Progressive Activists Confront Joe Manchin As He Leaves His D.C. Houseboat, Chanting ‘We Want to Live’

Rallied by progressives in Congress, activists confronted U.S. Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV) as he left his houseboat today and headed to Capitol Hill, chanting, “We want to live.”

It is not clear how, exactly, their lives were in any sort of immediate danger, but it appears, rather, that it was related to climate change legislation that they want passed.

In a clip of the protest, a banner can be seen being raised behind the senator as he walks that read, “Joe Manchin is burning our future for profit.”

John Paul Mejia, the national spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, tweeted out the clip of the protest and stated that “Young climate activists with @sunrisemvmt confronted Sen. Manchin as he stepped off his yacht this morning. ‘We want to live!’ they say.”

“This comes after Manchin once again declines @POTUS’ Build Back Better Act, holding hostage significant investments in climate,” Mejia added.

The DC chapter of the Sunrise Movement was recently exposed for making an “anti-Semitic” statement and were called upon to withdraw it by U.S. House Rep Jamie Raskin (D-MD), among others.

As for the situation with Manchin, the Twitter account “Hunger Strike 4 Climate Justice” tweeted out a different video of the protest against him.

“We’re here at sunrise at @SenJoe_Manchin’s dock, home to his $5M houseboat, bought by fossil fuel money, to call out his greed and corruption that’s torching our future,” they said in the tweet.

The Sunrise Movement quote tweeted that tweet and explained, “As long as @Sen_JoeManchin takes MILLIONS from fossil fuel companies *and* plays a role in drafting climate legislation, people are going to keep calling it out.”

The protesters also may have been spurred by a clip that was shared from an interview that he did last night with Fox News’ Bret Baier.

In that clip, Manchin lauded the “ocean” of natural gas that is in West Virginia and wondered, “Why don’t we do more drilling?”

“If they’d just let us build a pipeline, we could get the product to market… I’m not depending on OPEC, I’m not depending on other countries for our energy anymore,” Manchin insisted.

The Sunrise Movement quote tweeted the clip and shared a link to the website stopmanchin.com six times in the quote tweet.

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