CNN: Joe Manchin Blasts Kamala Harris’ Filibuster Comment, Says He Won’t Endorse Her

3 months ago
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KEILAR: “... go to the hill because we have some new information coming in, and our Manu Raju is there. A key vote — a key voice I should say not going to endorse Vice President Harris, Manu?”
RAJU: “Yeah, that’s right. That’s Senator Joe Manchin who had long been of course a moderate Democrat from West Virginia recently became an independent, but someone who is still caucuses with Democrats and had been signaling just a couple weeks ago told me that he was getting ready getting closer to endorse Kamala Harris as he heard a lot of her proposals going forward. But now that she has said that she would gut the Senate filibuster rules in order to pass a measure to preserve abortion rights Manchin tells us this morning that he will not endorse Harris for president. He is one of the staunchest supporters of — of the filibuster in the Senate. Manchin argues that it is essential to forcing bipartisan consensus and compromise in the Senate is in the minority of Democrats in particular who are pushing to gut this all together because it would lower the threshold for advancing legislation from 60 votes to 51 if Kamala Harris had her way. But just moments ago Manchin told our colleague, Ted Barrett, he said — he said, quote, ‘shame on,’ her referring to Harris. He says that she knows the filibuster is the holy grail of democracy, and Manchin went on to say 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. And then Ted went on to ask him whether he would consider endorsing her and he said, quote, ‘That ain’t going to happen.’ So he could have given her some effort as the Harris is trying to move to the middle guys, perhaps she could have touted a Manchin endorsement, which seemed to be coming to her side, but now that she has said this he says no way, that is not going to happen, as she tries to promise her voters she can get abortion rights passed if she wins the presidency in November.”

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