Joe Manchin Pleads Ignorance Over Mylan $$

How Senator Joe Manchin funds his re-election campaign has been a damaging topic for the red-state Senator all year. First, Senator Manchin’s extreme reliance on out of state donors has been a major headache. Earlier this year, it was reported 97% of Manchin’s campaign donors lived outside the Mountain State.

The other major negative news narrative about Manchin’s campaign cash is how reliant he’s been on Mylan donors. According to Open Secrets, Mylan is the second largest campaign donor to Manchin, yet when pressed on The Young Turks, Manchin pretended not to have any clue about his close campaign ties to the embattled pharmaceutical company:

Even worse than pleading ignorance over campaign donations, Manchin went so far as defend Mylan’s indefensible behavior:

Manchin’s Mylan connection is so damaging because it shows he’s putting a large pharmaceutical company, run by his daughter, above the medical needs of working Americans. Mylan has been embroiled in numerous scandals this year, most notably over 500% increase in the price of EpiPens. To make matters worse, at the same time Manchin’s daughter was jacking up the price of EpiPens, she was making tens of millions from Mylan, according to the Washington Post.

Manchin wants West Virginia voters to believe he’s fighting for them. Yet as his Mylan answer showed today, when he’s faced with a chose between a pharmaceutical company or West Virginia, he’ll let down the people every time.