Joe Manchin says Trump indictment ‘very sad time for America’

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) expressed his disappointment over the indictment of former President Donald Trump, calling it a “very sad time for America”. However, he emphasized the need to “wait and see what comes out” before forming a rushed judgment on the matter.

During an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the centrist Democrat also urged lawmakers to concentrate on doing their job and come together instead of focusing on the indictment.

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“We must come together. American people want us to do our job. The more you talk about that, the more you make people pick a side — ‘Are they right or wrong?’ — you give more credence to basically, ‘Is it biased or not? Does the rule of law work for all of us?’ Let’s wait until what comes out next week. Let’s see the direction this goes. But the bottom line, it’s a very sad time in America,” Manchin said.

Manchin also called for centrism in politics, stating that he prefers working towards a solution in the middle ground.

“You can’t solve them from the extreme right and the extreme left. You can’t make people — make a pick a side. ‘Which side are you on?’ ‘Well, I’ll choose the left or the right, or the D or the R because this one’s not as bad as that one.’ Neither of them are doing the job the way we should do it, but one’s not as bad as the other, so you pick a side. I think we can do better than that, and if we can change that dialogue and have a movement,” Manchin added.

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When asked about whether he would run for re-election to his Senate seat or for the presidency in 2024, Manchin replied that he would make his decision “a little bit before” his filing deadline on January 15, 2024.

If the senator runs for re-election, he is set to face one of the toughest re-election races in the cycle, due to West Virginia having voted for Trump by almost 40% points, with the state’s seat turning increasingly Republican since Manchin first won his Senate seat.