Manchin Says ‘January 6 Changed Me’ as He Defends Bipartisanship Push: We Need to ‘Hit the Pause Button’

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin said that “January 6 changed me” during a CNN interview in response to why he’s not giving up on bipartisanship.

He said in the interview, “I never thought in my life – I never read in history books to where our form of government had been attacked at our seat of government, which is Washington, D.C., at our Capitol, by our own people. Now the British did it, but not Americans. So, something told me, wait a minute. Pause. Hit the pause button. Something is wrong. You can’t have this many people split to where they want to go to war with each other.” 

“I think we can find a pathway forward, I really do. I’m going to be sitting down with both sides and understanding where everybody is coming from... There are Republicans who feel exactly the way I feel,” he added.

With a 50-50 split in the Senate, Joe Manchin’s role as a conservative Democrat has become increasingly powerful if the Biden administration wants to pass its agenda. When CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox asked Manchin if he liked his new title of “President of the Senate,” Manchin said “I watched people who have power and abused it, I watched people who sought power and destroyed themselves, and I’ve watched people who had a moment of time to make a difference and change things and used it. I would like to be that third.”

Although he cringed at the title his peers have given him, he did say “I’m not killing the filibuster.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

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