‘He Doesn’t Have the Guts’: Bernie Sanders Tears Into Joe Manchin for Killing Build Back Better Bill

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) railed at Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) for pulling the plug on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.

Manchin announced on Fox News Sunday that he won’t support the bill, which virtually torpedoes months of effort by the Democrats to get that legislation passed in Congress. CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Sanders for his response on State of the Union, and he bitterly commented that Manchin “will have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell him why he doesn’t have the guts to take on the drug companies, to lower the cost of prescription drugs, why he is not prepared to expand home healthcare…”

“West Virginia is a great state, beautiful people, but it is a state that is struggling, and he’s going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he’s rejects what the scientists of the world are telling us, that we have to act boldly and transform our energy system to protect future generations from the devastation of climate change,” Sanders said. As he lamented the implications of the bill’s failure to pass, Sanders suggested that it should be brought to a Senate vote anyway so Manchin’s no vote will be put on record.

I hope that we will bring a strong bill to the floor of the Senate as soon as we can and let Mr. Manchin explain to the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to powerful special interests…If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world.

Polling from recent months indicates that most West Virginians have reservations about Biden’s infrastructure agenda because of the impact it might have on taxes, inflation and interest rates. During the interview, Tapper noted that West Virginia is also a considerably red state, reminding Sanders that the state “voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump.”

The conversation went on with Sanders accusing Manchin of hypocrisy on government spending, and he also called on CNN to poll the people of West Virginia on how they feel about individual aspects of the Build Back Better agenda.

“On all of those issues, I suspect people of West Virginia…will say ‘yes, do the right thing for working families.’ I told Manchin, by the way, I’ll pay for the damn poll in West Virginia on those issues. See how the people of West Virginia feel.”

Watch above, via CNN.