Congressman, lots of folks have questions before we get to
that breaking overnight, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas has
passed.
She her, her family.
She announced she had pancreatic cancer in June.
I know you, you put out a statement, but just,
we wanted to start by just your, your thoughts and
reflections on your friend and colleague, Sheila Jackson Lee.
Well, Sheila Jackson Lee was a very, very good friend.
We worked very closely together.
You may recall that I've spent two cents as a
Democratic whip and she on both instances, was one of
my chief deputy whips.
Now the chief deputy whips are about 8 or 10
people that help you check the temperature for the caucus,
help you create the strategy it is necessary to get
a bill passed.
And as you know, we were very, very successful in
getting the votes of the necessary for bills to pass
and Sheila played a very critical role in that.
On a more personal basis, Sheila was a graduate of
the alien of the President.
She was a schoolmate, one of my former students and
also forget when Yale announced that it was awarded me
and I already agree.
We had a virtual meeting in the run up to
that.
And just in the middle of that meeting came Sheila
Jackson Lee.
I have no idea how she found out about that
virtual meeting, how she got the passcode to it, but
he showed up in the middle of it and she
it was just that way.
Sheila was as creative, as innovative as any person I've
ever met.
And she demonstrated that time and time again and was
a very, very smart, an astute politician and very crafty
at getting that pole position at the State of the
Union for the president, the president.
And she was the best I ever saw at getting
to the middle of the picture or the front of
the line.
She never show up there.
Everybody remodeled it, dedicated to it.
I mean, Congressman, she also was a supporter of the
president.
Her last tweet that she put up from her account
was the time is now to unite behind the president
and get to work beating Donald Trump one last time.
Have you spoken to the president, Mr.
Clyburn, since he left Las Vegas?
No, I have not.
The president, as you know, it was quarantined since then.
I was with him for two solid days.
And I'm in the airport on Wednesday trying to get
back here to South Carolina to be with the secretary
of Education.
But I got the call that he had tested positive,
and the Department of Education called me and said he
tested right away.
We don't be around you until you do that.
So I had to go straight to an urgent care
facility and I did get tested and of course it
was negative.