President Donald Trump

The country’s newest Republican governor is, like President Donald Trump, a billionaire businessman, a political outsider, and a fan of the coal industry. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, a former coal company owner, was elected as a Democrat but switched parties with a surprise announcement at a Trump rally in West Virginia.

Both Trump and Justice campaigned on promises to bring coal mining jobs back to the region. Now Justice wants the president to prop up the flagging coal industry with federally-funded incentives for power companies to purchase coal from Appalachia.

Pres. Donald Trump's Thursday campaign rally in Huntington is expected to draw thousands of not just Trump supporters from the tri-state area, but also protestors.

While the city doesn’t have any say in what goes on inside the event, they are responsible for what happens outside, where tensions could run high.

On this West Virginia Morning, we meet members of the United Mine Workers of America's Local 1440 union in Matewan, where a group of retired miners say they don't see Pres. Donald Trump's promises  to bring coal jobs back to the region coming true. 

The group, which largely voted for Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, says coal's struggles aren't the result of former Pres. Barack Obama's policies, but of the free market.

Sen. Joe Manchin says his meeting with President-elect Donald Trump has been rescheduled for next week, but speculation about him taking a post as Energy Secretary is just that: speculation.