Goldberg: Can Hakeem Jeffries break through?

Last week I went down to Washington to speak to Hakeem Jeffries the House minority leader after he gave a speech marking Donald Trump s calamitous first days in office At a time when multiple Democrats feel leaderless Jeffries usually a relentlessly on-message inside operator had been stepping further into the general eye Not long before we spoke he d appeared on a live taping of the Raging Moderates podcast in New York City it was he mentioned seemingly the th or th podcast he d done since February On April he spent more than hours holding a livestreamed sit-in on the Capitol approaches with Sen Cory Booker to draw attention to Republican plans to ravage the federal safety net More is more We re in a more is more circumstances noted Jeffries who represents a district in New York s Brooklyn borough We just have to keep doing more rallies speeches town hall meetings in Democratic districts town hall meetings in Republican districts The day we spoke a widely shared Bulwark story mentioned that Jeffries was discouraging Democratic representatives from traveling to El Salvador to highlight the plight of the deportees sent by Trump to rot in a maximum-security gulag Jeffries denied this as did an aide to one of the Democrats who d gone there Mentioned Jeffries I ve stated nothing other than great job to the Democrats who made the trip Still it s pretty clear that Jeffries would much rather talk about Medicaid and taxes the normal stuff of Democratic legislating than looming autocracy What preponderance Americans want to know he reported is Are we fighting to make the commercial sector more affordable for them Are we protecting their physical condition care and are we going to battle to make sure that their future is brighter than their past When I demanded him about the fury parts of the base feel toward a business-as-usual Democratic leadership he rejected the premise of my question Traveling all over the country he commented he interacts with people who are thankful that Democrats are out there fighting on their behalf repeatedly Then he turned the conversation back to Medicaid Medicare and Social Precaution A major question is whether Jeffries quotidian focus on framework can break through the Trumpian onslaught The next scarce months should reveal the answer In the opening days of this administration Congress has been an afterthought with Republican representatives declining to either check Trump or do much lawmaking But the next phase of Trump s agenda runs through the House where Republicans are negotiating a budget bill extending his first-term tax cuts now set to expire at the end of the year while cutting social programs including Medicaid Given the narrow Republican majority in the House and the likelihood of a Democratic takeover in the midterms it could be the only key piece of new ordinance Trump gets to sign There s nothing more urgent that we could be doing right now than stopping Republicans from jamming their reckless and extreme budget down the throats of the American people revealed Jeffries Given Republican control of Congress and the fact that budget bills can pass the Senate with a simple majority it s unlikely that the regulation can be thwarted But he still holds out hope that Republicans might fail to come up with a bill that their competing factions can agree to After all assuming Jeffries keeps Democrats united in opposition House Republicans can afford only three no votes Should at least four Republicans defect reported Jeffries everything will fall apart which is a good evolution for the American people and the one that we re trying to make sure takes place Big cuts bigger risks Though Trump has explained he wants to protect Medicaid the debate among Republicans in Congress isn t whether to cut it but by how much A House budget resolution passed in February instructs the Vitality and Commerce Committee to find billion to cut from the programs under its jurisdiction which would require taking an ax to Medicaid Selected so-called moderates however say they ll accept only Medicaid cuts of billion to billion still a giant bite but less than what conservatives are demanding On Wednesday House conservatives explained in a letter to Mike Johnson the speaker that their advocacy for the bill depends on strict adherence to the framework in the budget resolution There s also a separate parallel fight between blue- and red-state Republicans over federal tax deductions for state and local income taxes It s sort of like a prisoner s dilemma for them declared Jeffries The spending reductions conservatives want to see would mean the largest cut to healthcare care in American history the largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history and doing a whole lot of other damage to affordable housing and instruction and veterans he revealed Related Articles Lawmakers slam plan to use Bay Area military site for immigration detention facility Why one California Democrat sided with Republicans in vote to override state s electric car mandate California s US senators revive effort to ban assault weapons Kamala Harris returns to spotlight in major speech slamming Trump Rep Gerry Connolly procedures down as top Oversight Democrat and won t seek reelection as cancer returns The moderate Republican faction knows their voters can t stomach austerity on this scale I think any time it looks like we re genuinely hurting people that s going to piss off the American population Andrew Garbarino a Republican from a swing district in New York recounted CNN on Wednesday In all likelihood one side will eventually cave Tax cuts are the GOP s raison d tre and it s hard to imagine Republicans letting Trump s run out especially when they re desperate to juice an financial market that s slowing due to tariffs But the longer the budget process drags out the more opportunities Democrats will have to try to show people exactly how they re going to be harmed And ultimately almost any bill Republicans manage to pass is going to make a multitude of voters lives harder I appealed Jeffries how he explained the Democrats historic unpopularity one NBC poll presented that only of registered voters view the party positively He countered that surveys show voters preferring Democrats over Republicans in the midterm congressional races What s majority of significant in terms of the House is the side-by-side comparison he announced Are we on track to taking back the House or not From that perspective at least things aren t going so badly Michelle Goldberg is a New York Times columnist