What Sinema wants
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2021
⏱️ ? minutes
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Summary
Sen. Joe Manchin gets all the attention. But Sen. Kyrsten Sinema could be an even bigger obstacle for Democrats’ spending plans. Today on “Post Reports,” we ask what she wants and how she got here.
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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D) has been throwing a wrench in the plans of her own party. The Arizona lawmaker has stalled her votes on major legislative plans including raising the minimum wage and increasing drug prices. But her agenda isn’t explicitly clear, and she’s doing deals behind closed doors, angering her colleagues and her constituents.
Congressional reporter Mike DeBonis reports on Sinema’s political trajectory and what we can glean from it about what her motivations are.
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Correction: In this episode, we misstated the senator who Sen. Kyrsten Sinema replaced in Arizona. She took over Jeff Flake's senate seat in Arizona, not John McCain's. The audio has been updated to reflect the correction.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, a quick correction to this episode. |
| 0:04.7 | We mistreated the senator who Kiersten Sinema replaced in Arizona. |
| 0:09.3 | She took over Jeff Blake Senate seat in Arizona, not John McCain's. |
| 0:13.1 | Okay, back to the show. |
| 0:15.6 | On Monday, President Biden finally signed the bipartisan infrastructure bill. |
| 0:22.7 | During a ceremony at the White House, members from both parties came up to the mic, including |
| 0:27.2 | a senator whose name has been in the news a lot recently. |
| 0:30.9 | Please welcome Senator Kiersten Sinema. |
| 0:33.9 | Kiersten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona. |
| 0:37.3 | She was one of a handful of senators who created the blueprint for the bill. |
| 0:41.4 | Our legislation represents the substantive policy changes that some have said are no longer |
| 0:47.6 | possible in today's Senate. |
| 0:50.9 | How many times have we heard that bipartisanship isn't possible anymore? |
| 0:56.4 | So that important policy can only happen on a party line. |
| 1:01.4 | Our legislation proves the opposite. |
| 1:04.2 | And the senators who negotiated this legislation show how to get things done. |
| 1:09.2 | This speech really surprised me because we don't hear from Sinema herself very often. |
| 1:14.7 | And her take on this whole process that it was this great bipartisan victory. |
| 1:19.2 | And glossed over what some Democrats saw as her sacrificing key parts of their platform. |
| 1:24.6 | Delivering this legislation for the American people. |
| 1:27.6 | This is what it looks like. |
| 1:29.1 | When elected leaders set aside differences, shut out the noise and focus on delivering |
... |
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