The Young Turks - Knives out

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Senator Joe Manchin’s refusal to support the centerpiece of President Biden’s climate agenda puts the Democrats’ entire infrastructure and social spending agenda at risk. However, Manchin did meet with Bernie Sanders and Pramila Jayapal to try and address the spending stalemate. Nina Turner gave Bernie props for smoking Manchin with his recent op-ed. West Virginians are paying incredibly high prices for energy bills in their homes because of the state’s reliance on the skyrocketing price of coal. Roughly 24 hours after the death of Colin Powell, Donald Trump proved, again, that he is utterly incapable of empathy, grace or even common decency. Texas Republicans looking to pass legislation to outlaw vaccine mandates get a dose of reality from their bosses, as the business community opposes it. Radio talk show host Dennis Prager informed his audience on Monday that not only does he have Covid-19, but he was trying to get infected in order to achieve “natural immunity.” A museum started an OnlyFans account after its TikTok got banned for posting nudes. Hosts: Ana, Cenk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jank Yugar, Anna Kasperin with you guys on a very calm, balanced afternoon. Calm, super balanced. That's what we're all about today. Okay. That's the motto here at TYT, calm and balanced.

We were wondering, home with progressives or just calm and balanced. How boring would a calm and balance show be? We are actually pretty balanced. We're fair. We're fair. Yeah. We're not calm. No, we are not calm.

But some people love the fake calm, right? Yeah. Like, especially the left. Like, let's keep it real. The left loves hush tones. Like hush tones mean that the person is reasonable and logical, even if what they're saying is insane. And it's like, don't be fooled by that. Passion is okay. Yes. So Amy Goodman, good com, NPR, fake com, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's a ticket. All right. So anyways, here's some balance for you guys. We're going to hit Democrats first and Republicans second. Because you know why? Because they deserved it. They're in the news. and they're doing wrong things, our job is to point it up. All right. And at the end, by the way, we will trigger right wingers and these, and fake left wingers by talking about Russia. It's foe, it's foe, I do it wrong every time. Every time. I say, what did I say again? Just foe, just think of friends and foes.

Foe. Faw. What do I say? Faw. Yeah, it's foe. What a weird mental and verbal glitch. Okay, anyways, Russia, Russia later. No, okay, seriously, let's get to start with important stuff. All right, let's do it. You're going to get a picture of us. We're talking. We're talking. You're going to have a resolution by the end of the week.

We're talking. We're going to make some progress. Senator Sanders, you prepared to make some deep cuts to climate change and other things like that? Senators Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin got together for a meeting to negotiate the budget reconciliation bill, the same budget reconciliation bill that conservative Democrats. Joe Manchin has been a massive obstacle in getting passed. Now, Mansion clearly in that video was pretty desperate for a photo op with Bernie Sanders. And at first, I was a little confused about why.

But then I took a look at what the constituents over in West Virginia like. And Bernie Sanders happens to be one of the people that the constituents there love. In fact, if you look at the Democratic primary in 2016, Bernie Sanders did quite well with the Democratic electorate, 51.4% of Democrats favored Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Now, in the 2020 election, by the time West Virginia held its primary, Biden was the only candidate. So there you have it. But let's get back to the budget reconciliation bill and what's taking place. As we shared with you earlier this week, over the weekend, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an op-ed pressuring mansion to support the budget reconciliation.

bill, and he published it in West Virginia's largest newspaper. He wrote the following. Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for this legislation, yet the political problem we face is that in a 50-50 Senate, we need every Democratic senator to vote yes. We now have only 48. Two Democratic senators remain in opposition, including Senator Joe Manchin. Now that triggered Joe Manchin, who then released his own statement in response on Twitter. arguing this isn't the first time an out of stater has tried to tell West Virginians what is best for them,

despite having no relationship to our state. Senator Sanders' answer is to throw more money on an already overheated economy, while 52 other senators have grave concerns about this approach the bill would be paid for by increasing taxes, as we all know. To be clear, again, Congress should proceed with caution on any additional spending, and I will not vote for a reckless expansion of government programs, no op-ed from a self-declared independent socialist is going to change that. And real quick, Jenk, before I go to you, I just want to note that Bernie, as he usually is, is correct. Let's take a look at how West Virginians feel about the budget reconciliation bill. With a nonpartisan, non-profit,

work money surveyed more than 50,000 of its 2 million members nationwide, it found that 81% of respondents said they supported this plan. That includes 90% of liberals who took the survey, 81% of moderates and 66% of conservatives. Now let's take a look at West Virginia. This should be relevant to Senator Manchin. 80% of respondents in West Virginia believe Manchin should vote to pass the bill. That includes 77% of conservatives who responded to the survey. Yeah. So a lot of this is about optics and then I'll tell you what the reality is. So on the optics front, Bernie Sanders put the op-ed in the West Virginia newspaper to obviously rattle Manges Cage, and it did rattle it to some extent.

Why you might wonder, what's the big deal about a local newspaper that no one reads? Well, in the old days, everybody used to read the local papers, and local media is worth way more than national media, especially in the old days. And remember, all of our politicians are in their 70s or older, so they still believe in the old adage from Tip O'Neill, all politics is locals. So when an old school politician like Joe Manchin sees an op-ed from a different senator, especially from his own party, in his local paper, he thinks that's a shot across the bow in a massive way, right? So they're like, whoa, wait a minute, now we're getting into real open warfare here. Now the reality is that's not really

how media works anymore. More people watch cable news, more people go on Facebook than they read any local newspaper by an order of magnitude, right? But the old senators have not caught on to that at all. So now the second portion of this is also optics. So they have the meeting, apparently they didn't make very much progress at all. And afterwards mention demands a photo op, as you saw there in the video. Now why is he doing that? He just said He's an out-of-stater, independent socialist, and et cetera. And if we're in open warfare, no, as Anna pointed out, says Bernie did so well in the primary in 2016, Manchin knows that that is a big chunk of his own voters, the Democratic voters, and he's got to appease them.

So being a classic politician, he goes in both directions. Braggs about 52 senators, 50 of whom are Republicans that are on his side, or 48 of them. are Republicans at least, or I'm sorry, I keep saying that wrong, 50 are on his side that are Republicans. And then at the same time, he wants to cover his bases with Bernie, so he's got basically his arms around Mitch McConnell and Bernie Sanders. But all of that is optics. There's only one thing he cares about. And a lot of the articles talk about how the White House and Jennifer Granholm and at the Energy Department are making a big pitch about how much this This bill would actually help the people of West Virginia.

But guys, the jury's already in it. 80% of the people of West Virginia want the bill, they think it's going to help them. You can't get that much better than 80%. That's not going to move mention one inch. Bernie's not going to move them. None of these things are going to move them. The only thing he cares about is money, money, money, money, period. And in this case, we're really kind of screwed because he's taking out the biggest portion

of the fighting back against climate change from the bill. He's saying, that's my red line. I don't want you to fight climate change at all. I don't want you to go towards renewable energies. And it's going to be super hard to move them, not only because his donors are in that industry, obviously as we've shown you in the past, but his own company that he founded, his son runs,

that he gets money from, half a million dollars every year, isn't coal. So moving away from coal is devastating. I mean, he's already incredibly wealthy, but he would perceive it as devastating to his personal income and his personal wealth. So how are you going to move a senator that deeply corrupt when that jury's still out? I think that there's still a possibility to move him, as we've talked about before, because if you look at the entirety of Joe Manchin's political career, even as he's huffing and puffing, even as he's going out of his way to differentiate himself from the Democratic Party, when he's pressured enough and persistently, he does eventually cave, right?

The real wildcard here, the person that I'm most concerned about in the Senate is cinema because, you know, you have the theory that she doesn't know what she's doing at all. My theory is she seems to get some sort of pleasure or a rise out of upsetting her own constituents. She seems to like the negative attention, considering the fact that she's going against the will of her own constituents and supporters. But with that said, I mean, going back to what you said earlier, Jank, about the op-ed that was written by Bernie and how.

this is against the rules, like the decorum and what senators are used to. I mean, all I could really think about is the good old days of politics, where you have someone like LBJ, okay, as the head of the Senate, right, Senate Majority Leader. Oh, I mean, he stopped at nothing. He knew when to use carrots, there's no question about that, but he was pretty vicious. And he also knew how to wield power. He knew how to coerce and intimidate. And I question whether any of that takes place in Congress anymore.

Yeah, it's funny you say that because, you know, I just asked on social media earlier in the day. If Mansion and or Cinema prevent us from passing any of these bills, are there going to be any consequences? There absolutely should be. Yeah, I mean, if you kill the president's agenda, there should be nuclear consequences politically. Does Joe Biden even have a single stick in his arsenal, let alone nukes? I mean, I'd be surprised if they got to, you know, slap on the hand. So Joe Biden is giving them a lot of what they want. So for instance, Biden who at first was standing firm on the $3.5 trillion price tag, which again

would be paid for through common sense tax increases on the rich. Now he's saying, okay, maybe we go down to $2 trillion, right? Remember, Manchin said his red line was $1.5 trillion. I wouldn't be surprised if Biden eventually falls in that number, close to that number. No, they're going to go around too, for sure. Okay, whatever. But what has Biden also just said? He's considering doing away with a massive renewable energy provision in the bill.

So that's my point, guys. Why? You can get to whatever number that Manchin and Biden are comfortable with. None of us will be comfortable with it. And it'll probably be around two. But the question is what's in the two? And so Mansion is specifically saying that I don't want you to fight climate change. The provisions that are about climate change, I want you to take them out.

Period. I'm in coal. I don't care about your stupid planet. I still got money to make. My kids got money to make. And so we're going to, it's our red line. Now that's a giant problem. And honestly, on that one, I don't know how they're going to move him off of it.

He has to move off of it. Otherwise, they're not going to get any. But guys, there's more, but there's also good news in a sense. Because other senators, not just Bernie, like all of a sudden, the other 47 Democratic senators showed up. And all we had was Manchester among Bernie, right, on the two different sides. The other 47 usually don't do anything anyway, right? But now all of a sudden, Tina Smith, Sheldon White House, Merckley are all rising up. Ed Markey, rising up and going, no, if you take out the things that fight against climate change,

our voters are demanding, absolutely positive demand, especially Ed Markey, who won based on that platform in Massachusetts, and then we're going to vote no, which is, I've never seen a corporate Democrat, you know, some of them are, some of them are a little bit more progressive, but corporate Democrats say, no, I'm voting no, if you don't give us what our constituents want. Normally they don't care at all what their constituents want. But Ed Markey saw in his election, he would not have gotten elected if it was not for the progressive vote, period, there's no question about that. Now we've affected their power.

So this is much more complicated than the old days where Manchin would have steamrolled everybody and Biden would have been his willing partner in that. Now it's just a little bit more give and take here. Last thing for me that's super important, in West Virginia, all this hubbub is not about the jobs. Everything you hear from corporate Democrats and corporate media, almost everything is a lie. Only 3% of the jobs in West Virginia are coal jobs.

3%. No, this is about Manchin's profits and donors, period. All right, let me also just get to one other note in this story. So CNN caught up with Bernie Sanders and wanted to ask him about the op-ed that he wrote, urging Manchin to support the budget reconciliation bill. Now, of course, that was meant to apply pressure on Mansion. It was published in the largest newspaper in West Virginia. And here's where CNN's mind is at.

It tells you everything you need to know about them. CNN reporter asked Sanders on Monday night, if he apologized, if he apologized to Manchin for his op-ed during their closed-door meeting, Sanders, who had been walking with a group of reporters, briefly came to a halt before asking the right question. Did you apologize for the article you wrote? Why would you ask me that? No, what was that?

What was the framing of that question? That was so, why would he apologize for writing an op-ed that's correct? That actually illustrates the desires, the demands of Manson's own constituents, the very desires and demands that Manchin himself as a senator from that state, is completely ignoring based on his own personal financial incentives. Why would Bernie, of all people, need to do any apologizing whatsoever? How pathetic is that question? So guys, it's not about one simple question and about one randah reporter. It is the mindset of the media in Washington. Progressives must always apologize. You're never allowed to criticize

another Democrat, as long as they're a right-wing Democrat. Progressives, you could attack anytime you want. I've never seen a conservative Democrat, a moderate Democrat or a Democratic leadership ever be asked to apologize to a progressive. Literally never in my life. Never in my life have I seen that. But the minute a progressive says, I don't agree with a conservative Democrat, they're like, have you apologized yet? Like honestly, how does it even occur to him to ask that question unless the mindset is, and his editors think, and everybody in the building thinks, How dare a progressive disagree with a corporate Democrat. He must bow his head and giving offense to another senator.

He's among the elites. How can you give offense to the elites? I mean, the provision he would take out would probably wind up in the deaths of tons of people in extreme weather events, let alone endangering the entire planet. But no one is CNN or in the club or among the elites gives a damn about that. But they're like, whoa, did you offend another senator by even stating your opinion, your dirty progressive opinion? Well, CNN and the rest of the national media disapprove, and they would like your apology right away. Did you apologize to Joe Manchin for wanting to represent the best interests of West Virginians better than he does?

Did you apologize to Senator Manchin for that? It's pathetic. Anyway, we got to take a break. Let's do that when we come back. More progressives are fighting back, and they're doing so vocally on CNN. We'll show you some of those clips and more when we return. All right, back on TYT, Jen Canana, with you guys, a lot more news. All right, let's talk about how progressives are fighting back.

Nina Turner went on CNN to make a strong case in favor of passing the budget reconciliation. bill, which of course would overwhelmingly improve Americans' lives materially, offering universal pre-K, paid family leave, two years of free community college. I mean, the list goes on and on, expanded Medicare. And what I love about Nina Turner is how she comes in strong and she does not let up. Here's a perfect example of that. I am glad that Senator Sanders had the courage to smoke out Senator Mansion by writing that op-ed, forcing him to have this conversation. So conversation is always good, but it just can't go on

forever. Because, Brianna, the longer they are in talks, the less likelihood we're going to have the strong package that is needed to elevate and to uplift the American people who need it the most. And this cannot be pushed down the road, because we don't know what may happen in 2022. So we need to get this done right now. Frankly, I think Manchin is more progressive than it gets credit for. And I think Bernie is more pragmatic. I love that these two guys are talking. All right, Senator Turner, for progressives, what, what? Sorry, go on. The labels, I mean, I'm so sorry, pragmatic, practical. People are literally losing their lives and their livelihoods while people play games. Mm-hmm. I loved that final moment in that clip. How exactly can anyone

claim that Joe Manchin of all people is progressive. Yeah, if you watch the whole thing, Begala, of course, in that clip, Begala looks like he's given a little bit of credit to Bernie for being practical, but he's giving Manchin credit for being progressive. I haven't seen it. I've never seen what he's talking about. But overall, in the longer clip, Begala, of course, sides with, we can't have perfection here get in the way. That's the talking point they use every single time when it's progressives

asking for something for you guys. Now, when it was a $2 trillion tax cut for the rich, the Democrats pretended to be against it. But was there a big giant fight in the country, in politics, and in media? And we've got to compromise here. You can't ask for the whole $2 trillion for everything for the rich. All right, let's get started a trillion or half a trillion. No, there was no such fight. trillion. They did two trillion. There wasn't even a peep out of anybody. It got steam rolled, right? But whenever we're asking for something for you guys, health care, climate change, the center, they're like, hey, you can't ask for that much. We gotta be practical, we gotta be practical. Isn't it so convenient that

practical is always meant to serve the interests of corporate donors? That's what practical really means. So I love that Nina Turner immediately squashed those ridiculous labels, especially in regard to Joe. Manchin. One more clip from her appearance on CNN, and then later we're going to get to Cory Bush, Jamal Bowman, other progressives who are just killing it in their cable news interviews, you know, advocating for the passage of this bill. Let's watch Nina Turner. And look, the overwhelming majority of West Virginians agree with this. West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the United States of America. And you have a senator who is set for the rest

of his natural life, and so are his children and his children's children. And he wanted to negotiate away. Senator Mansion, what do you want to negotiate away? Is it childcare? Is it the implosion of Mother Earth? Is it health care? What is it? Brian, he is not saying what it is. So this is not about who's pragmatic and who's practical and who's progressive. This really is about in this moment whose side you are on. And let the American people remember this. Six trillion dollars was the original number. We are down to 3.5 trillion dollars. How low are we going to go to sacrifice the poor, the working poor, and the barely middle class in the United States of America? Hell, the Senate just gave, I think, what, 10 billion more dollars to the military

budget than what was asked for? She's right. In the next decade, the United States is is going to spend a minimum of $7.5 trillion on the defense budget. The media never frames it that way. The media only frames the budget reconciliation bill as a $3.5 trillion spending plan. But when it comes to defense, they'll find ways to frame it as if we're not spending, a giant portion of our discretionary budget on wars. Yeah, I'm gonna make one quick note about TYD here and what we're standing for. So Nina Turner is a host on TYT now.

She's on Damage Report earlier today. She's gonna be on Indisputable. She's got power hour, that's just for our members. But normally when as someone signs a contract with a company, they, it's exclusive and you're not allowed to go on other channels. We did not do that because we think Nina's voice is so important to the country that we want her on everywhere. So thank you to our members that allow us to do that so we can get our incredibly strong

voice out to as many people as possible. All right, so I want to move on to Corey Bush. Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman also had appearances on CNN. They gave their interviews together, and I thought that they absolutely did a great job, including Cory Bush in this moment, where she talks about how she got elected to Congress for a very specific purpose. Let's watch. The expectation is we will give you crumbs and expect you to be happy. What we're saying is I didn't come to Congress to continue to give crumbs to my community.

St. Louis continues to get crumbs, and we keep being number one for homicide, number one or number two for homicides, number one for police murder, number one for the murder of children. We keep having those issues. We keep having issues with black children being 10 times it's likely to go to the hospital in emergency room for asthma than white children. How do we fix those things? You have to put the money there. And so I didn't come to Congress to sit back and accept those crumbs. Give my folks the meal. I mean, is there really any other way to put it? Yeah, no, I love it. That's just Democrats 2.0 right there. Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush, a lot of you guys helped to make sure that they won. And so we're trying to bring positive change in the world. And they both of them did a fantastic job. You'll see more clips in a second.

But now finally progressives are allowed on air, number one. Why? Because they have credibility. They won the races, you know, they're U.S. Congress people now. Because they have leverage. Yeah. That's what they have. Exactly.

They have enough votes to block the bill. They have power. Then they're allowed on television. Back when we didn't have any power, progressives were a persona non grata on television. They were not allowed on TV. Now that, you know, of course, Nina's here, but also former campaign co-chair of Bernie Sanders. And Bernie Sanders is super relevant in the Senate, so they need these voices on. So, and now when they're on, the television audience, for the first time in their lives, probably, are hearing a progressive perspective.

Yeah, wait, why did the voters have to get crumbs and the donors get to have the full meal? Exactly. Exactly, exactly. And look, what it does is it creates the same distrust in our institutions that's really hurting the country during this pandemic, right? People campaign, candidates campaign on very specific policy issues. They have specific platforms that call out to the needs of their own constituents. And then they get elected into the system that overwhelmingly prioritizes the interests of corporate donors over the constituents needs. And progressives have been beaten down with this talking point of be practical, be practical, be practical.

Well, isn't it much more practical to serve your constituents? That's the practical way to go about it. But that's not what you're gonna hear in corporate media, which again tries to beat down progressives, tries to beat them to submission. So they just go along with what corrupt corporate Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema are demanding. Now, speaking of Joe Mansion, you're going to love this clip because Jamal Bowman called out Mansions real interests here. Let's watch. Joe Manchin and others like him have a certain perspective that I think is incorrect. He thinks investing in a bottom up economy is entitlement. He claims he's worried about inflation, but I think we need to have a conversation about the special interest that

support Joe Manchin and many others. Yes. And we need to understand that when we invest this way, it's better for the GDP and the economy going forward, but it's also better than for our well-being. When you put money in people's pockets, they spend that money. It creates demand, which creates supply, which creates jobs. Yeah, he's absolutely right about that. And by the way, listen, It's not just mansion, I'm hearing all sorts of establishment politicians, both on the left and the right, arguing that the inflation is the main reason why we shouldn't pass most of the provisions in the budget reconciliation bill.

They never talk about what is causing the inflation, right? So there are various factors, but two of the main factors, one of which I've talked about on the show quite a bit, the Federal Reserve pumping money into corporations, that's having a huge impact on inflation. But aside from that, think about what's happening with our supply chains right now. Truckers have quit in droves because they're sick of being overworked, they're sick of being abused. And so right now there aren't enough truckers to essentially make this supply chain whole. So if you go to the ports in Los Angeles or in Long Beach, you'll see these shipping containers that have been sitting at the ports for weeks and weeks

and weeks and the reason why they're not moving is because they don't have the truckers to get the products to the people who have ordered them or to the companies that ordered them for their customers or their clients, right? Now this bill, the budget reconciliation bill, would create regulations that would ensure that people have paid time off, paid family leave, certain benefits that would make their lives a lot easier so they're not so burnt out and not as overwhelmed as they are now. it would overwhelmingly impact the economy in a positive way. But they don't want to get into the nitty-gritty about that.

I'm talking about the corporate Democrats here. Yeah, so I love that Bowman called out Mention's special interests. And so, by the way, we told you Bush and Bowman would be the best of the lot. And here they are. They're fighting as hard as anyone in Congress. And so, again, thank you for making that happen. Okay, now, if you want to know how to get actual progress, One of the segments that we do on Power Hour with Nina Turner is what would Nina do?

And in that segment last week, we kind of figured out what Biden could actually do together as we talked it through. He could threaten Manchin's donors. Now that would be real leverage. You've got to go to the bosses because Manchin's not actually the boss. Cinema's not actually the boss. The donors are, right? They're just the bodyguards for the donors. So if you go to their boss, you go over their head, and Biden says to fossil fuel companies

or medical companies or whoever he needs to drug companies, and says, guys, you're gonna lose all access to the White House and we're gonna comfort you in a real way. This is just, in my, it's not nickel and dimming, that's not fair, because there's some real provisions in this bill, right? But this is not as heavy as they can go at all, right? It's a Biden bill. And if I was Biden, I'd say, look, you guys want to play with fire, we can go for it, right? And as Nina said in that segment, not in the CNN one, but on the TYT one, she learned from a mentor back in the day that you got to say there's going to be blood on the floor, a little bit of mine and a little bit of yours.

But trust me that if we go down this road, you're going to bleed, okay, politically, okay? And if you say that to the donors, if Biden says that to them, that's going to have credibility. And then they're going to go tell their Aaron boy, mansion, hey, you better make a deal, son. Okay, that's how you play a hard ball. Does Biden have the stomach for it? I would be very, very surprised. All right, well, let's go to West Virginia, where energy bills have been skyrocketing, and it's because Joe Manchin is allowing that to happen.

So energy bills in the state of West Virginia, where Joe Manchin happens to be a senator, have been rising, the skyrocketing, astronomical energy bills. Why? Well, it's because of the fact that the country overall is moving away from energy sources or fossil fuels like coal and moving toward renewable energy or natural gas. And that has caused a pretty terrible situation for the people of West Virginia, the so-called rate payers, meaning the people who have to pay their energy bill. Now, the residential electricity rates of Ohio-based America, American Electric Powers West Virginia subsidiaries have risen 122% over the last 13 years from an average of $62.46 per month in 2008 to

$138 and $57 per month in 2021. Okay, so what's going on? Why is their energy bill going up so rapidly? Well, there have been regulations that force coal plants, for instance, to make some upgrades, updates, for instance, that would lessen the amount of CO2 that's being outputted. Now, as America has largely transitioned away from coal-fired power, West Virginia has thrown its weight behind it. The state is the second largest coal producer in the country, and coal generates nearly 89% of its electricity compared to just 19% nationwide, a steep fall from 1990 when coal powered 52% of U.S. electricity. So coal has actually become more expensive compared to other renewable energy sources or natural gas, for instance. And so the prices

for coal have actually gone down. I'm sorry, the price for renewable energy has gone down. The price for coal has gone up, and that cost is transferred over to the people of West Virginia. So AEP's three coal-fired power plants in West Virginia are in need of $448 million worth of mandatory upgrades in order to remain federally compliant, causing electricity rates to increase by 3.3% starting in September of 2022. Now, these upgrades would allow the plants to stay open until 2040 rather than being shut down in 2028. Now understand, it would actually be far cheaper for them to avoid doing those upgrades. Just let those coal power plants just shut down while taking federal government incentives to switch over to other forms of energy like renewable energy. But people like Joe Manchin don't want it.

Sean O'Leary, a senior researcher at nonprofit and Clean Energy think tank Ohio River Valley Institute, told CNN, the utilities could save rate payers, $317 million by retiring the coal plants in 2028, pointing to AEP's own data showing the cost to keep the plants open until 2040. So why don't they go in that direction? It's because there are local lawmakers in the state of West Virginia who want to keep the system going the way it is. And then, of course, you have people like Joe Manchin who's literally personally invested

in the coal industry. Last year alone, he made half a million dollars off of inner systems, a company he founded that his son is now in control of. He made $500 million off of that, $500,000 off of that last year alone. Yeah, so TYT showed that he's made over $5 million from that company alone, at a minimum. Okay, that's the ones we could track publicly. So he's got at least five million reasons to want to block the sensible way to go. and one that would actually save taxpayers' money. Now, he claims that he wants to save taxpayers' money.

He says that all the time. Never when Republicans are in charge. But when Democrats get in charge and all of a sudden you want to help anybody, all of a sudden he's really worried about the spending. But in this case, well, you're spending more to keep a dying industry afloat, even though it has higher prices. It doesn't make sense in any way, shape, or form until you find out both your contributions, political contributions, and your personal profits, both come from coal.

So I don't know a person more biased in America than Joe Manchin on this. And guys, have you seen in mainstream media coverage about the $5 million he's made off of his coal company? Nope. You've never seen that, right? You've never seen that in mainstream media. Isn't that a weird thing that they never bring up something that has got to be affected? Guys, you know it in your personal life. If you made $5 million from something, you think it might affect you?

Of course, of course you're humid. It would affect you, right? And you ask, in mainstream media, they're like, no, politicians are so honorable that $5 million in profits would never affect them. It's insane. That's not a factor. They don't think it's a relevant factor. That is absolutely insane. Last thing about that particular portion of it, Mansion says in a completely different clip that I saw,

oh, well, let the markets do their work. And he's partly referring to what Anna just explained to you, that the prices are going off for coal and they're going to go out of business anyway. Let me give you his quote, actually, because I have that quote, it's telling. He says, the transition is already happening. So I'm not going to sit back and let anyone accelerate whatever the market's changes are doing. Now, what? So hold on, the market is great when it's working to your advantage. But you reject the market or you try to slow down the direction the market's going in if it doesn't benefit you.

That's exactly what he's saying there. Well, he's saying let the market do whatever it's doing and don't, let's not accelerate it. But wait a minute, the market's not just acting on its own. Coal has subsidies. How is that part of the free market? Well, okay, then if it's part of the free market, why don't we give it to the renewable energies? Well, that's the thing you're holding up. Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense at all.

Who cares about the market, by the way? The planet is being destroyed. Like, we're spending so much money on a yearly basis to respond to extreme weather. events, whether it's floods, wildfires, insane hurricanes in areas where we didn't typically have hurricanes. I mean, you want to talk about fiscal responsibility? This is not fiscally responsible in any way, shape, or form. I don't care what direction the market's going in.

Obviously, we're dealing with a real crisis here in regard to the climate emergency, and we have Joe Biden being treated as if he's some sort of honest actor who isn't motivated by his own financial interests. You said Joe Biden. I'm sorry, Joe Manchin. Although. I misspoke, but also. But also.

Okay. So, guys, when Louisiana gets hit with a giant hurricane, the people of Louisiana in a very red state have to pick up the bill. And the federal government, and hence all of us, have to pick up the bill. This isn't about how much things cost. This is about who pays them. And so Chevron, Exxon Mobil, et cetera, and Mansions Coal Company, they don't want to pay the bill.

They want to take the profits home and they want to stick the taxpayers with the bill. That's what this is about. And we show it to you with every number, right? We showed to you with statistics. Here while we're gonna give you another one here about the percentage of people in coal. Like, oh my God, you think 97% of the people in West Virginia are working coal. Because in mainstream media, you always hear about coal, West Virginia's coal, coal. It's Joe Manchin's an honest, honest person who cares about the employees in West Virginia.

We all work in coal. None of it is true. So we're going to prove it in a second, but you have to keep wondering why the rest of the media never tells you things that are obvious and an enormous factor. Why do they not tell you that? Why do they keep it hidden from you? It's weird. So let's take a look at this graph because the graph breaks down where the jobs are in

West Virginia. Relatively few West Virginians work in mining. In fact, coal mining employed around 13,000 people in West Virginia as of 2019. about 3% of the state's workforce. Again, 3% of the state's workforce, and that's down from 120,000 in 1950. Many of those jobs have been lost to automation and the rise of cheaper sources of energy,

like I said, natural gas being one of them. Coal-powered, coal-fired power plants, by the way, meanwhile, directly employ little more than 2,000 people in the state of West Virginia. So all the talking points that you're either likely to hear from Joe Manchin or you've already heard from Joe Manchin in regard to how important coal is for workers in the state. It's all BS. Again, there's that massive conflict of interest when it comes to his own personal financial incentives. If he's invested in a company related to the coal industry and he's making half a million dollars a year off of it, that's what's motivating him. is not an honest actor. And this isn't just a problem with Joe Manchin. It's a problem with almost every member of Congress.

Because remember, every member of Congress can invest in individual stocks. They can make trades based on undisclosed intel information that we're not privy to as American citizens. This is stuff that happens day in and day out. Those conflicts of interest are there, they're right in front of our faces, and we're all all having a discussion about these negotiations as if we're dealing with honest actors. They're not honest actors. The system is fundamentally broken.

The incentives are in the wrong place. And whenever anyone in mainstream media does good reporting, their own network then immediately ignores it, right? So this original story is from CNN about the woman who's struggling, paying her electric bills in West Virginia, they included the graph, et cetera. But I'll give you more numbers on it. I mean, look, back in the old days, a lot of jobs in West Virginia were coal. Back in 1950,000 jobs when they had a lot less people in West Virginia were coal jobs.

And that was the main driving force in West Virginia. But that was 70 years ago, right? So now, in terms of people working directly at the factory, it's only 2,000 people. In overall, in the natural resources of mining industry at large, that's where we have 13,000 people. That's at 13,000 people. That's 3% of the workers in West Virginia. Three percent. So now look, if CNN every time they talk to Mansion,

well, I think they just asked Bernie Sanders if he'd apologize to Mansion because he pointed out facts that are true. I mean, look at that insane frame. You're reading your own articles, right? If every time they talk to Mansion, they said, Senator Mansion, only 3% of the jobs in West Virginia are from coal. 97% is from other things. and this would actually reduce the amount of money that both the federal government pays and

West Virginia pays, and it seems like you care more about the $5 million you just made from coal than you do the 3% of the workers of West Virginia. My God, that would change the entire dynamic. Just that one question, if you just ask it once, and then it would create a little storm, I'm like, oh my God, a reporter has a real question of someone in power. And then everybody else would ask the reporter to apologize to mention for pointing out facts. What is wrong with our media? Why won't they say things that are true?

It's infuriating. And at the end of the day, the worst part of it is it affects you. They then do propaganda. They move that bill from $6 trillion to $3.5 trillion. Now two or maybe $1.5 trillion or maybe not at all. Why? Because they never effectively called out mansion for what he's actually doing. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll switch gears and talk a little bit about Donald Trump and his reaction to Colin Powell passing away. We'll be right back. And I'm just going to read one comment from our members.

David Martinez wrote in, mainstream media covered Bernie Sanders a million dollar book sales, but reporting Joe Manchin's million dollar bribes would be uncivil. They do declare. Such a good point. Again, our audience delivers. I wish I'd have thought of that when we were doing the video. Yeah, how come that's fair game? But talking about Manchester's profits is not fair game.

It's almost like they're tilted towards the corporate perspective. All right, Casper. There's a reason why people like Donald Trump, and it's because he bluntly says things that everyone else in the establishment is unwilling to say or just completely covers up. Case in point, his reaction to Colin Powell passing away. Here's what he had to say in a statement that he released. Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the fake news media.

Okay, let's just stop right there. No, but like that's what everyone who actually pays attention to U.S. foreign policy was thinking yesterday, right? Like everyone felt the need to maybe pad their critique with some pleasant commentary about him. But no, you look at his career, you look at what he did, you look at the fact that he lied on an international stage, knowingly lied in regard to Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. That alone is bad enough, but then you look at other things from his past, which I'll get into in just a second. And it's just like, yeah, let's stop pretending like he was a perfect guide, he was super moral. Let's be honest about what his career and his legacy entailed. But let me continue.

Hope that happens to me someday, Trump says. Honestly, I doubt it. But nonetheless, he also says that Colin Powell was a classic rhino, Republican in name only, if even that. Always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes. But anyway, may he rest in peace? So he ended it pleasantly at least, right? Well, not really.

But anyway, may he rest in peace? I know, I was kidding. But look, whether you like or dislike Donald Trump, and I will admit, I obviously dislike Donald Trump quite a bit, this is what appeals to people in regard to like his personality. Like the way that he talks about things and he does it bluntly without tiptoeing around obvious facts. Yeah, there's two different parts of it. One is that the elites are scandalized by plain talk, right? And they're scandalized by anyone who doesn't revere the professional

class. And so Colin Powell was a shining example of the Washington professional class. And so it defends them personally if Colin Powell was ever insulted. John McCain was another example of that. Now, they're both Republicans, both giant warhawks, and in Washington, beloved. Not beloved in Iraq, not beloved in Afghanistan or Syria or in many other parts of the world. But in Washington, among the elites, they love Colin Powell. Now, the second half of it, though. Can I just give you a quick example? I mean, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, quote tweeted Trump's statement, and she was incensed. Like, oh, I'm paraphrasing, but something along the line. of, oh, his mother, you know, never told him. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it,

like that kind of thing. But no, are we going to have a discussion about the former Secretary of State's legacy, right? Or are we just going to pretend like he was a perfect person who never did anything wrong? He took part in war crimes that led to the massacre, the murder, the death of hundreds of thousands, if not one million civilians in Iraq. That's nuts. Yeah. And so, So Maggie Haberman is saying, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, well, then you might not be a reporter. I mean, that's not what reporters are supposed to do. But that is the unofficial rule that she lets slip through a, oh, the mother said, BS.

You're a reporter for the New York Times. What do you mean if you have nothing nice to say you shouldn't report anything? That's generally been the rule for corporate politicians and corporate media. If you can't kiss their ass, don't write it. Don't write it. Don't let anybody know. Mansion takes five million, made five million dollar profit from cold. That's for T.Y.T. They're radicals. They actually do news and facts. And in this case, Colin Powell. I mean, look, he also authorized torture, disaster, let alone what he did that was horrific in the Reagan administration. So, but on the other hand, Trump is,

is not a bright guy. So you have to confess that. Like, you don't, it's not how you write it. I know, Jank, but like, do you understand how much that type of communication appeals to a huge portion of the country? I know. What's so frustrating, honestly, is we do plain talk, and you don't have to be dumb to do plain talk. You could actually have a smart conversation, but you could say it in a way that people can understand it. And by the way, I don't think you're that smart if you're talking a way that no one can understand. Then obviously you're not getting it. You're not understanding how to reach people, right? So I'm not against that at all, but there's this, again, this giant double standard by the media.

If the right wing does plain talk, even in criticizing it, but they'll amplify it and they, but Trump was always considered super legitimate. Remember in 2016, you got, no, he got over. This is where you lose me. But Anna, no, you're totally wrong. No, you're totally wrong. No, you're totally wrong. No, no, took him seriously with the exception of right wing media. No, no, no, no, hold on. There's a giant, they said, they gave him over a billion of free coverage in the primaries alone. Hold on, hold on. If a progressive ran, if Nina Turner ran

is an example, let alone Bernie Sanders, who was the most accomplished progressive in history, and back in 2015, he got zero coverage from the press. Nearly zero. Because they're afraid of him and what he represents, Jane. That's my point. That's my point. Any clown. They thought Trump was a clown, which is why they gave him so much free coverage. They thought it was entertaining. They thought it was funny. Even if they thought they had the biggest progressive clown in the world and they could rail on him, et cetera. They would do that for one second. I've seen it happen.

And then they'd say, shish, shish, never covered the progressives. Never covered. Look, we just did a story earlier in this show where progressives were allowed on CNN and everyone's like, whoa, what the hell's going on? Right. So right-wing lunatics can say anything they want

and they get billions of dollars in free media coverage. Progressives can't break through. And so this is what leads to the uneven playfield. That's what you, and in this case, in this story, That's why you almost never hear the downside of the bureaucrats in Washington who've killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. And by the way, you're not going to hear that from the right wing or Donald Trump. He's like, oh, I don't like him.

He told people to vote against me. I don't like him. Did he ever talk about, hey, the death squads in Central America that Colin Powell was helped to aid in a bed? Did he talk about the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians that Trump and the right wing don't care about it all? But that never makes it into the goddamn press. because they're obsessed with the right wing, right wing, right wing, corporate, corporate, corporate. Sorry, go.

Okay, well, the New York Times did write about Colin Powell's role in covering up the Maillai Massacre, and that was right after his death. So they do cover things like that. But again, look, I just want to go back. They'll never mention it again. Never. Turn on cable news. Turn down cable news.

See if you'll see one unkind word about Colin Powell or the Maillai Massacre. Never. This is the same thing that we did it earlier in the show. CNN shows you a poll where not a poll but a number where in West Virginia only 3% of people work in coal. Well, it's all a fiction. Then they go on and ask mansion about that. The other senators about that? No, never, never, never, never, never, never. You're right about that. But you're conflating a bunch of different things into like one talking point. Again, I just want to go back to Trump versus Bernie. Do you understand the difference? Do you understand that the message, the fundamental message coming from progressives like Bernie Sanders threatens their profits, threatens their profit motive. They don't want to popularize those ideas and those proposals. Whereas with Trump, I mean, TV executives were pretty brazen about it. They were pretty transparent about it. Trump brought in the ratings and they genuinely didn't think Trump had any possibility of winning. So they're like win-win. We've got a side show. We've got a clown. Why don't we give this clown endless coverage. It helps our ratings. There's no chance he's going to win. They weren't threatened

by Trump. That was the issue. They didn't take him seriously. Anna, we're agreeing. We're getting upset over nothing because that's exactly what I'm saying, except the only thing I'm layer on top of that. Of course they're not, that's my whole point is that they're not covering progressives because it threatens their profits and their giant multi-billion dollar corporations. The only thing I'm laying on top of that is we could get the biggest celebrity of, you know, it's ever seen. And if they were a true progressive, all of a sudden, after the initial blast, the media would cover them less and less. So- Yeah, yeah, because their incentives are to cover them less and less. Progressives are a threat to their profit motive. Then we're agreeing

100%. Okay. And that's why the mainstream media sucks. Well, it's run like a private business is supposed to be run. This is how private businesses are run. This is how it works. They're actually a public company. Yeah, they're publicly traded, but you know what I mean. I know I know what you're saying. Do they go out and tell their audience, by the way, oh, by the way, we're a public corporation listed on the stock market. We have fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit.

So from now on, you'll only hear right-wing corporate talking points, and we will cover up all progressives and make sure they do not get it on air because then you might actually believe them. And in fact, you already do believe them. We cover that up, too. We have poll after poll showing that two-thirds of Americans agree with progressives, but we'll never, ever air them because we're a for-profit company and we're not manufacturing news, we're manufacturing consent.

If they gave that disclaimer every time they went on television, I'm good with it. Then, hey, truth and advertising, we're all good to go, right? But they never say that. Instead, they go, oh, we are objective journalist. Adjudica, we are objective. Corporations are awesome.

The status quo is the best. And progressives, they're radicals. And they should be outsiders have no credibility. They should not be allowed. So screw them in the corporate horse that they wrote in on. All right, that does it for hour one. We'll be back in just a few minutes. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.