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Clear? we're standing up to voter suppression. failure is not an option. voting is too sacred and everything will be on the table to get it done. >> in the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gone. not to the finish line. voting rights will be the very first matter of legislative business when the senate returns to session in september. >> so, i hear democrats, especially senate democrats talking a big day game about protecting voting rights, but if your caucus doesn't get rid of the filibuster, what can you really deliver? we know that you cannot get voting rights done without...

What justice department's attorney general would do that? this stuff is just crazy. >> right. as you were talking about the professionalism of donoghue and rosen, i'm sitting here and thinking in 2020, what they went through was sort of a stress test of the system. maybe this is really getting at what michael steele was saying before. how concerned should we be that doj and the american democratic, small d democratic apparatus won't be able to withstand another incredible shock to the system in '22 or '24, no matter who is sitting at doj, given the craziness that we've seen? >> listen, i suppo...

Likely. all i know is that we go through these periods and run up against a wall and something happens where people realize oh, my lord, this is really a problem. and they begin to see things. the fact that a lot of you remember friends are saying get vaccinated who before said it's not a problem. this is a democratic thing. a small d or a capitol d. a lot of things are changing. we have these surges of people going out and getting vaccinated. it keeps building. >> what about requiring proof, sir? >> there's two ways to do it. i think you're going to see some institutions doing that. like you'...

Protect voting rights could get passed? what time line are we perhaps looking at for that much needed reform? >> here's the thing, the president, as you mentioned, talked about this last night. and the thing that he said actually was, he believes we can do this in a bipartisan way. and this is something that, you know, he was a senator for 36 years, vice president for eight years, the bipartisan -- bipartisanship is the way to go here. he's been clear about voting rights. he said it's an attack on our democracy. what we're seeing across the country with these bills coming out of the state legi...

Civil rights act, the g.i. bill. this is on that magnitude. listen, social security effectively ended poverty for seniors. this can do the same or at least make a huge dent in child poverty. and we would not have it if we had relied on the 60-vote requirement, as you know. this got through a reconciliation. >> yeah. >> and it just shows you how critical it is to unlock the non-democratic, small d, barrier to very popular, very useful legislation. and i think we've gotten ourselves twisted up procedurally so we can't move the country forward in ways that are very bipartisan, very popular. >> er...