LEADER JEFFRIES: “DONALD TRUMP IS IN THE PRESIDENTIAL WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM. NO ONE CAN FIND HIM”

Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe, where he reiterated that Democrats are ready to negotiate bipartisan legislation that ends the Republican government shutdown and protects the healthcare of the American people.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Leader Jeffries joins us now. Mike Johnson, the Speaker, says real people are being harmed. This has to come to an end. Your response? Also, anything new? Any possibilities a deal could be reached today and the government reopens?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, good morning. We're in day three of the Trump Republican shutdown because Republicans don't want to provide healthcare to working-class Americans. We know that real people are being hurt, and that unfortunately has been the case since the beginning of the Trump administration on January 20th. It was Speaker Johnson, Republicans in the House and the Senate, along with Donald Trump and the administration, who passed this One Big Ugly Bill that set in motion the healthcare crisis that the American people are dealing with right now. Largest cut to Medicaid in American history. They ripped food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors and veterans. And all that was done so that they could provide massive tax breaks to their billionaire donors. Now, they don't want to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for everyday Americans, and that's shameful.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Okay, so in a perfect world, you know, this would be about the continuing resolution, about a debate about policy, a debate about healthcare. There wouldn't be disinformation and lies about-this is about migrants getting healthcare that the Democrats want, and there wouldn't be Project 2025 aspirations. But I don't think Democrats can look at this shutdown in a vacuum. The threat of mass firings is as real as the threat of retribution and the threat of ICE raids and deportations. It's real. So since some who study Project 2025-and we've had them on the show earlier now-say the administration is really hoping for a moment like this so they can have these mass firings and weaken the government. Let's say three or four Democrats break and Republicans get what they want, avoiding these mass firings. What are the consequences for the American people if Republicans get what they want?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, listen, we're ready, willing and able to sit down with anyone, anytime, at any place in order to have a conversation about reopening the government, enacting a spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people in terms of their quality of life and addresses the Republican healthcare crisis. And we've maintained that position for weeks. Republicans, unfortunately, have shown no interest in doing anything responsible to address the healthcare crisis that they've created because they want to continue to wreak havoc on the American people. And the reality is, during the duration, the entirety of the Trump administration, I think we're on day 257 of the chaos that has been unleashed on the American people, they have already engaged in mass firings. They've done this outside of the context of a government shutdown. They've already unleashed masked ICE agents on law-abiding immigrant families. They've done that outside of the context of a government shutdown. They've already enacted this massive tax break for their billionaire donors while taking healthcare away from more than 14 million Americans. Enough already. This is who they are. And the government shutdown is just a continuation of that effort.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: So Leader Jeffries, Senate Leader Thune has said in recent days that, he says anyway, Republicans would be willing to negotiate on ACA, but doing it separately from the government funding situation. And that was something that Minority Leader Schumer agreed with back in the spring. So if that does come to the table, if that's a real offer here, hey, let's talk about ACA, let's fund the government short-term and then let's deal with ACA now and then revisit the government down the road. Is that something Democrats would be interested in?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Our position is cancel the cuts, lower the cost, save healthcare. And that has to be done at this moment in time in the context of this unprecedented Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people. Largest cut to Medicaid in American history. Triggering a possible $536 billion cut to Medicare at the end of this year if Congress doesn't act because of what Republicans did in their One Big Ugly Bill. We know that hospitals and nursing homes and community-based health clinics all across the country, including in rural America, are closing down right now because of the Republican assault on the healthcare of everyday Americans. And they refuse to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, which is going to result in more than 20 million Americans receiving notices, many that have already gone out, indicating that their healthcare premiums, copays and deductibles are about to skyrocket. And we already live in a high cost of living environment. America's too expensive. Donald Trump hasn't lowered costs on day one, which he promised. They're making life more expensive. That's why this has to be dealt with, as Dr. King once observed, with the fierce urgency of now.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: So Leader Jeffries, it's I guess a very 2025 thing that we're dealing with this. But as part of these negotiations, apparently, a feature are AI themed videos that President Trump is sending out of you. One the other day in which you're featuring wearing a sombrero and a mustache and you alongside Senator Schumer saying things that you did not actually say and then one posted overnight where President Trump with a Trump 2028 hat, which he did actually have on his desk in your meeting with him. He threw it in this video on your head and laughed. Can you just talk to us about what that meeting was like with the President of the United States and, you know, what is your response to these antics here at a moment when as you-government is shut down?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, it's further confirmation that Republicans are the ones who were clearly determined to shut the government down because everything that President Trump has done subsequent to Monday has been unhinged and unserious. In fact, Donald Trump is in the presidential witness protection program. No one can find him when it comes to the government shutdown issue because he knows he's responsible for having caused it. And the behavior-the erratic behavior that we've seen-is further confirmation of that unfortunate fact. Yet as Democrats, Leader Schumer, myself, House Democrats, Senate Democrats we've been clear. Listen, we'll sit down in good faith. We need to reopen the government in this Trump Republican government shutdown. And we can find a bipartisan path toward a spending agreement, but that spending agreement has to actually meet the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety and their economic well-being, particularly as it relates to driving down the high cost of living and lowering healthcare costs as opposed to driving millions of Americans into medical bankruptcy because of the Republicans' refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

JOHN HEILEMANN: Leader Jeffries, hey. Heilemann here. So this-I want to ask about the politics of this, right? There's-people talk about this a game of chicken, really is a game of chicken. It's really-between the kind of moderates in each party, who's going to blink first? And in-especially these very narrow margins that we're talking about in the House and the Senate. In terms of the Democrats in your Caucus, how confident are you in the solidarity, the unity, the cohesion of your Members in the House? And then tell me whether you are as confident about that in terms of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

LEADER JEFFRIES: House and Senate Democrats are united, and House Democrats within our own Caucus are definitively united as it relates to standing up for the healthcare of the American people and fighting to address this healthcare crisis that Republicans have addressed or created as part of this broader challenge where the cost of living environment in the United States of America, it's out of control. And Donald Trump despite all of his promises is making it worse. The Trump tariffs are making things worse. Thousands of dollars in additional expenses. So this is the right substantive fight on behalf of the American people for us to have and that's what unites Democrats in the House and in the Senate.

JOHN HEILEMANN: I believe you about House Democrats, okay, but we saw in the last time we did this, we went through this dance, you saw Leader Schumer decide to give the Republicans the votes to keep the government open. You've seen two Democrats in the Senate Democratic Caucus already vote to keep the government open, Senator Fetterman and Senator Cortez Masto. You now are hearing talk about Jeanne Shaheen starting to float the possibility of making a deal. So I'll ask you again, why is it different? Why are you so confident, or why are you saying you're so confident, that the Senate situation is different this time around when, at least to my eye, you can already start to see some kind of cracks potentially emerging on that side of Capitol Hill in your party?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, when you think about what Republicans have done over the last several months, particularly as it relates to their One Big Ugly Bill and the devastation that has been caused with respect to the healthcare of the American people, House and Senate Democrats were entirely united. Every single House Democrat voted against that toxic piece of legislation, and so did every single Senate Democrat. And we've been working in lockstep since that moment, regularly in communication across the Capitol with each other. And we know, listen, if you think about the Republican healthcare crisis, it's an assault on the healthcare of working class Americans, rural Americans, urban Americans, small town Americans, the heartland of America, as well as Black and brown communities throughout America. That pretty much covers everyone. And so we're united in this fight to make sure we are defending our constituents and defending the American people and trying to fix this broken healthcare system that Republicans have destroyed.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So, Leader Jeffries, can you talk a little bit about the effectiveness of the messaging here on both sides? Quite frankly, there have been a lot of claims about what this is about that don't appear to be what this is about. And the polls are kind of not definitive on this as well. What more can Democrats do to explain to the American people exactly what this is about and exactly what Democrats are doing to try and solve the problem that they say Republicans are putting on the table?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, Republicans are lying, of course, because they're losing. And that's the reality of the situation. And public sentiment is clearly on the side of understanding that Donald Trump and Republicans have shut the government down. And we know that the public wants to see the Affordable Care Act tax credits renewed for working class Americans. And the public understands that ripping away Medicaid from tens of millions of people affects everyone, whether you're in a red state, a blue state or a purple state. Now, when Republicans are talking about the notion that Democrats somehow are interested in providing health insurance to undocumented immigrants, we know the law prohibits that. And nothing in any single Democratic proposal has suggested that that's something that we put on the table. Of course not. Which is why, Mika, in the White House meeting on Monday, which was over an hour, the issue of healthcare for undocumented immigrants was brought up for less than 10 seconds and then dismissed because nobody in that room, including the President, the Vice President, Leader Thune or Mike Johnson, thinks this is a serious issue. It's an external issue. It's part of, you know, the Republican disinformation machine, and the American people are not going to buy it.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, Leader Jeffries, no question some of these are bad faith arguments. But we do want to return to the soundbite from Speaker Johnson at the beginning of this interview, where he acknowledged that working Americans, regular Americans, are going to be feeling pain from this shutdown. And he did note that during the Biden administration, Republicans had a few opportunities to shut the government down and never did. That is factually correct. So with that, how do you, as the Democrat Leader, respond to that sort of rhetoric, that sort of argument he's making to the American people?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Every single time we were successfully able to fund the government when Republicans controlled the House during the last two years of the Biden administration, it was done because House Democrats provided the overwhelming majority of support because there was an actual negotiation where we could sit down and figure out a bipartisan path forward. But we know throughout the Trump administration, they've taken a go-it-alone approach, a my way or the highway approach. And we're not going to sit there and simply rubber stamp Donald Trump's extreme agenda and the harm that they continue to do on the American people. This spending bill that is before us right now, that's a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people and the process that Republicans have undertaken in the House has been incredibly partisan. We're talking about, you know, $1.7 billion in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control. We're taking about $450 million in cuts to the National Institutes of Health. We're talking about continuing this notion that we're not going to make vaccines available to children and families. That's what they want to do in this appropriations process. It's a continuation of an all-out assault on the healthcare and the well-being of the American people. And we're not going to sign off on that. Now, what Republicans are going to do as they've done from the very beginning, Donald Trump says jump, House Republicans, Senate Republicans say how high. They are a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's extreme agenda. We, as House Democrats, Senate Democrats, we're actually functioning consistent with the Constitution, a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch. That's why we're standing on the side of the American people.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: House Minority Leader, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Thank you very much for coming on the show today.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Thank you.

Full interview can be watched here.