Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on American Democracy

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. In a couple of minutes, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries will join us. President Biden spoke this morning on this first anniversary of the January 6th Capitol riot, and I want to play for you about a minute and a half of Biden talking about patriotism as he sees it today in light of the adherence of the "Big Lie," calling themselves a Patriot Movement.

President Biden: Finally, the third "Big Lie" being told by a former president and his supporters is that the mob who sought to impose their will through violence are the nation's true patriots. Is that what you thought when you looked at the mob ransacking the Capitol, destroying property, literally defecating in the hallways, rifling through the desks of senators and representatives, hunting down members of Congress? Patriots? Not in my view. To me, the true patriots were the more than 150 Americans who peacefully expressed their vote at the ballot box, the election workers who protected the integrity of the vote, and the heroes who defended this Capitol.

You can't love your country only when you win. You can't obey the law only when it's convenient. You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies. Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy. They didn't come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage not in service of America but rather in service of one man. Those who incited the mob, the real plotters, who were desperate to deny the certification of this election, defy the will of the voters, but their plot was foiled.

Brian Lehrer: President Biden about two hours ago. Now on this January 6th, 2022, Brooklyn and Queens Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who is also the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and according to an article on Business Insider this week, the most likely Democrat to succeed Nancy Pelosi as speaker or minority leader when she is done with that. He was also an impeachment manager in the first Trump impeachment over the Ukraine abuse of power scandal in 2020. Congressman, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Hakeem Jeffries: Good morning, Brian. Great to be on this very important day.

Brian Lehrer: Would you look back for a moment first at your own experience of a year ago today? Where were you when the break-in occurred and how did you keep yourself safe from the mob?

Hakeem Jeffries: I was on the house floor when the break-in occurred. The joint session was temporarily suspended when the objection was made by both the senator and a House member to the certification of the results from Arizona. We were going in alphabetical order. Arizona was the first contested state. We all know or at least reasonable people know Joe Biden won Arizona, but the Republicans were going to do what they did as part of the cult in continuing to perpetrate the big lie. The joint session suspends itself, the senators returned to the Senate side of the Capitol and were debating the objections to Arizona on the House floor.

At some point during the debate, I see the speaker sort of expeditiously, almost violently removed from the rostrum by her security staff. That was strange, had never seen anything like that. It wasn't clear to me at that moment why she had been removed. She's replaced by chair of the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern, the debate resumes. Then shortly thereafter, one of the security staff from the Sergeant at Arms office interrupts the debate and says, "The mob has breached the Capitol. They're on the second floor right outside the House chamber. Be prepared to hit the floor and secure the gas masks that are underneath your seats."

At that point, Brian, I knew things were serious. I grew up in Brooklyn. It was a rough time, middle of the crack cocaine epidemic, had been in a lot of different precarious situations. Never had been asked to secure a gas mask, let alone knew that there was one underneath the seat that I was at and every other seat in the House chamber. That's when I realized that this was a very dangerous situation.

Brian Lehrer: Now, before we get into some of the political and preservation of democracy questions for today and going forward because I think we all want to look forward more than look back. Would you like to say anything and tribute to the law enforcement personnel who died as a result of January 6th or the 15 who were hospitalized and another 125 injured?

Hakeem Jeffries: I'm so thankful for the service and certainly the sacrifice and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for defending the Capitol, defending the Congress, the constitution, and the country at great costs to themselves personally and to their families. These are real patriots, not the violent mob that portrays themselves as patriots. These were the real patriots, they were on the front lines of our democracy with their heart and their soul and their bodies on the line, and that's the best of America.

It's important to remember that though we saw the worst of America on that day, one year of ago on January 6th, we also saw the best of America, and that really was represented by those hero Capitol police officers, by the staff members who were there, by the metropolitan police officers who were battling along with their Capitol police force brothers and sisters very early, hand-to-hand combat for hour after hour after hour that day and then ultimately the National Guards showing up.

Brian Lehrer: Now, we just played a clip of President Biden from his commemorative speech this morning, before you came on. Elsewhere in that speech, he said, "We're in a struggle for the soul of the country." Vice President Harris talked about January 6th belonging in a place in American history alongside Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Almost no Republicans, maybe no Republicans, I'm not sure, you tell me, attended that speech. Republicans say your party is just using January 6th to press for partisan advantage. Will you make the case that it's about the soul of America, and react to the lack of Republican participation today, even among those who did vote to certify the election?

Hakeem Jeffries: Well, it's unfortunate on the Republican side of the aisle, because it's a cult-like situation where the only thing that matters is not policy, it's not principle, it's the personality qualms of one particular individual, the former so-called twice-impeached President Donald Trump. When you're in a cult, basically facts don't matter, values don't matter, democracy doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is what the cult leader says. Right now, the cult leader is continuing to maintain that January 6th, it was all wine and roses, that it was not a violent attempt to overthrow the government.

They're ignoring the fact that Capitol police officers lost their lives, more than 150 officers as, you eloquently documented, Brian, seriously injured, some permanently, a lot of emotional mental health damage that was done to officers and others that day. Trump and the cult want to whitewash it. That's the worst of America, again, but we also have the best of America.

I'm thankful for people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and a handful of others who continue to put principle and patriotism above party. I'm thankful for their presence and their involvement. What they've done as it relates to the January 6th Select Committee, the investigation, what they'll do today and what they'll do most importantly as we move forward to try to heal this country given our better angels and not succumb to our lesser darker angels.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your comments and questions for Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is welcome here on this January 6th, 2022. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433- 9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Let me play two short clips from that day or just after, the House and Senate Republican leaders talking about Donald Trump's own responsibility for those deaths and injuries and threat to electoral democracy. First here is Mitch McConnell.

Mitch McConnell: The last time the Senate convened, we had just reclaimed the Capitol from violent criminals who tried to stop Congress from doing our duty. The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.

Brian Lehrer: Here's House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy back then.

Kevin McCarthy: The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump, accept his share of responsibility, quell the brewing unrest, and ensure President-Elect Biden is able to successfully begin his term. The president's immediate action also deserves congressional action, which is why I think a fact-finding commission and a censure resolution would be prudent. Unfortunately, that is not where we are today.

Brian Lehrer: Kevin McCarthy is not today where he was back a year ago right after the insurrection took place. He certainly did not support the creation of a fact-finding commission as he said he would. He has gone to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of Donald Trump. McConnell hasn't changed his tune as much, though he still says, for example, I believe that he would support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024. How do you see the Republican leadership right now in either House?

Hakeem Jeffries: Well, Kevin McCarthy never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and he had the opportunity based on his clear observation that the mob had been provoked by former President Donald Trump and had been fed lies. That was his words, which are accurate, to make sure that there was some accountability and that the Republican party distanced itself from its former cult leader, who unfortunately remains the cult leader. Again, I know it's strong terms that I use, cult. Those were Bob Corker's terms, the former Republican conservative Senator from Tennessee, he called this early on. Unfortunately, he was correct.

I think it helps explain the behavior that we're seeing right now, which is not rational, but I think the raw acquisition of power is what is driving House Republican leadership and perhaps leadership in the Senate. That's why, because they believe that their base has been radicalized by the lies of the former president, that they can't break from the former president, and it's quite unfortunate.

That's why, again, I'm thankful that some forces within the Republican party have chosen to stand up. They need to take back their party for the good of America. This is not the party of Bob Dole or John McCain or Mitt Romney or even Ronald Reagan. It's the party of someone who incited a violent insurrection, perpetrated a "big lie" that the election was stolen and refuses to walk away from that big lie.

Brian Lehrer: Refuses to walk away from that big lie. Well, let's say the Republicans in Congress, the rank and file, and maybe in the state legislatures around the country refuse to walk away from the "big lie" in part because their voters, their rank and file are very pro-Trump and believe the big lie and are members of that, what you call a cult, wittingly or unwittingly. I wonder what you think about the role of race in this?

Like how much of the credibility the big lie to most Republicans do you think has to do with white supremacy, which we know was part of what the mob was about on January 6th or otherwise with race, at least, at very least Trump's lie was all about alleged, non-existent fraud in largely Black cities like Atlanta and Philly and Detroit, and maybe that made it easier for his overwhelmingly white rank and file to believe?

Hakeem Jeffries: Well, former President Trump has been fanning the flames of racial hatred and using it for his political advantage for a long time. I think for those of us who've been familiar with Donald Trump, because we grew up in New York, we know that as far back as the 1970s, then Donald Trump, president of the Trump Organization, and the Trump organization was sued for racial discrimination against Black and Puerto Rican housing applicants. By the way, Brian, as you know, this was the Nixon Justice Department that sued the Trump Organization for racial discrimination, so you know it had to be serious.

Then in the 1980s, of course, Donald Trump is the leader of the lynch mob as it relates to the Central Park Five, now known as the Exonerated Five, but then, led that lynch mob in terms of individuals, Black and Latino, wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted, wrongfully in prison for a crime that they did not commit. Then, perhaps most salient to this moment and your observation about the role of race, it was Donald Trump who perpetrated the racist lie for five years that Barack Obama was not born in the United States of America as part of an effort to delegitimize America's first Black president, and he rode that racist lie into the Oval Office.

As a result, you could see now the trajectory of what this man has been all about and the culmination of it, certainly in part on January 6th had to do with the flames of racial hatred that he had been stoking for decades. There were neo-Nazis in the Capitol, there were white supremacists in the Capitol, the Proud Boys and others, Confederate flags were being run through this place, tributes to John Lewis desecrated in this place right outside of my office. We know that there was a racial element to it. You have to be burying your head in the sand to believe that there was not.

Brian Lehrer: Mike in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Brooklyn and Queens Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, he's also the leader of the House Democratic Caucus. Hi Mike.

Mike: Hi Brian,and Congressman. In light of what did I learn on the Brian Lehrer Show today, this morning, Brian had a great guest talking about the Peter Navarro book and other things related to what Republicans are up to. The point that really struck me this morning was that aside from the people storming the Capitol, which obviously is a nightmare, behind the scenes, they potentially stopped what the Republicans were going to try and do legally when Ted Cruz made his objection to the Arizona vote, and Navarro laid it out really clearly, like if anything, Trump's stupidity caused the riot which stopped what could have kept him in power.

We know now that this is what the Republicans are going to do, they're going to do it again. My question is, number one, what's Congress going to do about it from a legislative point of view to try and close that loophole and get someone like Manchin on board to take this seriously before they have a chance to do it again. Second, what's the real play in real time? For example, those clips of McConnell and McCarthy, they're putting the blame squarely on Trump. Are the Democrats planning on just flooding the airways and social media with those clips? Are Democrats prepared to go on Fox News and actually challenge these people? Because I know that we're never going to win over the majority of Fox voters.

That's ridiculous, but you just have to win. As the guest said this morning, one or two percentage of Republican voters in certain states, they say, "You know what? Maybe we don't want this guy in the White House again." I don't see any plan on the Democrats' part to-- I think they've just seeded the Fox News audience to say we can't get those people.

Brian Lehrer: Mike--

Mike: I think it's a big mistake because that's where the lies are perpetrated and they have to be challenged and they have to be challenged vigorously in their forum with the right people who know how to talk to the people. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Let me get your response from the Congressman. Mike, thank you very much. Well, he really has at least two questions there. One is about when Democrats should go on Fox News and try to debate that audience, even if they're going to be predicably beaten up by the hosts. The other is whether Congress could change the law in some way so that what Trump's people call the Green Bay Sweep plan couldn't actually take place in the future, where if they did have enough Republicans in Congress, they could actually vote under the constitution to overturn the election and send it back to the states.

Hakeem Jeffries: Yes, very important points and questions that Mike raised. I would say two things in response. One, that, if the broader question to try to elevate it as it relates to the first part in terms of going on Fox News, I think the broader question is how do you reach the disaffected but not racist Trump voter? I think in my view, the disaffected but not racist Trump voter, a slice of his base, is that you got to understand what their concerns are. The concerns are largely economic. They feel disaffected.

We know that there are big challenges in terms of the economy. A lot of people have been left behind in urban America, but yes, also in rural America, in Appalachia, in small-town America, a variety of reasons, the globalization, the economy, the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs decline in unionization, poorly-negotiated trade deals, the rise of automation replacing traditional good-paying jobs, manufacturing jobs, things of that nature. This has been cataclysmic in terms of all of these factors for a lot of America. Some of them have been manipulated by Trump and the Republicans.

For us, you reach them by getting things done. We've begun to do that on the Infrastructure Agreement. We're going to create millions of good-paying jobs that will be spread out all across America, but more will need to be done. We've got to get the Build Back Better Act done. Then we'll have some capacity to reach, I believe, just enough of the disaffected but not racist Trump voters, and we are going to continue to do it. There is a plan.

We do have the House, the Senate, and the presidency, and we have that as a result of a plan, but Mike raises some important issues. I think on the second part, Brian, that you raised, that Mike raised, in terms of the assault on our democracy, on the peaceful transfer of power and the sort of high-level efforts in the suites, not on the streets of January 6th, but in the suites to try to engineer the theft of an American election, there are two things that we've got to do.

We've got to deal with the nullification efforts that are taking place by state legislative bodies to try to [unintelligible 00:22:14] Nonpartisan Boards and/or individuals like Secretaries of State from being able to just evaluate the facts of who won the election and who did not and to report that out and to substitute in partisan state legislative bodies that are within the spell of Donald Trump and so there are efforts legislatively that you can expect to deal with the nullification attempts by state legislative bodies, and we are going to act decisively.

There will be some recommendations forthcoming from the January 6th Select Committee in that regard. Then the second thing that we have to do mechanically is to reform the Electoral Count Act, and it seems as though even Mitch McConnell understands that there needs to be something done. I think the Wall Street Journal the other day may have even editorialized that there are some reforms that should be made to eliminate the ability of an errant vice president or malignant forces within the Congress to steal an election using the certification process, we've got to tighten that up. I believe there will be some bipartisan support for that in both the House and the Senate.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Democrats want to acknowledge the threat to democracy by passing more than that, as you well know, voting rights bills, including the one name for the late Congressman from Georgia and civil rights leader John Lewis. Can you talk about the content of the John Lewis bill that you think would roughly respect the sacrifices of January 6th and preserve electoral democracy?

The last caller also mentioned Joe Manchin, and to get any of this through Congress, it looks like you'll have to convince Senator Joe Manchin to vote with the rest of the Democrats to suspend the filibuster at least for voting rights purposes. So far, no dice in convincing Manchin on this or on the Build Back Better bill, is there any reason at this point to think that will change?

Hakeem Jeffries: Well, certainly pushing back against voter suppression is another important effort that is underway. It has to get done. We need to reform our voting laws with the fierce urgency of now in order to prevent this systematic effort to sort of undermine the principle of "one person, one vote," largely directed at communities of color or young people or the elderly people who, folks on the other side of the aisle, think if they are able to vote unimpeded, would not vote for them, therefore they don't want them to vote.

There are two efforts underway legislatively in order to push back on the voter suppression that we're seeing. The Freedom to Vote Act, which would guarantee the ability to vote, early voting, same-day access, automatic voter registration, ensuring that there are adequate poll sites. You can't discriminate in your location of poll sites to create situations wherein communities of color, you've got lines that are four and five and six hours, and other rural white communities, you can just vote in and out. This is all designed to try to alter the shape of the electorate.

The Freedom to Vote Act pushes back aggressively against that, and the good news is, substantively, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema support the Freedom to Vote Act. In fact, the Freedom to Vote Act is Joe Manchin's bill. Then, you have the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that would undo the damage that the Supreme Court did to the original 1965 Voting Rights Act when they issued their opinion in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 that stripped away the Section 5 preclearance provision, which is the provision, as you know, Brian, that allows the Department of Justice to have to preclear in certain states, like Georgia and Texas, any state law changes that would undermine the right to vote.

We've got to give the Department of Justice that power back so we can prevent these type of voter suppression efforts in the future from ever even becoming law.

Brian Lehrer: But to do that, Manchin besides supporting the content would have to support suspension of the filibuster to get that through, will he?

Hakeem Jeffries: That is correct, and those discussions are ongoing, as I understand it, led by leader Schumer, I know Cory Booker and Senator Warnock are very involved, as well as some of Joe Manchin's closest allies like John Tester and others who have been very clear, as I understand it, with Senator Manchin that you can't just support the substance of these changes if you know that the Republicans are using the filibuster to block those important substantive changes from ever becoming law.

Now, I think that the filibuster should be entirely reevaluated as to its usefulness at all, given its racist history, dripping in the defense of Slavery and Jim Crow, no one can deny that. The fact that the filibuster is not a constitutional requirement, it doesn't appear anywhere in that glorious document, the words filibuster, and the Framers of the Constitution were very clear when they needed a supermajority.

They said it in four instances, you need a supermajority to override a presidential veto. You need a supermajority to ratify a treaty, you need a supermajority to change the constitution and send that to the voters, and you need a supermajority, as we've seen twice in the last several years, to convict the president who's been impeached by the House. Brian, the Framers of the Constitution knew the word supermajority. They used it four times.

They didn't say it was necessary for things like voting rights or other pieces of substantive legislation. We're making that case to Senator Manchin and others who are holding onto this rule unnecessarily, and I think progress has been made, and hopefully, we'll see the fruits of that progress in terms of some filibuster reform in the next few weeks.

Brian Lehrer: Next few weeks, I know you're trying to get that done by Martin Luther King Day. One more call, Dalton in Flushing, you're on WNYC with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn and Queens. Hi Dalton.

Dalton: Hi, good morning. I'm a retired economist, and one of the things that I looked at over the decades was what happened to all those persons who lost those good-paying jobs and how did the United States take care of them? Well, maybe they threw them away and just imported Chinese and Indians who have the skills that they wanted, that the corporations wanted, and just let those people die and those regions die, and that's exactly what they did.

This is, I think, one of the fundamental reasons, the core reasons that started all this, was because instead of retraining our workers, we just threw them away and imported what we needed from abroad. In fact, that was our greatest import [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to have to jump in for time, but your point is that's the source of the underlying rage that led to Trump being elected. [crosstalk]

Dalton: Right. Before the scapegoating and before all the others [unintelligible 00:30:19] and knew how they could run this to their own advantage, I believe that's what it started with.

Brian Lehrer: Dalton, thank you very much. Congressman, I guess we'll have to end on this. Most political analysts say the Democrats stand very likely to lose the House majority to Republicans this year, the Senate too. What do you see as the best strategy for convincing enough voters in swing districts to keep their current Democratic members in office? Does it run through adequately addressing that economic rage that the caller is talking about, that some of them see the Republicans representing them on better than Democrats?

Hakeem Jeffries: Well, we definitely don't need to [unintelligible 00:31:04] the so-called Trump base because we can win without them. We do need to prevail with a handful of moderate Republicans as we did in this most recent election cycle as well as suburban voters, swing voters, and independent voters. What is clear that for these voters, kitchen table pocketbook issues are important. Now, we have to make sure that our progressive base is energized and activated, and we have to speak to those issues that are important to the progressive base. I believe we can do that by delivering, and Democrats do deliver.

We deliver the American rescue plan, save the economy, put in place an important public health infrastructure to battle this deadly pandemic. We delivered the Bipartisan Infrastructure Agreement, is going to create millions of good-paying jobs, help make sure we have access to clean drinking water, fix our crumbling bridges, roads, tunnels, airports, historic investment in mass transportation, make the lives of the American people better in a sustained way. None of those jobs can be outsourced.

That's a wonderful thing to the point that the economist made. Then, we're going to have to deliver in the context of the Build Back Better Act. We just have to make our message clear. Democrats deliver. We actually care about every day Americans. The other side does not. We do things to make life better for every day Americans. The other side does not. When they have power, they pass the GOP tax scam where 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1% to subsidize the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. That's what they do, Brian, when they have access to power.

What we do, we pass things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Affordable Care Act, American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Agreement, and soon the Build Back Better Act and the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Democrats deliver. We're going to have to carry that message, and if we do it successfully, we'll hold the House. In fact, I think we'll even grow our majority.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Well, it's obviously only the beginning of that conversation here in January '22, so we will be having it from many points of view all year. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries from Brooklyn and Queens. I'm glad you got out alive and safe a year ago today. We always appreciate you coming on the show.

Hakeem Jeffries: Thanks so much, Brian. Always a pleasure to be on. Happy new year to you and your listeners.

 

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