Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a former Democrat who switched party affiliations during the Trump administration, on Newsmax Wednesday invited Sen. Joe Manchin to become a Republican.
Drew added that if Manchin can't switch, then he should "hold tight, hold fast, hold hard, and be strong" when being pushed by members of his party toward legislation such as the Build Back Better Act.
"When he said [Sunday] that he wasn't going to vote for this, it was two years to the day that I became a Republican," the New Jersey lawmaker said on "John Bachman Now." "And in a little way, it reminded me of it because, you know, I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to be a socialist. I didn't want to be part of the Democratic Party, I didn't want to impeach the president."
Van Drew added that when he refused to vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump, "I was threatened, I was abused, and I was told I had to obey."
Manchin, D-W.Va., has "gone through the same kind of thing" for refusing to vote for the spending bill, Van Drew said.
"So I give him credit for having the courage to do what's right," Van Drew said on Newsmax. "This is a bad bill that will hurt our country forever, and it should not go through the way that it is. In fact, it shouldn't go through it at all."
Van Drew also commented about President Joe Biden's address to the country concerning further steps being taken about the omicron variant of COVID-19.
"They are pushing for more power and more control," when it comes to vaccinations, Van Drew said. "It is still a decision that an individual makes based on health and based upon their doctor, and based upon how they feel in many factors. It isn't their right to diminish or demean people because they just don't agree with their decision."
But with Biden, "it's always like he's looking down on those that don't agree with him," Van Drew said. "Joe Biden, there's a lot of people that don't agree with you, and there's a lot of things you're wrong about. They should be ashamed of the way they have handled a lot of this."
The congressman also slammed Biden's chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying he thinks Fauci is doing a "terrible job" and called for him to be fired.
In addition Wednesday, Van Drew commented about the news that the Secret Service has reported about $100 billion was stolen from COVID relief funds.
"Every day, there's another important screw-up by this president," he said. "Every week, there is another issue that comes up. This is just one more.
"They don't know how to run things. And it's funny because they want to have more power in our country. They want to run almost every aspect of our economy of our health of our future. They can't even do the simplest things like making sure that nobody stealing the money that was supposed to go to small businesses to make sure that they survive."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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