EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Top Dem Hakeem Jeffries Says "We Have to Take Accountability"
“We fell short,” the House Democratic leader tells John Harwood.
Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries had hoped the 2024 election would make him speaker of the House of Representatives.
Anticipating victory, he wrote a new illustrated book, The ABCs of Democracy, which published on Tuesday. In it, Jeffries frames simply, for young readers, the virtues his party offers: American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, and so on.
But Jeffries' political adversaries, led by President-elect Donald Trump, won a clear victory last week as the electorate shifted in their direction.
As more than a dozen House races remain undecided, there's still an outside chance Jeffries could become speaker. But the Brooklyn Democrat will most likely lead a Democratic minority in a reshaped Washington featuring Republican control of the House, Senate, and White House, as well as the Supreme Court.
For ‘The Stakes’ this week, I spoke to Jeffries about why American voters did not embrace his party's message – including urgent warnings that Trump poses a danger to democracy itself.
He discussed wokeness, abortion rights, and the economy, as well as his worries about the incoming Trump administration, where Democrats can work with Republicans, and how his party can win back power in 2026 and beyond.
How would you explain to school kids what happened in last week’s election?
JEFFRIES: The ABCs of Democracy is an illustrated book for people of all ages. but I’m hopeful it will be particularly useful to millennials and younger Americans in terms of understanding the American values that have made our country [the] greatest democracy in the history of the world, the greatest middle class – bedrocks of our journey for 248 years. Now in the context of that journey, there are trials and tribulations. There’s turbulence along the way.
One of the pages in the book has a line: “democracy over demagoguery.” We had a safe, freely conducted, fair election last week. Was that a vindication of democracy over demagoguery?
JEFFRIES: Fundamental to our democracy is the notion that we accept the results. Many Americans will be bitterly disappointed. We should accept them and be prepared to continue to battle it out in the arena of ideas.
Other pages in the book include "understanding over ugliness," "benevolence over bigotry," "American values over autocracy." Are you confident that your conception of American values are the values that most Americans share?