'You oppose Voter ID?': Hegseth clashes with Texas Democrat who fled quorum to DC over election reform bill

On Tuesday's "Fox News Primetime," host Pete Hegseth clashed with one of the dozens of Texas Democratic state lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State for the District of Columbia to prevent a legislative quorum for a vote on election reform legislation.

Hegseth said State Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, was one of the members who met with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., after flying into Dulles Airport with his colleagues earlier Tuesday.

Members of the Texas Democratic delegation also met with Vice President Kamala Harris, who compared their trip to an 1867 appeal by abolitionist Republican and escaped slave Frederick Douglass before Congress in support of Black suffrage.

Talarico claimed that Texas is one of the "hardest places to vote", adding that he and his colleagues tried to make the Republican-led election reform legislation "less damaging [and] less harmful."

Hegseth replied that it appears Talarico and his fellow Democrats find that giving Texans 17 days of early voting too restrictive and that it is apparently discriminatory or otherwise untoward to require voters to present either their driver's license or the last four digits of their Social Security number in order to cast a ballot.

"Is that too much to ask a voter in Texas?" he asked.

Talarico replied that the assertion the election reform bill increases access to voting is incorrect, adding that to date, Texas allows "vot[ing] all night, which is really convenient if you work through the day."

"Is voting at 2:00 AM in the morning the key issue?" replied Hegseth. "I have heard the hyperbole this is Jim Crow. This is voter suppression, [that] this is a Civil War, from the leadership of your party -- Is there currently a single example can you provide me of a registered citizen voter in Texas that can't vote if we're fighting a civil war here?" he continued.

"Quick question – are you OK with voter ID – because you are going back to the talking points," Hegseth asserted.

Talarico replied that voter ID is currently the law in Texas, adding that he "oppose[s] having to have a driver's license to vote… I said I oppose voter ID – it's the law in Texas."

Cutting off the lawmaker when hearing that remark, Hegseth asked the lawmaker to reiterate his comment: 

"You oppose voter I.D? You don't think the most sacred obligation of our republic you should have to prove who you are in order to vote?" he asked once again.

Talarico replied that "hundreds of thousands" of Texans do not have driver's licenses, to which Hegseth asked if those individuals have Social Security numbers – a proof of citizenship.

"Help me out: do they not have Social Security numbers? And who are people that can't get I.D.s?" Hegseth asked.

Talarico later further defended his and his colleagues' decision to leave Texas for Virginia and ultimately Washington, D.C.: 

"This is how democracy is supposed to work. The reason this is different they (the GOP majority) are trying to rig the rules of the game."

Hegseth replied that Talarico's party, to date, has been "obsessed" with coronavirus mitigation orders, and yet none of the plane-full of Democratic lawmakers were wearing a mask on their private flight to Dulles.

Talarico replied that he has been vaccinated and that he therefore doesn't need a mask, to which Hegseth remarked that the FAA under President Biden still requires masks on interstate transit regardless of vaccination status.

Earlier Tuesday, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., told Fox News' Neil Cavuto that "no Democrat has ever been against voter ID."

The Santee lawmaker added that he always carries his voter registration card with him and proudly presents it at the polls every year.

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"I say to them, ‘I am James Clyburn. This is my I.D. and I want to vote’. I’ve always had voter I.D…. No Democrat has ever been against voter I.D."

Clyburn also added he would support an identification provision floated by Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.V. to be included in the Democrat-led S.1 election law overhaul bill, the For The People Act.