During a press conference on Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) spoke about the Republican-led Texas legislature which decided to hold a special session redrawing Congressional districts in Texas next week following deadly floods in Texas.
00:00Democrats in the Senate have been working incredibly hard to push back aggressively against Donald Trump's extreme agenda.
00:07We partnered closely with Senate Democrats under the leadership of Chuck Schumer to strongly and uniformly oppose Donald Trump's one big ugly bill.
00:17And I'm confident that Senate Republicans will continue to rubber stamp Donald Trump's extreme judicial choices and Senate Democrats will continue to aggressively push back on behalf of the American people.
00:34Now, this whole situation that America has found itself in over the last six plus months has been one big corrupt, chaotic and cruel project that has been unleashed on the American people.
00:57And it continues.
00:58I mean, this Texas thing shouldn't surprise anyone because despite the claims by House Republican leaders that the American people have fallen in love with these extremists in the House of Representatives.
01:16And so they're acting upon a mandate.
01:19Give me a break.
01:21The only reason, the only reason that House Republicans even have a majority right now is because they stole three seats from the people of North Carolina.
01:37North Carolina is a 50-50 state.
01:41Donald Trump narrowly won the state in 2024.
01:44It's a Democratic governor, a Democratic lieutenant governor, a Democratic attorney general, Democratic elected officials across the state of North Carolina, who won on the same day.
01:57North Carolina is a 50-50 state.
02:01The North Carolina congressional delegation, which previously had fair congressional lines, produced a 50-50 congressional delegation.
02:10Seven Democrats, seven Democrats, seven Republicans, as recently as January 2nd of this year.
02:18That was the makeup of the North Carolina congressional delegation.
02:22What happened?
02:25Republicans engaged in mid-decade redistricting in a 50-50 state that had fair maps and produced an evenly divided delegation
02:34and took it from 7-7, stole three seats that were in Democratic hands from the people of North Carolina
02:43as a result of illegitimate mid-decade congressional gerrymandering,
02:50and turned that delegation into 10 Republicans and four Democrats.
02:55There's a three-seat difference in the House of Representatives right now
03:01when Republicans are at full strength and Democrats are at full strength, 220 Republicans to 215 Democrats.
03:09That entire difference, the majority that Republicans have, can be explained solely by the fact that they cheated in North Carolina.
03:20These people have zero credibility in terms of the issues that they are allegedly championing on behalf of the American people.
03:31If you believed in your ideas and the power of your issues,
03:35then why are you trying to cheat now in Texas just like you did in North Carolina?
03:41The problem that Republicans confront is that the Texas congressional map is already gerrymandered.
03:51And so this gerrymander may actually turn into a dummymander
03:55because they are going to create a situation where four, five, six, seven, eight Republicans
04:03who are currently in safe districts are going to be on the front line of our efforts to flip seats.
04:11Particularly in a midterm election where Donald Trump is deeply unpopular
04:18and his signature one big ugly bill is deeply unpopular.
04:24Imagine a group of people, this is how corrupt they are,
04:28who in the middle of a search and rescue operation
04:34that is taking place in Texas right now,
04:37dozens of children drowned to death.
04:44Some of that has to do with incompetence in the Texas state government
04:47and incompetence in the Trump administration.
04:52And instead of actually trying to be there for the people of Texas
04:56and the Hill Country, children at summer camp
04:59who's lost their lives.
05:05They call a special session.
05:08And the main reason for that special session is to try to steal the midterm elections
05:13by rigging the Texas congressional map.
05:18These people are complete and total embarrassment.
05:22The American people are not going to stand for it.
05:24And things aren't going to get better for them.
05:29Politically, they're only going to get worse.
