See why Dems are worried about this potential third-party candidate

 

I haven't

made any decision, nor will

I make a decision

until the end of the year.

And my reason for that,

I've never seen a place in the world.

Basically,

the next election starts

the day after the last election

That was Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat,

refusing to rule out a third party

presidential run.

After speaking to a bipartisan group

in New Hampshire

last night,

the West Virginia

senator told CNN's Kaitlan Collins

that Americans

deserve another option in 2024.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.

Senator Joe Manchin openly

flirting with a third party

presidential bid in New Hampshire.

We're here to make sure

that the American people have an option.

And the option is

can you move the political parties

off their respective sides?

They've gone too far

right and too far left.

What he calls a unity ticket

many Democrats

fear could be a spoiler

by siphoning

just enough votes from President Biden

to help Donald Trump win back

the White House.

I've never been any race

I've ever spoiled.

I've been in races to win.

And if I get in a race, I'm going to win.

At a town hall meeting in Saint Anselm,

College in New Hampshire,

Manchin of West Virginia Democrat,

and Jon Huntsman,

a former

Utah Republican governor,

made their pitch for No Labels.

A bipartisan group

trying to move the nation

beyond its partizan gridlock.

Afterward, they sat down

with CNN's Kaitlan Collins.

Right now,

people are sick and tired of what

they're seeing and upset about.

All they see is turmoil and havoc.

And we can do better than this.

And the people expect us to do better.

And this is a good movement.

They said Americans deserve

a third choice

if a rematch emerges next year

between Biden and Trump.

Should the political, the mainstream

political system produce

the same

results in 24 as it did

in 20, in which case

three fourths of the American voters

have said, no, not again.

We want an option for more than a decade.

The No Labels movement has promoted

bipartisanship over extremes.

The group,

which registers

as a nonprofit and declines

to disclose

its donors,

plans to raise $70 million

for a candidate in waiting.

On Monday night,

the group unveiled

what it called a common sense policy

book, aiming to find middle ground

on controversial issues from abortion

rights to guns to immigration.

It's a centrist agenda

that sounds downright utopian

in today's deeply divided Washington.

We're trying

to make sure the parties understand

you can't stay in the extreme left

or extreme right.

No Labels has only secured

ballot access in Arizona,

Alaska, Oregon, Utah and Colorado.

Aides say

with the goal of reaching

20 states by the end of the year.

Another threat to Biden's reelection

bid comes from Cornel West,

the former Harvard scholar

who is mounting a Green Party

presidential bid.

He, too, rejects the label of spoiler.

I wish they would spend as much time

focusing on the plight of poor

and working people as they do

focusing on the spoiler.

I don't even like that.

Categorizing so many of folk who vote

third party don't vote at all.

But third

party efforts

have shown little promise in modern

American history.

Deep displeasure

with Trump

in Biden

have shined a brighter

light on the prospects this year.

Mindful of an enthusiasm

shortfall facing Biden,

Democrats are increasingly

sounding the alarm.

Haunted by Ross Perot's

independent bid in 1992 and Green Party

runs from Ralph Nader in 2000

Jill Stein in 2016.

Manchin who has yet to say

if he intends

to seek reelection

to the Senate next year

or run for higher office

dismissed such concerns

I'm not here

running for president tonight.

I'm not.

I'm here

trying to basically save the nation.

There was significant interest

in this idea,

of course

here in New Hampshire,

where the presidential primary

process begins.

Many voters

say they are taking a look

at this organization.

Manchin, for his part,

said he will make a decision

by the end of the year.

No Labels will make a decision next year

when they see

if there is a Trump Biden

rematch in the offing.

There is no doubt, though,

hanging over all of this,

even though

Manchin says he's not a spoiler.

Some Democrats at the White House

and supporters of Joe Biden

are not so sure.

In Abby.

All right.

Jeff Zeleny,

joining us now,

our politics reporter

for some of our Semaphore Chief,

Shelby Talcott,

a national political reporter

for Axios, Alex Thompson.

All right, Alex I loved

Dick Durbin, who's the number two

senator in the Democratic caucus,

referred to Joe Manchin as America's

biggest political tease.

Which I think is a fair

and accurate assessment to some degree.

I am so highly skeptical of this

and so highly skeptical

of paying attention to it.

Am I wrong?

You know, it's talking to somebody in

Joe mentions camp last night

and that that person would say

that you are wrong, that this is serious.

And in fact,

Joe Manchin sort of sees this opposition,

all of this,

you know what

he would see

as handwringing from Democrats

and actual more encouragement

for him to continue doing what he's doing

because they say

this is evidence that No Labels

is actually tapping into something real.

They are tapping into

what the polls show is that

America does not want

a Biden Trump rematch.

And so I think he is

the biggest

political tease

but I also think that

with more attention,

the more serious he becomes, you know,

I couldn't help but notice

in a small thing,

we noticed

he was styling his hair

a little bit differently.

He was using a little bit more product.

He was like, pardon

the hair a little bit.

This is so full disclosure.

This is like my favorite thing

from last night

and this morning

because I have been chuckling

about this fact for the better part.

And I saw it in your notes this morning.

I was like, thank you.

I'm not the only crazy person here

because it's true.

The hairstyle is different.

And we as reporters

are naturally reading all the tea leaves.

What does it mean,

Alex Thompson,

that there's product in Joe Manchin.

When I asked this person,

I was just like, What?

And they were like,

Yeah, it was a little bit

different and mentions here.

It's actually been weirdly a bit part

of his political personality.

He ran ads about how his wife

cut his hair in his reelection bid.

So I don't know what's going on.

A split screen is

are the important things

that we're going to dig into.

No, I love it because you're right.

And I also like a lot of that.

But it is different.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

And now I'll be reading the tea leaves.

I mean, maybe he's trying to

I don't know.

Is it party to the left or to the right?

I don't know.

But, Shelby,

look, the argument

I mean, then they get asked this

pretty much

every time they talk about No Labels

aren't you just going to take away,

especially if you don't want Trump

to be the president,

take away from the Democrat.

And there is polling to suggest

that people who don't like both

parties are more likely

if they're given a choice of the two

to vote for the Democrat.

So how concerned are both parties

right now?

Do you sense more concern on the left

or on the right?

I think there's

definitely more concern on the left.

But I will say that Trump's campaign

is keeping an eye on everything.

They say that

they keep an eye

on this on what Biden is doing, on

what Tim Scott is doing,

what every candidate is doing.

But at this point,

I do think based on that polling,

that Trump's team is viewing

this potentially

as an opportunity,

because a lot of people believe that

if Joe Manchin were to run,

he would take more votes away from

Joe Biden.

Now, I will tell you,

Joe Manchin

does not think

that he believes

that he can take votes away

from Donald Trump.

And he also believes

that there is a very

narrow way for him to win

through some of these red states.

And I think he

his point of view is that

that is something

that people are not picking up on

or don't or don't see.

And that's his angle.

And he's definitely keeping the door,

not just the red states,

but these Rust Belt states that he won

in 2016.

The margin was basically Jill

Stein's vote.

So there's no evidence for that.

No. One, it's what drives the concern.

But it's also Jeff's

only made a great point to me

the other day that

Democrats are at least inside

Biden's team,

are more concerned about Cornel West

as somebody who could actually

siphon away.

Shelby, I do want to ask

you've got Newark.

We've had tons of great

reporting on the Sanders campaign.

And where they stand right now,

obviously in the midst

of a little bit of an overhaul.

We have the interview

with Jake Tapper tonight,

which is certainly a shift

in media strategy.

But there

something that was in one of your stories

from a big donor from DeSantis

that I wanted to read off to you,

because it was an interesting

kind of contrary view,

which is it's from Dan Eberhart,

who told you

the campaign is smart to adapt.

Scott Walker's campaign was too heavy

and didn't make changes soon enough.

The senator's campaign

is ahead of the curve

and is making the tough choices

that will enable them to win

in the early primary states and beyond.

And I feel like that isn't necessarily

considered as a possibility

at this point. Right?

You start the spiral as a candidate

and campaign

and everybody writes

you off, you're dead.

That becomes

kind of the narrative that sticks

but maybe they learned from Scott

Walker's implosion.

He was on with Danny yesterday.

And the parallels,

I think

certainly on the surface are there.

Do you think that

they have figured out a way to quickly

shift and adapt

and put themselves back into play here?

I think it's a little bit

too soon to tell,

but I will say that

donors are very split.

You have the Dan Everhart of the

DeSantis campaign.

They are kind of diehard

DeSantis

donors who I think

will stick with him for a very long time.

And then you have a group

who are very skeptical

and growing more skeptical.

And this shakeup

placated some but worried others more.

And I and

I do think that there's an opportunity

for him

to kind of take like the John McCain

the McCain

type situation where,

you know,

he fires his campaign manager

or he shakes

things up

a little bit more aggressively

and he ends up doing a lot better

to come back.

So it's plausible, definitely plausible.

And, you know,

part of this shift in media

strategy is part of this.

I mean, I don't think you can overstate

how much his approach to mainstream

media has changed

from just two months ago.

In this Jake Tapper interview

this afternoon

is just the latest instance of it.

And Republicans

are all going to be tuning in.

Some will be popping popcorn, too.

And it's really interesting

because he is

internally

his team has been very split over

whether to do mainstream interviews

like the Jake Tapper interview.

So it's it's extremely notable

that he's doing it this and also,

you know,

praising Jake

we love Jake,

but you wouldn't have heard

that from Ron

DeSantis just a couple of months ago

as they were trying to

criticize most of the media

that's not named Fox

News and folks on the right.

Yeah.

Everybody in politics

can be watching, Jake.

English

AllMore from this storyFrom CNNRelatedListenableRecently uploadedWatched