| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Later today, President Donald Trump lays out his plans for tariffs on imported goods. | |
| Our live coverage from the White House Rose Garden begins at 4 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile video app, and online at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Up next, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries reacts to last night's special election results for two congressional seats in Florida and the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. | ||
| He also talks about the legislative agenda and bipartisan efforts to allow proxy voting for new parents in the House. | ||
| Morning, everyone. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Morning. | |
| From the very beginning of this Congress, House Democrats have continued to make clear that we are fighting hard to build an affordable economy that drives down the high cost of living for everyday Americans because the cost of living in America is too high. | ||
| Housing costs are too high. | ||
| Grocery costs are too high. | ||
| Child care costs are too high. | ||
| Utility costs are too high. | ||
| And insurance costs are too high. | ||
| America is too expensive. | ||
| Donald Trump and House Republicans aren't doing anything about the affordability crisis in the United States of America. | ||
| We were told that grocery costs were going to go down on day one of the Trump presidency. | ||
| Costs aren't going down in America. | ||
| They're going up. | ||
| And the Trump tariffs are going to make things more costly in the United States of America. | ||
| House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and Donald Trump haven't done a single thing to lower the cost of living in this country. | ||
| Not a single bill, not a single executive order, not a single administrative action has been done by Donald Trump, House Republicans or Senate Republicans, to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America. | ||
| In fact, Republicans are crashing the American economy in real time and driving us to a recession. | ||
| This is not Liberation Day. | ||
| It's Recession Day in the United States of America. | ||
| That's what the Trump tariffs are going to do. | ||
| Crash the economy, which has been happening since January 20th of this year. | ||
| And the American people are taking note of it in community after community after community. | ||
| But it gets worse. | ||
| Not only have Republicans failed to do anything to drive down the high cost of living in the United States of America, they are trying to take health care away from the American people and end Social Security as we know it. | ||
| Our response to that Republican effort, not on our watch. | ||
| We're working hard to save Medicaid and strengthen and protect Social Security from Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the extreme MAGA Republicans who are on the run. | ||
| They're on the run on the economy. | ||
| They're on the run legislatively. | ||
| Yesterday they got out of town before sundown because they have no agenda to make life better for the American people. | ||
| And they're on the run politically, which is Democrats. | ||
| We've been saying since January, and now apparently, other people are starting to catch up. | ||
| Questions? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Leader. | |
| So Democrats massively outfunded and outraised the Republicans in these Florida House races, but still lost by double digits in both of the congressional districts. | ||
| So what do you, what's your takeaway from these races, and what do you think that this means? | ||
| What implications does this have for 2026? | ||
| Well, I mean, Florida won, Donald Trump won by 37 points in November. | ||
| In Florida 6, Donald Trump won by 30 points. | ||
| These are deeply Republican districts. | ||
| Why in the world were they even competitive? | ||
| Why were Republicans panicking in Florida 6? | ||
| And so as a result, they spent millions and millions and millions of dollars to try to stop an embarrassment from happening. | ||
| And they were still embarrassed because a Democratic candidate in both districts dramatically overperformed numbers in deep red Florida. | ||
| What's interesting about Florida 6 is that Josh Wheel cut the margins in Florida from 30 points. | ||
| In fact, Walls had won by closer to 35 to about 15 points. | ||
| There are 60 House Republicans who hold districts right now that Donald Trump won by 15 points or less in November. | ||
| Every single one of those Republicans should be concerned that the American people have rejected their extreme brand and their do-nothing agenda and are going to be held accountable next November. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Leader. | |
| You were among several congressional Democrats in the Senate chamber yesterday to watch Senator Booker's historic speech. | ||
| I wanted to get your reaction as a member of the CBC, not just the top House Democrat, but what that meant for you to be in the chamber amongst some of your CBC colleagues. | ||
| And is that type of speech what you talk about when you speak about all hands being on deck? | ||
| Do you think that that type of speech can help galvanize? | ||
| And what do you plan to do with the momentum that it generated over the last couple of days? | ||
| You know, I've known Corey for 25 years, came into politics together, were in law school around the same period of time, traveled in the same circles. | ||
| It was amongst Corey's finest moments. | ||
| And he's had many throughout the years. | ||
| But it was incredible in that he was strong, he was substantive, and he was soulful all at the same time. | ||
| It was an intellectually powerful speech, and obviously there was incredible endurance that he demonstrated, but above all else, he spoke from the heart because this is a moment that requires every single one of us to stretch in ways that we may not have previously been called upon to do. | ||
| And Corey Booker did it at an extraordinary level. | ||
| And it was very meaningful to be on the Senate floor. | ||
| And I initially went over there in the early afternoon just to show Corey support, as many House Democrats did. | ||
| But I decided to change my plans and go back when it became clear that he was going to break Strom Thurmond's record because of how meaningful a moment that is in the United States of America. | ||
| Strom Thurmond was a racist senator who delivered what had previously been the longest speech in recorded Senate history to defend Jim Crow and bloodthirsty racial oppression. | ||
| And for that record to fall with an African-American man delivering a speech from the head and from the heart about what America actually should be about. | ||
| The best of America, an inclusive America, a decent America, not a nasty America. | ||
| The best of America. | ||
| That was a powerful thing. | ||
| And I certainly think it will be one of those moments that will continue to energize people across the country as to what this fight is all about, | ||
| where Democrats stand in defense of the American people, and what we're fighting against in terms of the extremism and the mean-spiritedness that's coming from Musk, a big loser, Trump, who keeps losing as well, and the Republicans. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Last night there was very high Democratic turnout in these off-cycle special elections in Wisconsin and Florida. | |
| What does that say to you about the Democratic electorate? | ||
| It's been very interesting because all we've heard for the last four months is that Democrats were dispirited, Democrats are disheartened, Democrats are discouraged. | ||
| But that's actually not been our experience as House and Senate Democrats as we travel the country. | ||
| It's understandable that Democrats want us to do everything we can to push back against the extremism from Donald Trump and the complicity, the toxic complicity, the fact that they just are going along to get along as House Republicans, burying their head in the sand or actively supporting Trump's efforts to harm the American people. | ||
| American people are disgusted by that all, and they rightfully are going to continue to ask all of us as House Democrats, as Senate Democrats, as Democratic governors, all of us to stay in the fight, intensify the fight until we can get through this national nightmare that Trump and the Republicans are inflicting on the American people. | ||
| But folks have been confusing that with this notion that Democrats are somehow discouraged and dispirited because what we've seen every single month this year, it's Democrats in special elections all over the country win or overperform. | ||
| And I don't have time to go through it all, but in the first special election of the Trump presidency in Iowa, in a state Senate district, in a conservative part of a swing Iowa district, currently represented by Representative Miller Meeks, one of the most unpopular Congress members in the country, and she'll be gone after the next election. | ||
| Barely won in 2024. | ||
| And the state Senate district that Donald Trump had won in November of 2024, the Democrat won. | ||
| Trump had won that state Senate district in Iowa in January that we were competing in by 21 points. | ||
| Democrat wins by four. | ||
| That's a 25-point overperformance. | ||
| And then in February, we had a special election in New York for the Westchester County executive. | ||
| Trump endorses the Republican. | ||
| They believe they have some big mandate. | ||
| They can overwhelm us. | ||
| Democrats are on the run all across the country. | ||
| Trump endorses the Westchester County executive candidate, Westchester County, partially represented by Mike Lawler. | ||
| Westchester County executive George Latimer is now a member of Congress. | ||
| He vacates the seat. | ||
| Before Latimer held the Westchester County executive seat, it was held by a Republican, Rob Astorino, for eight years. | ||
| This district goes back and forth. | ||
| It's a swing county in New York City. | ||
| Trump endorses the Republican. | ||
| The Democrat, Ken Jenkins, African American man, wins by 30 points. | ||
| This was in February. | ||
| And then in March, several special elections, but I'll focus on the most recent one in Pennsylvania, Lancaster County, state Senate district that Donald Trump had just won by 15 points, the Democrat won. | ||
| By the way, Pennsylvania, one of the 13 original states, a Democrat has never represented a state Senate district in Lancaster County. | ||
| That just happened. | ||
| And in Wisconsin yesterday. | ||
| By the way, in the state that Donald Trump had just won, Elon Musk pours millions and millions of dollars into it. | ||
| It wasn't even close. | ||
| They got wiped out in Wisconsin. | ||
| That's the kind of energy that we've been seeing as House Democrats from the very beginning of this Trump presidency, despite the efforts by some to project this notion that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, the Democratic Party is cowering. | ||
| We're not cowering. | ||
| We're beating them over and over and over again. | ||
| And yes, as Corey said yesterday powerfully on the floor, more needs to be done. | ||
| But those are the facts. | ||
| We got facts on the court cases that we're winning. | ||
| We got facts on the reality that we continue to outrage House Republicans, despite all the doom and gloom narratives. | ||
| So Republicans can keep trying to spin the American people. | ||
| We're going to keep beating them until we take back control of the House of Representatives next year. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Leader, good morning. | |
| Can you account for the discrepancy between the Wisconsin vote on the Voter ID Act and the lawsuit that Democrats, you, and Mr. Schumer, have filed about voting ID? | ||
| Donald Trump issued an unconstitutional and illegal executive order. | ||
| We are challenging that unconstitutional and illegal executive order in court, and we are going to win, just like we've been winning in court case after court case after court case. | ||
| Donald Trump doesn't have the power to decide how federal elections are governed. | ||
| That power is given to the voters, state legislatures, and Congress itself pursuant to the election clause in the United States Constitution. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| But the Wisconsin result was very different than what you're arguing in that lawsuit. | ||
| No, it was not. | ||
| What Trump has engaged in is a massive overreach. | ||
| And it's laughable that Republicans are going to try to spin a referendum that Democrats may have supported based on the numbers as some sort of vindication for what was a terrible night for them. | ||
| But it wasn't a one-off, as I've explained. | ||
| And I just gave you the highlights of what has happened throughout America this calendar year because I don't have time to go through each and every special election. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Leader. | |
| Just to follow up on that, are there any takeaways from voters approving enshrining voter ID into the Wisconsin Constitution? | ||
| We're going to continue to protect free and fair elections. | ||
| Here's the takeaway, if you want to takeaway. | ||
| Why aren't House Republicans here right now? | ||
| I'm here. | ||
| The Senate's in set. | ||
| Why aren't House Republicans here right now? | ||
| We were supposed to be in session through tomorrow. | ||
| It's because House Republicans were embarrassed on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday. | ||
| Mike Johnson should have never brought that so-called rule to try to prevent new mothers and expectant mothers from voting. | ||
| We're standing up for family values. | ||
| Republicans are anti-family. | ||
| So they lose an effort to try to silence expectant mothers and members of Congress who have just given birth. | ||
| They lose that rule and then they scramble out of town. | ||
| I mean, what does that say? | ||
| This is a party that continues to claim they have a mandate. | ||
| You don't have a mandate to do a thing other than work with us to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America, and you've done nothing on that. | ||
| And now you just get out of town. | ||
| Wait, if you were so confident, if you believe that there was some validation in that referendum in Wisconsin, then you should have brought the SAVE Act, which is a voter suppression bill that we strongly oppose to the floor this week. | ||
| You could have done it. | ||
| You could have done it today. | ||
| You could do it tomorrow. | ||
| We dare you to bring the SAVE Act to the floor. | ||
| We'll have that discussion. | ||
| That's voter suppression. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Peter, wanted to discuss with you about cutting funding to NPR and PBS that the Republicans want. | |
| And in the words of Marjorie Taylor Greene, you're not going to hate us on your own dime, is what she says. | ||
| The Republicans have launched an all-out assault on the economy, on Social Security, on Medicare, on Medicaid, on veterans, on public education, as well as on the American way of life. | ||
| They have no mandate to do any of it, which is why they are on the run, governmentally and politically. | ||
| And the decision to attack Big Bird and the cookie monster, I mean, it's just a strange thing. | ||
| Why are they constantly creating mythical targets as opposed to tackling the issues that matter to the American people? | ||
| The reason why the Republican Party and Donald Trump are cratering in terms of public sentiment is because they are failing to do the things that matter to the American people, like drive down the high cost of living. | ||
| Instead, they are tanking the economy and driving us toward a recession. | ||
| That's what the Trump tariffs are all about. | ||
| So this effort to try to distract the American people is not working. | ||
| It's not going to work in Congress, and it's certainly not working with respect to the American people. | ||
| The judge today dismissed the case against Adams with prejudice, and part of his ruling says that, quote, everything here smacks of a bargain, dismissal of the indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What do you make of this decision? | |
| And what does it say about Adams and the Trump DOJ? | ||
| The effort by the Trump administration to extort the sitting mayor of the city of New York has failed spectacularly. | ||
| Failed spectacularly. | ||
| We said from the very beginning that this notion of trying to dismiss a case without prejudice so that the Department of Justice could hold the people of New York City hostage to try to demand concessions from Mayor Eric Adams was a disgrace from the beginning. | ||
| We exposed this scheme and a federal judge has now put an end to it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks, Mr. Leader. | |
| I wanted to go back to the SAVE Act. | ||
| You mentioned you want to have that fight with Republicans if and when they bring this bill back up, which was supposed to be on the floor on Thursday. | ||
| In the past, there were a handful of Democrats who did vote for the SAVE Act. | ||
| It's possible, and I've heard from some of them, that they're still going to support it moving forward. | ||
| Are you all whipping, trying to get to make sure that all of those Democratic members vote against this, especially as we're having this conversation about voter ID? | ||
| There a different point of view among Democrats on whether there should be voter ID laws. | ||
| There are voter identification laws that exist right now in the state of New York that the Democratic Party in the state of New York supports. | ||
| So-called SAVE Act is not about voter identification, it's about voter suppression because it will limit the ability of married women who no longer go by their maiden name, | ||
| as is the case with tens of millions of women in America, from actually being able to vote unless they get a specific type of identification. | ||
| When it's clear, based on a driver's license, for instance, that they are a citizen that is eligible to vote. | ||
| What is the so-called SAVE Act allegedly about? | ||
| The Republicans are lying to the American people. | ||
| They claim that the so-called SAVE Act is about making sure that only American citizens can vote. | ||
| The Constitution requires that only American citizens can vote. | ||
| Every state requires that right now. | ||
| It's illegal for even a lawful permanent resident to vote in federal elections. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Illegal. | |
| And so this is an effort to distract and to try to weaponize and divide. | ||
| This is the Republican playbook. | ||
| We're not going for it. | ||
| There are men and women in uniform who serve this country, are sacrificing, risking their lives in theaters of conflict all across America. | ||
| And you know what? | ||
| Under the so-called SAVE Act, their military identification would not be an acceptable form of ID. | ||
| Are you kidding me? | ||
| Military identification is not acceptable under the so-called SAVE Act. | ||
| It's a voter suppression bill. | ||
| And it's just designed to distract. | ||
| Understand, this is the Republican playbook. | ||
| Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republicans had a terrible week last week. | ||
| It's continuing this week. | ||
| But they had a terrible week last week. | ||
| On Monday, the national security scandal breaks into the public domain, exposing the incompetence and the clownish nature of many of the highest-ranking national security professionals in the country, including the Secretary of Defense, who needs to resign or be fired, and we're going to stay on that case. | ||
| That's on Monday. | ||
| On Tuesday of last week, Republicans lose a special election in Pennsylvania in a district that Trump had just won by 15 points. | ||
| On Wednesday, finally begins to break through that the Trump administration is dismantling the Social Security Administration in real time, which is going to impact the ability of hardworking Americans to access their earned Social Security benefits. | ||
| On Thursday, Donald Trump is forced to pull back the nomination of Elise Stefanik As UN ambassador, when they were planning in the House her farewell party, | ||
| and Donald Trump makes clear so that there's no ambiguity that he's pulling back Stefanik's nomination because they're on the run legislatively and their margins are tight in the House despite the claim of some big mandate and they're on the run politically and they're not clear that absent at least running for reelection, they can hold a district that Trump had just won by 21 points. | ||
| Then on Friday, we get new consumer confidence numbers that are plummeting because the American people have come to the conclusion that Donald Trump and the Republicans are tanking the economy in real time. | ||
| Then on Saturday, four MAGA supported constitutional amendments in the state of Louisiana, of all places, go down in flames. | ||
| All four of those constitutional amendments were Project 2025-inspired amendments backed by the Republican governor of Louisiana, the Republican Speaker from Louisiana, the Republican majority leader from Louisiana, and the entire Republican apparatus, all four constitutional amendments in Louisiana, a state that Donald Trump had just won by 22 points, go down in flames. | ||
| It was a terrible week. | ||
| So what happens on Sunday? | ||
| He says intentionally, I'm serious about running for a third term. | ||
| Why? | ||
| He can't run for a third term. | ||
| We're not going to ever let that happen. | ||
| Why does he say it? | ||
| And why do some in this country chase the story as if it means anything to distract from the terrible week that they've had? | ||
| We're not going to take the bait. | ||
| And so on Monday, Corey Booker launches an extraordinary, 25-hour long speech on the floor of the Senate, reclaims the narrative in a powerful historic way. | ||
| And then yesterday, the evening ends with Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their MAGA Supreme Court judicial candidate going down in flames. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Leader. | |
| Another one of your members, Brad Sherman, has a primary challenger. | ||
| That's, you know, there's a trend of these younger candidates getting in wanting to oust the older generation of your caucus. | ||
| What do you make of this, and what do you also make of the frustration among younger people that they're suggesting is happening due to a lack of resistance against Trump? | ||
| Yeah, I think I answered that question repeatedly over and over and over again in terms of all the things that are happening in this country. | ||
| And we've got to continue to intensify the effort to match the diabolical intensity of the flood to zone strategy. | ||
| Primaries happen each and every cycle. | ||
| I had a primary from the hard left in 2022. | ||
| My response to that was: come on in, the water is warm. | ||
| It's a democracy. | ||
| And the American people will ultimately decide these things in congressional district after congressional district after congressional district. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Leader, thank you. | |
| With regard to the Sylvester Turner vacant seat in Houston, you said recently to the New York Times that Governor Abbott is rigging the system. | ||
| Do you believe that Governor Abbott is deliberately deciding not to call a special election to fill that seat? | ||
|
unidentified
|
And if so, are House Democrats planning any sort of litigation? | |
| Yes, and very likely, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you allow? | |
| Thank you, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are the Yankees' bats legal? |