OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
One of MSNBC’s far-left hosts is preemptively blaming moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona for their party’s expected losses during the November midterm elections, though the party in the White House traditionally loses congressional seats anyway.
Host Mehdi Hasan, who has frequently blasted Manchin and Sinema and blamed them for thwarting President Joe Biden’s overtly progressive agenda, said they would be responsible for Democrats getting “hammered” this fall.
“If (when?) the Dems get hammered in November in the midterms, the number 1 reason will not be the left, or the economy, or Joe Biden, or Joe Biden’s chief of staff, or mask mandates. It’ll be two Democratic senators called Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. We all know this,” Hasan tweeted.
If (when?) the Dems get hammered in November in the midterms, the number 1 reason will not be the left, or the economy, or Joe Biden, or Joe Biden’s chief of staff, or mask mandates. It’ll be two Democratic senators called Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. We all know this.
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 18, 2022
Fox News added:
Hasan’s claim continued his trend of sharp criticism aimed at Manchin and Sinema, who he’s focused heavily on following their decisions to vote against changing the Senate filibuster, which would have allowed Biden’s key agenda items to pass with a simple majority.
He has railed against the two on social media and directed his anger against them towards White House press secretary Jen Psaki in an interview last month.
He claimed that if Biden had come out earlier in support of ending the filibuster, then Manchin and Sinema may have been more open to ending it as well.
“Jen, why wait almost a year to change his view and come out so publicly against the filibuster? To give the rousing speech in Atlanta, that he finally gave this month? We lost all of 2021 while he waited for bipartisanship,” Hasan pressed the press secretary.
“First, Mehdi, that wasn’t the first speech on voting rights he gave, hardly. He gave a number of speeches last year–” Psaki said before Hasan interrupted her.
“First time that he came out publicly against the filibuster. First time he came out so explicitly on the filibuster on voting rights,” Hasan said.
“I am getting there! I agree with you, Mehdi. I agree with you. I’m getting there,” Psaki responded, appearing frustrated.
She added that Biden signed an executive order on ‘voting rights’ early in his term, and that even Biden speaking out publicly against the filibuster would not have changed the minds of Sinema or Manchin, both of whom have regularly said they oppose getting rid of it.
“I’m not saying it would have changed their minds earlier, but you’re telling me if he hadn’t come out earlier, if the President of the United States with the bully pulpit, the leader of the Democratic Party, had he not come out three, six, nine months earlier and said, ‘We need to get this filibuster out of the way for voting rights,’ that wouldn’t have helped?” Hasan asked, also seeming to be frustrated.
Successive polls have indicated that Democrats are set for a political shellacking come November, as also evidenced by the retirement of nearly 30 Democratic members of Congress, some of whom, at least, have been asked to stay on, according to a report earlier this month:
With 28 House Democrats set to retire this year, including several in toss-up districts, lawmakers told The Washington Times that they are pleading with them not to give up without a fight.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said he has been trying to persuade Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind and other Democrats to delay their decision to bow out in highly vulnerable swing districts.
