Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) recorded this week’s Democratic address to the nation in an attempt to break the House Republicans’ logjam on legislation to provide assistance in the wake of serious natural disasters.

House Republicans have blocked the legislation–already approved by a bipartisan basis in the Senate–three times in the past week.

Cleaver opened his short address by talking about the torrential rainfall experienced this week around his hometown of Kansas City, breaking the record for rainfall in the month of May, and causing more than 300 road closures across the state of Missouri, from local roads to major highways. 

“Over the past four months, Democrats in the House have worked hard to reach across the aisle to pass two supplemental funding bills that would help address not only the needs of the Midwestern communities I’ve been speaking about, but communities in California dealing with wildfires, towns in Alabama ravaged by tornados, and Americans in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are still rebuilding from the disastrous hurricane that occurred in 2017,” Cleaver said. “Last week, our colleagues in the Senate were able to reach an agreement, with 85 senators, almost unheard-of in terms of bipartisanship in these tribalistic times, voting to support the $19 billion deal that would bring relief to American communities from sea to shining sea.

“But unfortunately, a select few of our Republican colleagues in the House have decided to put politics over the needs of the American people, choosing to object and obstruct the disaster bill while we are back home serving our constituents in the district,” the congressman added.

“These individuals understand that they are a small minority of the House of Representatives and that they are simply delaying the inevitable. That’s why I find is so unfathomable and unconscionable that they have chosen this moment to try to score putrid political points when Americans all over the country are pleading, pleading for our help.

Video and audio of the weekly Democratic address can be downloaded here.