Joe Manchin Pretends To Be Working On A Scaled Down Version Of Build Back Better

Republicrat Senator Joe Manchin told reporters this week that he is still in talks with the White House about a scaled down, and differently named, version of the Build Back Better Act that might actually include reductions in prescription drug prices. But he also wants to make sure that the deficit isn't impacted, even though he has torpedoed attempts to raise money for the legislation in the past. This is all smoke and mirrors by Joe Manchin, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Republicrat Senator Joe Manchin, which yes, that is the new word I have created to describe Joe Manchin, because he's really not a Democrat and he's pretty much a Republican at this point. So he's kind of stuck in between the two. But either way, the man who sat with Republicans during the state of the union and joined Republicans to kill abortion rights for women in the Senate this week, has told reporters that he is totally still open, absolutely not lying, about wanting to get some kind of version of build back better passed this year. And he says, he's currently, you know, having talks informal talks with the White House and they're going over some things and Manchin told reporters that he definitely wants to, to tackle prescription drug prices because, ah, they're outta control. He omitted where his own daughter, when she was with Mylan, upped the price of those EpiPens for no other reason than she could.

You know, whole Martin Shkreli situation there and she just got off with a golden parachute of millions and millions of dollars. So Manchin says, yes, I totally want this to happen and I'm okay with repealing some of the 2017 Republican tax cuts to help pay for these things. But my condition, he says, is that half of the money we raise from repealing some of those tax cuts, so everybody pays their fair share he says, because suddenly he cares about that. He says half the money has to go to deficit reduction and paying down the national debt. So no matter how much we raise from repealing these tax cuts. If it's $500 billion more the US government gets per year, uh-oh, we can only have $250 billion because half of it would have to go under Joe Manchin's informal negotiations, would have to go to deficit reduction. Oh, you know, because people are, oh, we're so scared of the deficit and debt.

Even though we have no idea how that affects literally anything in this country and people don't, they don't understand how that works. They don't even know what it means. They hear debt, they think it's kind of like their family debt. It's not, it doesn't work that way with the federal government. Now it is similar, but it's a whole heck of a lot different. And Joe Manchin is playing on the ignorance of people, adopting Republican talking points about the debt and deficit, in order to try to get himself back in the spotlight. I don't believe for a second, Joe Manchin cares about lowering the cost of prescription drugs for anybody in this country. He doesn't. He's, he's trying to fool us all. I don't think for a second he's honest when he says I'm okay with taking away some of these tax breaks for the, for the wealthy. No, you're not. No, you're not. All of these things were originally in the bill and you were the one who actually said, I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna increase taxes on anybody.

You specifically refused to go along with any plan that repealed those tax cuts. This is all a lie folks. Do not believe the smoke and mirrors that Joe Manchin is throwing out there. He is not negotiating in good faith with the Biden administration and I wish they would just cut his off. It's time to do that. Joe Manchin this past week alone, not to mention the last year, has made his allegiances very clear. You sat with the Republicans at the state of the union, buddy. We know who you are.