Ever since Joe Biden entered the White House, he's had a Joe Manchin problem. Most accounts of Biden's presidency cast this as a problem with Manchin's unwillingness to go along with Biden's agenda. Democrats hold exactly 50 seats in the Senate, and thus need every Democratic senator to pass a party-line vote; Manchin, the Senate's most centrist Democrat, has consistently resisted.
But the problem is not only that Manchin is withholding his vote. It's that Manchin keeps bluntly and accurately describing the problems with Biden's policy proposals. To twist the Twitter-cliche, Joe Manchin keeps saying out loud the part that Joe Biden would rather keep quiet.
