Joe Manchin is back, and he's once again ruining Joe Biden's day,
in this case announcing that he plans to oppose Julie Su,
which is Joe Biden's nominee to lead the Department of Labor.
And because of the way that the votes break down,
him being opposed to her is probably all it will take.
That's probably it.
She is currently the Acting Labor Department secretary, previously having
served as California's top labor official, overseeing place safety and
policing wage theft in the country's most populous state.
Now, why does he have a problem with her?
Well, the thing about the wage theft might have already clued you into what his issue
is, but labor unions and progressive groups both have enthusiastically
backed her nomination, saying that she would aggressively enforce workplace
protections, particularly for the most vulnerable low wage workers.
She's also a civil rights lawyer.
Okay, so they say she is going to vigorously pursue abuses of workers.
The issue that Joe Manchin has with her is that she would vigorously pursue abuses of
workers, and that, of course, cannot happen.
I mean, they're wording it differently.
They're saying that she's anti business and that's it.
He put out a statement saying, I believe the person leading the US Department of
Labor should have the experience to collaboratively lead both labor and
industry, to forge compromises acceptable to both parties.
While her credentials and qualifications are impressive, I don't care about that,
I'm kidding.
I have genuine concerns that Julie Su's more progressive background prevents her
from doing this and for that reason,
I cannot support her nomination to serve as Secretary of Labor.
And by the way, even if he wasn't against her,
it is possible that she'd be blocked in the Senate anyway, either Jon Tester or
Kyrsten Sinema, both of whom have not indicated that they'll support her.
And in the case of Sinema, it seems like she wouldn't.
That would also be enough to stop her from getting through.
I do think it's funny the way that he worded, though, that I think the Secretary
of Labor should be both sides are basically some labor stuff, but
also industry stuff.
The head of the EPA isn't supposed to be spending half their time working for
the oil companies, that's not how it works.
The entire rest of the government is there to advance the interests of business,
can't we have one department, one secretary that spends the majority of
their time thinking about issues affecting workers?
Apparently not.
>> Yeah, so, first of all, I'm a business owner, so
do I think labor and business interests should be balanced?
Yes.
Are they balanced currently today in government?
[LAUGH] no, they are not.
Who has the advantage?
Business owners.
By about an order of 200 times more than labor, they have massive,
massive advantages, including having purchased almost all the senators,
including Joe Manchin.
And by the I got news for you, if it wasn't Manchin and
Sinema, it would be two other Democratic senators.
They all get bribed.
Almost all of them get bribed, I'm sorry, campaign contributions.
And they get some from labor, so Sherrod Brown, who gets bribed by labor the most,
would be, we're going to fight for labor, right?
And then all the other ones, like Coons and Carper and tons of other Menendez,
etc, who all get bribed by corporations will come back and go,
no white corporation.
So this is all a game of bribery.
At least Manchin is almost admitting it.
He's, I think the Secretary of Labor shouldn't work for labor.
I think they should also work for corporate interests.
Wow, okay, what a twist in Washington, okay?
So the whole thing's totally corrupt.
Now, what's the correct standard?
I argued for it in my book, Justice Is Coming, democratic capitalism.
And so what I mean by that is, look, we should have capitalism, I believe in that.
Then I deal with a lot of people get mad at me for saying,
we can get it that's a different conversation, but democracy, ie,
your representatives, your government is supposed to check capitalism.
It feels what was supposed to happen in the Constitution,
in the American form of government and democracy is that your
representatives are supposed to represent you and only you.
So now that doesn't mean you obliterate business, I don't want you to do that.
You want to have enough balance so that businesses can exist and
that their employees can thrive.
But you shouldn't be doing it on behalf of business, remember,
businesses are not humans, they're just legal fictions we created.
If you say, hey, listen, I want to do it on behalf of the workers of that company
and the overall community and the overall economy, okay, that makes sense.
But, guys, none of that is happening in Washington, none of it.
Capitalism is not 1% checked by this incredibly
crooked Senate and all of the government.
Okay, but there is one piece of good news here, she's the Acting Labor Secretary.
She's been previously confirmed by the Senate for another role so they could keep
her to the end of Biden's term, and nobody's going to do anything about it.
And it looks like they're headed in that direction.
I hope they don't bother trying to get another Labor Secretary.
She seems like a very rare person in Congress that's actually doing something
for you or in government that's doing something for you,
that's why Manchin hates her.
So me and President Biden, this is a super easy fix.
Donald Trump had nothing but Acting Secretaries, and
nobody did anything about it.
Just keep her in that position forever.
And Joe Manchin is thinking of running against you.
You already gave him the Mountain Valley Pipeline, what the hell else does he need?
Tell him to go take a long walk off a short coal mine.
Okay. >> John took the words right out of my
mouth with picking apart the words that Manchin used, and
I do think it's important because we're talking about a pick for Labor Secretary.
This is not somebody who's gonna come out and immediately say, okay guess what?
We got a four day work week now.
I'm decreeing it four day work week, six hour days,
everybody gets mandatory paid overtime, that's not what they're gonna do.
The secretary is basically there to say, listen,
you can't take advantage of these people, you can't steal their wages.
You can't not enact safety protocols that are gonna leave a factory
worker missing a hand or missing an arm.
And when you do those things we're going to investigate you and hold you liable.
That is what the Secretary of Labor's job is supposed to be.
So no, you should not have this camaraderie with corporations where you're
rubbing elbows with them and hobnobbing with these CEOs at these swanky dinners.
Your position is to protect the people and almost by definition of that,
the corporations, the CEOs themselves, it's adversarial and
maybe it shouldn't be that way, but
it has to be that way because we don't have anything functioning like that now.
I mean we're looking across the country, [COUGH], pardon me,
as Republicans just dismantle labor laws at the state level.
We've already had one teenager die working in an area where they should not have
been working but Republicans said, hey, let's put the kids back to work.
Let's put them in the slaughterhouses.
Let's put them in the meat lockers.
They'll do fine.
Nop, they're not.
That's why we have this department to begin with,
because the corporations can't be trusted.
They have proven that for decades and decades,
if not well over 100 years in this country, they have proven they're not
gonna do the right thing when we leave them to their own devices.
And that's what this position was created to stop.
>> Yeah, just to double down on what both of you guys are saying,
the Labor Secretary is supposed to fight for labor and
you get to balance between labor and business.
Number one, because the rest of the government is all for business.
So if she's super strong, you'd be lucky to get to 10% ballast, right?
And then thirdly, the businesses fight for themselves.
The government isn't supposed to be fighting on behalf of corporations,
like I said earlier, they're supposed to be out fighting on behalf of voters,
communities and maybe their workers.
But that's how you get to balance, when the companies go, I want this,
I want this, and your government fights back and then they get to a balance.
Instead, the government has joined them and
they're saying the Labor Secretary should also join them.
So there should be no balance at all, that's what Manchin is actually saying.
>> 100%. By the way,
I agree that we can't expect that the Labor Department or
the Labor Secretary would come out and be, boom, four day work week.
But wouldn't it be nice to have one person in elected office say that we should be
working towards that, that that should be a goal.
I feel some people would support that.
I feel that might be popular.
Now really fast, if I were to tell you that we found out exclusive reporting,
probably from ProPublica, that a business pack had taken $5,000 in 20s and
put it in a sack and scrawled a dollar sign on it, and
then they gave it to Manchin and it was caught on CCTV.
That would be a scandal, okay?
That would be a game changer.
You know what wouldn't be a game changer?
Revealing that over the last five years of reporting,
business packs have given him $2.8 million.
Just cuz they like him doesn't have any effect or whatever,
it doesn't change his opinion or anything.
>> He's balanced.
He's got labor at 267,000.
>> It's totally balanced.
I'm bad with numbers.
So this is obviously not good news, Joe Biden has had so
many lunches with Joe Manchin, and you don't do this to your lunch buddy.
And also, as you point out, he's probably going to be running against him for
the presidency.
So I was happy to see that Biden is reacting strongly worded letter.
He says, the president's support for Acting Secretary Su is unwavering, and
we hope Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema reconsider their position.
>> That'll probably do the job.
>> You hope.
Breaking news, Manchin has folded.
Su has been appointed.
>> The hope worked.
The hope worked.
He's, well, I am getting bribed to millions of dollars by corporations,
on the other hand, he hoped that I reconsider.
So that seems very strong by [INAUDIBLE].
>> He should have wished upon a star.
He missed a great opportunity there.