earlier today, the washington post interviewed hakeem jeffries ahead of the opening of the democratic national convention. he discussed a range of issues including oversight of the u.s. postal service, election security and kamala harris as the vice presidential nominee. good afternoon. welcome to washington post live. kickoff of the democratic national convention. that was supposed to be in milwaukee but instead, it has gone virtual because of covid-19. who better to give us a kickoff viewpoint but also the priority of the democratic party then one of its rising stars. congressman akeem jeffries of new york. mr. chairman, welcome to washington post live. there is a lot to talk about. let's jump in and go right to the post office. you, it ises: thank great to be with you. the attacks that we have seen my president trump and his henchmen have been heinous and part of a continuing criminal conspiracy in my view to undermine our free and fair elections. it all started in 2016 when russia interfered in our election and as bob mueller documented, that interference was welcome, knowingly by

let us begin this hour with democratic congressman hakeem jeffries of new york. his district includes brooklyn and queens. congressman, good evening. >> evening, joshua. great to be with you. >> good to have you. how are folks in your district doing right now marley as it relates to schools. schools are due to reopen. how does it look in your district for that right now? >> well, people are anticipatxi. i've got one son returning to the public school system in the fall. certainly we are lft in the leadership governor cuomo has given the green light for schools to come up with an appropriately safe plan to transition back into the school system as something that i think parents throughout the district that i represent take comfort in. it's still unclear that it will be entirely in person. i think there is a great likelihood that there will be remote learning as a significant part of the reintegration back to the new fall semester, but i think people are looking forward to the possibility of some sense of normalcy for the education of our children beginning next mo

we spoke earlier with your colleague, hakeem jeffries. clear one of the key sticking point is un. the insurance which millions are relying on. there is no real end in sight for people. you are part of the progressive caucus. what do you want your leaders to demand in terms of making adjustments there. it sounds like the heroes act is the marker there is potentially room for negotiation. where do you think the red line should be? >> i think the red line is that we have to get absolutely a lot of relief to people across the country. i mean it has been over two months since the heroes act passed. republicans have been sitting on their hands. the only reason they are now debating this is because their states are suffering. the cruelty that i see from the republicans in refusing to extend unemployment benefits allowing them to expire is stunning. remember, they never have a problem if we have money available when they passed a $2 trillion tax cut, but here we are talking about $600 a week for people when that is all the relief they are getting

for more i'm joined by congressman hakeem jeffries of new york, chair of the house democratic caucus. congressman jeffries, i don't know if you were able to hear donald trump's press conference earlier, but not that long ago this evening, but apparently when confronted with the question of whether he would actually veto a bill that had postal service funding in it, even though he said people have to -- they must vote in person, whether they feel safe or not, earlier, that's what he said. no, he has said, no, he wouldn't even veto it. what do you make of that slight turnaround? >> well, the trump administration is crashing and burning, and it's all happening before our very eyes. his response has been an unmitigated disaster to the coronavirus crisis. and he can't deny that there's been a lot of pain and suffering and death that the american people have experienced, including more than 165,000 people who have died, more than 5 million who have been infected by the coronavirus. and so it just seemed to me that if we were able to arrive at an agreement to provide meaningful relief to the

joining us now is congressman hakeem jeffries from new york.is the chair of the house democratic caucus. congressman, you've been asking this question. thank you for joining us, sir. you tweeted on unemployment insurance, emergency unemployment insurance expire today. instead they want blanket liability protection for multinational corporations. get serious, mitch. congressman, you're touching on something that a lot of people don't really understand, that there is a real effort in congress to make sure whatever bill comes out of it protects companies more than it protects people. >> well, that is correct. house democrats passed a hero's act two and a half months ago. we extend emergency unemployment insurance benefits into next year. we provide another round of direct stimulus payments to the american people. we include $175 billion in assistance for tenants who are struggling to pay their rent as well as homeowners who are struggling to pay their mortgage and extend the moratorium on evictions as well. we provide about a trillion dollars in a

congressman hakeem jeffries is a member of the democratic black caucus. the president of the association of flight attendants union is the cochair of the biden/sanders task force on the economy. unique to this discussion, sarah nelson was involved in the negotiations around earlier relief bills to try and figure outweighs so that we're not in this pickle all the time. sarah, every few months we're not sitting here about whether it's too much money or going to increase the debt. were you trying to come up with a durable solution. your complaint here is by the president working around this, he's done an end run around something that could have been more durable and more permanent. >> absolutely. in march what we did in aviation, we hoped would be a model for every other industry and for our government, is to turn these relief packages on their head and actually build them from the ground up so the aviation relief package is a payroll support program that requires the money from the government to go directly to people's paychecks. it requires the airlines to

congressman hakeem jeffries.we come back, biden's about to fill the blank on a whole lot of campaign buttons and bumper stickers and voters in one state have ideas of what name they want to see next to his. that's next. his. that's next. ♪ thousands of women with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, are living in the moment and taking ibrance. ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor is for postmenopausal women or for men with hr+/her2- metastatic breast cancer, as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole significantly delayed disease progression versus letrozole, and shrank tumors in over half of patients. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. ibrance may cause severe inflammation of the lungs that can lead to death. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including trouble breathing, shortness of breath, cough, or chest pain. before t

after that, house democratic chair hakeem jeffries discusses party priorities and the u.s. economy. tonight, former ohio republican governor john kasich speaks at the democratic convention. >> former republican governor john kasich is doing with only a few politicians have done, just -- address the other party's convention. joe lieberman, an independent, spoke in support of john mccain. senator miller represented georgia in the u.s. senate and was governor of the state for two terms, standing on the stage in new york city 16 years ago, he supported republican president gorge w. bush and opposed democratic nominee john kerry. [applause and cheering] mr. miller: thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. since i last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the family has been born. four great-grandchildren. along with all of the other members of the close knit family, they are our most precious possessions. i know that is how you feel about your family also. like you, i think of their future. the promises and perils they will face. i believe the next four years will de

after that, house democratic chair hakeem jeffries discusses party priorities and the u.s. economy.ight, former ohio republican governor john kasich speaks at the democratic convention. >> former republican governor john kasich is doing with only a few politicians have done, just -- address the other party's convention. joe lieberman, an independent, spoke in support of john mccain. senator miller represented georgia in the u.s. senate and was governor of the state for two terms, standing on the stage in new york city 16 years ago, he supported republican president gorge w. bush and opposed democratic nominee john kerry. [applause and cheering]

your older brother is congressman hakeem jeffries of new york and chairs the house democratic caucus. how often do you t get together and talk aboutwo politics? guest: congressman jeffries is a busy man. [laughter] i am fortunate, he has been kind enough to share with me his personal phone number. [laughter] so when things come up, i am entitled to text the congressman and to get his thoughts. we talk as much about politics as we do about sports. but here, again, there is an intersection between sports and politics, and we do get to share ideas and whenever time allows. let's go to the phone lines. let's go to regina from norfork, virginia. you for taking my call -- thank you for taking my call. i loved the march yesterday. it brought back a lot of memories about my own father, talked to me about a lot of things after that march. i even had to talk to my own children about the things that were going on. going back to what i remember from that time, i remember malcolm x. retrospect, he was absolutely right. you need to go to the u.n. with this. this is a human rights violation. you don

congressman hakeem jeffries sees of new york. ank you very much for coming on washington post life. rep. jeffries: thank you, jonathan. always great to see her. jonathan: coming up next, cochair of the progressive caucus, congresswoman pramila j ayapal. ♪ welcome back to washington post life. i'm jonathan capehart, opinion writer for the washington post. during the 2020 democratic presidential primaries, congresswoman pramila jayapal of washington state was a backer of senator bernie sanders. now that biden is the apalumptive nominee, jay is all in for the biden harris ticket to get them into the white house. are there still lingering issues between the centrist wing of the democratic party and the progressive wing of the democratic party? i'm going to find out. coming back to washington post life is congresswoman jayapal. thank you very much for being here. rep. jayapal: it is great to see you, jonathan. jonathan: great to see you. let's talk about joe biden selection of senator kamala harris to be his running mate. you and she w

the outcome, the peaceful transition takes place on january 20th of next year. >> congressman hakeem jeffrieswith you with us. good luck and be safe. >> thank you. >> just following up, again, on the lies, all of the lies that donald trump is sending out there, the alternative realities, the sort of alternative realities that you see autocrats across the world doing, as they're moving towards elections that they want to lay or have an impact on. he talks about hillary clinton still contesting the election. hillary clinton conceded the next day. let me say that again. okay. because you may go on facebook today, you may get confused, a few, buy into donald trump's alternative reality. hillary clinton conceded the next day. did she complain later? sure. donald trump wants to complain after his loss. he can. but she conceded the next day. this president is doing everything he can to undermine your confidence in american democracy. he's lying, he's talking about how mail-in ballots is something new, that it's something radical. acting like there's a difference between absentee voting by mail and v

congressman ted lieu and hakeem jeffries are urging them to open a criminal investigation and speakeris calling back the house early to deal with the crisis. want to quickly go to phil mattingly on the hill. what democrats will vote on this weekend is what -- >> reporter: speaker pelosi earlier in a private conference call with her caucus making clear that they will vote on a bill that actually serves two purposes. the first to block any operational changes to the u.s. postal service, the types of changes you were describing that louis dejoy, the u.s. postmaster general has helped implement over the course of the last several weeks to the lens of cost-cutting measures and would block those starting from the beginning of the year through the end of the or the end of the pandemic and include $25 billion to help prop up the u.s. postal service which has been having very significant financial difficulties. now, this $25 billion number was something that the democrats had proposed earlier on in negotiations in a broader coronavirus relief package and negotiated with the trump administratio

so first, i am thrilled to have with us congressman hakeem jeffries, who represents the eighth district in new york, areas that include large parts of brooklyn and queens, one of the most diverse districts in the country, probably one of the most diverse areas in the whole world. he was sworn in 2013 and served on the house judiciary, house and he's the chair of the house democratic caucus. he's the leader of setting the agenda for the entire house and he served as one of the house impeachment managers. we also have congressman ruben gallego, who represents the seventh district in arizona. he was first elected in 2014 and before that, he was a member of the house of representatives. he was a marine corps combat veteran, having been deployed to iraq in 2005 and now is a member of the house armed services committee and house committee on natural resources. and finally, we have congressman mike leven, who represents the 49th congressional district, which includes much of san diego. he was first elected in that great class of 2018 and has , throughout his career, and -- been committed to en

congressman ted lou and hakeem jeffries are also sending a criminal referral to the fbi.e" obtained this letter of lawmakers asking whether the postmaster general or any member of the board of governors committed any crimes through the changes they made to the postal service and the state level, "the washington post" reports that attorney generals from six states are huddling to discuss possible lawsuits as they scramble for ways to give voters more options. we'll speak to one of those in this hour, actually. meanwhile, the u.s. postal service is walking back its plan to remove a number of blue collection boxes around the country. telling nbc news it will wait until after election day to reevaluate its needs. in an internal memo to usps staff last week, the postmaster general acknowledged the, quote, unintended consequences of his restructuring, which he said, quote, impacted our overall service needs. >> wait. unintended? unintended. >> no, you intended this. >> that's like walking through a house with gasoline and spreading it through the house -- >> he eliminated overt

do you believe as congressman hakeem jeffries and ted lieu have asked the fbi to examine, do you believet's worthy of a criminal investigation? >> i would say, nicolle, i don't have the answer for that. to my perspective if it's intentional or unintentional, the consequences are the same and for the american public whether he intended or not, the mail is being delayed. i think there's absolutely no question about that. as i said, it has been conclusively demonstrated today and postmaster dejoy admitted as much. i don't know whether or not it is criminal or whether he intentionally did it. i do not have the answer to that. i think there are significant questions in light of the documentation that we now have. the documentation says that employees believe they were told deliberately to leave the so there is an inconsistency betw documents and at least what the employees believed. >> let me ask you one final question. can you unring the bell? can you put the tube back in the toothpaste? if you don't immediately today permit overtime in the time of a pandemic and with record numbers of mail-

your older brother is congressman hakeem jeffries of new york and chairs the house democratic caucus.en do you t get together and talk aboutwo politics? guest: congressman jeffries is a busy man. [laughter] i am fortunate, he has been kind enough to share with me his personal phone number. [laughter] so when things come up, i am entitled to text the congressman and to get his thoughts. we talk as much about politics as we do about sports. but here, again, there is an intersection between sports and politics, and we do get to share ideas and whenever time allows. let's go to the phone lines. let's go to regina from norfork, virginia. you for taking my call -- thank you for taking my call. i loved the march yesterday. it brought back a lot of memories about my own father, talked to me about a lot of things after that march. i even had to talk to my own children about the things that were going on. going back to what i remember from that time, i remember malcolm x. retrospect, he was absolutely right. you need to go to the u.n. with this. this is a human rights violation. you don't have

going to continue talking about the potential to reach a deal we want to bring in representative hakeem jeffriescaucus you heard that report. would you be willing to do some form of a skinnier deal? >> good morning. thanks for having me on. this is an extraordinary crisis. more than 150,000 americans have died more than 4 million americans are infected by the coronavirus. more than 5 million americans have lost their employer-based health insurance more than 100,000 small businesses have permanently closed and of course more than 50 million americans have lost their employment this is not a piece meal pandemic we should not have a piecemeal response so i support the speaker's position that we need to negotiate a broad, comprehensive and transformative congressional intervention in order to meet the moment. >> congressman though, let's talk about the $600. does $600 make sense to you? look, i feel like i can hardly sit here as somebody who's working and is able to work to say that $600 is too much but at the same time there are people who are getting more than they were being paid before this pan