Independent Senator Joe Manchin said he cannot back Vice President Kamala Harris for president after she said she supports ending the Senate filibuster to pass abortion protections in Congress.
The outgoing West Virginia lawmaker who caucuses with Democrats has been one of the few holdouts to endorse Harris with just over 40 days to go before the election.
On Tuesday, Harris said in an interview she backs ending the filibuster so Congress can pass legislation codifying Roe after several other attempts by Senate Democrats since the landmark Supreme Court decision was overturned failed. But Manchin opposes the move.
‘Shame on her,’ Manchin told CNN. ‘She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.’
On whether he will back the vice president, Manchin rejected it saying ‘that ain’t going to happen.’
‘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,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the most horrible thing.’
In a separate statement Tuesday afternoon, Manchin said he has been consistent with the sixty-vote threshold since arriving in the Senate.
‘This threshold stabilizes our democracy, promotes bipartisan cooperation and protects our nation from partisan whiplash and dysfunction,’ he said. ‘I have always said: “if you can’t change your mind, you can’t change anything” and I am hopeful that the Vice President remains open to doing just that.’
Democrats have been attempting to pass legislation to restore national abortion protections since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, but they need sixty votes to overcome the filibuster in the Senate.
They currently only have a 51 seat Senate majority, and Republicans control the House.
Former Democrat-turned-Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona echoed Manchin’s sentiments. She is also not seeking reelection.
‘To state the supremely obvious, eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v Wade also enables a future Congress to ban all abortion nationwide. What an absolutely terrible, shortsighted idea,’ she stated on X.
In May 2022, Democrats made their first attempted to pass the legislation after the Supreme Court decision leaked, but it failed. Every Senate Republican along with Manchin voting against it. Another attempt earlier this year also failed.
‘I’ve been very clear, I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe, and get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do,’ Harris said in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio aired Tuesday.
Harris had vowed as vice president to be the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to end the filibuster for legislation to codify Roe, but her comments on Tuesday mark the first time she has reiterated her position as a presidential nominee.
While Manchin has at times praised the vice president since she took over the top of the ticket, he had not yet officially endorsed her.
Manchin, who is retiring at the end of the year, was one of the multiple Democratic lawmakers who called for Biden to exit the presidential race and pass the torch after his disastrous debate performance in June.
When Biden did exit the race in July, there was a moment of speculation over whether Manchin would run, but he quickly ruled it out.
Instead, Manchin called for a mini-primary unlike many of his Democratic colleagues who immediately followed Biden’s lead and endorsed Harris.
Since the vice president has locked in the nomination, Manchin has offered some praise for her and her campaign.
In an interview with the New York Times last month, he called some of the things he has heard from them ‘encouraging.’
He also called what she was able to accomplish in just three weeks ‘amazing’ and ‘an unbelievable job’ as the vice president ramped up a presidential campaign in a matter of weeks after taking over the top of the ticket.
‘I’ve been surprised. She’s done some good things. First of all, my relationship with Kamala goes back to when she came into the Senate,’ Manchin told the Times last month, describing her as ‘very bright, very smart.’