Just read how he was behaving 5 years ago:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/joe-manchin-senator-profile-west-virginia-red-state-democrat-bipartisan-214865/
"In November, when exiting Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, with whom Manchin had a frosty relationship, called Trump “a sexual predator who lost the popular vote,” Manchin noisily sided with Trump, saying Reid’s comments were “an absolute embarrassment.” In December, Manchin eagerly accepted the invitation to go to Trump Tower, issuing a statement that he was “honored” to meet with Trump and “humbled” to be considered for secretary of energy. It wasn’t clear at the time whether he was ever in serious contention for the post—Trump went with Perry shortly after meeting with Manchin—but a source familiar with GOP deliberations told Politico there was concerted maneuvering to get Manchin into the Trump administration, blessed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. In a Machiavellian play, McConnell hoped to remove Manchin from the Senate, the source says, believing it would all but guarantee the seat going to a Republican. “There was serious effort to get him into the Cabinet,” a top GOP official said. Manchin pooh-poohed this: “I talked to Mitch a few times, but it was nothing,” he said. “It wasn’t anything about, ‘I want you to do anything.’”
...
Either way, Manchin continued in January with his pro-Trump activity. He skipped a meeting on the Hill to discuss health care with Obama and fellow Democrats because he couldn’t “in good conscience” talk to “only Democrats.” He announced his support for Trump’s selection to lead the EPA, Scott Pruitt, a climate-change denier who has been an antagonist of the agency he was tapped to lead, by participating in a highly unusual joint news release with Trump’s transition team, in which Manchin was quoted saying he and Pruitt had “a great deal in common.”
...
“You can’t really blame Joe,” another Senate Democrat said. “You can blame West Virginia.”
“And he really tries, I think, to help when he can,” said Dick Durbin of Illinois. “But there are times when he can’t.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York gave Manchin a leadership role after the election in November, tasking him with, among other things, improving Democrats’ “messaging” to Democrats, or one-time Democrats who voted for Trump in places like West Virginia. And on the sixth day of the Trump presidency, at a retreat for Senate Democrats in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Manchin hosted a panel of half a dozen such people—people whose families he has known for a long time, people who have voted for Manchin who nonetheless also voted for Trump. Some of Manchin’s colleagues got more out of the session than others—Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called it “interesting, but certainly not novel”—but the overall takeaway was sufficiently simple: These are the sorts of people Democrats are going to have to win back, at least if they want to win again in areas that are red and getting redder, and they will vote for a Democrat so long as that Democrat looks something like Manchin. “Joe,” Durbin told Politico, “is a reminder to us.”"
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OTOH he voted to convict Trump twice, no matter that he was chummy with Trump earlier, and he votes for Democratic court picks. My guess if a McCain was still alive on the GOP side, McCain might side with Democrats enough to convince Manchin, but who knows if McCain would have gone for voting rights?
= new reply since forum marked as read
