take in a few minutes. i ve been struck by a lot of people criticizing joe biden s speech whether you thought he went too far or what have you. we re in a break glass in case of emergency moment and i wrote about it in this book and talked to you about it, people more upset when people say that they are on the same side as the biggots, that s not what joe biden said. he said if you re against voting rights, you are on the same side as those folks. doesn t mean you are that. but it makes people think about it and i think history may look back if we continue along this road and it may look back favorably on that joe biden speech because he i think he will be right if we continue to gut voting rights and restrict especially people of color from voting, from access to the voting box. i think you re right.
democrats when they re back in the minority. it s hard to see how this gets resolved given these philosophical oppositions to performing the filibuster. i think which have to recognize that the filibuster has absolutely its roots in jim crow. and if we are to talk about an enfranchised america, we want to make sure we have access to the voting booth equally regardless of zip code, so every single american can play by the same rules. sarah, why is it so important to pass the freedom to vote act? exactly what you said. not only does this roll out a uniform standard to assure equitable access to the voting box for every american voter, but particularly those in marginalized and disenfranchised communities. it also sets the stan for what this democracy will be. we have seen extraordinary,
off. we condition show what s going on. i am putting on my mask. you can see most voters are plopping the mail-in ballot in the pink voting box, grab a sticker, head to work. we have seen a fair amount of people vote in person, for some families a tradition thing, others want the experience of coming into vote. not a lot of people in there, mostly workers. there s a real ebb and flow. the enthusiasm gap people worried about, particularly democrats when they focus on urban districts, this is a mixed minority community, lot of black and latino people here inside city limits that weren t jazzed up to vote. we have not seen that today. people are optimistic about voting and enthusiastic. responses have been surprisingly mixed. you would think this area heavily democratic, most people would vote no. it has been very mixed. a lot of people voting yes and
worried about? it limits access to the voting box, limits mail-in balloting, it does everything necessary to win elections by inches. elections are not about thousands of people when it s about a few people poll by poll. we have a leadership program we product called redemption, and it talks about the elections of 1875 and much of what is taking place now, if you read this book, some of the misinformation we read in the book is being repeated if you look at what took place in 1960, whether it s in south carolina or georgia, it s the same thing revisited. we have to look towards a future. stop allowing issues of the past keep reemerging. it s not a southern problem, it s a national problem now and that s unfortunate. eddie jump in. good to see you. you have the suits that are taking place, moving through the courts, you have grass roots
change things, right, because they re threatened by losing power, you know. so we need to be standing up for democracy. we need to be standing up for voters rights for all people, you know, and especially for the elders who can t get out to vote, you know, and might need to use the valid the voting box. reporter: are you optimistic, hopeful things can change? yes, i am optimistic and i m going to keep coming down because i know things can and will change. reporter: thank you. the best today. we heard from derek johnson, the head of the naacp, who said something fascinating. he was talking about how the march today isn t the big event, that the march is what happens in between the work you do to actually create change. i think that s the message a lot of the speakers here want to deliver, that people have to leave this rally and make sure they actually do the work to make this change. all right. nbc s josh lederman in d.c. thank you so much. we will continue on with our