Media top headlines September 27
In media news today, 'The View' co-host Ana Navarro reveals her COVID tests were false positives, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo stays silent on his own sexual harassment scandal, and The New Yorker hosts a climate change extremist who promotes property damage
Conservative commentator Meghan McCain criticized Democrats Sunday for isolating moderates in the party, most recently in the fight over President Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda.
Moderate Democrats such as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., have raised concerns about the $3.5-trillion package, earning them the ire of their more progressive colleagues.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., is one of those critics, hitting the pair of moderates on CNN Monday.
"You’re looking at about two senators and eight House members who are holding everything up," Khanna said, adding they're waiting on Sinema and Manchin to provide an alternative offer in their negotiations.
"This distaste and outward hostility towards moderates in the Democratic Party surprises me," McCain, a Daily Mail columnist who left "The View" this summer, said on Sunday's "Meet the Press."
She singled out Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was on "Meet the Press" shortly before her appearance, for speaking so candidly about the divide in the Democratic Party.
"I also was shocked by seeing Sen. Booker talking about sort of openly this distrust between progressives and moderates," she added.
McCain took a final swipe at Biden, who, she reminded her fellow panelists, ran for president last year as a moderate alternative to his more progressive opponents, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
"President Biden ran on being a moderate," McCain said. "He ran and won with the help of independents, centrists, Trump-weary Republicans, and he's not governing as one."
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Biden's Build Back Better is "the most progressive modern agenda" in recent years, she added.
Sinema and Manchin have been targeted by their more liberal colleagues for several months now, on multiple issues or pieces of legislation.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., hit Sinema for her opposition to ending the Senate filibuster. In a Washington Post op-ed, the senator feared getting rid of the filibuster would result in "repeated radical reversals in federal policy." Ocasio-Cortez said that Sinema’s comments were "essentially an argument of saying, ‘Well why do anything at all, in case something in the future may change it.’"
Left-wing media personalities have also repeatedly expressed frustration with moderate Democrats for stalling a progressive agenda.
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan mocked Sinema this month in her opposition to the spending package following an Axios report revealing Sinema uses "secret spreadsheets" containing the costs and tax hikes associated with programs. Hasan suggested Sinema's agenda was "patronizing," and sarcastically asked his guest, "Squad" member Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., whether the Arizona senator "understands math and the progressives don't?"
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"Another obstacle to progressive spending goals is Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema whose staff, and people around her, seemed to brief Axios yesterday that she has an accountant-like focus on the bottom line and is armed with her own spreadsheets about the costs and tax hikes needed for each program," Hasan said.
MSNBC host Joy Reid recently declared the two moderates could lose their seats in the 2022 midterm elections. Social media users informed her that Manchin and Sinema aren't up for reelection until 2024.
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