House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) called for Democrats to have a “strong, determined and dignified” presence at President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.
“The decision to attend the Joint Session is a personal one and we understand that members will come to different conclusions,” Jeffries wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent Monday.
“However, it is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber,” the Democratic leader continued. “The House as an institution belongs to the American people, and as their representatives we will not be run off the block or bullied.”
Jeffries said he and other members of Democratic leadership will attend the speech “to make clear to the nation that there is a strong opposition party ready, willing and able to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the administration.”
The president’s address to Congress is often an opportunity for the minority party to show resistance — either by boycotting the speech altogether, by wearing symbolic garb or by booing at strategic moments in the speech.
This year, Democrats are planning a more measured approach and are hoping to highlight what the mass layoffs of federal workers by Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Seated in the audience will be lawmakers, as well as numerous former federal workers whom Democrats are bringing as their guests. It’s a strategy that represents just the latest piece of a broader campaign to highlight the real-world effects of Trump’s early policy moves on Americans who live far outside the Beltway.
Jeffries, in his letter, called on Democrats to “continue to elevate the stories of everyday Americans who are being harmed in real time by House Republicans and the Trump administration.”
