Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MS NOW’s PoliticsNation, where he emphasized that after a historic midterm election victory, House Democrats remain committed to fighting for an affordable America and holding the crooks who are ripping off the American people accountable.

REV. AL SHARPTON: Joining me now to talk about it all is a man at the center of it all: House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Thanks for joining me tonight on PoliticsNation. I will say, Majority Leader—Minority Leader Jeffries, soon to be something else we’ll talk about. But first of all, I want to congratulate you on the Democrats’ strong performance. MS NOW estimates your party will hold 256 House seats, giving you a clear majority. What are your thoughts on how we arrived at this moment?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, good evening, Rev. Great to be with you. It was an incredible victory for the American people and a decisive defeat for MAGA extremism. Clearly, the American people are fed up. The cost of living is way too high. There are far too many people in this country—they’re working hard, they’re playing by the rules, but they can’t thrive and can barely survive. Democrats promise to fight for an affordable America. We promise to fight to lower the high cost of groceries and gas and housing and to fight to make healthcare affordable for every single American and, at the same time, in the face of all of the rampant, unprecedented corruption that has been unleashed on the American people, to hold the crooks accountable.

REV. AL SHARPTON: Now, any hope that these midterm results would prompt President Trump to change course and seek compromise seems to have already been dashed. His first major move after the midterms this week has been to elevate longtime aide Stephen Miller to White House Chief of Staff, replacing Susie Wiles. As you well know, Miller has been the architect of some of Trump’s most controversial policies, like mass deportations. And just earlier today, we learned that President Trump announced he has offered former UFC President Dana White the job of White House Press Secretary. It’s unclear if this is an official offer. What do these decisions tell you about where we are headed in the next two years?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Donald Trump and MAGA extremist Republicans are clearly tripling down on the chaos, the corruption and the cruelty. It’s a failed strategy, and the Republican Party, if they pursue this, will continue to crash and burn as we saw on Tuesday. Democrats are going to continue to focus on the issues that matter to the voters all across the country. We’re going to fight hard for people in urban America, in rural America, in small-town America, in the heartland of America and in Black and Brown communities all across America who want dramatic change in this country, and we’re going to work hard to deliver it.

REV. AL SHARPTON: Now, you announced in a letter to your colleagues on Wednesday that you intend to run for Speaker of the House in the new session. You have enjoyed unanimous support as Leader of the party during these past two terms in the minority. And so far, no one else has come forward to challenge you. However, Axios is reporting that more than a dozen lawmakers say Democratic House Members and Members-elect are being inundated with calls, and I put that in parenthesis, urging them to not vote for you. MS NOW has not matched this reporting. But what do you make of that? And what do you say to a voter who’s cast their ballot for Democrats seeking change, who might also be feeling some hesitance about having the remaining House leadership, even though even progressives voted for you to be the Minority Leader? Is this just noise? What do you think of this?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we’re going to continue to work hard to make our case to every single current member of the House Democratic Caucus, as well as incoming member of the House Democratic Caucus. In the new Congress, we need to focus on affordability, accountability and bringing back to life American values like liberty and justice for all, equal protection under the law, access, in an unfettered way, to the right to vote and a return to our nation’s great heritage as a nation of immigrants. These are the things that I believe House Democrats have forcefully advocated for in the current Congress, against all odds, repeatedly pushed back against Donald Trump and MAGA extremists, battled them on every issue, battled them on the economy, battled them on tariffs, battled them on the reckless war of choice in Iran, battled them on ICE funding, battled them on the Epstein files and battled them on their corrupt and incompetent Cabinet officials and other members of the Trump Cartel, a few of whom we successfully ran out of town, like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi. And so this was a historic victory for the American people, historic victory for House Democrats. We’re going to have an incredibly broad Caucus of great patriotic members. It’s been my honor to lead House Democrats over these tumultuous years. And hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to continue to work hard on behalf of the American people moving forward. We put it in the hands of the House Democratic Caucus members.

REV. AL SHARPTON: And you and I have talked a lot during the years, and I’ve told you the story. I was there in South Africa when ANC won the election in ’94, and Mandela said, ‘Now we have to govern.’ Now, everybody’s going to be looking for you and the Caucus to govern. What are we going to do? I’m certainly going to be pressing the John Lewis voting bill to come back and George Floyd bill. But I want to talk to you about Black representation. We mentioned at the top of the historic gains in terms of Black senators and Black governors. The situation in the House is more complicated. The Supreme Court decision in Louisiana and the gerrymandering wave that followed directly impacted House districts. So even in a blue wave, the number of Black representatives have gone down slightly from 61 Black Members to 58, not including non-voting delegates. That’s not as bad as it could have been or they intended it to be. But what can Democrats in Congress do to make sure it is not eroded any further?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we certainly are going to fight hard to make sure that we aggressively advance the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act so we can end the era of voter suppression in the United States of America once and for all. We worked hard to make sure that we held some of the seats that were most aggressively challenged by Republicans in terms of unleashing this unprecedented gerrymandering scheme. We defeated the Republican scheme in Missouri that was trying to rip away a congressional district from Reverend Emanuel Cleaver. He’s coming back to the United States Congress. Don Davis successfully defeated a Republican gerrymander in North Carolina. He’s coming back. Shomari Figures also ran a great race. I campaigned with him on the final weekend in Alabama. They tried to gerrymander his seat out of existence and rip it away from African American voters in the heart of the belt that brought us the civil rights movement, and Shomari Figures is coming back. And we’ll build upon this progress to ensure that we have a Congress that continues to reflect the American people in every possible way.

REV. AL SHARPTON: And Shomari Figures will be on the show with me tomorrow. But we’ve talked a lot down through the years. You’re a member of National Action Network, so I know you always talk big picture. So let me finish by looking at the big picture for Democrats post-midterm. Since Tuesday, there’s been a lot of discussion about what the priorities should be. Should Democrats be prioritizing investigations of White House officials? Will impeachment be on the table or should the primary focus be on delivering in terms of affordability or all of the above? What is the focus—if you were to become Speaker—that you would be pushing for?

LEADER JEFFRIES: It definitively is going to have to be an all-of-the-above approach, but we have to relentlessly commit ourselves to making life more affordable for the American people in an environment where the cost of living is way too high. And no matter what part of America you live in right now, people are drowning in this failed Trump-Republican economy. And so, we’re going to work hard to move bills very early on to end this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed gas prices on the American people. We’re going to work hard to reverse the Medicaid cuts, reverse the SNAP cuts. We’re going to work hard to end the Trump Tariffs, which have increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year. We also need to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits so we can provide economic relief to tens of millions of Americans who’ve seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket, in some cases, by over $1,000 per year. We’re going to work hard on affordability. We’re going to work hard on accountability, as we’ve indicated, because there’s a cost to corruption when you have folks who’ve been in office focused more on enriching themselves, their family members, their friends and their donors, as opposed to making life more affordable for the American people. And we’re going to work hard to bring about a restoration and return of American values.

REV. AL SHARPTON: So, you say all of the above. And I’ll have to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us tonight, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries.

Full interview can be watched here.

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