go right into the states that will be disproportionately affected by the green energy dream and you include them as part of the solution and you invest in them as if your life depended upon it because it does. that was democratic presidential candidate kirsten gillibrand on saturday in new hampshire talking about the importance of investing in coal miners. her comments come just days after nearly 600 coal miners were suddenly left without work. and now the coal miners union is inviting the 2020 democratic candidates to come on an underground tour and hear from workers. the union says if democrats want to get back many who have deserted the party in the last several elections, it is coal miners who they need to win over. joining us now with more on that, nbc news correspondent heidi przybyla. heidi, what did you find out? hi, mika. this is really unusual. this is the first time that the coal miners have done this.
decisive states. all right. dave wasserman, thank you so much for being on this morning. still ahead on morning joe, president trump has often claimed that he s brought america s coal industry back to life. but a growing number of the country s coal miners apparently don t feel the same way. nbc news heidi przybyla has the invitation that is being extended to the 2020 candidates. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. we ll be ri. johnson & johnson is a baby company.
have reached out this early and invited the entire field of democratic candidates to tour a mine and open a dialogue. the last time that a presidential candidate did this was john kerry in 2004. so nbc news has obtained the letters that went out to all the presidential primary candidates and this underscores the significant and persistent concerns in this community, in these pockets of america where frankly the mine workers, mika, as you remember, were really the face of forgotten man during trump s campaign. he really made the mine workers a priority and said these are the people who i m going to prioritize and bring back jobs for. no one he says has done more for the coal workers than him. he has a coal lobbyist heading the epa. they have had all of the regulatory rollbacks aimed at helping the coal industry and yet, 2018 was a record year for coal mine retirements.
are loyal trump voters but what you see here is really an opening divide as well between the working coal miners and the coal miners who are rapidly being put out of work and who are being essentially forced in to retirement. according to the coal miners union you are starting to see some cracks among those workers because they re starting to see that no matter the dramatic changes that have been made under trump, they are continuing to lose their jobs and so maybe just maybe they re starting to be open to some more of the arguments from democrats about how democrats or any lawmaker frankly can invest more in their communities because what they re seeing is regardless of the regulatory red carpet that s being rolled out, you know, the market s just moving in the opposite direction. they re moving to renewals, solar and natural gas. heidi przybyla, thank you
coal industry right now, it can happen to anybody at any moment. the company i worked for had not laid a person off in over 20 years. and when they had to break that streak, you know that had to hurt them. megyn: you publicly disclosed you were making $65,000 a year. you on get 30% of that in unemployment. roughly 30%. i get $1,400 before taxes for a month and i used to get $1,800 after taxes every two weeks. you like so many coal miners found yourself out of a job. one guy was describe how long when the layoffs occurred. 750 full-time workers were laid off entirely. he said the look on everyone faces wasn t necessarily shock, he said it was fear.