(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making a marathon last stand against President Donald Trump’s major tax cut and spending bill.
Jeffries took to the House floor just after 5 a.m. on Thursday and has now been speaking for more than four hours, delaying a final vote in the chamber on the domestic policy bill at the heart of Trump’s second term agenda.
Jeffries has stacks of binders next to him at the podium. It does not appear he is wrapping any time soon.
“I’ve been given 15 minutes each on a bill of such significant magnitude as it relates to the health, the safety and the well being of the American people and because that debate was so limited, I feel the obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this house floor and take my sweet time to tell the stories and that’s exactly what I intend to do,” Jeffries said.
The “magic minute” speech is a procedure that grants members of House leadership unlimited time to speak after debate on a bill has concluded. For context, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, spoke for more than eight hours in 2021 when the House passed President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.
Jeffries has focused much of his speech on the bill’s projected impact on Medicaid, the federal program that primarily serves seniors and people with disabilities, sharing personal stories from people he says will struggle as a result of the megabill.
“People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people,” Jeffries said. “I’m sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene.”
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Medicaid cuts and changes passed by the Senate could cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade.
Jeffries is excoriating the Trump-backed megabill’s “assault on healthcare.”
“Every single house Democrat is fighting hard to protect your Medicaid,” Jeffries said. “We value you and we’re working hard to defend you.”
Republicans have defended the changes as reforms to entitlement programs they claim are riddled with “waste, fraud and abuse.” The Trump administration has also pushed back on the nonpartisan budget office itself and its analysis, claiming bias.
Jeffries didn’t stop at health care and is criticizing other portions of the bill, including its impact on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and its immigration provisions.
“You see, budgets are moral documents. And in our view, Mr. Speaker, budgets should be designed to lift people up,” he said. “This reckless Republican budget that we are debating right now on the floor of the House of Representatives tears people down.”
“This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document,” Jeffries continued. “And everybody should vote no against it because of how it attacks children, seniors, and everyday Americans, and people with disabilities. This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document. And that is why I stand here on the floor of the House of Representatives with my colleagues in the House Democratic caucus to stand up and push back against it with everything we have.”
Those comments prompted House Democrats gathered near Jeffries to stand in applause.
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