LEADER JEFFRIES ON SQUAWK BOX: "REPUBLICANS HAVE REPEATEDLY REFUSED TO TAKE YES FOR AN ANSWER"

Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box, where he made clear that Democrats will continue fighting to fix the Republican healthcare crisis and committed to reaching a bipartisan agreement to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits. 

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BECKY QUICK: Joining us right now is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to talk a little bit more about this. And, sir, can you lay out, without any partisan bent, kind of where things stand right now, just so Americans understand what's happening?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, the Affordable Care Act tax credits are going to expire on December 31st. And if that happens, tens of millions of hardworking American taxpayers are going to experience dramatically increased premiums, copays and deductibles. In some cases, premiums for health insurance will increase by $1,000 or $2,000 per month. This is for working-class Americans, middle-class Americans and everyday Americans. Healthcare will be unaffordable, people will be unable to go see a doctor when they need one. And that's unacceptable in this great country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Over in the Senate, it's my understanding that Leader Thune has recommitted to a vote on an Affordable Care Act extension no later than the second week in December, so there are ongoing discussions that are taking place in the Senate. Meanwhile, unfortunately, in the House, my Republican colleagues have shown zero interest in doing anything related to the ticking time bomb of the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring. House Democrats have launched a discharge petition to try to compel an up-or-down vote on a straight three-year extension so we can provide working-class Americans with the same level of certainty that my Republican colleagues provided their billionaire donors when passing the One Big Ugly Bill. 

BECKY QUICK: Minority Leader Jeffries, let's talk about that discharge petition. You need 218 votes in the House in order to pass that. You've got 214 Members in the Democratic Caucus, so you only need four House Republicans to have to sign on to it to get this passed. But the idea of saying that this is a three-year extension instead of a one or even two-year extension has any potential Republican saying 'forget it, this is dead on arrival.' That's the opinion of Representative Don Bacon. He's a Republican from Nebraska who has been working with the idea of potentially extending for two years. But three years, they say, is dead on arrival. So if this is something that you want to satiate, if you want to get done, you are going to need at least some Republicans to come over. Why not start with a one-year extension or potentially even a two-year expansion?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Leader Schumer offered a one-year extension in the context of trying to end the Trump-Republican shutdown and that was unceremonious—

BECKY QUICK: That's different. I'm talking about what you have now. Let's not go back to what's done in the past and what has not been extended. If you want to get something that it has actually done you need to do something that will have bipartisanship. Let's not go back—

LEADER JEFFRIES: You can ask me the question. You can ask me the question and I'll provide the answer.

BECKY QUICK: Answer the question instead of going back.

LEADER JEFFRIES: No, no. I'm providing an answer in order to provide context. Republicans have repeatedly refused to take yes for an answer. It was a very reasonable multi-year extension that was offered. It was one-year straight extension, plus a multi-year process through a bipartisan commission to more permanently resolve the Affordable Care Act issue. So having that context is absolutely important, regardless of what you may think.

BECKY QUICK: It's important context to make me realize that I don't think you want to get a deal done. I think this is something where you'd like to see the rates go higher and allow the Republicans to hang themselves with that. Is that the answer? Is this politics?

LEADER JEFFRIES: That's absolutely a ridiculous assertion, and really shame on—

BECKY QUICK: Three years is not going to get passed.

LEADER JEFFRIES: —shame on you for saying that because we're fighting, it's not a partisan issue for us. In fact, the states that are most impacted as it relates to an Affordable Care Act—

BECKY QUICK: That would be red states. Agree. Not contesting that.

LEADER JEFFRIES: —tax credit expiration are all Republican states. We're talking about West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, Mississippi, right, Tennessee. Over and over and over again. We can go through the list—

BECKY QUICK: That's why you probably have some Republicans who would sign on if you guys could come up with something that actually looks like a bipartisan deal.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Listen, this is not a partisan fight for us, it's a patriotic fight. We're fighting for every constituent, even if Republicans aren't necessarily fighting for their own constituents. We want to find a bipartisan path forward. And that is what we've repeatedly indicated we want to do. Like we want to sit down and have a reasonable discussion, find common ground to address this issue. Now, Republicans said in the House they were willing to deal with the Affordable Care Act tax credit issue after the government funding agreement was reached. Well, now the government shutdown is over and there's still been no conversations with House Republican leaders despite—

BECKY QUICK: Mike Johnson never said that. The Leader never said that. You do have Republicans though who would agree with you on something if it was actually bipartisan in nature. That's what I'm trying to get at.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Actually, Mike Johnson actually did say that there was always a plan to specifically deal with the expiration of the Affordable Care Act tax credits. In fact, he said that repeatedly. So I'm not sure what you're referencing, but that's the bottom line.

BECKY QUICK: I think their plan is something that looks more like an [HSA], which I'm guessing you would say is dead on arrival, too, if you want to set up these healthcare plans that are funded instead of going through the ACA. I'm assuming you would say that's dead on arrival too because there have been Republicans who put that forward. Am I wrong in thinking you would not go along with that?

LEADER JEFFRIES: What I'm saying is that what's in front of us is the immediate expiration of the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Republicans have had all year to deal with this issue, and they've refused to do it. So they're the ones who are not interested in finding a resolution to a healthcare crisis that they've created, including passing a bill that enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. And because of their policies, hospitals, nursing homes and community-based health centers are closing throughout America, including in rural parts of the country.

BECKY QUICK: Which is why it would be nice to see a one-year extension so that none of these things happen immediately and give you all time to actually try and work on bipartisan situations, rather than a three-year extension that basically kicks it down until the next administration is here. I think both sides need to come together and find some way of getting around this that's not necessarily saying, okay, we're going to spend $350 billion to extend these tax credits without having any way of trying to get at the real problems of what is causing higher premiums, what is causing this inflationary healthcare environment to begin with.

LEADER JEFFRIES:Yeah, what's interesting is that Republicans just spent trillions of dollars to provide their billionaire donors with massive tax breaks, and in that same bill, cut Medicaid by the largest amount in the history of the country, and also ripped $186 billion in nutritional assistance away from hungry children, seniors and veterans, the largest cut to SNAP in American history. But somehow we can't find a dime to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits even for a year because House Republican leaders have rejected a one-year extension. Rejected. That's their position. Not our position. That's their position.

BECKY QUICK: So what I'm hearing, though, is that there is no middle ground. There is no bipartisanship. This is, at this point, us versus them, and we are not going to agree on anything. Am I?

LEADER JEFFRIES: No, that's absolutely not the case. We've repeatedly said we will sit down anytime, anyplace, with any of our Republican colleagues. We'll even go back to the White House to sit down with President Trump. We've repeatedly offered to do it, but they've refused. Donald Trump spent more time on the golf course during the longest government shutdown in American history than he did talking to Democrats on Capitol Hill who represent half the country. He has no interest in actually trying to find a bipartisan solution because the Republican approach, which is failing now—the American people know the country is moving in the wrong direction. The cost of living crisis is out of control, but the Republican approach since day one of this presidency has been my-way-or-the-highway. Everybody knows it. It's one of the reasons why Republicans were rejected decisively, electorally, in the elections earlier this month. Yet, as Democrats, we continue to say we want to find a bipartisan path forward, but we need Republicans to operate in good faith in order for that to happen.

BECKY QUICK: Minority Leader, do you think that—what do you think, do you think you were successful in shutting down the government? Do you think you got what you wanted?

LEADER JEFFRIES: We didn't shut the government down. Donald Trump and Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency. And in fact, the American people, prior to the shutdown, during the shutdown and after the shutdown know who was responsible for the government shutting down. And in fact, in the midst of it all, Republicans refused to even sit down and have a conversation about keeping healthcare affordable for everyday Americans. And so we're going to move past it. We have an Affordable Care Act tax credit expiration deadline that we need to tackle. We have a whole set of spending agreements that we need to find common ground on in advance of those agreements expiring in terms of the continuing resolution by the end of January. We just need partnership on the other side of the aisle. You know, what we have right now is that the Republicans are in the midst of an ongoing civil war. I mean, Donald Trump is fighting with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Johnson and John Thune are fighting with each other, Cory Mills and Nancy Mace are fighting with each other. House Republicans are strongly disagreeing with Senate Republicans. The whole thing on the other side of the aisle is a mess. Meanwhile, as Democrats, we just want to fight for working-class Americans. 

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Minority Leader Jeffries, I'm curious. Later today, the Mayor-elect of New York Mamdani is going to be meeting with the President at the White House. Unclear whether we'll see it all publicly or not. I'm curious, have you spoken to him about what this meeting is gonna be? How he should approach it? And if you have, or even haven't, what you're advising him?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, he and I had an opportunity to talk yesterday. I congratulated him on the announcement that Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch was going to remain at the helm of the NYPD. I think that's a great thing for the city of New York, for every single community, and it reinforces the Mayor-elect's commitment to public safety for all New Yorkers. I think at the meeting, as he's publicly indicated, the two topics that will be discussed will be the affordability crisis that exists, you know, in the United States of America. The cost of living is way too high—that, in fact, is the case in New York City and across the country—and public safety and how to move forward. And hopefully, President Trump is going to approach the meeting with a respect for the City that allowed his family and himself to achieve significant levels of success. 

BECKY QUICK: Minority Leader Jeffries, thank you for your time today. We do hope to see something accomplished with this, so we'll continue to watch. Thank you.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you. 

Full interview can be watched here.