What on Earth is Hakeem Jeffries Thinking?

This is infuriating

By: Austin Abbring

August 28, 2026

The Democratic Party desperately needs new leadership. Desperately. I am going to reserve my frustrations with Chuck Schumer for another time and focus on a disastrous month for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. I mean, Jeffries' leadership in the Democratic Party has been a disaster for far more than the past month, but August has been especially disappointing. If Democrats continue to put members like Schumer and Jeffries in power within the party after this year, it is abundantly clear that Democrats have learned nothing since 2016.

Let’s start a couple of weeks ago, when Hakeem appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press. While being interviewed on that program, he was asked about healthcare, and he ultimately confirmed he does not and would not back any Medicare for All proposals. In the decade prior to assuming House leadership for the Democratic Party, Jeffries backed and even co-sponsored Medicare for All bills in Congress. Even worse, he did not propose any countermeasure or explain why he was against it. On multiple occasions in this interview, he refused to back it or endorse any candidates who currently favor it. He said his focus is on fixing the existing healthcare system. Which is great and all; it is obviously a broken system, but how, Hakeem? Explaining what we all know to be true, but not explaining what is broken about it or proposing how to fix it, is not a policy position. This is simply being out of touch with what the voting base of the Democratic Party wants. This has been a damning theme amongst Democratic leadership for years now, and it is why the party has such low approval numbers and why the electorate is beyond frustrated. 

If you are not in favor of Medicare for All, fine. But again, you have to explain what you support. What version of universal healthcare do you want? I, unfortunately, know the answer to that question. It would be a woefully insufficient half-measure. At best, it would be a return to something similar to the ACA, with Medicaid and Medicare restoration following the Big Beautiful Bill (catastrophe), but I fear he would leave the private health insurance companies essentially untouched. We all know that private health insurance companies act as mafia-style debt collectors. They are simply middlemen between us and our physicians and do nothing to improve our overall healthcare processes or outcomes. The administrative cost of Medicare is 2 percent versus 15 percent in the private sector. It is inefficient and needs to be replaced by a single-payer system. Jeffries will never take that “radical” position because, in doing so, he would have to take a position on something. Which is what he and so many establishment Democrats continue to do. This is why Democrats keep losing to Donald Trump. 

I understand the Trump era has posed unique threats to our democracy and that we are fighting the most collectively fascist that the Republican Party has ever been, but just going out there and saying that “Trump is bad” because x,y,z is not enough. You must provide an organized plan to defeat that fascism, to defeat Donald Trump, to defeat the Republican agenda, and explain why it is harmful and dangerous. Take an actual stance on healthcare, immigration, green energy, the overinflated defense budget, economic policy, et cetera. It is not the 1950’s anymore. We are not going to be able to work across the aisle with Republicans until every last breathing MAGA lawmaker has been expelled from Congress. 

One of the biggest mistakes of the Biden administration was killing the momentum following the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act by allowing Republicans to present their own proposals, which went nowhere for months. When Republicans are in power in the wake of the Trump era, do they sit around and let Democrats run proposals on The Hill and have them ultimately stall and die after months of debate? No. If Democrats get power back, they must learn from these harsh lessons and actually buy into that “big-tent” strategy they claim to embolden. Progressives, DSA, and social democrats belong there too. They belong there because of the massive amount of grassroots support they have built through their pro-working-class agenda.

Now, breaking off of healthcare and electability, why the hell is Hakeem Jeffries meeting with Jared Kushner? You know, the President’s son-in-law and special envoy to the Middle East. Which is just a title to provide cover for making shady, corrupt deals all over the Middle East by selling out American interests and lives to help enrich the Trump family. Jeffries and Kushner have been in hot water over their recent meeting to discuss potential bipartisan collaboration on “affordability, immigration, the rapidly growing cost of living, and the housing crisis”. Can anybody please explain what the billionaire Jared Kushner, envoy for peace, could possibly understand about affordability? The man is hardly officially in the government; why are you meeting with him to discuss these issues? Where on Earth is Jeffries going to be able to find “common ground” on housing, immigration, and affordability with not just Kushner, but with Republicans? Nothing in their ideology is programmed to actually address any of these concerns. Why waste time, when you could be listening to your voting base and to exciting candidates who have captivated a massive movement around returning to FDR-style Democratic Party principles again? 

Jeffries insists that he and Democratic leadership are still going to hold these MAGA Republicans’ feet to the fire despite this meeting. It sure seems like it, chief. It sure seems like trying to find bipartisanship with the party that has driven up inflation with global blanket tariffs and their war of choice in Iran, has nationalistic rhetoric and tendencies with their murderous untrained ICE agents invading our cities, has a president that refuses to sign housing bills, and has party leaders that paint all Democrats as radical, leftist, marxist, communists will have a lot to productivity. Why is Jeffries selling out Democrats at this critical juncture by trying to provide relief for a failed, disastrous, and authoritarian administration? Leave them to clean up their own mess. Leave these Republicans untethered in the ocean. They have lost their right to engage in productive bipartisanship as they continue to be entirely subservient to Donald Trump, to corporations, and to consolidations and conglomerations that actively destroy and cripple working-class interests. 

What I honestly think is that meeting had almost everything to do with Israel. Kushner is deeply tied to Israel financially, diplomatically, and personally. Hakeem Jeffries has pocketed well over a million dollars from AIPAC and pro-Israel lobbies. That meeting was to ensure that, if Jeffries has anything to do with it, the genocide is not going to cease and that Israel will continue to receive funding and military support from the United States. Democrat or Republican? It is hard to tell the difference at this point. Jeffries is doing all he can to blur that line. He needs to be replaced. He is compromised and feckless. All of these status-quo Democrats are.