During a town hall on Tuesday, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) was asked about which Republicans Democrats can work with to pass legislation.
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00:00Who do you think we can work with and encourage across the aisle to get to encourage them to work with us and get some good results from people across some specific people we can encourage?
00:16Well, this may surprise you a little bit, but, you know, it all depends upon the issue as to who you can work with.
00:23And we as Democrats have a pretty big net that we use to bring things in.
00:36We have a, you might, some people call it a big tent party that a lot of people are under.
00:41And so there are a lot of issues that we feel very passionate about, that there's some Republicans, like there's some Republicans who don't like Social Security.
00:55Some Republicans don't like Medicaid.
00:59But it means that there are some Republicans you won't get, but there are some Republicans who do like Social Security.
01:06And some who do like Medicaid.
01:09So it all depends on what the issue is as to whether or not you will reach across the aisle.
01:18I have no problem reaching across the aisle.
01:20I do it a lot.
01:22I think most people know here that I'm giving credit by a lot of people all over the country for having been the biggest advocate of getting broadband into our infrastructure bill.
01:36And I became an advocate for that because my late wife lost a 30-year battle with diabetes.
01:49Emily, for diabetes, she finally, you know, succumbs to it after having five-vessel bypass heart surgery, a stroke, total kidney failure.
02:10And one day, I got a call from a doctor who said to me, this is when we were fighting to try to get the Affordable Care Act.
02:22He says, I'd like for you to stop by my office.
02:25I want to share something with you.
02:29And his office was only about four or five blocks from my office.
02:32I had never met him.
02:33I went by his office.
02:37And he sat me down.
02:39He says, I've been following this debate.
02:43I cannot say much politically.
02:48But I just want you to know, though I may not be public with it, I am for what you're doing.
02:57And let me show you why.
02:58And he sat me down at his desk.
03:02And he had a desktop computer on his desk.
03:06And I'm sitting behind looking at the stuff.
03:08He had arranged for the Beaufort Jasper Comprehensive Healthcare Center, 136 miles away.
03:18We were in Columbia.
03:20Beaufort Jasper down in Sheldon, Beaufort County.
03:22And a man was sitting at a desk or, you know, examination chair with his eyes to the computer.
03:35And he showed me.
03:37He said, see this in this man's eyes?
03:40He has diabetes.
03:43He doesn't know it yet.
03:46We will tell him after this examination.
03:49He has diabetes.
03:50He's in a rural part of South Carolina.
03:55He can't get to the hospitals and the healthcare that he needs.
04:00He said, unless you all do something about broadband in the state, we are not going to be able to practice medicine effectively.
04:09He said, we've got to have telemedicine in the rural areas.
04:16And to do that, we've got to have broadband access that we don't have.
04:21And I thanked him, and I thanked him, and I got up to leave, and he says, by the way, I'm one of your wife's doctors.
04:34He never told me, and I didn't know.
04:36And quite frankly, honoring that conversation, I never told my wife that I had talked to her doctor.
04:48But it did something to me, and that's what got me under this broadband thing.
04:54So, I was able to get a group of people together in both parties, quietly in my conference room.
05:07And we met periodically to map out our strategy for getting that $65 billion in the infrastructure bill for broadband.
05:18And Governor McMaster has been public in his support.
05:27We had two joint press conferences telling the world that, but for yours truly, we wouldn't be where we are today in South Carolina.
05:36By the end of next year, every single house, every single business will be connected to the Internet in this state.
05:45So, it all depends upon the issue.
05:55If you remember, we got all of the judges, all of our judgeships were filled, federal judgeships were filled in South Carolina.
06:07I didn't have any press conferences.
06:10I got all of them filled.
06:11Why?
06:11Because I was able to work across the aisle to get my Republican friends, not the filibuster, my recommendations.
06:25So, every judgeship in South Carolina, you can say the same thing for other states, but we got all of them.
06:32Because on that issue, I could pick someone to work with.
06:36So, I work across the aisle, but for the comprehensive Democratic agenda, I don't know of anybody on the other side that you're going to have to take issue by issue and reach out to people that way.