Bill Clinton was confronted today by coal miners fearful of losing their jobs if Hillary gets her way — and he acted like he had a hard time hearing them.

“When’s she gonna lay us all off?” a man interrupted Clinton.

“What?” he said.

After the protester repeated himself, Clinton turned to U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin and said, “What’d he say?”

“That’s good, that’s a fair question,” Clinton replied.

Clinton then couldn’t remember where he and Manchin had just stopped.

Here’s another angle of the confrontation:

The seemingly overwhelmed former president ended up sticking his microphone in front of the face of an attendee shouting back at the protesters.

Yesterday, the president of the Kentucky Coal Association predicted to The American Mirror that Hillary Clinton would be well insulated when she visits the region Monday and Tuesday.

RELATED: Hillary Clinton’s anti-coal comments precede Appalachia ‘listening’ tour

“Secretary Clinton is traveling to Ashland, which is north of our Eastern Kentucky coalfield, but people there know her anti-coal positions, especially the thousands of workers who have lost their livelihoods due to the closure of AK Steel,” Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said.

“I’m sure her handlers will be very careful about who gets to interact with Sec. Clinton, as her anti-coal statements precede her.”

When the Clinton campaign opened its Kentucky office on Friday, the KCA reminded Appalachia voters about Clinton’s anti-coal statements last month.

“I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country,” Clinton said March 13. “Because we are going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

“Hillary Clinton can write letters of apology and say she misspoke, but anyone who watches that video can see that she meant every word about putting ‘coal miners and coal companies out of work,’” Bissett says in a statement.

The KCA says “hard questions need to be asked.”

“Our goal at the Kentucky Coal Association (KCA) is to make certain that our membership in addition to our fellow Kentuckians know the positions of candidates to any office in relation to the use and production of coal, which is huge economic contributor to the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Bissett tells The American Mirror.

“With Secretary Clinton, she had made it very clear that she will continue and expand the anti-coal policies of the Obama Administration, which is an unpopular position to take here in Kentucky.”