Manchin won’t endorse Biden — or rule out presidential run

Sen. Joe Manchin refused to endorse President Biden Sunday ahead of his expected 2024 re-election run — and Manchin went so far as to suggest he may throw himself into the race against his party’s leader.

“I’m not taking anything off the table. And I’m not putting anything on the table,” the 75-year-old Manchin (D-WV) told CBS’ “Face The Nation”, minutes after throwing cold water on Biden’s reelection bid. “The bottom line is, let’s see who’s involved … Let’s wait until we see who all the players are. Let’s just wait until it all comes out.”

The former West Virginia governor also said he had “plenty of time to make up my mind” and would wait until December to announce whether he will run for another term in the Senate or set his sights on higher office.

“We’ve got a runaway debt, we’ve got inflation that’s killing people, we’ve got unsecured energy, we have a border that’s out of control — you’re telling me we’re in the same ballgame, in the same ballpark? I don’t think so,” added Manchin, who has served in the Senate since 2011.

No major Democratic candidates have announced a primary challenge to the president, with the exception of a longshot bid by celebrity author Marianne Williamson. The self-help guru on Sunday accused party bosses of “rigging” the Democratic primary system in favor of Biden.

“They don’t even pretend anymore. They’re not even covert about their — their swaying the primary season. They’re very overt about it,” Williamson told ABC News’ “This Week.”

Biden has waved away concerns from voters and members of his own party that his age and apparent mental slippage should rule out a 2024 campaign. 

On Sunday, first lady Jill Biden dismissed as “ridiculous” the prospect of aging politicians like her 80-year-old husband being forced to take regular mental competency tests — a reform floated by Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

Former president Donald Trump ridiculed his 2020 opponent during a Saturday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, joking that not even members of the press are able to protect Biden from perceptions that he is physically weak.

“We all smile when he falls down stairs, or falls off his bicycle,” the 76-year-old told conference attendees. “It’s amazing the press didn’t catch him when he was going down off his bicycle. They let him fall!”

Almost 70% of voters believe Biden is “too old for another term,” a Yahoo News/YouGov poll found last week.  

The 45th and 46th presidents — both of whom are over Haley’s suggested competency test threshold of 75 years — are polling neck and neck, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average.

Meanwhile, West Virginia GOP Gov. Jim Justice has floated a potential Senate challenge to Manchin in 2024, saying in February he will announce his decision “real soon.”

Justice, 71, famously changed his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican at a Trump rally in 2017.

Like many Senate Democrats, Manchin faces a tough reelection race in 2024 after the Mountain State went for Trump by 39 points in 2020.

During a February interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures, Manchin surprisingly declined to call himself a Democrat, preferring to say, “I’m an American through and through.”