Yesterday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) stepped up to the microphone for his allotted minute during debate on HR 1 -- Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill -- and just kept speaking. His focus was to bemoan imaginary cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. It could have been on something real and important.
On the previous day, other Democrats delayed in a similar way on the same issue. It began when one representative took time and said, “I ask unanimous consent to amend the Rule to make in order the Amendment at the desk that protects against any cuts to Medicaid or SNAP.”
Congresswoman Virginia Fox (R – North Carolina), answered that it was time for debate, so she would not yield for that request.
The Democrats then lined up and took time, one after another, to make the same request, reading from white sheets of paper.
In response, the acting speaker Rep. Steve Womack (R - Arkansas), had to reiterate over and over, “The gentle lady from North Carolina has not yielded for that purpose, therefore that unanimous consent request cannot be entertained."
So, it wasn’t the Leader being a hero, standing up for Americans, when he took his turn, but it was a Democrat stunt again proving that Democrats do not really care about Americans at all, and it was a thumb in the president’s eye, of course.
President Trump hoped to sign the bill and celebrate its passage on the Fourth of July. Congresswoman Lisa McClain (R-Mi) didn’t think Jeffries’ stunt would ruin those plans. In answer to a question on timing from Maria Bartiromo later in the morning, she said, “As soon as Hakeem is done gaslighting, Speaker Johnson will speak, and then we’ll put the votes on the floor -- I think we have the votes.”
Even so, the Minority Leader might have spent his filibuster time on something more important: apologizing to the American People, expressing regret for what the Democrats did to them, the evil they enabled, while the party was in power.
He could have apologized for Democrats opening our southern border on purpose, and the horrors that resulted from that policy as criminals walked into the USA. He could have said that he regretted that they refused to close the border when they could have closed it and that they could have stood up for Americans and innocents, protecting them, but they did not.
Jeffries could have expressed regret that hundreds of thousands of Americans died in horrible ways. Men, women, and young people died of poisoning from fentanyl that came over the border. Young women were raped, murdered, and had their heads bashed in with rocks. People were knifed, or strangled, or shot to death. One woman who was sleeping on the subway in NYC was set on fire by a crazy illegal immigrant. She stood up as she perished.
The week before the HR1 debate, Karen Diamond, who was 82 years old, died of injuries caused by being set on fire by an illegal immigrant. It happened on the mall in Boulder where she was marching for hostages in Gaza.
These people had families. Jeffries could have acknowledged their loss and expressed condolences and regret that their families -- American families -- have been devastated and will never be whole again.
Also, it was not just deaths for which Jeffries could have expressed some regret; many women and children have been sexually abused by illegal aliens and trafficked into horrible situations. People have been terrified and traumatized.
He could have said we’re sorry that American families have been victimized, broken, and harmed as well.
But no. Democrats just put on their little show. Who orchestrated it, I don’t know. In the end it’s just an annoyance, a worthless exercise to try to show how Democrats truly stand up for Americans.
In her closing remarks during debate, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) summed it up when she said that Democrats have no place to criticize Republicans on morality.
Democrats have demonstrated over the last five years -- while they enabled extreme harm -- that they do not stand for Americans and they do not care about American families. Virtue signaling and gaslighting about a nonissue are useless, but an apology from Hakeem Jeffries might have helped us all to heal. Too bad he didn’t filibuster on that.
C.S. Boddie writes for Meadowlark Press, LLC.
Image: Library of Congress