Hakeem Jeffries is on track to make House speaker history. But major challenges lay ahead

Soon after Hakeem Jeffries arrived in the House in 2013, one of his earliest mentors approached a group of senior Black Democrats with a message.

“I think he is the one,” former Rep. Eddie Bernie Johnson told lawmakers at the time, including Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who recalled she was seated in her long-time perch on the House floor when she made the prediction.

Within months, that same bloc of Black Democrats began meeting regularly over dinner to discuss Jeffries’ future — drawing up plans to ensure that he would replace then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she retired and hoping to cement his place as the first Black speaker in US history, according to multiple people involved in the discussions.

A decade and a half later, Jeffries is now on a clear path to be elected House speaker in January — only second to the vice president in the line of presidential succession — in a position that effectively hands him control of a newly resurgent Democratic party in President Donald Trump’s final two years in power.

“A lot of people in this administration should not sleep well at night,” Cleaver said in an interview, predicting that Jeffries and their party would make life punishing for the Trump administration.

That gavel, though, is not yet a guarantee. Jeffries still needs to win over a crop of incoming Democratic socialists decrying current leaders for failing to meet the moment. Once considered a political insurgent himself, Jeffries now battles skepticism from the party’s activist wing over his more-establishment stance on issues like Medicare for All and Israel.

Jeffries, a deliberative former corporate lawyer, has also drawn private criticism from some in his party for being overly hesitant. But people close to him insist that he will have a decisive and aggressive approach to wielding the speaker’s gavel in the Trump era — pursuing significant confrontations with the administration and corporate America alike.

They say he plans to supercharge a new era of Democratic populism — a tax-the-rich and subpoena-the-CEOs mentality that would unravel decades of cautious party attempts to avoid controversy with big business. He wants to raise the minimum wage by much more than Democrats tried to in 2019, enact strict new ethics codes for the Supreme Court and rein in artificial intelligence.

He’ll also be leading the party as it pursues an aggressive oversight agenda into the final two years of Trump’s second term.

“The American people are rightly frustrated. They want disruption, they want dramatic change,” Jeffries said in a recent interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, previewing his agenda.

If elected, people close to Jeffries said he sees his task as two-fold: He must satisfy a restive electorate that wants Democrats to take big swings and achieve real change — while also avoiding political overreach that could cost them seats two years from now.

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That means Jeffries will need to limit the whims of his insurgent left. Democrats are unlikely to vote to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement or enact Medicare for All, for instance. His allies say he will seek to avoid votes, wherever possible, on policy relating to Israel.

“He’s gonna do bold and smart, not bold and stupid,” one moderate Democrat told CNN. “He’s going to try to avoid massively divisive votes. … He’s going to zero in on affordability and ignore the culture wars.”

Another member, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, added that Jeffries has been clear that Democrats will “win this at the kitchen table and we’re going to govern at the kitchen table.” For him, that includes new ways to make life more affordable, such as expanding access to government healthcare.

“I think Americans are ready to move toward a universal healthcare system. There are a number of ways that we can get there,” Crow said, who has co-authored a bill to expand Medicare to Americans aged 60 and above.

Another challenge for Jeffries won’t be ideological, it will be generational.

Already, plans are underway inside the Democratic caucus to enact new term limits for committee chairs, according to people familiar with the discussions — a huge shift in the seniority-driven Democratic party that reflects the anti-establishment mood of this election. (Current chairs could be grandfathered in for a short time.)

But there’s skepticism about whether Democrats can pass another voter priority — a stock-trading ban — as part of the House’s rules for member conduct in January. Some members prefer to pass a standalone bill sometime next year that also includes strict stock-trading rules for Trump administration officials, not just lawmakers, though it would be unlikely to become law, according to people familiar with the discussions.

That stock-trading disagreement is a glimpse of one of Jeffries’ biggest challenges next year: Resistance from long-serving members who are used to far more gradual change.

Then there is the issue of actually working with the administration. Democrats are expecting little cooperation, if any, with a president who recently coined himself “Mr. Veto.”

And even trying to have conversations across the aisle has been a fraught endeavor for Jeffries. This summer, he faced fierce backlash from liberal Democrats after a private meeting with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. (The two worked closely on a criminal justice law in Trump’s first term.)

Jeffries later told CNN of the meeting: “We have a responsibility to solve problems and sometimes that means meeting with people on the other side of the aisle.”

Before Jeffries landed the perch of top House Democrat, his supporters occasionally pushed him to consider other positions, according to multiple people who recalled the efforts over the years.

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Some Black church leaders pushed him to run against former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Another group of House members encouraged him to run for the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee after the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings in 2019. Some even privately urged him to run for president in the summer of 2024 after then-President Joe Biden was forced to leave the race.

But he turned down each one with what appeared to be a longtime goal in mind — House speaker.

“He could have been chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. He could have been the Democratic whip early on. But he’s very strategic,” Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio said.

Jeffries rose through the ranks of the Democratic caucus, in part, because of his skill on the House Judiciary Committee, including a high-profile stint during Trump’s first impeachment and, before that, dealmaking with Republicans on drug and sentencing reform.

“He walks in as someone who just looks like he’s just fearless,” added Beatty, who entered Congress alongside Jeffries in 2013.

The Brooklynite gained fame in the Trump-era by prosecuting the case against Trump during his 2020 Senate impeachment trial. He was handpicked for the role by Pelosi and famously quoted from the late rapper the Notorious B.I.G. on the Senate floor. (His passion for music is widely known in the party. As a teenager in Brooklyn in the 1980s, he once rap-battled under the name Kid Fresh. Cleaver refers to him as “the prime minister of hip hop.”)

In the years since the first impeachment push against Trump, Jeffries has only sharpened his attacks on the president.

He has called him “the dumbest person ever to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” in response to Trump’s attacks on Jeffries’ intelligence. This summer, Jeffries called him a “ feeble, unhinged, conspiracy-peddling 80-year-old failed president.”

“He loves to fight, he loves confrontation. He’s got that bravado and confidence,” one senior Democratic aide who’s worked closely with both Jeffries and Pelosi told CNN.

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

There has been some friction in Jeffries’ tenure as party leader.

Several Democrats recalled a nasty fight over a GOP resolution to honor the “life and legacy” of Charlie Kirk after his assassination last year. Jeffries and his leadership agreed to vote in favor, as a gesture of unity to condemn political violence targeting both parties.

But his decision infuriated members of the Black caucus, who said the GOP’s resolution praised Kirk while ignoring his record of what they described as hate speech against Black Americans. (Kirk had called the Civil Rights Act a “huge mistake” and has claimed Black leaders like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Michelle Obama didn’t have enough “brain processing power” to be taken seriously in politics.)

“These are not harmless words. They carry the same spirit of division that once fueled Jim Crow—when racism and bigotry were written into law to deny people their rights and dignity,” one of the Black lawmakers who opposed the resolution, Rep. Troy Carter, wrote at the time of Kirk’s rhetoric.

In a meeting after that vote, some of those Black Caucus members confronted Jeffries about how he handled the GOP bill — and why he waited so long to tell his caucus about his decision, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

“I have never seen the CBC so publicly go after Jeffries,” said one person describing the meeting.

Heading into 2027, that rift between the Black caucus and Jeffries is long-healed. One person involved in the many back-and-forth conversations between Jeffries and Black Caucus members back then said the moment actually strengthened members’ trust in him: “They expressed concerns and he met them.”

And next year, the powerful bloc could see its largest-ever number of Black lawmakers — with the nation’s first Black speaker at its helm.

Shortly after Jeffries was elected party leader, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas approached his longtime colleague and urged him to get to the US border immediately.

It was 2022: Democrats like Cuellar believed Biden’s border policy was a mess and the only way back to power was understanding how to speak to border communities like his.

Jeffries made the trip to Cuellar’s hometown of Laredo for a nighttime border tour — where they watched smuggling attempts in real-time — in addition to more humanitarian-oriented visits with local nonprofits.

“I couldn’t get Democrats to say two words: Border security,” Cuellar said, recalling his experience with party leaders up to that point. But after Jeffries’ tour of Laredo, Cuellar said he heard a key shift in his language. “I heard him say ‘border security,’ and ‘you’ve still got to treat migrants with dignity.’”

Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

People close to Jeffries say he has been focused for years on how to repair the Democratic party’s sagging brand — which, they add, is not just about defeating Trump.

He saw the party’s missteps in recent elections, particularly in 2024, when nearly everyone missed the flashes of anger from Americans who later voted for Trump.

Since then, he and his leadership team have been working steadily to build back that trust from voters — lighting into the Trump administration and forcing direct confrontations with Republicans whenever possible. Getting their message out was key, too.

Jeffries frequently tells his members that the average American spends about four minutes a week on politics — three-and-a-half of those minutes on Trump. “We are fighting for 30 seconds a week,” he has said, according to people familiar with the remarks.

For Jeffries, that looked like a nearly 9-hour floor speech against the GOP’s tax breaks bill, a historic 43-day shutdown over healthcare subsidies and “total war” over redistricting in the midterms.

Some of his colleagues underscored another key trait in their leader — “a spirit of American optimism,” in the words of Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean, at a time when most other politicians of either party have been downright dismayed about the future of the country.

Dean recalled the night of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, where she and other members were huddled in a safe room as rioters were being removed from the building. She recalled going up to Jeffries — then, the highest-ranking Democrat in the room — and urging him to allow lawmakers to go back to the floor and resume the electoral count.

“’Hakeem, they cannot run us out of here,’” Dean recalled telling him. And he agreed — later declaring, in unison with then-Rep. Liz Cheney: “We will go back and do our job.”

2013 年哈基姆·杰弗里斯进入众议院后不久，他的一位早期导师就向一群资深的黑人民主党人传达了一个信息。

“我认为就是他了，”前众议员埃迪·伯尼·约翰逊当时对议员们说道，其中包括众议员伊曼纽尔·克利弗，克利弗回忆说，她当时正坐在众议院议事厅里她长期坐的位置上，做出了这个预测。

几个月内，同一批黑人民主党人开始定期聚餐，讨论杰弗里斯的未来——据多位参与讨论的人士透露，他们制定了计划，以确保杰弗里斯在时任众议院议长南希·佩洛西退休后接任，并希望巩固他作为美国历史上第一位黑人众议院议长的地位。

十五年后，杰弗里斯现在显然有望在明年一月当选众议院议长——在总统继任顺序中仅次于副总统——这一职位实际上使他在唐纳德·特朗普总统执政的最后两年里掌控了新近复兴的民主党。

克利弗在一次采访中说：“本届政府中的很多人晚上都睡不好觉。”他预测杰弗里斯及其党派会让特朗普政府的日子不好过。

然而，这把法槌并非万无一失。杰弗里斯仍需赢得一批即将上任的民主社会主义者的支持，这些人谴责现任领导人未能把握时代脉搏。杰弗里斯本人曾被视为政治异见者，如今却因其在全民医保和以色列等问题上较为保守的立场而受到党内激进派的质疑。

杰弗里斯是一位行事谨慎的前企业律师，他因过于犹豫不决而受到党内一些人士的私下批评。但他的亲信坚称，在特朗普时代，他将以果断而强硬的态度执掌议长之位，与特朗普政府和美国企业界展开激烈的对抗。

他们说他计划大力推进民主党民粹主义的新时代——一种向富人征税、传唤CEO的思维模式，这将打破民主党数十年来为避免与大企业发生冲突而采取的谨慎做法。他希望大幅提高最低工资，远超民主党在2019年尝试的幅度；他还希望为最高法院制定严格的新道德准则，并限制人工智能的发展。

在特朗普第二个任期的最后两年，他还将领导该党推行积极的监督议程。

杰弗里斯在最近接受 CNN 记者马努·拉朱采访时表示：“美国人民感到沮丧是理所当然的。他们想要变革，他们想要彻底的改变。” 他在采访中预告了自己的施政纲领。

据杰弗里斯身边的人说，如果当选，他认为自己的任务有两方面：一方面，他必须满足躁动不安的选民，他们希望民主党人采取重大举措，实现真正的变革；另一方面，他还要避免政治上的过度扩张，以免两年后失去席位。

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

这意味着杰弗里斯需要限制他麾下左翼势力的任性妄为。例如，民主党人不太可能投票废除移民和海关执法局，或者推行全民医保。他的盟友表示，他将尽可能避免就与以色列相关的政策进行投票。

一位温和派民主党人告诉CNN：“他会采取大胆而明智的做法，而不是大胆而愚蠢的做法。他会尽量避免引发巨大分裂的投票……他会专注于提高住房可负担性，而忽略文化战争。”

另一位成员，科罗拉多州众议员杰森·克劳补充说，杰弗里斯已经明确表示，民主党人“将在基层赢得这场选举，我们也将在基层执政”。对他而言，这包括采取新的方式降低生活成本，例如扩大政府医疗保健的覆盖范围。

“我认为美国人已经准备好迈向全民医疗保健体系。我们可以通过多种方式实现这一目标，”克劳说道。他曾参与起草一项法案，旨在将联邦医疗保险（Medicare）的覆盖范围扩大到60岁及以上的美国人。

杰弗里斯面临的另一个挑战不是意识形态上的，而是代际上的。

据知情人士透露，民主党党团内部已经开始计划对委员会主席的任期进行新的限制——这对于以资历为主导的民主党而言是一次巨大的转变，也反映了本次选举中反建制的情绪。（现任主席可能会在短期内获得豁免。）

但人们对民主党能否在1月份众议院议员行为准则的制定过程中，将另一项选民关注的议题——股票交易禁令——纳入其中持怀疑态度。一些议员倾向于在明年某个时候通过一项独立的法案，该法案不仅针对议员，也针对特朗普政府官员制定严格的股票交易规则，但据知情人士透露，该法案不太可能最终成为法律。

那次股票交易分歧预示着杰富瑞明年将面临的最大挑战之一：来自长期会员的阻力，他们习惯了更为渐进的变革。

其次，还有与本届政府实际合作的问题。民主党人预计，这位最近自封为“否决先生”的总统，即使有合作，也几乎不会有任何合作。

对杰弗里斯来说，即便是尝试与不同党派人士对话也是一件充满挑战的事情。今年夏天，他与特朗普的女婿贾里德·库什纳进行了一次私人会面，之后便遭到了自由派民主党人的强烈抨击。（两人在特朗普的第一任期内曾密切合作，共同推动一项刑事司法改革法案。）

杰弗里斯后来告诉 CNN：“我们有责任解决问题，有时这意味着要与对立阵营的人会面。”

据多位人士回忆，在杰弗里斯成为众议院民主党领袖之前，他的支持者曾多次敦促他考虑其他职位。

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

一些黑人教会领袖敦促他竞选，挑战前纽约市市长比尔·德布拉西奥。另一群众议员在2019年众议员伊利亚·卡明斯去世后，鼓励他竞选众议院监督委员会的首席民主党议员。甚至有人私下敦促他在2024年夏天竞选总统，当时总统乔·拜登被迫退出竞选。

但他一一拒绝了这些邀请，似乎心中怀揣着一个长久以来的目标——众议院议长。

“他本来可以成为国会黑人议员团主席，他本来很早就可以成为民主党党鞭。但他很有策略，”俄亥俄州众议员乔伊斯·比蒂说道。

杰弗里斯在民主党党团中一路晋升，部分原因是他在众议院司法委员会的出色表现，包括在特朗普第一次弹劾案期间的高调任职，以及在此之前与共和党人就毒品和量刑改革达成的交易。

“他一走进来就给人一种无所畏惧的感觉，”比蒂补充道，他与杰弗里斯于 2013 年一同进入国会。

这位布鲁克林人因在2020年参议院弹劾审判中担任检方而声名鹊起。他由佩洛西亲自挑选，并在参议院发言时引用了已故说唱歌手“臭名昭著的BIG”的名言。（他对音乐的热爱在党内广为人知。上世纪80年代，十几岁的他曾在布鲁克林以“Kid Fresh”的艺名参加过说唱比赛。克利弗称他为“嘻哈界的总理”。）

自第一次对特朗普发起弹劾以来，杰弗里斯对总统的攻击有增无减。

针对特朗普对杰弗里斯智商的攻击，杰弗里斯称特朗普是“有史以来最愚蠢的总统”。今年夏天，杰弗里斯称特朗普是“一个虚弱、精神错乱、散布阴谋论的80岁失败总统”。

一位曾与杰弗里斯和佩洛西都密切合作过的民主党高级助手告诉CNN：“他喜欢争斗，喜欢对抗。他有那种胆量和自信。”

吉姆·沃森/法新社/盖蒂图片社

杰弗里斯担任党魁期间出现了一些摩擦。

几位民主党人回忆起去年查理·柯克遇刺后，共和党提出的一项纪念其“生平与功绩”的决议引发的激烈争论。杰弗里斯及其领导层同意投赞成票，以此示好，谴责针对两党的政治暴力。

但他的决定激怒了黑人议员团成员，他们表示共和党的决议赞扬了柯克，却忽略了他过往发表的被他们称为针对非裔美国人的仇恨言论的记录。（柯克曾称《民权法案》是“一个巨大的错误”，并声称像最高法院大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊和米歇尔·奥巴马这样的黑人领袖“脑力不够强”，无法在政界被认真对待。）

“这些话并非无害之言。它们承载着与吉姆·克劳时期相同的分裂精神——当时种族主义和偏见被写入法律，剥夺了人们的权利和尊严，”反对该决议的黑人议员之一，众议员特洛伊·卡特在柯克发表这番言论时写道。

据多位知情人士透露，在投票后的一次会议上，一些黑人议员团成员就杰弗里斯处理共和党法案的方式以及他为何迟迟不向党团成员宣布决定质问了他。

一位在描述这次会议时说：“我从未见过加拿大广播公司如此公开地抨击杰弗里斯。”

进入2027年，黑人议员团与杰弗里斯之间的裂痕早已弥合。一位曾参与杰弗里斯与黑人议员团成员多次沟通的人士表示，那次沟通实际上增强了议员们对他的信任：“他们表达了担忧，而他回应了这些担忧。”

明年，这个强大的政治集团可能会迎来有史以来最多的黑人议员——并且由美国首位黑人议长领导。

杰弗里斯当选党魁后不久，德克萨斯州众议员亨利·奎利亚尔就找到他这位老同事，敦促他立即前往美国边境。

那是 2022 年：像奎利亚尔这样的民主党人认为拜登的边境政策一团糟，重掌政权的唯一途径是了解如何与像他所在的边境社区沟通。

杰弗里斯前往奎利亚尔的家乡拉雷多，进行了一次夜间边境之旅——他们实时目睹了走私企图——此外，他还与当地的非营利组织进行了更多以人道主义为导向的访问。

“我当时根本没办法让民主党人说出‘边境安全’这两个字，”库埃拉尔回忆起他此前与党内领导人的接触时说道。但杰弗里斯访问拉雷多之后，库埃拉尔说他听到了杰弗里斯措辞上的关键转变。“我听到他说‘边境安全’，还说‘你们仍然要给予移民应有的尊严’。”

格雷姆·斯隆/彭博社/盖蒂图片社

与杰弗里斯关系密切的人士表示，他多年来一直专注于如何修复民主党日渐衰落的品牌形象——他们补充说，这不仅仅是击败特朗普的问题。

他看到了该党在最近几次选举中的失误，尤其是在 2024 年的选举中，几乎所有人都忽略了后来投票给特朗普的美国人所表现出的愤怒情绪。

此后，他和他的领导团队一直在稳步重建选民的信任——猛烈抨击特朗普政府，并尽可能与共和党人进行直接对抗。有效地传达他们的信息也至关重要。

杰弗里斯经常告诉他的教友，普通美国人每周花在政治上的时间大约只有四分钟——其中三分钟半都花在了特朗普身上。“我们每周只为争取30秒的时间而奋斗，”据知情人士透露，他曾这样说过。

对杰弗里斯来说，这看起来像是一场持续近 9 小时的众议院演讲，反对共和党的减税法案；一场因医疗保健补贴而导致的史无前例的 43 天政府停摆；以及一场因中期选举选区重划而引发的“全面战争”。

他的一些同事强调了他们领导人的另一个关键特质——用民主党众议员玛德琳·迪恩的话来说，就是“美国式的乐观精神”。而此时，两党的大多数其他政治家都对国家的未来感到彻底失望。

迪恩回忆起1月6日国会大厦暴乱当晚的情景，当时她和其他议员躲在一间安全屋里，暴徒们正被从大楼里驱离。她回忆说，她走到杰弗里斯——当时房间里级别最高的民主党人——面前，敦促他允许议员们回到议事厅继续计票。

“‘哈基姆，他们赶不走我们，’”迪恩回忆说他当时这样告诉他。哈基姆也同意了——后来他和当时的众议员莉兹·切尼异口同声地宣布：“我们会回去继续工作。”