EUGENE DANIELS: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joins us now. Leader Jeffries, thank you so much for coming on. The thing that I kind of can’t get around is how we unring this bell. It feels to me, and I think to a lot of Americans, that the normalization of violence in our politics, the normalization of assassination attempts in our politics, something we haven’t seen since maybe the Civil Rights Era of the 60s, when those were happening. How do we, how can we actually unring that bell realistically?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, it’s going to be imperative that everyone, across the political spectrum, demonstrate the type of leadership that actually is designed to bring people together, to lift people up and to appeal to the greater values of the American people, the things that should bind us together, patriotic Americans. We can have spirited debates, but we should never allow those spirited debates to inspire others to engage in behavior that’s unlawful. That’s going to fall on the President. It’s going to fall on the House, the Senate, governors, mayors, people all across the country because the trajectory that we are on right now, the violent culture that exists, is not sustainable.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And Leader Jeffries, then, is the President doing enough to lower the temperature? Are Republican leaders in the House and the Senate doing enough to lower the temperature or are they exacerbating the tensions in the country by some of the things they say and some of the things they do?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, that certainly remains to be seen in terms of how the President, how my colleagues in Congress handle this moment moving forward. This should be another wake up call amongst many that have happened over the last several years, including, of course, the violent attack on the Capitol that took place on January 6. But at this particular moment in time, the President is going to have to step forward, as is the case with any President when tragedy strikes the United States of America. Now, of course, it’s complicated at this moment by the fact that there’s an ongoing manhunt. All of us should support our law enforcement officials who are engaged in a dangerous endeavor to try to apprehend this suspect, who is clearly violent and likely very disturbed. And we’re thankful for the effort that is being done—city, state and federal officials—to try to apprehend this suspect who engaged in a political assassination of Speaker Hortman. And that’s shocking. That should shock the conscience of everyone. But we also have to come together, and we’re going to need some executive branch leadership partnering with us in the Congress and the Judiciary to keep people safe. It’s not sustainable that Members of Congress, perhaps members of the Judiciary, are being threatened and targeted simply for doing their jobs.

ELISE JORDAN: Leader Jeffries, are you going to be pushing for any additional security for your members? One of your members, Congresswoman Morrison, was on the list as a target. What has to be done in terms of concrete steps to make sure that Members of the House and also the Senate here in Washington are safe?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Yeah, this is going to require additional resources, in all likelihood, so that Members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, people in the House, people in the Senate, you know, have the ability to actually vigilantly and vigorously represent their constituents, articulate views that are designed to advance the best interests of their constituents and not be targeted in the process. And so I expect to have a conversation with the four corners of leadership across the Congress sooner rather than later, because we’re going to need to speak in one voice on this issue. And of course, early next week, we’ll convene directly with the Sergeant at Arms and the head of the Capitol Police Department to have a conversation with House Democrats about the steps that can be immediately taken to put people in a position where they can be safe and do their jobs actively and aggressively at the same time.

EUGENE DANIELS: Leader Jeffries, also yesterday we saw these kind of, you know, split screen moment of what was happening in this country with people taking to the streets and protesting and these ‘No Kings’ protests just while President Trump was having his military parade here. There’s a lot of energy, right? We were seeing folks in big cities, small towns and townships. I was driving to a friend’s baby shower yesterday, and I saw one woman just standing out there with a sign by herself on her street corner. How do you, as a leader, how do Democratic leaders take what seems to be an energy that folks are feeling, both Democrats, Republicans and even some Independents, and channel that into something moving forward? What does that look like?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, yes. Well, you know, it was very inspirational to see that across 50 states, you had peaceful demonstrators coming out in community, after community, after community to make a few things clear—primarily that we need to defend our democracy, uplift and cherish the Constitution and create a better America moving forward that’s less divided and more unified. There’s this principle that is an important part of who we are as a country, that we don’t have kings, we don’t have monarchs, we don’t have dictators. We’re a democracy, and in that democracy, you have three separate and co-equal branches of government. And what we need at this moment is to make sure that the legislative branch actually functions in the way that was intended: a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch. And the way to do that in this current moment is that we just need a handful of Republicans to actually come to the conclusion that they don’t work for Donald Trump, they don’t work for Elon Musk, they don’t work for JD Vance, they work for the American people. Just a handful—four in the House, four in the Senate to do the right thing, to push back against the reckless Republican efforts to jam this GOP Tax Scam down the throats of the American people, the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, on top of the largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history, literally ripping food out of the mouths of children, seniors and veterans. And all of it is being done to give massive tax breaks to GOP billionaire donors. That’s unacceptable. It’s an attack on the American way of life, an attack on the rule of law, an attack on democracy itself. And we need people in the Congress to step up and we need to also support the efforts of the Judiciary branch, which by and large, have been tremendous in upholding the rule of law and pushing back against this administration.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Leader Jeffries, as you noted a couple times in that response, you just need a handful of Republicans to step forward and do the right thing. Why won’t they step forward? Is it because they are in fear of going against this President, and what that would mean in terms of their constituents and also some of the folks who maybe might go a little too far? Or is the problem also that you actually have true believers within the Republican Party now, more true believers than the handful you need to step forward to do the right thing for the American people?

LEADER JEFFRIES: It’s a great question, Jonathan, and I think you have 220 Republicans in the House of Representatives. The overwhelming majority of them are true believers in terms of the far-right extremism the Trump administration is trying to jam down the throats of the American people. There are a handful who are not, but we need them to show, with respect to defending our democracy and the rule of law, what I would call Liz Cheney-like courage. And when it comes to policy issues and the extreme efforts to, you know, end Medicaid as we know it, or wipe away the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans or snatch food out of the mouths of children, we need them to show John McCain-like courage when John McCain, of course, several years ago, was the decisive vote in defeating the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We’re going to continue to work on them every day, every week, every month until a handful of them finally decide to cross over. It’s why we’ve been having town hall meetings in our districts and in Republican districts and rallies and speeches and press conferences and hearings and being very aggressive as Democrats in trying to make sure that you have some Republicans partner with us to do the right thing on behalf of our great country.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And that John McCain moment was iconic as he walked to the Senate Floor and did a thumbs down on the effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, thank you very much for coming to The Weekend.

The full interview can be watched here. 

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