Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said he wouldn’t back Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid after she expressed support for eliminating the filibuster to codify abortion rights.
Manchin, an independent who left the Democratic Party in May, criticized Harris for her position on the filibuster during a CNN interview Tuesday.
“Shame on her,” the retiring lawmaker told the network. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together.”
Manchin argued that if the filibuster were to be gutted, then the more collegial Senate would lose its identity. Under Senate rules, legislation must reach a 60-vote threshold to end debate and allow for a simple majority vote.
“If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids,” he said, referring to the House’s adherence to majority rule instead of the Senate’s more deliberative style.
Manchin — who just last month was complimentary of Harris’ campaign rollout and her shift on energy policy — then said he wouldn’t endorse her campaign due to her position on the filibuster.
“That ain’t going to happen,” he told CNN. “I think that basically can destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any one person or any one person’s ideology. I think it’s the most horrible thing.”
Manchin’s remarks come after Harris, in a recent interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, bluntly said the filibuster needed to be eliminated to restore the protections afforded under Roe v. Wade — which was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 2022.
Harris, in the interview, said the effort was necessary to “put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom.”
Manchin and Harris are no strangers — they both served together in the Senate during her tenure in the upper chamber from 2017 to 2021. And the lawmakers also worked closely together as members of the Intelligence Committee.
But as a Senate Democrat, Manchin also staked out a much more conservative profile than many of his colleagues, especially on energy policy.
In an August interview with The New York Times, Manchin praised Harris for opposing a ban on fracking. The vice president’s move marked a reversal from her stance in 2019 when she indicated her opposition to the oil and gas drilling technique.
While speaking with CNN, Manchin said he had hoped that Harris would “change” her view on eliminating the filibuster, pointing to her onetime opposition to fracking.
During a CNN climate crisis town hall in 2019, Harris also said she supported scrapping the filibuster to pass the Green New Deal.
Manchin, who for years defied political gravity in the deeply conservative Mountain State, declined to run for reelection this year. His seat is heavily favored to flip to the GOP in November.
The Harris campaign didn’t immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.
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