Lindsey Graham: ‘God Bless’ Manchin and Sinema For Blocking Voting Rights

Even as President Joe Biden was in Georgia calling on the Senate to pass voting rights legislation, members of the Republican Party were still standing in the way of passing legislation intended to make meaningful changes to making voting easier for all eligible Americans. “When it comes to protecting majority rule in America, a majority should rule in the United States Senate,” President Biden said in a speech delivered in Atlanta on Tuesday. “To protect our democracy, I support changing the Senate rules to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights.”

But the GOP inexplicably continues to argue against ensuring every American’s ability to participate in free and fair elections, with one Senator going as far as to praise the two Democratic holdouts, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), for their resistance to specific parts of the legislation, including changes to the filibuster rules.

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) called President Biden’s arguments “manufactured B.S.” and praised Manchin and Sinema for their similar takes, particularly for their opposition to ending the filibuster. “God bless Sinema, God bless Senator Manchin. I hope they hold. I believe they will,” Graham said during an interview with far-right outlet Newsmax. “We had the largest turnout in the history of the state” in 2020, Graham said, and added that voting rights “shouldn’t be an issue” because states like South Carolina “make it easy to vote,” which is far from the truth.

Lindsey Graham: "God bless Sinema, God bless Senator Manchin. I hope they hold. I believe they will." pic.twitter.com/NUh8r0QzkK

— Jason Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) January 11, 2022

While some states made it easier to vote by mail due to the pandemic, other states with high numbers of voters of color were plagued by long lines and extended waits. Some lines for early voting in the state required voters to wait six or more hours. In Graham’s home state of South Carolina, voters in the capital waited in line for hours to vote early on the Saturday before the election.

Schumer to Cornyn: Mind if I borrow your chart?
Schumer: My good colleague from Texas says 94% of voters said voting was easy in 2020. So why don’t we keep it that way? Isn’t it true that all of the changes that we are arguing about are post 2020? https://t.co/HLuVWkWBWS pic.twitter.com/Hi55n8LD1i

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— Acyn (@Acyn) January 11, 2022