democrats on the record, opposing the filibuster including senators mention and sinema. everyone s throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. i don t know the answers to those questions, i m not sure anyone does. president biden is right about the threats that america is facing and if democrats are not gonna address the filibuster, then the threats will only get worse. at least 51 democratic members of texas state legislature have fled the state. they are now in washington, d.c.. they met today with vice president kamala harris in the afternoon. and they said instead of texas, because republicans want to pass a bill that will make it even harder to vote in the state. now, there is no filibuster in the texas legislature which is the case in most states. it s just majority ruled there, right? and there is a minority. they don t have the luxury of that majority threshold so they re taking desperate, extraordinary measures that in some ways the filibuster, once represented by the
an assault on liberty. an assault on who we are. who we are as americans. we re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the civil war. it s not hyperbole. since the civil war. it s an incredibly powerful thing to say. he says it s not hyperbole, and i agree with him it s not hyperbole. republicans are passing laws making it harder to vote in states across the country. of course, they re using the predicate of the big lie to do so. conservatives on the supreme court have gutted suspensions to, four, and five of the voting rights act. the country has basically only been an actual multi racial democracy in a recognizable sense since 1965, on the voting rights act was passed. it s a very short history we ve been working on. and the president made the case today that there is an urgent problem. and again, he s right. unfortunately, the solution to that problem, the path forward
is fraud in voting, so that when democrats win, an election in texas for senate, or the next presidential election, republicans can invalidate that election. and that, in the end, is the agenda that i worry about. in 2022, or 24, a big election being won by democrats and republicans in a place like georgia or texas invalidating that election. if that happens, there s going to be a conversation about whether we can still be all in this together. if odors, if their opinions don t matter in certain parts of the country and their choices can be invalidated. that is an existential threat to the people of the united states. that s why i worry about what is happening in texas and other places. do you think that the the voting rights act one of the most successful pieces of legislation in american history,
there. eight years later. and remains unconvinced. that is right. you ve got the votes you need to get something passed. you lose the people that you can lose, you let people take votes that they need to take. but i think a lot has happened since 2013, we had eight years of republican obstruction. people still thought that it was going to break and that since then we saw republicans go far off to the right, to start to head in and authoritarian direction. if democrats can take the education of those years and apply them, apply those facts to the situation at hand, that is a problem. i have faith that they can do that. we have learned a lot. the democrats can be realistic about the prospects of voting rights and how dire those prospects are if we don t reform the filibuster. so you just think, what i m hearing from you is that you just work this and you pressure,
and a signature turning point in making the country truly a democracy. for the first time, i would argue, in the certain sense. but if the stakes are that high can the caucus get to unanimity on it? yes, good question, chris. right now, we have not been able to convince all over democratic colleagues that the stakes are that high thus we shouldn t give republicans in the senate a minority, minority veto. my hope is that we will be able to deliver a change in fools. we re talking about making it potentially limited to changes in voting laws that may be a way to get our caucus together. if we don t, i really fear that we re going to be sitting here two years from now, four years from now, with a senate