‘The View’ Hosts Fret That A Joe Manchin Presidential Bid Could Sink Biden in ’24

The co-hosts of “The View” on Monday lamented how retiring moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is reportedly eyeing a third-party presidential bid because they believe it would harm President Joe Biden’s reelection chances.

On Thursday, Manchin announced that he won’t seek reelection as he faces an uphill battle against Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

“I’ve made one of the toughest decisions in my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate,” he said in a statement. “But what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together. We need to take back America and not let this divisive hatred further pull us apart.”

For months, Manchin’s name has been mentioned in association with No Labels, a moderate political organization that is attempting to get registered in all 50 states ahead of the 2024 presidential election. While he has not yet formally announced a third-party presidential run, Democrats are increasingly concerned that he would pull votes from Biden if he did.

And that isn’t something The View co-hosts want to see.

As Fox News reported, Joy Behar noted that Manchin “has a lot of people wondering if power in D.C. will shift for the right, because yesterday he announced he will end his run as the Senate’s worst Democrat,” adding that he was “right up there with Kyrsten Sinema,” a former Democrat-turned-Independent who still caucuses with her former party.

“So we’re gonna lose the Senate because of this?” Behar asked.

“Very likely,” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official and the panel’s nominal conservative, responded.

Later, she said it “seemed like Joe Manchin was hinting at potentially a third-party bid. People have wondered if he’d jump into the No Labels kinda discussion. I’ve been largely critical of No Labels because my fear is that, A, it would end up boosting Trump, getting more supporters to him, but also, I think for a third party, which we need in this country to come about, it’s going to take years not one cycle.”

Griffin went on to argue that she is “warming” to certain aspects of the idea, theoretically, and is amenable to several of the candidates who are associated with the No Labels movement to a point where she’s “willing to hear what they have to say, but I worry that it could end up boosting the more dangerous candidate.”

Her remarks were followed by those of co-host Sunny Hostin, who said she isn’t sure if a third-party candidate “has ever been successful other than in drawing votes away” from either of the larger parties as others recalled names like Ralph Nader and Jill Stein.

“I think it’s a bad idea. A Republican Party that is stronger and does not have Donald Trump as its leader is, in my opinion, a much better idea. I think it’s time for Republicans that are moderate and that are sophisticated to step up and denounce Trump, and I think that would solve the problem much more so than this No Label Party,” she said while failing to call on extreme left-wing Democrats to do the same.

Then, co-host Ana Navarro argued that Manchin has “been a problem child for Democrats for the last few years.

“He and Kyrsten Sinema, but he’s been part of the family, and he’s kept them in the majority, so he’s played a very important role,” she claimed, going on to posit that a presidential bid by him would be disastrous for the Democratic Party.

Initially, she said she liked the No Labels party, but then added: “This thing to me is a desperate cry for relevance and attention by a bunch of elitist former ‘something’ who are thirsty to be part of the conversation.”

She then said that she would ask Manchin: “Are you willing to be responsible for putting Donald Trump back in the White House? The man who’s been a threat to democracy, a threat to American values, who led an insurrection? Are you willing to be part of something that may end up putting that man who should be nowhere near the Oval Office, he should be in a jail cell?”