’s agenda, meaning the moderate West Virginia senator’s cooperation was key in getting many items passed.
Manchin would eventually decide not to run for re-election and leave the Democratic Party altogether after a decades-long political career in the party, arguing that he had to be “true” to himself.
“To stay true to myself and remain committed to put country before party, I have decided to register as an independent with no party affiliation and continue to fight for America’s sensible majority,” Manchin said in a May 2024 announcement.
Sen. Joe Manchin questions Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmain Gary Gensler during a Senate subcommittee hearing on July 19, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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During his interview with CBS, Manchin noted that Congress had worked in a bipartisan manner with the Trump administration to send out stimulus checks in the early days of pandemic shutdowns, arguing that lawmakers had “erred” on the side of action but later came to realize that pumping so much money into the economy “was a mistake.”
Nevertheless, Manchin recalled that Biden went immediately to the budget reconciliation process to attempt to pass the American Rescue Plan through the Senate, something the then-Democratic senator resisted.
“Remember when I stopped and it shut down for about eight or 10 hours? That’s because they were extending unemployment benefits and we had a vaccine that worked. And I told him then, I said, ‘You’ve got a vaccine that’s working, you’ve got people that have got money because we sent a check to everybody,’” Manchin said, adding that he warned that after months of lockdowns and several rounds of stimulus, American spending was likely to inflate the economy.
Sen. Joe Manchin waves to visitors on the Senate steps as he leaves the Capitol on May 4, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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“You’ve got inflation coming at you hard when you do this, and now you’re still keeping people out of the workforce because you’re going to give them an extension clear up until October 2021 of unemployment benefits, and they can’t go back and can’t be threatened to lose their unemployment benefits,” Manchin said. “You’ve got a perfect storm hitting you.”