Rep. Hakeem Jeffries breaks record in defiant speech to delay Trump's bill

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Jul 3, 2025

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Thursday broke the record for longest “magic minute” speech on the House floor as he sought to stall a vote on the "Big Beautiful Bill."

It was still dark out at 4:52 a.m. when Rep. Jeffries stood up on the floor of the House of Representatives and started to denounce President Donald Trump’s sprawling budget bill.

As morning dawned, the New York Democrat talked on, denouncing the cuts on Medicaid and food stamps in the bill as a crime against the American people.

By lunchtime, he passed 8 1/2 hours of nonstop speechifying, breaking a record set by ex-Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy in 2021.

“I never thought that I’d be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene,” Jeffries said. “It’s a crime scene, going after the health, and the safety, and the well-being of the American people.”

“And as Democrats,” he said, “We want no part of it.”

He finally wrapped up at 1:37 p.m., a total of eight hours and 45 minutes. Jeffries was permitted to speak as long as he wanted under a tradition called the “magic minute” reserved for party leaders.

As the minutes and hours ticked by, Jeffries ticked off a laundry list of Americans whom he said would be harmed by Trump’s bill, including veterans, the working class, small-business owners, employees trying to unionize, federal workers, Medicaid beneficiaries and customers in Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges.

Despite their lockstep opposition, Democrats lack the votes in Congress to stop the measure Trump calls the Big Beautiful Bill. He’s expected to sign it into law on July 4, notching a huge political win for himself and his Republican allies.

So Jeffries’ speech was really about framing it as “an all-out assault on the American people” ahead of next year’s midterm elections and beyond.

“This is personal to us,” Jeffries said.

More than eight hours into his opposing presentation, Jeffries said Trump’s rhetoric about helping Americans in their daily lives was nonsense.

“Not a single thing in Donald Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill will meaningfully make life more affordable for everyday Americans,” he said.

If Jeffries’ marathon speech wasn’t enough to communicate the Democrats’ uniform opposition to Trump’s policy priorities, he summed it up in a two-word rallying cry: “Hell no!”

“We were a ‘Hell No!’ last week, a ‘Hell No!’ this week, a ‘Hell No!’ yesterday, a ‘Hell No!’ today, and we’ll continue to be a ‘Hell No!’ on this effort to hurt the American people.”

One of Jeffries’ recurring themes was attacks on the hypocrisy of Republican lawmakers who sought to distance themselves from some planks in the bill, but wound up caving to Trump and voting for it anyway.

“There are some people in this town who go to church on Sunday and pray, that’s P-R-A-Y,” Jeffries said. “Then they come to the Capitol on Monday and prey — that’s P-R-E-Y — on the American people.”

“I’m not down with that,” Jeffries said.

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