Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday rejected the concept voters delivered an Election Day mandate to Donald Trump and the Republicans, arguing that the GOP’s razor-thin majority within the Home implies that nothing will get performed in Washington with out Democratic assist.
“Despite the claims of some of my Republican colleagues, who have spent a lot of time over the last two weeks talking about some big, massive mandate — I’m looking for it,” Jeffries mentioned throughout a press briefing within the Capitol.
The feedback have been a shot on the Republicans who, after profitable management of the Home, Senate and White Home within the subsequent Congress, have asserted broad powers to pursue a starkly conservative coverage agenda.
That features Trump, who used his victory speech on election evening to say “an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who argued Tuesday that voters gave Trump the authority to seat his most popular Cupboard picks — no matter any controversy swirling round them.
“President Trump is looking for persons who will shake up the status quo, and we got a mandate in this election cycle to do that,” Johnson instructed reporters within the Capitol. “The status quo is not working for the American people. And so these are persons who will go in and bring real reform — significant reform — to the agencies that they lead.”
Jeffries, who was elected on Tuesday to steer Home Democrats once more within the subsequent Congress, is vowing to work with the incoming administration on areas of shared curiosity, whereas additionally promising a battle if Republicans search to slash the Democrats’ sacred cows, together with abortion rights and advantages underneath Social Safety, Medicare, Medicaid and ObamaCare.
“We will push back against far-right extremism whenever necessary,” Jeffries mentioned.
Home Democrats will probably have some leverage in these coming coverage fights. Whereas Republicans will management all levers of energy in Washington subsequent yr, GOP leaders have struggled repeatedly to unite their feuding troops to move even essentially the most elementary payments, like funding the federal authorities.
These difficulties are anticipated to proceed within the subsequent Congress, even with an ally within the White Home, as GOP leaders search to maneuver Trump’s bold — and expensive — legislative agenda within the face of anticipated resistance from conservative deficit hawks. Whereas Republicans saved Home management on this month’s elections, their majority shall be razor skinny, simply because it was all through the present Congress. And the Senate filibuster ensures that Democrats, whereas relegated to the minority within the subsequent Congress, may even keep vital affect over most payments that transfer by means of the higher chamber.
That mixture, Jeffries mentioned Tuesday, means Democrats could have loads of legislative sway within the subsequent Congress — and belies the GOP’s claims to a mandate.
“The question about this notion of some mandate to make massive far-right extreme policy changes — it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist,” Jeffries mentioned.
“And so in the new Congress, for anything to happen — particularly as it relates to an enlightened spending agreement, or ensuring that America does not default on our debt and crash the economy and hurt everyday Americans for the first time in our nation’s history — it’s clear House Republicans cannot do it on their own.”
