Joe Manchin has really been asking
for it this year.
Effectively saying,
Joe Biden's not present,
I'm present,
I'll decide what you get to do and
more importantly what you don't,
which is basically everything.
And despite this, he hasn't really
faced that much public criticism.
It started a little bit this week.
You had representatives like Jamaal
Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
pointing out the obvious influence
that his corporate donors.
And his desire for
donations has had on him.
People have cited his past
statements about the filibuster,
where he seemed much more open
to reform.
Well, now people have been doing
more digging and
surfacing more information about
the groups that have recently been
trying to pressure him.
As well as those who've been
providing donations.
>> So we're going to run through
several of those,
including Americans for Prosperity,
a group backed by billionaire
Republican donor Charles Koch.
Not generally thought of as a big
supporter of the Democratic Party.
But he's explicitly targeted
Manchin and its pressure campaign,
the Americans for Prosperity, to
defeat the legislation as the For
the People Act.
Even though their own data shows
that provisions cracking down on
dark money are highly popular,
including among Republican voters.
You can find online, messages back
and forth between them.
Recorded conversations where they
talk about how difficult it is to
craft a narrative that would
get Republicans to oppose
many of the provisions of the For
the People Act.
That did not cause them to do a bit
of soul searching about why
conservatives are so
supportive of it.
They're just going to try to get
it killed without ever actually
convincing people that it
needs to be.
You also have Heritage Action.
This is the advocacy arm of the
Koch-backed Heritage Foundation.
Which organized a rally earlier
this year to pressure Manchin to
oppose the bill.
Heritage Action has also partnered
with the American Legislative
Exchange Council to craft model
voting restriction laws for
Republican state legislators.
And so I believe we have
Hare Jackson, organizer, on video,
this is obtained by Mother Jones,
talking about one of these recent
sorts of bills in Georgia.
>> Iowa was the first state that we
got to work in, and we did it
quickly and we did it quietly.
Honestly, nobody noticed.
At the end of the day, the bill
that governor Kemp signed and
the Georgia Legislature marshaledl
through had eight key provisions
that Heritage recommended.
We're working with the state
legislators to make sure they have
all of the information they need to
draft the bills.
In some cases,
we actually draft them for them, or
we have a sentinel on our behalf
give them the model legislation.
So it has that grassroots,
from the bottom up type of vibe.
>> Yeah, that's what we need in
Americ, is we need a grassroots
vibe, not persuits action.
We vibe, we need some billionaires
to hand legislation for
Republicans to just sign off on.
And that's apparently what they've
been doing, and
nobody even noticed.
>> Yeah, so there's so many
parts of this that I love and hate.
>> So that video couldn't have been
any better.
Sometimes the sentinel will hand it
to them, just because
we weren't creepy enough.
And it'll seem grassrootsy, or for
me like, look guys, you get what
John is saying obviously, right?
So they have no grassroots,
these are giant corporate machines.
And they fund these think tanks and
these organizations,
they then funnel the bribes,
I mean, campaign contributions, to
the politicians like Joe Manchin.
And they call that the under
the dome strategy.
Meaning we have lost any chance of
winning in a democracy.
So we have to go to under the dome
of the Capitol, where we rule,
where we have all of our corrupt
Senators, both Republicans and
Democrats will work for us.
So we don't need
the grassroots now.
That's obvious,
pause to think about, wait.
If the overwhelming majority of
Republicans also want some of
these bills.
Including $15 minimum wage, which
a huge majorities in West Virginia
in particular, won.
By the way, a majority of the
people in West Virginia which went
heavily for Trump, also want to get
rid of the filibuster, interesting.
And 79% want the For
the People Act that would actually
clean up our democracy and
our elections.
Now, it's not surprising,
actually Republicans also want to
clean up the elections.
because a lot of them genuinely
think that there was something
wrong in 2020, right?
So they go, well,
this bill addresses anything that
might go wrong,
and it gets more people to vote.
And Republican voters think
that there's more on their side.
So they're like, what's wrong
with more people voting,
let's do it, right?
But most importantly,
it has anti-corruption measures.
And Republican voters loving
anti-corruption measures, and so
Democratic voters.
So the interesting note here is,
but none of
the Republican politicians want
what an overwhelming majority of
what Republican voters want.
>> Yeah.
>> And then now we turn to Manchin,
he's a Democrat, and they say, Joe
Manchin, he's gotta vote against
all these popular provisions
because of West Virginia.
But wait a minute, that 79% numbers
from West Virginia,
he's voting as four out of five
voters in West Virginia.
Why is he doing that?
Well, this report shows he's doing
it because he's corrupt.
It's not at all complicated, and
it is not at all hyperbole.
After you voted against $15
minimum wage, both Joe Manchin and
Kyrsten Sinema.
She did the swirling vote now and
the curtsy and stuff, and he's, no,
I had to go higher wages,
that's terrible for
my corporate friends.
I mean, I'm worried about my
constituents, don't get what your
constituents wanted.
Definitely, overwhelmingly, right?
You know what he did?
They both curtsied over to
the National Restaurant Association
and collected their bribes.
Now they're legalized bribes
in America, but they're definitely,
definitely, definitely bribes.
They just handed them checks.
Good job, little boy Manchin, okay.
Manchin's put tough guy,
pushing all Progressives around,
all Democrats around.
He's pushing Joe Biden around,
hes open-handed slap.
Boy, what are you going to to
do about it, right?
But when he goes to the National
Restaurant Association, he's a dog,
he's a servant,
because he's I'm here, I'm here,
where's my check, where's my check?
And then he did they give
him a check?
They gave him lots and
lots of checks.
So it turned out great for
Joe Manchin.
That's why the under the dome
strategy works, because our
politicians are corrupt.
Now, the idiots in the mainstream
media are like, what corporations?
I don't know what you're talking
about, corporate donations.
So this particular story is, he
says, the Koch brothers, David and
Charles I should have said,
they first start spending money
against him in West Virginia.
Now, remember corporate Democrats
and corporate media says
Joe Manchin cannot be pressured,
he's a rock, right?
They spent a tiny little money,
I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry,
I'm so sorry.
And he does an op-ed with the exact
talking points from the Chamber
of Commerce,
like almost word for word.
Saying, the filibuster is dangerous
and we need something bipartisan
and I hate the For the People Act
and I'm against it, right?
Okay, what happens next?
Chamber of Commerce just starts
sending him checks.
Now that's a different group,
that's the collection of
all the business,
all the corporations, right?
And they're like, good job, good
boy, good boy, good boy, you wrote
it exactly as we told you, dog.
Write it again, dog.
You should.
So who's the actual boss,
who's the actual boss?
It's not you,
certainly not Joe Biden, and
it's not actually John- >> No,
a good boy.
>> Yeah, and it's not Joe Machin.
The actual boss is the Chamber of
Commerce, the corporate machines.
And finally on this for
now at least, look at what happens
when you apply public pressure.
Here I get to say, I told you.
So I asked Progressives in
Congress, we elected
the Just Democrats to be aggressive
and not just on theoretical stuff.
But yes, even though it's
uncomfortable to call out your so
called colleagues,
they call you out all the time.
I mean, Ilhan Omar can say the most
reasonable thing on planet Earth.
Hey, maybe the International
Criminal Court should adjudicate
the cases in front of them, right?
My gosh, she's anti-American,
fellow Democrats
promote her, right?
Now, finally, the Just democrats
did due credit where credit is due.
Jamaal Bowman was the strongest on
this, but then AOC also came in and
rallied.
And those two single-handedly said,
corporate agenda, corporate agenda,
started talking
about corporate Democrats, and
all of a sudden, look at this.
The press is covering it, because
that's how public pressure works.
>> Yes. >> Yeah, I mean, you took
the words right out of my mouth,
including all of the impressions of
Joe Manchin.
I think you'd like to believe that
because he's in a conservative
state, he has to be like this.
But as you said,
his constituents want things like
changes to the filibuster, raising
the minimum wage, things like this.
They support the For
the People Act and he is so
out of step with the wants and
the needs of his constituents.
It's so obvious that he is not
interested in actually governing or
supporting their actual needs.
He's interested in cash and
corporate checks, it's so obvious,
it's very simple.
And it gets so frustrating, the
amount of power, the grip that this
one person has over our democracy.
This person who is very clearly not
interested in governing in any
meaningful way.
>> Exactly.
Yeah, and then, especially that
he's wielding the influence over
something like the For
the People Act.
Which a very similar bill he
co-sponsored just two years ago
it's desperately needed.
Considering the bills that
have been passing on
The Damage Report bridge tonight.
Talk today about how many have
already passed and
hundreds more are pending.
The issue is that,
what I love about this story
is that it combines both forms of
the assault on American democracy.
You have the renewed efforts to
suppress the vote as much as
possible, and to set up stealing
of election later, and
that sort of thing.
And then you also have Joe Manchin
who's being influenced in
the old school way.
Like hypothetically in
West Virginia you might have been
able to vote to get a senator.
But you don't get a Senator
who cares about your vote,
you get a Senator who cares about
his donations,
and all that's totally legal.
They don't need to change any laws
to get that sort of influence over
democracy.
They just, write a check ,and they
get anytime they want.
>> Yeah, so one more thing.
Top three donors in American
politics that we can see with the
naked eye, not the dark money guys.
Our number three is drug companies,
number one is the National
Association of Realtors.
And if you're wondering why you
have all the shady housing stories.
It's because of
the National Association of
Realtors are buying our politicians
in mass, let alone the banks.
But number two is
the Chamber of Commerce,
they gave $80 million last year.
Now, two things about that.
One, that's actually the tip of
the iceberg,
they give a lot more in dark money.
And so what you're seeing publicly
in what they give to Joe Manchin,
is basically an appetizer, okay?
Good boy, and the reason they do it
publicly even though they can and
do funnel much more money in dark
money to them secretly.
And we're not even allowed to see
it because Joe Manchin won't allow
anti-corruption measures so
that we can see them, right?
And in fact, that's in the For
the People Act,
that's why he hates it.
And that's why,
I told you from day one,
there is 0% chance that guys like
Joe Manchin would vote for that.
By the way, it's not just him,
there's at least ten other
corporate Democrats,
according to Washington Post,
that are hiding behind mention.
Go go, don't let them
see our donors,
don't let him see our donors.
That's in the For the People Act,
that it would disclose their dark
money donors, and
that's the last thing they want.
because then you see the whole
iceberg of how deeply, deeply
corrupt Joe Manchin and other
corrupt corporate Democrats are.
Let alone the entirety of all of
the Republican Senators.
But even the 80 million,
that's the tip of the iceberg.
Using the giant multinational
corporations are giving $80 million
to American politicians for what,
charity?
>> They like their style.
>> Like it really,
does anybody think like, well, they
gave a little bit to cancer and
a little bit to heart disease.
And then they gave some to
politicians.
They have no interest in how
they're voting.
And the politicians who took all
those millions of dollars,
they were totally unaffected
because they're saints.
If you think that, you're in luck,
you can get a job with
any mainstream media outlet.
Apply now, they'll be like, great,
you're one of like the seven people
in the country who are schmucks
enough, who think that our
politicians are not corrupt.
Come on in, it's not enough of you,
we'll hire all of you.
So mainstream media, where are you?
There's a piece by Salon, right?
At least they're
Progressive, right?
And it's good to have other
Progressives writing
about this, etc.
Mainstream media, you still haven't
figured out corporate donations,
you still haven't figured it out?
Every reporter, every editor in
the country should be fired.
If they don't understand that
corporate donations at a bare,
bare, bare minimum, have a lot to
do with how the Joe Manchins of
the world vote and how they act.
If they deny that then,
they're obviously part of the game.
They're not at all interested in
challenging power, they're
interested in the status quo.
Because, guess what, hey,
look at that, they're also
multi-billion dollar corporations.