Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) referred to as for Democrats to have a “strong, determined and dignified” presence at President Trump’s handle to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.
“The decision to attend the Joint Session is a personal one and we understand that members will come to different conclusions,” Jeffries wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter despatched Monday.
“However, it is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber,” the Democratic chief continued. “The House as an institution belongs to the American people, and as their representatives we will not be run off the block or bullied.”
Jeffries mentioned he and different members of Democratic management will attend the speech “to make clear to the nation that there is a strong opposition party ready, willing and able to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the administration.”
The president’s handle to Congress is usually a possibility for the minority get together to point out resistance — both by boycotting the speech altogether, by carrying symbolic garb or by booing at strategic moments within the speech.
This 12 months, Democrats are planning a extra measured method and are hoping to focus on what the mass layoffs of federal employees by Elon Musk and the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE).
Seated within the viewers will probably be lawmakers, in addition to quite a few former federal employees whom Democrats are bringing as their friends. It’s a technique that represents simply the newest piece of a broader marketing campaign to focus on the real-world results of Trump’s early coverage strikes on Individuals who reside far exterior the Beltway.
Jeffries, in his letter, referred to as on Democrats to “continue to elevate the stories of everyday Americans who are being harmed in real time by House Republicans and the Trump administration.”
