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

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript


Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
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.

Recommended