House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ claim that President Donald Trump is the chamber’s true speaker is “insulting,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told Newsmax on Thursday.
Appearing on “Wake Up America Early,” Harris blasted Jeffries, D-N.Y., for using a floor speech to attack Trump while dismissing the authority of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
“Does he not go there and see the speaker open up the session every day? The speaker negotiate all this? It’s just insulting,” Harris told host Alex Kraemer.
“That’s what the Democrats do. They insult Donald Trump. They don’t want to participate. It’s just more of the same from Hakeem Jeffries.”
Harris spoke a day after Congress ended a 43-day partial government shutdown with a funding package that runs through Jan. 30.
He said Republicans were “relieved” that a “handful of Democrats in both the House and the Senate finally joined with us to reopen the government,” noting that GOP votes alone were enough in the House but Senate rules forced Republicans to seek Democrat support.
The stopgap bill contained three of the 12 annual appropriations measures, and Harris said Republicans intend to press ahead with more spending bills before the next deadline.
“We’re probably going to get another five or six agreed to by both houses, both parties, by the end of January,” he said, adding that Democrats are likely to resist cuts to “welfare spending” in the Health and Human Services bill and continue pushing higher deficits.
Harris also warned Democrats not to repeat their shutdown brinkmanship, saying Republicans have already ensured Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are funded and aim to pass a bill to protect air traffic controller funding so “Democrats don’t hold that hostage again on Jan. 30.”
Kraemer asked Harris about Johnson’s plans for a vote next week that could force the Justice Department to release all files related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein after reports that Trump’s name appeared in certain emails.
Harris argued Democrats are selectively leaking information.
“If there was something in there about Donald Trump, the Biden Justice Department would have released it” long ago, Harris said, calling the new focus on Trump “all for show.”
With Democrats driving inflation and affordability crises, Harris said, they are desperate to change the subject.
“They caused the increase in prices, they caused inflation … and now somehow they want to blame the Republicans for it,” he said. “It’s just stunning.”
Newsmax Wires contributed to this report.
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