Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) announced that his caucus will meet virtually on Monday evening after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) decided to keep the House in recess next week while the government shutdown fight continues to play out in the Senate.
“We are in this fight to win this fight for the American people. To that end, the House Democratic Caucus will meet virtually on Monday, October 6 at 6 p.m. ET,” Jeffries wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Saturday. “Thank you for continuing to hold events throughout the country that emphasize our fight to cancel the cuts, lower the cost and save healthcare.”
Jeffries spent the rest of the letter bashing Republicans on healthcare, as Senate Democrats look to extract some of their own demands in any deal to fund the government and end the shutdown.
“Over the past four days, Republicans have made it clear that the only thing they are serious about is taking away the healthcare of the American people,” Jeffries continued. “The stakes are high. Republicans have set in motion a healthcare crisis that has ended Medicaid as we know it and ripped coverage away from millions of hardworking Americans. … If the Affordable Care Act tax credits are not renewed in short order, millions will lose their healthcare coverage, and the cost of premiums, co-pays and deductibles will skyrocket.”
The extension of the expiring Obamacare tax credits have been a focus for Democrats, along with rolling back Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Both of those have been continuously rejected in Senate votes thus far.
The Monday meeting, albeit virtual, marks an attempt from Jeffries to upstage House Republicans, who he said “remain on vacation.”
“Instead of meeting to find a bipartisan agreement to end the shutdown, the President is playing golf, Speaker Johnson cancelled votes next week and House Republicans remain on vacation. The American people deserve better,” he wrote in the letter on Saturday.
But while House Republicans may be out of Washington, D.C., they have insisted there is little reason for them to be there while the Senate hashes out a potential deal.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) suggested on Friday that returning to Washington would be all but useless.
“Why would we come back to just come back?” Cole said, before adding that doing so would be “negotiating against yourself.”
MIKE JOHNSON KEEPS THE HOUSE IN RECESS TO KEEP PRESSURE ON THE UPPER CHAMBER
Johnson has also maintained that the House “will come back into session and do its work as soon as Chuck Schumer allows us to reopen the government,” referencing the top Senate Democrat who has dug in on the shutdown fight.
The House speaker did, however, tell his Republican colleagues in a private call on Saturday that if they need to return to the capital for any potential votes, he would give them 48-hour notice.