Mark DeSaulnier Pressed On Taking 'Real Action' Against Trump: 'Democrats Seem Weak, Unorganized'_ 'Democrats Seem Weak, Unorganized'

During a town hall on Wednesday, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) was asked about Democratic opposition to the Trump Administration's actions.

Transcript

00:00First question is from Colleen. Colleen asks, is there a plan to stop this administration

00:07through ignoring court orders, disappearing people, and taking stronger, real action?

00:13The Democrats seem weak, disorganized, and lacking an action plan.

00:17We are a country on for leadership, and it's missing.

00:20Yeah, and I, I, everybody hear me.

00:30Can you hear me? There we go.

00:42And I'll hold it up to my mouth.

00:44So, we've heard a lot of this, and I think we deserve, we deserve some of the criticism.

00:50We weren't prepared for this.

00:52I mean, the minority party in the Congress and Democrats.

00:55And I'll say, speaking for myself, I don't think anybody could have predicted the level of intensity.

01:01Maybe you could in the first three months.

01:05So, we do have what's called a rapid response team.

01:08It's led by two wonderful members, Jamie Raskin, who's two degrees from Harvard, one from law school.

01:16He's a constitutional attorney.

01:19He's a good friend.

01:20We served on the Oversight and Rules Committee together, and Joe Neguse, who's another attorney from Colorado.

01:27So, we now have, we're really ramped up.

01:30We have partners outside, and we have filed amicus briefs against a lot of these cases.

01:37So, we're working with groups outside and inside.

01:41There are available websites where you can go and get in real time what's happening and who's behind the cases.

01:48So, I agree with the sentiment, but I think we've ramped it up significantly, and we're being successful.

01:56I'll tell you one thing about the time I've been in politics.

01:59It's just, it's a new world about getting information to people.

02:03It used to be you got an article in the local newspaper, no offense to the TV people from local TV.

02:08Now, it's reaching people.

02:10We just did a survey in the Democratic Caucus.

02:14If you're under 45 nationally, 85% of the people get their news from YouTube, Facebook.

02:21If you're over 45, like I am, and many of you are, we still get our news from what's called traditional media.

02:28So, ABC, NBC, Fox, those things.

02:32So, it's just, it is a struggle to get people's attention right now, and we're trying to figure that out.

02:36So, we are, we're working hard, and feel free to send us questions about where you can get that.

02:44On the ethics side, we're doing, we're going to be doing towns like AOC and Bernie are on the political side,

02:52so I can get more of that information on that side.

02:54And we provide that on that side.

02:58So, we're doing more, but I want to say that you're right, but we're really, we're very engaged,

03:05and we've got very competent members working on this all the time and being successful with outside partners.