Hakeem Jeffries Schools Kristen Welker On Why It’s Not The Democrats’ Job To Fix The GOP Speaker Mess

Meet The Press’s Kristen Welker twice asked questions trying to blame Democrats for the Republican speaker disaster, but House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wasn’t playing along.

Welker asked Jeffries, “This has been going on for 11 days. Why haven’t formal conversations started yet?”

House Democratic Leader Jeffries responded, “At this point, that is on my House, Republican colleagues. We have made clear publicly and privately that we are ready, willing and able to enter into a bipartisan governing coalition that puts the American people first and solves problems for hard-working American taxpayers. My Republican colleagues have a simple choice. They can either double or triple down on the chaos, dysfunction and extremism, or let’s have a real conversation about changing the rules of the House so it can work in the best interests of the American people.”

Later, Welker tried again to blame Democrats, “As the democratic leader of the House, don’t, you also bear a responsibility to try to bring this stalemate to an end?

Jeffries answered, “We want to re-open the House and get to a place where we can tackle the challenges that are in front of us domestically as well as make sure that we can stand with our close friend Israel during her time of need in terms of ensuring Israel’s ability to decisively defeat Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization. We need to be able to stand with the Ukrainian people in its effort to defeat Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression. We need to be able to make sure that we can keep the government open to meet the needs of the American people, and so we are ready, willing and able to have those conversations.”

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Whether the moderator of Meet The Press is David Gregory, Chuck Todd, or Kristen Welker, one thing remains the same. The show is a firehose of bothsidesism.

Republicans won the House majority. As the majority, it is their job to elect the speaker. It is not the job of Democrats to come to the rescue when Republicans play with matches and set themselves on fire.

If House Republicans want to elect a coalition speaker, Democrats are open for business, but it is not going to be free, and it is up to Republicans to come to Democrats, since they are in the majority and offer a deal, which Democrats can choose to accept or reject.

Democrats have long grown tired of cleaning up Republican messes, and as Leader Jeffries explained to Welker, it is not their job.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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