Hakeem Jeffries is seizing on the shutdown fight to raise his national profile

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…

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