Hakeem Jeffries

So I sat down with Governor Cuomo, and in that conversation he said, I'm a Democrat.

My dad was a Democrat.

He's really taking up that mantle.

Of course, he lost the primary.

He's running as an independent.

Yeah.

Isn't there an element here of confusion that in this vacuum, and you could, I guess, do something to close that vacuum, he's able to take up that mantle to the detriment of the duly elected Democratic nominee?

Well, it's interesting because he is running as an independent, so he's not the Democratic nominee.

But, of course, he has a long history as a Democrat.

I think some of the concerns that I've seen articulated, however, is, well, what is the actual path to victory given the

inability to convince a majority of Democrats in the primary that you were the right person to lead the city moving forward at this moment.

Let me use this as a segue.

So a lot of people point to his youth, point to, as you just noted, his emphasis on affordability.

Part of your job is

surveying the national terrain, political terrain, and looking for candidates.

Does his success in that primary make you think that youth is more important this time around?

That that emphasis, that kind of monomaniacal emphasis on affordability is going to be critical here as you look to the midterms and beyond?

What we've said from the very beginning of this year, when we came back into session, in fact, in my first set of remarks on the House floor, that would have been on January 3rd,

that we were relentlessly committed to lowering the high cost of living, that America is too expensive, housing costs too high, grocery costs too high, childcare costs too high, healthcare costs too high, utility costs too high, and something needed to be decisively done about it.

It certainly was our hope that Republicans would keep their core promise of lowering the high cost of living.