CNN’s Dana Bash on Tuesday pushed back against moderate group “No Labels” chief strategist Ryan Clancy after he refused to disclose the names of the group’s donors.
“No Labels” is seeking to get a third party on the ballot for the general election and will run candidates who won’t pull votes from just one political party.
“We do not want to fuel any kind of candidacy that’s pulling votes disproportionately from one side,” Clancy said. “Absolutely not. We’re a year out from the election. For anybody to say, ‘A year out, we have no idea where the country is going to be’ … Anybody who says they know exactly how that would impact the race, they’re just speculating.”
“There is a lot of money in your war chest,” Bash began. “Again, right now, it is — you’re going to, I believe, try to spend about $70 million to get your placement on the ballot. It’s not easy to do. You’re not sharing details about who exactly is funding that. As you well know, there is a lot of speculation among Democrats that your big funders are Republican donors who are looking to elbow Joe Biden out of the White House.” (RELATED: ‘Have Plan B Ready’: Manchin Does Not ‘Rule Out’ Third-Party Presidential Bid)
“Yeah. That’s ridiculous,” Clancy said. “So, first of all, to put my priors on the table, I came up in democratic politics, we’re chaired by Joe Lieberman, former vice presidential nominee; Dr. Ben Chavis, [who] spent 60 years in the Democratic Party in the Civil Rights movement. There’s a reason, though, that we don’t share our donors. We are not a political party. We are a nonprofit group. Sixty years ago, the state of Alabama tried to get the NAACP to divulge their donors, and the Supreme Court sided with them unanimously and said, ‘You don’t have to do that.'”
“Here’s why that matters today. The reason they protected the NAACP then is because they wanted to protect their supporters from intimidation. There’s groups trying to lean on us all the time,” Clancy continued.
“So, you’re not going to give me names, but can you confirm and say on the record that there are not big-ticket Republican donors who are fueling your cause?” Bash pressed.
“We have — I can tell you that our voters are — that our supporters are —”
“Pro-Trump?” Bash asked.
“We don’t have pro-Trump supporters fueling this effort, absolutely not,” Clancy said. “The money we raise is even from both sides. People, a lot of the ways people know us, is the fund-raising we did for members of Congress. Go look at it in previous election cycles, it’s 50/50.”
Clancy went on to say the organization has not yet decided on a candidate, but denied they are already floating the idea of Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.