Sinema Trashes Dems: ‘Old Dudes Eating Jell-O’
The Arizona senator courts GOP donors by ridiculing her former Democratic colleagues.
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...Sinema has used a series of Republican-dominated receptions and retreats this year to belittle her Democratic colleagues, shower her GOP allies with praise and, in one case, quite literally give the middle finger to President Joe Biden’s White House.
And that’s before an audience.
Speaking in private, whether one-on-one or with small groups of Republican senators, she’s even more cutting, particularly about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whom she derides in harshly critical terms, according to senior Republican officials directly familiar with her comments.
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“Those lunches were ridiculous,” she told a small group of Republican lobbyists at a reception in Washington this year in explaining why she had stopped attending her caucus’ weekly luncheons in the Capitol...
Then she let loose.
“Old dudes are eating Jell-O, everyone is talking about how great they are,” Sinema recounted to gales of laughter. “I don’t really need to be there for that. That’s an hour and a half twice a week that I can get back.”
Now she was rolling.
“The Northerners and the Westerners put cool whip on their Jell-O,” she shared, “and the Southerners put cottage cheese.”
Cue the groans.
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It was the sort of comment that reminded me of what one of her Democratic colleagues, a confirmed moderate, told me in private earlier this year about Sinema: “She’s the biggest egomaniac in the Senate.”
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After thrilling the Republican lobbyists by saying that the country’s declining faith in courts is “the Senate’s fault” for eliminating the judicial filibuster (read: Harry Reid, not Mitch McConnell, started this), Sinema recounted how she was able to get a federal judge from Arizona easily confirmed in the divided Senate.
A White House aide telephoned Sinema last summer, she said, and told her she’d have to make sure all 50 Senate Democrats at the time were present for the vote to confirm Roopali Desai to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Sinema said she told the aide there was no need to fret because the vote would be bipartisan.
Then she revealed who the aide was, saying “that was Klain,” as she quickly flashed her middle finger in the air to demonstrate what she thinks of the powerful and now-departed White House chief of staff.
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After the laughter died down, Sinema boasted that Judge Desai picked up 67 votes in a swift confirmation and then got in one final dig at the White House. “I did not call Ron back,” she said.
At another Republican-filled fundraiser in Washington this year, Sinema chided Schumer.
Taking questions around the room, as she prefers to do rather than give remarks, the Arizonan encountered a lobbyist who said he was hoping to work with the Senate Democratic leader on finding a compromise over energy permitting. Sinema looked at the lobbyist and shot back: Oh, good luck, according to an attendee.
It’s not just liberals who she’ll take aim at, though. At fundraisers, Sinema has mocked the name Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) bestowed on the climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, likening it to the moniker of the initially unpopular health law now known as “Obamacare”: the Affordable Care Act.
And when a Republican donor told the Arizona senator that it was not Manchin but Sinema who “carried the water for us in this last Congress,” she responded: “You’re hired.”
When the donor said, “Without you our taxes would’ve gone through the roof,” she concurred: “They would have.”
On Manchin, Sinema complained that “people often assume that we’re the same person” but then twice noted to the corporate crowd that she has “better tax policy ideas” than the West Virginian, who remains a traditional Democrat when it comes to taxing the wealthy.
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Sinema’s sniping spree has delighted the Republican lawmakers, lobbyists and donors who’ve taken in the show, giving some of them hope that she can be convinced to caucus with the GOP, either in this Congress or in the case she’s reelected as an independent.
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It’s hard to overstate Sinema’s closeness with private equity, in particular. She spent part of her 2020 summer recess interning at a Sonoma winery owned by an executive in the industry; she single-handedly ensured taxing carried interest on private equity earnings was kept out of the IRA legislation, as Schumer memorably blurted out. And one senior administration official told me they’ve concluded the way to win Sinema’s vote on a crucial agency nominee is to have private equity executives weigh in with her.
After raising large sums from the finance industry in New York and a range of corporate lobbyists in Washington this year, Sinema’s Republican donor tour took her to the resort community of Sea Island, Georgia, earlier this month for the American Enterprise Institute’s annual forum there.
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She...offered an above-it-all presentation in which she disparaged Washington’s ways and said she didn’t like characterizing one’s rivals.
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Among those in the room who actually work in politics, and weren’t just hearing from Sinema for the first time, the reception was far more restrained. Which is to say if they had let their eyes roll collectively it may have caused tidal activity in the Atlantic.
This, along with the basic mathematical challenge of winning as an independent in polarized times, may be Sinema’s ultimate challenge: the risk that the voters will eventually catch up to her schtick.
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Sinema is going back to Sonoma in May for a $5,000 per-person “Weekend of Wine and Food,” according to an invitation. August will bring a Maui event for her leadership PAC. And then in the fall, she’ll head up to mountains around Sedona, Arizona.
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Some of Sinema’s friends believe she’ll retire rather than risk losing. ...Her appetites for luxury hotels, car services and
charter flights, as laid out in her campaign finance reports, are
ample...