LEADER JEFFRIES: "JOE BIDEN HAS A VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF AN INCLUSIVE ECONOMY THAT GROWS THE MIDDLE CLASS"
Statement
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Good morning. Great to be with you.
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Well, the polling has been all over the place, but I'm confident that at the end of the day, in November, the overwhelming majority of African Americans, Caribbean Americans, Black voters throughout the country will support President Biden, understand that he has delivered over and over and over again on issues of concern. Whether that's the lowest rate of Black unemployment in decades, whether that's historic investment in historically Black colleges and universities, making sure that he has been supportive, incredibly so, of small business creation and entrepreneurship in the Black community, building upon the efforts that had been previously done by President Barack Obama. And Joe Biden has a vision for the future of an inclusive economy that grows the middle class and ensures things like homeownership within the African-American community can continue to grow.
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Well, I've traveled throughout the country and spent time, of course, in the district that I represent here in Brooklyn, and there is a high degree of enthusiasm for President Joe Biden, and it is growing. President Joe Biden had an incredible State of the Union address. He was strong, he was serious and he was substantive and he drew a clear contrast between his vision of moving America forward in an enlightened way that's inclusive of everyone and the contrast with the extreme MAGA Republicans who want to turn back the clock. Turn back the clock on reproductive freedom. Turn back the clock on voting rights. Turn back the clock by ending Social Security and Medicare as we know it. President Joe Biden is on the right side of those issues. On the right side of those issues for the American people.
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Tom Suozzi ran a great campaign. He communicated with voters. He talked about common-sense solutions to meeting the challenges that are facing the American people. Now, we believe, as Democrats, that we have a broken immigration system and that we need to address the clear challenges at the border. President Biden has repeatedly made that clear, entered into negotiations with Republicans who decided to detonate their own border policy bill because they were ordered to do so by Donald Trump who's more interested in playing political games than solving the challenges at the border. Tom Suozzi leaned in to the fact that he supported the bipartisan bill that was being negotiated in the Senate, and that Republicans are the ones who walked away from it. That is what was decisive in that campaign.
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Invasion is not a word that I would ever use. I'm not sure whether he used that word or not or in what context. I do know what Tom Suozzi said is that he believes that we are a nation of immigrants, of course, through his own experience, his grandfather coming over from Italy. At the same period of time, we need to also deal with the challenges that we confront at the border, anchored in the notion that we also are a nation based on the rule of law, and we can and should do both.
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Of course we don't need an alternative when you have a comprehensive, bipartisan national security bill that has come over from the Senate, and all we need is an up or down vote in the House of Representatives, and everyone in Washington knows that it will secure at least 300 votes, if not more, so we can meet the needs of America's national security—
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We can support our Democratic allies in Ukraine and Israel, humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians who are in harm's way, support our allies in the Indo-Pacific. That's a question for Mike Johnson, when he knows that the House has the votes to act on America's national security interests. The reason why it's not happening is because there's a pro-Putin faction in the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, who are blocking this legislation. And that's shameful.
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We haven't had that conversation as a Caucus, but I have made the observation that I believe there are a reasonable number of Members, if the Speaker were to do the right thing, that don't believe that he should fall as a result of it.
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