LEADER JEFFRIES ON MS NOW: “THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT BEEN FOCUSED ON IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF EVERYDAY AMERICANS”

Last night, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MS NOW's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell where he pointed out how House Democrats are fighting for everyday Americans, while Donald Trump and sycophantic House Republicans continue to focus on schemes that reward the wealthy, the well off and the well connected.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Leading off our discussion tonight is House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Leader, really appreciate it. You were one who got to be in the briefing today to find out what this is really all about. What did you learn from Marco Rubio and the other members of the Cabinet who were in that briefing?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I think many of us on the Democratic side certainly left with more questions than answers. We pressed Secretary Rubio and others about the plan moving forward and what exactly Donald Trump meant when he said that we, meaning the Trump administration, presumably, were running Venezuela, when what's clear is that Donald Trump and the administration can't even run the United States of America and keep the promises that they made to American people, including promising to lower the high cost of living on day one, when we know that's been a disaster. Costs aren't going down, they're going up. Life is more expensive under Donald Trump and his policies and his Trump tariffs. Now, the American people, we made clear, are not interested in seeing American boots on the ground, our men and women in uniform put in harm's way as part of whatever scheme Donald Trump and his administration are executing relative to Venezuela or any other place. And so, one of the things that we're going to have to do, Lawrence, here in the Congress, is to act immediately to make clear that no further military action can take place without explicit congressional approval.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: So Marco Rubio has said publicly that he thought this is the kind of operation where you just can't give-you just can't follow the rules. You just can't give any prior notice, no matter how secretly, to anyone in Congress.

LEADER JEFFRIES: We pressed them on that, and, in fact, the administration, though they've said that their concern is that if they communicate anything to Congress, even a subset of congressional leaders, the problem is that information is going to leak. But I explicitly asked them to give us a single example of them communicating with Members of the Gang of Eight or other high-level Members of congressional leadership and that information then becoming public, and the response was crickets, Lawrence. They had no answer because there's no example of it. And we're going to continue to make the case, of course, that the Constitution is not a mere inconvenience in the United States of America. It needs to be followed. And Congress explicitly was given the sole authority to declare war and, therefore, to authorize acts of military aggression that have all of the indicia of an act of war.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: What did you hear from Marco Rubio or anyone else from the administration in that briefing that they have not said publicly?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, you know, we're not at liberty, of course, to reveal many of the details that were discussed because it was a highly classified briefing. But suffice is to say that many of us, I don't think, were persuaded that the justification that has been articulated publicly by the administration, that this was a law enforcement operation that had anything to do with keeping the American people safe. We weren't persuaded by that argument because they can't explain in clear terms how this helps the national security of the American people in any way, shape or form. You broke down the indictment. I know others are going to talk about it. This is the same administration that, of course, just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former President of Honduras, who's one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world, who was sentenced after being found guilty of narco-trafficking of epic proportions, flooding the country with more than 400 tons of cocaine, then sentenced to 45 years of hard time in a federal prison. Donald Trump pardons him just a few weeks ago, and they now want the country to believe that this unprecedented military action in Venezuela is about narco-trafficking. Of course it's not. It does appear to be about oil, and I can tell you that there was a lot of conversation, we've heard this publicly as well, about oil and American access to that oil and being able to control it, but still nothing that was discussed as it relates to how the life of everyday Americans is going to be made any better.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: What-did you come out of it with an understanding of what the administration's next step is in Venezuela?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we pressed the administration on this very point, and there's a lack of clarity as it relates to the situation. Of course, the Chavez regime remains in place, in many ways. And the Maduro folks who've taken over over the last several years, they remain in place, including the Vice President, who's now apparently at least the titular head of the regime at this moment, and how that makes life better for the Venezuelan people is unclear. The one thing that we'll continue to point out is that the future of Venezuela should be determined by the people of Venezuela, not by Stephen Miller, God forbid, or any other member of the Trump administration, notwithstanding what Donald Trump is talking about. But there's no real plan that we've heard from the Trump administration as to how to ensure that the Venezuelan people will actually get self-determination, the self-determination that they certainly deserve.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Was there any form of confusion between, say, the Defense Secretary, the Secretary of State, CIA Director, people in the room? Was there an indication that they, as a group, didn't know what was happening next?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, you know, most of the jurisdiction, in terms of what comes next does fall within the portfolio of the Secretary of State. And so, when we pressed him repeatedly on what comes next, there was just a lack of clarity because, of course, there's a great deal of uncertainty, there's chaos that could be unleashed in Venezuela. There are competing forces who are battling for power in the vacuum that was left as a result of, you know, Maduro now being apprehended. And look, Maduro's a bad guy, and he oppressed the Venezuelan people. He was not legitimately elected. That election in 2024, we know, was stolen. But when it comes to actually having a plan to put the people of Venezuela in the best possible position moving forward, it doesn't exist, and that's problematic. And that's why, when you take these type of military actions, but you're not thinking through what comes next, we've seen this turn into a disaster. That certainly was the case in Iraq, and the American people don't want to see that type of foreign policy disaster happen ever again.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Donald Trump has succeeded in pushing aside stories he really doesn't want covered, at least temporarily. Epstein files, Jack Smith's testimony and January 6th anniversary tomorrow, less than a year after Donald Trump pardoned everyone who attacked you at the Capitol that day.

LEADER JEFFRIES: That's exactly right. And the irony is that Donald Trump promises to lower costs on day one, but instead, on day one of his presidency, he pardons hundreds of violent felons who brutally assaulted the Capitol, beat police officers, seriously injured more than 140 brave law enforcement men and women. Some subsequently lost their lives. Many were injured in ways both physically and psychologically in terms of damage that is now permanent, and yet Donald Trump pardons these individuals and then unleashes them to go back to communities all across the country, where many of them have committed violent crimes and have reoffended. And we've got to make sure that that story is told, and we also have to make that there's value to free and fair elections in the United States of America. There's value to the peaceful transfer of power. There's value to ensuring that the rule of law remains central to who we are as a country. All of those things were threatened, of course, by what took place five years ago on January 6, which is why it's important that we never forget and that we learn the lessons of January 6, so that we never allow it to happen again.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Leader Jeffries, I hope you can join us on this program on this exact date a year from now, because you may be Speaker of the House by that time, one year from now. Just one year from now. As we sit here in January drowning in Trumpian abuse of power and this swirl of stories, what do you think will be the issue in the first week of November when voters are deciding who will run the House of Representatives next year.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, I think central to what the American people decide is going to be who's actually committed to making their life better. That's our fight as Democrats. We want to lower the high cost of living. We want to make life more affordable. We want to fix our broken healthcare system. And, of course, we want to clean up corruption so we can deliver a country that actually works for working class Americans. And I think the failure of the Trump administration has been they're focused on so many other things, most recently, what took place in Venezuela, but not focused on improving the quality of life of everyday Americans because they'd rather spend their time trying to engage in this scheme or that scheme to subsidize the lifestyles of the rich and shameless and reward their billionaire donors, which is exactly what they did in their One Big Ugly Bill while cutting Medicaid by the largest amount in American history and ripping healthcare away from more than 14 million Americans. The whole thing has been a failure. The American people are rejecting Republican extremism, and they're embracing the Democratic vision for making their life better and dealing with the affordability crisis that exists here in our great country.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you in advance for joining as one year from tonight and many times in between. Thank you very much.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you so much.

Full interview can be watched here.

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