The West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin is thinking about running for president in 2024. He knows how important it is for him to serve a state that Trump easily won in 2016 and 2020. Fox News said earlier on Tuesday that on January 17, 2020, Charlie Collins, a former member of Trump’s campaign team, shared a political cartoon called “Hang the convict,” which was about the president.
Collins wrote on Facebook on April 25, 2020, when the post was public, “Hey Trumpsters, have you finally realized this idiot is trying to kill us all? His news talks where he praised the ineffective drug hydroxychloroquine and his stupid comment about a disinfectant should be enough for the American people to realize that he is an idiot.
Collins did not stop criticizing Trump on June 2, 2020. “Awaken!” screamed the message, which said something like, “You call this man the religious leader of the free world?” If you insist on listening to that fool at church, I won’t go with you. Then he said, “Hello, America, I’m not your president but your dictator.”
On June 25, 2021, Collins wrote, “Lock this crook up,” again referring to Trump.
Even though images were included in the Fox News story, the information in question does not seem to be available to the public at this time.
Fox News used pictures to show how much Collins agreed with the anti-Trump Occupy Democrats. On June 7, 2021, a Democrat spoke up in favor of Hillary Clinton. On February 1, 2021, a Republican opponent said that the Democrat’s case was “you sold your soul.”
Collins also liked a tweet from Occupy Democrats that showed Trump and many Republican leaders as Taliban members on September 1, 2021. Some of these lawmakers are Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Jim Jordan of Ohio, both of whom are in Congress. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are also on the list.
The review was mostly about Manchin’s filings with the Federal Elections Commission in April 2023. In those papers, Collins is listed as the only staff person who gets a “salary.” When Fox News asked about it, a campaign worker for the senator said, “This person is no longer working for the campaign.” Manchin’s office sent out a statement that said, “Senator Manchin has always thought that respectful disagreement is a key part of our democracy, and he has zero tolerance for violence or threats of violence.”
Without Manchin’s help, the Democrats in West Virginia aren’t likely to keep his seat. Democrats will be watching a few seats in 2024, such as those of Manchin in West Virginia, Tester in Montana, and Brown in Ohio.
West Virginia is the place where Joe Biden is the least popular, and Trump is expected to win there by more than 42 points in 2016. In the 2018 election, Manchin won by only 3.35 percentage points over the Republican Patrick Morrisey.