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Kaanita Iyer, CNN
(CNN) — Retired Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and former Sen. Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, are withholding support from each party's presidential candidates while taking aim at members on both sides of the bill, which is stalled in Congress. There is.
When asked by CNN's Manu Raju if they would vote for President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, respectively, Manchin and Portman dodged the question, but both said they would vote for the opposition candidate. I made it clear that I would not.
Portman said he was “looking at policies,” but Manchin suggested he was hesitant to vote for the president because he believes Biden's policies have become more progressive over the years. .
“I know Joe Biden, and I've known Joe Biden for a long time, and the Joe Biden I see today is a man who's been pulled so far to the left by his administration. Not Joe Biden,” Manchin told Raju on “Inside Politics Sunday.” “I want to see him in charge again, I want him to be brought back to the center, to the center, where most of the people are, responsible and sensible.''
Manchin, a centrist who has long been at odds with party members and criticized the president for being too liberal, announced last year that he would not run for re-election, a blow to Democrats' chances of taking control. Senate. He briefly considered running for office as a third-party candidate, but he announced earlier this year that he would not run for president in 2024.
Democratic senators also blamed Biden for the border crisis, adding that the president “must take responsibility for what went wrong,” but Manchin and Portman said some Republicans Lawmakers' reluctance to compromise and vote on bipartisan border security legislation creates even more dire problems.
“Now that Joe Biden has done something wrong and we know he can be held accountable and we can fix it, and it's being done in a bipartisan way, you're not going to do it,” Manchin said. They won't accept it, which makes the situation even worse.”
In early February, Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan border deal that included foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel over opposition from top House Republicans and Mr. Trump.
Portman echoed Manchin's call for lawmakers from both parties to address the issue and said he disagreed with Republicans pulling out of the deal, saying the former senator said the deal was not perfect but “a step in the right direction.” '' and argued that “every little bit will be good for the people.'' It's a country. ”
Asked by Raju if she thought Trump wanted the issue out of the agreement, Portman said she thought “that's part of it,” adding that it may have been a missed opportunity. .
“But I also think that we have not been able to solve the problem through this process. Let's say President Trump gets re-elected. Let's say we get a Republican Senate. I think it's going to be very difficult to find 60 votes going forward.” ,” Portman said. . “I think this was an opportunity.”
Mr. Manchin and Mr. Portman also told Mr. Raju that they did not agree with the Republican effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who in February was the first Cabinet member to be impeached in nearly 150 years.
The House is scheduled to send articles of impeachment to the Senate this week, but Manchin said he would vote to reject them. Portman said he does not support the move because it could set a precedent.
“My problem with that impeachment is that when you try to impeach someone for following the White House policy direction without focusing on the White House, it happens over and over again in retaliation. “Democrats will impeach Republicans,” Portman said.
They also lamented the current state of Congress, with Portman calling it “dysfunctional” and Manchin saying, “Each of us needs to understand who we are and what we live in right now. He should be ashamed.” 118th Congress. ”
Mr. Manchin and Mr. Portman, both known for negotiating bipartisan deals during their time in office, said they believed lawmakers were less willing to compromise on important legislation. Manchin added that he was concerned that the end of the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass legislation, would reduce the number of moderates in both parties and make compromise more difficult.
“I'm scared to death that if anyone on either side supports repealing the filibuster, they're going to completely destroy it,” Manchin said. “There's no middle ground at all, and you end up swinging from left to right. That's not America.”
What matters, Portman said, is not whether a lawmaker is a moderate or not, but whether they are “going to the middle to find ways to solve problems.”
“And you can be a MAGA Republican or you can be a progressive Democrat. But if you're willing to think of your job as problem-solving, you can find ways to find common ground. ,” Portman said. “And that has to be the overriding concern. I'm worried that's lacking in the Senate today.”
CNN's Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer, Edward Isaac Dobia, Lauren Fox, Sheden Tesfaldet, Jeffrey Ackerman and Kayla Gallagher contributed to this report.
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