Clyburn to Manchin: I'm glad the Democratic Party has changed

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) responded Sunday to Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) saying the Democratic Party is not the one he grew up with by saying: “That is a great thing.”

“I like Joe Manchin a whole lot and Joe Manchin said this morning that this is not the Democratic Party of his father. And that is a great thing,” Clyburn said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s "State of the Union." “Because my father — I remember when my father got the right to vote or cast an effective vote here in South Carolina.”

When Clyburn was born in 1940, less than 1 percent of African Americans in the state were able to vote, essentially disenfranchised by the state's 1895 Constitution.

He added, “It was not until 1948 that the Democratic Party opened itself up to African Americans. No, this is not the Democratic Party of my father, and that is a great thing."

Manchin, an independent senator who left the Democratic Party in May, said in an interview with Tapper earlier in the day that he left the party because it is not the Democratic Party he grew up with. He talked about how his parents were both Democrats, alongside many in West Virginia at the time.

“I left the Democrat Party because it's not the Democratic Party I grew up in, that I always knew,” Manchin said. He then added that the party used to be rooted in President John F. Kennedy’s famous line “ask not what your country can do for you, what you can do for your country.”

“We are changing into a society, ‘How much more can my country do for me?’ That's not how it was raised,” Manchin said. “I was always fiscally responsible and socially compassionate. I never believed that government should be your provider. It should be your partner.”

Clyburn, a strong Biden ally, made the case for the current president staying as the Democratic nominee as over 30 other Democratic members of congress have called on him to step down. In his interview, Manchin called on Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race and have an “open process” in nominating someone else.

But Clyburn warned against an open convention, citing previous years where an open convention led to a failed presidential run. He specifically cited President Lyndon B. Johnson, who left the 1968 race because of criticism for the Vietnam War. After the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and a chaotic convention, the Democrats eventually nominated Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, but he lost to Republican Richard M. Nixon.

“If you go to the convention, having an open process in the convention, it will come out the same way it came out in 1968, 1972, and 1980,” Clyburn said, citing three presidential elections that Democrats lost. “And all of us know what happened in 1968 when we ran Lyndon Johnson out of the race.”

Clyburn added, “They got rid of him over one issue. The Vietnam War. Here we are now using one issue to get rid of a president. The result will be the same."