Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on Fox News’ The Story, where he made clear that House and Senate Democrats are aligned on the need to hold DHS and the Trump administration accountable for the extremism they are unleashing on the American people.

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Leader Jeffries, thank you very much for joining us today. How does that potential deal sound to you?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we want to avoid a government shutdown, but it’s necessary to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security dramatically changes the way in which it has been conducting itself. Taxpayer dollars should be used to address the affordability crisis here in the United States of America, which is very real. It’s not a hoax. It’s ongoing, by the way. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to brutalize or kill American citizens or to violently target law-abiding immigrant families. So there are a variety of reforms that need to be put into place that the American people are demanding. Your own poll has shown that everyday Americans have concluded that ICE has gone too far and that behavior needs to be reined in.

MARTHA MACCALLUM: So one of the issues here is that ICE’s funding is already on the books through the Big Beautiful Bill. I know you have another name for it, but that’s already on the books through 2029. So if a shutdown happens, which is sounding more and more likely because the House isn’t in session until Monday or Tuesday, I think at the earliest, so why would you risk potentially allowing FEMA and TSA and the Coast Guard to lose funding over this?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, thank you for bringing up the One Big Ugly Bill because this actually highlights the problems that my Republican colleagues have actually been focused on the wrong issues. In the One Big Ugly Bill, they enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, literally ripping healthcare away from about 14 million Americans. Hospitals, nursing homes, community-based health clinics are closing as a result of what they have done. In that same bill, they cut nutritional assistance to hungry children, families, veterans and seniors by $186 billion—the largest cut to food assistance in the history of the country. And in that very same bill, you’re right, they gave the Department of Homeland Security an additional $191 billion and gave ICE $75 billion. They’re using that money to unleash masked agents on American communities, on law-abiding immigrant families. And in some instances, killing American people—

MARTHA MACCALLUM: With respect, that bill passed. It passed—

LEADER JEFFRIES: That’s right—

MARTHA MACCALLUM: So now then the issue before you is are you going to encourage the House to sign on to this deal, which looks like it’s coming together, to keep the government open, to pass the five bills to allow a CR for Department of Homeland Security? Are you going to encourage your Members to be on board with that? Are you and Senator Schumer on the same page here today?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we have to evaluate what emerges from the Senate, and we’ll do that on the merits. We have said, and we’re in complete lockstep with Senator Schumer—Leader Schumer—and our colleagues in the Senate that we need to pass the five bipartisan bills that strongly emerged with support from Democrats and Republicans originally out of the House of Representatives. And we certainly will be supportive of getting those over the finish line—

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Yeah, but they were also okay with the sixth bill. This—we should remind people that these six bills were signed as part of the hangover from the last shutdown. And they were all agreed to before what happened in Minneapolis, which was very tragic, but Minneapolis is a unique situation. You’re not seeing what we’re seeing in Minneapolis in other places in the country. So why hold up potentially this funding on a bill that everyone agreed to, both sides agreed to, in the first round?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, let me address the statement that you just made because that’s inaccurate. The Homeland Security funding bill was before the House prior to the cold-blooded killing of Alex Pretti, and the overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted against it. And we were very clear why we were voting against it. Because we believe that there should be a prohibition on ICE deporting or detaining American citizens. We believe that ICE should conduct itself like every other law enforcement agency in the country. We believe that ICE shouldn’t run around with masks. We believe they should have body cameras. We believe that judicial warrants should be available before ICE is storming homes or ripping people out of their cars. These are pretty basic demands—

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Let me ask a question, if I may. They are, but these are policy issues. These are not funding appropriations issues. So, because of that, it feels a little bit like the last shutdown when it became about healthcare policy and kind of holding that hostage. Is that the way this is going again? Sort of treating this as if it’s policy, how the agency runs, which is really a different category than the appropriations bill. And I would mention again, this ICE funding, whether—I know you don’t like it—but it’s a done deal till 2029.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Donald Trump and Republicans shut the government down for 43 days in the fall. Democrats were very clear. We’ll find a bipartisan path forward. We just were not going to support continuing efforts to gut the healthcare of the American people. And right now our position is pretty clear—it’s shared by the American people—that ICE should conduct itself like every other law enforcement agency in the country and not brutalize everyday Americans abusing taxpayer dollars. We’ll consider any bill that comes out of the Senate on its merits, and we’ll see what happens when that—

MARTHA MACCALLUM: I mean, you said earlier that you and Schumer are on the same page, Senator Schumer, are on the same page. Here’s Tom Homan, who is now overseeing the operations in Minneapolis. Let’s watch—Minnesota.

RECORDING OF TOM HOMAN: I said in March, if the rhetoric didn’t stop, there’s going to be bloodshed, and there has been. But if people out there don’t like what ICE is doing, if you want certain laws reformed, then take it up with Congress. Again, ICE isn’t making this up. They’re enforcing laws enacted by Congress and signed by the President. The same laws have been on the books for the last six presidents I’ve worked for.

MARTHA MACCALLUM: Your response to that, Leader Jeffries?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah, it appears that members of the Trump administration don’t think that the First Amendment applies, the freedom of assembly, the freedom to petition your government to change policies that you don’t believe are in the best interest of the American people. They apparently don’t believe that the Second Amendment applies, as has been demonstrated forcefully by the NRA. Clearly, they don’t believe that the Fourth Amendment applies, the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Trump administration has said that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to behavior that DHS conducts itself. All I’m saying is that the Department of Homeland Security should be reined in in a manner consistent with American values.

Full interview can be watched here.

###