LEADER JEFFRIES ON WVON: "DONALD TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY HAS BEEN A DISASTER FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE"
Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on WVON's The Morning Show with Rufus Williams, where he reflected on the life and legacy of the late great Rev. Jesse Jackson and articulated how House Democrats will continue to keep hope alive and end the national nightmare that Donald Trump has visited on the American people.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: This gentleman, he is, again, the House Democratic Leader, and it's none other than Hakeem Jeffries. Leader Jeffries, good morning and welcome back to WVON. Good to talk to you, good brother.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Good morning, Rufus. Great to be on with you.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: And I should also mention, you know, obviously he's achieving, therefore, he is a good man of Kappa Alpha Psi. Leader Jeffries, let's talk about this, because we had a great loss in our world earlier this week. Share your reflections on Reverend Jackson.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Reverend Jackson was a profound, legendary, transformational American hero. You know, one of those individuals who, because of his presence and his leadership, his commitment to making life better for the American people, he bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice, inspired millions of people, myself included, with his presidential runs, with his advocacy, his eloquence, you know, and his commitment to building this rainbow coalition, this gorgeous mosaic of people here in America to make this country the best version of herself.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: I'd love to say that we have so appreciated the fight that you've been putting up in Washington and I thank you for saying that you were inspired by the Reverend because he did that for so many people and even as we think about his impact there, can you talk about how he's generally perceived there in Washington and certainly the perception would be greater now that we have him no more.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we certainly recognize this is the case with every single Member of the Congressional Black Caucus, but beyond, that we stand on his shoulders, and those are legendary shoulders. And he was in the fight for economic justice, for social justice and for racial justice. And that baton has been passed to another generation of folks, Members of Congress included, but certainly not limited to, because Reverend Jackson was in the political realm, he was in the civil rights realm, he was in the faith realm. He was just a multi-dimensional leader and that generation, of course, has been transitioning to heaven, but we can continue to be inspired by him, by his life, his leadership, his legacy and what he stood for. His remarks will always be with us, to continue to inspire us. Certainly, the iconic speeches that he gave, including at the Democratic National Convention in both 1984 and 1988 and we're thankful for the opportunity of having spent some time with him every single time, including in his most recent years, when he was on the Hill with his son, Congressman Jackson, a good friend of mine. He would always be generous with his time, with his advice and with his perspective and I always valued it.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: This is always valued. Thank you so much for that. That leads right into the next thing because one of the things that was really pushed hard for during the Civil Rights era was voting rights and the opportunity to vote. Can you talk about, from your perspective, the importance of this midterm election and the importance for people to vote up and down the ticket no matter where we are?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah, Donald Trump's presidency has been a disaster for our communities and for the American people. He's failed on the economy, failed on healthcare, ripping it away from millions of people, failed on making sure that immigration enforcement is actually fair and just and humane as opposed to what we've seen, Donald Trump unleashing these masked and untrained ICE agents with violent brutality on American communities and on law-abiding immigrant families. So it's been a failure. And what our system allows for in the midterm elections is for the country to rise up and say, enough. We need to go in a different direction. And in order for that to happen, to have a Congress that actually is a check-and-balance on an out-of-control executive branch, the Trump administration, then it's important for people to show up to vote and to make sure that the gavels change hands so that Democrats can be in power and actually fight to make your life better, fight to lower the high cost of living, fight to fix our broken healthcare system, fight to get ICE under control and to rein them in and fight to improve the quality of life for everyone in our community and for every single American.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: Leader Jeffries, I know you're extraordinarily busy, so I don't know if you heard it this morning, but I saw a clip where he said he had won affordability. Is that even conceivable, given how things are?
LEADER JEFFRIES: I mean, he's so unhinged and out of touch with reality. This is someone, Donald Trump, who promised to lower the high cost of living on day one. But costs haven't gone down. We're more than a year into his presidency, and we know that costs have gone up. Housing costs are out of control. Healthcare costs are under control. It's one of the things, of course, that Robin Kelly has been leading on, working to fix our broken healthcare system. We know child care costs are out of control. Utility costs through the roof. And, of course, the healthcare costs have been made worse by this guy who refuses to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits and enacted a trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid, the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. And so, of course, the affordability crisis has not been solved. And the fact that he's trying to convince the American people of it just shows how deranged he has become at this point in time.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: I hope somebody tells the emperor that he's naked, because he is not only naked, he is inside out. You mentioned Robin, Congresswoman Kelly, and I'm glad you did, because this whole thing that he is doing around immigration, the lawlessness of DHS, the assault on our cities, and again, Congresswoman Kelly brought forth these impeachment charges against Kristi Noem. Can you comment on where we are with all of that, and it leads us to where we stand today with, which is the partial shutdown. there in D.C. Where do things stand?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah, we're certainly thankful for Congresswoman Kelly's leadership as it relates to holding Kristi Noem accountable. We know that Kristi Noem is deeply unqualified, she's flawed, she's unhinged, she's out of control, she's a pathological liar and she's got to go. And we've made clear that either she gets fired or those impeachment proceedings will commence forthwith to make sure that we deal with her in the House of Representatives, and we'll only need a handful of Republicans to join us to make sure that we can end the national nightmare that has become Kristi Noem. At the same period of time, in terms of the current DHS shutdown, our view is that we don't simply need a change in personnel, but we need a dramatic change in policy that is bold, that's meaningful, that's transformational. Things like a judicial warrant requirement so ICE agents can't simply break into your home without a judicial warrant, rip you out of your house and then detain you, as we know they've been doing. We need to make sure we have an explicit prohibition on the excessive use of force, an explicit prohibition on racial profiling, ethnic profiling and language profiling. We believe that sensitive locations, like houses of worship, schools, hospitals and polling sites should be completely and totally off limits. We also believe that there should be independent investigations, because Pam Bondi cannot be trusted to actually hold ICE agents who break the law violently accountable, which is why we need to empower state attorneys general, state and local authorities, to criminally investigate and prosecute anyone, any DHS agent who brutalizes American citizens, breaks the law, violently targets law-abiding immigrant families and then believes they'll get away with it because the Department of Justice is not going to do anything about it, which is why independent investigations are one of our core demands.
RUFUS WILLIAMS: That is House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Thank you so much for your voice, for your fight, and thanks so much for being on with us this morning on WVON. We so appreciate you and look forward to having you back.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Always great to be on with a good Kappa brother. Appreciate what you do.
Full interview can be listened to here.