During his weekly news conference on Thursday, the Democratic leader said, “America is too expensive for working-class families and for middle-class folks all across the country.”
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., slammed President-elect Donald Trump‘s proposal to annex Greenland and Canada and rename the Gulf of Mexico.
“We are not sent to Washington to invade Greenland, rename the Gulf of Mexico or seize the Panama Canal by force,” said Jeffries during his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill.
The House Democratic leader clarified that he and his congressional colleagues were instead elected to lower the high cost of living that American voters made clear was their top priority in last year’s election.
“America is too expensive for working-class families and for middle-class folks all across the country. That should be our mission, and that’s what we’re going to focus on over the next few years,” declared Jeffries, who is the nation’s first Black American to serve as leader of any major political party.
Trump, during a press conference at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, on Tuesday, indicated that he was considering using military force to take back control of the Panama Canal and annex Greenland and “economic force” to make Canada America’s 51st state. The president-elect’s proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” caught most by surprise.
“There’s nothing about the November election results that suggest that any of this foolishness should be part of what we tackle here in Washington, DC, on behalf of hard-working American families,” Jeffries later said.
When asked about Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s remarks on Wednesday that he would work with Trump to rename the Gulf of Mexico if he worked with Democrats on legislation to address the economy, Leader Jeffries doubled down that the focus must be on pocketbook issues and not Trump’s geopolitical wishlist.
“I think that we’ve got to focus on the issues that matter to the American people. Housing costs are too high, grocery costs are too high, insurance costs are too high, utility costs are too high, and child care costs are too high,” said Jeffries. “We have to build an affordable economy for hard-working American taxpayers. That’s what we’re going to focus on, and that’s what we look forward to getting done for the people.”
Since losing the presidential election and control of Congress, Democrats have had to navigate their painful defeat as they prepare to both resist Republican policies they feel will harm most American citizens — especially Black, brown and poor Americans — and work with President Trump and Republican members of Congress to advance legislation they can agree on.
Jeffries vowed that Democrats would work to prevent policies proposed by some Republicans, like “reckless cuts” to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veteran benefits, and SNAP benefits. The Democratic leader also slammed the Republican plan to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts legislation, which expires later this year.
The New York congressman called it a “tax scam” that is “designed simply to enact massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations and not help those Americans who are really in need.”
Antjuan Seawright, an advisor for Jeffries, told theGrio that looking ahead in a Trump and Republican-controlled Washington, Leader Jeffries will be “one of the more influential Democrats in the country.”
This is not only because Republicans have had the “slimmest majority” since 1931, making Jeffries a shadow speaker of the House, if you will.
“They’re not going to be able to do anything without having Democrats at the table. And so that means that Democrats must be united,” said Seawright, who runs his own political consulting firm, Blueprint Stratgy, LLC. He continued, “I think that’s gonna come with some obligations and some opportunities.
House Democrats, the political strategist said, will be looking to Jeffries for his guidance on “presenting a unified front, finding common ground where you cannot find it [and] higher ground where there may not be common ground.”
However, Seawright made clear Jeffries will lead Democrats in “pushing back at every angle, twist and turn against extremism that we know will come from the modern day Magamatured Republican Party.”
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