House Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries has a plan to guide his party out of the political wilderness, but he appears not to want to go into too many details.
At a Thursday press conference, Jeffries, D-N.Y., touted his resistance to President Donald Trump and his agenda, but would not expand on his plans to combat the Republican budget reconciliation plan.
He also repeatedly refused to give his opinion on impeachment articles against Trump filed by Democrats in his caucus.
Asked point blank if Democrat leadership will have failed if they can’t thwart the Republican budget reconciliation bill, he said, “No.”
“Our objective is to find four Republicans to do the right thing, to stop the largest cut to Medicaid in American history,” he said, echoing Democrat accusations that budget instructions to the House Energy and Commerce Committee would lead to Medicaid cuts.
“That’s on them. They’re ones who claim they have some big, bold, beautiful mandate …. At the end of the day, if they successfully jam this reckless budget down the throats of the American people, the voters will hold them accountable.”
Asked later by The Daily Signal how exactly he was working to find and pressure those unnamed four Republicans, he suggested the pressure would come from their constituents.
“Dozens of House Republicans are under pressure right now in the districts they represent, because the American people know that trying to take away their health care is an extreme act that they don’t support,” he said.
But not all House Democrats are content to leave it to voters to castigate Republicans for the purported consequences of their policies.
Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., for example, has filed seven articles of impeachment against Trump.
Asked at the press conference about whether or not he supports that, Jeffries ducked the question and said he hadn’t spoken to Thanedar about it.
“You’ll have to talk to Shri about his perspective as to what he believes to be the right thing to do at this moment. And until I have a conversation with Shri, there’s really nothing further for me to add,” Jeffries said.
But Thanedar is not the only Democrat in the House pushing for impeachment. On Thursday, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas—who was escorted out of Trump’s latest joint address to Congress in February after causing a scene—endorsed Thanedar’s articles of impeachment and previewed his own articles on the House floor.
Asked by The Daily Signal ahead of Green’s speech whether he plans eventually to put his foot down and make a statement on the impeachment efforts, Jeffries’ answer was almost identical to his first response, refusing to entertain the question.
“I spoke yesterday for about 25 minutes to the country about my vision for the future, a blueprint for a better America, and encapsulated what I believe has occurred for America over the first 100 days [of Trump’s second term]. I was also on the steps of the Capitol for 12-1/2 hours continuously talking to the American people … about what we believe to be important in the United States of America,” he said, adding:
So, there’s a lot of footage out there of our views on what is occurring in America and all of that information actually really does speak for itself, ‘cause it’s how we feel.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar of California has publicly opposed impeachment articles on the grounds of the overwhelming likelihood of them failing, but Jeffries has not given a definitive answer on the matter.
