LEADER JEFFRIES ON CNN: "THE GOVERNMENT REMAINS CLOSED BECAUSE REPUBLICANS HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN ACTUALLY PROVIDING AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE TO EVERYDAY AMERICANS"
Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront where he highlighted how Democrats are prepared to reach a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people while Republicans continue to keep the government shut down to steal healthcare away from hardworking American taxpayers.
ERIN BURNETT: President Trump's top economic adviser is now warning Democrats about dire consequences if they do not give in.
VIDEO OF KEVIN HASSETT: If they don't open the government next week, I really don't know how long it's going to take. Maybe the Republicans are going to have to take extreme measures. We could stop virtually anything that we want other than defense and so on and national security matters. The President can pick the Democrats’ favorite things and stop them forever, legally.
ERIN BURNETT: Stop them forever legally. Out front now, the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries.
ERIN BURNETT: So Leader Jeffries, you hear Kevin Hassett. He says that the President can can stop, legally, Democratic favored issues and programs indefinitely, and he can do it legally. Are you worried he's right?
LEADER JEFFRIES: I have no idea who this random individual is and his comments are deeply unhinged but reflect the fact that for the longest period of time Donald Trump and Republicans want to go after things like Social Security and Medicare and certainly the healthcare of the American people, but we're seeing that right now. This is day 20 of the Trump-Republican shutdown, and the government remains closed because Republicans have zero interest in actually providing affordable healthcare to everyday Americans. That's the challenge that the country faces right now.
ERIN BURNETT: So Kevin Hassett is the top economic adviser for the President. So I guess he's speaking from that capacity. But he says the shutdown can end next week if Democrats cave and vote on the GOP bill, right? That's what he's saying. But when it comes to that, it was the Republican Senator, Leader Jeffries, John Kennedy, who said, and I quote him, I think this will be the longest shutdown in the history of ever, which would put it well past Thanksgiving. Do you think that's what we're looking at here?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, our view is that we as Democrats, in both the House and the Senate, Leader Schumer has been clear that we'll sit down with anyone, any time, any place, either here at the Capitol or back at the the White House in order to reopen the government, find a path toward a bipartisan spending agreement, but that agreement actually needs to meet the needs of the American people and improve the quality of life of everyday Americans, while at the same time decisively addressing the healthcare crisis that Republicans have created. Erin, we're talking about the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. hospitals, nursing homes and community-based health clinics are closing all across America. Just earlier today, it was announced that more than 50 hospitals in rural Alabama are at risk of closing because of what Republicans have done in their One Big Ugly Bill. And now, as a result of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, we know that tens of millions of Americans are about to experience dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles, including in places like West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, Mississippi and Tennessee.
ERIN BURNETT: Well, you know, when you talk about that, and those premiums are set to go up, it all came in the context of the protests we saw this weekend, which, of course, Leader, as you know, are some of the biggest in American history. And as that was happening, the President went on social media and he posted that AI-generated video which showed him with a crown, flying in a plane, bombing the No Kings protesters with piles of waste. It's a family program. I'll use that word. House Speaker Mike Johnson says that it's just Trump using social media and satire—satire is the word that he used—to make a point. How do you see it?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, that video is deeply unserious, deeply unpresidential and deeply un-American, but unfortunately, it's the type of erratic, extreme behavior that the American people have continued to see from this President and from this administration from the very beginning. And of course, it's no surprise to us that House Republicans continue to behave as nothing more than reckless rubber-stamps for Donald Trump's extreme agenda that's hurting the American people, and of course, for his extreme behavior that they continue to whitewash.
ERIN BURNETT: Speaker Johnson today did point something out about the No Kings protests. Obviously, as I said, millions across the country over the weekend, biggest in history, and there were full of lots of harmless signs, right? I had—so many of them I saw on social media. IKEA has better cabinets. No Kings, only queens. You know, ladies in their 80s, for democracy. Tons of these things. People showed up wearing inflatable costumes like chickens. But Speaker Johnson said this about some of the other protesters and signs that he also saw. Here he is.
VIDEO OF SPEAKER JOHNSON: He is not calling for the murder of his political opponents, and that's what these people are doing. I mean, they're—in one of these photos, I think there's a picture of the President hanging in effigy by a noose on one of these, the one on the far end. I mean, it's unconscionable.
ERIN BURNETT: And Leader Jeffries, just because the camera's on him there, I'll show everyone some of the signs Johnson was standing next to to make that point. One says 8647, another included the effigy that he just referenced with the initials DJT, another one saying the only good fascist is a dead one. Do you agree with Speaker Johnson on the specific point, Leader Jeffries, that that rhetoric and those images are unconscionable?
LEADER JEFFRIES: We've made clear throughout the year that political violence or threats of violence, wherever they may come from, directed at anyone based on their ideology, is unacceptable, and I'm certainly hopeful that my Republican colleagues and that the current President of the United States, at some point, will actually lean into that principle, that we need to bring people together, as opposed to behaving in ways that are continuing to tear the country apart. And so, Democrats have been clear that we denounce political violence or threats of it, wherever that may come from. But what was clear to me, more than 7 million Americans, the overwhelming majority of people were there to protest peacefully, patriotically and in a very powerful way, to express dissent in a manner entirely consistent with the First Amendment, where Americans have the ability to petition their government for a change in direction, and certainly in this year, in this presidency, we have seen Donald Trump unleash unprecedented extremism—attacks on the economy, on healthcare, on nutritional assistance, on hard working federal employees, on veterans, on farmers, on law-abiding immigrant families, on the American way of life and on democracy itself, and that is why millions of people peacefully took to the streets on No Kings Day.
ERIN BURNETT: All right, Leader. Thank you very much. Leader Hakeem Jeffries, I appreciate your time.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you.
Full interview can be watched here.