Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, where he emphasized that Democrats will continue to push back against the extremism being unleashed by Donald Trump and Rubber Stamp Republicans and work to end the Republican government shutdown and healthcare crisis.

CHRIS HAYES: I’m joined now by Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, the man leading those negotiations for his party. Congressman, first, let me just start at a sort of facts level so I understand where things are. Are there any active negotiations happening between anyone in the two parties in either house of Congress or with the White House about some kind of negotiated deal that would reopen the government?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Unfortunately, Chris, there are no active negotiations, and that’s because Republicans have basically made the decision to shut the government down, to keep it closed, because they’d rather do that than actually provide affordable healthcare to the American people. Now, during this 22-day Trump-Republican shutdown, they found time, Donald Trump, to golf multiple times. He’s found time to demolish the East Wing of the White House so that he can build a ballroom where he can be celebrated as if he was a king. They found time to bail out a right-wing wannabe dictator in Argentina with $40 billion. And Donald Trump, by the way, has also found time to try to rip off the taxpayers by trying to get $230 million from the Department of Injustice. This whole thing is crazy. And I think this is one of the reasons why the American people clearly realize that Democrats—House and Senate Democrats—are fighting to make their life better, fighting to lower the high cost of living and fighting to decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis. And Republicans don’t give a damn about them.

CHRIS HAYES: You mentioned the ballroom, and I want to come back to that in a second. But to stay on the healthcare, I presume you saw that letter from some frontline Republicans. And I couldn’t tell—is this serious? Is this sort of political butt-covering for them? Or if there were a way out of the shutdown, it would be something like that, right? Like some agreement that the first business we take up is extending the subsidies when we come back. Am I misreading that?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I think our view has been crystal clear from the very beginning that we want to find a bipartisan path forward to enacting a spending agreement that actually meets the needs of the American people, improves their quality of life, as opposed to what we’ve seen from Republicans, particularly as it relates to their One Big Ugly Bill, where they passed legislation to hurt everyday Americans in order to reward their billionaire donors. We want to find a bipartisan path forward, but at the same time have made clear we have to decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis because it is serious. And tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are now receiving notices that their premiums, copays and deductibles are going to skyrocket. In some cases, you will have everyday Americans, these are working-class Americans—more than 90% of the people who receive Affordable Care Act tax credits make about $63,000 a year or less. These are people who may experience premiums that increase by $1000 or $2000 per month. This is unsustainable. And it’s going to happen to people all across the country, particularly in places like West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, Tennessee and Mississippi—the five states impacted the most. So this is not a partisan fight for us. This is a real fight to make sure that healthcare can remain affordable for people who will need to be able to see a doctor if they get sick and will be unable to do so if Republicans continue to insist that the Affordable Care Act tax credits expire.

CHRIS HAYES: One more follow up on the Affordable Care Act. What do you say to people who say, look, the subsidies at issue were first passed during COVID as an emergency measure. They have been extended, now it’s 2025. Is there some fundamental failure of the Affordable Care Act or the entire system if absent this kind of band-aid, you’re going to see these sort of price spikes?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, listen, we believe that our healthcare system is broken and it’s in need of comprehensive reform. Republicans, of course, have aggravated that situation in the most extraordinary way and in a variety of ways. Largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Their policies are closing hospitals and nursing homes and community-based health clinics all across the country. Of course, they’re assaulting medical research, have basically shut that down in the country. They want to trigger the largest cut to Medicare at the end of the year, $536 billion. And, of course, this issue with their refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Now, initially, it was passed as part of the American Rescue Plan in March of 2021. But it was extended as part of the Inflation Reduction Act—and that was in 2022—because as Democrats, we understood that the American people were experiencing this extraordinary high cost of living in all of the areas and then we need to work hard to bring costs down. And Donald Trump and Republicans, of course, they promised on day one that they were going to lower the high cost of living. Costs aren’t going down. They’re going up. Grocery prices going up. Housing costs going up. Child care going up. And of course, as a result of what they refused to do, healthcare premiums about to skyrocket for tens of millions of Americans. That’s why we need to act. And we need to act now. Not on a wing and a prayer, not on some promise from Republicans who, by the way, Chris, as you know, have tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than 70 different times over the last 15 years. We’re not going to trust these people. We need decisive, real, legislative action.

CHRIS HAYES: You mentioned the demolition of the White House in that first answer. And maybe this is a quaint question in this day and age. Is it legal? Like, I really—I think a lot of people are watching this and thinking to themselves, wait a second, how, with no congressional authorization, with raising private funds of a quarter of a billion dollars from who knows who and under what auspices, they’re going to just knock down a building in the White—like, do you think it’s legal what they’re doing?

LEADER JEFFRIES: It’s highly doubtful that it’s legal. We haven’t been able to find any congressional authority for it or any executive authority. And more likely, this is part of what Donald Trump has been doing since day one of his presidency, running the largest pay-to-play scheme in the history of the country, and probably soliciting donations from people who’ve got business before the United States government. And all of this is going to have to be investigated. It will. All of this will have to be uncovered. It will. And these people are going to be held accountable no matter how long it takes. That’s going to be the reality of the situation. And that’s our warning to all of these people participating in this, scheming to manipulate taxpayer dollars and, of course, to destroy the People’s House. The White House belongs to the American people. It doesn’t belong to Donald Trump.

CHRIS HAYES: Final question for you. Like myself, you are a lifelong New Yorker. Early voting in the mayoral election starts on Saturday. Who are you going to vote for for mayor?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I’m looking forward to catching part of the debate later on this evening as well as weighing in. I am going to weigh in on this situation before early voting. I will say that I thought that Zohran’s decision today reportedly to offer the Police Commissioner position to Jessica Tisch, who’s doing a great job by almost every measure, including in the communities that I represent, was a very positive step forward.

CHRIS HAYES: That’s interesting. That’s more than you’ve given me in the past. We will look for that. House Democratic Leader, Hakeem Jeffries. Thank you very much.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you, Chris.

Full interview can be watched here.

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