At a press briefing on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was asked about ongoing efforts to rally the Democratic party.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Thank you, Leader.
00:04Can you describe your relationship right now with Leader Schumer, and are you two good?
00:10Yes.
00:11Can I ask you to elaborate on your strategy?
00:17You said it's all hands on deck as far as what the fight looks like.
00:22When can we start to expect to see some evidence of this fight and whether or not Democrats
00:27can land a punch on Republicans?
00:30What evidence are you looking for exactly?
00:32Should we win elections?
00:34Check.
00:36Should we out-raise Republicans?
00:40Actually the DCCC, interesting that I haven't seen this aggressively covered because it
00:45runs against the narrative, the DCCC had its best off-year January ever and out-raised
00:55House Republicans by $4 million.
00:59Wait a second, they're in the majority.
01:02They've got access to all of this deep-pocketed money.
01:06But the DCCC had its best off-year January ever in history, and then what happened in
01:18February?
01:20We out-raised the Republicans again.
01:23They're in the majority, we out-raised the House Republicans, and by the way, out-raised
01:30the Senate Republicans as well, which almost never happens.
01:35And then in special election after special election after special election, Democrats
01:39are winning, winning, we're talking quantifiable facts, numbers, fundraising, elections, and
01:52then Donald Trump's public approval ratings are plummeting.
01:58He's supposed to be in his honeymoon period right now.
02:02One of the reasons why Republicans are probably panicking in terms of whether they ultimately
02:10will be able to produce the votes to jam a reckless budget down the throats of the American
02:14people is that the so-called swing seat Republicans get nervous when they see these special election
02:21results and see Donald Trump's poll numbers collapsing, while at the same time, in every
02:29single one of these races, independents are breaking for Democrats and the Democratic
02:36base is turning out.
02:38Wait, the Democratic base is turning out?
02:42In Iowa, in New York, in Minnesota, in Delaware, most recently in Pennsylvania?
02:51That seems to run counter to the narrative that some in this town continue to try to
02:58put forward, but we're in the facts business, not the perception business.
03:04Can I just follow up there?
03:06Sure.
03:07It's not just a narrative.
03:08I mean, that's what we're hearing at town halls, is like constituents want to see the
03:12fight.
03:13Correct.
03:14It's not necessarily the journalists want to see the fight.
03:15So if you're answering the question to constituents, when will they see the fight?
03:20Is it just looking at special elections that don't necessarily impact a lot of people across
03:25the country?
03:26Yeah.
03:27But I think what has been clear and what you see, and first of all, we're having town hall
03:31meetings.
03:32Republicans aren't even having town hall meetings.
03:35They're afraid to have town hall meetings.
03:37We're in these streets regularly, whether that's in Brooklyn, in the Midwest, in the
03:43Deep South, in California.
03:46So we interact with constituents all the time.
03:49I interact with constituents all the time, and we'll continue to talk about the things
03:56that are being done in Congress to push back against Republicans, our strong opposition
04:02to the reckless Republican spending bill.
04:06That was a fight.
04:07We were on one side of that fight.
04:10Republicans were on the other side of that fight.
04:12It was a legislative fight.
04:14Our uniform opposition to the reckless Republican budget.
04:21Every single House Democrat voted against it.
04:23Every single Senate Democrat voted against it.
04:27That was a legislative fight.
04:29We were on the side of the American people, and Republicans were on the side of their
04:35deep-pocketed donors and special interests.
04:41We're in the middle of a fight right now, as it relates to Pete Hexett.
04:46He needs to resign or be fired by Donald Trump.
04:51We've made that clear across the caucus.
04:54And Democrats, I think, showed fight in the Senate hearing on Tuesday and in the House
05:03hearing on Wednesday.
05:06Our veterans have stood up to push back against this stunning national security breach.
05:12That's a fight that we're in right now.
05:16Are we on the sidelines?
05:18Have we been silent about this scandal?
05:20Have we?
05:22No.
05:23Okay, so that's a fight.
05:26These fights are ongoing.
05:27We're pushing back against their efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
05:34Johanna Hayes and others, they're leading that fight.
05:41Joe Neguse and Jamie Raskin and others, who are leading the litigation working group effort,
05:48have been involved in the fights that are taking place in court case after court case
05:55after court case, where the American people are actually winning in court and Donald Trump
06:02is losing.
06:03It's a fight.
06:05So yeah, special elections are one indication of it.
06:13It's an important indication because is the Democratic base energized or demoralized as
06:19it relates to turning out?
06:23Y'all can answer the question based on what you are seeing.
06:26Is the Democratic base energized or demoralized as it relates to supporting the Democratic
06:33Congressional Campaign Committee?
06:38The data speaks for itself.
06:40Those are data points.
06:43But the most important thing is that the substantive fight has been underway from the very beginning
06:51and it will continue with the relentless energy and righteous indignation that the moment
06:58deserves.
06:59Thank you, everyone.