Melanie Stansbury Issues Urgent Message To Senate Democrats To Block CR

2 days ago

At a House Democratic Women's Caucus press briefing, Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) urged Senate Democrats to block the CR.

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Transcript

00:00I'll just do a rapid-fire kind of wrap-up that hopefully catches several of these things

00:09at once.

00:11My message to Senate Democrats is there's still time.

00:14There's three and a half hours until this cloture vote, and the American people literally

00:20are shouting from the rooftops that this is a five-alarm emergency and that we cannot

00:25hand the keys of the kingdom of this big, beautiful democracy that we love over to somebody

00:32who has total disregard not only for the rule of law but for American lives.

00:37And House Democrats and the Women's Caucus are 100 percent united behind the leadership

00:43of the House that has stood strong and stood tall and said we're going to be on the side

00:46of the American people in this fight.

00:49So any of my colleagues in the Senate who are considering voting on cloture, the American

00:53people are shouting, please do not hand the keys over to Elon Musk.

00:59With regards to women who may be thinking of running, I want to just add my two cents.

01:06I'm really glad that you asked that question.

01:09If you are thinking of running for office right now in America, answer the call and

01:13run because your country and your communities need you.

01:17I ran for office in 2018 because that was my protest against what I saw as the dangerous

01:24administration of the first Trump administration.

01:27I never intended to run for office.

01:29And like so many women who are literally standing behind us, we answered the call because we

01:34knew that our communities needed us.

01:37And in 2018, I flipped a seat that not only had never had a Democrat representing it,

01:43I flipped it by seven points and became the first woman and the first Democrat to represent

01:48a state house district.

01:50And it wasn't because I had any experience or because I knew what I was doing, but because

01:54I believed in the people and the communities that I represented.

01:58I had a voice inside of me that said you need to do something, just like Kamala Harris asked

02:03us to do something.

02:04Michelle Obama asked us to do something for our country.

02:07And so if you are thinking of running, answer the call.

02:10And I'll say this and wrap up to that.

02:142016 was the largest wave of women that we saw run for office, the year that Hillary

02:19Clinton ran for president.

02:21And EMILY's List, which is an organization that was created to help women understand

02:26how to raise money and network, told me when I ran for office in 2018 that the largest

02:31number of women that had ever asked them for help was 900 women in the 2016 cycle.

02:36In 2018, 42,000 women ran for office.

02:41Many of them are standing here today because something happened in 2018 that shook America

02:47awake.

02:48And we're living through that same tidal wave right now.

02:51So when you imagine what's going to happen in 2026, when you imagine all of the women,

02:57all of the people of color, all of the LGBTQ+, all the working class people who are being

03:02shaken awake right now and realize that they have to do something, I say answer the call.

03:07Run for office.

03:08Save our country.

03:09We need your voices.

03:10Don't be afraid because we've got your back and your country needs you.

Melanie Stansbury Issues Urgent Message To Senate Democrats To Block CR

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