Sen. Rand Paul said centrist Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin would be welcome if he decided to join the GOP.
“We have an extra chair for him at lunch. It’s sitting there waiting for him,” Paul, a Kentucky Republican, told Fox News’s Martha MacCallum on Wednesday. “We are ready to see him. We’re a big party, and I think he’d have a place.”
‘BULLS***:’ JOE MANCHIN DISMISSES REPORT HE’S LEAVING DEMOCRAT PARTY
Manchin, who hails from West Virginia, dismissed speculation that he plans to leave the Democratic Party as “bulls***” after a Mother Jones report on Wednesday asserted he was entertaining the idea.
“He’s a pro-energy senator from an adjacent state to mine, pro-coal, pro-fossil fuels,” Paul said. “He’s unaccepted in the Democratic caucus. They seem to hate everything that his state produces. We’d welcome him on our side. I can’t have any predictions that it would actually ever happen. But I promise you, he’s got a seat at the table and a big important voice in our caucus if he chooses to come over.”
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Manchin, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has stood in the way of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, arguing the initial $3.5 trillion price tag was too expensive.
As it stands, the Senate is evenly split between 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats who have two independents caucusing with them. Vice President Kamala Harris is the 50-50 tiebreaker.
