Joe Biden Seemed To Subtweet Kysten Sinema And Joe Manchin Because They ‘Vote More With My Republican Friends’

You’ve probably noticed this before, but Joe Biden’s a pretty nice guy. He rarely gets worked up. Even though he’s inherited a migraine — trying to right an America all but destroyed by his predecessor, who’s now threatening (albeit feebly) to take his old gig back — he’s kept his cool. Even when he called out two Democratic senators who haven’t made passing legislation in any way easy, he did so without naming names, even suggesting those on the other side of the aisle are still chums.

Those senators are, of course, Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, and Joe Manchin, of West Virginia. Over the last few months, the two have taken heat for not toeing the party line when the party needs them. They’re the two key figures standing in the way of killing the filibuster. They seem to think they can “implore” their Republican colleagues to do the right thing, despite all evidence to the contrary. They’re seen as stubborn and not helping fix a broken country.

On Tuesday, Biden finally called them out, sort of. While speaking at an event marking the 100th anniversary of the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he took some time to address why his administration hasn’t made more progress than it has already.

“I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’ Well, Biden only has a majority, effectively, of four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends,” Biden said. “But we’re not giving up.”

It wasn’t difficult to suss out that shade was being thrown at Sinema and Manchin. Will his words shame the senators into reforming their ways? Probably not. Sinema seems to delight in the hatred she’s inspired, which she seems to throw back the way it came.

Still, people were delighted to see them called out by the most powerful person the planet, on national television.

Others continued making jokes about them effectively being appeasers to a party still in thrall to a possibly jail-bound blogger who lives in resorts with strangers.