House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was mid-sentence on a Denver stage Friday when a heckler unloaded on him with a stream of profanity, branding the man expected to become the next speaker a “f------ traitor” before being escorted out.
Jeffries was sitting down with Fox News host Jessica Tarlov at the What’s Next conference, a two-day gathering hosted by the group Majority Democrats after the party’s sweeping midterm gains. He was laying out his agenda for the incoming Congress when the outburst began.
“We’re gonna begin very early on in the new Congress by working to reverse the Medicaid cuts and working to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries said. “And then we’ve got to go further to make sure that we don’t just fix what’s broken —”
“You are a f------ liar!” the man screamed. “You’re a f------ traitor! F--- you all!”
He kept shouting as he was led from the room.
“You don’t fight for the people!” he said. “You’ve done nothing.”
The crowd jeered him as his tirade dragged on for more than a minute, Newsweek reported.
Jeffries barely flinched, and when Tarlov remarked on how unbothered he seemed, he chalked it up to his roots.
“Remember, y’all, I grew up in Brooklyn,” he said.
The confrontation exposed the frustration simmering on the party’s left flank. Progressive activists have pressed Jeffries since early in Trump’s second term to mount a more forceful resistance to the administration, and many have bristled at his support for Israel and his ties to AIPAC. No Democrat has formally challenged his bid for the gavel, but some incoming House members have yet to commit to backing him, Newsweek reported.
Artist and podcaster Brihana Davidson captured that frustration in a scathing post on social media, taking aim at how Jeffries handled the heckler.
“When you’re faced with righteous pained anger from the people you claim to lead, [Jeffries], and you smile at them like an arrogant, entitled d-----bag chiding a toddler, you make us like you less,” she wrote on X. “And in case you missed the math, only 18% of us liked you before this.”
Report typos and corrections to corrections@rawstory.com.
For customer support contact support@rawstory.com.
