used to be very bipartisan. ronald reagan supported extension of the voting rights act. george w. bush and george h.w. bush supported it. when it used to come up in the congress, it got large margins. what s happened is this is a new republican party. this is a fact we re impressing on all of our colleagues, all 50 of our colleagues. it s a different republican party, run by donald trump. and the fidelity to election, the fidelity to democracy, is no longer there. donald trump the other day endorsed orban. this man is a dictator who is undoing whatever democracy hungary had. and i believe his beliefs are similar. it s his own ego, he wants to just dominate, and he doesn t care about our democracy, our history, about the rights of people to vote. and by the way, and so that is spread, all the republicans, almost every single one of them, all seven who voted to impeach him, are no longer bucking
legislatures, are directly related and all stem from donald trump s big lie. the only way to curb this section perpetuation of the big lie is for congress to act. he s absolutely right. because of that connection between the pretext for the january 6th attack and the pretext for these voting rights restrictions that you just described, that the attorney general described today, i wonder what you make of the fact that a number of republican senators voted to impeach donald trump for what happened on january 6th, voted to impeach him for his role in inciting that attack on the capitol and that effort to overthrow the election, and yet even those senators will not vote to protect voting rights against attacks that are undergirded by the same claims. if these things are in fact connected, why are republicans who recognize one side of that not recognizing the other? well, we re in a different republican party than we used to be. you know, voting rights, rachel,
attacks that are undergirded by the same claims. if these things are in fact connected, why are republicans who recognize one side of that not recognizing the other? well, we re in a different republican party than we used to be. you know, voting rights, rachel, used to be very bipartisan. ronald reagan supported extension of the voting rights act. george w. bush and george h.w. bush supported it. when it used to come up in the congress, it got large margins. what s happened is this is a new republican party. this is a fact we re impressing on all of our colleagues, all 50 of our colleagues. it s a different republican party, run by donald trump. and the fidelity to election, the fidelity to democracy, is no longer there. donald trump the other day endorsed orban. this man is a dictator who is undoing whatever democracy hungary had. and i believe his beliefs are similar. it s his own ego, he wants to just dominate, and he doesn t care about our democracy, our history, about the right
to do is accomplish things in a different way. donald trump wanted pence to rig the election. this law might say, well, let s let the state legislatures rig the election. neither is good. so i think this is a fake. i think it s a way to try and get the two senators that we have who are not on board to go for something that won t change the horrible, voracious change in the balance of power that will allow elections to slant things in the directions of republicans in a dramatic way, in an unfair way, in an un-small- d -democratic way. i m opposed to it. i m opposed to allowing that to be the subject of this conversation. it s no substitute for what we have to do. in terms of what you have to do, you ve put a specific timeline on this now. you ve said by the martin luther king holiday, by a week from monday, you want to vote on potentially changing the senate rules or carving out something to pass the voting rights
threats issue, though, what was most anticipated from attorney general garland today was his explication of why it is so far only low level people who showed up at the u.s. capitol at trump s urging on january 6th, why it is that only those low level people have been charged, while no one who actually ran the plan, no one who actually organized the plot of which the january 6th attack was a part, none of those folks has felt any kind of heat from law enforcement at all. now, to his credit, in my opinion, the attorney general answered that question today in a sort of helpful expository way, in a way that involved a helpful explanation for us, the public, about how complex prosecutions work. because we re not lawyers, no matter how many, you know, legal procedurals you watch or read, it s good to hear for real about how these things work. it s good to have it explained, how simpler crimes, lower level crimes, the easier stuff to prosecute, on purpose gets