Manchin Tells Reporters Him to Stop Hounding Him Over Filibuster: ‘You Ask the Same Question Every Day’

Sen. Joe Manchin is (D-WV) is sick of reporters asking if he’s rethought his position on the Senate’s filibuster.

“I’m not separating our country, OK?” Manchin said in a comment to the press corps quoted by The Hill. “I don’t know what you all don’t understand about this. You ask the same question every day. It’s wrong.”

Democrats have been grousing about Manchin’s refusal to support eliminating the filibuster, which requires 60 of the chamber’s 100 members to vote in favor of an issue if a one or more of their colleagues threaten to block it using parliamentary procedure.

The issue manifested most recently last week, when Republicans stopped a 54-member majority from creating a commission to study January’s unrest in the nation’s capital. It will arise again over the summer as President Joe Biden seeks to pass a big slate of new spending, including his $2.6 trillion American Jobs Plan and $1.8 trillion American Families Plan.

Manchin has said in numerous interviews over the last year that he would not join fellow Democrats colleagues in voting to eliminate the filibuster — including in September, November, March, and in an April op-ed in which there were “no circumstances” under which he would change his mind. Nonetheless, reporters keep asking him about the issue.

One more Senate Democrat — Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — has said she agrees with Manchin and Senate Republicans on the issue.