Welcome to the beat, everyone. I am Ari Melbert, and let me tell you right off the top.

We have a very special and newsworthy guest to begin the show tonight. House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the most powerful Democrat in Washington, is here. I'll see you in a moment. I will tell folks that we are coming fresh off.

Leader Jeffery's historic, literally breaking historical records, eight-hour, 44-minute house floor speech.

This is one way to understand if nothing else, the sheer amount of time and stamina that was used,

as Leader Jeffrey said he would use every tool in his legal power as the top Democrat in Washington

to both protests, oppose, and try to thwart aspects

of that budget. The Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joins us now. Good evening,

and thanks for joining us at this very busy time. Good evening. Great to be with you.

Great to have you. I want to just begin before we get to any of

Washington or the politics with this tragedy down in, of course, Care County, Texas, a death tolls over

100. As of tonight, we have the latest reporting, which is 161 people are still missing, including

a lot of individuals that, of course, have not been

accounted for and the worst is feared in terms of what we're hearing. What is your response

to this ongoing unfolding tragedy that's affecting so many? What else can the federal government

do? Our thoughts and prayers are certainly with all of the families who've been impacted by this terrible

tragedy and we'll continue to stand with them and do everything that we can to try to be there

for them as a federal government in terms of the recovery and the rebuilding that will necessarily have to take place.

Right now, we're also appreciative, of course, of the fact that we have first responders

who are still engaged in a search and rescue effort to try to hopefully find folks who

have not been currently located. I think there will also be a moment where as a

Congress, we need to aggressively ask some questions about what happened, why did it happen,

how do we prevent this type of tragedy from ever happening again? There's real concern,

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