WATCH: The View hosts decry Sinema independent switch: ‘She just hurt the Senate’
Julia Johnson
Video Embed
Several hosts of The View made their unhappiness with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) clear on Friday after the senator announced her departure from the Democratic Party.
Sunny Hostin suggested that the move is strategic, as Sinema is up for reelection in 2024. According to her, the senator is being deceptive because “Democrats voted for a Democrat.”
WHAT SINEMA LEAVING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEANS FOR BALANCE OF POWER IN THE SENATE
“She should’ve said that from the beginning” if she was always an independent, Hostin said.
iFrame Object
Joy Behar slammed Sinema for having anything in common with the Republican Party, which has “no platform, nothing.”
“All they do is hang out with Nazis and white supremacists. The other party is actually doing something for people like us, working families, for gay people, for voting rights, and she’s, like, ‘what should I do?'” she said.
According to Hostin, polling data shows that “55% of women don’t like her, 53% of men, 56% of white voters, 54% of Hispanic voters. Voters over 50, 54% don’t like her, and young voters, 18-49, 55% don’t like her.”
“So I think she is like ‘who’s going to like me? So let me become an independent, so maybe I can get those independent voters and maybe I can get those Republican voters and maybe they’ll love me,'” she posed to her co-hosts.
Alyssa Farah Griffin didn’t agree with their criticisms, noting that “93% of the time with Biden, by the way, so she’s hardly a Republican.”
Sara Haines added that independents make up a larger share of Americans than either party, explaining that “the idea of coming more to the center is actually more in touch with the pulse of the country.”
Hostin still wasn’t having it, however. “I think she just hurt the Senate,” she said. “I think Democrats were finally in a position of controlling the Senate 51 to 49. We were going to get a lot done, and if she wants to talk about getting a lot done, then she should have remained a Democrat so that we can get things done.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Sinema announced Friday her plans to switch from a Democrat to an independent, drawing a bevy of media coverage to the already controversial moderate. This won’t change the slim Senate majority the Democratic Party maintained in the 2022 midterm elections, most recently fending off a challenge to Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-GA) seat in a runoff election.
Sinema will not caucus with the Republicans and is expected to continue to caucus with the Democratic Party, as both Sens. Angus King (I-ME) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) do.