“I was worried people were going to start throwing hot dogs and popcorn at each other.”
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema shared her concerns Thursday after President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in an interview with the Washington Post.
The Arizona senator’s interview was part of a broader report by the Washington Post highlighting key members of congress and their thoughts heading into the new year, including her view on the lack of decorum at the president’s speech.
“I find it disturbing and sad that the state of the union has devolved into a junior high softball game,” Sinema said, citing the behavior from last Tuesday. “You can have really strong opinions about something you care very deeply about and you can also find ways to accommodate and meet other people’s very strong opinions.”
Sinema made headlines in the past during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. During the 2019 address, she was one of only five women in the Democratic Party who did not wear white, representing women’s suffrage.
“I was actually sitting next to Todd Young, and I said, do you remember when Joe Wilson’s ‘You lie!’ was horrifying?” Sinema said, referencing the South Carolina representative’s retort to President Barack Obama in 2009.
Sinema mentioned her previous job as a social worker with children, tying it to her time in politics.
“‘I couldn’t help it!’ ‘She made me do it!’ Actually, you get to make your own choices,” Sinema said.
Beyond her focus on the behavior of the audience on Tuesday, the senator also referenced her bills that Biden highlighted in his speech. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, as well as the Safer Communities Act, were all highlighted by the president.
Sinema did wish for further emphasis on certain legislation.
“I was hoping the president would spend perhaps a bit more time on the Respect for Marriage Act, which settles the status for marital equality for Americans across the country, but just as importantly to my constituents in Arizona, enshrined some of the strongest religious freedom protections in our country’s history,” Sinema said.
Beyond same-sex marriage, the senator also highlighted an interest in mental health and Social Security.
“I actually think that the term ‘entitlement’ is a mistake,” Sinema said. “Social security and Medicare are programs that Americans pay into, it’s not an entitlement, it’s an earned benefit. But, by the time you and I retire, there will be nothing left. We have to do something about this.”
The interview ended with an emphasis on the border. The senator boasted multiple bipartisan trips to the border, as chair of the Border Management Subcommittee. She cited that cartels have earned $5 billion by assisting in illegal border crossings.
“I don’t consider this to be a partisan mistake; I consider this to be the failure of administrations going back decades,” Sinema said.
The senator plans on rewriting pathways to citizenship and focusing on securing border communities as a counter to the border crisis.
When asked if her dinner with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy related to the border, she did not provide much comment.
“I wasn’t surprised but again disappointed when I saw that people freaked out going, ‘Oh, Kyrsten’s having dinner with Kevin.’ Yeah, because we work together, that’s normal,” Sinema said. When asked why she couldn’t provide details, she said, “Those relationships are built on trust, and the best way to be successful is for others to trust you implicitly.”
Sinema’s recurring message in her interview was bipartisanship, moving forward from the behavior during the State of the Union.
“You can disagree with someone without being disagreeable.”
As she’s done in the past, Sinema refused to respond to questions about whether she’ll run for reelection.
Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
