CNN’s Smerconish Says Manchin Helps President by Acting as ‘Foil’ Against Progressives: ‘If He Didn’t Exist… Biden Would Want to Invent Him’

CNN contributor Michael Smerconish praised Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) as an “independent thinker” and said the centrist Democrat serves President Joe Biden by helping to act as a “foil” against overreach by progressives in the party.

During an appearance on Cuomo Prime Time on Monday night, Smerconish offered the unconventional take that Manchin’s demand for compromises in the Covid relief bill — which ground the Senate to a halt for nearly 12 hours over the weekend — actually worked in the White House’s favor.

“Big win for Biden,” host Chris Cuomo noted. “This is the largest package of its kind that we have seen in our lifetimes. How does it play politically in terms of getting it done?”

“Well, I think it plays to his benefit,” Smerconish replied, before alluding to Cuomo’s previous segment with Manchin. “As I’m listening to the conversation with Senator Manchin, I’m thinking that if he didn’t exist in the Senate, President Biden would want to invent him. I think he is a great foil for President Biden because he acts as a governor, in the sense that he keeps at bay those more progressive influences of the party that I don’t know that President Biden is always on the same page with.”

“Another observation, if I may,” he added. “Joe Manchin and what he represents used to be mainstream. There used to be a lot of Joe Manchins in the Senate and the House. Today all gone. And isn’t it nice, at least I say, that power can be vested in the hands of an independent thinker?”

Cuomo responded by noting how poorly that take would play among the more liberal wing of the party.

“A lot of Democrats want to beat Smerconish over the head right now,” Cuomo joked, “because they thought that Manchin was like dynamite, trying to blow up the process, making it about him. I think a lot of the criticism was unfair, but that’s party politics.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.