House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Thursday broke the record for the longest speech delivered on the House floor, spending eight hours and 44 minutes criticizing Republicans’ reconciliation bill.
“House Democrats, we envision a different country than the one that is being ravaged by such extremism right now,” Jeffries said as he delayed the final vote on the legislation, as much of the Democratic caucus watched on.
In his speech, Jeffries called the Republican reconciliation bill “one big, ugly bill” that will “make life more expensive for the American people.” The bill was passed by the Senate on Tuesday and was poised to pass the House shortly after Jeffries’ speech concluded. He took the floor after Speaker Mike Johnson spent hours whipping House conservatives to vote for a procedural measure that allowed for the bill to make it to a final vote.
Jeffries’ speech was made under the “magic minute” allowed to party leaders on the floor when debate on a bill has concluded. The last person to hold the record for the longest magic-minute speech was Kevin McCarthy, the then-House minority leader, who spent more than eight hours criticizing then-President Joe Biden’s signature legislation. Before then, Nancy Pelosi held the record. During the first Trump administration, she spoke about immigration for eight hours while famously wearing heels.
As part of his attacks on the reconciliation bill, Jeffries read letters that constituents in red districts had sent to his office, in which they expressed concerns about how Medicaid cuts could affect them. One constituent from Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith’s district, Jeffries said, wrote that she was worried because Medicaid is a “lifeline in rural communities like hers.”
“Access to health care should never be a partisan issue,” Jeffries said. “It should never be a privilege just for the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected.”
Jeffries also took shots at vulnerable Republicans who previously decried the reconciliation bill’s cuts to Medicaid. He pointed to letters they wrote to Republican leadership including Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, like an April letter in which 13 Republicans said they would not support a final bill that included Medicaid cuts.
Jeffries went through the letter’s signatories by name and made a last-minute case for them to vote against the bill.
“Join us. Join us. We welcome you with open arms into the warm embrace of members of Congress determined to protect the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said to loud applause from his Democratic colleagues. “That’s the promise, Mr. Speaker, that your Republican colleagues made in this April letter. What changed?”
Jeffries also took on a lighter tone at some points in his speech, reflecting on his family history, and even joked about how his late father’s nickname was “Pudding.”
But he consistently returned to the effect this bill would have on the U.S.’s social safety net.
“Republicans are trying to take a chain saw to Social Security, a chain saw to Medicare, a chain saw to Medicaid, a chain saw to the health care of the American people, a chain saw to nutritional assistance for hungry children, a chain saw to farm country and a chain saw to vulnerable Americans,” Jeffries said. “But as House Democrats, we’re determined to take a chain saw to Project 2025 on behalf of the American people.”