Independent Sen. Joe Manchin said he cannot endorse 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 sits on the Democratic caucus, has been one of the few reluctant to back Harris just over 40 days before the election.
On Tuesday, Harris said in an interview that she supports ending the filibuster so Congress can pass legislation codifying Roe, after several other attempts by Senate Democrats have failed since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision was overturned. But Manchin opposes the move.
“Shame on him,” Manchin told CNN.She knows that the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that allows us to stay in touch and working together. Get rid of it and this House will be a House on steroids.
Sen. Joe Manchin says he cannot endorse Kamala Harris for president after she said she supports ending the Senate filibuster to pass abortion protections
Asked whether he would support the vice president, Manchin dismissed the question, saying, “That’s not going to happen.”
‘“I think that can basically destroy our country, and my country is more important to me than any person or any person’s ideology,” he said. “I think that’s the most horrible thing.”
In a separate statement Tuesday afternoon, Manchin said he has been consistent with the sixty-vote threshold since he came to 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’m hopeful that the Vice President remains willing to do just that.”
Democrats have been trying 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 a filibuster in the Senate.
They currently only have a 51-seat majority in the Senate, and Republicans control the House of Representatives.
In May 2022, Democrats made their first attempt to pass the legislation after the Supreme Court decision was leaked, but it failed. Every Republican senator, including Manchin, voted 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 to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to really put back into law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about her own body and not let their government tell them what to do,” Harris said in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio that aired Tuesday.
Kamala Harris at a campaign event where she spoke about abortion access in Georgia on Sept. 20. The vice president said in a radio interview broadcast Tuesday that she supports eliminating the Senate filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade.
Harris had promised as vice president to be the deciding vote in the Senate to end the filibuster on legislation to codify Roe, but her comments Tuesday mark the first time she has reiterated her position as a presidential candidate.
While Manchin has occasionally praised the vice president since taking over the leadership of the ticket, he has yet to officially endorse her.
Manchin, who is retiring at the end of the year, was one of multiple Democratic lawmakers who called for Biden to drop out of the presidential race and pass the torch after his disastrous performance in the June debate.
When Biden dropped out of the race in July, there was a moment of speculation about whether Manchin would run, but he quickly dismissed it.
Instead, Manchin called for a mini-primary, unlike many of his Democratic colleagues who immediately followed Biden’s lead and backed Harris.
Since the vice president 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 heard from them “encouraging.”
He also called it “amazing” and “an incredible job” what she was able to accomplish in just three weeks as the vice president ramped up a presidential campaign within weeks of assuming the lead of the ticket.
“I’ve been surprised by her. She’s done some good things. First of all, my relationship with Kamala goes back to when she came to the Senate,” Manchin told the Times last month, describing her as “very bright, very smart.”