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Hi, welcome to "Full Frontal."
I'm Samantha Bee.
If you're anything like me, you have abnormally narrow ear
canals, and you're absolutely dreading
the next election season.
If that's the case, I have sort of good news.
Soon, you might not be able to vote at all.
Well, last year, 19 states passed 34 laws
adding new voting restrictions-- stricter voter ID laws limiting
the availability of absentee ballots and drop boxes
and purging voter rolls.
If Republicans can just whittle us down to zero voters
and install any leader they want,
they'll finally achieve our founder's vision of the end
to tyranny.
The GOP is doing everything it can
to poison democracy from gerrymandering
to delegitimizing opponents' victories
to making James Woods lick every ballot so you
won't want to touch them.
Until last week, Democrats' best hope to fight back
was passing voting rights legislation.
Unfortunately, they happened.
Democrats are regrouping after failing
to pass their landmark voting reform legislation
in the Senate on Wednesday.
The efforts were stopped short when two Senate Democrats
sided with Republicans.
In turn, Democrats failed at garnering
enough support to make changes to the 60-vote filibuster rule.
Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
Sinema joined all 50 Republicans in rejecting the rule change.
Yes, America's favorite centrist Democrat fun couple,
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, heroically
protected the filibuster.
We sort of understand this bullshit
from Joe Manchin, a red state senator who
calls himself a Democrat the same way
Mormon teens call themselves virgins.
But Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema is more of a mystery.
She represents a state that's been trending bluer.
Yet, she repeatedly goes against her own party.
And the party is finally losing patience.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema censured by the Arizona
Democratic Party.
That unanimous vote by the executive board happening
earlier this morning just days after Senator Sinema
voted to uphold the Senate filibuster, which is currently
preventing Democrats from passing sweeping voting
rights legislation.
Sinema says she wants to uphold the traditions
of the filibuster.
But that would be a lot more believable if she also upheld
the traditions of spelling.
Why, Kirsten?
Why?
Sinema has derailed the Democrats agenda for some time
now.
She famously gave a thumbs down to increasing the minimum wage
and has fought to cut down Biden's Build Back Better bill.
Sinema has basically been a pain in the butt for years,
like an itchy lace thong you only
wear when dating someone new.
So why censor her now?
They said that her vote to preserve the 60-vote threshold,
which effectively dooms the Freedom to Vote Act
and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement
Act is not acceptable to them.
This was simply the last straw.
Well, censuring a senator is pretty rare
and thus, a big deal.
It's also kind of not.
REPORTER: So what does it mean to censure a senator?
Well, it's less severe than an expulsion
and does not remove the senator from office obviously
and the state party or the state party
or act as any form of actual punishment.
It's more of a formal statement of disapproval.
If it gets any worse, Democrats will give Sinema
a 2-minute time out and make her go stand
in the corner and face Yuma.
Kyrsten Sinema's reasons for defending the filibuster
are particularly obnoxious.
She said she would not support any actions that
worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country.
Lady, you are the disease of division infecting our country.
In fact, this is a good excuse to use
my favorite clip of the week.
What a stupid son of a bitch.
I'm going to try to squeeze that in somewhere else.
I just don't know where yet.
Stick with me.
Sinema's role in helping Republicans
block voting rights legislation hurts
people of color most of all.
In response, one of the country's
largest Latinx grassroots organizations
is calling to unseat her.
Voto Latino is announcing a big ad campaign
to unseat Kyrsten Sinema in her next primary
and get her out of the United States Senate.
What was able to get Sinema over
to the top to go to the Senate was literally the Latino vote.
Millions of Arizona and Latinos will be disenfranchised.
Many of Sinema's colleagues are also fed up.
Tim Kaine made time to call her out
even though he's still stuck on that highway in Virginia.
Meanwhile, a group of 70 donors who supported
Sinema's 2018 campaign demanded that she
refund their donations.
I hate to break it to them, but Sinema's don't do refunds.
Trust me.
I tried after "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" when I sat
in the theater for three hours and neither
Leo nor Brad showed hole.
Several major organizations also withdrew their support,
including NARAL and EMILY's List.
EMILY's List contributed nearly half
a million dollars in 2018, making them
by far her largest contributor.
Her second largest--
Angie's List.
They gave her a quarter million dollars' worth of the best
rated plumbers in Tucson.
Sinema was not always the Democratic party's
centrist albatross.
She is now 20 years ago, she compared taking campaign cash
to accepting bribes.
Now, however, she gets so much corporate money she became
the Senate's third top recipient of cash
from the pharmaceutical and finance sectors, although let's
be honest.
By lunchtime, finance and pharma usually merge into one sector.
Sinema thinks she has to follow Joe Manchin's playbook
to win re-election in 2024.
But what she's doing now really isn't working.
Recent polls find she has just an 8%
approval rating among Democratic voters in her home state.
Even members of Congress who've been indicted
don't have numbers that low.
8% approval?
You know things are bad when your primary base
is just the margin of error.
As it stands, political analysts believe
it would be difficult for Sinema to win a primary in two years.
And her actions aren't just hurting her.
Kyrsten Sinema's obstruction is demoralizing.
In 2020, Dems showed up to the polls in record numbers
to stop Donald Trump and fight for legislation
that actually helps people.
As we look to the midterms in November,
Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are
a major reason why Biden has failed to deliver
on many of his promises.
If this is the best we can get, of course voters
are asking what's the point?
By blocking voting rights, Kyrsten Sinema
has done irreparable damage to this country.
And Kyrsten, I am talking to you now.
In two years, you're going to lose anyway.
Why block progress?
Be a one-term Senator who [BLEEP] saves democracy instead
of someone who craps on Americans while cashing checks
from big pharma because right now, you know what you look
like?
You look like--
A stupid son of a bitch.
In under the wire.
We'll be right back.