What happened
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Jared Kushner, a top outside adviser to his father-in-law, President Donald Trump, “met privately in recent weeks” and “discussed potential areas of common ground,” The New York Times reported Sunday.
The meeting “shows the depth of Republican Party angst over losing their congressional majority,” The Associated Press said, and White House efforts to “stem any potential political fallout” on Trump if Democrats “wrest majority control” in November.
Who said what
Kushner and Jeffries “discussed housing, immigration and the high cost of living,” the Times said, all issues where compromise “seems remote.” The Trump GOP’s “my-way-or-the-highway approach to governing” has “failed the American people,” Jeffries said Sunday, and the “question is whether Republicans will join us” in “fighting for an affordable America.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “bristled” Sunday when asked about the meeting, the AP said. “I don’t know what that’s about,” but Kushner “hedges his bets” and isn’t “directly involved” in “day-to-day” White House operations, he said on Fox News. “I’m telling you, we’re going to defy history and hold this majority.”
What next?
Trump has “mostly steered around Congress in his second term, trampling its powers and prerogatives” with “little pushback from GOP leaders,” the Times said. “All that is likely to change if Democrats control either chamber,” the AP said.
The meeting of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner points to the White House’s concerns about losing majority control in the midterms