Scoop: House Dems shrug off delay tactics to stall DOGE vote
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on July 17. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
House Democrats are largely shooing away the idea of trying to make Republicans miss their deadline to codify around $9 billion in DOGE cuts to public broadcasting and foreign aid, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: While on paper it appears to be a rare opportunity to satisfy the demands of their base to use procedural tools to obstruct the GOP agenda, lawmakers and aides told Axios it's not that simple.
- House Republicans are scrambling to pass the rescissions bill, which would codify cuts to PBS, NPR and foreign aid, before a Friday deadline mandated by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
- But there is a widespread belief among Democrats, including leadership, that the Trump administration would simply ignore or side-step that deadline as they have in other cases.
Driving the news: At a press conference on Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) demurred when asked if he would pull a repeat of the record-breaking eight hour, 44 minute speech he gave to delay passage of the "big, beautiful bill."
- Jeffries, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) can all speak for unlimited time in what is known as a "magic minute" speech.
- "I do expect I will participate in the debate, and I expect I will speak longer than a minute," Jeffries told reporters.
- When pressed, he added, "I think Democrats are going to continue to fight hard and do everything we can to make sure that we are pushing back aggressively against this rescissions package."
What we're hearing: Senior House Democrats and leadership aides told Axios that the prospect of a long speech appeared unlikely as of Thursday afternoon.
- One House Democrat told Axios they were told by leadership that Republicans "can play with the date, so [the deadline is] not hard and fast."
- A senior House Democrat told Axios on Thursday afternoon that leadership "doesn't think [the speech] will be long at this point."
Zoom in: Instead of trying to hold up the bill, Democrats see the most productive strategy as continuing to force Republicans to block their efforts to bring up bills forcing the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
- "Democrats have succeeded in tying the House GOP in knots over Epstein files amendments," a Democratic leadership aide told Axios.
- "It's lunacy to wring our hands over a statutory deadline that the administration will simply ignore when we've been able to send the Republicans into utter chaos," the aide said.
Zoom out: Jeffries will have to contend with expectations from his grassroots base, which are sometimes untethered to the reality of congressional procedure.
- Some Democrats said those expectations alone may be reason enough for Jeffries to deliver a long speech.
- "I think it's smart, I think he should do it. People like it. People liked the last one," Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) told Axios.
Yes, but: Members "would be really unhappy," if Jeffries gave a long speech "after what he did on July 4," a third House Democrat said on the condition of anonymity.
- Some lawmakers were frustrated that Jeffries spoke for nearly nine hours after his team maintained he would only go for about one, forcing them to scramble to reschedule flights ahead of the July 4 recess.
- "The base doesn't even give a s*** about this. The rescissions thing is not on their radar," the lawmaker added, arguing that if the grassroots does take notice of it, "they'll forget about it two days later and be like, 'What's next.'"
- "You can't feed that beast," they said.
