- Joe Manchin fired back at Bernie Sanders after Sanders suggested Manchin could face a primary challenger.
- The two senators are both in Democratic leadership, but they have an increasingly fraught relationship.
- Manchin has come under fire for his position on the filibuster and Build Back Better.
Sen. Joe Manchin snapped at Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday after the former presidential candidate and Vermont senator mused that Manchin could face a primary challenge after he voted against the party's efforts to weaken the Senate filibuster.
"Well Senator Sanders is not a Democrat," Manchin told Newsy's Nathaniel Reed while back in West Virginia, pointing out that Sanders is a self-described Democratic socialist. Manchin said Sanders' ideology is "not what I think the majority of Americans represent."
Manchin and Sanders are both members of the Senate Democratic leadership. But they have an increasingly icy relationship due to their divergent views on how to move forward on Biden's economic agenda and voting rights.
"They have forced us to have five months of discussions that have gone absolutely nowhere. I think it's up to the people in their own states," Sanders said to reporters last week when asked if he would support a primary challenge to Manchin, HuffPo reported.
Manchin told Newsy he would welcome a primary challenge. A successor to a dominant West Virginia family and a former governor, Manchin has easily dispatched previous primary challengers. He won his 2018 primary by nearly 40 percentage points.
"I've always had primary challenges. I've been running since 1982," Manchin said. "And I've never ran… one race where there wasn't a primary. So it's nothing new for me."
Sanders, who is an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats and ran twice for Democratic presidential nomination, supported an effort to make an exception to the Senate filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. Manchin has said he supports the legislation itself, but he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have remained staunchly opposed to any efforts to weaken the filibuster.
Manchin also dealt a significant setback to Biden's agenda in December when he declared that he could not support the president's climate and spending plan, known as "Build Back Better." Sanders has repeatedly pressed for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hold a vote on the proposal in its current form even if it fails.