Shadowing Practice: Blue Wave Under Attack As Hakeem Jeffries Won't BUDGE On Key Issues! WTF - Learn English Speaking with Video
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We've got Hakeem Jeffries being exposed as Democratic leadership is now threatening dissenters.
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That's right.
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New members of Congress are trying to get an agenda laid out
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so that they can bring to their constituents a plan of attack to continue the blue wave, right?
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One week ago, we saw a Democratic tsunami from sea to shining sea.
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And now we've got
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Democratic leadership that's refusing to commit to a vote on universal health care, refusing to commit to votes on very sensible things.
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I'm going to break down for you what's going on.
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Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.
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Here's Don Leonard.
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He's literally just showing up.
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He's ready to work for he's got the sleeves rolled up like John Ossoff.
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He's ready to work for his people.
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And now he's exposing the mob boss like tactics by Hakeem Jeffries.
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This is what he had to say.
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Next Wednesday, we will cast our votes for Speaker of the House.
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I received a letter from Leader Jeffries
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that still left several of my constituents questions unanswered
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now Hakeem Jeffries has like a I don't know 13 to 20 approval rating it's really bad
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and yet folks that you rely on to fight for us like AOC
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and Ro Khanna progressives in in the House of Representatives
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they're they're saying you know what there's no one else running for office
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and it's like you guys are all there somebody run
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but you know no one wants to ruin their career because apparently they're going up against a mob boss here's what
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Don Leonard had to say.
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Evening, y 'all.
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So it's starting to get real over here.
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I guess it must be Monday.
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Tonight, I met with, we'll call them senior members of the Democratic Democratic House,
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who told me in no uncertain terms that the decision as to whether or not I support Jeffries,
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regardless of his willingness to speak with me and meet the interests of my constituents on a couple of key issues.
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Number one, getting a constitutional amendment to citizens united
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and number two ending u .s support for the war in iran
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and okay so again ending citizens united don't we all want to take money out of politics the idea
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that these corporations are seen as people
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so they can donate as much money as they want to campaigns it shows you the issue
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that we have hakeem jeffries takes money from palantir uh jd vance
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when he was in the senate was propped up by tech billionaires.
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They're all of these like corporate centrist
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Democrats and Republicans, they take money from big tech.
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Big tech runs our country and we're all just gonna get replaced by AI.
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We're gonna have flat cameras following us all around because we don't have leadership that's actually fighting for the people.
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They're fighting for the donor class and we can't even get a vote on that and dare you wanna vote on it?
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They're gonna banish you to the, I don't know, the mail room in Congress until your term's up?
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This is insanity.
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The country Israel that led us into it,
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that that would basically mean both making my life a living hell for the next two years here in Washington,
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as well as being sure to lose my election in two years.
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You know, we kind of knew this stuff was coming.
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It's, it's part of the the stuff you see in the movies it's a whole nother thing
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when you know it's in person by people who actually care about you
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and are cheering for you but expect you to wear the team jersey
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and and you know be a good team player you know we're searching our hearts tonight as to uh
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how we can reach leader jeffries and help him be a better speaker
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um at the end of the day the big d democratic party needs some little d democracy
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and um well i'm just a stubborn sob
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so um we'll continue meeting with uh our fellow members of congress
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and members elect and uh try and see
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if we can build support for what we're trying to do here please wish me luck
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it's getting real y 'all imagine that imagine he's like it's like a movie
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They're threatening me.
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And we know this happens, but like, look, air it all out.
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No backdoor dealings.
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Hakeem Jeffries meeting with Jared Kushner backdoor.
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Jared Kushner takes billions of dollars from the Middle East.
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He's, of course, attached to the Trump administration and all of the crimes that they're committing.
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Hakeem Jeffries takes money from AIPAC.
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Right.
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They call him like what?
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AIPAC Shakur.
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It's like, what are we talking about?
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I think it's like, look, you're off to such a bad start here.
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And by bad start, I mean doing what's right for the people.
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You're off to such a bad start.
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Play into it.
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Let your whole district know what Hakeem Jeffries is doing.
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Let your district know that as you're trying to be Don for Ohio and fight for Ohioans,
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that you've got a guy in a borough in New York City telling
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you you're not going to do what's right for your constituents if you don't play ball with them.
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I'm sorry.
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Now is not the blue no matter who time.
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We got the blue tsunami going now you fight from the inside
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and that fight means calling everything out until the PR campaign reaches the masses
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and they have to do what is politically right
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that's what happened with the Epstein files nobody wanted to vote
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for the release of the Epstein files everyone's like oh it's a crazy conspiracy and then
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Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey rolled up their sleeves they went to work
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and then 99 % of Congress voted for the release of those files right
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so again I'm and I I got to follow him.
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Give him a good follow.
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There it is.
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He's an educator, and he's fed up with corporations rigging our government.
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He didn't go to D .C to make friends.
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So, again, we'll see how that plays out.
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Hakeem Jeffries behaving like some mob boss, and I'm supposed to believe
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Democrats will hold Israel accountable.
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Billionaires and oligarchs who fund Hakeem and centrist
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Dems pass universal health care.
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Come on, man.
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Get rid of money in the Democratic Party.
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And, again, it's as bad, if not worse, in the Republican Party.
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Trump literally lined up his entire inauguration with tech billionaires, billionaires and he's obviously given them everything they want.
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And then some they're funding his ballroom there.
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You know, you got like CEOs banging Chinese spies and they don't care.
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It's a complete insanity.
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It's complete insanity.
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And you can't play their game and win it.
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So what you can do in the Democratic Party is say, I'm not taking money from super PACs.
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And I hope that my my my ability to turn down APAC money will get enough free publicity
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that it'll offset whatever they're going to do to smear me. Be clean.
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Wipe your hands clean of that money and now fight for the people.
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And if that means Hakeem Jeffries is coming after you, then so be it.
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AIPAC Shakur, Representative Jeffries, is going dictator on day one, punishing any and all dissenters.
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Be clear, though, he's not punishing dissenters when it comes to pushing legislative priorities that will improve our lives.
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I ain't for it.
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Now, so Don Leonard won a Trump district, but he doesn't support Hakeem.
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Hakeem is saying he's willing to hurt his electoral chances by not letting him get his legislative priorities
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he doesn't say it but they're definitely threatening to withhold money
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and that's what they do right they threaten to withhold money in the races they threaten to not support you
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and then you become an angie nixon someone who almost wins florida
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but doesn't get any support from the people
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that have the deep pockets crystal ball said this was aoc's logic in her whiteboard explainer
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and it completely ignores that she is a player in this drama
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and not a helpless bystander we can't challenge jeffries
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because nobody is challenging Jeffries is the kind of circular logic that drives people insane.
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And yeah, they're saying AOC saying, well, if Jeffries is the only one on the ballot, we have to vote for him.
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That's not true.
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You can literally vote for anybody else.
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And if Jeffries doesn't get the votes, then they bring it to a new vote.
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And the reason you do that is because you're negotiating for the agenda.
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You're negotiating to get Hakeem Jeffries to come to the table about the issues we all want votes on.
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We want votes on everything.
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Universal health care, paid family leave.
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We want votes on minimum wage.
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We want votes on getting rid of money in politics.
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We want to get this war ended.
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You know, like there's so many things we want to vote on.
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And if they don't even bring those things to a vote, how do we know what side people are on? you know
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and again they couldn't get nancy pelosi to vote on universal health care well
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we just don't have the votes that's the point dummy the point is bring it to a vote
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and then when there's you know some people in a rural state
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that are losing all their health care because you know of medicaid cuts
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and all of
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that we get to show them hey your own constituents are
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demanding a better health care system vote on it here's aoc again responding to this idea
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there's no other candidate in the race my hands are tied
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and i'm like can we is she trying to say morse
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code with her blinking is she being held hostage why did
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that why do these look like hostage videos oh you know like they're threatening me
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and my family what are we talking about we're the people work for us
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yeah i mean listen this this is there there is a a one candidate in this race hakeem jeffries and And,
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you know, I think that everyone is far more concerned about what that leadership means,
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what it is promising, what it seeks to deliver, what I think.
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And I think that's what we're hearing from a lot of folks.
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And Hakeem Jeffries says he's trying to meet with all members of Congress.
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And we're literally hearing from members of Congress that he's not meeting with them.
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Greg Cesar and AOC and Ro Khanna and Brad Lanter all lining up behind Jeffries.
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It does seem like this assessment below of a foregone conclusion is right.
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Something dramatic would have to happen to derail the train at this point.
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One problem is that even organizing a meeting to discuss the possibility of a challenge is risky.
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If that leaks back to leadership and you don't succeed, they'll make your life a living hell.
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Collectively, they understand voters want change.
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Individually, they're better off not fighting for it.
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At the same time, that timidity opens up the chance for one person to break out
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and make a do -or -die run.
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We'll find out if any of them have it in them.
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give us somebody with a do or die run.
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I mean, it shouldn't be your career ambition to be in Congress.
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You're supposed to be.
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I mean, traditionally, the idea of Congress is like you come from all walks of life.
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You go there to serve a term or two and you come out.
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Now, of course, that's not what happens.
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Chuck Schumer has been in Congress for 51 years or, you know, as a senator
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or whatever the hell other positions he's held for over half a century right
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so that's what the idea is though it's like you know stand up just stand up uh
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and again thomas massey stood up say what you want about him
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he stood up to trump did he get voted out hell yeah he did
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but he gets to leave with a spine uh
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so here we have incoming democratic congress members uh
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that are answering questions about what to do
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if they're not gonna like as an alternative for the speaker of the house where is the leverage
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you know i've heard some say holding their support for Hakeem Jeffries until they get some guarantees
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or hear a little bit more about what he wants to do.
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There's no saying in politics, you can't beat somebody with nobody.
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Can you tell us somebody, if not Hakeem Jeffries, who?
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Who would you look at?
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I don't think it's about the individual.
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I don't think it's about the individual.
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It's about the agenda and the agenda that actually reflects the priorities of the American people.
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And again, this was a historic class, one that has a lot of firsts.
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And again, we might have different ideas about how to accomplish certain things, But we all agree that we have to reduce costs for working families.
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We all agree that we have to root out corruption in government.
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We all agree that our foreign policy has to actually reflect our values.
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And in order for us to be able to do that, we needed an agenda that's bold enough to meet that vision.
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And so what we're demanding is an agenda.
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It's not about the individual.
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It's about what kind of priorities, what kind of floor votes,
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what kind of plan do we have to actually fight for the bold change the American people sent us here to do.
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And again, not getting much vision from Hakeem Jeffries, but we'll have to see.
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Well, I mean, you can't be a new member of Congress running for Speaker of the House. Can you?
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I mean, like somebody.
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And they say, oh, yeah, we'll be relegated to the mailroom.
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Good.
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Get in that mailroom, fire up your TikTok, your Instagram, and explain how toxic the mold is within the rafters, right?
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There is a disease within our politics.
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How long has AOC been in office now?
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Several terms and she's showing that she's absolutely useless playing by their rules.
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Representative -elect Richard Ojeda says he won't say if he supports Hakeem Jeffries.
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This commenter said, You see how easy it is for elected officials to speak like this?
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When's the last time you heard Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, say they wanted to end
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Citizens United, followed up by an actual plan since they're ordained for speakership?
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This is a massive moment here.
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And again, not to beat a dead horse, But this is a massive moment to to continue this blue wave
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and to continue this fight two years before the presidential election to show, oh, we're actually getting shit done, even in our own party.
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Do you support Hakeem Jeffries for speaker?
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I'm listening to everybody.
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And right now we're not making any decisions.
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But once again, ending
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Citizens United is my hard line.
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It is my hard line.
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So that's his hard line.
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Now, is Hakeem Jeffries going to do a vote on ending Citizens United?
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I mean, if you can end
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Citizens United, it'll take away the incentive model that politicians have to even listen to the big donor class, right?
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This is where it begins.
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You know, as soon as they get elected to office, they start having to make phone calls every day and campaign to raise money.
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And it's like the machine is just not meant to serve us.
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You guys understand that.
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I'm here to serve you.
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I'm coming to Atlanta tomorrow.
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And we got to flash sale, folks.
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We need more people buying tickets.
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If you live in the Atlanta area, they slash the price.
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Dave Neal and friends live tomorrow, Wednesday, November 11th, rushhourwithdave .com slash links.
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We've got Austin, Raleigh, Portland, Seattle, a lot of other dates coming.
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So make sure to jump on the mailing list if you don't see your show listed.
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But whether we have a small crowd or a large crowd, I love performing for my audience.
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And I just want to keep this energy up.
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We've got, I think we went from like 80 ,000 to 300 ,000 subscribers here.
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So I know there's subscribers across
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North America and beyond, and I'm trying to make it out to your towns.
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If you live in the area, invite your closest 25 friends, get to a show, and come support live comedy.
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We'll see you guys tomorrow night.
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I cannot wait to meet some of you.
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Very exciting times.
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But, yeah, there's your update.
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It's infuriating.
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We're watching the blue wave happen, and we're not being listened to.
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Now, no one thought this fight would be easy, but brick walls aren't meant to keep you out
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they're meant to show you how bad you want something
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i want change i want people to come to my show
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and i'm gonna fight for both we'll see you later i'm dave and this is the
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Blue Wave Under Attack As Hakeem Jeffries Won't BUDGE On Key Issues! WTF”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: jeffries, hakeem, vote, congress. This video has 252 sentences and 2850 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:04. The speaker talks fast, about 189 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| agenda noun | /əˈd͡ʒɛn.də/ | A temporally organized plan for matters to be attended to. |
| threaten verb | /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/ | To make a threat against someone; to use threats. |
| constituent noun | /kənˈstɪtjuənt/ | A part, or component of a whole. |
| universal adjective | /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/ | Of or pertaining to the universe. |
| priority noun | /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/ | An item's relative importance. |
| elect verb | /ɪˈlɛkt/ | To choose or make a decision (to do something). |
| billionaire noun | /ˌbɪl.jəˈnɛɚ/ | Somebody whose wealth is at least one billion (10⁹) currency units (usually understood to exclude holders of hyperinflated currencies). |
| commit verb | /kəˈmɪt/ | To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto. |
| folk noun | /foʊk/ | People, persons. |
| insanity noun | /ɪnˈsænɪti/ | The state of being insane; madness. |
| reflect verb | /ɹɪˈflɛkt/ | To bend back (light, etc.) from a surface. |
| refuse verb | /ɹɪˈfjuːz/ | To decline (a request or demand). |
| legislative adjective | /ˈlɛd͡ʒ.ɪ.slə.tɪv/ | Making, or having the power to make, a law or laws; lawmaking. |
| bold adjective | /ˈbəʊld/ | Courageous, daring. |
| democrat noun | /ˈdɪməkɹæt/ | A supporter of democracy; an advocate of democratic politics (originally (historical) as opposed to the aristocrats in Revolutionary France). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| stand up verb | To rise from a lying or sitting position. | |
| line up verb | /laɪnˈʌp/ | To align; to put in alignment; to put in correct adjustment for smooth running. |
| roll up verb | To dominate by accumulating; to become dominant by accumulating. | |
| break out verb | To escape, especially forcefully or defiantly. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| follow up verb | To take further actions remaining after an event; to continue, revisit, or persist; especially, to maintain communication or verify. | |
| go up against verb | To challenge someone. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- It's like, what are we talking about?
- You're off to such a bad start.
- Who would you look at?
- I don't think it's about the individual.
- I'm here to serve you.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being exposed · are seen · was propped |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who actually · someone who almost · one that has |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · i've heard |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 99 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, withhold /wɪθˈhoʊld/, nother /ˈnʌðəɹ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/, flash /flæʃ/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, corruption /kəˈɹʌpʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/, insanity /ɪnˈsænɪti/, legislative /ˈlɛd͡ʒ.ɪ.slə.tɪv/, negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like agenda, threaten, constituent.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.