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On Sunday before the Spurs' game against the Philadelphia 76ers, he took aim at Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who voted with Republicans to block the advancement of a sweeping voting rights bill that was supported by Democrats and U.S. President Joe Biden. The vote Wednesday night to end debate on the bill was shot down, 51-49, with every Republican voting against moving the bill. Popovich's comments came after being asked about Juneteenth becoming a national holiday. "As many have said, it’s been time, it’s past time for hardball,” Popovich said. "The Republican Senate will just not participate, they just will not. So, whatever can be done needs to be done. And Sinema and Manchin, they get it, but they don’t get it. They know what’s going on. They understand. But there are more important things to them, and it’s damn selfish and dangerous to our country."
The letter is perhaps the most outspoken the most successful coach in modern college football has ever been regarding politics, though Saban and West have been longtime supporters of Manchin, a Democratic senator in a state that former president Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020.
Congratulations on the honor and your upcoming trip to the White House. What do you make of it, being chosen to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and why is it happening now? Bob Cousy: The story is, three or four good friends came to me about four years ago and asked if I was prepared to perhaps be a recipient, and did I want them to pursue it? I told them I really had never pursued that type of acknowledgement before. But I also didn’t tell them “No.” So they went out with their plan. Congressman Jim McGovern [D-Mass.] agreed to help them. They put a portfolio together. We thought we had a pretty strong case to make to President Obama. We had a letter that President Kennedy had written to me. We got letters from [former Massachusetts governor] Deval Patrick and [Senator] Cory Booker [D-N.J.], but at the end of the day it didn’t happen. I became involved and reached out to a friend of mine -- who is Senator Joe Manchin’s [D-WVa.] closest friend, I guess -- and he reached out to Joe. And Joe is an honest politician who follows his conscience.
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