MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Lizzie Fletcher

Interview

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O`DONNELL: Joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher of Texas.

Congresswoman Fletcher, I want to get your reaction to the governor saying, goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape.

REP. LIZZIE FLETCHER (D), TEXAS: Well, Lawrence, thank you so much for having me tonight, and I`m glad to be with you. And I would love to see Texas address violence against women. But that is not what this bill does that he signed. And frankly it`s not seeing -- something that we`re even seeing the governor address. In fact, Governor Abbott vetoed a bill this session that would have required high schoolers to learn about the perils of domestic violence.

You know, he`s just -- it`s kind of magical thing that`s typical of approach of governing that he will give an answer that is untethered to reality of what he is doing. And we know that Texas unfortunately has not been making this its top priority. It has instead made its top priority effectively banning abortion.

And whether it`s our backlog of untested rape kits, which even our senators talked about earlier this year, to the fact that Texas had the highest number of rape cases reported in 2019, and we know many rape cases go unreported. And we know this number has gone up in recent years during Governor Abbott`s tenure.

So, I would love to see our state do that. His actions and his priorities say otherwise.

O`DONNELL: The governor got a lot of applause from all those Republicans sitting around him when he said they were going to eliminate rape. That sounds like the kind of magical thinking that they`re using when they`re writing these bills that they`re passing.

[22:25:06]

FLETCHER: Well, that`s absolutely right. I mean, the first thing he said in the clip you showed was that women will have plenty of time to make a decision about whether or not to seek abortion care because they have six weeks. If you know anything about getting pregnant, you know that six weeks is not very long, in fact, and that most women don`t know they`re pregnant at six weeks. Some doctors won`t even confirm a pregnancy for sure until seven or eight weeks.

So, what we do know for sure is that abortion has effectively been cut off for millions of women in Texas. And the other thing we know that`s particularly scary about this bill is that it allows anyone, including antiabortion activists who have no connection to patients, to act as bounty hunters. And whether they want to sue doctors or health centers or ride share drivers who take someone to an abortion clinic, they can go to court and sue.

And that`s why this bill is so frightening. These politicians, the ones who were surrounding Governor Abbott today, are trying to use this law to isolate women who are seeking abortions by targeting their support network, discouraging their loved ones and others for helping them for fear of being sued. And, you know, this is just the opposite of what we need in our government where we need people to seriously address the issues in front of us and deal with the very, very difficult choices in front of us.

That`s not what we see Governor Abbott doing. It`s not what we see Texas Republicans doing in this legislative session.

O`DONNELL: Voting Rights Attorney Marc Elias was just on with Rachel Maddow in the last hour. We filed the lawsuit today against the new Texas law on voting. He says the only way to really deal with this is for Congress to pass the For the People Act, or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

FLETCHER: Well, that`s right, Lawrence. We have to pass voting rights legislation in the congress. And I`m proud that the House just went back in august and passed HR-4 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We passed H.R.1 earlier this year. These have been top priorities for the Congress and we need to get them across the finish line in the Senate.

What we`re hearing from the Texas legislators today and recent days is that this bill is all about protecting the elections. And really it`s not. And the legislators and the governor have changed those stories so many times about why this bill is needed, why it`s important, and it`s because it isn`t needed.

We have heard both from federal and state elections officials that the 2020 election was the safest and most successful in recent memory. We have record turnout in Harris county, where I live here in Houston, and we saw these real efforts to make it easier and safer for people to vote during the pandemic. And our elections officials worked creatively and tirelessly to make it possible. And, you know, there just wasn`t evidence of widespread voter fraud. It`s just another effort in support of this big lie, but it has real consequences.

O`DONNELL: Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher of Texas, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

FLETCHER: Thank you, Lawrence.

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

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