CNN contributor Bakari Sellers compared Democrats who are opposed to ending the filibuster to those who were opposed to granting civil rights for African Americans in the sixties.
Sellers made the comments on CNN Tuesday after a report detailing the lack of support among Senate Democrats needed to change U.S. Senate regulations in order to push a voting rights act through Congress.
“This is as clear as I can be, Jake, and Chris Coons is a friend of mine,” said Sellers to Jake Tapper.
“But if [Sens.] Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) want to be on the side of George Wallace, want to be on the side of Strom Thurmond, and many others who stood in the way of civil rights, even Strom Thurmond came around on voting rights, but if they want to go down in history as standing on the side of segregationists and those who opposed people who look like me having free and fair access to the ballot, then we will remember them as such,” he continued.
“This is that type of moment and this is the urgency we have to have!” Sellers concluded.
Sellers’ comments were prompted by a speech from President Joe Biden in which he fully endorsed a carve-out for ending filibuster rules for the voting legislation endorsed by Democrats but opposed by Republicans.
CNN anchor Kasie Hunt opined in a tweet that Biden was too weak in the polls to be able to influence any senator to change their vote on the filibuster.
“President Joe Biden, freshly elected, changing his position on the filibuster might have moved the needle in the Senate,” she tweeted.
“Might have,” she emphasized. “It’s a much steeper climb now, as his approval rating downward trend clearly shows.”
Abby Phillips, another CNN anchor, called Biden’s comments “too little, too late,” and said that congressional sources indicated that Biden had not moved the needle at all toward the rule change among Democrats or Republicans.