Former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin urged Democrats to admit they made a mistake in their open border policies, calling the political position "disgusting" as anti-ICE riots rock the streets of Los Angeles.
Manchin argued the previous administration "should have never opened" the southern border during "The Brian Kilmeade Show," pleading with his former party to "fix" the mistake.
"It's a shame, and it's disgusting," Manchin told Kilmeade on Tuesday. "The bottom line is, Americans want a secure border, and Democrats just ought to say, 'We made a mistake. I'm so sorry we made a mistake. We're going to support securing our borders, and we would like for the president and all of our Republican friends to work together as Democrats, as Americans, and find a legal immigration policy that people want to come for the right reason and be able to add to this great country of ours and economies.'"
"But this is awful. We should have never opened the borders up, and it should have never been asylum at the border," he added. "They know that they were wrong and made a big mistake. The problem with the political posturing today, [is] people can't say, 'I made a mistake. I messed up. "I'm sorry, and I'll fix it.' Let's fix it, and that's what they need to do."
President Donald Trump announced the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and 700 Marines in recent days to help quell the violence despite objections from Gov. Gavin Newsom. He said in a proclamation that mobilizing the National Guard troops was necessary to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, who he said were being hindered from arresting illegal immigrants.
Manchin noted that while the Trump administration should have reached out to Newsom first before the deployments, action needed to be taken even if the governor was not "receptive" to federal resources.
"His staff should have told him, 'We're going to reach out to the governor and the governor's office, see if he's receptive, he understands how dire this is, and we're willing to act, and we will act if he doesn't act.' That would have been, I think a little bit… smoother way to do it," he said.
"[The] public would have seen he tried everything possible. They didn't want to enforce the law the way it should be enforced, and the president had to do it. But they could have made that gesture."
Meanwhile, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., spoke out against the "anarchy and true chaos" in Los Angeles, declaring that Democrats forfeit "moral high ground" if they do not decry the violence.
"I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration — but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement," Fetterman declared in a post on X.
Manchin agreed with Fetterman, urging Americans from all partisan angles to work together to stop the violence.
"Bottom line is, we've got to put a stop to it," Manchin said. "The federal government, the president's the leader. He's our president. He is the leader of the free world. He has to show how we can work together, make an effort to try to work together, and then move forward and take the force and use the force that's needed. It's a shame the Democrats cannot come to grips."
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom, Peter D'Abrosca and Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.