Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on CNN’s The Arena, where he emphasized that Democrats will continue to push back against the Republican effort to rip nutritional assistance and healthcare and work to end the Trump-Republican government shutdown on behalf of the American people.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for being with us this Halloween. I want to start by getting your reaction to what we have heard from Kevin Hassett about the White House agreeing to use these emergency funds to cover SNAP benefits. He seems to lament that the judges ruled this way.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah this is shocking to me because Donald Trump, Republicans and the administration should not be weaponizing hunger and jeopardizing the ability of more than 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, to put food on the table. But from the very beginning of Donald Trump’s time in office, cruelty has clearly been the point. We’re thankful for these rulings. The law is very clear. Funds do exist within the administration for exactly this reason—a contingency fund to make sure that no one in America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, ever goes hungry. What the administration needs to do is comply with the law and make sure that these SNAP benefits don’t lapse.

BORIS SANCHEZ: The counterargument from the administration, Leader Jeffries, is that it is Democrats, who by not voting for the CR almost identical to the one that they voted for just months ago, are holding these SNAP recipients and the beneficiaries of other government programs hostage. And I am curious about where you see all of this ending because eventually that emergency funding will run out again. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 billion, not enough to cover the $9 billion that I understand is required for SNAP benefits in November. Eventually there will be more agencies and programs that will run out of money. So what is the plan?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Donald Trump is the President. Republicans control the House and the Senate. And they’ve taken a my-way-or-the-highway approach from the very beginning of this year, unleashing their right-wing and extreme agenda and jamming it down the throat of the American people. But all of a sudden, they’re powerless. No one is buying that in America. As Democrats, what we’ve said is that we’ll sit down with Republicans anytime, anyplace, at the White House or in the Congress, in order to reopen the government and find a bipartisan path forward to a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people in an environment where the cost of living is way too high. And as part of dealing with that situation, we have to decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis, particularly as it relates to the pending expiration of the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

BORIS SANCHEZ: I do want to get your thoughts on the way that the President and some Republicans have characterized SNAP recipients. Here’s something the President said earlier.

RECORDING OF PRESIDENT TRUMP: Largely when you talk about SNAP you’re talking about largely Democrats, but I’m President, I want to help everybody. I want help Democrats and Republicans. But when you’re taking about SNAP, if you look, it’s largely Democrats. They’re hurting their own people.

BORIS SANCHEZ: What do you think the President means by that?

LEADER JEFFRIES: You know, it’s unbelievable to me. He should be functioning as the President of the United States of America, but, of course, he’s shown no interest in doing that. He just wants to be the President of his cult-like followers, but is unwilling to actually be there for everyday Americans, working-class Americans and middle-class Americans, who, by the way, are of every political persuasion. And, of course, people in every single state across this country are going to be impacted. You’re talking about 42 million Americans—16 million children, 8 million older Americans and seniors and more than a million veterans. And they’re in every single state in the country of every single political persuasion. You know, it’s Halloween. Donald Trump should put on a costume and pretend to act like a President, at least on this day.

BORIS SANCHEZ: I want to pivot to the President’s call to get rid of the Senate filibuster and actually play sound from President Barack Obama back in 2020. Let’s listen.

RECORDING OF PRESIDENT OBAMA: If all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.

BORIS SANCHEZ: You yourself have used similar language to describe the filibuster. You wrote on X in 2021, quote, ‘The filibuster is a Jim Crow era relic that has been used to stop progress for decades. Enough.’ By your own standards, shouldn’t Republican Senators heed Trump’s call to eliminate the filibuster?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene made this point a few weeks ago, that Republicans are actually making a choice to keep the government shut down when everybody in Washington understands they have the power to reopen it. But they’re asking Democrats to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people in an environment where they’ve already enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Hospitals, nursing homes and community-based health centers are closing because of Republican policies all throughout the country. And now they’re refusing to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, and they want us as Democrats to go along with it. In terms of what Republicans in the Senate may decide relative to the filibuster rule, it is a Jim Crow relic, but ultimately it’s their decision. But keep in mind that the filibuster has already been eradicated or watered down in other instances. That’s the reason why Republicans could pass their One Big Ugly Bill with only Republican votes. Every single Democrat in the House and every single Democrat in the Senate opposed it. It was a simple majority. And they used the erosion of the filibuster in the case of that budget reconciliation bill to visit upon the American people a trillion dollars or so in cuts to Medicaid, to rip food away from the mouths of hungry children. And, at the same time, to enact the largest tax break for their billionaire donors in American history, and they made that permanent.

BORIS SANCHEZ: As you know, Leader, thousands of federal employees will not be getting paid. Paychecks for Members of Congress, though, do go out tomorrow, on November 1. CNN actually connected with Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, who said that he is not planning on collecting that paycheck. You’ve said that you plan on telling your constituents on or before that date whether you plan on accepting pay yourself. Can you share your decision?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Yes, I made clear to my constituents that my check will be withheld.

BORIS SANCHEZ: And as we speak, another impact of the shutdown is on air traffic. New York’s JFK International Airport is currently under a ground stop because of staffing shortages at air traffic control centers. These are your constituents that are using this airport. There have been multiple concerns already raised about shortages in air traffic control before the shutdown. How concerned are you about potential safety risks for your constituents?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I’m very concerned with all of the harmful effects of the shutdown. The fact that our air traffic controllers and many hardworking federal employees, TSA agents, are being asked to work without pay. This is the reason why Donald Trump needs to get serious about sitting down and finding a path toward a bipartisan agreement. Understand, this is day 31 of the Trump-Republican shutdown. Donald Trump has spent more time on the golf course than he has talking with Democrats who represent half the country. He spent more time talking to Hamas over the last 31 days than he has with Democrats who represent half of the country, and he spent more talking to the Chinese Communist Party than he has talking with Democrats as part of an effort to reopen the government, to enact a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people and that addresses the Republican healthcare crisis that is hurting working-class Americans, everyday Americans and middle-class Americans, no matter where you live—rural America, urban America, small town America, the heartland of America and, of course, Black and brown communities throughout America. Donald Trump can help lead at this moment, but he refuses to do so.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Leader, could you specifically name a Republican who you’ve called in recent days and describe what that conversation was like?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Mike Johnson and I have had maybe two brief conversations over the last week or so, but they’re not serious. At the end of the day, understand, until Donald Trump tells them what to do, Republicans in the House and the Senate are going to be unwilling to find a bipartisan path forward, because Republicans, this version of the Republican Party in the Congress, they don’t work for the American people. They work for Donald Trump. He says jump. They say, how high? They’ve been nothing more than a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s extreme agenda, consistently hurting their own constituents, which is what they’re doing right now as it relates to their refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits when we know the five states that will be impacted the most are West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, Tennessee and Mississippi. Those are the five sates. The next five states are also in Republican-controlled hands. They could care less, and that’s a shame.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Turning now to the mayoral race underway in your city right now. Early voting in New York City has been underway this week. Have you voted in the mayoral race yet?

LEADER JEFFRIES: I have.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Can you share who you voted for?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I issued a statement endorsing a Democratic nominee a little over a week ago. So of course that’s exactly who I voted for.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Yeah, and I wonder if you spoke with your colleague, Senator Chuck Schumer, about your decision to back Zohran Mamdani.

LEADER JEFFRIES: I have not.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Why?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Chuck Schumer makes his decisions, I make my decisions. I let him know the direction that I was heading in, and that was the extent of the conversation.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Well, it just seems like this race in New York City for mayor is a microcosm of a battle within the Democratic Party between what’s seen as the old guard and the new guard. And there are clearly some apprehensions about endorsing or even voting for someone like Zohran Mamdani, even publicly voicing support for him. I wonder if you told Senator Schumer that you would back him, what he said in response, if you could share some of his perspective.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, a private conversation is a private conversation between Leader Schumer and myself—

BORIS SANCHEZ: Of course.

LEADER JEFFRIES: —as would be the case relative to any other Member of Congress. But I certainly informed him in advance of my decision, as he often does with me. And of course, we speak often. We’re focused, I think, the two of us—and he’s done a tremendous job right now, and so have Senate Democrats, in standing up for the healthcare of the American people, pushing back against these extreme cuts and doing everything we can to reopen the government and to enact a spending agreement that actually drives down the high cost of living in an environment where Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Costs aren’t going down. They’re going up. Inflation through the roof. Housing costs up. Child care costs up. Grocery costs up. And, of course, electricity bills skyrocketing.

BORIS SANCHEZ: One final question, Leader, just on that point that’s been made, including by former Governor Andrew Cuomo, current candidate in the mayoral race, that this is a quiet civil war going on in the Democratic Party. Do you see it that way that this mayoral is an indicator of where the party stands, perhaps where it’s headed?

LEADER JEFFRIES: I mean, I don’t think it’s a quiet civil war. That’s a hyper-aggressive statement from, you know, a candidate on the campaign trail who obviously is trying to appeal to a wide variety of people outside of the Democratic Party. I think we’re focused on the fact that we’ve got a responsibility both to push back against the extremism that has been unleashed on the American people from January 20 on, an attack on all the things—on the economy, on healthcare, on farmers, on veterans, on law-abiding immigrant families, on the rule of law, on the American way of life and, of course, on democracy itself—while also articulating to the American people an affirmative vision of how to make things better. It certainly is the case that the American people deserve better than what they’ve received. What are we going to do as Democrats about it? We’ve got to address the affordability crisis, drive down the high cost of living. We’ve got to fix our broken healthcare system that Republicans are destroying right now. And we certainly have to clean up corruption in an environment where the Trump administration is running the largest pay-to-play scheme in the history of the country and undermining the ability of our country to actually be one that is of the people, by the people and for the people.

BORIS SANCHEZ: Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, we’ll leave the conversation there. We appreciate your time. Thanks so much.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you.

Full interview can be watched here.

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