Remove Joe Manchin from the Democratic Senate leadership

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer

White nationalist enablers and apologists have no place in the White House—or the Democratic Senate leadership.

It was just reported that West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is cozying up to vile "alt-right" Breitbart News, the notorious haven of white supremacy and bigotry on the Internet. On Monday, Feburary 27, 2017 Manchin and his staff reportedly held an hour-long off-the-record "get-to-know-you" session with Breitbart's editorial team.

This comes after Manchin has already spent the first days of Trump's presidency mostly in lockstep behind Trump's agenda of hate and greed. Manchin voted to confirm Mike Pompeo as CIA director, despite Pompeo’s support for torture and warrantless surveillance on Americans, and to confirm former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson to be our Secretary of State, despite Tillerson’s close alliance with Putin and role suppressing evidence about climate change as CEO of Exxon. Manchin was also the only Democrat to vote for “foreclosure king” Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary, or distinguished racist Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.

This cannot stand. If Democrats want to lead the resistance movement and stand up for American values of equality and justice, someone like Joe Manchin, who has buddied up with Breitbart News, Jeff Sessions, and Rex Tillerson, cannot help to lead the party—end of story.

Tell Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: remove Breitbart News-supporting Trump ally Joe Manchin from leadership immediately.

Petition by
Waleed Shahid
Brooklyn, New York
Sponsored by

To: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer
From: [Your Name]

At a time of national crisis, Democrats can’t compromise with Donald Trump’s regime of hatred and greed. Millions of Americans are marching in the streets with the resistance because they know Trump is a threat to our families and our democracy.

But some Democrats, like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have proudly posed in photo-ops with Trump, voted for several of his worst nominees including “foreclosure king” Steve Mnuchin and racist Jeff Sessions, and support parts of the dangerous Republican party agenda.

And now we know that Manchin is also a fan of Breitbart News, that toxic cesspool of far-right hatred and conspiracy theory. Millions of people were rightly outraged and scared when former Brietbart editor Steve Bannon was chosen by Trump to serve as chief strategist in the White House, because of this site’s vile track record of sowing racism, misogyny, anti-GLBT bigotry, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism. In light of that history, it should go without saying that no Democrat—much less a leader of the Democratic party in the U.S. Senate—should be creating an ally of that website.

The Democratic Party should be standing united against Trump and fighting his administration with everything they’ve got. You can’t let Democrats like Senator Manchin who partner with Trump be part of the party leadership.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, we demand that you remove Trump collaborator Joe Manchin from leadership of the party.