Bernie Sanders Bashes Sinema Over ‘Terrible Vote’ to Maintain Filibuster, Says Arizona Dems Were ‘Exactly Right’ to Censure Her

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) applauded the Arizona Democrats’ decision to censure Senator Kyrsten Sinema over her vote against the party’s effort to modify the filibuster.

Last week, Sinema and her fellow moderate, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), sided with Republicans as the Senate voted 52-48 to keep the filibuster in its current form. This vote coincided with the failures Democrats had in failing to get their election reform bills through Congress, so the Arizona Democratic Party moved to formally censure Sinema, accusing her of “failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy.”

NBC’s Chuck Todd interviewed Sanders on Sunday for Meet The Press, and he brought up the Sinema news while questioning Sanders on whether “it’s been healthy for the Democratic Party to highlight the division in the party.” Asked if he thought the censure was “an appropriate action,” Sanders wholeheartedly agreed that it was “exactly right” for the Arizona Democrats to do so.

On that issue of voting rights, this is something that’s almost different than anything else. What that is, is that right now you have a Republican Party under Trump’s leadership that is perpetuating this “Big Lie” that Trump actually won the election, and therefore, you have 19 Republican states that are moving very aggressively into voter suppression, into extreme gerrymandering. Some of these states are doing away with the powers of independent election officials. They are moving in a very, very anti-democratic way. And it was absolutely imperative that we change the rules so that we could pass strong voting rights legislation. All Republicans voted against us, two Democrats voted against us. That was a terrible, terrible vote. And I think what the Arizona Democratic Party did was exactly right.

Watch above, via NBC.

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