Manchin says Biden has been pulled "so far to the left" that he is no longer the same person he once knew

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West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin lamented how far Joe Biden has moved to the left since taking office as president and hopes he can soon become more moderate.

“Joe Biden moved so far to the left after his election that he was no longer the Joe Biden I knew all these years, and I’ve said that time and time again. I’m confident that my friend, who I know, can return to where I know he’s always been, where he’s comfortable, in the middle,” Manchin told the New York Times on Sunday.

Manchin was one of many members of Congress who called on Biden to resign after his first debate with former President Trump in June. Although he criticized Biden’s policy shift, Manchin celebrated his decision not to run for re-election.

Senator Manchin criticized Biden for moving away from his moderate roots. (Left: Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images, Right: Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“But I’m happy for him and his peace of mind and his health and his well-being. I think he’s going to leave a great legacy. He has a chance to make a difference here in four and five months. I think the presidential term should be six years,” he said.

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Manchin, a former Democrat who is now an independent senator, also described his frustration with both left- and right-wing attitudes in Congress and explained how he tries to be a voice of the moderate middle.

“I try to explain the truth to people. They come to me and I say, ‘Do you understand that only 23 percent of Americans are Democrats, only 25 percent are Republicans, and 51 percent, like me, are unaffiliated?’ I say, ‘You can’t win without the middle. Why do you keep throwing meat at the extremes? They’re fine. They’re well fed. But you’re not going to win that way,'” Manchin said.

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin

Manchin criticized the Democratic Party’s shift to the left. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

He continued, “It just doesn’t make sense to me that there isn’t this moderate middle where people say, ‘Yeah, that’s how I live my life. That’s what I expect from you, too.’ And that’s not exciting. We’re expected to do the right thing. When someone says sensible things, nobody gets excited. Nobody sends money to the fundraisers. But if you say something stupid and crazy, I guarantee you’ll be inundated.”

A former Democrat who sometimes deviated from party lines in a gridlocked Senate, Manchin insisted that other politicians on both sides agreed with him in private.

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“There are a lot of people in the Democratic caucus who feel the way I do to some degree. They need to speak up. And there are a lot of people in the Republican caucus who are not Trump supporters who need to speak up. And hopefully they will,” Manchin said.