Hakeem Jeffries Reveals His First Target As Pete Hegseth If Democrats Win Majority In Midterms

Well, I am glad that so many people are here and fired up to go vote if you haven't already voted. And the point of this today is to get out the vote rally. So we have to have a message to take out there to make sure that everyone who hasn't voted before the polls close today and has a message about why this election is so important. So I've stood up here. Time and again, ever since 2018, and told folks that the path to a majority in the House runs through Virginia's 2nd Congressional District. And it was true in 2018, because we flipped this district, and we won the House. And then in 2020, unfortunately, Democrats lost all around the country, but we held this seat, and we held on to the House. And that year, our majority in the House was only four. But do you know who three of those four were? It was the three Virginia women you elected in 2018. We're here again at a key point where your vote in VA-02 can not only flip this seat, but flip the House and send three Virginians back to Congress in order to put a check on what's happening in Washington. Because let's just spend a few minutes talking about our representative today in the 2nd District. Let's start with this. So she's a health care provider. She'll look you in the eyes and she'll say, I care about your health care. Went to Washington. She voted for the big, beautiful bill. It's guts Medicaid. We have 21,000 people in the 2nd Congressional District alone who are going to lose their health care. We have rural hospitals in Virginia that are at risk of closure. And one right here in Virginia's 2nd District, the Southampton Medical Center in Franklin, critical risk of closure. And she's also a health care provider. She'll look at you and say, I care about the cost of health care. I want it to be affordable. Well, when Bobby and I were in Congress before, we worked really hard to get those health care costs down. We passed these ACA premium subsidies, and it was making health care achievable and affordable for people. Well, when they expired, there was a vote in the House to extend them for three years. How did she vote? No. There's going to be a quiz at the end of this. A health care provider who goes to Washington and makes your health care more expensive, takes your health care away, and risks closing rural hospitals. She's also a veteran. A veteran who represents one of the districts with the highest concentrations of veterans in the country goes to Washington, votes to cut veterans benefits by 22%. We have the most undermanned VA hospital in the country here at the Hampton VA. Let's go back to talking about the cost of things. What about the cost of groceries, school supplies, even Halloween candy? The cost of all these things, the tariffs. So the Congress has voted seven times. And she has voted seven times in support of these tariffs that are costing you more. They're costing every family across the country, across this district, about $2,800 additional dollars per year. So I'm just starting to call those the Trump-Kiggins tax because we're all paying it. And if you did that, if you went to go buy those groceries, the school supplies, the Halloween candy, you drove there. Well, let's talk about gas. Gas $4.20 a gallon, diesel, $6, shot up overnight to $6.50. It's the most expensive August on record. And why is that? Well, Kiggins, she supports this war. She says, I stand strongly with President Trump in support of this war. Not only does she say it, she votes that way. Our own Senator Tim Kaine six times has introduced a war powers resolution to end this war, to re-assert Congress's authority, and she has voted against it every single time. So not only does she want you to keep paying more for your gas, more for diesel, which adds to the cost of everything we buy, But also, this is so personal here. This is so personal in Hampton Roads. Think about our sailors. We have the Gerald R. Ford, deployed 11 months. It was the longest carrier deployment since Vietnam. Then after that, the George H.W. Bush is deployed now, no endpoint to their deployment. The Eisenhower deploys next. By the time this is all said and done, we're going to have three carrier strike groups, all the other destroyers and cruisers and aviation squadrons, probably about 25,000 people from our own community are going to have deployed in support of this war. It's a war that's not making us any safer. The Iranians are not any farther from acquiring a nuclear weapon. They're still funding their terrorist proxies, the Houthis. They're firing at shipping in the Red Sea. They're firing at infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. All of our regional allies and partners are involved in this as well. And we are all paying the price – our sailors, our military families, everyone at the gas pump. And Jen Kiggins, she continues to stand firmly with Trump in support of this war. So I've laid out some of her votes. We don't have all day to go through all of them, but here's the quiz at the end. Her voting record is easy to sum up. So if you're out there knocking doors, you're making phone calls in these last few days, I think you can just start the conversation with this. How often did she vote with Trump? 100% of the time. So everybody has different issues that are important to them, different to their families, work that we need to do when we get back to Congress. There's a lot of it. We need to restore these health care benefits, we need to restore the Medicaid, we need to restore the SNAP, we need to get our sailors home, we need to end this war. But the bottom line is every single one of those votes is something that has been done to hurt our communities, to hurt our families, to strain our Navy, and to make people's lives worse, not better. It's clear why we need to all get out and vote. And thank you for being here. Thank you for being on the ground day after day, making those calls, talking to voters. It's never been a more important time. Because when we get back to Washington, we have work to do. We have to hold this administration accountable for the damage that's been done. But it doesn't stop there, because we have to find solutions. We have to offer solutions. As Congress, we have to introduce, debate, and pass the legislation that's actually going to reverse this harm that has been done by Jen Kiggans, the Republicans in Congress, and Trump in the White House. We're going to take back the House because we're going to take back VA-02. I am very hopeful that we're going to take back the Senate. And when we do that, we will advance this legislation as far as it will go. And you know why we need to do that? Because we need to show the American people that it's not just what Democrats talk about, it's what we do, and it's what we deliver when we have the power to do that. We need to lay the path. We have to pave the path for them. We have to write the platform for our presidential nominee in 2028 so we can take back the White House, too. Thank you. I'll actually do a quiz. I'll just give you the answers. One, start the conversation with, Jen Kiggans voted 100% of the time with Trump. And number two is that it all starts right here in Virginia's 2nd District because we flipped VA-02, we flipped the House, and we paved the path to taking back the White House and setting our country on a different path. Thank you very much. I'm pleased that as across the country we wrap up this campaign season, we have someone here who is actually going to be leading that charge, who's going to be holding that speaker's gavel in the House to make this happen. And I will introduce... Our next speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries. Are you ready to send Elaine Luria back to the United States Congress? Are you ready to fire Jen Kiggins? Are you ready for us to take back our country? And are you ready for Democrats to take back control of the United States House of Representatives? What an honor and a privilege to be here in Virginia Beach, to be back in the Commonwealth. So thankful for all of you. Out here supporting an extraordinary public servant, I'm so appreciative of Elaine, thankful for her heart, for her soul, for her courage, for her compassion, for her commitment, for her intellect, for her integrity, for her patriotic service to this country, and in three days, with your support, the next Congresswoman from Virginia's 2nd Congressional District. And of course, it's great to be here with so many distinguished elected officials and with two of my good friends, Congressman Bobby Scott and Speaker Don Scott. I'm here with the Scott caucus, y'all, but I'm so appreciative of their friendship, their partnership, and their leadership. All of us standing here just three days from Election Day, the last day to early vote, and we want to make sure that we turn everyone out. To vote early today and in three days from Election Day, although I also refer to November 3rd not simply as Election Day, but as Judgment Day. Because in three days, the American people are going to judge these MAGA extremists and run them out of town for what they've done to our economy, to our military, to our families, our farmers, and to the American people all across the country. Judgment Day. Now, what's extraordinary to me is that all of these folks, they promised, these Republicans, they promised that they were going to lower costs on day one. Because of their policies, costs haven't gone down, costs have gone up. These are folks who promised that they were going to love and cherish Medicaid. That's what they said. And then turn around and enact the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. These folks, they promised that they weren't going to use your taxpayer dollars. To get us involved in another endless war in the Middle East. And then turned around and got us involved in a reckless and costly war of choice in Iran. They've left behind a graveyard of broken promises. It's extraordinary to see. For two years, the American people have been wondering, were they lying or were they just incompetent? I've come to the conclusion it's all of the above. All of the above. Graveyard. Of broken promises. And so the stakes are very clear. We can either have more of the same extremism, attacks on our economy, our health care, on families and farmers and others, or we can have a dramatic change in direction. And when you vote for Elaine Luria, that represents a dramatic change in direction for this great country. Because Elaine is going to fight for an affordable America. She's going to fight to drive down the high cost of living. Elaine believes, we all believe, in this great country that when you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to live an affordable life, a comfortable life, and a good life. That's a good paying job, good housing, good health care, a good education for your children, and when it's all said and done... A good retirement. That's the American dream. And Elaine Luria and House Democrats are going to fight hard to revive it. Here in Virginia Beach, across the Commonwealth, and all throughout America. We want to restore the promise of America. To make sure that when someone is sick or a family member or a loved one is sick, that they can afford to go see a doctor when they need one. We're going to protect, not attack. Social Security and Medicare, because those aren't entitlement programs, those are earned benefits, and we're going to work hard to make sure that everybody in America can keep them. So life is way too expensive. We're committed as Democrats to driving down the high cost of living, driving down the price of housing and gasoline and health care and groceries and goods, So that everybody has an opportunity to live the American dream. To live an affordable and comfortable life in the face of all that we've seen. That's the affordability agenda. And we're going to lean into it every single day. We have the opportunity to serve you. Now, it's interesting to me that Jen Kagan, she's voted with Donald Trump 100% of the time. Here's the thing, Jen. As members of Congress, we don't work for Donald Trump. We don't work for J.D. Vance. We don't work for Elon Musk. We don't work for your billionaire donors. We work for all of you, the American people. And that's what Elaine Luria is going to do every step of the way. Work for all of you, the American people. Now, as Elaine indicated, she recognizes that Congress, we have a constitutional responsibility to serve as a check and balance on and out of control. executive branch. That's not a partisan thing. That's a patriotic thing. We want to make sure for Democrats, for independents, and for Republicans, for everybody, that we deliver a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. That's what we're going to work hard to achieve. That's why we've made clear in the face of all of the corruption and extremism and law-breaking and norm-breaking that we've seen here in America over the last Yes, and in the new Congress, beginning on day one, we're going to hold the crooks accountable. House Democrats, we don't just talk about it, we've been about it. In the minority, we ran Kristi Noem out of town. Minority, we ran Pete Hegseth, we, in the minority, we ran Pam Bondi out of town. And in the majority, I said in the majority, I said in the majority, one of the first things we're going to do is run Pete Hegseth out of town for all the damage that you've done. To our military families, treating them with disrespect as opposed to lifting them up. That's why I'm so thankful for Elaine because she understands that for all of our men and women in uniform, our military families, and our veterans, they need to be treated at all times with dignity and respect, and that's exactly what we're going to do. So as I close, so thankful for all of you being here and urging each and every one of you to continue to work as hard as you can over these next three days. To talk to every family member, every friend, every neighbor, every co-worker, every voter about the importance of this election. And you can say to them that when things change, when the American people give us an opportunity to work on their behalf in the majority, we're going to fight hard each and every day for an affordable America. We're going to fight hard each and every day. Until we can reverse the Medicaid cuts that have been jammed down the throats of the American people. We're going to fight hard each and every day to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. We're going to fight hard each and every day to end this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran. We're going to fight hard to make sure that it's the American people who have the opportunity to decide who serves in government on their behalf. Which is why we're going to make sure. That we pass as soon as we can the John Robert Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act so we can end the era of voter suppression in the United States of America once and for all. That's what we're going to do in the majority. And so three days to knock on every door, talk to every voter, and turn everyone out. And as we continue to do that... I'm confident in showing the courage and the character and the conviction of those upon whose shoulders that we stand. That we will do what's necessary to show up and stand up and speak up to make this country the best version of herself. And over these next three days, as we run through the finish line, I'm confident we win the day, we win the week, we win the month, we win the year, we win the hearts and minds of the American people. And then with your support, we send Elaine Luria back to the United States Congress, and together we take back control of the House of Representatives. God bless you. God bless Elaine. God bless the Commonwealth. God bless the United States of America.