KJP tries to patch things up with angry Joe Manchin after Biden's anti-coal quips

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Another speech by Joe Biden, another clean-up on Aisle 46. Biden really stepped in it on Friday as he spoke at a campaign stop in Carlsbad, California. He was speaking about the CHIPS and Science Act. He made a comment that did not sit well with West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin. Referencing coal plants in America, Biden said, “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar also providing tax credit to help families buy energy-efficient appliances.”

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Biden’s argument is that coal plants are too expensive to operate. Joe Biden is all-in on wind and solar.

“I was in Massachusetts about a month ago on the site of the largest old coal plant in America,” Biden said at an event in Carlsbad, California, on Friday. “Guess what? It cost them too much money. They can’t count. No one is building new coal plants because they can’t rely on it. Even if they have all the coal guaranteed for the rest of the existence of the plant.

“So it’s going to become a wind generation. And all they’re doing is it’s going to save them a hell of a lot of money and using the same transmission line that they transmitted the coal-fired electric on, we’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar power, also providing tax credits to help families buy energy efficient appliances, whether it’s your refrigerator or your coffee maker, for solar panels on your home, weatherize your home, things that save an average, experts say, a minimum of $500 a year for the average family.”

These are the words of a man who is absolutely clueless when it comes to energy production in the United States. Coal is used for 20% of our energy needs. While climate extremists like to wax poetically about the United States using wind and solar energy, we are nowhere near ready to predominantly depend on alternative energy sources. These kinds of remarks by Biden are the result of what he’s been told his progressive base expects him to say. He demonizes fossil fuels and coal while propping up alternative energy. Barack Obama did the same thing but Joe Biden has taken it to a new level. He said on the campaign trail that he would work to eliminate the fossil fuel industry and on Day One, he signed executive orders to begin doing that.

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Flashback to 2016 and Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. Remember when she said she would shut down coal plants and put a whole lot of people out of work? Joe Biden is doing the same thing in the final days before the mid-term elections as if Democrats weren’t already going to be shellacked on Tuesday. Good Lord. The stupidity, it burns.

If Joe Manchin was a Republican, it would be said he pounced. He released a statement on Saturday blasting Biden, as you might expect from a politician from West Virginia. He said Biden’s remarks were, “not only outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs.”

“Comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden and instead believes he does not understand the need to have an all in energy policy that would keep our nation totally energy independent and secure. It seems his positions change depending on the audience and the politics of the day. Politicizing our nation’s energy policies would only bring higher prices and more pain for the American people,” Manchin continued.

“Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting. The President owes these incredible workers an immediate and public apology and it is time he learn a lesson that his words matter and have consequences,” Manchin concluded.

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Manchin also said, “Let me be clear, this is something the President has never said to me.” Gosh, Joe, do you think Biden may be saying one thing to you and another thing to other Democrats? How’d your vote for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) pan out for you? Does anyone think Manchin is going to get the pipeline in West Virginia he was promised if he voted for the IRA? If Joe Biden’s lips are moving, he’s lying. That should be abundantly clear to everyone by now.

Enter White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. She put an interesting spin on the situation. Biden’s remarks have been “twisted”, she said.

After backlash from people such as Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who called the comments “outrageous and divorced from reality,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated in a Saturday press release, “The President’s remarks yesterday have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense. The President was commenting on a fact of economics and technology: as it has been from its earliest days as an energy superpower, America is once again in the midst of an energy transition.”

“Working closely with Senator Manchin, a tireless advocate for his state and the hard-working men and women who live there, President Biden has helped get this part of the country back to work: the unemployment rate in West Virginia was 6.2% the last month before Joe Biden took office; now it is down to 4%,” she added.

“Under President Biden, oil and natural gas production has increased, and we are on track to hit the highest production in our country’s history next year,” she said. “He is determined to make sure that this transition helps all Americans in all parts of the country, with more jobs and better opportunities; it’s a commitment he has advanced since Day One. No one will be left behind.

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What a load of crap. “The last month before Joe Biden took office”? You mean during the pandemic? Of course unemployment was high during the pandemic. Businesses were shut down and workers were not working. That statement is as ignorant as when the White House tweeted out that seniors are getting a raise in Social Security payments because of how wonderful Joe Biden is, or something. It’s because inflation is so high and Social Security cost of living increases are tied to inflation. Truly, KJP is the worst White House press secretary I’ve ever seen.

Joe Biden is ok with leaving millions of oil and gas workers behind, from oil exploration to service industry workers. Joe Manchin got a dose of reality. Biden is not worried about putting coal workers out of jobs, it’s his intention. Manchin foolishly took the bribe from Biden and Schumer that he would get his pipeline if he signed on to the IRA. Now he can face the facts that Joe Biden is no friend to energy producers. He’d rather beg brutal dictators for energy than allow American oil companies to drill or coal miners to work.

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