Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)—who last year reportedly urged GOP senators to strategically praise Manchin and was open to Manchin switching parties—said at his press conference on Tuesday that his West Virginia colleague made a “terrible deal.”
“How he can defend this is astonishing,” McConnell said. “This is a deal only Bernie Sanders would love.”
For Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Manchin’s move seemed to provoke at least four of the five stages of grief. When Manchin faced intense Democratic criticism last year, Cornyn routinely defended his colleague to his 350,000 Twitter followers. In December, Cornyn admitted to personally texting Manchin to ask if he’d join the GOP conference, calling the prospect “the greatest Christmas gift” he could imagine.
But after Manchin rolled out his deal, Cornyn took to the Senate floor to decry an “Olympic-sized flip flop” by the Democratic senator.
Since the weekend, Cornyn tweeted well over a dozen times about Manchin’s decision, questioning his analysis of economic data, accusing him of “prevarication,” and arguing he had “lashed” himself to President Joe Biden in a state where he is deeply unpopular.
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