Failed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is back on MSNBC warning that Republicans are trying to “dismantle democracy,” this time claiming that GOP redistricting efforts amount to an attack on black voters and a return to the era of Jim Crow. Abrams made the remarks while discussing congressional redistricting in Tennessee, arguing that Republicans are starting with black voters because they are the community the GOP believes is “the easiest to attack.” She then claimed that what Republicans really want is to “dismantle democracy for all of us.”
Her comments came during a Thursday appearance on MS NOW’s “The Briefing,” where host Michael Steele asked Abrams about Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District and Democratic opposition to Republican redistricting efforts. Steele asked whether the controversy had energized Democratic, independent, or even some Republican voters. Abrams responded by describing her own appearance in front of a Tennessee Senate committee before accusing Republicans of deliberately trying to weaken black voting power.
Abrams said she had personally testified before the committee as lawmakers worked on the map. “I was there. I testified in front of the Senate committee, a committee that convened and passed a map it had not yet drawn,” she said. Abrams then claimed Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari asked lawmakers for a copy of the map and was told, “Well, we haven’t drawn it yet, but we know what we are doing.”
As Breitbart reported, Abrams said, “And as you pointed out, they intended to dismantle black voting power because they intend to dismantle democracy.” She continued, “And I think it’s so important that we recognize that while they target black voters for their animus, their intention is to dismantle democracy for all of us.”
“They just start with the community they think is the easiest to attack,” Abrams continued. She described attending a protest after her testimony, saying, “But what has always happened, and what we saw happen that day, I testified that morning. But that evening, I was in a church that was packed with more than 200 people who’d gathered to protest those maps, but also to start planning what could they do in response.”
Abrams capped off the segment by comparing the Republican redistricting effort to Jim Crow and claiming that the GOP had spent decades trying to undermine the 15th Amendment. “And what we know is that it’s taken them 61 years to get what they wanted, which is a return to Jim Crow, a return to a moment where the 15th Amendment didn’t actually work for everyone in this country,” she said. “But it took them 60 years to dismantle it. We don’t have 60 years to wait to rebuild it. Now is the time for us to believe that we not only have the power and the agency, we have the numbers.”
Watch Abrams’ remarks here:
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The latest comments come after months of similar warnings from Abrams about President Donald Trump and Republicans. In February, she declared that the United States was “in the midst of an authoritarian takeover,” and in May argued that the country should no longer be viewed as a collection of red and blue states, but instead as “authoritarian states and democracy states.” Her increasingly dire warnings have also come as the Trump administration dismantled a massive Biden-era EPA funding program connected to an organization with which Abrams had ties.
As we previously reported, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin terminated billions of dollars in Biden-era environmental grants, including a $2 billion award to Power Forward Communities, a coalition connected to organizations with which Abrams had worked. The massive grant drew particular scrutiny because Power Forward Communities had reported just $100 in revenue in 2023 before being selected for the $2 billion award the following year.
“Stacey Abrams linked Power Forward Communities received $2 billion in tax dollars in 2024 after reporting just $100 in revenue the year before,” Zeldin said while discussing the grant. “They were so unqualified that the grant agreement required the NGO to complete ‘How to Develop a Budget’ training within 90 days.”
Zeldin further blasted the arrangement as part of what he called the Biden EPA’s “gold bars” scheme, a reference to a former EPA staffer who reportedly compared the administration’s last-minute spending to “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.” Zeldin said, “$2 billion in hard earned tax dollars should not have been doled out to this organization for many reasons, especially if they don’t even know how to put together a budget.” He added that the broader program was “riddled with self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unnecessary middlemen, unqualified recipients, and massively reduced government oversight.”
Abrams previously pushed back on Trump’s criticism of the funding after the president singled her out during his March 2025 address to Congress. Trump said at the time, “$1.9 billion to recently-created decarbonization of homes committee headed up, and we know she’s involved, just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?”
The funding fight continued well beyond Trump’s speech, with Zeldin eventually touting the administration’s cancellation of the grants as part of a broader effort to claw back Biden-era spending. Speaking about Power Forward Communities and the $2 billion award, Zeldin said, “Every single penny given to this Stacey Abrams-connected NGO last year was either sent to another pass-through entity or used to pay the salaries of its well-connected top officials.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.