Jeffries taunts Speaker Johnson for saying polls were wrong

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) ribbed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday over the Democrats’ landslide midterm victory, saying the GOP leader was right in predicting the polls were wrong — just not in the way Johnson intended.

Johnson, heading into Tuesday’s midterms, said repeatedly that the polls forecasting large Democratic gains were simply inaccurate. He predicted Republicans would keep control of the House despite the seemingly long odds.

After Tuesday’s rout, Jeffries offered Johnson a sideways commendation.

“Mike Johnson was correct. The polls were wrong,” Jeffries said during a press conference in Washington. “It wasn’t simply a blue wave; it was an American tsunami.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats had flipped dozens of Republican seats without losing a single battleground incumbent of their own, putting them on track to control at least 255 seats in the next Congress. The results stunned even Democrats, and the margins will provide Jeffries, who’s in line to replace Johnson as Speaker, with a comfortable cushion to move his party’s legislative priorities next year.

Jeffries on Wednesday offered a rough outline of what those priorities will be, echoing the legislative changes Democrats had promised voters on the campaign trail this year. The list features aggressive steps to tackle the high cost of living, including efforts to expand ObamaCare subsidies, reverse Republican Medicaid cuts, roll back President Trump’s tariffs and end the Iran war, which has led to a spike in global fuel costs.

“The American people have chosen the economy over extremism,” Jeffries said. “The American people have chosen House Democrats because they want to see a dramatic change in direction, and that’s exactly what House Democrats will deliver on Day One.”

Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), who’s expected to become the Democratic whip in the next Congress, went a step further, saying voters gave Democrats a “mandate” to enact their change agenda, particularly when it comes to the economy.

“Democrats promised a new path forward, and last night, the voters delivered a mandate for it,” he said.

Aside from the affordability message, Democratic leaders are also promising aggressive investigations into allegations of corruption within the administration, including a closer examination of the Trump policies that have boosted the personal finances of the president and his family.

Jeffries on Wednesday dismissed the idea, however, that Democrats would impeach the president, as some liberals want to do.

“I haven’t had a single member of the House Democratic Caucus talk to me about impeachment,” he said. “We’ve been relentlessly focused on affordability, and on accountability.”

Jeffries worked with Trump during the president’s first term on a package of criminal justice reforms, which marked a rare episode of bipartisan cooperation under Trump. It’s unclear if such compromises will be possible in the president’s second term, during which the clash between the parties has grown only more heated.

Jeffries said neither he nor Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has spoken with Trump since midterm voters gave Democrats the majorities in both chambers. But he emphasized that he’s willing to work with anyone, as long as there’s a shared goal of helping Americans navigate volatile times.

“That begins with decisively addressing the affordability crisis,” he said.