During a recent segment of ABC’s “The View,” the panelists lashed out at Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin for saying he would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid after claiming she would support ending the filibuster. Notably since conservative victories such as overturning Roe v. Wade, liberals have rallied to eliminate the filibuster.
The segment began playing a clip of Vice President Harris outlining her opinion on the filibuster. “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,” she said.
The show then juxtaposed this with commentary from Manchin criticizing Harris’ stance on the filibuster. “Shame on her. She knows that the filibuster is the holy grail democracy,” the senator said. A reporter then asked the Independent, “You’re not endorsing her?” Manchin responded, “I’m not endorsing her, never.” Following the clip, co-host Whoopi Goldberg said, “Well, we ain’t endorsing you. How about that?”
The panel of female commentators expressed a wide range of opinions on the filibuster. Alyssah Farah Griffin said, “I disagree with eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe, and here’s why. It means that in two years, say, Democrats win the Senate, and then in two years, Republicans win it back, they can also do the same thing to pass any unpopular piece of legislation.”
Griffin continued, “The Senate is the body where you build consensus, and I don’t think it’s right for voter, for the American public, to get that whiplash of okay, for two years you do have access to abortion, but then the dynamics in the Senate change, and suddenly it’s completely reversed and rolled back. I understand why Kamala Harris is taking this position, but I just disagree.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “This is something that has been made up and added by Congress. The filibuster was designed and used for decades to thwart civil rights legislation, and its abuse has only grown with time.” However, despite the negative sentiment toward the filibuster’s past uses, she maintained that Democrats should use it to push their agenda forward.
Hostin added, “So now is the time to use the filibuster for good and in support of the will of the people three things, reproductive health rights, voting rights and gun control. These are paramount American issues facing our country that must be resolved. We can’t seem to get it done any other way, and so I am in favor of the filibuster as a mother and as a woman.”
On the other hand, Sarah Haines voiced a negative opinion toward the filibuster, stating, “I was going to say I used to agree with you, and actually defended the filibuster here a few years ago for all the reasons you spelled out. It forces compromise, reconciliation working across the aisle, but in the last several years, we’ve seen some things where it feels like ideals are out the window. So if we were in a vacuum, I agree with you.”
She went on, “But right now, we have seen Merrick Garland blocked years ago by the Republicans in an election year, and then Amy Coney Barrett pushed through even closer to an election in a month. We’ve seen January 6 where people were not going to certify an election and then a President wouldn’t peacefully transfer his power.”
Watch “The View’s” reaction below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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