Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) joined three other Democratic Senators in a letter to President Biden on Thursday raising concerns over the administration’s failure to adequately provide rapid at-home Covid tests in a timely manner, as promised.
The surprise, of course, is that Senators within the President’s own party are now raising the same concerns that Republicans are raising and pointing out that the Biden White House has failed to deliver on several Covid-related promises.
It’s unclear whether Sinema and Manchin would’ve joined the letter were it not for such hatred and pressure being lobbed at them over their reluctance to change the Senate’s existing filibuster rules. In that realm, this may be “return fire” for Biden essentially labeling them “racist” for not supporting his voting rights agenda.
As it stands now, Biden’s in trouble with members of his own party who have to deal with voters in November to defend his failures:
A group of Democratic senators say they have “grave concerns” about the Biden administration’s response to COVID-19 and have asked the White House’s pandemic point man to explain ongoing test shortages and related issues.
In a Thursday letter to COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients, Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) asked point-blank “why the Administration failed to take more significant steps earlier to increase access to at-home tests.”
“Across America, there are lines for city blocks long to get COVID testing, signs in pharmacies saying they are out of rapid tests, hospitals operating under crisis standards of care, health care staff and first responders falling ill, and millions of people who are exhausted from the toll this pandemic has had,” the lawmakers wrote.
This is brutal coming from a group of Democrats, but they clearly see what’s on the line here. If Biden continues on this pace, Covid will become a far greater liability for Democrats than it already is.
The Biden administration has been focused on nuking the filibuster, a move which simply isn’t going to happen, rather than working double time on dealing with inflation or providing rapid at-home Covid-19 tests. There’s clearly a problem with priorities in the White House and people like Manchin and Sinema see it rather clearly.
There is little excuse for the current state of Covid testing, especially when Biden was presented with a plan back in October but shot it down:
The White House reportedly rejected an expert plan in October that called for the production of 732 million tests per month in a “Testing Surge To Prevent [a] Holiday COVID surge” and for “Every American Household to Receive Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays/New Year.”
Those facts are coming back to haunt this administration now when they can’t seem to get a foothold against Covid in any meaningful way. The end result is that media outlets and government officials are beginning to shy away from emphasizing daily Covid case counts because the numbers are so high and look very, very bad for a President that promised to “shut down the virus.”
When members of Biden’s own party are asking questions, perhaps the White House should refocus efforts on living up to at least one promise rather than chase down dead-end legislation that has no chance of passing.
