Outgoing Sen.Joe Manchin (D-WV) on Thursday claimed that a win for President Donald Trump in next year’s presidential election could destroy democracy in the U.S.
Manchin, who recently announced he will not be running for a Senate re-election in 2024, made the claim during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report.”
“Well, first of all, we don’t know on Super Tuesday who the two candidates may be on the Democrat and Republican side,” the Democrat lawmaker told Host Bret Baier. “But right now, I guess all odds are they will be Donald Trump and Joe Biden. And I’m as honest as I can be with you, Bret. I believe that Donald Trump being elected again would destroy democracy as we know it. I — I’m concerned. I’m very scared because he’s already said what he would do. He’s going to use the power of the office for revenge. He’s going to basically — he doesn’t believe that — the only election — what he believes is, the only fair election is the one he won. And he doesn’t believe in the rule of law, to where the law only pertains to everybody but him. It’s a horrible situation. And I just — I’m scared of that. That would destroy our country as I know it.”
Manchin, who is considering an independent run for the White House in 2024, also criticized President Biden for being too far-left with some of the policies while adding that the divisive rhetorics in U.S. politics need to stop.
“Joe Biden is not the person when he came there saying, I know how it works, I can bring the country together, I’m a centrist. Well, he’s pulled clear far to the left,” Manchin said. “So, let’s see what happens. Will anybody change? I don’t know. Will the rhetoric change? But if we don’t mobilize the moderate, sensible, what — we’re going to call them the radical middle, OK, the radical middle. Those are people that make commonsense decisions, that run their life, that run their family, that run their businesses, from the center-left, center-right, not from the extremes.”
