Tuesday, October 20, 2026

Matthew McConaughey Is Shilling for Joe Manchin and His Daughter — the One Who Made the Price of Epi Pens Soar — to Vote “Independent”

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For some reason, Matthew McConaughey is shilling for Joe Manchin. And his daughter.

McConaughey’s posted a rambling, highly scripted speech about voting Independent and why it’s the future of the country — much better than being a Republican or Democrat.

You have to wade through this filibuster to find out what’s really going on. McConaughey is fronting for something called the Independent Leadership Council, a new 501c3 created by the former West Virginia senator and his daughter, Heather Bresch.

If Bresch’s name is familiar, she was the pharmaceutical executive at Mylan who sent the price of EpiPens soaring from $100 bucks to $600. Her salary zoomed 671% to $18 mlllion.

Bresch lost her job after a public outcry and investigations back in 2016.

Ten years later, she’s got a new gig — pitching donors on a centrist political group.

What does that mean exactly? Joe Manchin is a former Democratic senator. But he was only DINO, aka Democrat in Name Only. He supported Donald Trump fervently, and even now is going to Maine to campaign for the reviled Republican Susan Collins.

McConaughey is from Texas, but is definitely courting a right wing mentality. His success — bestselling books that read like homilies, car commercials, and an occasional movie —  is based on being a homespun good ol’ boy. During an appearance on a 2017 BBC show, McConaughey said that critics of Trump “They don’t have a choice now. He’s our president… It’s time for us to embrace and shake hands with this fact and be constructive with him over the next four years.”

The next four years were chaos that included mass deportations and the pandemic.

He’s never endorsed Trump but McConaughey has floated the idea of entering the political arena himself — which would be just as crazy as Trump’s trajectory. He’s definitely got potential as a movie star to become “The Candidate” or even better, Robert Altman’s empty suit, Hal Philip Walker, from “Nashville.”

Hooking up with the Manchins is only going to infuriate his fans. It’s certainly not the association of a “common man.” What is he getting out all of this? His video comes at a curious time in Texas, when the smart money is on James Talarico, and Trump — with MAGA — desperately tries to back Ken Paxton for the Senate. Independent vote? What is McConaughey suggesting? His state has an “either or” election in front of them.

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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