Congress
Democrats’ new year’s resolution: Reclaim upper hand on the economy and trash the ‘billionaire boys club’
NEW YORK — The Democratic Party’s top two congressional leaders — both New Yorkers — agree: The party lost big in the election over voters’ economic fears and must now overhaul its pocketbook messaging to win again.
“Promises to help working people sound nice, but they mean nothing without real results,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in kicking off the new Congress.
“House Democrats will fight hard to protect working-class Americans and the things that matter to them, not the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed in his own floor speech.
But other New York Democrats in Congress aren’t as sure.
Interviews with nearly every New York House Democrat reveal variations on where they believe their party’s push against incoming President Donald Trump should start, underscoring Jeffries’ challenge in leading a big-tent caucus that ranges from socialists to Blue Dogs. Some House members are less humbled by their party’s election drubbing than others, some blame messaging and others blame culture wars — even if the most consistent theme emerging is the urgent need to wrestle back the economic narrative from the Republicans.
The Empire State will have an outsized role in that mission with Schumer and Jeffries as the highest-ranking Democrats in Washington, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand leading the Senate Dems’ campaign arm, several House New Yorkers as ranking members and caucus chairs and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a national progressive standard-bearer. New York was one of the few bright spots in last year’s election for Democrats, too — with the party picking up three House seats there.
Some of those Democrats are now beginning to build out the case on cost of living. In the two months since Republicans won the White House, Senate and House, Trump has stacked his administration picks with at least 13 billionaires and enabled Musk to meddle with a government shutdown deal with misinformation that dismissed the tangible implications of such an action.
As the House session ended last month, Jeffries flicked at this as his Republican counterparts struggled from self-inflicted wounds, namely Trump and Musk’s 11th-hour torpedoing of a bipartisanship shutdown package and last-minute hedging from House conservatives on supporting Mike Johnson (R-La.) for speaker.
“House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club,” the minority leader told reporters.
And while kitchen-table economics will drive the narrative for Democrats, the messaging won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach.
Several of Jeffries’ fellow members from New York say he’s granted them the latitude to approach Trump 2.0 in a way that’s best for them and their districts.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, one of 48 House Democrats who recently voted for the Laken Riley Act cracking down on illegal immigration, commended the leader as “not very heavy handed” and said he believes the border is a key starting point for his party as it prepares for Trump 2.0.
“If you want to actually do something effectively, and not just do it for political purposes … which is to secure the border, which is to fix the broken asylum system, which is to modernize the legal immigration system, you should really be doing it on a bipartisan basis,” Suozzi said in an interview.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said more broadly it’s about combating misinformation: “The bottom line to it is that we have to create an ecosystem of truth.”
Still, others, including Reps. Greg Meeks, Nydia Velázquez and Pat Ryan, said in interviews that Democrats should begin with the economy.
“If there’s one takeaway, in my view, of this last set of elections, it’s us clearly reasserting we are for middle class and working-class people and against big corporations and billionaires,” Ryan, a frontline Democrat in the Hudson Valley, told Blue Light News.
In the Senate, Schumer has argued it’s Republicans — not Democrats — who are the party of the privileged as he used the waning weeks of 2024 to speedily confirm Biden-appointed judges. He led the outgoing majority in confirming 235 of them — more than any administration this century.
“For a very long time, the norm was to prioritize judicial nominees who came from a privileged pool. Most of them were prosecutors or from large, corporate law firms. Most were male, most were white,” the 74-year-old Brooklynite said in a floor speech. “But when Senate Democrats entered the majority, we cast a wider net.”
For Schumer, who was also minority leader when Trump first took office in 2017, the next task ahead will involve determining which of Trump’s Cabinet appointees Democrats should reject and confirm. He has yet to offer specifics publicly about the president-elect’s picks, but he told his majority leader replacement Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) that Democrats plan to fully vet each nominee and signaled Republicans should do the same.
The confirmation hearings set to begin this month will present the next big opportunity for Democrats to show where Republicans’ winning approach to the economy could be more perception than reality, especially because Trump has tapped several billionaires with limited qualifications to join his Cabinet.
Perhaps the biggest chance Democrats will have this year to put the GOP on the defensive about the economy will be the yearlong fight over Trump’s signature tax cuts, which expire in December. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, believes the party’s resources should be focused on that legislation.
“The starting point is the biggest proposals that Trump is going to push that showcase the difference between them and us,” Jayapal said in an interview. “So I think of the Trump tax scam as being No. 1, because I think that when you have a Cabinet full of billionaires, this is an opportunity for Democrats to show how we want the economy to work for poor people and working people.”
Newly reelected GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York has said he would work with Democrats, including on restoring the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, but he cautioned: “I do encourage my Democratic colleagues not to do the Resistance 2.0.”
Indeed, a full-time resistance is not Democrats’ plan. Stressing areas primed for bipartisanship, like immigration, and areas where they will stand their ground, like Medicare, is much closer to how their strategy is shaping up.
Jeffries and Schumer, who have a solid working relationship as fellow Brooklynites, albeit from different generations, were unanimously reelected as conference leaders. Jeffries is the son of a social worker and substance abuse counselor. Schumer is the son of an exterminator and homemaker. Meeks said in an interview that their backgrounds will help convince voters ahead of the midterms that Democrats understand their economic struggles “because they have lived it themselves.”
But the two New Yorkers are also members of the political establishment.
“People understand that the Democratic Party and Republican Party, a lot of them get money from a lot of the same people, and the money in our politics is corrupting,” said New York Working Families Party co-director Jasmine Gripper. “So it feels like people are fighting for the billionaires, but not fighting for the everyday voter and the everyday American.”
Despite such perceptions, Democratic Party leaders say they’re better positioned to face off against Trump than when he first occupied the White House. Jeffries has sought to underscore that his minority isn’t all that minor. The government shutdown chaos of last month proved that Johnson needs some Democrats to bail him out on key legislative fights. And Jeffries has repeatedly noted that the GOP’s five-seat advantage is far narrower than their margin of 47, when Trump took office in 2017.
“My prediction is that House Democrats under Leader Jeffries are going to be the most powerful minority that we’ve seen in recent history, because the Republican margin of control is so vanishingly small,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “It is unlikely that the Republicans will be able to get anything major done without the buy-in of Leader Jeffries and House Democrats.”
President Donald Trump announced the next chief for the White House’s Capitol Hill strategy on Saturday night, picking Katie Bailey, a former Republican Hill staffer.
Bailey will replace James Braid in the role of director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, which oversees nominations and confirmations of Cabinet roles, relationships on Capitol Hill and the White House’s legislative priorities. Braid left the job in September.
Bailey has served as deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs since the beginning of the summer. She formerly worked for Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana and former Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and served in roles on multiple committees.
Trump commended Bailey for assisting with the confirmations of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, saying she has “already delivered strong results.”
“After previously working on Capitol Hill, Katie understands how the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government can most effectively work together to achieve Great Success for the American People,” the president wrote in a social media post Saturday night.
Bailey takes over the role ahead of the midterm elections, which could alter the power dynamics in Washington substantially if Democrats seize control of either chamber of Congress. The result, which the White House has begun preparing for, could include congressional subpoenas, depositions and investigations, as happened during the latter half of Trump’s first term in office, when Democrats flipped the House.
Trump’s approval continues to sag amid soaring gas and diesel prices driven by the war with Iran, leaving Democrats bullish that the map will continue to grow for them.
SYRACUSE, New York — President Donald Trump came to New York on Friday to help a Republican win an uphill race for governor. But his visit was also a reminder of the complicated role he plays in his party’s fight to keep control of Congress.
Trump rallied alongside GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman, calling on New Yorkers to fire Gov. Kathy Hochul and, referring to the state attorney general, “her totally corrupt sidekick, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James.”
“Your city and state are dirty, filthy places, and everybody wants to leave,” he told some 5,000 attendees at a convention center in downtown Syracuse — which, he noted, was “a short distance from the beautiful shores of Lake America.”
“You gotta get your act together, and I tell you what, Bruce Blakeman will get your act together,” Trump said.
For Republicans, the president’s appearance underscored a political dilemma that extends beyond New York: Even as Trump increasingly appears to be a drag on their ticket, they need his loyal supporters to energize their base. While voters have soured on the president’s handling of the economy and costs, he remains a potent force in turning out MAGA voters — even in an otherwise Democratic-dominated state.
“The targeting of where the president goes is not a random exercise,” Marist University pollster Lee Miringoff said. “They’re looking to stir the base without stirring the opposition. They’re picking and choosing, that’s not uncommon. For him to come to New York to help the turnout upstate is a positive for the Republicans and his base.”
Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, hasn’t distanced himself from the president — nor have most of the top officials in New York’s GOP. Nearly every Republican running a competitive congressional race in this half of the state came to Friday’s rally, eager to make their presence known.
“I’m always happy to be with the president,” said Anthony Constantino, who’s running in a nearby red district that’s inched into toss-up territory. “He’s the leader of the free world, and I’m excited to have a great relation with him.”
Some GOP operatives, however, have quietly grumbled that their candidates need to start creating some distance from the president. Republicans from other parts of the state like Rep. Mike Lawler decided that campaigning in their districts was more valuable than trekking to be seen with Trump — as did several down-ballot candidates in Central New York. Democrats, notably, have been just as eager to highlight the visit.
“This is supposed to be a swing district. And the feedback I get is that the president is very unpopular,” said Democratic Rep. John Mannion, who represents Syracuse and the surrounding Central New York area. “He still certainly will have his core base of supporters, but I do think he’s lost support here compared to what he had around the 2024 election.”
Blakeman, for his part, isn’t worried about Trump’s drop in popularity.
“Kathy Hochul should be worried about her drop in popularity,” he said before taking the stage in Syracuse. “She’s the most unpopular governor in the history of the state of New York.”
Trump’s visit came against the backdrop of a darkening political environment for New York Republicans.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot a man in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon, stirring fresh condemnation of Trump’s aggressive deportation policies. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has a surprisingly warm relationship with the president, called on him to cease all ICE activity in the five boroughs. Hochul stressed that the shooting took place with a five-year-old child present and demanded that federal authorities “provide answers.”
Immigration is one of several areas where Blakeman has hewed close to the Trump wing of the party throughout his campaign.
“I’m outraged with Kathy Hochul for taking sides with somebody who was a convicted felon, someone who was an alleged drug dealer, a gang member,” he said Friday about the shooting in Manhattan.
While Trump’s speech repeatedly careened back to the rhetoric one could expect from any of his rallies — boasts about the stock market, complaints about ‘Dumocrats’ — he did manage to seamlessly blend almost all of Blakeman’s oft-used talking points into his stump speech.
“Since Hochul took office, she’s raised your utility rates 48 times, and energy prices in New York have skyrocketed 100 percent,” Trump said. “If Bruce Blakeman gets in, he will cut your electric bills by 70, 80, 90 percent.”
The climate outside of deep blue New York City is also turning increasingly hostile to the GOP. Constantino, who’s running to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik in upstate New York, trails his Democratic foe Blake Gendebien by 4 points, a Siena Research Institute survey released Friday morning found. A Blue Light News poll showed that nationally one in four Trump voters believe Republican candidates should break from the president in order to win in November.
The wisdom of appearing with Trump has been debated by Republicans throughout the country at a time when gas prices are high and a foreign war drags on. And New York Democrats aren’t viewing the presidential visit as a concern.
Much of Hochul’s messaging this year has focused on making sure New Yorkers know Blakeman and Trump are friends. Her most-aired TV commercial features a puppeteer saying one Republican would do the other’s bidding.
“Puppets are my life. You tell them what to say, they say it,” the narrator says. “But that’s not what you want in a governor.”
Earlier in the day during an MSNOW interview, Hochul dismissed the rally.
“It’s obviously a very political event,” she said. “It seems like a last-ditch effort to breathe some life into a campaign that’s on life support.”
Despite his low approval ratings with voters, Trump’s visit stands to light up a Republican base that Blakeman will need to turn out next month to help him defeat Hochul.
Polling has shown the governor leading the GOP nominee by as much as 18 points in this deep blue state. Yet some Trump supporters maintain the president can help generate much-needed enthusiasm for Blakeman, especially in areas of upstate New York where the Long Island native is not well known.
“We actually have the ability to win these elections, but I just don’t see the enthusiasm out there,” Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar said. “Hochul has won the day as far as being a terrible governor, but now we’ve got to get our people out to vote.”
Winning is still a tall order for Blakeman — especially in a tough national political environment where polls show GOP candidates in red states like Texas, Ohio and Kansas struggling against Democratic challengers.
Republicans have not won statewide in New York since George Pataki secured a third term in 2002. Since then, the GOP has lost all levers of statewide power, and Trump’s tariffs as well as his decision to launch a war in Iran have not helped him fulfill his campaign pledge of addressing voters’ cost concerns.
The president’s political woes aren’t going unnoticed.
Privately, Republican operatives grumbled that the president’s visit put swing seat candidates in an uncomfortable spot.
“There’s a lot of commiserating between folks within the party structure — why is this happening? Why is he doing this?” said one Republican operative who was granted anonymity to freely discuss the dynamic. “Then you’ve got the blind loyalists who say, ‘Yay Trump’s coming’ — people who are too politically dumb to understand the ramifications of it.”
Yet the head of the Republican party kept his message very much in line with Hochul’s.
“Please pretend I’m on the ballot,” Trump told Central New Yorkers.
Sen. Chris Murphy wants Democrats to go big for Angie Nixon in Florida’s Senate race — and he’s pushing to raise some “serious money” to help.
“I do believe that we’d make a big mistake if we slept on Florida,” the Connecticut Democrat told Blue Light News on Friday. “I know it feels like a longer shot, but I just think this year is looking exceptional.”
Murphy plans to hit the trail with Nixon as part of a campaign swing for Senate candidates over the next three weeks that will take him through North Carolina and Florida, as well as events with Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Murphy will serve as a surrogate for El-Sayed in the spin room at his next debate, and said he’s “just a big believer” in the Michigan Senate nominee.
Murphy’s bullishness about a blue wave comes as Senate Democrats are pushing the boundaries of a midterm battle map that is shifting further into red territory. The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC has dropped roughly $5 million apiece into Texas and Kansas over recent days, and the minority leader has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.
“If I were in charge, I would definitely put some resources in Florida,” Murphy said. “When you have an exciting candidate like this, it’s a good long-term investment” in growing Democrats’ activist base.
Still, Murphy stressed he’s “not making any formal recommendations” on where Schumer or top Democratic campaign groups should move their money.
“They’ve got so many mouths to feed,” Murphy said. “That’s why I’m going to try to step up and do some work on my own.”
Murphy, who is considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, has spread roughly $2.5 million across candidates, campaign arms and other organizations this cycle. That includes transferring more than $500,000 to Democrats’ three top campaign arms and 25 state parties.
Prominent Democrats have been ramping up their attention on Florida. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has funneled $250,000 toward Nixon’s campaign, along with other resources. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also told Blue Light News he hopes to campaign with Nixon.
But Democrats across suddenly competitive red states are clamoring for more cash and Florida is an expensive state, complicating the chances of a significant investment from national groups.
Nixon also faces an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Ashley Moody in the Sunshine State. A progressive state lawmaker, Nixon aligned herself with the Democratic Socialists of America over the summer in a state where many voters, especially those with ties to Cuba, reject such an ideology. Also, Republicans in Florida have a 1.5 million voter registration advantage over Democrats.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words