As Democratic lawmakers have to be
all types of delusional to support
an argument that legislation needs
to be passed in a bipartisan way,
something that
Senator Joe Manchin keeps arguing.
It's time to really rethink our
daily award for the dumb and
the feckless.
[MUSIC]
>> My prayers is
that the Republicans will take back
their pond.
>> Things keep dripping out, drip,
drip, drip, and
the truth comes out.
>> Over the weekend, Democratic
Senator Joe Manchin argued in
an Op-ed that he would not vote for
election reform in the legislation
known as the For The People Act.
And that he would maintain
the senate filibuster which blocks
all the legislation that Democrats
are trying to pass.
Now he's not the only Senate
Democrat who's in favor of this,
he's just the most vociferous one.
There's as many as ten Senate
Democrats who are in line with what
Manchin is saying in that Op-ed.
Now, Chris Wallace of Fox News,
a conservative Fox News anchor,
called Manchin out to his
face on how delusional this is.
Let's hear how that conversation
went down.
>> You have made it clear,
I'm not going to ask you again,
you said that you oppose scrapping
the filibuster.
The question I have is, whether or
not, and you say you hope that
that'll bring the parties together.
The question I have is whether or
not you're doing it exactly the
wrong way and hear me out on this.
If you were to keep the idea that
maybe you would vote to kill
the filibuster.
Wouldn't that give Republicans
an incentive to actually negotiate
because old Joe Manchin's out there
and who knows what he's going to do
by taking it off the table.
Haven't you empowered Republicans
to be obstructionist?
>> I don't think so because we have
seven brave Republicans that
continue to vote for
what they know is right, and
the facts as they say them.
Not worrying about the political
consequences.
I believe there's a lot more of my
Republican colleagues and
friends that feel the same way.
I'm just hoping they are able to
rise to the occasion to defend our
country and support our country and
make sure that we
have a democracy for
this republic of all the people.
I'm just very hopeful that
I see good signs,
we're doing- >> Well- >> Chris,
more things than ever before.
Give us some time.
>> No, but there is no time,
there is no time.
And when you're dealing with
Senate Republicans who are bought
off by Koch-backed organizations.
That tell them do not under any
circumstance support
election reform.
Don't support anything
in Biden's agenda.
What makes Joe Manchin think that
they would ever vote in favor of
the legislation the Democrats want?
What makes Joe Manchin think that
they have any interest in
bipartisanship?
They don't, he knows that.
He's funded and
corrupted by the same Koch-backed
organizations which he's recently
taken meetings with.
There's no question about that.
Read Jane Mayer's latest piece in
the New Yorker.
It'll give you details about
a leaked phone call with these
Koch-backed organizations and
Senate Republicans.
But with that said, I mean,
in that video Cenk, he mentions
seven Senate Republicans who have
voted along with Democrats.
I'm assuming he's referring to
Republicans who voted in favor of,
I don't know, the Commission?
>> Yeah. >> Which by the way,
you need ten Senate Republicans to
vote in favor of any legislation
in order for it to pass.
But when it comes to
the Coronavirus relief bill, not a
single Republican lawmaker voted in
favor of it after Senator Manchin
secured all sorts of concessions.
Including cuts to the unemployment
insurance program, and
additional means testing.
They are not good faith actors and
Manchin knows that.
>> I just got to give credit to
Chris Wallace,
turns out he's a journalist.
>> It's crazy, right?
>> Yeah, I can't believe one of
the very few journalists in America
is on Fox News.
And so, yes, I don't often agree
with his framing, but I don't often
agree with the framing of almost
all the cable news anchors.
And here he is asking real
questions that no other
reporter has the courage to ask.
So I mean, this is such a simple
question.
How in the world do you believe
that you're going to get
Republicans to vote with you?
I would have loved a follow up
question there where he said,
Senator Manchin,
are you familiar with math?
Because you just told me seven
Republican Senators can vote for
the same thing.
You know you need ten Republican
senators to break a filibuster.
And you just wrote an Op-ed saying,
you'll never get rid of
the filibuster.
And that seven was on
the easiest bill.
Hey, they tried to kill us in the
Capitol, should we look into it?
And even then you could only
get seven Republican senators.
Seven doesn't equal ten.
>> Right. >> And
then in terms of the no time point
that Adam made,
that's so important.
Because if you wait too long, and
that is Manchin's plan, by the way,
I also think it's Biden's plan.
Biden is also against getting rid
of the filibuster and takes no heat
for it because of Joe Manchin.
But if you wait that long,
you know what the red states
are going to do?
Before the 2022 election,
there's just not enough time for
us to comply with the federal law.
We're just going to have to go with
our current laws that say that most
black people can't vote, right?
Or some portion of black people
can't vote, and some portion of
college students and Latinos etc
can't vote with the laws we already
passed in our state.
Hey, take it to the courts,
we'll see you after the elections,
after we've already won, right?
Time is running out and
Manchin knows it.
He's helping his Republican friends
as he calls it, because he's not,
look, he's not a Democrat but
he's also not an honest legislator.
>> What's also pretty fascinating
is that currently, I mean, all
of these stories that we do about
the current political climate are
intertwined, they're all related.
So currently we're seeing various
red states restrict voting to
the point that clearly advantages
the Republican party, right?
Part of the reason why Democrats
want to pass an election reform
bill is not just to get money out
of politics, it's to ensure that
all eligible voters are able to go
to the polls and vote.
It includes same-day registration,
voter registration, all sorts of
things that expand voting or
make it more accessible to
eligible voters.
And it would obviously,
counterbalance or
mitigate the damage being
done by the voter suppression bills
in places like Georgia.
So you have corporate Democrats in
the Senate, as many as ten of them
by the way, Manchin just happens to
be the most vociferous one.
But you have as many as ten of them
who understand that their own
elections, their own real elections
are being jeopardized by what
Republicans are doing right now.
And they're still willing to go
along with this farce.
They're still willing to go along
with these nonsense talking
points that are so
hollow regarding bipartisanship.
>> Well, if you're wondering why,
I mean it even endangers their own
elections.
Because For The People Act as anti
corruption measures, and those
corporate Democrats don't want you
to know who their donors are.
It would reveal the dark money
donors.
And they also don't want
progressives having grassroots
money, it has matching funds.
Professor Lessing from Harvard is
the one who came up with that idea.
And he talked about it on the Young
Turks and how it's monumentally
important to democracy.
When corporate Democrats hear that
they don't take that as a positive,
they take it as a negative, my God.
The only reason they win is because
they have so
much more money than progressives.
And they get it from their secret
corporate donors.
So they're pushing Manchin out
there, go get them big guy,
go get them.
No, no, yeah,
I got nothing to do with it man,
it was Manchin.
Joe Biden,
your position is that your for
the filibuster,
it kills your entire agenda.
How is that in any way logical?
Unless you don't actually
believe in your agenda.
But I want to say one more thing
about that interview.
Chris Wallace asked him if he was
being naive in his position,
that the Republicans would vote
with the Democrats.
That's a polite way of saying,
are you stupid?
Because they never vote with you
guys, and Mitch McConnell has said
that he is going to try to block
100% of Biden's agenda.
>> Cenk, you know what?
I'm going to let myself indulge,
because we actually have that video
but I wasn't going to go to it to
save time.
But who cares, who cares?
You guys deserve to see it, so
let's take a look at that video.
>> I mean, let's just take the idea
of creating a 9/11 commission to
investigate the January 6th
insurrection at the Capitol.
Republicans blocked that.
Senator McConnell, the head of
the Republicans in the Senate,
says that he's 100% focused on
blocking the Biden agenda.
Question, aren't you being naive
about this continuing talk about
bipartisan cooperation?
>> I'm not being naive,
I think he's 100% wrong in trying
to block all the good things that
we're trying to do for America.
Be lot better if we
had participation, and
we're getting participation.
But when it comes time to final
vote, I disagree with leader
McConnell on this and minority
leader on this issue, that he puts
politics before the policies that I
think we need for our country.
I'm going to
continue to keep working
with my bipartisan friends and
hopefully we can get more of them.
>> I think McConnell's wrong.
Okay, what are you going to do
about it?
Just saying that you think he's
wrong and you disagree
with him doesn't fix anything.
>> And by the way,
he's saying that McConnell is wrong
about McConnell's position.
I'm pretty sure McConnell knows his
position.
He said, I'm going to try to block
every single thing that Biden does.
No, I don't really believe him,
I think he secretly wants to help
Joe Biden.
That's not naïve,
that's not even stupid,
that's just a lie, right?
And look, I wish that Wallace,
you did a fantastic job.
Asked another logical question,
which is look, what you're saying
is completely unbelievable based
on the votes we've already had.
So, what are you actually trying
to do?
Are you trying to protect your
corporate donors?
Because the people in West Virginia
don't agree with you,
overwhelmingly, they don't
agree with you.
The Republican voters in
West Virginia don't agree with you,
nobody agrees with you.
And you're blocking bipartisanship.
All right, so I want to go to
the Washington Post here,
because they actually show you what
the real game is.
And this is shocking coming from
a mainstream media outlet like
Washington Post, so
I'll give them credit too.
So first they explain,
skepticism about
flatly eliminating the filibuster
goes deeper in the Democratic ranks
than the much-noted opposition of
Senator Joe Manchin.
Members such as senator
Jeanne Shaheen from New Hampshire
said they are dismayed at
Republican obstruction, but
also believed that the specter
of gridlock has been exaggerated by
those pushing for rules changes.
>> Garbage, absolute garbage.
>> They blocked the January
6 commission,
how could it be exaggerated?
They gave you zero votes on
the COVID relief, on COVID relief,
that they passed when Trump was in
office.
Then they turn around and give you
zero votes when you're in office.
What do you mean exaggerated?
What can they give you,
negative votes?
Okay, and then here,
this is the real game.
A Democratic Senate aide who
spoke on the condition of anonymity
discuss internal matters.
So there's a misconception
that Manchin and
Sinema mainly responsible for
holding on to the filibuster.
In reality, the aide said,
there are at least ten
Democratic Senators who disagree
with key parts of the bills
that Republicans are filibustering.
But quote, they just don't need to
say anything crazy because
Joe Manchin's out there,
taking all the arrows them.
In other words,
they were never going to vote for
it in the first place.
We told you on The Young Turks,
we told you before Biden even won,
we told you after he won.
While everybody else
was calling him FDR 2.0,
we told you they ain't ever
going to pass those bills, they
never intended to pass those bills.
And here's the Washington Post
confirming there are ten
Democratic Senators that don't
want any piece of that.
By the way, the one time that we
forced the vote, they didn't won.
That was on $15 minimum wage, and
you guys did that, I swear to God,
you did it.
Tens of thousands of people signed
our petition and
sent videos into Bernie Sanders.
He wasn't going to introduce
an amendment and
he did on the $15 minimum wage,
they had to take a vote on it.
They are forced to take a vote,
how many people voted against it?
It wasn't just the Republicans,
eight Democratic Senators voted
against it.
By the way, they didn't even need
it they could have
hid behind Manchin and Sinema, but
the other six were like no, no.
I can't have my donors thinking
that I'm actually with my voters.
No, I want to make sure your wages
are crushed low $7.25, make $15,000
a year working full time every day.
Go back to the goddamn mines,
that's what Chris Coons said,
top ally of Joe Biden.
That's what both
Delaware Senators said,
that's what Jeanne Shaheen said.
All these guys,
they never meant it.
They're corporate corrupt senators
just like the Republicans.
We told you, and that's exactly
what's happening now.