Sinema: State of the Union ‘has devolved into a junior high softball game’

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) was displeased with Republicans who yelled, jeered and interrupted President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

“I find it disturbing and sad that the State of the Union has devolved into a junior high softball game,” she said at a Washington Post Live event on Thursday.

Biden’s address was the rowdiest in recent memory, as numerous Republicans spoke up midspeech. 

As Biden noted that some Republicans wished to sunset Social Security and Medicare, he was interrupted by dissenting legislators, which turned into a back-and-forth, resulting in what Biden, in the moment, called an agreement not to cut those programs. When Biden mentioned the fentanyl crisis and the U.S.-Mexico border, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) yelled: “It’s your fault!”

“Everyone is raucous — I was worried people were going to start throwing hot dogs and popcorn at each other,” Sinema said. “I find it beneath the dignity of the United States Congress. What I find most disturbing about it is that it’s normalized.”

Sinema said the problem isn’t exclusive to one party, though, arguing that similar conduct has been an issue for years. She even compared her colleagues’ behavior to that of the young children she counseled as a social worker.

“One thing I would tell kids early, early on is that you get to make your own choices. You have your own agency. Someone else might say something that’s hurtful, but that’s about them. You get to make the decision about how you behave,” she said.

The Arizona senator also made her position clear on the ongoing debt limit debate. As House Republicans demand budget cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit, Biden has advocated for a “clean” raise of the debt ceiling, with no strings attached.

Sinema supports the president’s position, but still wants to look at budget cuts separately, she said.

“Should we address the debt limit? Yes. Should we do it without causing panic in the markets or downgrading our rating as has happened in the past in 2011? Absolutely,” Sinema said. “Do we need to have discussions about inappropriate and runaway spending in Washington, D.C.? Absolutely. Should one be held hostage to the other? No.”

She was also quick to criticize the Biden administration’s handling of the southern border and immigration, but similarly put blame on previous administrations as well.

“This administration, just like the administrations before this one — this is true under Biden, it was true under Trump and it was certainly true under Obama — all of those administrations have failed to adequately secure our border,” Sinema said.

Sinema led a bipartisan cohort to the border last month and chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on border management.

“The Biden administration continues to say the border is secure. That’s factually inaccurate,” she said.

She called on her colleagues to continue work on bipartisan immigration reform legislation, which may include a path to citizenship for migrants already in the U.S. and reform the asylum-seeking process, she said.