Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has grown increasingly fond of the Senate’s most centrist Democrat, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, who is about the only person capable of blocking passage of President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar social welfare and green energy legislation, known as “Build Back Better.”

“I admire Sen. Manchin,” McConnell said. “He’s in a really challenging position in a party that is dominated by East Coast elitism views of what America ought to look like. I pull for him every day, I pray for him every night.”