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Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Sens. Joe Manchin (D-VW) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) “sabotaged” President Joe Biden’s agenda.
Sanders said, “We passed early on in the Biden administration one of the most significant pieces of legislation in modern history in this country, The American Rescue Plan, which in my view, did a whole lot to help people deal with the economic turmoil that we saw as a result of COVID and massive unemployment. What we have got to do right now is, it’s not hard. You listen to the American people and not wealthy campaign contributors. What does that mean? It means that right now, you lower the outrageous costs in this country. The pharmaceutical industry, with paid lobbyists in Washington, D.C., you, expand Medicare. I happen to believe that candidates that I support believe that health care is a human right, not a function of making huge profits for the insurance companies and the people who own them. You’ve got to move to expanding health care. You’ve got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. You’ve got to create millions of jobs by dealing with the existential threat of climate, and by the way, you’ve got to do what the American people want and understand it is women who have the right to control their own bodies, not the government.”
Anchor Chuck Todd said, “Okay, everything you said there was being addressed in Build Back Better. Okay, it wasn’t it big as you wanted it, too big for some, but why do we have nothing? That’s the head-scratcher here. Understand, you don’t have it all. Why is it zero? Why is there nothing?”
Sanders said, “Well, it should not be a head-scratcher. You’ve got two members of the Senate, Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema, who sabotaged what the president has been fighting for.”
Todd said, “That’s a strong word, sabotage.”
Sanders said, “Well, you help me out with a better word here. Forty-eight members of the Senate who wanted to go forward with an agenda that helped working families that was prepared to take on the wealthy and the powerful. You’ve got a president who wanted to do that. You had two people who prevented us from doing that. You have a better word than sabotage. That’s fine, but I think that’s the right word.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
