Throughout the day on Tuesday, MSNBC anchors and correspondents kept wailing about the Senate filibuster power preventing President Biden and Democrats from implementing a radical left-wing agenda. Despite bipartisan opposition to doing away with the parliamentary procedure, pundits on the leftist cable channel insisted that it must be ended in order to shove through their preferred policies.
“Democrats had hope when Senator Mitch McConnell moved from majority to minority leader, the Senate might work a little differently, we might see more votes becoming more laws, more bills becoming more laws,” anchor Craig Melvin proclaimed in the 11:00 a.m. ET hour. He then warned viewers that hope had been dashed and it would cost them, literally: “But now, Senator McConnell is at the center of a new clash and it could put some of President Biden’s top priorities, like bigger pandemic relief checks for you, in jeopardy.”
In the report that followed, correspondent Sahil Kapur feared:
Craig, it is ultimately, in plain terms, a question of how much, if anything, President Biden is going to get done with this new Congress....he has a 50-50 Senate, that’s 50 Democratic senators, and it takes 60 votes to pass most pieces of legislation. There is no viable path to major action on issues like immigration reform, gun control, even raising the minimum wage to $15, because those do not have the support of ten Republican senators or really even close to that. So the question is how much the filibuster is going to stand in the way of President Biden’s priorities, whether Democrats are going to consider maybe abolishing it.
Though he then lamented that “Democrats do not have the votes to eliminate it.”
Wrapping up the segment, Kapur ominously worried that “the filibuster looms over President Biden’s agenda.”
Later in the 2:00 p.m. ET hour, anchor Katy Tur turned to Democratic Party activist and fellow MSNBC host Al Shaprton, fretting: “How much pressure is the Biden team facing to get some of these things done legislatively, and what does that mean for the fate of the filibuster? Can he get police reform, can he get these other major reforms done if the filibuster is still in place?”
Sharpton demanded that Democrats kill the filibuster, despite clearly not having the votes to do so:
[Biden] should use his bully pulpit and his ability to deliver messages direct to the Democrats, who now control not only the White House but has a tight control of the Senate and the House, to get these laws through. And they must deal with the filibuster, which was born in the archaic times it was used to block civil rights and voting laws. We need to get rid of the filibuster and bring about laws that will protect the rights and the fairness for the American people.
Despite Sharpton’s assertions, the filibuster exists precisely to provide fairness and balance in Congress and prevent one side from ramming through controversial and divisive legislation whenever they want.
It’s amazing how quickly the liberal media rush to abandon claims of unity and endorse partisan tactics when Democrats are in power.
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Here is a full transcript of Melvin’s January 26 exchange with Kapur:
11:33 AM ET
CRAIG MELVIN: Democrats had hope when Senator Mitch McConnell moved from majority to minority leader, the Senate might work a little differently, we might see more votes becoming more laws, more bills becoming more laws. But now, Senator McConnell is at the center of a new clash and it could put some of President Biden’s top priorities, like bigger pandemic relief checks for you, in jeopardy.
NBC’s Sahil Kapur is reporting on this particular story from the Hill for us this morning. Walk us through this conflict, Sahil.
SAHIL KAPUR: Craig, it is ultimately, in plain terms, a question of how much, if anything, President Biden is going to get done with this new Congress. He has a narrow majority in the House to work with, he has a 50-50 Senate, that’s 50 Democratic senators, and it takes 60 votes to pass most pieces of legislation. There is no viable path to major action on issues like immigration reform, gun control, even raising the minimum wage to $15, because those do not have the support of ten Republican senators or really even close to that. So the question is how much the filibuster is going to stand in the way of President Biden’s priorities, whether Democrats are going to consider maybe abolishing it. Right now this rule standoff between Senator Schumer and the Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was about the filibuster. Currently Democrats do not have the votes to eliminate it. They did not commit – Schumer did not commit to keeping that 60 vote threshold and he talks about this fight in terms of what’s at stake in the agenda. Let’s have a listen to what Senator Schumer told our own Rachel Maddow last night.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: I worry about the future of this democracy. If people continue to be disillusioned that this government can’t do a thing to make their lives better at a time when so many are angry, so many are sour, so many think they don’t have a chance to get ahead, I worry about the future. We will not let Mitch McConnell dictate to us what we will do be and not do, period.
KAPUR: And there you have Senator Schumer laying out the stakes in plain terms of essentially what Democrats want to do. They want to take to voters some big accomplishments in 2022 and say they did something with full control at this point. The one procedural escape, Craig, they have is the issue of reconciliation, it’s a parliamentary maneuver by which you can pass budgetary measures by bypassing the 60 vote rule, they can do that with 50. That could include some COVID relief and it could include aid to states. But they’re very limited in what they can do with that. But beyond that, the filibuster looms over President Biden’s agenda, Craig.
MELVIN: Sahil Kapur on the Hill for us. Sahil, thank you so much sir.
