During a recent interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who left the Democratic Party last year to become an Independent, declared that she does not intend to join the Republican Party.
Speaking at the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, Sinema said in the Sunday interview that she is “absolutely” done with the Democratic and Republican Parties, noting that it is “unfortunate” the two political parties “have gotten more and more extreme.”
“They’ve moved away from that center of working together and finding … common ground,” lamented Sinema. “They’re going towards the fringes because that’s where the money is, and that’s where the attention is, and that’s where the likes on Twitter are, and that’s where you get the clicks and the accolades.”
Sinema shared the harsh assessment with CBS host Margaret Brennan, adding, “And there’s an incentive to continue to say things that are not true and not accurate.”
Brennan asked, “Now that you’re an Independent, you’ll never become a Republican?” Brennan asked.
“No,” Sinema replied. “I literally just spent time explaining how broken the two parties are. You don’t go from one broken party to another,” Sinema added.
The senator also criticized the Biden administration for its handling of the southern border issue and being ill-prepared for the likely influx of immigrants with the end of Title 42.
“Title 42 goes away on Thursday,” Sinema warned, “and everyone here in Arizona knows we are not prepared.”
Sinema added: “The Biden administration had two years to prepare for this and did not do so. And our state is going to bear the brunt, and migrants will be in crisis as soon as next week. It will be a humanitarian crisis because we are not prepared.”
In an effort to mitigate the expected influx of one million undocumented immigrants, Sens. Sinema and Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced a bill granting the federal government a temporary two-year authority to process and expel illegal immigrants quickly.
The measure would help but is just a “band-aid,” said Sinema.
“The legislation we introduced yesterday is about tiding this over, giving us some time and space for the Biden administration to do their job,” she added.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) back the bill. However, the bill would need a minimum of 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, which is unlikely, and it is not likely any legislation could be pushed through before Title 42 expires.
Speaking about the partisan nature of Congress today, Sinema said: “When politicians are more focused on denying the opposition party a victory than they are on improving Americans’ lives, the people who lose are everyday Americans.”
Earlier this year, Senate minority whip John Thune (R-SD) attempted to entice Sinema to become a Republican. Noting her 2024 reelection bid would be made easier if she was a member of the Republican Party, Thune told Bloomberg:
“I’ve conveyed this to her many times. We would welcome her in our caucus. That invitation is always out there. She’s going to have to figure out, one, if she’s going to run again, and two, if she is, if she is going to run as an Independent, and it looks like that’s what she intends to do.”
According to a Democrat-affiliated Public Policy Polling service, Sinema has yet to declare whether she’ll run for reelection in 2024, and in a recent statewide poll, Sinema would lose in a three-way race with likely candidates Arizona Democrat Congressman Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake.
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