In an interview this Tuesday on MSNBC, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who leads House Democrats, criticized House Republicans for spending so much time going at it with each other rather than focusing on uplifting the American people — some of whom, of course, directly put those Republicans in office in the first place.
Republicans this week were grappling with a push from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for the removal of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House Speaker, showcasing the same divisions inside the Republican Party that were evident in January when first selecting a Speaker for this Congress took a historically long series of House votes. Democrats were seemingly prepared shortly before a Tuesday vote on Gaetz’s push to cast votes against McCarthy, as they effectively did in January. While precise numbers remained to be seen, the Californian’s stint as Speaker was again threatened by the possibility of merely a small number of Republicans joining Democrats to make a majority.
Separately from this conflict, Democrats have consistently jump-started actual action on agenda items that are critical, like raising the debt ceiling and approving government funding to keep a shutdown at bay. Even while in the minority, they’re unifying to a sufficient point to get things done — something not as true of Republicans! Not as many of them voted in favor of the funding deal, for instance, as the Democrats who did.
“The Republicans have been fighting each other from the very beginning. We are in the midst of a Republican civil war,” Jeffries said. “And it is undermining the ability of the Congress to solve problems on behalf of hardworking taxpayers. And one way or the other, that’s going to have to end — not necessarily in the context of what may be before us this week. It just has to end, because it is not a productive situation for the country to find itself in with all of the challenges that we continue to work through.”
Watch the Jeffries interview below:
