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After Biden took the national spotlight last Tuesday in Georgia to demand the Senate change its rules \"whichever way they need to be changed to prevent a minority of senators from blocking actions on voting rights,\" he met with Sinema and Manchin privately at the White House. As he headed to the Hill last Thursday to meet with lawmakers, Sinema stunningly took to the Senate floor and reiterated her opposition to what the president had just publicly called for.

Republicans, meanwhile, have argued Biden went too far in his attacks on the GOP, tying their obstruction on the bill to Jim Crow-era racism, with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slamming Biden's speech from the Senate chamber as \"profoundly, profoundly un-presidential\" and as a \"rant\" that was \"incoherent, incorrect and beneath his office.\"

\"PHOTO:
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
PHOTO: Martin Luther King III, his wife Arndrea Waters King and daughter Yolanda Renee King take part in a Peace Walk on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., Jan. 17, 2022.
>

As activists continue to push for federal action, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said over the weekend he was never contacted by the White House to try and gain support for passing voting rights legislation.

\"Sadly, this election reform bill that the president has been pushing, I never got a call on that from the White House. There was no negotiation, bringing the Republicans and Democrats together to try to come up with something that would meet bipartisan interest,\" he told NBC's \"Meet The Press\" on Sunday.

\"PHOTO:
Megan Varner/Getty Images, FILE
PHOTO: President Joe Biden delivers remarks on voting rights legislation at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, part of both Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University, Jan. 11, 2022, in Atlanta.
>

With the Senate finally taking up voting rights Tuesday, the president is scheduled to remain out of sight, according to his schedule, but at the White House for briefings.

Biden is scheduled to hold a news conference on Wednesday, one day before marking his first year in office, where he'll likely face questions on the issue of voting rights -- among other unfinished agenda items.

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