Sean Hannity Show - Manchin: Profile of Courage - December 20th, Hour 1

Dec. 20, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show

34:16

Manchin: Profile of Courage - December 20th, Hour 1

Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers discuss Senator Manchin's recent "profile in courage..." With his latest comments that he can't support trillions in government spending, Senator Manchin has pushed back against his own Democrat colleagues. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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	Hello, America.
	This is Peter Schweitzer.
	And Eric Eggers.
	And we are filling in for Sean, and it is great to be here.
	I've been on Sean's show many times talking about my books, Clinton Cash, Extortion, Profiles, and Corruption.
	And Eric Iyer and I are filling in for Sean today.
	And we are thankful for Sean for giving us this opportunity.
	What a momentous occasion in American broadcast history as best-selling author Peter Schweitzer transitions from becoming just the guy that comes on radio shows to talk about the things he's written about to actually guest hosting a radio show.
	Some people are comparing it to when Michael Jordan left basketball and went to become in baseball.
	That's my first thought.
	But I think it's more when Ronald Reagan left acting and got into politics.
	There it is.
	And what I'm curious to see is, will it have a similar impact on your makeup usage as it did for President Reagan?
	So that's exactly no less stakes than that today.
	You all see why Eric's here, by the way.
	He's the one that's going to pump us all up.
	But it's great to be here, America.
	We want you to join the conversation with us today, 1-800-941-Sean.
	That's 1-800-941-7326.
	We're going to cover a lot of ground today because there's a lot of things going on that we want to talk about.
	We have expertise, I think, on the sort of dirty underbelly of Washington, D.C.
	We focus on corruption and the terrible things that happen in Washington.
	We're going to talk today about Senator Joe Manchin and a profile in courage.
	Is that a profile in corruption?
	Is that real President Joe Manchin?
	That is apparently real President Joe Manchin, according to Kamala Harris.
	We're going to talk about that today.
	We're going to talk about the fact that they may be back.
	The Clintons may be back in public life.
	And you can learn about what their plans are for the country by enrolling in their masterclass.
	We're going to talk about that a little bit later in the show.
	And speaking of never infecting, never-ending plagues that infect the country, we'll talk about COVID.
	It's COVID season again, everybody, just in time for the holidays.
	And we're going to talk in the four o'clock hour about what World War II and speed limits can teach us about the way this country responds to what's perceived to be threats to our collective well-being and what it looks like to kind of wade through rhetoric, wade through fear, and settle in on fact.
	You know, we both live in Florida and Florida and Floridians, the free state of Florida, as we like to say, have had a very different lived experience during the COVID pandemic and other aspects of the country.
	We're in New York City today, and I could just tell you, walking around, it is not, we are not in Florida anymore, Mr. Schweitzer.
	So you're not talking just about the weather.
	I'm not, although I would like to be.
	So yeah, it's a lot of different things happening.
	And we'll talk about historically looking back at how we deal with perceived threats, what they're threatening to do now in terms of responding to the rise in COVID cases.
	And we'll also talk to somebody who said, well, you may think that the rise in Omicron cases is a big deal, but let's talk about the actual threats facing this country.
	We'll talk to a Border Patrol Council president, Brandon Judd, and he's going to take us live on the ground and give us a bit of an exposure of what's actually happening in real time.
	Yeah, so we've got a lot of ground to cover.
	We do a podcast called The Drill Down.
	For those of you who already listened, thank you very much.
	But if those of you who have not heard of it before, you can find it on thedrilldown.com.
	I have it on good authority that we're the only two white male authors that have a podcast.
	So that's what we're here to do.
	The only two in America.
	That's the only two in America.
	Well, so listen, there's one word that has shaken Washington, D.C., and that word is no.
	No.
	And it's from Senator Joe Manchin, who declared over the weekend on the Fox News channel that he cannot support this bill.
	And he is getting lambasted, lambasted by people from his own political party.
	Let's go to cut number 14.
	I mean, we all knew that Senator Manchin couldn't be trusted.
	You know, the excuses that he's just really disheartening to hear him say that he has been trying to get there for the people of West Virginia.
	What's frustrating, there's so many frustrating things about Senator Manchin's position, but what frustrates me most is that he's using discredited Republican talking points to make his case for not supporting the bill.
	My lack and deficit of trust was about Senator Manchin.
	He has continued to move the goalpost.
	He has never negotiated in good faith.
	And he is obstructing the president's agenda, 85% of which is still left on the table.
	And in obstructing the president's agenda, he is obstructing the people's agenda.
	You know, just the fact that you can go on Fox News and say, I don't feel like voting for this, or I don't think I'm going to do it.
	Having that not schedule a vote, the idea that that would happen in the House of Representatives is unheard of.
	And I think what's extremely important is that we really need to start creating an environment of pressure.
	So it's a remarkable display in Washington, D.C.
	And I have to say, Eric, you and I a lot of times call people out, Republicans or Democrats, for cronyism, for corruption, for self-enrichment.
	Joe Biden resisted those temptations in voting no because believe me, he was offered a lot of things.
	And it's a time-honored tradition in Washington, D.C. to basically, if you can't buy a politician, to at least rent them.
	No, that's exactly right.
	And I think it's important.
	So for those of the people that don't know, Peter Schweitzer has made his career exposing the ways in which politicians leverage their public service for personal enrichment.
	We actually met when you appeared as a guest on a radio show I produced when you had written Throw Them All Out, which exposed the ways in which members of Congress were trading on inside information.
	They sat on committees that oversaw certain industries and they're buying and selling stocks in those industries, right?
	Then you wrote a book about extortion, the way in which politicians basically take money from both sides and leverage political crises for their own gain.
	So like this is your area of expertise.
	And so what I think it stands out about why you're impressed with Joe Manchin is that you know what it looks like for people to try and incentivize both in public and private ways to get political expediency and political obedience.
	And so that's why I think you're so impressed by Joe Manchin's ability to stand up and say, no, I just look, whatever you think you could be doing for me, it's not good for the country.
	Look, I'm very bottom line about this stuff.
	Joe Manchin is 74 years old.
	His net worth is about $5 million.
	So he's not a poor man, but by the standards of the U.S. Senate, he's not a rich man.
	And there is a time-honored tradition of buying off politicians.
	So let me just give you a couple examples.
	Everybody remember the Corn Husker kickback, right?
	This was when Obamacare was trying to be passed.
	They were doling out all these special programs.
	There was one for Bernie Sanders in Vermont, one for Mary Landrew in Louisiana.
	And Ben Nelson got the Corn Husker kickback.
	Basically, this was to get people to vote for the bill who weren't going to vote for it.
	They carved things out for them.
	Or a more on-the-nose example, Billy Tozin, who was a congressman from the great state of Louisiana.
	This is what makes Schweitzer great.
	He's a Somali A political buyoffs, right?
	So you guys are getting like, hear the notes of oak and corruption when he describes this.
	Yeah, that's right.
	That's right.
	Stirred around in your glass.
	No, but Billy Tozin actually wrote a piece of legislation to provide drug benefits for Medicare recipients.
	And it was hugely favorable to the pharmaceutical industry.
	A couple of months after that bill passed, Billy Tozin retired from Congress, left Congress, resigned, and took up the head lobbying job for the pharmaceutical industry, making $2 million a year.
	So this is no doubt the sort of thing that was thrown at Joe Manchin that was offered to him, that was offered to West Virginia, that was offered to his family.
	In fact, we know that there was a little bit of a situation in March of 2021 with his wife.
	We actually covered this in a previous podcast.
	And again, we host the Drill Down podcast, which you can check out at thedrilldown.com.
	But in previous iterations of the Build Back Better bill, Gail Manchin, who's married to Joe Manchin, was nominated to serve as the co-chairman of something called the Appalachian Regional Commission.
	It's just this regional entity.
	They distribute funds to help improve infrastructure networks.
	That job, which he was nominated to by the Biden administration, comes with a salary of $163,000, right?
	And so subsequently in subsequent iterations of this legislation, that Appalachian Regional Commission or the ARC would have received an upwards of $300 million, right?
	So some people have pointed this out that, hey, Joe Biden appoints Joe Manchin's wife.
	Everybody knows Joe Manchin is going to be a key vote on this.
	Appoints his wife to this commission.
	This commission is then poised to receive a big-time payout from this bill.
	Those are among the things that this is just how Washington works, right?
	That's right.
	That's right.
	People don't vote for things in terms of good policy or bad policy all the time.
	They often vote for things because it's a way to enrich themselves or to enrich their families.
	And I'd also point out, because you said it somewhat passingly, that Joe Manchin's not a rich man or, you know, he's not a poor man with $5 million.
	But one of the things that we've spent a lot of time looking at is just how wealthy Washington, D.C. is and how wealthy Congress is relative to the rest of the country.
	This 2020 and 2021 congressional body is unique because for the first time, a majority of members of the United States Congress are actually millionaires.
	That's right.
	Right.
	And Joe Manchin's net worth of $5 million actually doesn't even place him in the top 50.
	He's probably well beyond that.
	But like the top 50 cutoff is like $9 million net worth.
	So Joe Manchin is shopping at the discount rack in terms of the Washington D. congressional stores.
	Yeah.
	So let's, with all the bad news, all the frustrating news in Washington, D.C., let's give a big shout out to Joe Manchin and hope that he holds firm.
	We're going to take a break.
	And when we come back, we're going to talk to James in Spring, Texas, and he's going to explain to us what he thinks about Joe Manchin.
	And this is what we've dedicated our time working on.
	I co-founded the Government Accountability Institute back in 2011.
	Eric, you were my first hires.
	And our focus has always been on what is the business model in Washington.
	So one of the first things we did was we exposed insider trading on the stock market.
	And that actually led to the passage of the Stock Act.
	That was a bill signed by Barack Obama.
	Now, Barack Obama later gutted that bill.
	But the point is.
	In the dead of night, in the dead of night.
	That's exactly right.
	The Daily Show even did a segment about, hey, this seems like a good piece of public policy, right?
	We don't, nobody think, raise your hand if you think members of Congress should be able to buy and sell stocks that they sort of preside over or even staffers for members of Congress, right, that sit on committees.
	Does anybody think that's okay?
	No, okay, cool.
	Just checking.
	But then the legislation that you helped do.
	I mean, tell people about the story.
	This was a bill that had existed before, right?
	With how many co-sponsors?
	It had had 12 co-sponsors in the House.
	And then you write a book, you go on 60 minutes and exposes the very real way in which members of both parties are buying and selling stocks, right?
	Right.
	On committees that they oversee.
	Because you saw something in an academic journal that said members of Congress, it turns out they might not be good at a lot of stuff, but one of the things they are good at is actually playing the market.
	That's right, picking stocks.
	They were outperforming hedge funds and in the investment choices.
	But the bottom line is America got angry in that situation and it led to action because we went from 12 co-sponsors to the bill to over 200.
	And when's the last time Washington agreed on anything?
	That's exactly right.
	But the point is, you have to expose when this happens and you have to understand there's a business model behind what these people are doing.
	They don't just go in there and decide randomly how they're going to vote on something.
	So, you know, one of the other things we did, of course, was Clinton Cash.
	We exposed the Clinton Foundation.
	We're going to be talking about that in the next half hour.
	They're back.
	That's right.
	They are back.
	And I think they're back because the coin's a little running a little short.
	Sounds a little tough, the old Clinton Foundation.
	Exactly.
	That's right.
	We got to start bringing some more coin.
	And this is also the thing that brought us to Hunter Biden.
	We were the first ones to expose Hunter Biden and his deals in China and what he was doing in the Ukraine.
	Because again, the business model that the Bidens employ is what we call offshoring corruption.
	And that is that Joe Biden doesn't take the money himself.
	His kids take the money or his brothers take the money.
	So it's so important to understand what's going on below the surface.
	The policy debates are important.
	Understanding the policy, knowing why people are making the policy choices, understanding how that's going to affect the country is important.
	But you also got to know who's making money, who's not making money, and how are politicians leveraging their position to cash in.
	And as any member of my family will tell you, I pass out compliments sparingly.
	But I think in this instance, because of your work with the Government Accountability Institute, and I think it's important to point out, you have, I think, a unique level of insight into what's happening in Washington, D.C., and how it explains kind of what's happening to the country at large, because you spent time in the 80s in Washington, D.C., right?
	You worked, I think, at a moment in the Reagan administration or you had some kind of peripheral dealings there.
	And then you now look at Washington, D.C. today and say, wait a minute, the Washington, D.C. of the 80s is so different than the Washington, D.C. of today.
	Yeah.
	In fact, one of the most interesting projects we did was actually with Sean's TV show.
	You did this, Eric, and I want you to tell the story.
	We went up and did a special called Boomtown about how rich Washington, D.C. is.
	And you had this great segment where you went to Ferrari of Washington, D.C. and talked to them about selling Ferraris in our nation's capital, our city of quote-unquote public servants.
	Tell that story about what they told you.
	Well, just one of the manifestations of the increasing way in which public servants are leveraging their offices for personal enrichment is Washington, D.C. has become really rich.
	Right.
	Right.
	Back then, it was seven of the 10.
	Think about this.
	All the counties we have in America, seven of the 10 wealthiest counties in America surround the Washington, D.C. area.
	I think it's now down to six, right?
	But it was seven at the time.
	And so we said, how did Washington, D.C. get so wealthy and how does that manifest itself in terms of just how, like, what does it look like?
	And so, yeah, I very kind of sacrificially decided to go to Washington, D.C. with a film crew.
	Thank you.
	You're so welcome.
	I checked out the wineries because Washington, D.C. consumed more wine per capita than any other city in the country.
	And we went to an exotic car dealership and we went to Ferrari of Washington, D.C. and said, okay, tell us about what it looks like to be a Ferrari dealer here in Washington, D.C.
	And they said, well, we actually get in trouble with Ferrari Corporate.
	This is amazing.
	This is amazing.
	Because like, yeah, maybe Miami sells more cars.
	Maybe New York sells more cars.
	But we get in trouble because the people that buy our cars, they don't finance them.
	They pay cash for them.
	So we're actually not making as much money as the other dealerships.
	And so that's a challenge.
	But that just speaks to how wealthy, how awash with cash is the line you use from the special, the Washington, D.C. area has become.
	And we only bring that up to say that's what makes something like Joe Manchin's position stand out.
	Again, net worth of $5 million, his willingness to not just stand up to the personal incentives that may have been included for something like his wife's position, but also the political pushback, which you're now seeing in very real ways.
	They're leaking comments and leaking implied motivations that somehow he thinks poorly of the ways in which people that would have gotten some of this money would spend it, implying that he's some sort of a racist or misogynist or anything of that, right?
	Yeah, personal attacks.
	And a story just up on Fox News recently.
	Joe Banshin's fighting back.
	The White House was leaking these stories saying that sort of, you know, he was demeaning poor people and people of certain ethnic groups.
	He called those attacks absolutely inexcusable.
	You're listening to Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers.
	You can find this at thedrilldown.com.
	Feel free to give us a call.
	We'd love to have you join the conversation.
	It's 1-800-941-7326.
	See you on this side of the break.
	Getting into the holiday spirit with Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers from the Drill Down podcast at thedrilldown.com.
	And we are filling in for Sean.
	We are grateful for this opportunity.
	Some people are probably nervous when they first heard about this, but rest assured we have adult supervision.
	Linda and Sean's team is here.
	So rest assured, America, everything is going to be just fine.
	We have yet to make a mess in the corner.
	So, when news broke earlier this year that Baby KJ, a newborn in Philadelphia, had successfully received the world's first personalized gene editing treatment.
	It represented a milestone for both researchers and patients.
	But there's a gripping tale of discovery behind this accomplishment and its creators.
	I'm Evan Ratliff, and together with biographer Walter Isaacson, we're delving into the story of Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudnau, the woman who's helped change the trajectory of humanity.
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	I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
	Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
	Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
	Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
	And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
	We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
	So down a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
	Let's talk about a couple that resurfaced that I was actually kind of shocked about this initially.
	Bill and Hillary Clinton are back in the news.
	Hillary Clinton is offering a reading or a rendering of what would have been her victory speech in 2016, apparently having a hard time letting this go.
	And Bill Clinton is now offering a masterclass that is being promoted and pushed where people can learn about leadership's skills from Bill Clinton.
	Let's listen to Cut 15.
	If you want to lead something, start by saying, this is what I care about.
	This is what I want to do and why I think you should care about it and you should want to help.
	Hardly a day goes by that I don't think how fast my life is flowing.
	All I remember is it were yesterday, the first day I became president.
	Hardly anything worth doing can be done alone.
	This is a particularly disorienting time for billions of people.
	You've got major uncertainties about what's going to happen in the years ahead.
	In a time like that, you really need good leadership skills.
	And you need people whose goal it is to pull people together, not drive them apart.
	People need to feel the potential to create a better tomorrow.
	I believe leaders are not just born, they are also made.
	And I hope everybody watches this is like, what am I going to do to be a better leader?
	I'm President Bill Clinton, and this is Masterclass.
	I'm going to share with you what I intended to say if I had been elected in 2016.
	my fellow americans today you sent a message to the whole world everybody will be knocked down the The question is, will you get back up?
	My life lessons with the hope that it might help you as you navigate your own life.
	I made so many gaps and mistakes.
	There are steps you can take to build confidence in yourself, to begin to trust yourself about the decisions you will make.
	Don't pretend it didn't happen.
	It did.
	You have to authentically dig deep to get back up.
	I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton, and this is Masterclass.
	So for doing a masterclass, you get $100,000 and you get 30% of the revenue cut.
	So they're obviously going to make some money doing this.
	But what's interesting is, is this sort of a movement towards indicating that Hillary might run for president in 2024?
	Now, Bill Clinton gave an interview with People magazine, that August journal, and he said that not electing his wife in 2016 was, quote, one of the most profound mistakes we as a country ever made.
	Now, you know, this is a great country.
	We've made mistakes.
	We had slavery.
	We had Jim Crow.
	We had the internment of the Japanese.
	We can now add that, apparently, according to Bill Clinton, the fact that Hillary Clinton was not elected.
	What do you think, Eric?
	You think this is tipping the hat that they're moving towards her running for president in 2024?
	I think one of the great mistakes you could make this holiday season is to give a master's class as a gift for anybody that you care about.
	Like I was trying to think through, like, how bad does your relationship with somebody have to be?
	Is it like between a Bill Clinton masterclass and a Hunter Biden piece of art?
	Yeah.
	Maybe the Hillary one is defensible if you're dating a liberal girl and like, oh, maybe she'll think I'm empowered.
	I want to your enemies list.
	You could give this to your enemies list.
	But like, who are you giving a Bill Clinton masterclass to as a Christmas present?
	I just don't see it.
	But I think you're right.
	That's very important to look at the context of it.
	You think, and I don't know that I get here, you think it potentially signals a return to the public spotlight and a return to possible pursuit of public office for Hillary Clinton.
	I think it signals a return to the bank and a need to collect money because as you noted, right, 100K up front plus 30% of the take.
	And I think it's especially relevant when you consider the timing of other stories related to the Clintons we've seen in the news.
	Well, that's exactly right.
	And I think you also have to put in context what's been happening to the Clintons business.
	Right.
	Because remember, they've been in politics, but they went from actually owing a lot of money when Bill Clinton left the White House to a net worth of around $250 million.
	And they got there a number of ways.
	Bill giving a lot of paid speeches.
	Those paid speeches while Hillary was Secretary of State or when a lot of people thought she was going to be president were $700,000, $800,000 a speech.
	He's not getting that today.
	I mean, one of the great stats from the work that you and the team that helped work on the book for Clinton Cash was, is that of the 13 highest paid speeches Bill Clinton has given as a former president of the United States, and specifically of the 13 speeches I believe that he's given that have brought in over $500,000, 11 of them, 11 of the 13 came while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
	Right.
	And they mostly came from foreign people that were paying them.
	And why does that matter, right?
	Well, it matters because their business model is we are in power, we have power, or we're going to even have more power.
	So you want to be in good with us and you want to pay us.
	So they paid Bill for speeches.
	They also made lots of contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
	This is really interesting, by the way.
	If you look at the numbers of the Clinton Foundation, which was, when they left the White House, going to be their life's work.
	That's what Bill and Hillary said.
	Well, you know, it went from them collecting $62.9 million in 2016, which.
	Yeah, why does that matter?
	Why is 2016 the big year?
	What was Hillary doing that year?
	She was running for president of the United States.
	Okay, so interesting.
	So while she was running and widely expected to be the next president of the United States, the Clinton Foundation received the most money of all time.
	Right.
	Money is rolling and a lot of it foreign money.
	Where are we today?
	$16 million.
	That's down 75%.
	Now, they actually have more time on their hands, right, than when she was running for president.
	But the fact is the money has dried up simply because people don't have to curry favor with them anymore because they think they're not going to be in power anymore.
	Yeah.
	And the CEO of the Clinton Foundation, Kevin Thurm, in a letter wrote last year was, quote, a difficult year for philanthropy.
	Was it?
	And, quote, across the sector, resources were stretched thinly and fundraising activities were impacted.
	And that certainly could be true for the Clinton Foundation.
	In fact, the fact that they raised a fraction of money they've previously brought in would suggest that it certainly was a challenge for the Clinton Foundation.
	But for philanthropy at large, 2020, oh, what's this say?
	A record $471 billion given to philanthropy in 2020.
	So at a time when giving to charities was at an all-time high, giving to the Clinton Foundation was at a all-time low.
	Right.
	That's right.
	So people were generous.
	They just not were generous with the Clintons.
	And this is the reason, by the way, that I think the Clintons are going to make a serious run.
	You know, she's going to be, what, 76, 77 years old?
	She'll be 76, but a relative spring chicken compared to the 81 years old that Joe Biden did.
	That's correct.
	That's right.
	So she can play the youth card.
	But they need this.
	They need this, not only for themselves, but if you look at Chelsea's career in 2011, when she was Secretary of the State, meaning Hillary Clinton, she was going to run for president.
	That's when Chelsea was put on all these corporate boards at IAC and all these media companies where she had no background.
	She was pulling in about a million dollars a year from board fees.
	She's not joining those kinds of corporate boards anymore.
	So the entire family needs there to be a perception out there that they are political players, that they can make a lot of money.
	And they need this to happen.
	So that's why I think Hillary Clinton is going to be highly motivated to run in 2024.
	And in Clinton world, they are going to convince themselves that she actually has a chance to win.
	Does the Bill Clinton Masterclass gift fall above or below like the last minute stop at the wine store on your way to the family party in terms of thoughtlessness?
	Is it boxed wine or is it bottled wine?
	I will defend boxed wine.
	Okay.
	Absolutely.
	And I don't care who judges me for it.
	So the bottom line is I think we can expect to see the Clintons.
	We can expect to see more of them.
	Hillary's got a novel now that's coming out.
	Yeah, what is that about?
	Yeah, I don't know what that's about.
	Do you think she wrote it?
	I would never imply, speaking to a best-selling author, that anybody touts a work that they don't own.
	But I do know I can speak to the fact that you've written many books, including the one that was quite successful and I think helped expose the business model of the Clinton Foundation.
	But I think just the big picture takeaway is you've now got both Bill and Hillary out with money-making ventures in these masterclasses at a time.
	It's like they will now speak for money.
	And oh, by the way, donations to their foundation are all-time low.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	So they need this to happen.
	And look, they're very creative.
	If they got back into power, we could expect all kinds of creative money-making ventures.
	One of my favorites, of course, was what they did in Haiti when she was Secretary of State, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
	In fact, we sent you down to Haiti to record sort of what was going on there.
	Remember, of course, that Hillary's brother was put on the board of directors of a Haitian gold mine.
	That was one of the stories that we broke.
	It's pretty wild.
	I mean, think about that, right?
	Like Bill and Hillary Clinton are uniquely positioned to be in charge of the reconstruction of Haiti after the earthquake.
	And for the first time, and we talk about this in the book, and I did travel to Haiti as part of the research for the Bill Clinton Cash.
	And one of the things that happened was that for the first time as part of the reconstruction effort, the Haitian Senate opened up two gold mining permits.
	And who would end up on the board of one of those two companies but Hillary's brother?
	Yeah, who had no background in the mining industry whatsoever.
	It's amazing.
	So my prediction, look for the Clintons, look for more of the Clintons.
	You are listening to Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers.
	You can find us on thedrilldown.com.
	We are filling in for Sean Hannity.
	And you can call us at 1-800-941-Sean.
	That's 1-800-941-7326.
	Thanks for joining us.
	Hello, America.
	It's Peter Schweitzer.
	And Eric Eggers.
	And we are filling in for Sean.
	Merry Christmas to everybody.
	You can find us at thedrilldown.com, where our podcast comes out every Thursday.
	And we're going to go to James in Spring, Texas, who wants to talk about Senator Manchin.
	Hello, James.
	Are you there?
	Yes.
	Yes, I am.
	Merry Christmas.
	Merry Christmas to you.
	And what do you think about Joe Manchin and what he did?
	I want everybody to know that I stand behind him.
	And there's a lot of people down here in Texas that stand behind him, too.
	Even though Texas knows that a lot of people in Washington don't like us.
	But we stand behind him totally here.
	And I wanted to ask you a question.
	Sure.
	What's going on with Sinema?
	Yeah, Senator Sinema.
	She's another person who has been challenging certain elements of the Biden agenda.
	And the next big test, by the way, is going to be the big voting bill that they're going to be introducing the early part of next year, where they're going to try to federalize national elections.
	And we're going to talk about that a little bit later.
	Eric's actually written a book on voter fraud called Fraud, which I highly commend.
	But thank you, James.
	We appreciate that.
	And it looks like Senator Manchin, if he decides to leave West Virginia, he could run for office in Texas.
	I think one of the points that's interesting is that Joe Manchin stands out because he didn't just go along to get along.
	And you and I have worked on several projects.
	We produced a film called The Creepy Line, which talked about the role that big tech can play in censoring and guarding different aspects of different thoughts online and how that shapes American behavior.
	But I think what it speaks to is like it used to be just fairly normal for people to disagree.
	Hey, you know, I know that this is what we're trying to do, but I don't think that's what's in the best interest of this country.
	It's not what's the best interest of my constituents.
	So that's what I stand up for.
	But I think we've gotten so used to dissenting thought and not politically correct thought being marginalized, silenced, censored, or even worse, condemned.
	Right.
	That it's now, wait, really?
	You won't like, I think one of the lines, I think Sam Stein, right?
	Yep.
	Sam Stein said it was maybe one of the more devastating things that could have happened to the planet that Joe Manchin has decided he's going to not vote in favor of the Build Back Better bill.
	Yeah, he's an editor at Politico.
	No, that's exactly right.
	And I think, you know, Joe Manchin talked about it openly.
	He's standing on principle, and that is certainly something we need to support.
	Let's go to Mark in West Virginia, and he wants to talk about Senator Manchin as well.
	Mark, go ahead.
	Hey, thanks for having me on, guys.
	I appreciate that.
	This is Mark, also known as the Zoom man.
	And I'll tell you, I've been a conservative most of my life, and I've really gotten to love Joe Manchin.
	The guy has real integrity.
	And I knew weeks ago this guy wasn't going to vote for this bill.
	And the reason is the guy goes with his constituency.
	And it just was a no-brainer.
	It wasn't going to help the people of West Virginia, and it wasn't good for the country.
	So it was as simple as that.
	Well, you bring up a great point, Mark, which is so much of our politics is now nationalized.
	But Joe Manchin, I think, first of all, looked at West Virginia.
	All the polls showed that people in West Virginia did not support the so-called Build Back Better program.
	And also, of course, Donald Trump won massively in West Virginia.
	Joe Biden did not do so well.
	So there's no question that he was representing the interests of West Virginia.
	But still, I would even contend then politicians get bought off all the time, and then they try to convince their constituents they were doing it for their benefit.
	That's not what Joe Manchin did at this time.
	It's almost another example.
	In fact, it is another example of the beauty of our system in which you have people representing their unique local interests.
	And so it's why you mentioned the federalization of the proposed federalization of voting legislation, why it's so challenging, because at its best, we are laboratories of democracy.
	We're supposed to see in each individual state across the fruited plain which policies best represent the people that live there.
	People vote with their feet.
	That's right.
	Competition between the states is exactly what you want.
	That's exactly right.
	You're listening to Peter Schweitzer.
	And Eric Eggers.
	We are with TheDrillDown.com.
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