Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King told MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard what they thought of Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s refusal to allow President Joe Biden’s voting rights agenda to advance.

Hillyard caught up to the son of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. King’s wife Arndrea, and their daughter Yolanda as they prepared to march for voting rights in Sinema’s home state of Arizona on what would have been their father’s 92nd birthday.

“Good to meet you guys,” Hillyard said, and asked “Can I ask you guys why Arizona? Why here, today?”

Mr. King explained “Well, Arizona, in one sense, is near ground zero, I say near because unfortunately, there are 19 states that have passed regressive laws, including our own state of Georgia. And we believe that as it relates to getting this, these bills passed, that Senator Sinema has been one of the challenges. And so it made sense to come to Arizona. Some regressive laws, we feel, have been put in place that make it harder for people to vote.”

Hillyard described Sinema’s speech this week defending her decision not to carve out a filibuster exception for voting rights which took place  following a major address during which President Joe Biden urged the Senate to take such a measure.

He asked “When you heard her floor speech, what was on your mind and what is your response?”

“First of all, I was just greatly disappointed that you stand in the way, and have the gall to not realize that what is being done in all of these states, it’s about the filibuster,” Mr. King said. “And yet every last one of these states that have passed these regressive laws have done it with all Republican legislatures, not bipartisan support. So that, to me, seems to be not a sufficient argument.”

Mr. King also noted that “64 percent of the people support voting rights protections and expansion.”

Mrs. King added that Dr. King “was here in Arizona in 1964, and he stated then that if the filibuster was not to be eliminated, the health of our nation was at harm.”

Mrs. King went on to say that “we have to have federal voting rights protection laws passed and we must have them passed now. You can go to deliverforvotingrights.com. You need to call your senators, you need to sign petitions and make your voices heard on this matter.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

The post WATCH: Martin Luther King III Pushes Back at Sinema on Voting Rights Live on MSNBC first appeared on Mediaite.

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