GEOFF BENNETT: For the first time in the 236-year history of the U.S. Senate, two Black women are serving simultaneously.

I sat down with Senators Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware for a conversation about breaking barriers, shaping history, and how Democrats aim to meet the current political moment.

Senators Alsobrooks and Blunt Rochester, thanks so much for making time.

I appreciate it.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS (D-MD): Thank you.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER (D-DE): Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: I'd like to start with some news, because the GOP-led House this week passed a sweeping multitrillion-dollar plan that supports President Donald Trump's policy agenda.

How are Democrats planning to address it, especially if it makes significant cuts to the social safety net?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: The billionaires have gotten what they paid for.

You will see in this budget that there will be significant cuts for Medicaid and other significant cuts that matter to the American people.

There's nothing about this budget that really addresses the germane concerns of Americans around ability to afford health care and ability to be able to bring down the cost of groceries.

This hasn't been the focus of this administration.

Instead, it's been really lining the pockets of these billionaires and doing so on the backs of the American people.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you see it?

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: I totally agree.

I mean, a lot of times, people say, if you want to see their priorities, look at their checkbook.

They're showing us exactly what their priorities are.

When you have got 72 million people in this country who are on Medicaid in some way, it might be a parent who has a child with a disability.

It might be a family whose grandparent is in a nursing home.

People are going to be touched and hurt if these things move forward.

And so, for us as Democrats, we feel it's really important that, number one, we make sure people know what the stakes are, and, number two, make sure that they recognize that we're all in this fighting to make sure that the cost of eggs are not skyrocketing, even though this president said, on day one, he was going to address the economy.

We put our priority the American people, families of this country, and not on the billionaires, as Senator Alsobrooks said, which seem to be the intention with tax cuts.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you make that message stick?

Because one of the takeaways of the last election is that working-class voters, many of them, didn't see Democrats as their champion.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Well I think they will see after this period.

Again, the -- what we have heard is, bring down the cost of groceries,we're concerned about the cost of housing.

And instead you have seen anything but that.

You have seen Elon Musk, who is unelected, who has really focused heavily on making sure that we cut in a way that I believe has nothing to do with efficiency.

GEOFF BENNETT: When Democrats push back, I mean, do you risk being seen as defending the status quo, when people in November were saying they wanted change?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: I don't think the American people voted for this.

Did they vote for us to cut critical funding to the National Institutes of Health, the people who are researching cancer and who are coming up with cures to diseases?

We didn't vote for that.

We didn't vote, again, to fire people who have to make sure that we have air safety or that our water is clean.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: A third of the work force that they're cutting are veterans.

And so I think it's really important in this moment for us to amplify what's happening.

GEOFF BENNETT: I want to talk about your historymaking election victory.

To be a Black woman in the U.S. Senate is to be part of a small club, Carol Moseley Braun, Kamala Harris, Laphonza Butler.

What does this moment feel like to you and what does it feel like to do it together?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: We call ourselves sister senators.

And it's been just great to have her here serving with me.

We recognize the privilege that it is to represent so many people who fought hard for us to get here.

And you know what?

Our voices matter.

We believe representation, I believe representation matters, that all of us should be represented in these spaces, and that the solutions are incomplete unless every single lived experience is represented in this Senate of every background.

And so that means people from rural America should be here, the people from urban spaces, Black, white.

Every background, Latino, has to be represented so that our solutions are complete.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: And when you think about the quarter of a century it took to get from Carol Moseley Braun to Vice President Kamala Harris, and then almost a decade until we got from Kamala Harris to Laphonza Butler, the two of us came in immediately, seamlessly.

We don't really talk about, ooh, we made history.

What we talk about is, what kind of impact can we make on the lives of the people who sent us here, on our country, and, who knows, maybe the world with the work that we're doing?

It is really, for us, about the impact.

But we also don't lose the fact that there may be a kid -- just this week, a kid did a book report on me.

That was kind of strange.

(CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: Yes.

Or, just recently, over the past summer, the way I got to this job was after the unexpected death of my husband.

And I had a constituent walk up to me and say in a diner: "You were sad, you were depressed, but you got up.

And so I got up."

And so you don't know whose life you're touching or impacting by being of service, but that's really what this moment is about.

And I will tell you, it is really important to have a sister senator next to me.

We sit next to each other in committees.

We are on the same row on the Senate floor.

And just to even say basic stuff like, well, what do you think about this, or how do you wear your shoes on these hard marble floors?

Like... GEOFF BENNETT: There's marble throughout this entire building.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Yes.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: It's really different here.

But to have that kind of support has been really, really a blessing, a blessing.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's also important, I would imagine too to have mentors.

And I know Vice President Kamala Harris, you count her as a friend and mentor, both of you.

What advice has she given you?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Well, so Vice President Harris is -- has been amazing.

She really has been.

And I have been really blessed to have her.

For at least the last 14 years, she's been there as an adviser.

She's told me a number of things that matter.

She told me that you should be joyful even in these times that are difficult, that we have the right to go into these spaces and to bring joy with us, to never forget, of course, the people that we represent.

But to not internalize it, to not make it personal has been helpful to me.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: After getting elected to the Senate, I was just kind of running almost on autopilot.

And it wasn't until the day that we were sworn in that I stepped on that floor and I raised my right hand and I looked in her face that it hit me, the significance of the moment.

And she hugged me and whispered in my ear: "Enjoy this moment."

And I think that was really important, because so many people were focused on, oh, we didn't win this race or we didn't win.

And it was almost like she wanted us to not negate the success that Delaware and Maryland had done when they elected, for me, the first woman sent to the Senate, as well as the first person of color.

And so that reminder, I felt, was really important.

Don't forget, as you said, the joy of this moment.

GEOFF BENNETT: How do you reconcile this moment with the challenges posed by the current administration's stances on race and diversity issues?

Or do you reconcile the two?

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: I think what we know is we have been in difficult times before.

When we speak about our grandparents, they have seen some difficulties.

They know what challenge looks like.

It gives us the resilience to walk through this moment.

And I refuse to justify my being here.

This administration has made and unfortunately had tried to make it almost a dirty word the fact that we should care about inclusion and equality and those things.

But I refuse to relitigate that.

I don't think it's necessary.

I think that we're going to continue working hard, myself and so many others, because we care about our country.

We love our country.

We love the people of our states.

And I'm here to serve them and to do everything I can to ensure that every one of us has the opportunity to experience the American dream.

That's what this is about.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: People have to ask themselves, who are you talking about?

Well, we have heard it's women, it's people of color, it's people with disabilities.

You could go down the list.

Well, who you're talking about is America.

Our strength is the fact that we bring these different professional and lived experiences.

At this month, Black History Month, the theme this year is African Americans and labor.

Of all times in our history to be pulling people out of the work force, telling people they don't have a seat at the table, this is not the time.

This is the time -- we're stronger when we recognize all of the talent, the brilliance, the excellence that all of us bring to the table.

And so folks can try to distract.

We're going to keep our eyes on the prize.

And that's making sure that people have good jobs.

That's making sure that people have clean drinking water and clean air.

It's making sure they have health care.

We have our eyes on the prize.

Ours is not about tax breaks for billionaires and ultra-rich people.

It is about making sure that all of us have opportunity and have a fair shot.

GEOFF BENNETT: Senator Alsobrooks, Senator Blunt Rochester, thank you again for your time.

SEN. ANGELA ALSOBROOKS: Thank you.

SEN. LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: Thank you.