Hakeem Jeffries has spent nearly three years in relative anonymity as House minority leader. Now the New York Democrat is treating the government shutdown fight as a potential breakout moment.
Shedding his reputation as a cool, careful and sometimes overly calculating leader, Jeffries has staked out a much more aggressive approach in recent weeks as he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer careened into a confrontation with President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
While the GOP leaders have so far been more eager to dog his fellow Brooklynite — calling it a “Schumer shutdown,” for instance, after Senate Democrats withheld their votes for a House-passed stopgap bill — Jeffries has made conspicuous moves to make himself a main character in the standoff.
More precisely, he has tried to pick a fight with Trump — first accusing him of not knowing his name, then calling a deepfake video the president posted depicting Jeffries in a sombrero and mustache “racist,” demanding Trump address any further criticism“to my face,” and telling Trump budget chief Russ Vought to “get lost,” among other attacks.
“The president has been engaging in irresponsible and unserious behavior, demonstrating that all along, Republicans wanted to shut the government down,” Jeffries told reporters Wednesday, shortly before he posted a unflattering meme of Vice President JD Vance on his X account.
The tenor of his sparring has contrasted with that of Schumer, who has steered away from calling the deepfake video racist and has instead called it part of a “tantrum” that proves Trump is not serious about negotiating an end to the shutdown. It’s also a departure from Jeffries’ predecessor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose favored tactic in dealing with Trump was the cutting offhand remark.
But Jeffries’ more bombastic approach is winning praise from elements of the party that want to see more fight out of their leaders.
“They are in the minority over there, and they’re a majoritarian body where the minority has very little voice in terms of affecting the outcomes of events like this,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). “And so he’s showing what an oppositional party leader should do — a lot of fight, a lot of strength — and frankly, the ability to keep Democrats united on the other side of the Capitol.“
Whether he has earned the respect that he so clearly seeks remains unsettled. Trump still has yet to utter Jeffries’ name in public. He referred to him Tuesday to reporters as “a very nice gentleman who I didn’t really know — you know who I’m talking about.”
But after posting the first AI-generated video Monday that had Schumer doing all the talking and Jeffries simply appearing mustachioed in the background, Trump posted another video Tuesday solely starring a deepfaked Jeffries.
Vance chimed in Wednesday from the White House: “I will tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make a solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop.”
Trump might be forgiven for not having Jeffries’ name on the tip of his tongue. Unlike with Schumer — whom Trump has known for decades and was a frequent sparring partner during his first term — Jeffries had no substantial interaction with the president before Monday’s Oval Office meeting.
As House minority leader, he holds the least power of the four top congressional leaders — unlike senators, Democrats in the chamber can be completely sidelined by a united GOP majority — and he is not well known nationally.
Just under half of Americans have never heard of him, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, versus about a quarter for Schumer, who has held his top position since 2017. Before Pelosi stepped down from a 20-year run as the top House Democrat, only 3 percent of Americans surveyed told Pew they’d never heard of her.
Ahead of the sitdown, Jeffries spoke about Trump with an ally who has long experience dealing with the president — civil rights leader Al Sharpton. He said in an interview that in the weekend conversation that otherwise focused on the New York City mayoral race, Jeffries said he didn’t know what to expect out of the meeting.
“I told him I’ve been fighting with Trump for 35 years, from the Central Park Five all the way through, and [that] sometimes he tried to act nice,” Sharpton said. “I said, ‘I find him to be a day trader — he says whatever will work to his advantage at that particular time. I don’t think Donald Trump believes in anything but Donald Trump.’ And Hakeem kind of chuckled.”
After walking out of the White House, Jeffries hewed closely to health-care-focused talking points that he and Schumer have carefully honed since infamously diverging on a prior GOP-written spending bill back in March.
Then Trump posted the AI-generated video, and Jeffries let loose, calling it “bigoted” and then “racist and fake.” It was a response that stunned some of his colleagues, who agreed with the assessment but also knew Jeffries had long counseled Democrats not to take Trump’s “bait.”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), a longtime Jeffries ally, said it was the first time he’d ever heard the leader call a personal attack “racist.”
“I was furious, and no one would blame the leader if he said I didn’t want to be around this guy or get somebody else to take my place to interact with the White House,” Cleaver said. “He’s going to be a professional about it.”
“It was blatant. It was personal. It was insulting. And I think that Hakeem had to respond for his own self-respect,” added Sharpton.
Asked about Jeffries’ response, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “Anyone who’s feigning outrage over a perfect meme should instead focus on the countless Americans who will suffer as a result of the Democrat shutdown.”
That Jeffries mounted a more aggressive response than Schumer to Trump’s attacks is of little consequence in terms of the shutdown fight. Besides his own personal feelings, some Democrats noted it reflects the more rough-and-tumble style in the House and voters’ desire for a more pugilistic approach to Trump.
But there have also been small tactical differences between the two leaders that could get magnified as the standoff wears on. Notably, Jeffries has staked out some harder lines than Schumer — insisting, for instance, that any health care agreement be in writing and attached to any bill reopening the government, while Schumer has left room to cut an unwritten side deal.
One prominent House Democrat believes Jeffries has been handling himself well.
“He has seized the moment,” Pelosi said in a brief interview. “He’s doing a great job. I have no guidance for him except to keep on doing what he’s doing.”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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