Timber companies in cameroon Footage captured the intense moment when an aide for Sen. Joe Manchin threw a climate protester to the ground following a tense interaction.
The heated exchange happened at an event at Harvard University on Friday, and saw the West Virginia lawmaker stand up to confront the much-younger activist.
After holding Manchin back, Communications Director Jonathan Kott can be seen grabbing and throwing the instigator out the door, sending him to the ground.
The protestor, later identified as a member of the new, youth-led group Climate Defiance, was joined by several others who took issue with how the 76-year-old Democrat facilitated the ongoing construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
The natural gas pipeline, which has been in the works since 2014, is expected to run through Manchin’s home state of West Virginia and into southern Virginia, cutting through the Appalachian Trail. The activist, in turn, called the senator a ‘sick f**k.’
Footage captured the intense moment when an aide for Sen. Joe Manchin threw a climate protester to the ground Friday following a tense interaction.
The heated exchange happened at an event at Harvard University, and saw the West Virginia lawmaker stand up to confront the much-younger activist
‘You sold our futures and you got rich doing it,’ the unnamed male protestor said, before hitting the 14-year senator with the aforementioned, ‘You sick f***!’
Manchin responded by rising from his seat in an apparent attempt to get into the protestor’s face.
But the protester, as previously indicated, remained persistent.
“How dare you?’ he continued, while appearing increasingly confrontational. ‘You have sold our-‘
His last line was cut off – as Kott was seen getting between the pair before sending the young activist literally tumbling out of the room.
It was not immediately clear if the activist was injured as a result of his outburst, but moments afterward, the group he belongs to took to X to take credit for the now widely seen encounter.
‘BREAKING: we just called Joe Manchin a sick fuck,’ the account for Climate Defence wrote, just over a month after surfacing in January.
‘We humiliated him in front of a herd of Harvard elites,’ they went on, touting the exchange as a victory.
They added of Manchin, who signed off on the pipeline a decade ago: ‘He squared up. We held firm.
‘Barbaric murderer, hideous fiend, he torches humanity and laughs,’ the group – which bills itself as a ‘brand-new, youth-led’ firm that uses direct action to resist reliance on fossil fuels – went on to write.
‘You sold our futures and you got rich doing it,’ the unnamed male protestor said, before hitting the 14-year senator with the aforementioned, ‘You sick f***!’
After holding the senator back, Communications Director Jonathan Kott is seen grabbing and throwing the instigator out the door, sending him to the ground.
The protestor, later identified as a member of the new, youth-led group Climate Defiance, was joined by several others who took issue with how the 76-year-old Democrat facilitated the ongoing construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline
The video, within a matter of hours, was viewed more than a million times, and was posted by the group in an act of self-celebration
The activist was not immediately identified
The accompanying video, within a matter of hours, was viewed more than a million times.
Members, meanwhile, revealed in other posts that the group started about a year ago, and celebrated how protesters like the one seen in the footage have already made enough waves to be mentioned in publications like The New York Times.
They also pleaded for donations, after physically chasing Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan out of an event at a country club in his hometown of Wellesley, Massachusetts, upon branding him ‘a top-5 funder of fossil fuels.’
They also similarly disrupted speeches by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell late last year.
The group wrote just after the Manchin incident: ‘Barely one year old, we’ve already earned profiles in the NYT and Bloomberg, received White House invites, and brought senators, governors and cabinet secretaries **TO THEIR KNEES**.’
Sharing the headline of a recent NYT that does not mention the org by name, members wrote: ‘We need money to keep doing this. Please give generously. Donate here!!’
The article, published on January 24, regards the Biden administration’s recent decision to hold off on giving approval to what would be the largest natural gas export terminal in the US, which would be built in Louisiana.
The hesitance, reporters remarked, comes at a time where the 81-year-old commander-in-chief is preparing for what is set to be a contentious re-election, and as he courts the same young climate voters who helped him win in 2020.
Reporters, in turn, spoke to 25-year-old Colorado social media influencer Alex Haraus, who has led a TikTok and Instagram campaign aimed at urging young voters to demand that Biden reject the project, officially called Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2).
the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The natural gas pipeline, was signed off on by Manchin in 2014, is expected to run through Manchin’s home state of West Virginia and into southern Virginia
The 304-mile installation – which will likely be complete this month – will cut through a wide section of the famed Appalachian Trail
Its construction has thus inspired backlash from climate activists, who over the years has painted the Democrat as a self-serving, money hungry politician
The group the arrested activist belonged to (not pictured) started about a year ago, and celebrated Friday making enough waves to be mentioned in The New York Times
Sharing the headline of a recent NYT that does not mention the org by name, members wrote: ‘We need money to keep doing this. Please give generously. Donate here!!’
Already receiving some 7 million views on TikTok and Instagram, the activist said: ‘We see CP2 as stopping the first fraction of the largest LNG build out to date.’
It remains unseen if Haraus is part of Climate Defense, but a few days later, the group emerged online to take some credit.
‘We just played a big role in stopping CP2 Details are still emerging. ‘The situation is still coming into focus. The final wording has yet to be released.
‘But today news broke that CP2, a gas export terminal 20 times worse than Willow, may well be relegated to the dustbin of history.’
In another post, the group took credit for Joe Manchin at a speech at a diner in New Hampshire last month, explaining – while spelling the senator’s name wrong – how he He is taking $500,000 per year from his personal coal company, Enersystems, which has been in his family for years.
The senator earned $476,000 in 2022 from that same coal company, leading far-left activists to question his willingness to go along with fossil fuels.
‘He is using his position as chair of the Energy Committee to save his coal company – at the expense of our very lives,’ Climate Defense said of this dynamic.
Pointing out how they chased the senior throughout the establishment before being ejected, they wrote of Manchin: ‘He is a monster, so we took over his event and made him flee through the kitchen.’
Big update. Big, big update. We just found Joe Manchin yet again, in a diner. We swarmed it. We took it over. We seized control. We shut him down so hard he had to flee through the kitchen. We will not walk like sheep to slaughter. We will not stand down. Respect us or expect us. pic.twitter.com/20a9xMzXnG
— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) January 16, 2024 The incident is currently being vetted, and Manchin – who owns a coal company – has yet to has yet to issue a statement. The Mountain Valley Pipeline, meanwhile, is forecast to be completed in a matter of weeks
During the incident Friday, activists in the relatively unknown group sang a similar tune, with one of the protesters outright telling Manchin: “You’ve received more funding from fossil fuels than any other senator.”
Manchin asked the protestors ‘to sit down somewhere so we can talk,’ but the protesters turned him down.
His office did not respond to the DailyMail.com’s request for comment, though a school spokesperson confirmed the event featuring Manchin was disrupted by protestors and said that the Harvard University Police are investigating the incident.
‘A Harvard University police officer ordered the protesters to leave the [Harvard] Kennedy School campus, and the protesters complied,’ the spokesperson said.
They were seen being escorted off the premises as Manchin’s talk reportedly resumed, after which his daughter – business exec Heather Bresch – is said to have chided security for the group’s sudden, unsanctioned entry.
An attendee recalled what the 54-year-old chief executive officer of Netherlands-based pharmaceutical company Mylan, allegedly said to the Harvard Crimson: ‘What I heard was: “Doesn’t anybody monitor the doors here?”‘
The incident is currently being vetted, and Manchin – who is not seeking reelection this year – has yet to has yet to issue a statement. The Mountain Valley Pipeline, meanwhile, is forecast to be completed in a matter of weeks.