Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are ready to vote on President Donald Trump‘s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but they had to wait for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to wrap things up first.
Jeffries, the Democratic leader, took to the House floor early Thursday morning to rail against the legislation he and other Democrats have warned will pull the social safety net from under millions of Americans and their children — and his speech lasted almost nine hours.
Jeffries began speaking just after 5 a.m. Thursday, delaying the final vote in the chamber. According to ABC News, he picked apart the bill and some Republicans who voted for it, as stacks of binders sat next to the podium.
“I’ve been given 15 minutes each on a bill of such significant magnitude as it relates to the health, the safety and the well-being of the American people and because that debate was so limited, I feel the obligation, Mr. Speaker, to stand on this house floor and take my sweet time to tell the stories and that’s exactly what I intend to do,” Jeffries said, before launching into a speech criticizing Republicans’ deference to Trump, reading through personal accounts of people concerned about losing their health care coverage, and recounting American history.
“People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the health care of the American people,” Jeffries said, focusing much of his speech on the bill’s potential to impact Medicaid, the federal program that primarily protects senior adults and people with disabilities. “I’m sad. I never thought I would be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene.”
It’s reported that the House stayed up all night debating Trump’s agenda, and Jeffries used a tool known as the “magic minute” that permits leaders to speak for an unlimited time, racking up a total of eight hours and 44 minutes of speaking time.
Jeffries blew past the record for a “magic minute” speech, set by then-House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who spoke for eight hours and 32 minutes in 2021 when debating then-president Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.
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