Jen Psaki on Friday gave advice to those upset about the failure ofvoting rights legislation.- "Feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, do whatever you need to do this weekend," she said on "The View."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday encouraged people angry with the failure of federal voting rights legislation to "go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, do whatever you need to do this weekend" before resuming the fight next week.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday unanimously voted to block debate on The Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, a wide-ranging 735-page bill combining two pieces of legislation that Republicans filibustered in 2021. The measure would have enacted sweeping expansions of voting rights, imposed new campaign finance reforms, and refortified parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 struck down or weakened by the Supreme Court in recent years.
The legislation itself was blocked and a subsequent vote to change the Senate's filibuster rules to allow for easier passage of the bill also failed. Two Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, joined all 50 Republicans in opposing a one-time change that would have required the GOP to sustain a talking filibuster to block the bill.
"My advice to everyone out there who's frustrated, sad, angry, pissed off: feel those emotions, go to a kickboxing class, have a margarita, do whatever you need to do this weekend, and then wake up on Monday morning, we gotta keep fighting," Psaki said in a Friday appearance on ABC's "The View."
Psaki specifically said the White House and voting advocates have to "keep talking" to members of Congress about federal action to protect voting rights and "make sure people are educated in states across the country about what their rights are: how they can vote, when they can vote, how they can request an absentee ballot."
"There's a lot we need to do on that front and that's going to rely on the energy and the anger of that activism as well," she added.
—The Recount (@therecount) January 21, 2022
Just hours before the failed votes in the Senate, President Joe Biden expressed confidence in his first solo news conference of 2022 that voters would be able to overcome barriers to the ballot box enacted by Republican-controlled state legislatures.
"Well, I think if, in fact — no matter how hard they make it for minorities to vote, I think you're going to see them willing to stand in line and — and defy the attempt to keep them from being able to vote. I think you're going to see the people who they're trying to keep from being able to show up," he said.
"But it's going to be difficult. I make no bones about that," Biden added. "It's going to be difficult. But we're not there yet. We've not run out of options yet."