Outgoing West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin ripped President Biden and fellow Democrats for mishandling the border crisis — saying New York City is being unfairly saddled with millions of dollars in costs to shelter migrants.
Manchin — who recently announced that he will not seek re-election next year — told listeners of the WABC 770 AM radio’s “Cats Roundtable” Sunday that they’ve “got to be scared of the whole border situation.”
“I tell Democrats, you have got to secure the border,” said Manchin, the centrist Democrat who has not ruled out an independent bid for the White House.
“I tell Republicans, If [migrants] had a worker visa permit that let them work and pay for their own keep and basically pay taxes, it would be a benefit while we are waiting to adjudicate them,” he added.
“I know in New York what’s happening is you all are paying millions and millions of dollars trying to house and keep people off the streets. It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Mayor Eric Adams projected New York City’s bill to care for migrants could hit $12 billion over three years.
Manchin continued, “We’ve got Democrats and Republicans fighting over the minutia: ‘Oh, it’s inhumane to secure the border.’ Well, my goodness, you can’t be the superpower of the world unless you secure the borders.”
But he also slammed Republicans for being inflexible.
“You’re not going to be able to round all those people up, but at least you can make them sign up to work … If they are not working, then you can go after the people who came for the wrong reasons.”
Manchin said he’s unenthused about the 2024 race for the White House — telling host John Catsimatidis that Biden has been a disappointment while former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, is dangerous.
“Biden has been pulled so far to the extreme left. He’s not the person we thought was going to bring the country together,” said Manchin.
Meanwhile, he said Trump has “normalized this visceral hatred. He wants to … weaponize [the presidency] for revenge. He believes the only fair election is the one he won [in 2016].”
Manchin said Washington is politically divided and overly influenced by the extreme wings of the Democratic and Republican parties, with moderates in sync with middle America having less clout.
“I’m not going to be able to change it from within. I’ve decided to go around to see if I can mobilize the radical middle – the radical, moderate, sensible, reasonable, middle, modern part of this country,” he said.
Elsewhere, Manchin said he strongly backs military aid to both Israel and Ukraine tied to more funding for border security.
He said America could get dragged into a war if it doesn’t stand by Ukraine now against Russia, and noted the Ukraine funding costs are a “pittance” compared to Russian President Vladimir Putin winning the war and putting European allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at risk.