Outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (IW.V.) blasted Democrats as “toxic” and said the country “is not going to move to the left” as he ends his term in the Senate.
“The D brand has been very maligned in terms of just being toxic,” Manchin said in an interview with CNN's Manu Raju that aired Sunday.
Manchin, who is leaving Congress for the first time in about 15 years, also left the Democratic Party earlier this year. The centrist Democrat declared his departure from the party and registered as an independent.
He told Raju that he no longer considered himself a Democrat, “in a way that the Democratic Party has morphed.”
“They've basically extended the idea of, 'We want to protect you there, but from there we're going to tell you how to live your life,'” he said. .
Mr. Manchin criticized his party's progressive wing, saying they were out of touch with Americans.
“This country is not going to the left,” he said.
As Democrats recover from a crushing election loss, some are pointing to what went wrong and how their message resonates with voters.
Many argue that the party has drifted away from the reality of what Americans want, allowing the Republican Party to respond to voters' wishes.
