Today, Explained - When Dems take the House

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Hakeem Jeffries will almost certainly be the next Democratic speaker of the House. What will he and his party do with all that power? This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Bridger Dunnagan, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks to the press on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on September 30, 2026 in Washington, DC. Photo by Finn Gomez/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast⁠.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're just about one month out from the midterm elections in these United States. And despite all the gerrymandering and voting restrictions, legal challenges and personnel shakeups, it looks like the Democrats are going to flip the House of Representatives. The vibes if you ask Democrats are incredibly strong. It's mostly Democrats trying to tell each other, like, don't oversell how amazing of a night we're going to have. So on today, explain from Box. How are the Democrats going to mess this up? Nah, JK, JK.

Let's enjoy it for while we can. The question isn't any more like will Democrats flip the House majority? It's how big is that majority going to be? So on today, Explain from Box, we're going to talk about the new sheriff in town if all of this goes as Democrats think it's going to go. Hakeem's House coming up on the show. Advertising on Spotify with our TV. and display ads helps brands turn attention into results.

Download the 2026 performance playbook and discover why Spotify belongs in your media plan. We reached out to Hakeem Jeffries to talk, and he did get back to us and was interested, but like, it still hasn't happened. Our door's always open, Hakeem. Anyway, he did talk to Jason Zengarly from the New Yorker, so we talked to Jason, and Jason, And Jason wanted to start with that super racist video Trump posted depicting the Obamas as apes. Jeffreys has this reputation for being a very calm, deliberate, not angry person. You know, oftentimes to his detriment. I think a lot of Democratic partisans wish he would be more angry.

But the way he told me the story, he was legitimately pissed off. And he realized that he needed to respond in some way. And he didn't think that a tweet would be sufficient. He wanted to do an Instagram post. And he looked into his AIDS iPhone and he said, Donald Trump and his vile, racist, and malignant behavior. And as soon as he was done recording the video, I think he started to have second thoughts.

And, you know, they sent the video up to Washington for a social media team to edit. And he told them, like, let's weep out the word fuck. You know, for him, it was a smashing social media success. Well, well, well. Welcome to the party, Hakeem. We've all been here a while, but we saved you a seat. The King Jeffries has no fucks left to give. I like it.

You spent months writing about Hakeem Jeffries, and you were given access that a lot of people in the media rarely get to this individual. Why did you want to start your profile of him with that story? What does it tell us about who this individual is? I mean, I thought it captured his, I mean, the dilemma he faces in some ways, just in the sense that he is this very deliberate, you know, calculated in a lot of ways, a political figure, very conventional, and he is operating in a political space these days that doesn't really reward or appreciate that approach. And oftentimes that approach is not successful. And I think he is, you know, he's trying to adapt to the new rules of the road. And, you know,

he's kind of doing it in fits and starts. And sometimes he's more successful than others. But I still think even when he is successful, he still has some maybe qualms about it. I remember when former speaker Kevin McCarthy got the gig, it was like this culmination of a lifelong aspiration. How long has Hakeem Jeffreys wanted to be Speaker of the House? When he got to Congress in 2012, he definitely, I think, you know, wanted to become a player. There's a hip-hop song every day I'm hustling. Yeah. And I kind of feel that way down here in Washington in a positive manner, of course. He wanted to be in leadership, you know, chair, committee, whatever.

He was someone who kind of had his eye on that. But at the same time, he kind of had his eye on that. The Congressional Black Caucus, I think, had started to think a little bit differently about what they could achieve in Congress. You know, for a long time, they wanted their members to get chairmanships and things like that, maybe be like majority whip. But by the time Jeffries got there, they started to think that we could actually get a speaker. And his arrival kind of coincided with this realization on the part of the CBC. And I think a lot of CBC members kind of viewed Jeffries as a potential future speaker. And they

started to groom him for that. And pretty soon after that, Nancy Pelosi started to think of him as someone who would be a good member of her leadership team. And I think, you know, I think by 2018, that's when it really sort of became apparent that he was, he was going to be someone who could potentially be a speaker. What does he actually stand for as a leading Democrat, as the most powerful Democrat in the House? I think quite intentionally he doesn't stand for anything. I think that in some ways has been, you know, key to his success is that he has managed, for the most part to avoid, you know, being kind of pigeonholed or put anywhere on the ideological spectrum. He is very critical of the far left of the party, especially the DSA.

Do Democratic Socialists belong in the Democratic Party, Leader Jeffries? Well, what I can say is that I do not support defunding the police. I do not support open borders. I do not support abolishing the Senate. He views the DSA as, and this is, you know, particular to Brooklyn. I mean, he views them as college-educated young white people who are coming to Brooklyn and displacing older black working class people. But I was talking to this, you know, former Democratic congressional aide and basically asking this person, the question you're asking me, you know, what does.

does he stand for? And this person was, you know, trying to kind of explain it. And finally, just was sort of exasperated and just said, and he said he's intentionally not trying not to stand for anything. He's sort of like hotel art. He just is. And it's satisfactory. He just is.

Yeah. I mean, we always joke about the Democratic tent being so big. You know, at one point in 2024, it included everyone from AOC to Liz Cheney. Now it might include everyone from Abdul Al-Sayed to Carl Rove. Yes. Yeah, we don't have a lot of case studies for how he manages his caucus because they haven't been in power. But I think maybe one of the most telling examples was the shutdown because they were in a way, like the power brokers there. Tell us how Hakeem Jeffries managed that.

That was probably his greatest success. as minority leader. When Trump took office for the second time, especially for those first few months, I think all of all sort of congressional Democrats and Jeffreys especially, they were really on their heels. They could not figure out how to deal with this guy

and what they're going to do to stop him. And, you know, Jeffries was even complaining that he didn't have any leverage. It was almost sort of like plaintively, like saying he didn't have any leverage. I'm trying to figure out what leverage we actually have. What leverage do we have? Republicans have repeatedly lectured America.

They control the House, the Senate, and the presidency. It's their government. But then he eventually realized that a shutdown would be at least a little bit of leverage. But the real question was what was the shutdown going to be about? And there were a lot of Democratic members of Congress who wanted it to be about, you know, authoritarianism or corruption. They wanted to do with all these different issues. And Jeffries was really insistent that we need to make this about one issue, and we need to make it about health care. Americans know that they need us to stand up and save their health care.

There is a Republican health care crisis that is devastating the American people, and we're going to continue to stand up for everyday Americans. Donald Trump and Republicans have barreled us into a shutdown because they refuse to protect Americans' health care. And, you know, the Democrats are the one who caused the shutdown. And normally, in the way shutdowns have worked in the past, it's the party that causes a shutdown that gets the heat from the public. But this time around, I think because Democrats were so consistent in saying this is about health care and Republicans were so stattered in their own messaging and their own explanations of what was going on, Democrats, you know, their polling numbers went up or Trumps and Republicans went down. And that was a real victory for Jeffries. Did that whole incident put Jeffries on the president's radar in a way that he wasn't?

It doesn't seem like the president really talks about how keep Jeffries very much. No, it comes and it goes. For a long time, like, he wouldn't mention Jeffries at all. I mean, I think Jeffries told me something like the first time he ever, the first time he believes Trump ever said his name publicly was just last year. Yeah, the way to, I guess the way to tell if Trump is thinking about you is if he posts about you on truth. Social and he, you know, he was, he started to post about Jeffries a lot, you know, and all the usual kind of insults he lobs, especially of black politicians, you know, that Jeffries was low IQ and a thug.

Ruth Social. This lunatic, Hakeem, low IQ Jefferies should be charged with inciting violence. The radical left Democrats actually want to destroy our country, President DJT. But yeah, he does seem to be paying a little bit more to Jeffries now than he was before. And do we think Jeffries is ready to go toe-to-toe with the President of the United States if that's what voters decide he's to do this November? In his mind, he's ready. And I think in his own stilted, rehearsed, steady fashion, he will go to toe-to-to-to- Donald Trump. He will talk about affordability and he'll talk about corruption and he'll talk about the so-called. president. I don't think it will necessarily be satisfying for a lot of Democratic voters out there

and Democratic partisans, but I think Jeffries, I don't think you're going to see a new, a new Hakeem Jeffries, if he's speaker. I think he's going to, especially rhetorically, perform the same way he has before. But I think it's going to take him a little while to figure out how to do the job. What Hakeem's going to do with all that power when we're back on today explained? Support for today explain comes from Built. Did you know that you can get rewards for paying your rent or mortgage? Having a home is its own reward, they say, but with Built, you can earn points on every housing payment no matter where you live. You can redeem Bill points for flights, hotels, lift rides, Amazon.com purchases, future housing payments, so much more.

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Now we're joined by Mariana Sotomay. who's the Capitol Hill correspondent for Puck News. Mariana, what are the vibes in the House around these midterms right now? The vibes, if you ask, Democrats are incredibly strong. I mean, if anything, it's mostly Democrats trying to tell each other, like, don't oversell how amazing of a night we're going to have. Wow. Yes.

And, like, genuinely, in a number of conversations that I've been having with strategists, lawmakers, those seeking office themselves. Like the question isn't anymore, like, will Democrats flip the House majority? It's Democrats will flip the House majority. How big is that majority going to be? They want to play in, like, deep Trump districts. And they've been doing that in, like, Trump plus five, Trump plus 10 districts that he won in 24. Now they're like, what about Trump plus 21 districts? And some people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, let's not get too overly excited because Also, everybody kind of has some PTSD from the 22 midterms. That's when Republicans ended up taking up the House.

And Republicans were in the same place around this time where they're like, oh, my gosh, we're going to flip 30 plus seats. Republicans did not see the red wave they predicted. I've heard it called, you know, the red sprinkler. I've heard it called the red splash, the red puddle. And then they only gained a five seat majority. And we saw how difficult that was for Republicans and frankly, continues to be. Do you would think that the Democrats would be trying to sell them

based on like, here's what we're going to do if we flip the House in the Senate. But I don't hear a ton of that kind of talk. Maybe by design because they just want to focus all their energies on what they don't like about what this administration's doing because that's the more popular approach. But what is this party's priorities if they take back the House? You are totally spot on on that. It is more or less vague in some ways. I'm sure Democrats would argue, no, we're being really serious. specific and sure. We do know that if they take the majority, there's three planks, and this is what

Jeffrey's outlined even a year ago, and Schumer, to some extent, has also adopted these planks. They want to tackle affordability, health care, and corruption. We're fighting to lower the high costs of groceries, gas, and goods. We're fighting to make health care affordable for every single American. and we certainly will fight to hold the crooks accountable. Affordability means a number of different things. And the way that Jeffries is looking at it is you have your first 100 hours, your 100 days, and then your first year.

And we don't really know what is going to come up in those 100 days and in the first year. But within those 100 hours, he's starting to give us some hints. We've established five working groups on affordability. a working group on housing, a working group on health care, a working group on child care, a working group on groceries and goods, and a working group on gas and utilities. And there are some issues where they could easily, probably very quickly pass, right? Like those Medicaid tax credits that are going to expire just in the next couple of months because of the one big, beautiful bill. We have to reverse the Medicaid cuts.

We should extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Also, you have the corruption part of this where Democrats already, four months, a number of committee Democrats have been, one, taking notes. It's like, oh, the Trump admin did that. Okay, going to write that down so I can remember to score. circle back when we have the majority. But I've been told to expect subpoenas to start being sent out to administration officials, to cabinet officials, to potential like corporations that have cozied up too close to the Trump administration pretty much after the House majority is declared. But again, still pretty vague. We don't have the line by line items yet.

This entire episode we're making is premised. upon the idea that if the Democrats win or win big, Hakeem Jeffries becomes the Speaker. But of course, in recent history, we have seen a planned succession goes sideways for, let's say, I don't know, Kevin McCarthy. Is it all but certain that Hakeem Jeffries will indeed be Speaker if the Democrats win or win big?

Yeah, look, from inside of the Capitol, all that I've heard is that he is going to be speaker. And I haven't heard anything from the number of lawmakers who've already been elected, that they are going to try to, you know, cause any kind of issues ahead of a speakership election. That being said, a number of progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Delio Ramirez, a number of those members are already talking to a number of the progressives who are coming in, who are kind of being a little coy with whether they're going to vote for Jeffries.

And their message has been, look, Democrats need to stay united. We have difference of opinions on a number of fronts, but we need to be united. We need to govern. And we can't get to any of that until we elect a speaker. You know, Jason, who we heard from earlier in the show who profiled Hakeem for the New Yorker, was saying how he's definitely going to be learning a lot on the job. And I remember Nancy Pelosi didn't really want to spend, you know, the years of Trump One investigating and impeaching.

But the nature of Trump One, like, forced her to ultimately. do that. Do you think Jeffries has learned anything from how his predecessor approached the president? Because we don't know what these next two years will bring. We don't know how this presidency is going to end. Some people are still worried that the president may not step down. Yeah. No, to your question about impeachment, it is fascinating to see where House Democrats are right now versus like where they were back then. I do not hear let's impeach Trump that much from like, again, the 200 and something Democrats that are currently in office. And the reason why is because, one, there is the thinking like, okay, the Constitution says he can only be a two-term president. Like, truly it's going to be ridiculous and probably the Supreme Court's in a rule like he can't run again.

So let's not get into that. But because Democrats are already thinking, planning, strategizing all of their. investigations. I think we should expect possible impeachments against cabinet officials, particularly Pete Heggseth is a name I keep hearing a lot because there's a number of Republicans who are incredibly upset with him. So Democrats are kind of thinking a little bit more strategically in terms of if we are going to impeach or if we're really going to try and subpoena or hold people in contempt of Congress, et cetera, will we have Republicans backing us up in those certain cases, or if they don't, just create a tough vote for them.

I mean, these three planks, affordability, health care and holding the crooks accountable or investigations, whatever it might be, those could have been the planks like in month one or month two of the second Trump go round. I wonder how much motivation there is in the caucus to like take on some of the issues that have come up in maybe the last year or so. I mean, ice comes to mind. do not consent, nor will we enable VHS and ISIS lawlessness. Iran.

Donald Trump has taken America to war, without authorization, without explanation, without a strategy or an exit plan. Spending billions of dollars on vanity projects around DC. Trump is to rename everything after himself to please his incredible ego, even when it profanes our fallen heroes and desecrates the sacred ground. making billions of dollars off of his own name and brand while in office? I mean, how much are Democrats pushing for the issues that maybe have struck a chord more recently? Behind the scenes, actually, they've been pushing those things a lot.

But my understanding is that Jeffries doesn't necessarily want to broadcast anything that could show any divisions among Democrats right now. Like he really just wants to project the Democrats are united on these three issues. Here's how we're going to tackle those three issues. But everybody else is like, okay, but there's so many more things that we have to prove. And we should get done. And we should show contrast with Republicans moving forward. And my understanding is his idea of it is we will get to those issues after the election.

Not even worth debating pre-election because first we have to win. No one is trying to sugarcoat how hard. it is going to be to basically tackle a number of these issues where Democrats aren't united on. And there's conversations of how does the size of the majority affect that, right? Because if you have a bigger majority, that means likely Democrats flip seats in districts that Trump won by a whole lot. So you're going to get a lot more centrist Democrats in the caucus. If it's a smaller majority, that's really going to help a number of those Democratic Socialist candidates coming have a much stronger voice, right?

Because they can, in a larger majority, it's possible that their votes could be canceled out. So all of those dynamics are going to be on full display. And it all, again, is determinative on what happens in November. Read Mariana at puck. com. Read Jason's hakeen profile at New Yorker.com or fish the issue out of your pile. Danielle Hewitt produced, Jolie Myers, edited Gabriel Donatov,

fact-check, Bridger Dunnigan and David Tattachore mixed. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. If you enjoyed listening to me today but really wish you could be watching me this whole time. Great news. I'm going to be talking to my Vox colleague, Andrew Procop, about these midterms on Substack live this Wednesday. And if you're like, what's a Substack live? You can find out at Vox's Substack. This is today explained.

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