“The Texas governor is a cowardly, fake bully. He was ordered by Donald Trump to convene a special session of the legislature in order to gerrymander the Texas congressional map and try to rig the midterm elections,” Jeffries said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports.”
Jeffries said Democrats will respond “forcefully, aggressively and relentlessly” to the GOP effort to impose a new congressional map that could add as many as five Republican seats.
The minority leader said Republicans are trying to enact a map that would protect their hold on the majority in Congress by taking five seats currently held by Democrats, “including several in majority-minority communities around Austin, Houston, and Dallas, breaks them apart and tries to put them into Republican hands.”
“We’re only three seats short from taking back the House,” Jeffries said about next year’s midterm elections. “That is a historically close number. That is what has House Republicans and Donald Trump scared to death of what is going to happen in the midterm election. That’s why we’re seeing this extraordinary action in Texas.”
Asked if Democrats would respond to Abbott’s threat to charge or arrest the Democratic state legislators who fled Texas yesterday, Jeffries said that would be immediately challenged in court.
In a separate interview on CNN, Jeffries also said Abbott is “out of his mind” and said that the Republican governor is making “idle threats.”
The governor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
