I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Monday, February 22nd.

Happy birthday, George Washington. You know, once upon a time, February 22nd, today's February 22nd, was the national

holiday called George Washington's birthday. And weirdly, now that it's become President's Day,

it can mathematically never fall on Washington's actual birthday because it's observed on the

third Monday in February, which cannot be any later than February 21st. Do the math. That was part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971. But it's today, not last Monday, that George Washington turns 289. Some national holiday trivia there to start your week. As for today, politicians and viruses

are on the move. While Senator Ted Cruz went to Cancun to wait out the crisis in Texas, a member

of the New York delegation went to Texas. In fact, Queens and Bronx representative,

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has raised nearly $5 million in relief for people hard hit financially

from the storm. Here she is on Saturday outside of Food Bank in Houston.

When disaster strikes, this is not just an issue for Texans.

This is an issue for our entire country.

And our whole country needs to come and rally together

behind the needs of Texans all across the state.

And, you know, as was mentioned earlier,

disasters don't strike everyone equally. When you

already have so many families in the state and across the country that are on the brink that can't

even afford an emergency to begin with, when you have a disaster like this, it can just set people

back for years, not just for days.

And so we have tragedy in this state.

We need to rally around the state.

We need to rally federal support for Texans and the state of Texas.

And we need to make sure that we make short and long-term policy decisions

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