We know that for some time,
Joe Manchin has had a lot of
different problems with the
reconciliation infrastructure bill.
And we know that many politicians
will stand against a number of
provisions in it because they're
doing the bidding of
their wealthy donors.
But some of these senators are so
wealthy that they're actually just
pursuing their own interests
by trying to make it as small and
ineffective as possible.
And there's a new story up on
TYT Investigates that goes into
Joe Manchin's coal money.
How much money he has made thanks
to dirty energy that could be at
risk as a result of some of
the reforms that might be made in
this infrastructure bill.
So these numbers are amazing and
you can get more of this
information at TYT Investigates,
but let's go over
a little bit of what they found.
Between 2011,
the year first covered by his first
Senate disclosure filing, and
2020, Manchin raked in a total of
$5,211,154 just in dividend income
from Enersystems, a coal and
energy resource company he founded
in 1988.
So those show that he's
made an average of $521,000,
more than half a million bucks,
every year from this coal system
just in dividend income alone.
That is so amazing.
In one year, in 2012,
he made $865,000.
Now this isn't his only investment
income, but it does represent
about 71% of what he has,
to give you an idea of how
monumentally wealthy he is.
But that is a huge amount of money
to make from this one company.
And it might explain why this week
when he was asked by
a reporter about that income,
he started acting like he's trying
out for the reboot of The Sopranos
that they're coming out with,
threatening the reporter telling
him to change the subject.
This is a guy who is going to
pursue his own financial interests.
If he thinks that those are at
risk with the infrastructure bill
then that might help to explain his
behavior.
What do you think, Cenk?
>> Yeah, so
I love this story that we did.
And all we did really was count up
the money that he had to report
publicly, right?
And this is just the last ten years
and it's just that one coal company
that he founded.
So he's already made $5.2 million
in that ten year period from coal
and dirty fossil fuels.
But remember, he's going to
continue likely to make that
average of $521,000 a year going
forward through that coal company,
plus as the article explains.
And by the way, whenever we talk
about TYT Investigates [INAUDIBLE],
you will check the links down below
in the description box.
And you'll see the link to
the article and read the details.
It also explains that his stock in
that company is probably worth
about $5 million now.
So for Joe Manchin he has an annual
income of $500,000 from this
at risk if we do actual climate
change legislation,
and another 5 million at risk
personally in terms of his equity.
And then remember his son runs it.
And so that's also family money.
When you get into regulating drugs,
his daughter is the richest one of
them all.
She's got like a $30 million golden
parachute from a drug company that
she helped to outsource all
the jobs from.
So since she works in the drug
industry at a very high level,
she might lose a lot of money if
you lower prescription drug prices.
So the Manchin family is filled to
the rim with corruption,
making money hand over fist on all
these things that are costing the
American taxpayers way too much,
costing the planet way too much,
but they're making bank on that.
So if you think that he is not
affected at all by that giant
amount of money that his family's
making, and
that might be curtailed if we
actually get renewable energies and
save the planet, you're probably
a mainstream media reporter.
because they're the only ones who
think that he's not affected
by that.
>> Cenk, same story.
These people do not care about
the well being of the people who
they were elected to serve.
It is very clear who they're first,
second, third, fourth, and
fifth concerns are.
It is themselves and
the people who they answer to.
And don't forget right out after
the [INAUDIBLE] I believe his
wife, right?
His wife was named to the board of
a mortgage bank company.
And then Mr.
Manchin has the nerve to talk about
today he doesn't want this to turn
into an entitlement society.
What are you talking about?
Corporate welfare is looming.
I mean he put his whole body down
when it came to bailing out
Wall Street.
But when it comes time to stand up
for the people even in his own
state, and let us remind folks that
West Virginia is one of the poorest
states in the nation, and
this man doesn't care.
And not only does he not care
about that, he doesn't care about
the environment either at all.
>> Yeah.
>> Him and his whole family.
He needs to be primaried too.
I mean, but he's the shadow
president right now.
>> Yeah, so John's got more
information on what Nina alluded to
in terms of this whole sense of
means testing entitlements, etc.
But I wanted to say look guys,
it is amazing that reporters don't
cover both their donors and their
personal profits that they make
that this legislation might affect.
So take the TYT Investigates
article and anytime you see
a reporter that does a story about
Manchin and does not mention
how much of his personal wealth is
invested in blocking this bill, and
specifically blocking the climate
change legislation in this bill.
You should send it to
that reporter.
They usually have their emails or
their Twitter accounts, etc.
Not in a hostile way, just say hey,
did you know how much money is
on the line personally for Joe.
So you think that might be relevant
to your readers, or
do you think that's not relevant?
Because no normal person thinks
it's not relevant.
[LAUGH] Hey, hey,
look, guys, just think about it
from your perspective.
If you had 5 million bucks on the
line, would it be relevant to you?
My guess is it would be relevant,
okay, yeah.
>> The thing that frustrates me so
much is you're 100% right when you
say no normal person thinks
that's okay.
But the issue is that what feels
like 99% of people don't think
about it at all.
And partially it's because
the media doesn't talk about it.
They don't talk about
the corruption,
people have a sense of corruption.
But they don't get that you can own
a coal company as a sitting senator
and talk about it being a blind
trust with your son owning it.
That is Trump,
that is literal Trump's stuff that
a Democratic Senator is doing.
And you can be involved in
negotiations over bills having to
do with energy.
Even more explicit,
this stock stuff that was done
during the pandemic,
they never got in trouble for that.
Literally buying and selling stock
based on secret information they
have, that they then lie to the
American people about to protect
their own financial interests.
They were not in any
trouble for it.
And then there's, of course,
the donations on top of it.
Joe Manchin in particular in
the 2021-2022 election cycle was
the top recipient for
multiple industries.
Small industries like coal mining,
mining in general,
natural gas transmission and
distribution, and oil and gas.
Number one,
not number one Democrat,
number one senator, and
all of that is totally cool.
There's nothing
wrong with any of it.
If you were ever filmed having
someone hand you a paper
bag with 500 bucks in it, that's
corruption because that's a bribe.
But if you own a company, and
vote or don't vote based on your
company or based on the stocks you
just purchased.
Or you buy stocks because you know
you're about to have a social media
company come in or something, or
if it's so
that you can continue to rack up
millions of dollars in donations.
And that's just secondary
secondhand money,
that goes to your campaign.
But eventually they're going to put
you on the board as soon as you
finally get booted out
of the party.
None of that is wrong and none of
that is generally talked about and
that is why you can have a place
like West Virginia, which is full
of dirt poor people who have,
I was going to swear.
They have this rich individual
living on a houseboat owning a coal
company and telling them about
their entitlement mentality.
It is a lot on the media,
but it is still partially on us.
And I mean us individually as
members of the media, that we have
got to get people to start to
prioritize this sort of thing.
You cannot fill the government with
people who have gotten rich with
the status quo and expect that
they're going to murder it.
They're not going to reform it.
This is what they got wealthy off
of, and he's one of
the best examples of it.
>> Yeah, can we show the clip of
Manchin talking about
means testing, because it relates
perfectly to this and
I want to talk about that.
So let's show that.
>> Means testing means that
are we targeting the people
that need it or getting it?
Or the people getting it that
maybe could do without,
they're in pretty good shape.
So I said means testing,
I said work requirements.
Those are all very, very important.
It goes an awful long,
long way that way, I'm just not, so
you know.
I cannot accept our economy or
basically our society moving
towards an entitlement mentality,
that you're entitled, okay?
I'm more of a rewarding because I
can help those who really
need help if those who can
help themselves do so.
>> So he says, well, look, if
you're in need of money and you're
an average person in West Virginia
and you really need it, I got it.
Well, I'm not sure you really need
it and I don't want you to get lazy
and be a bum if the government
gives you money, so
I'm just going to test your means.
Now, did they test means when they
handed out billions of dollars
to corporations just last year that
Joe Manchin was 100% in favor of,
never asked for means testing, etc?
No, if we can,
put up the graphics now and I
want to show you how much money got
funneled to giant corporations when
no one was talking about the debt.
No one was talking about means
testing these corporations,
there was no talk of inflation.
You see that, there's over $500
billion that was handed out the
corporations, not one, and that's
just one of the COVID relief bills.
That's not even the 2021
bill, right?
And that's not even the Fed money.
The Fed money was even larger, but
all that money and
did you hear one senator talk about
means testing the businesses?
And if we give it to
the businesses,
maybe they'll turn into lazy bums.
No, they never said that.
The only thing they ever said is,
it's going to regular people?
Well, we hate those bums, right?
So I'm going to show you Joe
Manchin on his yacht in a second.
But let's show the next graphic too
because I want to show you
the results of what happened once
they handed out over $500 billion
of free money for the biggest
corporations in the world.
Let's show the next graphic
about Exxon.
Okay, so some of the companies that
got it was oil companies and
fossil fuel companies.
So as Public Citizen explains here,
after securing a $9.5 billion
backdoor bailout, Exxon Mobil paid
its CEO over $10 million in 2020.
Spent 14.9 billion on shareholder
payouts and
announced that it was cutting 1,900
US jobs.
After securing a $25 billion
backdoor bailout, Boeing cut more
than 26,000 jobs and announced that
more layoffs will be coming.
Although Boeing's CEO David Calhoun
publicly announced that he
would decline pay in 2020, he still
received stock options with
an estimated worth of $21 million.
So why did the US taxpayers give
$9.5 billion to Exxon Mobil and
even more to Boeing,
a giant defense contractor that's
super profitable?
Exxon Mobil's one of the most
profitable companies in the world
and we're funneling billions of
dollars that they're
giving to their shareholders.
They're giving it to their CEOs.
No one's asking
about means testing.
No one's talking about
entitlements.
Did you hear any reporter talking
about that when they were passing
that bill?
Did you hear any senator talking
about that maybe with the exception
of Bernie Sanders?
And so this is the crooked system
we're under.
And when we point it out
the media gets mad at us and
say, how dare you point this out?
It sounds conspiratorial.
What are you talking about?
Those are straight up facts.
How come you guys aren't
reporting on it?
So, as Manchin yells at people
from West Virginia from on top of
his giant Manchin yacht, right?
[LAUGH] You'll excuse us if we
are not moved by his requirements
that we means test the people of
West Virginia
before we give them any money.
>> Dr. Barber had put out
an excellent tweet,
I think it was this week.
And he tweeted about the means
testing and he asked the question,
did anybody means test the donors
of Joe Manchin?
And that's Reverend Dr.
William Barber from the great state
of North Carolina who's one of
the leaders of the Poor People's
Movement, the 21st century version
of what the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. started.
This is madness, and
to John's point,
because my hair is on fire.
I had a boss who used to say if
your hair's on fire act like your
hair's on fire and I'm right
with you, I think all three of
us are on fire over this nonsense.
This foolishness, this immorality,
and they doing it in the open.
This is an open secret what these
elected officials are doing,
making money hand over fist.
Meanwhile back on Main Street they
in the hood and misunderstood,
they don't care what happens to
the people.
Reminds me of a story that
is taught,
a story about Mother Jones when she
asked the man why was he in jail?
And I believe he said to her
because I stole some shoes.
And she said, well,
it had you stole a railroad,
you'd be a senator.
That is apropos for
this damn moment right now.
You bail out Wall Street,
you make money hand over fist,
you have a revolving door,
you become a US senator.
Because what do these people want
when they have all that money,
they want more power.
And they are leveraging that power,
not on behalf of the people who
need jobs, need a living wage,
need unions, need clean air,
clean food and clean water.
They are leveraging that power on
behalf of themselves and everybody
else that navigates that rare air
that they're able to breathe.
It is immoral and it's a shame, and
we got to do something about it.
We cannot continue to accept this.
Primary Joe Manchin as well.
All of them need to be primaried.