Video: Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA04) Says Dems Need to Stay Unified, Build Coalitions, Do Better Job of Communicating, Use Legislative and Legal Tools at Our Disposal to Fight Back Effectively Against Trump’s Excesses, Lawlessness

Key points from this interview with Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA04) include:

• “I think the biggest strategy I’m deploying is recognizing you can’t fight every battle yourself, because if you do you’ll you’ll burn yourself out. And so I’m trying to focus on what I can control and is actually as a member of Congress is quite a bit, even in the minority. Republicans have proven that they can’t govern in the House, at least when they have a five-person majority, let alone a two-person majority. And with the filibuster in the Senate, I do think it’s going to be difficult for Congress to do anything that gets too far ahead of the American people. My biggest worry of course is what Trump will try to do with the executive power that he has; he has proven that the law doesn’t mean anything to him, rules don’t mean anything to him and the Supreme Court’s basically has given him carte blanche to do what he wants. So I am worried about that, but there’s only so much of that I can control. And I’m going to focus my energy on the issues that impact the people that I represent and still get up every day focused on how do I help them, how do I solve problems and how do I, with the power that I have and the coalitions that I can build in Congress and outside, stop the worst of the worst that the Trump Administration tries to push through.”
• “One of the things that is the same as in the 118th Congress is we have got to stay together. And Hakeem Jeffries as our leader has done a really good job of keeping us together when it matters. And inevitably the Republicans show us they can’t govern, they can’t stop fighting amongst themselves. And when we stay united, it forces them to come to the table to negotiate with us. Now I’ll be frank with what happened with the government shutdown and Mike Johnson sort of reneging on a deal that he made because Elon Musk had a temper tantrum, you know that’s broken the trust between the two of them a little bit. But the Democratic caucus, we trust our leader to have the  country’s best interest at heart. And we’ve got to stick together and we’ve got to all show up every single day show up every single day.”
• “What’s interesting is [Trump]’s dialing back his rhetoric. So I don’t know if that means that he’s starting to see that doing what he campaigned on is not going to be as easy as he thinks it is. But what I’m particularly keeping an eye on is what are they going to do to the federal workforce. I’m very concerned about the DOGE bros, who have no clue how government works, who just bash federal employees. And you know Virginia has over 170,000 federal employees and contractors, over 140,000 active-duty military personnel and contractors. And so I’m concerned about what they’re going to do to the federal workforce and just trying to break federal government overall. And then of course I’m very concerned about what they’re going to try to do on on immigration and the border. But even there, they’re fighting amongst themselves. So I think just making sure that we are calling out abuses when we see them, that we are pointing out the impact that their proposals would have not only on my constituents but theirs and the people that voted for them. And hopefully…he will realize that he’s not going to be able to do what he promised in this campaign.”
• “People often decry how difficult it is to get anything done in Congress, but it was actually designed that way to protect political minorities. But often those same checks and balances can be used to protect marginalized communities. And while it’ll be very difficult over the next two to four years to proactively pass laws or do anything to protect communities, we do have a lot of power through the rules, through the filibuster, even through the court system – as frustrating as  the Supreme Court is right now  – to fight back on anything that would harm marginalized communities. And I think again we’ve got to stay united, we’ve got to stay focused on our priorities in doing that. And we need to, I think it’s much more important that the coalition between the establishment, the activist community that we all stay very focused on our goals, which right now is do no harm, and that we stay focused on that. We have very different roles…the role of the activist community is to put pressure on the outside, but the role of the minority party in Congress is to use the levers inside the system that we have to be able to to stop anything bad from happening.”
• “I think the first step is – and one of the lessons learned from the election is we need to do a much better job of communicating with each other – we as members of Congress need to talk to not just voters but the activist community in non-inside-the-Beltway speak, about here’s what’s happening, and meet people where they are – yes, come on your show, yes go on TV, but we’ve got to start collaborating more on social media and then these other forms of communication that people use to make sure we are reaching people where they are. And I think the storytelling is is going to be much more important, because what I have always found – and I spent 14 years in the minority in Virginia government – and what has always been much more effective than statistics or talking points or or sometimes even the rallies is the stories that people tell about this is how this proposed policy will hurt me and hurt my community. And if we can center those stories and not necessarily ourselves as elected officials, we will be much more successful. And that’s the the first point. The second point we’ve got to recognize, people are tired, and people I think for a lot of people the election put them in a state of depression if I’m being honest. And we’ve got to recognize we’ve got to take care of ourselves first, put your own mask on first is my other mantra of the year. And once you’ve taken care of your own needs, then you’re in a much better place to advocate as part of the Resistance. And so I think the New Year is a really good time for everybody to focus on what do you need to refresh so that you will be ready to be part of the Resistance in the next four years.”
• “You kind of put your finger on it, making sure you are centering the influencer community in your comms strategy. So, for example, tomorrow when we start uh the 119th  Congress and the caucus has a media row set up for members, they’ve included online influencers. But I also think we need to sometimes the temptation is just focus on national influencers, we’re really starting…to also focus on who are the influencers locally in our communities that may not have you know millions of followers, but they’ve got a significant following on the ground. And if all 215 of us create and develop and nurture relationships with local influencers in our district, that’s going to have a huge impact, because for a lot of people they pay more attention to those local influencers than they do to the national influencers.”
• “What I have found is, at the end of the day, no matter where you are in the political spectrum, you want to know that you can pay your bills and that your kids have an opportunity to do better than than you did. You want access to healthare so that you can go go to the doctor and not be bankrupt if you get sick. And you want to live in a safe community and keep your family safe. And if we focus on those things that we have in common even, on issues that are on their face polarizing, we can find common ground and move people forward. I disagree a little bit in that, you know, having been on the the campaign advisory council, I heard the message, there WAS a message about the economy, there WAS a unifying message that could appeal to everyone. Too many people didn’t hear it. And I think that we allowed too many people to only hear MAGA and Republican framing of what the Democratic message was, rather than hearing the Democratic message itself. So it goes back to what I said earlier, making sure you have a clear message that is written in a way that somebody in Brunswick County or in you know Manhattan can understand, and that you are meeting people where they are, where they get their information to give them that message. But more importantly you’re listening to them and when you’re listening, you’ll see if your message isn’t resonating, you will see if you’re talking about something that is not top of mind to that voter and you can adjust. And so that’s what I think went wrong – not necessarily that we had a message that didn’t resonate, it was that too many people didn’t hear it.”
• “First is we’ve got to call out every time they try to implement part of [Project 2025]. You know, Trump and MAGA did a pretty good job of trying to disavow Project 2025. And now, they can’t. And so the first step is for us to stay in touch with folks and say, look, here’s this bill that they’ve introduced and here’s what it’s going to do and here’s how it’s going to affect you and here how it’s going to hurt our democracy. And fight it. And again, it’s staying unified, it’s showing up for every single vote, whether it’s a committee vote or rule or whatever, to use every tool that we can to stop these bills if they’re bills. And if it’s the executive branch, working very closely not only with the advocate community but with the legal community and the organizations that can use the court system to stop the worst of the worst. And I still believe in our court system. I still believe that ultimately it can and will be a check on on the president. But we’ve got to hold their feet to the fire and make sure that they do it.”
• “I think it is possible. I have joined over a hundred of my colleagues to call on the president to order the archivist to publish [the ERA]. It has met all of the requirements of the constitution, and under federal law once it does that it, it SHALL be published. The so-called deadline that the archivist uses to try to argue it shouldn’t be published is NOT a constitutional requirement, is not authorized in the constitution in my opinion. And so hopefully President Biden will issue an order directing the archivist to publish it…I think he could submit his legacy as a defender of women’s rights going back to his days in the Senate when he passed the Violence Against Women Act, it would be a perfect capstone for his legacy. If he does not though, the ERA caucus which I’m a member of…we’re pushing to still try to get it published by removing the deadline or passing legislation. That’ll be harder. So…hopefully President Biden before he leaves will will issue that order.”