Washington, DC – Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke on the House Floor on the Republican funding bill that inflicts devastating cuts on the American people and betrays working families.

JEFFRIES: I don’t really understand the Fatal Attraction reference because if anyone is dealing with Fatal Attraction, it’s between President Trump and House Republicans. As soon as he says “jump,” your only answer is “how high?” It doesn’t matter whether you are hurting the American people. That’s why House Republicans are marching the country on a track toward the largest Medicaid cut in American history. You’ll hurt children, hurt families, hurt Americans with disabilities, hurt seniors, close nursing homes and close hospitals. When Donald Trump says “jump,” extreme MAGA Republicans say “how high?” That’s the fatal attraction that’s hurting the people of the United States of America.

And by the way, the core promise that you made last year was about lowering costs. All you talked about was how you were going to lower the high cost of living. Democrats believe that America is too expensive, housing costs are too high, grocery costs are too high, childcare costs are too high, utility costs are too high and insurance costs are too high. America is too expensive. We believe that that, in fact, is the case. But Republicans have done nothing to lower the high cost of living. No bill, no executive order, no administrative action. That’s the broken promise. We were told by President Trump that costs were going to go down on day one. Grocery prices haven’t gone down, they’ve gone up. Inflation is up. You know what’s going down? The stock market. Because President Trump and House Republicans are crashing the economy in real time and marching us to a possible Republican recession. That’s what’s confronting the American people. And so, now we have this partisan, reckless spending bill that we’re being asked to consider on the Floor today. Bipartisan negotiations were underway. Rosa DeLauro was at the table working to reach an agreement consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act that was passed by Republicans and Democrats, and then signed into law in 2023. But when Donald Trump says “jump,” extreme MAGA Republicans say “how high?” And he ordered the Republicans to leave the negotiating table to try to jam this far-right, extremist bill down the throats of the American people.

There are so many challenges with this bill. Too many to detail. But let me just articulate a few. The House Republican highly-partisan shutdown-threatening bill is an attack on veterans. It’s an attack on families. It’s an attack on seniors. It cuts funding for veterans, including billions of dollars in funds that will be cut from veterans in desperate need of healthcare, for people who serve this country who are suffering from painful exposure to toxic substances, Agent Orange and burn pits. And this bill, before this House, cuts billions of dollars in that healthcare that is desperately needed. That’s an attack on veterans. It’s an attack on children and families in America because this bill cuts funding for nutritional assistance that would otherwise be available for everyday Americans to put food on the table. When people are already struggling because grocery prices aren’t going down, they’re going up under this administration. And yet, this Republican bill will cut funding for nutritional assistance. That’s an attack on children and families here in America. It’s an attack on seniors. An attack on everyday Americans. An attack on housing. An attack on health care, which cuts funds from things like Alzheimer’s research to help older Americans battle these challenges. That’s what this extreme Republican bill is all about. It will hurt families, hurt seniors and hurt veterans.

The second problem, equally troublesome, is that this bill does nothing to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We’ve been very clear as Democrats, we look forward in this Congress to protecting these vitally important priorities for the American people. Why is the bill silent on these priorities? Because you are trying to set in motion a chainsaw to Social Security, a chainsaw to Medicare and a chainsaw to Medicaid. Your other boss yesterday confirmed that when he said that these entitlement programs, as he called them—they’re not entitlement programs, they are earned benefits. When you start to use the language of entitlement programs, it’s because you’re trying to set in motion an assault on Social Security and an assault on Medicare. They’re saying the quiet part out loud. We know you’re going after Social Security and Medicare because you’ve been firing thousands of people from the Social Security Administration. You want to collapse the system. And this bill does nothing to stop that. All it does is facilitate the collapsing of Social Security by dismantling the Social Security Administration. And of course, we know what’s going on with your assault on Medicaid—$880 billion. Assaulting the health care of the American people. We’ve been very clear. We will work together to protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid. You have no interest in doing that because you want to take a chainsaw to these priorities. And by the way, it has nothing to do with waste, fraud and abuse.

As Democrats, we’ve been very clear. We want to build a federal government, make sure that we have a federal government that’s effective, that’s efficient and that’s equitable, delivering services all across the country in a manner that spends taxpayer dollars wisely. But that’s not what this effort is all about. This bill will unleash fury on the American people. It will facilitate the ongoing effort that is currently underway. The average Social Security recipient in this country receives $65 a day. They have to survive on $65 a day. But you want to take a chainsaw to Social Security, when Elon Musk and his tens of billions of dollars of government contracts essentially makes at least $8 million a day from the taxpayers. If you want to uncover waste, fraud or abuse, start there. Don’t start with the $65 a day that Social Security recipients receive from their earned benefits, from their hard work throughout their entire lives. Start there. Elon Musk’s $8 billion a day feeding at the trough of the American taxpayer. This has nothing to do—this bill right here—with waste, fraud and abuse. It’s all part of a broader scheme to pass massive tax cuts for billionaire donors, the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected, and then to stick working-class Americans with the bill. This entire scheme.

And, as Democrats, we want no part of it because we’re fighting hard to make life better for everyday Americans. To make sure that when you work hard and play by the rules in the United States of America, you should be able to provide a comfortable living for yourself and for your family, educate your children, purchase a home, have access to healthcare, go on vacation every now and then, one day retire with grace and with dignity. That’s the American dream as House Democrats we’re fighting to preserve. This Republican shutdown bill does nothing to enhance the American dream. It undermines it, which is why we are strongly opposed to this effort. Part of a power grab from those who are unelected, unaccountable, unhinged and then working at the direction of this administration, which again has done nothing, nothing to improve the economy, nothing to lower costs, nothing to make life better for everyday Americans. And this reckless Republican bill will make things worse.

I was in Selma over the weekend. We had an opportunity to once again cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Think about the fact that John Lewis and Amelia Boynton Robinson and Hosea Williams and so many others, as they stood on that bridge, knew that there was trouble on the other side. But even though there was trouble on the other side, they believed that their cause was righteous. And it was. It was a just one. It was designed to make America the best version of herself. And we stand here today, standing on their shoulders, continuing that effort. How do we make sure that the American Dream is alive and well for everyone? In every corner of America, throughout every community. And that’s what House Democrats will continue to fight for. That’s why we oppose this bill, this effort to hurt families and veterans and seniors and children and everyday Americans. And so we’re going to continue to show up. We’re going to continue to stand up. We’re going to continue to speak up for what is right. We oppose this bill. We oppose this partisan effort to hurt the American people. And we will continue to stand on the side of bringing the American dream to life for every single American. 

Full remarks can be watched here.

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