00:00I'll start with the election piece because it kind of came up before.
00:04Steve Bannon and some members of the administration have come out publicly kind of flirting with the idea of putting DHS outside of polling locations for the November elections.
00:17Personally, I believe that it has to be part of the DHS negotiation to prevent that and tie their hands in being able to deploy ICE agents who are killing U.S. citizens from being anywhere near a poll site this November.
00:39Point blank period.
00:40In terms of like the strategizing, I do not know if our leadership, like in terms of that for a long term, but we have to use political, we have to use our political power and we have to use our political pressure.
00:59What I can say is that, frankly, the outrage last May at refusing to hold people's ground on the shutdown resonated a lot in Washington.
01:13There were a lot of moderates, especially in the Senate, that just wanted to fold right away and they experienced a lot of backlash after that.
01:22So that it is literally people's mobilizing in May.
01:27That is what gave them the spine to actually go through with a shutdown in September, demanding reversal on the ACA cuts.
01:37So just know that this is starting to work, but we're going to we this upcoming fight on DHS is it.
01:46This is the moment.
01:48This is the moment.
01:50We have to send that message to.
01:54Love them.
01:55We have to send that message to both of our senators here in New York State.
02:00And we need to make very clear that this is the there is no other bite at the apple.
02:08This is it.
02:09The funding fight and the DHS funding fight is it because this is something known as a CR.
02:15The next one is most likely well after November.
02:18And so this is the showdown that we've got.
02:21So we need to shore up our elections there.
02:24And then something that I'm very proud of in our community is that we are mobilizing.
02:30We are very mobilized and well organized here in Astoria, but across our congressional district.
02:37That's what allowed the the depth of organizing that we do here is what allows me to be able to punch so hard down there.
02:46Right.
02:47I will.
02:49And that's that's up to you.
02:50That's I mean, it really is you all, because what I'm able to do is.
02:55Because I've had plenty of situations where I've been under a lot of pressure from Democratic leadership to fold or to not speak up or whatever.
03:04And I say, look at where I'm from.
03:09Do you think they're going to let me get away with that?
03:11And because everybody knows what Queens is like and what the Bronx is like, they're like, OK, you know.
03:24And so it is the depth of organizing that creates a lot of that strength.
03:28And we should be doing that as an entire city delegation.
03:34We should be doing that as a state.
03:36We should be doing that across the country.
03:38But I can say that the ground has shifted so much nationally on the politics of ICE that I have seen so many people that had more moderate kind of seen as, quote unquote, moderate.
03:51Now standing up Republicans having to put out defensive statements about this.
03:56Because this moment is very real.
03:59And so I want to thank you all for the organizing that you're doing here.
04:03And it also allows us to on the political side, you know, there are special I can't talk about like electoral politics in an official setting like this.
04:13But just know that it has an effect.
04:15And it also allows us to try to travel the country and help in that respect as well.
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