U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., responded Friday to criticism from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., derisively declaring that he wasn’t going to take marching orders from a socialist.
“Congress should proceed with caution on any additional spending and I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs,” Manchin wrote in a statement. “No op-ed from a self-declared Independent socialist is going to change that.”
Earlier, Sanders had penned an op-ed for a newspaper in Manchin’s home state, calling for every Democrat to support President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.
“Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for this legislation,” Sanders wrote in the op-ed for the Charleston Gazette-Mail. “Yet, the political problem we face is that in a 50-50 Senate we need every Democratic senator to vote ‘yes,’ We now have only 48. Two Democratic senators remain in opposition, including Sen. Joe Manchin.”
