Donald Trump praised West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin for rebuffing Democratic Party efforts to change the filibuster rule, which the former president said Monday would allow Democrats to muscle through a polarizing political agenda beyond even the policies of liberal lodestar Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“He’s doing the right thing,” Trump said of Manchin during an interview on Fox Business. “Otherwise, you’re going to be back in the court. You’re going to be doing all sorts of very, very bad things that were unthinkable and were never even brought up during the election.”
HOUSE DEMOCRAT CALLS JOE MANCHIN ‘THE NEW MITCH MCCONNELL’ OVER ELECTION BILL
Democratic activists are urging lawmakers to reform the filibuster rule, arguing that it creates gridlock in Congress and will stymie President Joe Biden’s legislative efforts. Manchin, a centrist Democrat from a deeply red state, has bucked these calls, drawing criticism from the Left.
“That seems like a victory for the Republicans,” Fox Business host Stuart Varney told Trump.
Under normal Senate rules, 60 votes are needed for bills to clear the upper chamber, meaning that in the evenly divided Senate, a bill must garner 10 Republican votes.
Trump said abolishing or changing this threshold would further tilt the party to the left, foretelling an agenda that goes beyond what even the most liberal senators envisioned.
“Nobody brought this stuff up,” Trump continued. “This is so radical liberal, radical Left, Bernie Sanders can’t believe it.”
Manchin drew rebuke from some Democrats over the weekend when he reiterated in an op-ed for the Charleston Gazette-Mail his objection to changing the filibuster and said that he would not back the federal voting rights bill known as the For the People Act, which passed the House in March along a near party-line vote. Manchin called the legislation a “partisan advantage” that “will destroy” U.S. democracy.
The West Virginia senator said he would support a separate voting reform bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which has been touted as a bipartisan alternative.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Trump also floated a visit to the southern U.S. border, saying this could happen “relatively soon.”
