Sen. Joe Manchin is reportedly considering leaving the Democratic Party.
The West Virginia Democrat has told associates he has a plan to leave his party if his liberal colleagues cannot find a way to cut down the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation plan to $1.75 trillion, according to left-leaning publication Mother Jones.
If Manchin follows through with the plan, he would switch from Democrat to Independent.
The senator reportedly has a two-part plan for his exit. First, he would send a letter to Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, asking to be removed from leadership, as he currently serves as the vice chairman of the Senate Democrats’ policy and communications committee.
Manchin says he would then wait to see if that showed Democrats how serious he was about leaving if negotiations don't go his way. Then, after about a week, he would change his voter registration from Republican to Democrat.
'It's bulls***,' Manchin said of the report he was considering leaving the party. 'I have no control over rumors.'
'I’ve been walking around here telling everybody around here the same thing,' he said, after reporters pounced on the senator to confirm the report.
Asked if he was staying in the Democratic Party and caucus, he said: 'I am where I am.'
Still, the report serves as a warning to progressives to get serious about compromise.
On Tuesday, progressives who met with Biden said his bottom line number was $1.9T to $2.2T, though they wanted it to be much higher.
'It's not the number that we want. We have consistently tried to make it as high as possible,' Jayapal, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters outside the White House after their two hour meeting with the president.
Manchin, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, is a key moderate Democrat in the Senate, and their votes remain the last bulwark against their party's massive social spending bill.
It is not clear how Manchin's potential party change would affect his voting, as the only two other
