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Former Sen. Manchin details Biden's pressure campaign to win his vote in new memoir
Manchin talked about his opposition to Biden's Build Back Better proposal.
A new memoir from former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who clashed with former President Joe Biden over his legislative agenda, highlights the sharp disagreements the former moderate Democrat had with the Biden White House and his party -- and describes Biden's campaign to pressure Manchin to back his plans.
ABC News obtained excerpts of Manchin's memoir, "Dead Center: In Defense of Common Sense," before its release on Sep. 16.
Here are some tid bits
One of the swing votes in the evenly split Senate, the longtime senator from the coal-producing state opposed Biden's $2 trillion-plus Build Back Better proposal, a sweeping domestic policy, tax and social safety net package that included climate and tax provisions that Manchin rejected.
Manchin said his rejection didn't stop Biden from trying to use the bully pulpit to convince Manchin to change his position.
In a private White House meeting, Manchin said he told Biden "this isn't your legislation. It's Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren's. I've known you for a long time, and I do not believe that you believe this is the right thing for the country."
"He grabbed my arm," Manchin wrote of Biden. "'Joe,' he said, 'the country needs you.'"
Once Manchin revealed in a Fox News interview that he would not support the proposal, effectively killing it in the Senate, Manchin said he received a "hostile" voicemail from Biden, and that Biden was "irate" when he returned his message.
Manchin said he told Biden he was frustrated with the White House's outreach, and the fact that Biden singled out his opposition in a statement, telling Biden he believed it put his family "in harm's way and disregarded my genuine attempt to work with you."
Biden ended the conversation on a cool note, according to Manchin.
"'We have a pissed off Irishman and a pissed off Italian, I think we should let things cool off.' We didn't talk for three months," Manchin wrote.
He also outlined an early fight he had with Biden where, when Democrats were trying to ram through the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in the early months of his presidency in an evenly-divided Senate, Manchin rejected it.
Biden ripped into Manchin for standing in the way of an early victory.
"As the drama began, I got a call from the president, and was he hot," Manchin wrote. "'If you kill this f— bill, I will never speak to you again,’ he promised. Anyone who knows Joe Biden — and I have known him for a very long time —knows he’s got a very bad temper. He calls it his ‘Irish.’ I call it unfortunate. But if he was going there, so was I."
"'Your actions are reckless,' I spat back. ‘You’re sending a f— check to everyone. And if you missed anyone, it was only by mistake.’"
The legislation ultimately passed after a compromise was reached, but Manchin noted that he later regretted "capitulating on the American Rescue Plan."
He also described having a far better relationship with Trump, who he considered a fellow "outsider," than Obama, and noted that Obama reached out to him twice during his entire presidency: once after he won re-election to the Senate in 2012 and again in 2015 to persuade him from voting against his nuclear deal with Iran.
"From the start, President Trump had an open line of communication with me. I spoke to him more in the first two years of his presidency than I did to President Obama during all eight years of his time in office," Manchin said.
Biden was a POS all the way round as he manipulated and cajoled anyone he could to get his way.
