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 uh great to be here.
	Um I've been on Sean's show many times talking about my books, uh Clinton Cash, uh extortion, uh, profiles and corruption.
	And Eric Eyer and I are filling in for Sean today, and we are uh thankful for Sean for giving us this opportunity.
	What a momentous occasion in American broadcast history is 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.
	That there it is.
	And what I'm curious to see is like, 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 gonna uh pump us all up.
	But it's great to be here, America.
	Uh, we want you to join the conversation with us today, 1-800-941.
	That's 1-800-941-7326.
	We're gonna 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 uh and the terrible things that happen in Washington.
	We're gonna talk today about Senator Joe Manchin and a profile in courage rather than a profile in corruption.
	Is that real President Joe Manchin?
	That is apparently real President Joe Manchin, according to Kamala Harris.
	We're gonna talk about that today.
	We're gonna talk about the fact that they may be back.
	The Clintons may be back in public life.
	Uh and you can learn about what their plans are for the country by enrolling in their master class.
	We're gonna talk about that a little bit uh 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 gonna 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.
	Yeah.
	And uh 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.
	When in Florida and Floridians, the free state of Florida, as we'd like to say, yeah, have had a very different lived experience during the COVID pandemic than other aspects of uh 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.
	Uh 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 Omnicron cases is a big deal, but let's talk about the actual threats facing this country.
	We'll talk to a border supp uh border patrol counsel president, Brandon Judd, and he's gonna take us live on the ground and give us an ex a bit of an exposure of what's actually happening in real time.
	Yeah, so we've got a lot of ground to cover.
	Uh, we do a podcast called the Drill Down.
	For those of you who already listen, thank you very much.
	Uh, but if those of you who have not heard of it before, you can find it on thedrilldown.com.
	I have it uh on good authority that we're the only two white male authors that have a podcast.
	So you know that's what we're here to do is promote.
	The only two in America.
	That's right.
	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, uh, who declared over the weekend on the Fox News channel that he cannot support this bill, and he's getting lambasted, lambasted by people from his own political party.
	Let's go to cut number 14.
	I mean, we we all knew that uh Senator Manchin couldn't be trusted.
	Um, you know, the the excuses that he just really disheartening uh to hear him say that he has been trying to get there for the people of West Virginia.
	Uh what's frustrating, uh 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.
	Uh he's 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 gonna 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 a cronyism for corruption, uh, 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 armed 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 game.
	So, like this is your area of expertise.
	Yeah.
	And so what I think it stands out about what why you're impressed with Joe Manchin is that you know what it looks like for people to try to incentivize both in public and private ways to get political expediency and political obedience.
	And you're so that's why I think you're so impressed by Joe Manchin's ability to stand up and say, no, I just like 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 five million dollars.
	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 honor tradition of buying off politicians.
	So let me just give you a couple examples.
	Everybody remember the Cornhusker kickback, uh, right?
	This was uh when Obamacare was trying to be passed, they were doling out all these special programs.
	Uh there was one for Bernie Sanders in Vermont, one for Mary Landrew in Louisiana, and um Ben Nelson uh got the Cornhusker kickback.
	Basically, this was to get people to vote for the bill who weren't gonna vote for it.
	They carved things out for them.
	Or a more on-the-nose example, Billy Tozen, who is a congressman from the great state of Louisiana.
	This is what makes Schweitzer great.
	Is that he's a Somalier of political buy-offs, right?
	So you guys are getting like lit hear the notes of oak and corruption when he describes this.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	Stirred around in your glass.
	Um, but Billy Tozen actually wrote a piece of legislation uh to provide uh drug benefits uh for Medicare recipients.
	And it was hugely favorable to the pharmaceutical industry.
	A couple of months after that bill passed, Billy Tozen retired from Congress, left Congress, resigned, and took up the head lobbying job for the pharmaceutical industry, making two million dollars 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.
	Uh in fact, uh we know that there was a uh 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 the drilldown.com.
	But in previous iterations of the Build Back Better bill, uh 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 that 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?
	Yeah.
	And so subsequently, in subsequent iterations of this legislation, that Appalachian Regional Commission or the ARC would have received an upwards of 300 million dollars, right?
	So some people have pointed this out that hey, Joe Biden appoints Joe Manchin's wife.
	Everybody knows Joe Manchin's going to be a key vote on this, appoints his wife to this commission.
	This commission's 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, and that Joe Manchin's not a rich man, or it, you know, he's not a poor man with five million dollars.
	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.
	If 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 five million dollars 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.
	Yeah.
	So Joe Manchin, you know, 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 in 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 that 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 now.
	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?
	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.
	Yeah.
	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 was the last time Washington agreed on anything.
	That's exactly right.
	But 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 uh in the next half hour.
	They're bad.
	That's right.
	They are back.
	And I think they're back because the coins are a little running a little short.
	Sounds a little tough when the old Clinton Foundation has been a lot of people.
	We got it.
	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 offshore and 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 uh 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 uh with 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 DC of today.
	Yeah, in fact, one of the uh most interesting projects we did was actually with Sean's TV show.
	Uh, you did this, Eric, and I want you to tell the story.
	We went up and did a special call Boomtown about how rich Washington, D.C. is.
	And you had this great segment where you went to Ferrari of Washington, DC and talked to them about selling Ferraris in our nation's capital, our our our, you know, uh 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, DC has become really rich.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	Back then it was seven of the ten.
	Think about this.
	All the counties we have in America, seven of the ten wealthiest counties in America surround the Washington, D.C. area.
	Yeah.
	I think it's now down to six, right?
	But but it was seven at the time.
	And so we said, how did Washington DC get so wealthy?
	And how does that manifest itself in terms of just how like what does it look like?
	And so, yeah, I I very kind of sacrificially decided to go to Washington, D.C. with a film crew.
	Thank you for the case.
	You're so welcome.
	We checked out the wineries because Washington DC consume 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 DC, and we said, okay, tell us about what it looks like to be a Ferrari dealer here in Washington DC.
	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 you how wealthy, how awash with cash is the line you use from the special the Washington DC 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 five million dollars.
	His willingness to not just stand up to the personal incentives that may have been included for something like his wife's position, uh, 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, right?
	Implying that he's some sort of a racist or misogynist or anything of that, right?
	Yeah.
	And uh a story just up on Fox News recently.
	Uh Joe Banshee's fighting back.
	The White House was leaking these stories, saying that sort of, you know, he was demeaning poor people and and uh uh people uh of of of certain ethnic groups.
	He called those attacks absolutely inexcusable.
	You're listening to Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers.
	You can find us at the drilldown.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 the drill down.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 uh 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.
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	Let's talk about um 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 uh 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 master class uh that is being promoted and pushed, uh, where people can learn about leadership's uh skills from Bill Clinton.
	Let's uh 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.
	Then I don't think how fast my life is full.
	I remember as 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 gonna 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 late.
	And I hope everybody watches us, it's like, what am I gonna 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.
	The End Everybody will be knocked down.
	The question is, will you get back up?
	The question is, will you get back up?
	I want to share 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 Master Class.
	So for doing a master class, you get a hundred thousand dollars and you get thirty percent 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, uh, and he said that not electing his wife in 2016 was quote, one of the most profound mistakes that we as a country ever made.
	Now, you know, this is a great country.
	We've made mistakes uh 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 what 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.
	Yeah.
	Maybe the Hillary one is defensible if you're dating a liberal girl and like, oh, maybe she'll think I'm empowered.
	You know, I want to or your enemies' list.
	You could give this to your enemies' list.
	But I like who who are you giving a Bill Clinton masterclass uh to as a Christmas present.
	I 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 uh possible a 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 percent 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 dollars.
	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, uh, were seven, eight hundred thousand dollars 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.
	Right.
	Eleven of them, 11 of the 13 came while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
	Right.
	And they mostly came from foreign uh uh people that were paying them.
	And why does that matter?
	Right.
	Well, it it matters because their business model is we are in power, we have power, or we're gonna 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 it it went from them collecting sixty-two point nine million dollars in twenty sixteen, which yeah, why is that matter?
	Why is twenty sixteen the big year?
	Hmm.
	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 the the uh 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 this is the reason, by the way, that I think the Clintons are going to make a serious run.
	Um, you know, she's gonna be what, 76, 77 years old?
	She'd be 76, but a relative spring chicken compared to the 81 years old that Joe Biden did in 2023.
	That's right.
	So she can play the youth card.
	Uh, 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 gonna 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, uh, that they can uh make a lot of money.
	Um, and um they need this to happen.
	So that's why I think Hillary Clinton is is gonna be highly motivated to run in 2024.
	And in Clinton world, they are gonna 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 is it boxed wine or is it bottled one?
	You do I'm I will defend boxed wine.
	Okay, okay.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah.
	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.
	Uh, do you think she wrote it?
	Uh I would never imply speaking to a best selling author that anybody uh you know touts of work that they they don't own, but I do know I can speak to the fact that you've written uh 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 master classes at a time.
	It's like they will 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.
	Um and look, they're very creative.
	If they got back into power, we could expect all kinds of creative money-making ventures.
	Uh, one of my favorites, of course, was what they did in Haiti when she was Secretary of State, the poorest uh country in the Western Hemisphere.
	In fact, we sent you down to Haiti uh to record sort of what was going on there.
	Remember, of course, that uh Hillary's brother was put on the board of directors of a Haitian gold mine.
	That was one of the stories that uh 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.
	Right.
	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 book 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.
	Right.
	And who would end up on the board of one of those two companies but Hillary's brother?
	Yeah, who who uh had no backing background in the in the uh mining industry whatsoever.
	It's amazing.
	So my prediction, look for the Clintons, look for more of the Clintons.
	Uh, you are listening to Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers.
	You can find us on the drilldown.com.
	We are filling in for Sean Hannity, and you can call us at 1-800-941-Shawn.
	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 the drilldown.com where our podcast comes out every Thursday.
	And we're gonna 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, uh but we stand behind him totally here.
	And I I I wanted to ask you a question.
	Sure.
	What's going on with us cinema?
	Yeah, Senator Cinema.
	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 uh uh bill that they're going to be introducing the early part of next year, where they're gonna try to federalize uh national uh elections.
	And we're gonna talk about that a little bit later.
	Eric's actually written a book on voter fraud called Fraud, which I highly commend.
	Uh, 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 is 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 in guarding different aspects of different thoughts online and how that shapes American behavior.
	But I think it what it speaks to is like it used to be just fairly normal for people to disagree.
	Hey, you know what?
	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 that I think Sam Stein, right?
	Yep.
	Uh Sam Stein said it was maybe one of the more devastating things that could have happened to the planet.
	Right.
	That Joe Manchin has decided he's going to not vote in favor of the Build Back Better Bill.
	Yeah, he's uh he's an editor at Politico.
	Right.
	Uh no, that's exactly right.
	And and I think uh, you know, Joe Manchin talked about it openly.
	He's standing on principle, and uh that is certainly something we need to support.
	Let's go to Mark in West Virginia, um, and he wants to talk about Senator Manchin as well.
	Mark, go ahead.
	Hey, thanks for having me on, guys.
	I appreciate that.
	Um this is Mark, um, also known as the zoo man.
	Um, and I'll tell you, I've been a uh conservative most of my life, and um I've really gotten to love Joe Manchin.
	The guy has real integrity.
	And um I knew weeks ago this guy wasn't gonna vote for this bill.
	And the reason is the guy goes with his constituency.
	And it just was a no-brainer.
	It wasn't gonna help the people of West Virginia, and it wasn't good for the country.
	So it was as simple as that.
	Well, you 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 the people in West Virginia did not support the so-called build back better uh program.
	And also, of course, Donald Trump won massively in West Virginia.
	Uh 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 fruit of 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.
	Uh, we are with the drilldown.com.
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