Brooklyn, NY – Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 where he highlighted that Donald Trump’s reckless handling of tariffs is creating chaos and raising costs and Democrats will continue to push back in support of American workers. 

ANDERSON COOPER: Joining me now is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, what’s your response to these tariffs?

LEADER JEFFRIES: The Trump tariffs are going to raise costs on everyday Americans, in an environment where there’s already a high cost of living. Trump promised that he would lower costs, in fact, on day one. But what we’ve seen under his reckless leadership is that costs aren’t going down in America, they’re going up. Inflation is going up. The stock market is going down. Consumer confidence is going down. And the retirement security of the American people is going down. This is not Liberation Day in America. It’s Recession Day because Donald Trump’s reckless policies are driving us toward a painful recession.

ANDERSON COOPER: He’s saying, look, America has been taken advantage of by these other countries. He listed the tariffs they have on American goods coming into this country. And that long term, this is going to bring manufacturing back to America and make Americans wealthy.

LEADER JEFFRIES: We certainly need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States of America, it’s something that we as House Democrats are committed to doing, building upon the work that was done in the prior administration. But these ham-handed tariffs done in such a over-the-top fashion is not strategic. Nothing that Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the administration have been doing over the last 70-plus days is strategic. It’s chaos. It’s crisis. It’s confusion. There’s a lot of corruption wrapped up into it and it’s causing great harm. They are crashing the economy in real time here in the United States of America.

ANDERSON COOPER: It’s not really a surprise he’s done this. This is what he ran on. Though the details obviously were kind of open ended until they were revealed today. Do you think that this is in any way just a negotiation tactic that, you know, essentially we heard from the Treasury Secretary, his advice to countries—all the countries of the world essentially is sit back, relax and take this and just let’s see how, you know, just take it for a while, take it in and, you know, just breathe deep.

LEADER JEFFRIES: They seem to want other countries in the world to behave like House and Senate Republicans who are just sitting back and taking it—orders from Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Not my expectation that you’re going to see countries around the world do that. And it’s unfortunate because there is an opportunity to work together in a manner that is designed to improve the economy. Listen, on the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised pretty much every day that he was on the campaign trail, that he’s going to lower the high cost of living in America. America right now is too expensive for everyday Americans, for hardworking American taxpayers, for young people. We have to do better. This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and we should not have a situation where people are struggling to live day to day, paycheck to paycheck, can’t get ahead and can barely get by. But what Donald Trump is doing through his mismanagement of the economy is actually making things worse, when he promised to make things better.

ANDERSON COOPER: The Senate voted 51 to 48 tonight to adopt a resolution aimed at blocking the proposed tariff on Canadian imports. Four Republicans, I mentioned, crossing the line to vote with Democrats. That’s not expected to go anywhere. Realistically, what can Democrats do to fight against this?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we have to continue to raise the public pressure so that the public is aware of the reckless nature of these Trump economic policies to hopefully give House Republicans some backbone as it relates to doing what is in the best interest of their constituents. I‘m thankful for what was done in the United States Senate. There was bipartisan support, and there would be bipartisan support in the House if congressional leadership were willing to allow the bill to be voted in an up or down fashion in the House. But we don’t expect that because House Republican leaders are basically taking orders from Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They don’t work for the American people. And that’s that’s shameful.

ANDERSON COOPER: Leader Hakeem Jeffries, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Full interview can be watched here. 

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