Sunday on MSNBC’s “The Mehdi Hasan Show,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) sounded off on Texas lawmakers passing a new state voting law to shore up election integrity and the current direction of the Republican Party.
Castro emphasized that under President Donald Trump, the GOP “moved towards authoritarianism and was moving towards fascism.” He argued the GOP was now “doing everything they can to hang on to power” by passing the new election law.
“Well, in Texas and in other places, you have a Republican Party that under Donald Trump moved towards authoritarianism and was moving towards fascism, quite honestly. And these are folks that are doing everything they can to hang on to power. And the way they’re trying to hang on to power is not by being better about governing or about trying to make more convincing arguments or win over voters who disagree with them — voters that voted against them, and that’s why they lost the presidency and the Senate and the House. Their answer to hang on to power is to make it harder for the people who disagree with them to actually go out and vote. And that’s what we’re seeing in Texas, and that’s what we’re seeing across the country as you displayed.”
“The only reason they’re doing this is to harm people and to keep certain people from voting,” he added.
Host Mehdi Hasan asked Castro if he would be willing to call for a corporate boycott, as seen in Georgia after the state passed similar legislation into law.
“I don’t want to see my state hurt, but at the same time, we need people to speak up now because my fear is that’s exactly what will happen,” Castro replied.
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