Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has railed against the nation’s record-high debt, on Thursday called Fitch Ratings’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ a “historic failure of leadership by both political parties and the executive branch.” 

Manchin, who is flirting with a presidential run as a third-party candidate backed by the group No Labels, has regularly criticized what he views as the lack of bipartisan cooperation in Washington.

He blamed the nation’s latest credit downgrade on the inability of Republicans and Democrats in Congress and President Biden to make significant progress in addressing the nation’s $32 trillion debt.  

“The credit agency specifically cited the decline in governance, erosion of cooperation in the federal government and ballooning national debt when making the determination to lower our credit rating,” he said. “This is a stark warning that cannot be ignored. We must act now to fully fund the government and address our national debt before we wake up to a future where America’s superpower status is in jeopardy and we have lost the confidence of our allies around the world.”