Independent Senator Joe Manchin said he cannot support 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 votes with Democrats, is one of the few people to have voiced support for Harris with just 40 days to go until the election.
Harris said in an interview Tuesday that she supports 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 have failed. But Manchin opposes the move.
“Shame,” 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, this is the House on steroids.”
Sen. Joe Manchin says he can’t support Kamala Harris for president after she said she supports ending the Senate filibuster to pass abortion protections
Asked if he would support the vice president, Manchin rejected the proposal, saying “that’s not going to happen.”
‘“I think this could actually destroy our country and my country is more important to me than any person or any ideology,” he said. “I think it’s the most terrible thing.”
In a separate statement Tuesday afternoon, Manchin said he has adhered to the 60-vote threshold since taking office in the Senate.
‘“This threshold stabilizes our democracy, promotes bipartisan cooperation, and protects our nation from partisan whiplash and dysfunction,” he said. “I’ve always said, ‘If you can’t change your mind, you can’t change anything,’ and I hope the vice president remains open to doing that.”
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Democrats have been trying to pass legislation to restore nationwide abortion protections, but they need 60 votes to break the Senate filibuster.
They currently have a majority of only 51 seats in the Senate, while Republicans hold the majority in the House of Representatives.
In May 2022, Democrats made their first attempt to pass the legislation after the Supreme Court decision leaked, but it failed. All Senate Republicans, along with Manchin, voted against it. Another attempt earlier this year also failed.
“I’ve been very clear: I think we need to abolish the filibuster for Roe and get to the point where we need 51 votes to put back into law the protections of reproductive freedom and the ability for every person and every woman to make decisions about their own bodies without the government telling them what to do,” Harris said in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio that aired Tuesday.
Kamala Harris at a campaign rally where she spoke about abortion access in Georgia on September 20. The vice president said in a radio interview that aired Tuesday that she supports abolishing the filibuster in the Senate to codify Roe v Wade
As vice president, Harris had pledged to be the decisive vote in the Senate to end the filibuster for legislation to codify Roe, but her comments Tuesday are the first time she has reiterated her position as a presidential candidate.
Although Manchin has occasionally praised the vice president since she took charge of the campaign, he has not officially endorsed her.
Manchin, who is retiring at the end of the year, was one of several Democratic lawmakers who called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race and pass the torch after his disastrous performance at the June debate.
When Biden withdrew from the race in July, there was some speculation that 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 backed Harris.
Now that the vice president has secured the nomination, Manchin has praised her and her campaign.
In an interview with The New York Times last month, he called some of the things he had heard from them “encouraging.”
He called what she accomplished in just three weeks “amazing” and “incredible work,” considering the vice president launched her presidential campaign within weeks of taking over.
“I’m 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 smart, very intelligent.”