On Thursday, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on NY1’s Inside City Hall with Errol Louis where he highlighted House Democrats’ strong electoral performance in New York and the success of House Democratic incumbents across the nation.
ERROL LOUIS: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. Democrats here in New York have officially flipped three House seats – two that turned red in the 2022 midterm elections. Those races include the 22nd Congressional District up in Syracuse, where John Mannion beat incumbent Brandon Williams. In the Hudson Valley, there was a rematch for the 19th Congressional District and in that race, Josh Riley beat out Mark Molinaro. And out on Long Island, the Associated Press made it official earlier today, Laura Gillen has won over Anthony D’Esposito. But the overall balance of power remains uncertain in the House of Representatives, with Republicans poised to control the White House and the Senate for sure. Here now with an exclusive interview is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who also represents parts of Brooklyn. Thanks for being here. Great to see you.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Good evening, Errol. Great to be with you.
ERROL LOUIS: Yes. At what point in the night, by the way, did you realize that Donald Trump was going to win the national election?
LEADER JEFFRIES: It was very late at night, probably at some point between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. I was in Washington, D.C., at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters, and things appeared to be moving in that direction once Pennsylvania was called. And it was at that point that it was clear that we were heading into a very different situation, one that we’ve been in before in the aftermath of the 2016 election, and certainly one that we have to be prepared to meet the moment once again.
ERROL LOUIS: Yeah, talk to, I guess, some of your younger members, some of the younger people watching this broadcast who have never been through this kind of a sort of mini wave election where things go very much in one direction in a way that they did not anticipate.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah, it was very interesting because in the context of the House of Representatives, we’ve been able to withstand that presidential wave that broke against us. By way of example in 2016, there were only 194 Democrats in the House of Representatives in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory in November of 2016. Both sides believe that whatever happens with the majority in the next Congress, that Democrats will be no shorter than 212 to 214 votes, and we still have a clear pathway to taking back the majority. Of course, that runs through Arizona and Oregon and five races that are flip opportunities in California that are too close to call and too early to call.
ERROL LOUIS: So you’re saying at a minimum, you’ll have 212 seats? 218 is what’s needed for control of the chamber. And you’re waiting on, it sounds like you’re waiting on at least eight or nine seats.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah, this will come down to about eight seats in total that Republicans currently hold that are within the range of us being able to flip them. Now, there are others that are out there that haven’t been called. But, you know, just to be conservative in our estimates, we’re focused on a red-to-blue seat in Oregon, two in Arizona, one of which we’re ahead. We’re also ahead in the count in Oregon. And then five red-to-blue opportunities that are in California. Those races are both too early to call in terms of the number of ballots that are still out there, we’re talking about, in some cases, more than 100,000 ballots that have yet to be counted because of the manner in which elections are run in California. And that’s just the reality. It’s going to take a week or two or, you know, others in Southern California that we’re still waiting on additional ballots to come in.
ERROL LOUIS: Okay. Where were the biggest Democratic wins and where were you basically disappointed?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, certainly the biggest Democratic wins were right here in New York. And I’m so thankful to the coordinated campaign effort that was put together from the very beginning in the aftermath of the 2022 midterm elections led by Governor Kathy Hochul, Senator Gillibrand, the New York congressional delegation, Jay Jacobs, the State Party Chair, our union friends and allies, it was an all-hands-on-deck effort. We lost a total of four Republican-held seats in New York in 2022. We’ve now won four Republican-held seats back in 2024. That, of course, began with Tom Suozzi and now with the victories of Josh Riley and, of course, Laura Gillen and John Mannion in the Syracuse area, we’ve taken those four seats back.
ERROL LOUIS: Okay. For the record, is it your intention to stay on as Minority Leader if you don’t clinch the majority?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, you know, that’s going to be a decision that we’ll ultimately make in the immediate aftermath of what’s clear. But I’m going to continue my service. And if I have the opportunity to continue to lead House Democrats in either the majority or the minority, it certainly would be an opportunity that would continue to be a great honor.
ERROL LOUIS: What worked in New York as opposed to in some other places? I’m thinking about Pennsylvania in particular, where Democrats lost congressional seats.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting that only two Democratic incumbents at this point in time have lost. There’s still some races that are too close to call. We feel like we’re strongly positioned all across the country. In terms of the Democratic incumbents, we had 31 Democratic incumbents who were in very tough races and I think that we’re going to return 28, 29 of them at the end of the day. We’ve lost those two in Pennsylvania, Matt Cartwright and Susan Wild—great members of Congress—in that particular instance, there was just a Trump wave that became very difficult to overcome. Now, what’s interesting is that Donald Trump did better than almost any other Republican presidential candidate in modern political history here in New York State and even won several of the districts that we either held or flipped. And notwithstanding that, we were able to defeat three Republican incumbents. And so, I think that there are lessons to be learned from this election in all directions. And we will certainly do an after-action analysis at the appropriate time. But right now, we’re focused on making sure that we can count every vote, particularly in Oregon and Arizona and California and then we’ll see where we land in about a week or two.
ERROL LOUIS: Okay. Now, the process has begun of trying to learn the lesson. Senator Bernie Sanders yesterday offered a somewhat scathing assessment of what he feels went wrong for the Democratic Party. And he said, and I’m quoting here, ‘It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working-class people, would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.’ What’s your reaction to that?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I think, one, we should be proud of the record of President Joe Biden in partnership with Kamala Harris. It’s a record that both progressives and centrist Members of both the House and the Senate supported as it relates to the American Rescue Plan, putting shots in arms, money in pockets, kids back in school, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create, you know, and fix our crumbling bridges, roads, tunnels, airports, sewer and water systems, high-speed Internet access all across America, clean water for every community, driving down the high price of lifesaving prescription drugs, including insulin through the Inflation Reduction Act. The largest investment in combating the climate crisis in the history of the world. Bringing domestic manufacturing jobs back home to the country through the CHIPS and Science Act. This is a record to be proud of in terms of what Democrats were able to accomplish when we had majorities. At the same period of time, we recognize that more needs to be done to meet the needs of the American people, to build an economy that works for everyday Americans, because there are far too many people who are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. And we can have a conversation as we move forward that, I hope, will be a constructive one about how to solve problems for working-class Americans, building upon the progress that we have already made to date.
ERROL LOUIS: Well, what do you say and what did your members say in response to the long list of things that you just ticked off, the CHIPS and Science Act, the infrastructure bill and so forth, relief on the price of prescription drugs and so forth and they say, you know, the price of eggs is too high and that’s the only thing I care about. Or, you know, migrants are invading our country and that’s the only thing I care about. How did your members answer that? What’s the response?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Tom Suozzi did a great job in showing the way, and our other candidates were very successful. I also want to mention Pat Ryan, who, of course, did a tremendous job of winning re-election in a district where they targeted him for defeat. He won by 13 points. So it’s clear that what House Democrats were able to do here in New York was to speak about the issues that matter in terms of the economy, inflation, recognize that people were feeling the pinch of the inflationary pressure of higher gas prices that have begun to abate and certainly higher food prices and groceries that have also begun to abate. But it has caused challenges and I think we have to be very clear-eyed and our candidates across the country, where we as House Democrats, thankfully over-performed expectations, certainly hopeful that we’ll be able to get to that 218 number or beyond that when every single vote has been counted. But we were able to, I think, make clear that we know more needs to be done, that we have to lower costs, that we have to grow the middle class, that we have to continue to build a healthy and affordable economy. And our candidates and our incumbent members also made clear, we have a broken immigration system, we have to secure the border and we’re going to have to continue to lean in to those realities that so many voters are concerned about here in New York and across the country.
ERROL LOUIS: In the past, you co-chaired the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which helps Democrats in the House to develop and sort of speak, in reasonable harmony or even unison when it comes to different positions. Take us inside what that conversation is going to be like inside that conference where you’re looking now, okay, we just had Republicans winning the popular vote for the first time in 20 years. We’ve got a lot of different states that flipped, a lot of Senate seats that were lost. Where do you start that conversation?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, you know, Donald Trump is a uniquely peculiar and interesting political figure. And the reality is he’ll be President. He’ll not be on the ballot again moving forward. And so, I think we have to figure out where we go from here. Certainly, on the governmental side in making sure that we find bipartisan common ground whenever and wherever possible with the new administration, but also being very clear that we will push back against MAGA extremism whenever necessary, defend Social Security, defend Medicare, defend the Affordable Care Act, defend the climate progress that we have made up to date and continue to try to address the challenges that the Earth faces in terms of its sustainability and resilience, and certainly make sure that we’re protecting a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. So that’s what we’re going to do on the governmental side, and we’ll talk about how to execute that moving forward. On the communications side, we certainly have to fully and comprehensively reevaluate what have we done right and where have we fallen short and how do we better communicate our vision, our plans, our goals and objectives to make life better for everyday Americans, particularly working-class Americans?
ERROL LOUIS: What does your gut tell you when you see some of the exit polling data saying that a majority of Latino males voted for Donald Trump? That a larger than normal percentage of African American males voted for Donald Trump?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I think that people have been feeling economically distressed for decades, certainly in many communities of color. And we’ve got to do a better job of transforming that economic reality. And so, in this particular context, I think the economic anxieties exacerbated by, you know, the inflationary pressure that people have been under—gas, groceries in particular, which are everyday expenses and, certainly, rent or the cost of housing—these are things that, you know, consume the day-to-day existence of everyday Americans. And they should. And they should. And so, we’ve got to do a better job of addressing those anxieties and coming up with plans to deliver real results.
ERROL LOUIS: I got to ask you a local question before you go. You’ve said in the past that you think Mayor Adams deserves his day in court and should not step aside until his federal corruption case is litigated. I noticed you didn’t say that about former Congressman George Santos after he was indicted. There was kind of a rush from you and others to say, ‘You need to leave and then solve your legal problems.’ What is the difference here?
LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, in part, the difference is that George Santos conned his way into the United States House of Representatives, and that was clear to everyone. There was no dispute. He had to acknowledge that he was elected under false pretenses. That’s very different than the situation that Eric Adams faces, where he is entitled to the presumption of innocence in the same way that—I and others were clear—former President Donald Trump was entitled to the presumption of innocence. All Americans are entitled to that presumption.
ERROL LOUIS: Okay. We’re going to leave it there for now. And thanks so much. Best of luck. I know you’ll be watching all of this stuff. You are the best vote counter in the country when it comes to the balance of control in Congress, because I think you have the greatest interest. But thank you for coming in and sharing some of where we are right now.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Thanks, Errol.
Full interview can be watched here.
