Hi there, everyone. It's Fort Clark in the East. For better for worse, it's not the sort of thing you can fake.

There's no substitute, no alternative, no replacement. But without it, political parties of any and all

stripes have learned again and again, perhaps some more recently than others, that without genuine

grassroots enthusiasm, authentic excitement among the vast majority of your voters, electorally,

you are toast. So you can understand why Democrats are starting to feel like they've got their

mojo back today. The wind back in

their sales thanks to a rather unexpected issue. What NBC News calls the quote, burning hot center

of democratic politics right now, the battle over redistricting. It started in the state of Texas,

where today Texas Governor Greg Abbott is once again threatening the Democratic lawmakers who fled that state in order to deny Republicans a quorum as they endeavor to rip up Texas's congressional districts mid-decade.

Abbott says once the legislature's special session ends Friday, he plans to immediately begin a new one until he can push

through his new, even more Republican-friendly map, a special request from Donald Trump. One of those

Democrats outside of Texas state lines right now is Representative James Talarico. Fox News

invited him on their air yesterday to talk gerrymandering,

and this is how it went.

You gave the ballgame analogy. In my view, what has happened here is you've done something in certain states,

and you don't like it when it's done in Republican states. And now you're saying you've done the same thing as us.

You've done the same thing as us, and we are going to, by the way, if you do it, we're going to ratchet it up even more in the words of Gavin Newsom. We, we, my party has never gerrymanner in the middle of the decade at the request of the president of the United States, nor would we. The only way this is going to happen in blue states is if Texas executes this power grab. You mentioned Massachusetts. Do you know the party of the governor that signed that map into law? He was a Republican. It was a Republican governor that signed that map into law. So I just want to be, I want to be clear with our facts and I don't want to muddy the waters. All of us, whether we're Democrats, independence, or Republicans, we should stand up to politicians

who don't want to face accountability at the ballot box. That's exactly what's happening here.

And I asked you, if Republican policies are popular, why do they need to redraw these maps?

Why can't they just run on their policies? I'm getting wrapped on time. I'm enjoying this

conversation. I want to let it go on.

Well, Kane looks like he needs a lifeline. But it isn't just Texas Democrats who are now vowing to fight fire with fire in what Democrats see as what it is, a Republican power grab.

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