Manchin to Obama: ‘Quit Playing Politics With Everything’

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) criticized President Obama for vetoing the Keystone XL pipeline, stating “quit playing politics with everything we do” on Tuesday’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on the Fox News Channel.

“I would say that — people like myself, Democrats who are centrists, who are moderate, and conservative on fiscal issues, you need six of us, okay? But they had nine of us on this bill. Nine of us, and for all different reasons, but we thought it was good for America, we thought it was good for our country, and good for our economy, okay? All the things we looked at, and the environment. So, we were for that. I don’t know, I’m hoping — sooner or later, the president’s got to look at, you know what, we’re moving the country, trying to move it forward. And if the Republicans are meeting and working with us, and meeting us halfway on things, then we should be willing to sit down and work through this. Quit playing politics with everything we do” he stated. And  “how many times have you seen us do something bipartisan? We had nine democrats that voted in support of that bill. And it was overwhelmingly as far as bipartisan range today.”

Manchin also argued “it wasn’t about the pipeline. It was about, basically trying to stop Canada from producing it [oil].” Manchin further urged members of Congress to pass “a good infrastructure bill.”

Later in the interview, he said he thinks Congress should pass a DHS funding bill that was not tied to defunding the president’s executive action on immigration.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett