During an appearance on Fox News Sunday over the weekend, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called out Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) for her obstruction amid negotiations surrounding the next steps of the Biden agenda. Democratic leaders have put forward plans for trillions of dollars in new spending that would support initiatives ranging from fighting climate change to lowering prescription drug prices, but Sinema — alongside fellow so-called “moderate” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Ariz.) — has resisted key elements of the proposal. She has also resisted raising taxes on high earners to help pay for the proposals.
On Fox, Khanna asked why Sinema would be opposed to such increases, even though they reflect a return to certain norms from the time before the Trump tax cuts were put into place. These tax cuts favored high earners. As Khanna put it:
‘My question for Sen. Sinema is, she voted against the Trump tax cuts, and I just don’t understand why she’s not willing then to raise some of the rates back to what they were before the bill she voted against. And she hasn’t explained it to anyone.’
Watch Khanna below:
Rep Ro. Khanna on Fox News Sunday: "My question for Sen. Sinema is, she voted against the Trump tax cuts and I just don't understand why she's not willing then to raise some of the rates back to what they were before the bill she voted against … she hasn't explained it." pic.twitter.com/ybbxE2DVrW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 24, 2021
Sinema is continuing to frustrate Democrats with her opposition to key elements of the Biden agenda. Recently, five veterans serving on a council of advisers to Sinema resigned in protest, and in Arizona, a political action committee (PAC) called the Primary Sinema PAC has sprung up to provide activists with a united front for efforts to oust the controversial Senator. Notably, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) — a potential primary challenger — recently declined to rule out a Democratic primary race against Sinema. As Gallego recently put it:
‘I think the sentiment that I’m hearing out there, voters in Arizona are upset with her, especially Democratic voters. I think they support the President’s agenda, and they hope that she will, in the end, support the President’s agenda, pass reconciliation — the Build Back Better agenda… For me, all I care about is what happens between now and 2022. Those questions wait, wait… I think there’s a lot of time between now and 2024, a lot of time for the senator to put things right with voters in Arizona. And let’s hope she does it.’
In a recent survey gauging a hypothetical match-up between Gallego and Sinema, Gallego led Sinema with a whopping 62 percent of the support from poll respondents, compared to just 23 percent for the Senator.
