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The Political Scene | The New Yorker
What Is Hakeem Jeffries’s Plan for the Midterms, and After?
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- [00:01]
Jason Zengerly
If you're a fan of the political scene podcast from the New Yorker, I hope you'll join us for a special live taping of the show at 92 NY in Manhattan. We'll be talking about Donald Trump's falling approval numbers, the prospects of a comeback for the Democratic Party in the midterms, and the potential threats to the election
- [00:21]
Tyler Foggatt
that are coming directly from the president himself.
- [00:23]
Jason Zengerly
I hope you can join me, Evan Osnos and my colleagues Susan Glasser and Jane Mayer on June 4th at 7:00pm Ticket information at92ny.org.
- [00:45]
Tyler Foggatt
Hey, Jason.
- [00:46]
Jason Zengerly
Hey, Tyler.
- [00:47]
Tyler Foggatt
So you just wrote a long profile of Hakeem Jeffries, who was the House Minority leader. And the story opens with this kind of dramatic anecdote of Jeffries trying to figure out how to respond to a video that was posted on Donald Trump's Truth Social account that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Can you tell us a little bit about this opening and why responding to this video and kind of calculating the response and what that would look like was so important to Jeffries, like why this was such a critical moment for him and why you decided to open the peace with this?
- [01:24]
Jason Zengerly
Well, I think Jeffries is aware of the Democratic bases dislike of him, and that dislike is really based on what they view as him being just not strong enough in his opposition to Trump. And I think he knows that that critique exists. And I think he has tried to answer that in a number of different ways. I think the second thing that was going on in that instance was Hakeem Jeffries is black. He is the highest ranking black elected official in the United States. And I think that he was personally offended. Over the years, he had criticized Trump many times for Trump's handling of racial issues, of Trump's statements about race. But he was always very careful. And he made this point himself when he offered those criticisms that he was never calling Trump a racist and they wouldn't go that far. And I think in this instance, seeing that video and being as angry as he was about it, I think he was sort of feeling like maybe I shouldn't draw that line anymore. And he knew he needed to respond. And when it came time to do the response, he was in between meetings with political donors, he wanted to do a direct to camera, he said. So he had an aide film it on the aid's iPhone. And he came out and he said, fuck Donald Trump. Which for Hakeem Jeffries is like a shocking statement. I mean, he is someone who, you know, I don't think has ever cursed in public before. And as I understand it from, like, his aides, like, really doesn't curse in private either. As soon as he said it, I think he had maybe some second thoughts. He made sure that his, his staff, when they edited the video, would bleep out that language. And I think once the, once the video went live and it got a very positive reaction from people who oftentimes are quite critical of Jeffries for not being strong enough. They loved hearing him say fuck Donald Trump. Even like ministers, you know, pastors were pulling him aside to tell him how much they appreciated him saying that. So I think he felt good about all of that. But then when I was talking to him about the episode, he was going over all the support the statement received, he still seemed kind of uncomfortable with the whole thing and wouldn't even repeat the words, Fuck Donald Trump kept on talking about those three words. And then at one point he admitted that he hadn't heard from his mom yet. And that was still kind of, that was a concern for him that his mom hadn't weighed in. And I thought that just that kind of perfectly captured who Jeffries is and the difficulties he is having and the challenges he's facing navigating this particular political moment.
- [03:50]
Tyler Foggatt
That's Jason Zengerli, a staff writer at the New Yorker, who just wrote a profile of Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority Leader and one of the Democratic Party's most important figures. After Democrats failed to retake the house in 2024, many in the party viewed the upcoming midterms as a clear path back to power. Given Donald Trump's historically low popularity, that victory would likely make Jeffries speaker of the House. But recent redistricting setbacks have complicated Democrats chances. And even if the party does win back the chamber, there are lingering questions about what kind of Speaker Jeffries would be, given his more restrained style of leadership in comparison to someone like Nancy Pelosi. I wanted to talk with Jason about how Jeffries rose through Democratic politics, how he's handled fighting back against Donald Trump during the president's second term, and whether he can unify a party that is still struggling to define its future. This is the political scene. I'm Tyler Foggatt, and I'm a senior editor at the New Yorker. So. So in spite of some major headwinds that I'm sure we'll get into later on, the Democrats are currently favored to retake the house in the 2026 midterms, which would likely mean that Hakeem Jeffries would become speaker of the House. After three years of serving as Minority Leader, did you get the sense that he's kind of on top of the world at the thought of being speaker of the House?
- [05:07]
Jason Zengerly
I think it's something he has been building towards and angling for, for, for a long time, a lot longer, I think maybe than people even realized. He is he who leaves things to chance. And I think he is oftentimes thinking five or six steps ahead in terms of his own sort of personal advancement. And so I think he's been planning on this for a while. He is tantalizingly close and he will be a history making speaker. If he does get there, he'll be the first black speaker of the House. And I think that's important to him. So I mean, he's not on top of the world yet, but I think he's getting closer to it and I think he can, he can feel that. At the same time, he is obviously aware of all the dynamics within his caucus and the difficulties the Democratic Party faces. I think the job of being a Democratic speaker, Democrats take back the House and him becoming Speaker, I think it will be a lot more challenging of a job than the one he currently faces as Minority leader. I think it's much easier to lead a party in the minority than it is to lead when you're in the majority. And I think he's never had to do that before. And I think that he's going to face some challenges that he maybe isn't even anticipating and he's going to have to adapt. I think the leadership style that he has adapted to serving as Minority leader, I think there are a lot of people in the House Democratic caucus who don't believe that that style will work when you're speaker. That he's too light of a touch right now. He doesn't give enough orders. He talks a lot about being deliberative and I think a lot of people view that that deliberativeness is being indecisive. And you can't be indecisive if you're speaker. And I think he's gonna have to adjust to that role.
- [06:49]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, you mentioned earlier that he has this reputation for being kind of meek. And I guess I'm wondering, is it meek in comparison to someone like Nancy Pelosi or meek in comparison to AOC or like meek in comparison to Trump?
- [07:03]
Jason Zengerly
All of those. I think following in the footsteps of Pelosi is gonna be hard. And I think, you know, in following the footsteps of Nancy Pelosi's second spe, I Mean, I think some of the. We remember Nancy Pelosi as The speaker from 2018 to 2022, Nancy Pelosi's first speakership. I think a lot of the criticisms that people make of Jeffries today are criticisms that people made of Nancy Pelosi the first time around. But she ruled with an iron fist as the speaker, and people in the caucus were afraid to cross her, and she was not afraid to slap them down or remove them from committees or kick them out of leadership. And these are things that Jeffries has not shown any inclination to do, as he hasn't sort of exercised that kind of authority yet. And I think. So that's part of it. Part of it is he's not AOC in terms of how outspoken he can be, how demonstrative he can be in his opposition to Trump. And I think that is a factor of the role he plays as minority leader. When I was doing the piece of, you know, I was, you know, excavating his entire career and sort of looking back at some of his earlier days in the House before he joined leadership, when he served on the Judiciary Committee, if you watched some of his performances during Judiciary Committee hearings, the, the aggressive questioning he did of, you know, Republican witnesses, it. It was very different from the way he acts today. It was more AOC like, than. Than what he's doing today. And I think as. As party leader, he just, he can't afford to do that. And then when it comes to Trump, I mean, he doesn't deliver an insult the way Donald Trump delivers an insult. I mean, even when he says, fuck Donald Trump, he bleeps it out. And even if he hadn't bleeped it out, it wouldn't come across. It wouldn't land the same way, maybe that, you know, if Donald Trump said that about him. So I think that. And that's just a question of his personality and his ability as a political performer.
- [08:58]
Tyler Foggatt
How has he actually handled the task of fighting back against Donald Trump and the Republicans during the president's second term? Like, beyond just like the sort of larger social media strategy, like, what has he been doing within the House?
- [09:11]
Jason Zengerly
Well, I think in the early days, I mean, he was very much on his back foot and was kind of flailing, I think basically every Democrat in the country and every sort of institution in the country, whether it was universities, whether it was law firms, I mean, he didn't know what to do during those first few months of Trump's presidency. And I don't really think he found his footing until last summer. And it started with the redistricting battle, which is its own kind of soap opera. But when it became clear that Trump was going to try to engage in this mid decade redistricting and all these red states ahead of the 26 midterms, Jeffries really sprung into action in terms of trying to counter that and to get blue states to produce gerrymandered maps mid decade to offset the gains that Trump was seeking in these red states. And that effort is now, is not as successful as it appeared to be just as of like three or four weeks ago. But I still think the way in which Jefferies aggressively kind of confronted Trump there and aggressively went to people in the Democratic Party who for the longest time have been opposed to gerrymandering and basically convince them to do a 180 on the issue. And he himself did a 180 on the issue and just engage in this redistricting battle in as sort of just a hypocritical way, frankly, in the way they treated redistricting before. And to try to go into these blue states, starting with California and then a number of others to offset these Republican redistricting efforts. I think that was part of it. And then soon on the heels of that, there was the shutdown fight last fall when Democrats shut down the government over healthcare, basically. And Jeffries, one, wanted to shut down the government and two, wanted to make the fight about healthcare, which was a real debate within the caucus. There were some Democrats who wanted it to be about, wanted the shutdown to be about authoritarianism, would be about corruption. And Jefferies argued and persuaded them that we need to make it just about this one thing, healthcare. And it really proved to be quite successful. When the shutdown was over, most voters blamed Republicans for it rather than Democrats, which was unusual since Democrats were the party that was seen as triggering the shutdown. And I think he found a way to kind of confront Trump and it worked for him. He was able to do was more sort of tactical, it was less about social media. It was kind of this under the hood kind of stuff, which he really likes doing. And it actually did work. And I think that from his point of view and from his supporters point of view, they argue that you might not like his style and yeah, he's not going to sort of be this outspoken guy and he's not going to be Nancy Pelosi standing behind Trump during the State of the Union, tearing up his speech, but he can do these things that are actually effective, even if they're not as demonstrative and can actually sort of draw blood through these other kind of just more sort of tactical maneuvers. And I think that that's what he would argue has been his success as minority leader.
- [12:28]
Tyler Foggatt
You include an anecdote about Jeffries once saying to former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, you have five families, Kevin. I've got 11. And I'm wondering how Jeffries has approached organizing and rallying the House Dems, which as Jeffries was referring to in that quote, has about a dozen sub caucuses and many factions that are increasingly at odds with one another as they're all vying to become the future of the party.
- [12:52]
Jason Zengerly
Well, I think from Jeffrey's perspective, he would say that he pays attention to all of them and he seeks their counsel and he wants to explain his decision making to all of them. And it's this very collaborative process. And this is sort of the light touch that people talk about. And that is why he has been a successful minority leader at this point. I mean, when Democrats vote, I mean, they tend to vote in a block and you don't see these kind of fissures occurring within the House Democratic caucus that you do within the larger Democratic Party. I think the flip side of that, and this is the, the argument of people who criticize Jeffries, who are, you know, within the Democratic Party, is that he is afraid of offending any one of these groups and that his, he is so focused on being speaker that he, and he doesn't want to risk losing the support of any of these different groups. So he kind of tries to be all things to all people and he's not willing do things that would run the risk of angering one of those factions. And that he's purely about member management, which is what one of his House Democratic critics told me, and that therefore he's a weak leader. He's not leading people anyway in any direction. He's just trying to placate them constantly and please them and he's not willing to do things that might anger them. In contrast to someone like Pelosi who was happy to draw a line and say, you're either doing this or you're no longer with me.
- [14:20]
Tyler Foggatt
Let's take a quick break and then when we come back, I want to get into Jeffries path to Congress and Democratic leadership. This is the political scene from the New Yorker.
- [14:35]
Jason Zengerly
We are in uncharted territory. Staff writer Evan Osnos on the New Yorker Radio Hour. I think all of us right now are trying to make sense of an avalanche of news every day. And there aren't very many places where you can go and understand how something looks in the grand scope of history and context. That's what I come to the New Yorker for. I'm David Remnick, and each week my colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. And I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour.
- [15:12]
Tyler Foggatt
So, as you mentioned, Jeffries has more or less established a reputation as a kind of like, careful and cautious operator who has this light touch when it comes to navigating thorny political issues. And I'm wondering how early on into his career he kind of developed that reputation and how fully formed he was as a politician at the start. Like, when did he kind of become the man who he is today?
- [15:37]
Jason Zengerly
So he started his professional career at Paul Weiss, which is this white shoe law firm in New York City. And he was very much a creature of big law, at least professionally. You know, at the same time he grew up in Crown Heights and, you know, as he likes to describe it, you know, I grew up. He says he grew up in old school Brooklyn, not gentrified Brooklyn, and he was very rooted in the sort of black central Brooklyn community. And when he first ran for office, he ran for a State assembly seat in Brooklyn, and He challenged a 10 term incumbent named Roger Greene, who was very much a product of the black Brooklyn establishment. And in order to challenge Green, Jeffries had to run as this outsider. And he wasn't even 30 when he first ran, and he had the backing of Paul Weiss and partners at that firm and Wall street interest, and he was able to raise money and all, but that doesn't really take you that far in central Brooklyn. And he lost.
- [16:40]
Tyler Foggatt
The Paul Weiss voters.
- [16:41]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah, yeah, the Paul Weiss voters are not. I mean, I interviewed Letitia James for the piece because she and Jeffries are kind of contemporaries and they both came up through Brooklyn politics. And Letitia James was the chief of staff for Green, you know, Jeffrey's first opponent. And she said, you know, something like, you know, white shoe firms don't have a lot of influence in central Brooklyn, which I thought was a pretty, a pretty good line. And Jeffries lost that first race by 18 points. He ran against Green again two years later, lost by 24 points. And then finally, on his third attempt for state Assembly, Green had decided to run for Congress. So the seat was open. And Jefferies ran in 2006 and was able to win that time. And it was an interesting race because the fundamental issue in that race, the big issue in The Democratic primary was the Atlantic Yards real estate project in downtown Brooklyn, where the Barclays center is now. And it was a big real estate proposal to build a basketball arena and all this housing. And one. One Democratic candidate was a strong supporter of the project. Another was a, you know, implacable opponent. And Jefferies kind of didn't really stake out a strong position either way, and, you know, sort of for it, sort of against it. And that, like, proved to be quite successful. And he. He was able to win the Democratic primary that way. And, you know, when he was in the state assembly, similarly, you know, he would stake out some strong positions here and there, especially in relation to the Bloomberg administration. Like Jeffrey's signal or signature achievement in the legislature was a bill that stopped New York City Police Department from keeping information from some of the stop and frisk searches about people they had subjected those to. And he worked very closely with Al Sharpton on that legislation. And Sharpton said, I was leading the marches and Hakeem was doing the legislating. And so that was an instance where he kind of took on Bloomberg. But in other instances, he worked closely with Bloomberg, he was a supporter of charter schools, which was something Bloomberg cared a lot about. So he was sort of being careful to not. Not alienate these people who might be able to help him eventually with his political rise. And similarly, when he got to Congress, he was just always very strategic and not doing anything that would sort of inflame people, either positively or negatively. Just trying to kind of take a central path.
- [19:01]
Tyler Foggatt
How early do you think Jeffries had his sights set on the Speakership? There's a really funny anecdote in your piece where there's a Bloomberg advisor who's looking for someone to challenge Bill de BLASIO in the 2017 Democratic primary for New York City's mayor. And the advisor makes the mistake of saying that no one who has ever been New York City mayor has been elected to anything after that. And then he. He tells you, like, after that, it was clear that Jeffries was, like, no longer interested.
- [19:28]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah. So Jeffries was in his second term when that conversation happened. So it's interesting. You talk to the people who are in Jeffrey's freshman class in the House, you know, and the House is very much like high school or college. Like, you in with a group of people, and those are the people you get to know the best, especially in the early days, because you're in orientation together and you're doing all these things together. And at those initial meetings, you can kind of pick Out. Okay, who are the strivers? Who are the people gunning for things? And none of them pick Jeffries. I mean, he has a very kind of self effacing demeanor, very workmanlike, and no one saw him as a person who had his eyes on leadership. But, you know, behind the scenes, he was kind of doing the hard work you need to do to make that kind of rise possible.
- [20:15]
Tyler Foggatt
What do you have to do to make that rise possible? Asking for a friend?
- [20:20]
Jason Zengerly
Well, I mean, you have to sort of do the dark and lonely work and not call attention to it in an obvious way, but make sure that the powers that be know that you're doing that dark and lonely work. So, you know, in Jeffrey's case, he went to Steve Israel, who at the time was the chairman of the dccc, the House Democrats Campaign army. And he basically said, like, what do you need? Like, I'll do anything you need to help, you know, and that was different. Israel said, you know, a lot of every. Everybody who's ambitious goes to meet with the DCCC chair because it's a way to kind of raise your profile within the caucus. And Israel said, you know, a lot of people come in and they say, you know, I want to host all these fundraisers, I want to do all these high profile things. And he said Jefferies was very different in saying, I'll do whatever you want. So Israel had him do candidate recruitment, which is, you know, very low profile. And then, I mean, literally, I mean, Israel's talked about how the DCCC would have these Washington fundraisers where you needed House members to show up, literally just to serve as warm bodies. And he could always count on Jeffrey's coming to those things. And people noticed the cbc, the Congressional Black Caucus, has been instrumental in Jeffrey's rise. And I think for a long time the CBC was focused on getting black members to be chairs of important committees or to get a seat at the leadership table. But by the time Jeffries got to Congress in 2013, it was right after Obama's reelection. I think the CBC's kind of vision of the possibilities had grown and they started to think, like, we can actually, you know, a black member could be speaker one day. And they started to look around for someone who might be able to do that. And they found Jeffries pretty early on. And so they helped mentor him and groom him and bring him up through the caucus. And then Nancy Pelosi, who was always looking for members who were kind of willing to do the hard work and not be, you know, not showboat. I Mean that that was Jeffrey's. Exactly. And so she became instrumental in raising his profile and giving him assignments that would, you know, increase his stature. And his. His first big one was he was made one of the co chairs of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee. There's so many acronyms.
- [22:30]
Tyler Foggatt
Yes. Yeah, the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee,
- [22:32]
Jason Zengerly
which is the House Democrats messaging arm. And Jeffries was able to use that. Basically, he and his two CO chairs went to the 11 families, the different sub caucuses, and had meetings with each of them, these individual listening sessions where they would ask them, what do you think the Democratic message should be in the 2018 midterms? And Jeffries really used that to introduce himself to the entire caucus. And it was really brilliant on his part because he got to meet all these people and in meeting with them, he was going to them to ask them for their advice. So they kind of, you know, had a favorable view of him. And he was. He was very tactical and very strategic in terms of how he went about, you know, courting. Courting these Democratic members who would, you know, be instrumental in his rise because they ultimately have to vote for people in these leadership positions. And at the same time, he never had to knife anybody. I mean, that's the thing that's so interesting about his rise up the party ladder is he never. He never had to really, like, take anyone out. Partly it was through circumstance. People who would have been his opponents either lost their reelections, like Joe Crowley, or had personal scandals, like Loretta Sanchez, whose husband was indicted, and they kind of fell by the wayside. And then in other instances, people who might have been in his way, Jeffrey's allies were the ones who played the heavies to take them out. In this one instance, Jim Clyburn, who was South Carolina congressman, pretty legendary figure. He was kind of positioning himself or he was being positioned to serve as a bridge speaker, a bridge party leader. When Pelosi stepped down as party leader, there was this idea that Clyburn, who was about the same age as Pelosi, could replace her for just a term or two to bring along the next generation of leaders. And Gregory Meeks, who's a New York congressman, CBC member, he's probably one of Jeffrey's closest allies on the Hill. Meeks kind of took it upon himself to get Clyburn to drop that idea, because Meeks believed that given the Democratic Caucus's kind of complicated racial dynamics, if Clyburn were to serve as a bridge speaker, there's no way Hakeem Jeffries, as a black member would succeed him as speaker. And so Meeks was the one to get Clyburn to drop that idea. And Meeks told Jeffries, I don't want you to be the bad guy in this. I'm going to take the heat. And so when Jeffries did finally run for party leader, when Pelosi stepped down, he was elected unanimously because there really aren't that many people who, you know, there are people who criticize him and there are people within the caucus who don't think he's a strong enough leader, but no one dislikes him. He has no mortal enemies because he really hasn't had to make any on his way up the ladder.
- [25:12]
Tyler Foggatt
I want to go back to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee and those listening sessions that you were talking about, because it's really funny in the piece you say that basically Jeffries helped come up with this slogan for the 2018 midterms, which was for the people, which, you know, doesn't strike me as like a particularly amazing slogan. And yet, because the Democrats took back the House that November and they picked up 40 seats, which was the party's largest gain since the post Watergate midterms. You write in 1974, Jeffries was hailed as this, like, messaging genius and just became this, like, rising star in the party. And I feel like I attribute the Democrats taking back the House in such crazy numbers to, like, the fact that, you know, like, Trump was elected for the first time and backlash to that craziness. And so I guess I wonder how much of Jeffries rise is actually because Jeffries is such like an amazing messenger and operator versus just like Trump pissed everyone off and the Democrats were bound to take back the House in a way that, I mean, we've seen that pattern play out time and time again.
- [26:17]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah. And then, yeah, there's a lot of right place, right time with Jeffries. And that will, you know, I think that would. That will likely be the case if he becomes speaker next January. You know, if Democrats take back the House this November, it will probably not be be because of anything Democrats did. It will be because Donald Trump has, you know, angered so many voters and they hate Trump so much, they have no alternative but to vote for Democrats. And I think that's. That's really the question about Jeffries. Is he. Is he sort of surfing this wave and just riding it to eventually become speaker, this kind of anti Trump wave, or is he actually doing anything to control it? Does he have any kind of agency in this process? And I guess it's not Surprising that when Democrats took back the house in 18, no one wants to admit to themselves that they just were. They benefited from circumstances. So it's not, it's not surprising that they would credit this incredible message they came up with for the people, and they would say that that was Jefferies. But I certainly didn't remember that message until I started doing this piece and reading about what a messaging genius Hakeem Jeffries was. When I think of the 2018 midterms, I do not think about for the people. That is not front and center of my mind. But Jeffries was obviously able to use that to convince a lot of people in the Democratic caucus that he is some kind of messaging guru. And I think he believes it himself. I mean, he, it is impossible to get him off of talking points. He is so on message, and he has a deep belief in his own message discipline and the effective way to drive home a message. And his big thing is simplicity and repetition. And he always wants things boiled down to a couple words. And if you go to his press briefings that he does in the Capitol basement two or three times a week, he's always flanked by these posters. He has these easels on either side of the podium that he speaks at that just have a couple words like health care or whatever. It's a picture of a nurse and a clip art post. Exactly. And it's one of the. I think the great frustrations that some Democratic voters have with him is that that form of communication, it seems to be from another era. I mean, the way politics is conducted today, especially in the wake of Trump, it doesn't really seem like that's the most effective way, you know, combat Trump. But that, that is, that is the, the strategy that, that Jeffries, you know, sticks to quite religiously.
- [28:54]
Tyler Foggatt
In a minute, I want to talk about exactly that. Combating Trump in the future and what's ahead for Jeffries and congressional Democrats. And just like the party as a whole, this is the political scene from the. Wired has always put a microscope on the people, power and forces shaping our world. Uncanny Valley brings that same fearless reporting straight to your feed. Is Doge finally over? Will AI actually democratize American healthcare? Each week, Wired journalists from across the newsroom are going to unpack where politics, technology, and Silicon Valley. From conversations with tech leaders across Silicon Valley, Internet fandom investigations, and government crackdowns on rigged gambling, we're taking you all over the news cycle, going straight inside the priorities, pressures and power plays driving today's biggest decisions. Uncanny Valley tackles the questions keeping you up at night and helps make sense of the future taking shape right now. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcast. So while you were reporting on Jeffries and talking with him, did you get a strong sense of why he thinks that Democrats are where they are now and how it, you know, sort of their current crisis of credibility and popularity. Like, what does he attribute that to?
- [30:29]
Jason Zengerly
I don't think he even thinks that they really have a crisis of credibility or popularity. I think he has completely.
- [30:35]
Tyler Foggatt
He thinks it's all good.
- [30:36]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah, he really gives that sense. I mean, not, not for the country. He thinks the country's in a very perilous place. But I don't think he thinks the Democratic Party is, or if he does, he won't acknowledge it. I mean, he, I tried multiple times to engage him on that question. You know, what do you think Democrats problem is? What do you think about these intraparty debates that are happening? You know, the party being at this crossroads, like the, the distrust in the party elite and the party apparatus following 2024. And he just like, won't go there. I mean, you know, if you ask him about what went wrong in 2024, he gives this very standard answer about, you know, Biden shouldn't have run and then Democrats didn't do a good job answering voters concerns about inflation and the border and that's it. And besides, House Democrats actually did great in 2024. We outperformed the national environment. We cut the Republican majority from 10 seats to three. And beyond that, we have been on a roll since 24. We've won 15 straight months of winning all of these various elections and everything is good. He just will not engage in that conversation at all. It's very. If you talk to him, you would have no, no idea. If you only talk to him, you would have no idea that this, this debate is roiling about the party. He just, I think he just tries to push past it and avoid it in part because I think, you know, to, to engage in that debate, like he's going to wind up pissing someone off, right? Like, he's going to have to take a side and he's, he very much doesn't want to do that.
- [32:07]
Tyler Foggatt
Well, speaking of debates that piss people off, I mean, what about the debate about the future of the Democratic Party and whether that lies with the progressive wing or the more moderate and centrist wing? Like, to what extent has Jeff weighed in on that or tried to shape that conversation?
- [32:23]
Jason Zengerly
I don't think he does. I mean, there is A perception of him as being moderate. And I think that's because on a couple of issues, namely Israel and Wall street, he is more to the moderate, if not conservative, side of the party. But on a number of other issues, he has a very liberal voting record. But ever since he has become a member of leadership, he's just. I think he's just tried to absent himself from any of those, any of those debates. I mean, I, I had one former congressional aide, they, they compared him to hotel art, you know, like, not. He, he aggressively doesn't want to make a statement about anything. He just kind of is. And I thought that was like, a pretty perceptive critique of him. He just doesn't want to be a part, at least publicly, he doesn't want to be a part of that. And that's what's going to be so interesting if he does become speaker. Like, he's gonna have to set a path at some point and he's gonna have to decide. I mean, that said, I mean, it's interesting, like, when I, when I talked to people about this and sort of made that argument, like, isn't he gonna have to do something at some point? I mean, they, they did. You know, they pushed back a little bit. And these weren't even necessarily supporters of Jeffries in saying that, like, if you're speaker of the House, like, especially once someone from your party becomes president, like, you're not setting the agenda like the president is. And, and as speaker, it's your job to just kind of execute that person's agend. Remember Nancy Pelosi for healthcare because of what she did to get Obamacare passed in the House. But until then, she was not a politician who has identified with healthcare as an issue. So so much of being speaker is kind of affecting someone else's vision. And I think that will be. I think if Jeffries is going to go down in the history books, it'll be because of what he does. If he is speaker and there is a Democrat in the White House, what he does to advance that president's agenda, and that won't be his own agenda.
- [34:16]
Tyler Foggatt
So just to bring things back to redistricting, since that's something that is on everyone's mind right now, I'm wondering if Jeffries has a plan going forward for how Democrats can combat that, given all of the Republican gerrymandering victories.
- [34:29]
Jason Zengerly
He does, he does. And look, on redistricting, there are all sorts of criticisms to make of Jeffries for, you know, being too cautious and being indecisive. I Don't think that applies to redistricting. I think actually if you were gonna criticize him, you might criticize him for, you know, kind of over overshooting.
- [34:47]
Tyler Foggatt
You mean like the. Like the California.
- [34:49]
Jason Zengerly
Well, California worked, but Virginia. Virginia is the one that, you know, I think people are going to second guess because he went all in on Virginia, and he really leaned quite heavily on Virginia Democrats who did not want to do this redistricting. He leaned on them to do it. And he got this referendum on the ballot, and then he got this referendum passed that was going to give Democrats four more seats in Virginia. And. And it worked. It passed. But then the Virginia Supreme Court overturned it. And that was a risk that I think Democrats knew going in that the court might overturn it. And they underestimated the risk of the court doing that. And so they expended a lot of money and a lot of political capital to get that thing passed, and then they have nothing to show for it. But that was Jeffries really being a risk taker to do that. So there's really not anything that Democrats can do at this point before the 26 midterms. I mean, there are no. I think there's maybe a very outside chance that they could get Maryland to redraw its maps to get one more seat, but that's really unlikely. So Jeffries is really focusing on 28, and there are a number of things that Democrats in blue states right now need to start doing to allow them to engage in gerrymanders before the 2028 elections. And Jefferies is setting those wheels in motion. And I think he. He has, you know, I think there's seven blue states that he's looking at where he wants them to, you know, engage in pretty extreme gerrymanders to offset these Republican gerrymanders. And he's. He's moving aggressively on that front right now, and he's going to the Democratic officials in those states and leaning on them. And, you know, and he's also going to the Congressional Black Caucus and leaning on them, because in a lot of instances, these gerrymander in these blue states will. It's going to entail undoing black majority districts. And that's something that the CBC has been opposed to for a long time. And the CBC seems to be changing its tune on that. And I think you're seeing, you've seen just in the last week, some CBC members saying they will be okay eliminating black majority districts in Illinois and New York and places like that if it'll lead to more Democratic seats. So that's something that Jefferies is, I think, going to be quite aggressive on.
- [37:02]
Tyler Foggatt
Assuming that the Democrats do manage to retake the House during the upcoming midterms, and assuming that Jeffries is named speaker, do you have a sense of what he plans to do with the speakership for the remainder of Trump's term? Like, I feel like in your piece, he talks a bit about, you know, emphasizing affordability.
- [37:18]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah.
- [37:18]
Tyler Foggatt
Which we've heard before.
- [37:20]
Jason Zengerly
Yes.
- [37:21]
Tyler Foggatt
From Trump, too. Yeah.
- [37:22]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah. No, I think, you know, they will. A Democratic House under Jeffries would pass a lot of legislation that focuses on affordability, you know, housing, things like that, childcare, healthcare. But those bills will go nowhere. I mean, even if Democrats take back the Senate, which the odds for that are a lot steeper, Trump would still veto all of those bills. So those will just be messaging bills. And I think that the idea would be that Democrats running for president in 2028 could point to those and say, elect me to the White House and these things will become law. But I think the more kind of concrete actions that a Democratic House could take under the last two years of a Trump presidency will be investig. Because once you're in the majority, you control these committees, you control their resources. I mean, it's really dramatic. The majority has two thirds of the committee's staff and resources. Minority has one third. So the staffing flips overnight. You double your staff, and the other side loses half their staff. So the House Oversight Committee will do a lot of investigations. In a Democratic House, they would dig even deeper into Epstein. They would go deep on some of the Trump corruption stuff. They'd even look into corporations. House Judiciary Committee, you know, they've been sending these investigative letters as the minority, the House Democrats, I think over a hundred of them, you know, into everything ranging from, like, you know, firing of DOJ employees to Trump's antitrust policy. In a Democratic House, those investigative letters would become subpoenas. So they will, you know, they'll perform their oversight function on steroids. And I think that that would be probably the biggest thing.
- [38:57]
Tyler Foggatt
So lots of subpoenas to look forward to. I think, you know, just for my final question, hearing you talk about how good Jeffries was at staying on message throughout your interviews with him. I'm curious what the most unexpected thing he said to you was, or the most unexpected thing that came up in your reporting. Like, if there was just anything where you were, like, I am surprised to hear that coming out of Hakeem Jeffries mouth.
- [39:18]
Jason Zengerly
So we were talking once. He's a Big hip hop head, you know, and in kind of a cringy way, you know, like.
- [39:25]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, like reciting, like, Biggie lyrics.
- [39:27]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah, Biggie lyrics during impeachment and then making a throw pillow out of them that sits on his couch in his office. But he was talking about hip hop and Brooklyn, and he's a big Jay Z fan. And he and Jay Z are contemporaries. I think they're one year apart. They grew up in Brooklyn at the same time. And Jeffries went to this school called a high school, called Midwood Public High School. I think a pretty competitive high school. And he was talking about how at the same time he was at Midwood, Jay z and Notorious B.I.G. and I think Busta Rhymes were all at Westinghouse, which was a vocational high school in Brooklyn. And he was just sort of marveling about this collection of talent at this high school. And I said something. I was like, all right, so who can Midwood claim? Who are their hip hop stars? And he asked it a question. He said, woody Allen, which I thought was a really funny line. I don't know. I didn't think he had that sense of humor. So that was the most surprising. I mean, it's very small because it really is hard to get him to say something that he hasn't said before. But I thought his Woody Allen joke was actually pretty good.
- [40:34]
Tyler Foggatt
Yeah, more of that.
- [40:35]
Jason Zengerly
Yeah.
- [40:37]
Tyler Foggatt
Well, thank you so much for being here, Jason.
- [40:39]
Jason Zengerly
Thanks a lot for having me. This was fun.
- [40:42]
Tyler Foggatt
Jason Zengerly is a staff writer for the New Yorker. You can find his latest piece, can Hakeem Jeffries Lead a Democratic Takeover of the house? @New Yorker.com this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. I'm Tyler Foggitt. This episode was produced by John Lame with mixing by Mike Kutchman and engineering by Pran Bandy. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our theme music is by Alison Layton Brown. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next Wednesday.
- [41:17]
Jason Zengerly
From prx.