During a press conference on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was asked whether Democratic members of the House had the mental and physical acuity to serve.
00:00Is every member of the Democratic caucus fit mentally and physically to serve another chairman of Congress?
00:05And what role do you see yourself in playing in having conversations with members about retirement and their future here?
00:11That's not a discussion that we have had at the moment with individual members who are going to make decisions about their future.
00:19And it's my expectation that those decisions will be based on what members conclude is in the best interest of the communities that they have been privileged to represent as well as themselves, their families, and the values that they hold dear that we are in the middle of defending on behalf of the American people.
00:43Now, what is interesting to me, as Chair Aguilar indicated, is that Republicans clearly are running scared, and notwithstanding the desire of a member in New York or a member in Iowa to seek other office,
01:03because they know that their prospects for re-election are grim, given how disastrous things have been as a result of the Trump administration and the failures of House Republicans.
01:19They have been ordered by Donald Trump to seek re-election.
01:23In other words, Donald Trump has signed their political death sentence, and as has always been the case, they simply choose to bend the knee, even when it's not in the best interest of their own political future.
01:44Republicans are running scared.
01:46Every single data point illustrates that reality, including the fact that Republicans are trying to gerrymander, in the middle of the decade, the Texas Congressional map, to try to undermine the ability for the nation to have free and fair elections.
02:05It's all because Republicans are running scared, they have been a complete and total disaster, and the American people will hold them accountable next November.
