Hakeem Jeffries

bipartisan spending agreement where our only criteria had been if we're going to reach an agreement that's bipartisan in nature, it has to actually improve the lives of the American people in three different areas.

Their health, public safety, and

their economic well-being, particularly as it relates to lowering the high cost of living because America's too expensive right now.

A nearer pressure point is Friday, October the 24th.

Federal workers aren't going to receive their paychecks.

How confident are you that you're not going to be blamed?

Democrats aren't going to be blamed for that when that comes around.

Well, from the very beginning of this president's term,

Donald Trump and the Republicans have assaulted in the most egregious way possible hardworking federal civil servants and public employees.

And it's outrageous.

As I mentioned, more than 200,000 federal employees have already been forced off the job.

That was prior to Donald Trump shutting down the government.

We passed a law in 2017 that Donald Trump signed which requires that furloughed workers, all federal employees, receive their back pay.

It's Donald Trump that's now suggesting, unlawfully, that he can withhold that pay and they might not be compensated.

Should workers be worried about that?

I've talked to a few federal workers who, for the first time, for the first shutdown they've been through, they're worried that that's not going to happen.

Is that a reasonable concern?

Well, the law is crystal clear.

It's reasonable concern from the standpoint that when Donald Trump says anything, and he's the president of the United States, and there's been a willingness to engage in unlawful and illegal behavior, sometimes rubber-stamped by the conservative majority on the U.S.

Supreme Court, that's problematic.