Senator Joe Manchin is a problem.
He continues to be a problem when
it comes to the passage of
the budget reconciliation bill.
Which includes all of the
provisions that would significantly
improve the lives of Americans.
It includes things like universal
pre-K, mandatory paid family leave.
And also an expansion of
the Medicare system to include
things like vision and dental.
In addition to the ability for
Medicare to
negotiate drug prices directly with
pharmaceutical companies.
Which of course would lower
the prices of drugs that people
desperately need.
Now he claims that he has a problem
with the price tag associated with
the budget reconciliation bill,
which sits at $3.5 trillion.
He says that, it's just too much
for me, I want 1.5 trillion max.
So he also recently, during a talk
before the US Chamber of Commerce,
wanted to put a halt to
the reconciliation bill.
Let's take a quick look at
that video.
>> I would ask my colleagues and
all of the Senate to hit the pause
button on the 3.5.
Hit the pause button.
Let's sit back.
Let's see what happens.
[APPLAUSE] >> We've got so
much on our plate,
we really have an awful lot.
I think that would be the prudent,
wise thing to do.
I know they're going to
go nuts right now because what just
said is going to all my caucus in
Washington.
>> [LAUGH] Here they come.
[LAUGH] >> But I"m thinking of it
from the standpoint of where we
are as a nation today.
That we weren't here a week ago or
two weeks ago.
Everything has changed, and
I don't know what the unknown is.
I don't know what
the future on this is.
I know one thing,
I want to be prepared for it.
I want to be able to take care of
our military that can defend us
anywhere in the world if it's
called upon.
I want to make sure our economy is
still robust.
I want to make sure we're bringing
manufacturing back and
opportunities.
I don't want to have debt over our
head to where we basically can't
service the debt that we have.
All those things are very much
concerning to me.
And with all that hanging in limbo
right now, Shelley will tell you,
the 3.5 trillion, there's a lot
of good stuff in there.
There's things in there that she
at a certain would you like,
that Democrats and
Republicans can agree on.
But it's not anything that we need
immediately.
>> It's not anything that we need
immediately, as there's a labor
shortage because women don't know
what to do about childcare.
So they literally can't go back
to work.
So not anything that
we need right now,
because I'm a multimillionaire.
And I'm good, I'm totally good.
I earn half a million dollars
a year from the coal industry.
But not anything we need right now.
Real quick, just to note,
Democratic leadership wants to
get these issues resolved by
September 15th.
So the next week, next two weeks
possibly, will really show us.
It's going to test the progressives
in the House, and how hard they're
willing to fight, right?
And so I want to provide
positive reinforcement.
And luckily we do have some
progressives who are speaking
out and they're saying no.
Rashida Tlaib,
for instance, tweeted that $3.5
trillion is the floor, okay?
She's not going any
lower than that.
And Mondaire Jones says the idea of
a $1.5 trillion price tag being
sufficient to accomplish those
goals for the people is fanciful.
But he doesn't really care about
achieving those goals,
that's the problem.
>> Yeah, so first couple comments
on that video by Manchin.
All of a sudden he's developed
a problem with the debt.
When Trump was in office and
the Republicans were spending like
drunk sailors on rich people.
Cut taxes, cut taxes,
couple of trillion dollars.
Joe Manchin can't find any concern
for the debt.
And nobody in Washington, again,
nobody ever talks about it.
Nobody in the media talks about it.
As soon as you're going to do
something for
the American people, the debt.
How are we're going to pay for it?
How many times you're going to see
this scam?
Remember Joe Manchin,
not a Republican,
he's technically a Democrat,
running this scam.
And then he says, my god,
the things we need it for.
Of course the military
to protect us.
We also need to be protected from
climate change,
which is devastating the country.
Floods everywhere,
fires everywhere.
Extreme weather, exactly as
the scientists predicted.
That is a much graver threat than
some rando Taliban dude in a valley
in Kandahar, okay?
So it's absurd.
All of these talking points are
corporate trash talking points that
just go accepted in Washington.
because there's nobody intelligent
to say hey, wait a minute,
you're saying something ridiculous.
Hey, Shelly Moore Capito,
the Republican Senator from
West Virginia, you voted for
Trump's tax cuts.
You didn't seem worried about
the debt then, and that was $2
trillion handed to the rich.
Now, you're worried about the debt?
Okay, don't be ridiculous.
Now, on the core issue of this
reconciliation bill,
the one that has all the positive
progressive priorities in it.
Look, when you see people publicly
negotiating with Joe Manchin, the
other Democrats, understand they're
not negotiating with Joe Manchin.
Joe Manchin is a proxy for
all of their donors.
So Democrats control the House and
the Senate and the White House.
They can pass anything they want
tomorrow.
But they're having a negotiation
with themselves because it isn't
about Manchin,
it's about the donors and
that's who he represents.
And that's why Anna started
the story with, remember he just
went to the Chamber of Commerce.
>> Yes. >> He literally goes and
takes notes from their bosses then
comes back and says hey,
boss bays this.
He's just an errand boy,
he's a sad pathetic errand boy.
And everybody pumps him up to
be something he isn't.
Let alone the fact that at some
point Sinema's going to ruin
all this.
But by the way, I've seen Manchin
do this a hundred times throughout
the last several decades I've been
covering politics, and for
as long as he's been in the Senate.
And what he does is he pushes all
the way until somebody pushes back.
And then once his bluff is called
he goes okay, apparently that's
the best deal I can get.
And he does the deal.
>> That's right. >> So
you know what that means?
Push forward, don't give in to him.
Sinema's a different story.
>> Yeah, Sinema seems to almost be
aroused by going against what her
constituents want.
In fact when her constituents push
back against her she decides
to troll them on Twitter,
which blows my mind.
I mean, it's clear to me that she
actually doesn't really care about
the opinions or the needs of her
own constituents and
it's pretty disgusting.
But back to Manchin,
I agree with you Jake.
I really do think that Manchin,
despite how vociferous he is in
pushing back against
the reconciliation bill,
he's not unbreakable.
And when push comes to shove at
the end of the day, he is more
likely to vote along with
Democratic priorities than not.
But I do want to also talk about
the fact that this goes beyond his
corporate donors.
Because there are conflicts of
interest with Manchin that I'm
actually more concerned about than
even his donors, right?
Because he himself is
a multimillionaire who's invested
in the very industries that would
be impacted by
the reconciliation bill.
So I'll give you some examples.
Manchin by the way, and his staff,
have been in consistent talks with
Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden
of Oregon.
A committee where the two powerful
Democrats have clashed over
several key provisions central
to financing the proposal.
Including on corporate tax hikes,
according to multiple people
familiar with the matter.
Now, it's true that
Manchin's corporate donors
do not want corporate tax hikes.
They don't want to pay
for the bill.
They don't want to pay their fair
share of taxes.
But neither does someone like
Joe Manchin who makes half
a million dollars a year,
which is more than twice his Senate
salary from the coal industry.
From his investments in
the coal industry.
On education, Manchin is trying to
limit the Democrats' efforts to
provide universal pre-K and
tuition-free community college.
He's talked to Democrats about
limiting the number of Americans
eligible for
pre-K by setting income thresholds.
So more means testing of course.
While also discussing ways to
measure students' performance for
community college, assuming their
tuition is paid for over two years.
I don't even know what that means.
Are you going to look into
the grades of community college
students to determine whether or
not that's a decent investment?
What's wrong with him?
>> Yeah, I think that's what
he's going to do.
>> No, that's crazy.
>> Yeah. >> That's insane,
especially when you consider that
we're dealing with $1.6 trillion in
student loan debt.
Which does what?
I hinders the economy,
because people have to pay back
their student loans.
They can't participate in
the economy.
They can't buy homes,
they can't buy goods and services.
That money ends up going toward
paying off their debts for college.
Debts that they shouldn't even have
to begin with.
>> Yeah, and then of course is
the healthcare provisions of
the bill that he's trying to kill.
And of course, his daughter
is a robber baron on healthcare.
>> Exactly.
>> And she's made tens of millions
of dollars overcharging Americans,
shipping their jobs abroad from
West Virginia actually.
And destroying the healthcare
system for her own profit.
So when Manchin says, hey,
I don't want our grandkids paying
off this debt.
Well, his grandkids would
literally lose money if you let his
daughter stop robbing us.
And so he's like, no no no.
I want the robbery to continue,
because that's going straight to
my grandkids.
And so Anna's is right to point out
consistently his
conflicts of interest.
But again, in Washington that's
all viewed as perfectly normal.
It's just a matter of who's
robbing us.
And then the report is treated
as normal, but no outrageous.
>> They don't even cover it.
That's the problem.
Look, honestly the only outlet I've
seen do original reporting on
Manchin's conflicts of
interest is The Intercept, okay?
Ryan Grim has been
killing it on this topic.
And just yesterday we were covering
the fact that Mylan pharmaceuticals
while Heather Bresch,
Manchin's daughter was the CEO,
very intentionally created
a monopoly for the EpiPen.
By conspiring with Pfizer to ensure
that Pfizer didn't come out with
a competitor to the EpiPen so they
could inflate prices even further
and share profits with Pfizer.
People are asking well,
does it really make sense to go
after his daughter?
Yes, yes, it does make sense to go
after his daughter.
Because when Manchin claims that
he's against the reconciliation
bill because it doesn't have
bipartisan support or
I'm worried about how much money
it's going to spend and
all, it's not really about that.
It's about his personal interests.
It's about the interests of his own
daughter, right?
Because what does the budget
reconciliation bill include?
It includes a provision that allows
for Medicare to negotiate directly
with pharmaceutical companies.
Something that his daughter does
not want.
So it is a problem,
it is a conflict of interest and
that's the reason why
we're talking about it.
>> Okay, the only other publication
that's talked about it,
by the way, is TYT Investigates.
We did a story about Manchin's
personal wealth being affected by
his decisions in Congress.
But guys, the thing about
the golden parachute that
his daughter got in the last
transaction, over $30 million.
And that was so
that she would play along and
not only keep up the gigantic
prices we're all paying, but
shifting the jobs in West Virginia
abroad and wipe out those jobs.
But the Manchin family
gets stinking rich, right?
Now, why do you think they paid her
such a giant amount on her way out?
Right?
And so then when you say hey, could
you not have your family members
participate in this robbery,
Manchin goes
you're joking about my daughter.
I was using her for
these illicit purposes and
now you've besmirched her.
I can't believe you
made it personal.
No, you made it personal when your
family members go out.
And you protect them through
the law as they do outrageous
things to cost the rest of
us money and our jobs.
And by the way,
isn't it interesting that
conservatives that love to pick on
Hunter Biden don't say anything
about Manchin's daughter?
Because they love the robber
barons.
So they're, Manchin, he's helping
us destroy Democratic bills.
>> Yep.
>> And his daughter is one of us,
the elites who rob money from
average Americans.
>> Yeah. >> So all of a sudden,
no no no no,
don't touch the family.
>> In fact,
I love that you brought that up.
Apparently, Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell is praying for
Sinema and Manchin.
So I direct you to a tweet
by Frank Thorp from NBC.
McConnell on the $3.5 trillion
reconciliation bill.
We're down to two who
are resisting.
Joe Manchin from West Virginia and
Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona.
I pray for them every night.
I wish them well.
We give them lots of love.
>> Yes, you do.
>> It's disgusting.
And then finally, I just want to
remind you all of how Manchin
has really changed his messaging on
the infrastructure bill.
Remember, the budget reconciliation
bill includes everything that
was stripped out of
the infrastructure bill.
So all the human infrastructure
components are in the budget
reconciliation bill.
But back in January of this
year Manchin claimed that he was
in favor of this kind of spending.
Senator Joe Manchin calls for
up to $4 trillion in infrastructure
spending as Democrats are poised to
control Congress, so.
>> It's called research,
look into it.
So I'm not going to get past okay?
So you said it before.
All of a sudden
your donors call you.
No no, I didn't mean $4 trillion.
All right, last thing guys.
Mainly just to Democrats and
other progressives in Congress
finally starting to fight back in
a real way.
So we mentioned it earlier about
how they're pushing back against
Joe Manchin on all this stuff.
But I wanted to add one
other thing.
AOC did a video the other day where
she talked about hey, some of
these folks are in purple states,
but some of these Democratic
legislators are in very
blue states.
And she hinted that they could
be primaried just like her race
when she defeated Crowley in a very
blue district.
Now talking about primarying
your Democratic colleagues was once
the third rail in Washington.
And no one was allowed to touch it,
and it was nuclear and
it was toxic.
And it scared honestly,
even the progressives in Congress
from ever saying anything.
Now it looks like finally
the dam is broken.
And they're saying you want to play
hardball, Joe Manchin?
We can play hardball.
And by the way, all of you others
that are in those safe blue seats,
let's see how it turns out for you.
And that's how you win and
actually get things passed for
the American people.
You don't just ask pretty please,
you play hardball.
So you put pressure on them so
we can get the votes to win.