Sen. Joe Manchin Says He Can Handle Attacks from Both Sides That Paint Him as 'the Hero and the Villain'

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin says he ignores critics who see him as either a good guy or a bad guy as he weighs his votes on legislation addressing issues important to his state, like climate change and health care.

Manchin's influence on the Democrats' wide-ranging economic package reshaped the legislation that eventually passed in the Senate and the House before being signed into law as the Inflation Reduction Act by President Joe Biden last week.

"I can be the hero and the villain all within a 24-hour shift," Manchin said during a roundtable discussion in Charleston, W.Va., Friday, the AP reports. "The bottom line is, I make no excuses for what I think is right. I've always said this — If I can explain that, I can vote. I can take the criticism I know that goes with those votes. That's part of the game."

A centrist Democrat, Machin declined to support an earlier, costlier version of Biden's Build Back Better Act late last year in what then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki called "a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the president and the senator's colleagues in the House and Senate."

"Nobody in their right mind would go through what I have gone through with my staff for the last eight months, taking all the crap we've taken from everybody in the country," Manchin said, referring to his criticism of his efforts to shape a bill that he could get behind, which includes billions to fight climate change but also supports traditional sources of fuel like coal and natural gas with subsidies for emissions-reducing technology.

"I wasn't sure that they would ever agree because of my friends on the far left, the environmental community, was totally committed to dispersing and basically eliminating fossil," Manchin said of the legislation.

There's "no way you can get rid of fossil in any short period of time," he added. "You can use it cleaner as you basically transition, but it's going to be with us, and you got to do the best you can with it," he said. "So, I wanted to make sure they understood that."

Meanwhile, Manchin, whose family owns a coal brokerage company, says he's "been criticized by all my friends in the coal industry."

He called the legislation that Biden signed "a pathway forward so we can continue to produce industry, provide energy that our country needs."

According to the AP, Manchin received more campaign contributions from natural gas pipeline companies than any other member of U.S. Congress. But he said that money had nothing to do with his support for the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project environmentalists oppose that was part of an agreement Manchin made with Democratic leaders, the AP reports.

"I understand the cynical part of that. People look at it and they go, 'Well, they're just taking care of themselves,'" he said of the money he's received. "I'm sorry people, I have no idea who contributes. I don't look at that, I don't go out and advocate that at all."

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Manchin added that politicians on both sides of the aisle should "rise above" outside interests when working on behalf of their constituents.

"Politics has become a very, very nasty, destructive type of process," he said. "Both sides are guilty of weaponizing the good of America for the good of the party — both sides, and it's just not right for our country."