House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries boasted that Democrats continue to wield majority power in the House despite Republicans taking control last year, in large part due to the “dysfunction” and “chaos” within the House GOP.
In an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last Sunday, Jeffries said while the Democrats might be the minority party, they have continued to govern “as if we were in the majority.”
He noted that it was the House Democrats who provided the majority of votes on legislation that has passed since the GOP took control.
Jeffries said the dynamic was created by the Republicans, many of whom are “more interested in creating chaos, dysfunction, and extremism” than governing.
While the Republicans retook the House following the 2022 Midterms, their majority is a razor-thin 5 seats, leaving Speaker of the House Mike Johnson with no choice but to rely on Democrats to get legislation passed.
The speaker is facing possible removal with Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene threatening to force a vote on a motion to dismiss the chair after Johnson worked with Democrats to pass a spending bill.
Earlier this month, Jeffries, along with the rest of the Democrat leadership, revealed that the Democrats would not help Greene in her quest to oust Speaker Johnson, saying the Democrats would either work to table the motion or vote against it if it came up for a vote.
Jeffries told “60 Minutes” host Norah O’Donnell that Speaker Johnson did not reach out for help to prevent his ouster. Instead, Jeffries argued that backing the speaker was what Democrats believed should be done. He explained that the Democrats believe that they should “let the other side work its own mess out.”
However, Jeffries added that if the “mess” was beginning to hurt the House’s ability to work for the American people, the solution would be to make sure “the extremists” who throw “Congress and the country into chaos” should not be in office.
