Jeffries says fate of Trump agenda is ‘matter of life and death’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday the adoption of President Trump’s domestic agenda would literally hurt and kill people due to cuts to federal health care programs. 

The Democratic leader said the Republicans’ designs for Medicaid, in particular, would erode coverage for millions of Americans at the expense of their well-being. 

“They want to end Medicaid as we know it,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “They're going to hurt children, hurt families, hurt seniors, hurt people with disabilities, close hospitals, shut down nursing homes — and people will die. 

“This is a matter of life and death.”

The warning arrives as Congress is returning to Washington from a two-week spring recess, which Democrats used to stage hundreds of events around the country to amplify their message that Trump’s agenda would hurt poor and working-class Americans who rely on certain federal benefits. 

Republicans have dismissed the allegations as political theater. While their budget plan sets the stage for hundreds of billions of cuts to Medicaid, they say the savings can be found by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the massive health care program, which provides coverage to more than 70 million people.

Still, recent polls indicate that even Republican voters are wary of some of the major pieces of Trump’s agenda, including how it deals with Medicaid. And GOP leaders have advised rank-and-file Republicans to avoid in-person town halls, where clashes with angry constituents have churned headlines for months — an avoidance strategy that has not been overlooked by Democrats, who are jumping into GOP districts to fill the void with town halls of their own. 

“These extremists — they want to take health care away from the American people. And they know that their constituents aren’t here for it, which is why Republicans have been on the run during the last two weeks during the district work period,” Jeffries said. 

“Democrats are leaning into town hall meetings all across America. Republicans are running away from them. But now there's a moment of accountability.”

The competing claims between the parties will soon be put to the test, as Republican-led committees are beginning this week to fill in the policy details of the vague budget outline GOP leaders had passed through both chambers earlier in the month.

As part of that budget, the Energy and Commerce Committee is charged with finding $880 billion in spending reductions over the next decade. That figure, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cannot be reached without hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid.

Practically speaking, Democrats are powerless to block Trump’s agenda, since Republicans are moving it on an obscure procedural track, known as reconciliation, that sidesteps the Senate filibuster. But politically, Democrats are racing to highlight the more controversial elements of the GOP package, hoping the political pressure on vulnerable Republicans will convince them to oppose the legislation when it comes to the floor for a final vote. 

“Now is the moment of truth. Will a handful of House Republicans step up on behalf of the American people and prevent the largest Medicaid cut in American history?” Jeffries said. 

“Now is a time to choose.”