Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) lashed out Sunday at some members of her own party and suggested that they were racists because they don’t support Democrats’ far-left agenda.
Waters directed her remarks at Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia after both of them refused to support the elimination of the Senate filibuster so as to allow the party to force through measures with a bare majority.
“They have sent the signal. They have been clear about it. They don’t care about minorities. They don’t care about blacks. They don’t care about people in their own districts who they’re going to deny their voting rights and undermine their voting rights,” Waters .
“I must always be optimistic. But this is a very difficult time for Democrats.”
“We have two Democrats, Manchin and Sinema, and they are holding up the Democratic agenda. They have decided that they are going to stick with support of the filibuster, and they don’t care whether or not they undermine the rights of minorities and blacks in this country,” she added.
The California Democrat also said that her party was powerless thanks to Republicans, though Democrats control all of Congress and the White House.
“It’s not what Democrats need to do. We’re doing everything that can be done,” she claimed. “It’s what Republicans need to do. Why is it we don’t have one Republican, not one that will stand up for the voting rights for people in this country?
“And so I hear a lot of talk about our president. He’s fighting as hard as he can. I don’t know why people think that he can make Manchin and make Sinema do what is right,” she said.
Democrat Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York has also slammed Manchin and Sinema during an interview with a far-left radio host, demanding that “there must be consequences” for the two senators for being roadblocks to Biden’s agenda.
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“It’s as simple as that. The president calls you and you’re going to derail one of his top initiatives, our vision? There’s got to be consequences for this,” he said without elaborating.
“And they’re very precise. They fit each state, and each leader in very precise ways. And so I’m sure once the consequences are laid out for them there may be an opportunity for a meeting of the minds,” Espaillat continued.
Both Manchin and Sinema have long resisted eliminating the filibuster, with both saying that Republicans, if they regained control, could do the same thing to simply overturn Democrat-passed legislation.
“There’s no need for me to restate my long-standing support for the 60-vote threshold to pass legislation,” Sinema said last week. “There’s no need for me to restate its role protecting our country from wild reversals in federal policy.”
“We need some good rules changes to make the place work better,” Manchin has noted. “But getting rid of the filibuster doesn’t make it work better.”