Brooklyn, NY – Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on Pod Save America to emphasize that Democrats will continue to stand united against Republican attempts to cut Medicaid, destroy Social Security and enact tax cuts for their billionaire donors and Elon Musk. 

Dan Pfeiffer: Joining us today is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, welcome to Pod Save America.

Leader Jeffries: Great to be with you.

Dan Pfeiffer: Okay, I wanna start, as you can imagine, with the budget vote that happened this Friday. House Democrats almost unanimously voted against the bill. A handful of Senate Democrats, including Leader Schumer, voted for the bill. This was obvious–it seemed to be, at least–from the press conference your leadership gave afterwards to be a point of contention between the House and the Senate. I understand that you, according to some reports, that you and Senator Schumer met in Brooklyn yesterday. Is that report correct? And what can you tell us about the status of the relationship and the conversation you guys had?

Leader Jeffries: That’s correct. We had an opportunity to meet yesterday. It was a very good meeting, where we talked about how we move forward. House Democrats and Senate Democrats working together to strongly oppose the extreme things that Donald Trump and his administration are trying to jam down the throats of the American people. In particular, our immediate focus is going to be on pushing back aggressively against the Republican efforts to enact the largest Medicaid cut in American history that, of course, will hurt children and families and women and people with disabilities, and certainly it will devastate older Americans in nursing homes all across America. On Tuesday, House Democrats are holding a Medicaid Day of Action. We’ll have town halls and site visits and rallies and roundtables all across America in blue states, purple states and red states to lay out our defense of the healthcare of the American people and contrast that with what Republicans are trying to do in taking away Medicaid and ending it as we know it in this country.

Dan Pfeiffer: I don’t want to keep looking backwards and I don’t want to harp on things that have happened, but I think it’s somewhat instructive for the fights to come. Heading into that budget fight, did you and Senator Schumer have a plan about how this was going to go? And he changed the plan or was there not an agreement headed into the vote?

Leader Jeffries: Our view as House Democrats was that we were not going to support any partisan Republican spending bill that visited devastating cuts on families, on veterans and on everyday Americans across the country, including older Americans who rely upon a variety of different health care programs that they’ve earned as a result of their work throughout their journey in this country. And so once the partisan Republican spending bill was released we, as House Democrats, made the decision that we were going to strongly oppose it, whip hard against it and do everything that we could to stop it in the House of Representatives. Because substantively, it was not something that we could ever support. In addition, we came to the conclusion that one of the problems with the spending bill was that it could open the door by providing a possible blank check to Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the purveyors of the extreme Project 2025 agenda and give them a blank check to continue to devastate the American people. Now, we were in agreement that the best alternative was a four-week spending agreement that would allow for continued discussions led by the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee in the House Rosa DeLauro on our side and Patty Murray on the Senate Democratic side to try to see if we can actually arrive at a place where there was an actual permanent spending agreement that met the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety, our national security and our economic wellbeing. And so the Senate Democrats met with each other, based on the public timeline of course, on Wednesday. And the position that was articulated on Wednesday was that the votes don’t exist in order to break the filibuster related to the partisan Republican spending bill. That was on Wednesday and on Thursday, obviously, there was a change in position amongst some.

Dan Pfeiffer: Six months from now, you’re gonna be right back in the same situation. I assume, correct me if I’m wrong, that ideally you would use that period of time to get to some sort of permanent spending agreement that you could agree to, Senator Schumer could agree to, everyone could agree to. Now the history, as you know better than I, of the House Republicans coming to a budget agreement is not great. How are you sort of thinking about the coming budget fight and how you’re preparing for that?

Leader Jeffries: There’s sort of what’s in front of us in the immediate term, stopping the Republican budget that is designed to really accomplish two things, enact the largest Medicaid cut in American history in order to fund massive tax cuts for Republican MAGA billionaire donors and wealthy and well-off and well-connected corporations. I mean, it is a toxic scheme that the Republicans are trying to visit upon the American people and we’ve got to stop it and work hard against it with everything that we have, and that of course includes House Democrats, Senate Democrats, governors whose states will be devastated and of course advocacy groups and concerned citizens. Now we have the Republicans on the run, in my view, on three issues. The economy, health care and taxes. And we have to continue over the next several weeks and next several months, press our advantage in those three areas. Donald Trump and Republicans last year promised to lower the high cost of living and create an affordable economy. We as Democrats believe that the cost of living for far too many Americans is too high. And there are too many people who are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck in this country of every race, in every region, and that’s unacceptable in the wealthiest country in history of the world. Now, instead of costs going down under Donald Trump and complete control of government that the Republicans now have, it’s going up. Inflation is going up. What’s going down is the stock market. What’s going down is consumer confidence. What’s going down are the retirement savings accounts of everyday Americans. And it’s all because, despite these promises made by Donald Trump and Republicans to focus on the cost of living, they’re doing the exact opposite. Not a single bill has been introduced with respect to lowering costs. Not a single administrative action and not a single executive order issued by Donald Trump. Instead, they’re focused on this budget scheme, the GOP tax scam, to enact massive tax cuts for their billionaire donors. We have to press our advantage on that issue. The economy, which also relates to their efforts to cut health care. Which also relates to their efforts to pass these massive tax cuts, all of which are unpopular with the American people. And in the context of the end of the fiscal year, which, as you pointed out, will approach on September 30th, I think we just have to be very clear from the outset. We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill. Period. Full stop.

Dan Pfeiffer: So ultimately, because of the process, the state of the power in Congress and the process the Republicans are going to use, Democrats don’t have the votes necessarily to stop the tax scam, whatever you’re going to call it, the effort to cut Medicaid to pay for these tax cuts. I take it that your plan here is just to raise public awareness to the point that it becomes politically toxic for the Republicans?

Leader Jeffries: I think that that is an important objective, but substantively, we can’t give up the fight as it relates to actually trying to stop this budget from ever becoming law. And if we take a step back, when Donald Trump took office in 2017, he had lost the popular vote, but there were 241 Republicans in the House of Representatives and only 194 Democrats. This time around, he won the popular vote but at the moment, there are 218 Republicans and when we’re at full strength, there will be 215 Democrats. Now, in the prior term, their chief objective was to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And as you recall, the Affordable Care Act wasn’t even popular at the time. They had a 241 vote majority. And because of public sentiment, initially in the House and then finally with John McCain joining Democrats in the Senate, we were able to stop them from repealing the Affordable Care Act. Now things are a bit different in this particular instance. They are much more cult-like in their behavior this time around, but their margins are also much narrower. This is the smallest majority that any party has had since the Great Depression. And because we are on the right side of these issues, the economy, healthcare, taxes and making sure that the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected pay their fair share. That’s our position. Pay your fair share. They don’t need a tax cut. Elon Musk doesn’t need a tax cut. I think we have to substantively try to make our case to the American people and do everything we can to stop them. But as you point out, to the extent that they ram the budget through the Congress either in the House or the Senate and sign it into law, just like the GOP tax scam that they passed in 2017, was unpopular and helped to cost them the majority. The same thing could happen this time around.

Dan Pfeiffer: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I sort of meant in the view that if you can make it unpopular, you can make it so that enough of the Republicans who may be in these purple districts, or the handful of them in the districts that Kamala Harris won, would not vote for it.

Leader Jeffries: Exactly right.

Dan Pfeiffer: Given the margins are so narrow. So it was sort of both at the same time. One of the ways in which you’re trying to stop it is to raise awareness so people understand the political consequences of voting for it. I want to shift gears here for a second. Over the weekend, the Trump administration appears to have defied at least one and maybe two court orders involving their mass deportation efforts. This has sort of been the nightmare scenario that, you know, where the Trump administration is just telling courts, we don’t care what you have to say, telling a judge we don’t care what you have to say. This is what sort of when we talk about what a constitutional crisis could look like under this president, it would be something like this. What’s your reaction to what’s happening and, and how dire do you think the situation is right now?

Leader Jeffries: Thank you for raising this issue. It’s been one of the conversations that we’ve had both internally in the context of our Rapid Response and Litigation Working Group that we stood up a few weeks ago, led by Congressman Joe Neguse, Assistant Democratic Leader, and co-chaired by Jamie Raskin, our brilliant lawyer, brilliant constitutional scholar. And we’ve charged them with coming up with a forceful response to the possibility that the Trump administration would skirt and or outwardly defy court orders. And to make sure that we are in close coordination with a lot of the democracy reform groups that have been litigating these cases to make sure that there is both a judicial strategy, that’s important, but also a public strategy. And as we’ve seen in other democracies across the country, across the world I should say, when you actually start to see defiance of court orders, then the public uproar has to be intense, immediate and impactful in terms of the forcefulness by which the disagreement is communicated around the constitutional issues. That’s non-violent, of course, but it also requires a significant presence to make it clear that this is unacceptable, that we are a nation anchored in the rule of law and we expect that the president and we expect that his administration will comply with the law at all times, particularly when there are court orders. And to the extent that that does not occur, that the public outcry has to reflect the manner of the constitutional crisis that such defiance would provoke.

Dan Pfeiffer: You guys were kind enough to invite me to your House retreat in Virginia last week, both in the program you guys put together, the folks you invited, the conversations I had with your Members, it seems like you guys were really trying, and I’ve been to a bunch of these over the years, but it seems like you were really trying to legitimately wrestle with some of the lessons of 2024, how politics have changed, how media has changed. Can you just tell me a little bit about what that process is like and what you guys have learned thus far?

Leader Jeffries: You know, it was really strong few days together where we were able to look back and look forward at the same time. I think it’s important for us to look back so that we can draw lessons from what happened in November of 2024, figure out why some of those things happened and how do we put Democrats in the best possible position moving forward. We have an all-important midterm election next year, laying the foundation to end this national nightmare that Donald Trump is visiting upon the American people and bring the American dream to life for everyone. So, you know, there’s the substance of it, okay, why were we unable to connect with certain Americans on issues, largely, I think, around the economy and the high cost of living and the view amongst many working-class Americans throughout the country that Donald Trump was better positioned on the economy to turn things around than Democrats. We can never allow that to happen again. When at the end of the day, really authentic to us as Democrats, we wanna make life better for everyone across the country, that’s who we are. And the fact that there was a disconnect in that regard is deeply troubling and we’ve got to figure out how we regain the narrative on the economy and on driving down the high cost of living and other issues like of course, securing the border while defending Dreamers and farm workers and keeping law-abiding immigrant families together. And of course, making sure that the American people are clear that we want to keep them safe. I grew up in Central Brooklyn in the late eighties, early nineties, things were dangerous. I understand that the American people want safety in every community. And Democrats need to make it clear that we’re strong in those areas. It’s Donald Trump and the Republicans who have become the party of lawlessness and disorder, particularly as it relates to pardoning violent felons who brutally beat police officers, and then unleashing these people all across the country to make communities less safe. So we have to make clear that we are connected with the American people on these core issues. And then of course, make sure that we are communicating through new media platforms like this, Pod Save America, all of you, the network, do a tremendous job. And one of the clear lessons for us is that you have legacy media, and that will still have a role to play, but so many everyday Americans actually get their news through the new forms of media and whether that’s social media, or podcasts, YouTube shows, messaging apps, chat groups, we have to be present in those spaces, authentically communicating with the American people and we have launched a massive effort to do just that.

Dan Pfeiffer: Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for joining us and good luck out there, hope to talk to you again soon.

Full interview can be watched here. 

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