Dem Senator Defends Koch Brothers: ‘You Don’t Beat Up People’

Democrat Joe Manchin has occasionally put himself at odds with his Democratic colleagues in the Senate, and did so again on Fox News Thursday morning when he pushed back against attacks by Harry Reid and others against the Koch brothers. Brian Kilmeade asked Manchin if he thinks it “helps or hurts the cause,” and Manchin said it doesn’t help anyone and doesn’t even rally the base like it’s meant to do.

He said, “The right and left bases have been rallied. It’s us in the middle that have to start making something happen here in Washington to move this country forward.” Manchin thought it wasn’t wise for Democrats to “beat up people” just because they disagree with them. He defended the Kochs because “they’re not breaking the new, they’re providing jobs.”

Manchin called for a rejection of “extreme Democrat politics [and] extreme Republican politics” spewing the kind of rhetoric that “does not help us move this country and move the agenda forward.”

Watch the video below, via Fox News:

[h/t POLITICO]
[photo via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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