FILE - Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., speaks to reporters as he walks out of a closed-door caucus meeting after the House approved a 45-day funding bill to keep federal agencies open, Sept. 30, 2023, in Washington. Manchin announced he won't seek reelection in 2024, giving Republicans a prime opportunity to gain a seat in the heavily GOP state. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

WHEELING — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin said Wednesday he doesn’t want to be U.S. president, but added if he finds conditions in the country “awful, awful bad” in the coming months throughout America he will have to find a way to serve the country.

And that might mean “pushing from the radical middle,” traveling the nation and convincing other candidates to run, he explained.

“No, I don’t have a desire to be president of the United States. I have an unbelievable burning desire to save the nation,” he told reporters during an online press chat. “I will do whatever I can to save this nation. But I think there are other people, other movements, out there that have to figure it out. They have to get off their cans and start doing something.”

The nation’s political parties have taken over “and weaponized to the point they have put us against each other,” Manchin continued. “And that’s wrong.”

Manchin — a West Virginia Democrat serving as a centrist in the Senate since 2011 — announced last week he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2024. He said he instead would travel the nation and work toward “unifying the middle” as next year’s presidential election approaches.

He was asked what might inspire him to seek the office of president next year as a third-party candidate.

“I’m going to have to be awful, awful convinced by it for that to happen,” Manchin said. “The bottom line is this, I will do anything I can to save our country.

“But I believe it’s going to have to be somebody from the outside. I will never be a spoiler. I’m not going to try to tilt the public toward one side or the other. I will not do that.”

Manchin said he knows “so many good people” who might make a good president.

“And I’m going to work with all of them,” he said.

Manchin said what he is looking for in a candidate is someone who doesn’t just have the same morals and beliefs he does. That candidate should have an established background in public service, how they run their business and make a living, and how they take care of their family.

“I can tell if someone has good values, and that they’re going to be able to hang on when things get tough,” he added.

“There are a lot of people I’ve served with who can more than do the job. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Manchin has been involved with the “No Labels” movement, a group that supports centrism and bipartisanship through what it calls the “common sense majority.”

He and his daughter, former Mylan Pharmaceuticals CEO Heather Bresch, also have plans to work together to launch a political group catering to moderates.

“I’m not going out there running. I’m going out there with a mission to bring Americans together,” he said. “We’re going to help candidates – Democrat or Republican – who have that (centrist) philosophy, and the experience level we can check. That’s the type of person you want involved.

“You are not going to change the parties unless you can move them back to where they came from – the parties we used to know. They’re not going to do that because of the business model and all the money.”

Manchin’s advice to aspiring office holders is that party identification doesn’t make a candidate.

“You are who you are,” he explained. “If you are looking for party identification to identify you, that’s not going to happen and it shouldn’t happen. All you’re trying to do is play toward your own political selfishness and what you want.”

It’s the branding out of Washington that makes a political party, according to Manchin.

He believes President Joe Biden and Democrats “went too far left” with their war against fossil fuels, environmentalism and failure to curb national spending.

“President Biden got elected because he was a moderate,” Manchin said. “But because of the party system, he swerved to the left. And I don’t think he will win again if he goes to the left.”

Manchin also indicated the nation may have spent too much on COVID-19 relief efforts.

“I don’t remember reading in the history books that after the Great Depression that FDR (President Franklin D. Roosevelt) said let’s send people money,” Manchin said. “But he sure sent a lot of opportunities that my grandparents were thankful for.”

Likewise, Manchin expressed grave concerns about a return of former President Donald Trump to the White House. He said if Trump were elected again, “it could be the destruction of democracy in America.”

Manchin noted he tried to work with Trump, whom he found “gracious and engaging.” But he senses Trump now just wants to be president to punish those who have criticized and pushed against him.

“It was a broken system. He came in, and he shook it up,” Manchin said of Trump. “But you can’t take the most powerful office in the world and use it for vengeful purposes.”

In the end, a lot of good leaders are choosing to leave Washington because of the political divide, he continued.

“I know a lot of my colleagues who left here early because they couldn’t take it anymore,” Manchin said. “They were solid Americans, and very centrist. They were governors before, and they couldn’t stand being here because they had to weaponize their party’s system by joining the extremes.

“You’re not going to win unless you have that sensible, common sense, moderate middle. I don’t care if you are on the left or right, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. They will not win unless they have that centrist group.”

Manchin also lamented there is “a lack of facts in society” as more and more people just look for opinions they agree with through alternative news sources.

“They find a comfort zone, and if they are made they are going to find a comfort zone that keeps them mad,” he said. “There’s not a healing process. There’s nothing we can congregate around that keeps us together anymore.”