SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — As national Democrats continue looking for a message that will resonate with the American public enough to put them back in power, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday it could be as simple as: “America is too expensive.”

Speaking in Illinois’ state capital about President Donald Trump and GOP funding cuts to public aid and benefit programs, the New York City congressman argued high costs continue to plague average Americans.

“Housing costs are too high. Grocery costs are too high. Utility costs are too high. Insurance costs are too high. Child care costs are too high,” Jeffries said, flanked by U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, both of Springfield. “America is too expensive. We need to drive down the high cost of living. Donald Trump has failed to do it.”

Before arriving in Springfield, where he’s expected to appear Wednesday with Gov. JB Pritzker at the Illinois State Fair, Jeffries hit the same message on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” As dozens of Texas Democrats fled their state for Illinois to prevent Republicans from passing a gerrymandered Texas congressional map to gain GOP seats for the midterm elections, Jeffries said the GOP efforts are happening “because Republicans don’t have any track record of accomplishment that is designed to focus on the American people, to make life better for the American people, to lower costs for the people of Texas and beyond. And so they want to rig the elections to cling on to power.”

Jeffries’ comments come as the midterms have begun to take shape more than six months after Trump took office. On economic issues, Trump has instituted a wide array of tariffs, which have increased some consumer costs and created uncertainty for businesses and the financial markets. In July, the consumer price index, which measures the average change in pricing over time, rose 2.7% over the last year for all urban consumers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During their event in Springfield, Jeffries, Budzinski and Durbin said massive tax breaks for the wealthy and spending cuts that were cornerstones of Trump’s domestic legislation will deprive many Americans of federal health care funding, food assistance and early childhood education programs.

“Democrats are committed to fixing a broken health care system and making sure that health care is available to everyday Americans that’s affordable and accessible when they need it,” Jeffries said. “And lastly, we have to clean up corruption in Washington, D.C., and deliver a government that actually works for the people and not for the privileged few.”

Although Democrats are out of power in Washington, Jeffries, who has served in the U.S. House since 2013, said he thinks the party has gained traction since Trump won the White House and Republicans took control of both chambers in Congress. Since then, Jeffries noted a Democratic-backed judge won a coveted seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he said Trump has become “deeply unpopular,” following the tax break and spending measure.

“There is a reason why Donald Trump has ordered Republicans to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering of the congressional map. It’s because he wants to rig the midterm elections,” Jeffries said. “Republicans are on the run all across America.”

Jeffries on “Morning Joe” also spoke in support of the Texas House Democrats who traveled to the Chicago area and elsewhere to prevent the Texas House from establishing a quorum to vote on a new congressional map pushed by Republicans. Jeffries said the whole saga has shown how voters across the U.S. should be “able to choose the people they want to represent them in Washington, as opposed to politicians and party bosses choosing their voters.”

“The Texas Democrats are standing up for the principle of free and fair elections,” Jeffries said. “Nothing is more American than that. We are at an all-hands-on-deck moment. And so, I certainly support the principle that we have to utilize every single tool in the toolbox in California, in New York, here in Illinois, from coast to coast.”

The Texas Democrats have been joined by Pritzker and other Democrats in accusing Republicans of kowtowing to Trump, whose administration is encouraging similar actions in other GOP-led states as a means of holding the party’s slim majority in the U.S. House in next year’s midterm elections for the remainder of Trump’s second term. They have noted repeatedly that political maps are usually redrawn only once per decade following the U.S. census, and have said Republicans are trying to change the rules and disenfranchise Texas citizens for purely political reasons.

Texas Republicans have countered that the congressional maps in many Democratic states, including Illinois, are gerrymandered. Pritzker has said that Illinois’ 14-3 Democratic majority congressional map passed legal muster.

As Republicans try to force Democrats back to Texas to vote on the remap, GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and others filed a petition — in what at least one legal expert called long-shot litigation — with a western Illinois court to compel Illinois law enforcement to enforce civil warrants from the Republican Texas House speaker against the Democratic lawmakers who sought refuge in Illinois.

On Tuesday, Jeffries also addressed U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s threat from last week of getting the FBI involved in trying to ensure the lawmakers return to Texas — a request from the veteran Texas Republican that he said was granted by the law enforcement agency. Jeffries called Cornyn’s actions “pitiful” as he’s trying to “weaponize the FBI” for political purposes at a time when he faces a contentious primary reelection bid against Paxton, who is vying for Cornyn’s seat.

“It’s sad because the senator has (presented) himself for decades as someone of integrity,” Jeffries said of Cornyn on “Morning Joe.” “And now that he’s in the race of his life and is on his way to losing the Texas Republican primary for his own reelection, he is targeting elected officials who he believes are his adversaries solely for political gain.”

“The FBI obviously should be focused on doing other things in terms of targeting child predators, terrorists or drug traffickers, not being used as political pawns in a game that (Texas Gov.) Greg Abbott and John Cornyn and Texas Republican Party bosses are trying to utilize for their own political power,” Jeffries said on “Morning Joe.” “This is the same principle connected to the fact that you have more than 100 people who’ve lost their lives in Texas, including dozens of children, tragically in the historic flooding. There is clear evidence that there has been mismanagement or failure to act decisively.”

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