Fox Corporation has been stuffing a Democratic senator's
campaign coffers with cold, hard cash.
And that Democratic senator is unsurprisingly conservative
Democrat Joe Manchin.
Now, why are they doing this?
We can only speculate at this point, but let's get into the details in regard
to how much money has been sent to Joe Manchin from individuals at Fox and more
importantly, Fox's own political action committee, which does in fact, exist.
So from April to June of this year, Manchin received a total of $43,150
from Fox executives and attorneys, as well as the company's PAC.
Some of the executives who gave to Manchin include Jack Abernenthi,
who is the CEO of Fox television stations.
He donated $3,300 to Manchin.
Then you have Michael Mulvihilll,
who is a Fox Sports president and of Insights and analytics.
He donated about $1,500 to Joe Manchin.
You also have Fernando Sue, who is the CEO of Fox Entertainment Global.
He donated $1,000 to Manchin, and Manchin received a grand
total at this point of $8,500 from the Fox Corp PAC.
Now, what makes these donations notable is that before last April,
Manchin had not received any donations from a Fox employee since 2018.
So Cenk, let me just stop here and ask you for your speculation.
Why do you think it is that they're trying to prop up Joe Manchin,
a Democrat in the Senate?
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's that complicated.
So at this point, Rupert Murdoch has turned on Donald Trump, and so
they're not trying to get Donald Trump elected.
So if you hear that, I think that's mistaken.
And the reason why we even talk about that is because Joe Manchin is thinking of
running for president.
He keeps threatening that, and that's why these donations are important.
But there's two possibilities.
One is at the presidential level, right?
But if Donald Trump doesn't run, then Joe Manchin running and taking votes away from
Joe Biden would almost guarantee a victory for any Republican not named Donald Trump.
And Murdoch is very Republican, very right wing.
That's the whole point of Fox News.
So if he's telling his executives, go for it, by the way,
there's a thing that happens all the time.
So companies, there's all these little rules, and
there's a thousand ways to get around the rules.
But one of the ways to get around rules on maximum limits,
specifically to a candidate as opposed to a PAC,
which you can give unlimited money to is, have all of your executives give money.
Okay, so we reported on this hundreds of times now.
So that Fox is not the only people doing it.
Manchin's not the only person receiving it.
So they're using that strategy here, and
it nearly assures a Republican win if it's not Donald Trump, the presidency.
But also, if he doesn't run for president,
then he'd be running again in West Virginia for that seat.
And they love a Republican pretending to be a Democrat that kills the entire
Democratic agenda and validates every talking point on Fox News.
Who is that?
I mean, Joe Manchin is exactly that.
If Rupert Murdoch tried to draw up a Democrat to betray his own party and
make it seem like the Republicans are right,
he couldn't have done a better job than Joe Manchin.
>> Right, I mean Joe Manchin is a thousand percent in cahoots with
the Republican Party in regard to either privatizing Social Security or
increasing the retirement age for Social Security.
I mean, the list goes on and on.
He, I wouldn't say,
single-handedly defeated Biden's full agenda with Build Back Better.
He definitely got some help from other corporate Democrats like Kyrsten Sinema,
who has since decided to leave the party and instead identify as an independent.
And look, Manchin has been flirting with the notion that he could run for
President of the United States.
In fact, here's a clip of Manchin last month touching on just that issue.
>> Speaker 3: Let's see what happens, it's too early.
Everyone thinks we need to do something.
>> Speaker 1: Because if you do get in the race and you spoil the election,
would that factor into- >> Speaker 3: I've never been in any
race that ever spoiled, I've been in races to win.
And if I get in the race, I'm gonna win.
So we'd have decisions.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> And I'm not gonna make,
I've never made a decision.
>> Speaker 1: He says he hasn't made a decision, but he keeps flirting with it.
And of course, no Labels has kind of flirted with the idea of propping Manchin
up as a third-party candidate to essentially duke it out with whoever
the Republican candidate is, and assuming that Biden runs for re-election.
>> Speaker 2: Okay, so I have a prediction for you guys.
It'll be a little bit fun, but it requires a lot of ifs, it's a hypothetical.
So if Donald Trump somehow drops out of the race and is not the candidate for
the Republicans, okay?
And they get a standard corporate Republican like Chris Christie,
then Joe Manchin is infinitely more likely to run.
If it's Joe Biden, Chris Christie, Fox, and all the other conservatives are gonna
send in Manchin to grab a bunch of Biden votes so that the Republican can win.
So if it's Trump, then they'll pull Manchin and he will not run,
because Murdoch and even the other giant Republican donors, not all of them, but
the majority of them don't want Trump.
So that's why they've got Manchin warming up in the bullpen,
depending on whether Trump's the candidate or not.
And if he isn't, they'll almost certainly send him in.
And why would Manchin go in?
Well, for two reasons.
Number one, he's not at all assured of re-election in West Virginia.
He might run as an independent in which case the Republican might win or
very likely would win, right?
So he's thinking, well, I don't wanna get embarrassed in my home state.
I pretended the whole time that I was popular there, right?
And so second of all, if I've sold out to these guys my whole career, they owe me,
right?
So he's making money off his own coal mine etc, but
he would get a multi-million dollar contract from, by the way, potentially,
Fox News, if not lobbyists, and law firms, and defense contractors.
>> Speaker 1: And look, while corporations certainly love Joe Manchin, the people of
this country and particularly those in West Virginia, who he is supposed to
be a political representative for not really loving him very much.
So a May poll shows Manchin trailing his likely Republican challenger for
Senate, Governor Jim Justice, by 22% points.
Meanwhile, national polling consistently ranks Manchin as the second most
unpopular senator, one rung below Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
>> Speaker 2: Dude, if you're below the turtle.
>> I know.
>> Okay, the turtle is frozen.
I mean, he's in his shell and can't get up.
You saw him at the press conference,
the Republicans voters generally hate Mitch McConnell.
Democratic voters despise Mitch McConnell.
He is roundly reviled, and Manchin is below him.
So guys, he killed 85% of Biden's agenda.
And while he was doing that,
mainstream media all pretended he was super popular in West Virginia, and
that's why he had to kill Biden's agenda, cuz West Virginia is so moderate and
Manchin is so moderate, and that's why West Virginia loves Joe Manchin.
Remember that?
He had to do it for West Virginia.
And now, as we told you, no, he's not even popular in West Virginia.
You know why?
He kills things like a higher minimum wage.
You know who could use a higher minimum wage?
A lot of people in West Virginia.
>> Speaker 1: Child tax credit.
>> Speaker 1: Yeah.
>> Speaker 1: I mean, paid family leave.
>> They love child tax credit in West Virginia.
>> Speaker 1: Manchin would have you believe that the fine people of
West Virginia do not want paid family leave.
They want to have babies and immediately report to work the next day.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, Manchin is a corporatist and West Virginia is populist.
Those are polar opposites.
Did Manchin win a bunch of elections in West Virginia?
Yes, how did he win them in the past?
Because back then, the spotlight wasn't on him.
People didn't know what the hell he was actually voting on.
And he could buy those elections with money from Republican donors and
corporate donors.
So he runs millions of dollars in ads pretending to be a populace from
West Virginia.
By the way, he had a West Virginia haircut a minute ago.
And if you notice in that Common Sense video, all of a sudden,
he's thinking of running for president, maybe working on Wall Street, and
he's got his hair slick back, Gordon Gecko style, [LAUGH] okay?
>> It's not helping. >> Speaker 2: So yeah,
no, this guy ain't gonna run in West Virginia.
He's either gonna run for president, or he's very likely
going to be a Fox News analyst and get paid very handsomely for it.