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LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Leading off our discussion tonight, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Mr. Leader, it's really an honor to have you join us tonight. Thank you very much.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Great to be with you, Lawrence.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: President Biden released his budget that looks like a very big job for Speaker Hakeem Jeffries if you get enough Democrats into the House next year, that Biden agenda becomes the Speaker Jeffries agenda. What, for you, are the most important things, that you believe would have to get done legislatively by the House of Representatives?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we look forward as Democrats to continuing to be supportive of President Biden and his forward-looking agenda. The budget that was released today would continue the effort to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up with a focus on working families and middle class families and, of course, low-income families all across America. It's a budget that will continue the work to lower costs for everyday Americans. We've made progress in that area, particularly as it relates to driving down the high price of lifesaving prescription drugs. And as President Biden mentioned during the State of the Union address, which was Spectacular, that work needs to continue. And we look forward to partnering on that. And as President Biden has indicated in the context of his budget, we need to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare, not try to eradicate it as we know it, which is clearly what Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans would like to do.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Could you share with us for just a moment what it was like to be in the room for that State of the Union address? And I know they're not all the same, but that one was-was really extraordinary in the way that the President made it interactive. There were so many lines that he spontaneously came up with it on the spot because of what he was getting, negative feedback noises from the Republican side of the House.

LEADER JEFFRIES: You know, it was a hostile work environment that President Biden was dealing with in terms of delivering a State of the Union address with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and others who are completely out of control and behave in a manner unbecoming of a Member of the United States Congress. But President Biden knew what he was dealing with. It was high stakes. It was intense, and it was also an electric environment. And his remarks were strong.They was serious. They were substantive. And they penetrated. And he kept it at a high level from the very beginning of his remarks, starting, as you indicated, Lawrence, by referencing FDR and the dynamics in this country during the start of World War Two. And he stayed at a high level all the way through to the very end.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: I want to listen to more of what the President said about the billionaire's tax. This is in New Hampshire today.

PRESIDENT BIDEN (VIDEO): You know what their average tax rate is? 8.2% taxes. Anybody want to trade their tax rate? I'm serious. If we just charge them a higher of tax code, charging them 25%, not the highest rate, 25%. You know how much that would raise over the next ten years? $400 billion, $40 billion a year. Imagine what we could do. From cutting the deficit to providing for childcare, providing health care, to continue to provide our military with all they need.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: As you know, we've been in a cycle for decades now where Republican presidents come into office with Republican assistance in the Congress, and they enact stunning tax cuts that dramatically increase the budget deficit, dramatically increase the national debt. And that's followed at some point by a Democratic administration and Democratic president who feels the responsibility to rebuild fiscal sanity by increasing taxes. And in that cycle, over the decades, I haven't heard a Democrat find the case, make the case, in speeches for the Democratic tax policy better than I heard Joe Biden in the State of the Union address and now out on the campaign trail since then. As you know, as the Constitution requires, all tax legislation begins under your jurisdiction in the House of Representatives. The House has to go first. In what you're hearing about the Biden approach to taxes, is that possible with the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives?

LEADER JEFFRIES: I certainly believe, so. And we support President Biden's vision for making sure that we have a tax code that is centered on economic growth and growing the middle class and all those Americans who aspire to be part of it. And through things like the enhanced and improved Child Tax Credit, which was part of the American Rescue Plan, but then Republicans allowed it to lapse, we want to be able to restore it in the most robust fashion, because it was an incredible tax cut for working families, for low-income families, and for middle class families in terms of, returning money into their pockets that could be used for day-to-day expenses. It was a spectacular success. And when you juxtapose that, with the extreme MAGA Republican vision, when they had the ability, to address tax code issues, what was their response? The GOP tax scam, where 83% of the benefits went to the wealthiest 1%, and saddled our children and grandchildren with $2 trillion worth of debt unnecessarily in order to subsidize the lifestyles of the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected. So, President Biden is leaning into this issue. I think it's a winning issue, but more importantly, it's the right issue for the American people in terms of tax fairness.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: As you know, one of your leading predecessors, House Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill used to say all politics is local, by which he meant, he had a massive majority of Democrats in the House of Representatives because they all ran on local issues, whether they were being elected in Alabama or Alaska or anywhere else. And he never tried to impose or suggest to them a national campaign message. Has that balance changed? Surely, House races do involve local issues, but is there a new balance, in which the House races that you're looking at this year also have a unifying national message?

LEADER JEFFRIES: Well, we have a top-line lens in terms of how we are conducting ourselves here in Washington, D.C., that I think unifies the Caucus from Progressives, to New Dems, to Blue Dogs and all points in between, which is that we're going to continue to put people over politics and to focus on kitchen table, bread and butter issues like lowering costs, better-paying jobs, growing the middle class and, of course, keeping our community safe. And we've said, Lawrence, from the very beginning that we will find bipartisan common ground with our Republican colleagues on any issue, whenever and wherever possible, in order to make life better for the American people. But at the same period of time, we'll push back against their extremism whenever necessary. And what we've seen is that they're extreme in every way possible. Extreme on reproductive freedom, they want to criminalize abortion care, get rid of IVF, impose a nationwide ban. We believe in a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. We believe in Social Security and Medicare. We want to protect and strengthen it. They want to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. That's extreme. We believe in democracy. President Trump – or former President Trump – has indicated he wants to be a dictator on day one. And so they, by their extremism, have in some ways nationalized the stakes because they are so out of control. We're going to continue to put people over politics.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, now one election away from being Speaker Jeffries. Thank you very, very much for starting off our discussions tonight.

LEADER JEFFRIES: Thanks, Lawrence.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Thank you.