House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) held a press briefing about the Big Beautiful Bill and House Dems' approach after it cleared the senate 51-50 with VP JD Vance casting the tie breaking vote.
00:00This dangerous Republican budget, Donald Trump's one big ugly bill, will hurt everyday
00:25Americans and reward their billionaire donors.
00:32Republicans are not the party of working class Americans.
00:36They are the party of the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected.
00:41Stop lying to the American people.
00:46Donald Trump's one big ugly bill rips healthcare away from more than 17 million Americans.
00:55It represents the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
01:02Children will be hurt, families will be hurt, women will be hurt, seniors will be hurt, everyday
01:08Americans with disabilities will be hurt.
01:13Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down, and community-based health clinics will
01:19be unable to provide services.
01:24This dangerous and extreme Republican budget will result in Americans losing their lives
01:35because of the inability to access healthcare coverage.
01:39It's unacceptable, unconscionable, and un-American.
01:45Shame on Senate Republicans for passing this disgusting abomination.
01:51And shame on House Republicans for continuing to bend the knee to Donald Trump's extreme agenda.
02:01This one big ugly bill represents the largest cut to nutritional assistance in American history.
02:11American-American Republicans are literally ripping food out of the mouths of children, veterans, and seniors.
02:21And all of this is being done to provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors.
02:30Republicans claim to be the party of working class Americans.
02:34You are hurting working class Americans.
02:41This bill won't make life more affordable for the American people.
02:45It will make life more expensive, including dramatically raising energy costs, which are already too high.
02:56At the same period of time, doing nothing, nada, zilch, zero, to lower the high cost of living in this country.
03:06Donald Trump and Republicans claim that they will lower costs on day one, costs having gone down.
03:12In fact, they're going up in America.
03:15And this dangerous and extreme Republican budget, Trump's one big ugly bill, the GOP tax scam,
03:22this disgusting abomination, will set in motion a potential economic death spiral by increasing the nation's debt by more than $3 trillion.
03:34And yet, these phonies on the Republican side of the aisle claim to be fiscally responsible, get lost.
03:44House Democrats are going to do everything we can over the next few hours, today, tomorrow,
03:53for the balance of this week and beyond to stop this bill from ever becoming law.
04:00Questions?
04:02Thank you, Mr. Leader.
04:03The bill that the Senate is sending back is far more conservative than the bill that House Republicans passed before Memorial Day.
04:11What's your reaction to some of the provisions?
04:14You already disliked them in the House version.
04:17What's your reaction to the bill becoming more conservative as it returns back to the House where you're also trying to defend against it?
04:24Why would any so-called traditional Republican, particularly those who are in swing seats all across America, vote for a bill that will aggressively and actively hurt their constituents?
04:40The Senate Republican bill that's been sent back over to the House doesn't make anything better in an already flawed bill that emerged in late May from the House of Representatives and limped over to the Senate by a single vote.
05:02Why would anyone who claims to be concerned about protecting their constituents from these devastating Medicaid and health care cuts vote for Donald Trump's one big ugly bill?
05:16It's perplexing, and we're going to make this case strongly before the Rules Committee and on the floor of the House of Representatives.
05:25We have a leadership conversation at 515 today, and then we'll have a caucus meeting at 6.
05:43All legislative tools and options are on the table.
05:47Do you expect the Democratic caucus to be here this week?
06:00It's my expectation that every single member of the House Democratic caucus will be present,
06:04and every single House Democrat is strongly opposed to this GOP tax scam, this disgusting abomination,
06:14this one big ugly bill that will rip health care away from millions of Americans.
06:21Thank you, Mr. Leader.
06:22Beyond just voting against the bill, recent polls have shown a sort of lack of confidence in Democrats and Congress.
06:30When you say you're doing all you can, can you elaborate on that to the people at home that think you aren't doing enough?
06:35Yeah, we're in a more-is-more environment, and every single generic ballot that has been taken this year has House Democrats defeating House Republicans.
06:47Every single one.
06:49Beyond that, every single major special election that has occurred this year.
06:55Iowa in January, New York in February, Pennsylvania in March, Wisconsin in April, Omaha, Nebraska in May, and South Carolina in June.
07:11Every single special election Democrats have won, often in places that Donald Trump carried decisively just last November.
07:25As far as I'm concerned, that's what matters.
07:28We are in a more-is-more environment, and we're going to continue to do more, as we've been doing over the last several weeks, over the last several months.
07:36Mr. Leader, Medicaid has obviously been one of the most controversial components of this legislation for both Democrats and Republicans.
07:44The White House has been quick to say that it's only cutting waste, fraud, and abuse from the program, and that Democrats are for keeping non-U.S. citizens on the program of Medicaid.
07:58Can you clarify if it's the Democratic position that supports keeping illegal aliens on Medicaid in the program?
08:06Republicans are lying about Medicaid being used to provide health care using federal funds to undocumented immigrants.
08:22Why? Federal law prohibits Medicaid from being used with federal dollars to provide any health care to undocumented immigrants.
08:37And I haven't heard a single Democrat say anything about opposing that law or doing anything to change it.
08:45I support the law as it currently exists.
08:49What Republicans are doing is taking health care away from American citizens, from children, from seniors, from families, from everyday Americans with disabilities.
09:03That's what this bill does, and has been confirmed by independent organization after independent organization.
09:11Donald Trump claimed that Republicans were going to love and cherish Medicaid.
09:17You're lying to the American people, just like you lied to the American people that costs were going to go down on day one.
09:25And lied to the American people that the war in Ukraine was going to end on day one.
09:30And lied to the American people that the hostages would be released on day one.
09:39I mean, this is one lie that was told to the American people after another.
09:44And we're going to expose the truth to the American people because the American people deserve the truth.
09:50This is the largest assault on health care in American history.
09:54It's an assault on Medicaid, on Medicare, and on the Affordable Care Act, which will result in millions of people who currently get health care coverage from the Affordable Care Act, losing access to their health care.
10:12It's the largest assault on nutritional assistance in American history.
10:16It's the largest transfer of wealth from everyday Americans to billionaires in American history.
10:27Shame on Republicans for trying to jam this bill down the throats of the American people.
