Colorado Politics

Bennet talks Alaska, child tax credits, Republicans on ‘Morning Joe’

Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on national TV Monday morning spoke about topics ranging from tax credits and voting rights to the Republican politics in Alaska .

A guest on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe,” Bennet began by discussing the Alaskan GOP voting to endorse the incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s primary challenger, Kelly Tshibaka on Saturday.

Murkowski, a moderate Republican, voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges over the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

“She’s incredibly tough,” Bennet told titular co-host Joe Scarborough, standing inside the Capitol. “She’s incredibly honest. I’m not sure there’s anybody in this building with more integrity than Lisa Murkowski, and I think the people of Alaska know that.”

Bennet’s office on Monday afternoon pointed to his remarks on President Joe Biden, including Bennet’s proposed expansion of the child tax credit (from Bennet’s American Family Act) in the American Rescue Plan Act.

Bennet’s office said in a media statement that “Bennet continues to work with the administration and his colleagues in Congress to ensure the entire CTC expansion is made permanent.”

Bennet told Scarborough the credit would cut childhood poverty almost in half by going from $2,000 to $3,000 per child, and $3,600 for children younger than 6. He said 65 million children would benefit.

“It’s fully refundable which means, for the first time in the country’s history, the millions of children who are the poorest children will receive it, and it will be paid out starting on July 15 on a monthly basis for the next six months,” he said.

Bennet was the most animated in the segment when he discussed voting rights, name-checking Colorado’s diverse voter base and safe, successful elections.

He took aim at Republicans again for their threat to use Senate rules to block Democrats’ attempts to pass voting rights legislation, as a number of GOP-led legislatures are trying to amend rules at the state level that the left says are intended to discourage minority voters.

“I do not, for one, believe that Mitch McConnell’s … bastardization of the filibuster and the Senate rules should stand in the way of our ability to make sure that we protect the American people’s right to show up, participate in this democracy and make sure we can actually compete with totalitarian societies around the world,” Bennet said.

On infrastructure, Bennet noted Murkowski had been part of the bipartisan negotiations.

“I would say that I think that the big dividing line right now here is that the Republicans in Washington are unwilling to vote to repeal a single cent of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and they’ll stretch to every degree to avoid doing that,” Bennet said. “And that’s going to make it very hard for them, I think in the end, to pass a large bipartisan infrastructure bill.”

Watch the entire interview by clicking here.

Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, far right, talks with “Morning Joe” co-hosts, from left, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and Jonathan Lemire, an Associated Press reporter and political analyst for MSNBC, on Monday, July 12, 2021.
Photo courtesy of MSNBC via YouTube
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