Joe Manchin Quotes

I don't look at Putin as a friend. I don't look at Russia. And I am very skeptical of what they're doing, their intentions. There are a lot of good people in Russia that don't have any say whatsoever. And they're starting to basically express their frustration, and starting marching, and hopefully getting their point across. So we've got to make sure that we put the hurt on the oligarchs, all the money, the way the money flows through Russia, and the people that benefit by it.

Being a Russian oligarch these days isn't easy. The best and brightest of them are in exile or in jail; others, after feasting on leverage during the commodities boom, now have tummies full of debt.

While most people in the world probably haven't heard my name, Vladimir Putin thinks about my name on a very regular basis. He really dislikes me because I'm the guy responsible for the Magnitsky Act.

The problem with Russia is not corruption per se, or even Putin per se. Russian government is not corrupt because Vladimir Putin has absolute power. Russian government has been corrupt and will always be as long as anyone has absolute power.

We have more billionaires than any country but the United States. And Putin can imprison any one of them at a moment’s notice. Do you think he is poor?

Donald Trump himself has financial ties to oligarchs in Russia who are close to Putin.

The story started over a decade ago when I ran Hermitage Capital Management, the largest investment firm in Russia. I was very successful, but when I started to complain publicly about corruption at the companies in which my fund invested, President Vladimir Putin had me expelled from the country and declared a threat to national security.

The Magnitsky law has proven to be a powerful tool. While asset freezes and travel bans against corrupt officials may sound incidental, they have shaken the Putin kleptocracy right down to the core.

The Russian economy is tanking. It's gotten so bad that today Vladimir Putin had to pawn his stolen Super Bowl ring. And Putin will finance his next invasion on Kickstarter.

Some experts have declared that it is necessary to tax the people until it hurts. I disagree with these sadists.

The Iranian people are getting restive because of the challenges that sanctions have posed to their economy.

People take the lazy way out, and do not regard Putin and the Kremlin as the real enemy. They create a long but erroneous chain in their heads. Putin is the leader of Russia. Putin does X, therefore Russia is doing X, and Russia is our enemy. And so, we introduce sanctions, for example, against Russia.

Donald Trump, again and again, has praised Vladimir Putin and it's clear that he has business dealings with Russian oligarchs who are very connected to Putin.

A lot of the Russian economy is built around people who are one way or another milking the state and taking money from the state and recycling it into their private bank accounts. And there are a lot of people who are taking advantage of that, so it's not just one person. It's a kind of web of people doing that, and that's how the system stays in power and how people stay in control.

Is there anyone... who will maintain that the Party System could have been created by people particularly fond of truth?

I believe that the boycott that we have against Cuba is counterproductive, and it also makes the twelve million or so Cuban people suffer unnecessarily just because of a foolish policy of the United States.

There are people who are at fault for one or another problem. These people are very avaricious and self-serving. They're not doing it just to do it; they're doing it for the money. That money, they keep here. When you say, "We're going to find these people, these guilty people, the ones who are not only breaking laws but are also hurting their own fellow country people," and you say, "We're going to punish them, specifically, that's a step in the right direction."

The relationship that we have with Russia is solely because of Putin. What he's done is an affront to the American people to try to have an effect on the election outcomes here. It had to be spoken to. I think we did it in a very appropriate manner. I'm proud of the legislation.

People are not doing well financially. I mean, wages are down from 2000. They're down from 2007. 2000 - down. Not going - they're below what they were in 2000. People are hurting. Things aren't going well for them.

There've been a lot more people hurt on astro-turf than grass.

I don't want to sell credit to people who are going to hurt themselves with it. You should only sell products that are good for the people who use them. Some disagree with this, but I know I'm right. That is to say, you're talking to a Republican who admires Elizabeth Warren.

People give pain, are callous and insensitive, empty and cruel...but place heals the hurt, soothes the outrage, fills the terrible vacuum that these human beings make.

Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that.

When you start reading nonfiction books about piracy, you realize that it's actually just a history of desperate people.

The people you love are just weapons that will be used against you.