Rep. Hakeem Jeffries describes next steps after VA redistricting ruling: 'Our fight is not over'

0:02 DECISION TO BLOCK THE STATE'S NEWLY DRAWN AND VOTER APPROVED CONGRESSIONAL MAP,

0:06 THE DEMOCRATIC HOUSE LEADER, HOUSE MINORITY LEADER, HAKIM JEFFREY SAYS, QUOTE,

0:09 OVER 3 MILLION VIRGINIA CITIZENS CAST THEIR VOTES IN A FREE AND FAIR

0:13 ELECTION YET THE STATE SUPREME COURT HAS CHOSEN TO INVALIDATE THEIR VOICE,

0:16 DISENFRANCHISE THEM AND VIOLATE THEIR DUE PROCESS RIGHTS.

0:21 THE DECISION TO OVERTURN AN ENTIRE ELECTION IS AN UNPRECEDENTED

0:24 AND UNDEMOCRATIC ACTION THAT CANNOT STAND MAGA REPUBLICANS HAVE ADOPTED

0:29 VOTER SUPPRESSION AS A STRATEGY AS DEMOCRATIC ACROSS THE AMERICAN

0:41 SOUTH WE ARE EXPLORING ALL OPTIONS TO overturned this shocking decision.

0:46 No matter what it takes,

0:47 House Democrats will win in November so we can help rescue

0:51 this nation from the extremism being unleashed by Donald Trump and Republicans.

0:55 Our fight is not over.

0:57 We are JUST GETTING STARTED, AND QUOTE.

0:59 THE DEMOCRATIC HOUSE MINORITY LEADER HAKIM JEFFRIES OF NEW YORK JOINS ME NOW.

1:03 CONGRESSMAN, THANK YOU FOR BEING WITH US.

1:05 LET ME ASK YOU THIS.

1:07 AT SOME POINT, THE POLLING INDICATES THE LIKELIHOOD

1:11 THAT DEMOCRATS WILL TAKE THE HOUSE IN NOVEMBER,

1:15 HISTORY SUGGESTS THE LIKELIHOOD THAT WILL HAPPEN.

1:19 ARE YOU A LITTLE WORRIED THAT THIS NUTTY,

1:21 OUT-of CONTROL, GERRYMANDERING ACTUALLY COMPROMISES THAT POSSIBILITY?

1:28 NO, WE'RE GOING TO WIN BACK THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN NOVEMBER.

1:31 WE ARE ONLY THREE SEATS SHORT.

1:33 WE HISTORICALLY OVERPERFORMED IN NOVEMBER.

1:35 and that's one of the reasons why Republicans are in panic mode.

1:39 Remember, Ali, when we took the House back in 2018, we were 24 seats short.

1:45 We crossed over that hurdle and, in fact,

1:48 in 2018 we flipped a total of 40 seats.

1:50 So, we're going to take back control of the House of Representatives.

1:53 We're going to continue to make clear to the American

1:56 people that we will lower their high cost of living,

1:58 fix a broken health care system and clean

2:00 up the corruption that we're seeing in the country,

2:03 in the Congress, certainly with the Supreme Court

2:05 and deal with the most corrupt administration in American history.

2:09 Now we're going to need nationwide judicial reform.

2:13 We're going to need nationwide electoral reform.

2:15 We're going to need nationwide campaign finance reform,

2:19 which is why we have to take the House back,

2:21 take the Senate back, keep pressing forward and then in 2028,

2:25 take the presidency back as well.

2:27 So I'm going to talk to you about those three areas of reform that you suggest.

2:30 You heard Elie Mestal saying he puts judicial reform at the top

2:33 of that, but I want to talk about something else.

2:34 Of those things you say you're going to talk to people and win

2:38 their votes over based on their cost of living and their health care.

2:41 That message is being very clearly put forward

2:44 by an increasing number of progressive candidates who are winning primaries.

2:49 That sometimes feels out of sync with both the Democratic

2:52 Party and who House leadership wants to run in primary elections.

2:58 And you face some criticism for this.

2:59 Where are you on this?

3:01 Because the people winning elections right now tend

3:05 to be putting that message forward very clearly.

3:09 Well, since January of 2025 in my first remarks to the new Congress,

3:14 we made clear that we're going to center lowering the high cost of living.

3:19 America is far too expensive IT'S A BELIEF OF DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE.

3:21 PEOPLE ARE WORKING HARD,

3:21 THEY ARE PLAYING BY THE RULES AND THEY CAN'T THRIVE, THEY CAN BARELY SURVIVE.

3:26 THAT'S A UNIVERSALLY AND DEMOCRATS AND DEMOCRATS

3:27 HELD BELIEF AMONGST DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE

3:31 ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL SPECTRUM FROM PROGRESSIVES

3:33 TO NEW DEMS WE'VE SEEN ACROSS THE COUNTRY,

3:36 CONSECUTIVE MONTHS, TO BLUE DOGS AND ALL POINTS IN BETWEEN.

3:38 WHAT WE'VE SEEN ACROSS THE COUNTRY,

3:40 WE'VE NOW WON ELECTIONS FOR 16 CONSECUTIVE COUPLE OF MONTHS,

3:43 INCLUDING IN PLACES LIKE NEW JERSEY

3:46 WHERE GOVERNOR MIKEY CHERYL RAN ON AFFORDABILITY.

3:49 THE NEW YORK CITY DEMOCRATIC POLITICS, IN VIRGINIA,

3:56 ABIGAIL SPAMBERGER RAN AND WON ON AFFORDABILITY.

3:58 THIS IS A UNIVERSALLY HELD BELIEF.

4:00 I DON'T GET INVOLVED IN WE'LL SEE WHO EMERGES,

4:05 BUT THE FOCUS HAS GOT TO BE ON WINNING

4:09 IN NOVEMBER AND THAT'S WHAT WE INTEND TO DO.

4:12 WHAT ABOUT NON-OPEN-SEAT PRIMARIES,

4:14 CHALLENGES FROM PROGRESSIVES THE PEOPLE WHO SAY THAT ESTABLISHMENT

4:18 DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP HAS NOT MOVED FAST ENOUGH AND HARD ENOUGH.

4:23 BUT WE'RE GOING TO WE WILL CONTINUE TO DEFEND EVERY SINGLE HOUSE INCUMBENT.

4:30 ULTIMATELY, HOWEVER, IT'S GOING TO BE UP TO THE PEOPLE AND THAT'S THE REALITY

4:33 OF SERVING IN THE HOUSE OF PEOPLE OF THE PEOPLE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

4:36 THE INSTITUTION, THE FRAMER IS DESIGNED TO BE CLOSEST TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

4:39 WE HAVE ONLY TWO YEAR EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS.

4:42 WE'VE GOT TO GO BACK TO THE PEOPLE EVERY OTHER YEAR AND EVERYONE IS

4:45 GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE THEIR CASE

4:47 TO THE INDIVIDUALS THAT THEY'RE PRIVILEGED TO REPRESENT.

4:49 AND THAT'S WHAT, YOU KNOW, THEY'LL CONTINUE TO DO.

4:52 AND I'VE INDICATED WHETHER IT'S A PROGRESSIVE INCUMBENT,

4:55 WHETHER IT'S A BLUE DOG, WHETHER IT'S A NEW DEM,

4:57 I'M GOING TO SUPPORT MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS AND THEN WE ALL

5:01 HAVE TO COME TOGETHER TO ACTUALLY PUSH

5:04 BACK AGAINST THIS UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK ON OUR DEMOCRACY,

5:07 UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK ON FREE AND UNFORTUNATELY UNFAIR ELECTIONS,

5:11 AN UNPRECEDENTED ATTACK ON BLACK REPRESENTATION

5:13 IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH AND ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY

5:17 WHICH IS WHAT THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION IN THE SOUTH AND CALI HAS UNLEASED.

5:21 LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND BECAUSE

5:23 YOU AND I FROM NEW YORK, WE DON'T LIVE,

5:25 THERE'S NOT A DAILY LIVED EXPERIENCE OF RECONSTRUCTION

5:28 AND THE END of it and Jim Crow laws.

5:30 In the South, there still is.

5:32 Like people have either in recent memory

5:34 or they still experience things like that.

5:36 This is being described as like the end of RECONSTRUCTION.

5:41 IT'S THAT SERIOUS.

5:42 IT TOOK DECADES, SEVEN DECADES TO GET OUT OF THAT MESS AND GET BACK TO 1965.

5:48 HOW DO YOU GET PEOPLE IN NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA AND MINNEAPOLIS AND PLACES

5:52 LIKE THAT TO THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THIS IS EVERYBODY'S FIGHT RIGHT NOW.

5:55 THIS ISN'T JUST BLACK PEOPLE'S FIGHT.

5:58 IT'S CERTAINLY EVERYBODY'S FIGHT.

6:00 LISTEN, DR.

6:01 KING ONCE ELOQUENTLY MADE THE OBSERVATION THAT INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS A THREAT

6:13 THE AMERICAN JOURNEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CHARACTERIZED BY MOMENTS OF PROGRESS,

6:17 FOLLOWED BY MOMENTS GENERATIONS OF BACKLASH AND THEN

6:20 A NEW GENERATION OF AMERICANS HAVE TO SHOW UP, STAND UP, SPEAK UP, FIGHT,

6:24 GET INTO GOOD TROUBLE TO USHER IN AN ERA OF WE

6:28 WENT FROM THE PROGRESS OF EMANCIPATION TO THE BACKLASH OF JIM CROW.

6:32 THE PROGRESS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT TO THE BACKLASH OF MASS INCARCERATION,

6:37 THE PROGRESS OF EMANCIPATION WE ARE SEEING THIS BEHAVIOR

6:44 THAT WE ARE SEEING COMING OUT OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES TO THROW

6:50 THE AMERICAN SOUTH BACK INTO THE JIM CROW ERA.

6:53 So it's going to take an all-hands-on-deck effort,

6:55 and everybody has a stake in preserving

6:58 a multiracial democracy as part of the effort

7:03 to preserve American exceptionalism as we move forward into our next 250 years.

7:09 There's nothing that Republicans are doing now that's anything of a surprise,

7:12 because they wrote it all down in a 922-page book that Donald Trump

7:16 denied having anything to do with, and then they're implementing all of it.

7:19 Should there be a Democratic equivalent of that?

7:23 This is actually how we're going to fix all of these problems,

7:25 judicial reform, electoral reform, nonpartisan redistricting,

7:29 campaign finance and everything else?

7:33 Yeah, well, certainly I think a lot of that has been laid out by House Democrats

7:37 and we will continue to lay out what we think needs to be done in order, one,

7:41 to solve the problems that the American people want us

7:44 to WE'VE GOT TO ADDRESS IN TERMS OF AN AFFORDABLE LIFE,

7:47 A COMFORTABLE LIFE, GIVING THEM THE ABILITY TO LIVE

7:49 A MIDDLE-CLASS LIFE OR BEYOND, LIVED A GOOD LIFE.

7:52 AT THE SAME PERIOD OF TIME, WE DO HAVE THESE WE'VE GOT TO, FOR INSTANCE,

7:58 MAKE SURE WE PASS THE JOHN ROBERT LEWIS VOTING RIGHTS ADVANCEMENT ACT SO WE CAN

8:04 END THE ERROR OF VOTER SUPPRESSION IN THE UNITED

8:07 STATES OF AMERICA ONCE AND FOR ALL.

8:08 WE HAVE TO END CITIZENS UNITED,

8:10 DRAMATICALLY REFORM OUR CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS TO STOP

8:14 THE ABILITY OF THESE DEEP-POCKETED SPECIAL INTERESTS TO INTERVENE.

8:18 AND WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO EXPLORE MASSIVE JUDICIAL REFORM,

8:23 STATE BY STATE AND AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL AND EVERYTHING

8:26 SHOULD BE ON THE TABLE AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED.

8:29 CONGRESSMAN, GOOD TO SEE YOU.

8:30 THANKS FOR BEING ON THE ON THE SHOW THIS MORNING.

8:32 WE APPRECIATE CONGRESSMAN HAKEM JEFFRIES OF NEW YORK

8:33 IS THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.