In an absolutely shocking series of comments made during a press conference on Friday, January 31, Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called for his party to not just resist President Donald Trump’s election via legislative means, but also by fighting it “in the streets.”
Doing so, Jeffries said that the MAGA agenda is “extreme,” which is utterly false, considering that nearly all of it consists of simply enforcing the law, primarily as regards immigration and deportations. He also claimed that the goal of the agenda is to aid billionaires, which given the tariff, anti-globalism policy is also false.
He said, making those incorrect claims, “Right now, we’re going to keep focused on the need to look out for everyday New Yorkers and everyday Americans who are under assault by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that is trying to cut taxes for billionaire donors and wealthy corporations and then stick New Yorkers and working class Americans across the country with the bill.”
Continuing, he claimed that the MAGA agenda is “not acceptable” and must be fought “in the streets,” not just in the courts and legislature. He said, “That’s not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively. We’re going to going to fight it in the courts, and we’re going to fight it in the streets.”
Shockingly, Hakeem’s fellow Democrats appeared to agree with him. For example, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) said, according to the Hill, “House Democrats are now fully engaged. The bell has rung. I think we see this for the constitutional test that it is, and we’re going to be aggressively pushing back.”
That Democrat continued, saying that the idea of a “street fight” is a good one and that it would have been impossible to “put it better.” He said, “Leader Jeffries described it as a legal fight, a legislative fight and a street fight. And I couldn’t put it better.” Watch Hakeem Jeffries here:
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The GOP chimed in to condemn Jeffries for his remarks, For example, the Trump White House released a statement saying, “At a press conference this morning in Brooklyn, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) made a sick call for violence and incited his followers to “fight” President Trump’s agenda “in the streets.” Will Minority Leader Jeffries apologize for this disgusting threat? Or will he double down on the same calls for violence that have plagued the country for years?'”
Similarly, the Libs of TikTok X account demanded Democrats condemn the calls for violence, saying, “House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Trump’s Agenda: “we’re gonna fight it in the courts and we’re gonna fight it in the streets.” I look forward to Democrats condemning Hakeem Jeffries’ call for violence.”
A commenter on that post from Libs of TikTok noted that it was wild that Jeffries paused, thought about calling for violence, and then did so, writing, “What’s amazing is the pause…he thought about it and then he said “we’re gonna fight it in the streets” anyway. Worthy of expulsion from Congress. We’re not doing summer of 2020 again. @HouseGOP @SpeakerJohnson”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video