Manchin on warpath to address Biden failure ahead of looming 2024 decision

As Senate negotiations over border security continue to stall, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is one member of the upper chamber of Congress who has made his stance clear on the matter.

Manchin has called for action at the border, which he called a “mess,” even as many Democrats have generally shied away from negotiating on the matter tied to aid legislation for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.

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“I’ve truly been saying this all along: Our borders are a mess. And to say that it’s not — and for any Democrat or anybody to say that it’s not in jeopardy right now. We have to close our borders down. We’ve got to control the borders. And we have to change the, basically, the ‘asylum’ definition of what it takes to get into our country. We want to make sure that people can still come, that are in desperate need, the legal way, but not the way they are coming illegally now. That has to stop,” Manchin said on Fox News’s Hannity last week.

He also claimed in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the world is “taking advantage” of the “broken” border system while he discussed Senate negotiations.

“The whole world is in a flux, and they’re taking advantage of a system that truly is broken,” Manchin said. “And this is not immigration reform. They’re basically working diligently on just securing the border. It must be done. It must be shut down.”

Manchin’s fight on the matter comes after he announced he would not be seeking reelection to his Senate seat in West Virginia and would embark on a two-month tour beginning in January to seek to mobilize “politically homeless” people.

The negotiations in the Senate mainly surround the country’s federal asylum policy and have been led by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Chris Murphy (D-CT). The West Virginia Democrat has been a key swing vote on several policies and has distanced himself from President Joe Biden on major topics such as the border.

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Manchin’s distance from Biden, along with other factors, has fueled speculation he may seek a White House run in 2024. He has frequently dodged the question of whether he will run for president but has not rejected the notion.

“I haven’t said I’m gonna run for president. I’ve said that this country doesn’t work for the extremes. You can’t have the extreme Right and the extreme Left with all of these extreme ideas, and you can’t weaponize our system to make thinking that anybody on the other side that you’re not on is your enemy. And you treat them as an enemy. They might be a competitor, but they’re not your enemy, OK,” Manchin said on Sunday.