Do you ever worry, like, obviously not this time, but maybe in future re-election elections, campaigns that could

come at you we can take nothing for granted nothing for granted here's the deal aisha won because she's talking to real folks folks are on the doors they're not just you know putting millions of dollars into tv ads aisha's an organizer at heart and folks respect the work that she has done listen if someone i have a challenger right now i'm clear I'm running my race and working for the people.

And you know this about me.

Sometimes I might have to bite my lip a little bit.

I don't play games with our politics.

I don't play petty politics.

I don't argue online.

Is there hope at the end of the tunnel? I guess is what I'm asking.

What more can you in the House do to take back its authority?

So there are two things that I see.

Actually, there are a number of things, but two things that pop up immediately.

One, we have a president who was duly elected who doesn't care about the Constitution.

And because I am a Democrat, we are in what we're calling the minority.

So we don't have control over the House of Representatives where I sit.

We don't have control over the Senate.

What does this mean moving forward if they are successful in November facing Republicans?

What's your response tonight to what the DOJ is doing in your state, Congresswoman?

You know, one of the things I think it's increasingly important to push forward is that the Trump administration and the GOP, they're investigating California because they're losing.

They're losing.

And I can give you this honest opinion that my attorney general, Attorney General Rob Bonta, they h- he has assured my office that there is absolutely no fraud going on.

You know, what we need to ask the Trump administration is to mind their business, and that should be upholding the Constitution of the United States throughout the great country of the United States of America, 'cause that's what they're not doing.

California, we're doing what we need to do to ensure a fair election.

And, um, as a Democrat, my hopes are, uh, that we can show the, uh, administration how it's done, how to move forward, and, you know, continuously uplift what a fair and, uh, true election looks like.

Are we seeing the groundwork laid for some Stop the Steal 2026, the midterm edition, in California?

Out of curiosity, what was the first phone call or text you made after learning about this plan?

I think you probably know.

I called Mayor Barbara Lee.

She is not only a mentor of mine.

She leads the city of Oakland.

And, you know, we talked for a while and we both decided to just hit the phones and call activists and organizers.

And, you know, I was just on the phone with the school principal in West Oakland.

But devil's advocate question here, is there any potential upside for folks in Oakland and the East Bay if this terminal is actually built?

[laughs]

So I think...

And I love that I'm...

But by the way, hello, family.

I miss you all.

I miss the Bay.

Every day I get out of my Lyft, and I'm like, "Oh, my God.

Okay.

What do you think operationally makes the most sense moving forward to keep the momentum going that these survivors have created by their presence, their voice, and making sure that, as Simone noted, there's accountability?

One of the things that I heard from the survivors today—I was with them earlier—they said it clearly, that it's going to take women to lead a new revolution in this country, where victims and survivors are centered, they are heard, they're respected, and the monsters who beat and rape and traffic them are held to account.

So, what you're seeing today is what victims and survivors deserve all over the country.

But I will say this.

It was Summerlee, Representative Summerlee, on the oversight committee that initially pushed for the subpoena.

We got the votes.

It was a black woman who moved this forward.

How do we break this finally?

Why are Republicans so recalcitrant about a request that really is this essential, this basic, this floor level?

The question we're all asking ourselves every day, but many of us have gleaned into what the answer is from the perspective is, if you look at the budget, if you look at the big ugly bill in itself, it strips away resources from a social safety net to extend the Trump campaign.

tax breaks for the largest corporations and folks who have the most assets in the country.

That in no way is hyperbole.

That is no way a political talking point.

That's the truth of the legislation.

So for us, the pushback is saying you will absolutely not continue a narrative and or policy that prioritizes folks who have everything and cuts food stamps, cuts Medicaid and Medicare and opportunities for folks who are barely making it now to further the harm.

I wonder what your thoughts are about how Republicans need to feel some of the pain that Democrats are crying about, complaining about legitimately, that's being inflicted upon their supporters, if that makes sense.

Congresswoman, is this still the primary mission of the Democratic Party, or do we have to elect a lot more people like you?

Well, I believe it is.

I believe it is.

We can talk about values all day.

And I believe that the party is about American values.

But we also have to make sure those values are translating to real stories.

Listen, when I talk about the Department of Education and how important it is.

I don't know why that's controversial, but our Republican friends are very afraid of patriotic sentences like that.

Yeah.

DEI is code for making sure that white men are leading everything.

He has fired four-star generals and has put unqualified white men to head our Pentagon.

I can go on and on.

We heard the lies when he talked- started talking about social security.

That's my grandmother.

That's my aunt.

What exactly happened with Al Green? W- wh- what went down? They came in to escort him out, did they not?

You have only been in office a few weeks, but you've been very busy speaking out against the Trump administration and Doge's firings of every federal worker they can find. Why have you been showing up these rallies day after day?

I, um, came from a background of organizing and being on the ground. I've been doing it for thir- this work for 30 years, and when I say this work, it's standing in the gap when government is failing us, being a voice, but also moving with my feet, um, to support people that I care about. Those are veterans. Those are disabled workers. Those are folks who are working right now in a Social Security office delivering death benefits to little children. Uh, like my daughter Layla, when her father passed away from cancer, you know, he was on Social Security for the last year of his life. You know, we have created, in the last 30 years, a pretty significant safety structure for poor people, and we're seeing day after day, literally minute after minute, hour after hour, these structures being forcefully attacked, literally with a chainsaw, by this administration. And so for me, the job here is to represent. The job here is not to just wait on what we should say. It's to talk about what we deserve, what we need, and really how this administration is violating the American promise, which is very basic.

You're giving the Working Families response to Trump's address to Congress tonight. Can you give us a preview?

I already know what the president is gonna say. He's been saying it every day during his campaign, and that was to do everything that he possibly can to go back to a 1950s America, a segregationist America where only a small few got the benefit of government. I'm gonna be talking about the real stories of real folks, both rural and urban, in red and blue states, who deserve basic healthcare, who deserve...... federal services, who are counting on the Department of Education because that mother has a child who is autistic and who deserves an aide in their classroom. We're gonna be talking about seniors who are living in care facilities right now, who are at risk of not only having their Social Security ripped away but the reality, not hyperbole, of their care being disrupted. You have farmers, you have low-income White families in rural America who don't know what next month is going to look like. They did not sign up for this.