00:00Whip Clark, thank you very much. And I want to really first of all say thank you to each and every one of you that are out here today, all of my colleagues, Terry Sewell, who is the co-chair of the Voting Rights Caucus, that have taken the time to come out here today to talk about something that is happening in Texas.
00:18But as the Whip pointed out, we are really concerned that we're going to see this all across the country. And I really cannot overstate the gravity of this moment that we're in. Across the country, Donald Trump is behaving like a dictator and issuing marching orders to his subservient, these subservient governors around the country to try and rig the elections before a single vote is cast.
00:45And let me be clear, this is an authoritarian move. And when authoritarians know their policies are failing, when they gut health care, they jack up energy bills, the Trump tariff taxes, the big ugly bill, they know they have to cheat to win.
01:02And that is what's happening right now. Worst of all, they're using these catastrophic floods as a political ploy and cover to silence the voices of millions of Texans, mainly Hispanic, black and Asian Texans.
01:17And today, along with my fellow Texas Democrats, we have introduced an emergency flood relief bill to support the victims as we rebuild following this tragedy, because what's happening in Texas, again, is only the beginning.
01:30Trump is not going to stop in Texas. This is a show that he is going to try to take on the road. And we know that he won't stop here.
01:40He said he'd leave Roe v. Wade alone. He lied about that. He said he knew nothing about Project 25. Project 2025. He lied about that.
01:50He said he was not going to gut children's health care. Of course, we just saw him recently do that. The Voting Rights Act, continually trying to gut that.
01:58They can't win on policy. So now they're trying to redraw the maps.
02:03And don't believe them when they say this redistricting is about fairness. Don't trust them when they say race has nothing to do with this.
02:11If you give them an inch, they're going to take everything. And so Trump's vision of this country is one where you have to pass a loyalty test just to be able to vote.
02:20And so we want to stop this. We're not going to allow Greg Abbott and Donald Trump to drag us backwards.
02:27We have made progress in this country when it pertains to voting rights.
02:33And now we're starting to see them over the last 10, 20 years. We're starting to see a rollback from the 1960s.
02:39And we are absolutely not going to stand here and be silent. We are going to fight against this.
02:47And we will do everything that it takes here in Congress, working with our state legislators and in the courts to make sure that everyone has access to the ballot box and that we have fair lines.
02:59So with that, I am going to introduce again the co-founder and co-chair of the Voting Rights Caucus, Terry Sewell from the great state of Alabama.
