Hakeem Jeffries

And so I'm proud to stand on her shoulders, a mentor of Reverend Sharpton.

I came back home after the transition had been made.

I was on Fulton Street and

ran into one of my constituents who appeared to recognize me.

He said, Congressman, come over here for a moment.

I said, sure, good to see you.

He said, now aren't you the Congressman who a few years ago on the floor of the Senate during the Trump impeachment trial quoted the notorious B.I.G.?

I said, yeah, that was me.

And he said, now, Congressman, as I understand it, you're the House Democratic leader, the highest-ranking Democrat in the United States Congress.

I said, yeah, God is good.

And then without missing a beat, he responded, Rev, by saying, how the hell did that happen?

And so I had to think quickly on my feet, as Reverend Sharpton has taught us to do.

And then it came to me, I said, well,

You never thought that hip hop would take it this far.

But for us, in this challenging moment, it's all about the power of imagination, imagining how we can get from where we are, challenging times, to where we need to go to make this country, in the midst of all the extremism, the best version

of herself.

That's what we have to do because these are challenging times.

We got a hater in the White House, haters in the Congress, and haters throughout the cabinet.

But we're working on this.

Watch.