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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

I sat down yesterday with Representative Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts hours before she left for the Capitol in the devastating events that would ensue there.

We talked about the election results in Georgia and what that will mean for progressive politics in the coming months and years.

And we talked about her extraordinary story, really a great American story. Here's that conversation.

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Congresswoman Ayanna Presley, it is so good to see you this morning. Welcome to the Axe Files, welcome to the Institute of Politics in...

And I don't want to harm your career here, but in our mutual hometown of Chicago.

I'm very proud of my Chicago roots and I look forward to talking more about how that is shaped all the formidable important things about me as a person and certainly as a lawmaker.

Well, you are a formidable person and you have a great story and I want to get to all of that.

But it turns out that we meet on this very auspicious historic day, the day after the Georgia runoffs in which it now seems apparent that both a Democratic candidates won, in probably in some ways, including the Reverend Raphael Warnock, who is the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is hallowed ground in the past.

Ground in the history, in American social history, it's the pulpit from which Dr. Martin Luther King presided for the years leading up to his death.

Tell me how you interpret this moment and what your feelings were last night and what they are this morning.

I love that you started with Ebenezer because the last time that I was at the church was for the home going service for Representative John Lewis.

And again, it's very surreal to have even walked the earth as the same time as him, much less to have walked the corridors of Congress and to have been mentored, both by his example and actively poured into with his wisdom and counsel and his inspiring example.

And so many ways, you know, I was listening to Latasha Brown from Black voters matter earlier today and she said that organized power is realized power.

You know, so again, it's full circle. It just is another demonstration of the power of organizing.

And I think that's a lot of the groups who have been on the ground for decades that made it possible working alongside fair fight and in Stacey Abrams. And I just have to give it up to Nakeema Williams from the Georgia State Democratic Party to Stacey Abrams to Mahente to Black voters matter.

And so, you know, the community based organizations who have been on the front lines and community, recognizing that movement building and voter engagement is bigger than one election cycle.

And so because of the ground that they have laid because of their vigilance, this victory has been made possible and we can, you know, what can I say Georgia is showing off.

And so, you know, I, I, in these last days, I've been saying Georgia, do what you do. You know, you have all do what only you can do.

You know, they made the decisive victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris possible. And then today, once again, allow us to decisively turn the page on this dark chapter in our history with the election of Reverend Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff.

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