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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn and Queens will join us in just a minute. Among other things, we'll get his reaction as a New York congressional colleague, as a human being and as a man to the verbal abuse that a Republican Congressman from Florida reportedly heaped on Bronx and Queens, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Capitol steps in front of a reporter from the news organization, The Hill. Congressman Ted Yoho called her a f***ing b****, but he used the real words. The Congresswoman reacted yesterday on the house floor.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: He gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community. I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable.

Brian Lehrer: As for congressmen Yoho, he apologized sort of though denied he used the obscenity, despite it being reported by The Hill. If you don't know The Hill, that's a news organization that's respected by both parties in Washington and tends to lean right in its editorials. Remember he's a 65-year-old white guy who felt he had licensed to talk like that to a 30-year-old woman of color. He did offer kind of an apology.

Congressman Ted Yoho: Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, I'm very cognizant of my language.

Brian Lehrer: If that was an apology, I would hate to hear what your non-apology sound like. AOC reacted to his reaction. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man.

Brian Lehrer: There's that at the same time as Democrats and Republicans are negotiating the next coronavirus relief bill with the economic emergency caused by COVID-19 continuing for so many Americans. The temporary enhanced unemployment benefits expire next week and the small business loans were only supposed to cover two months, what should happen next with them? With us now is Brooklyn and Queens democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, also a top aide to Nancy Pelosi and the house leadership as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. Congressman, always a pleasure. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Good morning, Brian. Great to be on.

Brian Lehrer: I never heard of Congressman Yoho before from a district north of Orlando. I gather he's already not running for reelection this year. What's your reaction to the incident in and of itself and if it suggests anything more systemic?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: While you've never heard of Congressmen Yoho, unfortunately, many of us have over the years, Brian, and so it was not necessarily unexpected that he would engage in such outrageous and outlandish conduct. Though this particular instance is particularly egregious for the reasons that you said forth. Representative Ocasio-Cortez is, as I've stated publicly, an important part of the House Democratic Caucus. She's a talented and passionate public servant. There's just no circumstance where the manner in which Congressman Yoho aggressively approached Representative Ocasio-Cortez is justified and certainly no circumstance where that type of offensive language should ever be tolerated. His apology was inadequate. He needs to rethink it. He needs to publicly restate it. He needs to show some genuine contrition and acknowledgment of the wrongdoing of his conduct.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to read for our listeners part of the original story written by reporter Mike Lillis in The Hill, "Representative Ted Yoho, Republican, from Florida was coming down the steps on the East side of the Capitol on Monday, having just voted when he approached Ocasio-Cortez, who was ascending into the building to cast a vote of her own. In a brief but heated exchange, which was overheard by a reporter, Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was "disgusting" for recently suggesting that poverty and unemployment are driving a spike in crime in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic. "You are out of your freaking mind," Yoho told her. Ocasio-Cortez shot back telling Yoho he was being rude. The two then parted ways. Ocasio-Cortez headed into the building while Yoho, joined by representative Roger Williams, Republican from Texas, began descending toward the house office buildings. A few steps down Yoho offered a parting thought to no one in particular, "F***ing b****," he said, but again, he used the full words that I can't say on the radio. My question to you Congressman is what about Congressman Williams from Texas who The Hill reports witnessed this and Ocasio-Cortez says didn't rebuke Congressman Yoho for it? Is he apologizing for his passivity or acknowledging that Yoho said what The Hill reported?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I haven't seen any statement from Congressman Williams, but I think this speaks to a broader question of culture and tolerance that exists in far too many quarters throughout America. What we have seen, particularly over the last three-and-a-half years, is that when such aggressive, inappropriate, offensive, outrageous, hateful language can emanate from the top leader in the land on a regular basis, then it does have an impact on people's behavior in the halls of Congress and throughout the communities in America. That's not to blame this particular outburst and outrage that occurred from Ted Yoho explicitly on President Trump but there is a culture of intolerance that has taken hold in America and he has fanned those flames repeatedly and intentionally. That is one of the reasons why we think a change in direction on November 3rd is going to be a merited, necessary, and will occur.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the president to whom you refer has not commented on this. At least I haven't seen one, have you?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I have not and I don't expect him to comment in any way that would be constructive so silence is probably the best thing that can happen under these circumstances.

Brian Lehrer: All right, but silence is also endorsement, that kind of passivity when it comes to things like this. Silence is violence, as they say. Because of Yoho's obscenities, another part of what he said isn't being commented on very much. According to the story in The Hill, as I just read it, Yoho first told Ocasio-Cortez she was disgusting for suggesting that poverty and unemployment are driving the spike in crime in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic and besides calling her disgusting for that, he added you are out of your freaking mind. That's all extremely disrespectful too despite it being words that we are allowed to say on the radio, but he called her those things for suggesting what? That poverty and unemployment might have anything to do with crime. Did you notice that part?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Yes. That is a particularly striking part because that speaks to a broader mentality that exists. You see it broadcast by certain news outlets and certain conservative media vehicles that feed into a narrative that President Trump is trying to project, which is to blame others, inspire fear, and try to run on this mindset of a law and order presidency when he's the one that's presiding over the chaos without looking at the deeper issues that plague our society and one of the reasons why you have such a unequal living conditions that occur. I think that Representative Ocasio-Cortez's point in terms of poverty and its correlation to violence is an empirically sound one in any part of the country. If you look at Appalachia, if you look at certain rural communities where you have elevated violence levels or have elevated levels of drug overdoses or illicit activity, so to speak, that often directly correlates with poverty and the lack of opportunity, whether it's in the inner city, rural America, small-town America, or all points in between. The willful ignorance of that, that Ted Yoho displayed is an example of part of the policy challenges that we have here at the Capitol.

Brian Lehrer: Is the spike in shootings taking place, in part, in your district, in Brooklyn and Queens. What do you think is causing it? Is there a mix of factors?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: There are definitely a mix of factors and I think we all have to take a step back and allow for a deep dive into understanding of why it has occurred. Prior to the more recent events surrounding the police reform movement, many of us, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, publicly expressed concern about the likely increase in violence that we would see given the devastating conditions that were impacting, in particular, low-income communities of color, the absence of opportunity, and the potential deprivation and decrease in some of the things that had traditionally been available. Whether that's around Summer Youth Employment and/or extracurricular and after-school, and sports activities. We can, as a society, choose to invest in education and opportunity or incarceration. The most efficient investment would be for us to invest in education and opportunity. That is not always what our society has done. That goes all the way back decades. The Corona Commission Report made very clear that some of the conditions that you see within the inner city, and perhaps where you see elevated levels of violence, in certain instances, can be directly tied to the lack of economic opportunity, to deprivation, to people living in desperate conditions. I grew up in the New York City, Brian, as you know, in the late '80s and early '90s, when I came of age where you had 2,000-plus homicides that were taking place in the midst of the crack cocaine epidemic. We have come a long way in that regard. We don't want to go back. We just want to go forward. Rather than cast blame, my view has been, let's figure out how law enforcement and the police and young people can all come together in the most productive-forward looking way to ensure that we decrease and stop the violence and we elevate economic opportunity so that everyone can pursue the American dream.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls with Brooklyn and Queen’s Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. If you want to react to the exchange between Congressman Yoho and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, now's your chance or any question you have on anything that's going on. For Congressman Jeffries, 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. Feel free to give us a call. Just on that same topic, before we move on to coronavirus relief negotiations, what about the notion that President Trump seems now to be running for re-election on to some degree? That pressure from the Racial Justice Movement is causing the police to pull back from the kinds of proactive enforcement that gets guns off the street because the police are afraid of confrontations begun by the criminals that will wind up getting the cops in trouble. The police unions locally say that too. Real to any degree, in your opinion?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Not at all. It's a nonsensical argument. The reason why I'm confident in saying that is that we've seen this play out before. When we were challenging the overly aggressive Stop-and-Frisk Program, that was subsequently declared to be unconstitutional here in New York City, it was defended by Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly and others on the principle that if we scaled back the aggressive Stop-and-Frisk encounters, in one instance in 2011, more than 685,000 people stopped to question and frisk, harassed, embarrassed, in some cases, brutalized. The overwhelming majority of individuals non-violent individuals who were innocent of any wrongdoing according to the NYPD’s own data acknowledgments. We argued that Stop-and-Frisk Program was doing more harm than good. The counter-argument was, if we scale it back crime will go up and we'll see levels of violence unseen since the crack cocaine epidemic. As you know, Brian, what happened after the Federal Court declared Stop-and-Frisk which was practiced by the NYPD unconstitutional, and it was dramatically scaled back, Stop-and-Frisk encounters dropped to levels below 50,000 per year. When there was a high of 685,000 and crime didn't go up, it went down dramatically. I think the best thing that we can do is to promote a tolerant relationship between the police and the community where there's a sharing of information. One of the challenges that we face in some inner-city communities where you see elevated levels of violence, where a small number of people are doing the greatest degree of harm is that because there is no trust, there's no cooperation, there's no sharing of information in many instances, then some of the individuals who are engaging in wrongdoing can do so with impunity. The aggressive police tactics that target and brutalize folks without justification do far more harm to public safety than good.

Brian Lehrer: The Coronavirus Relief Bill, the House passed a version you call the Heroes Hack. Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans are struggling to come up with their version, then you'll negotiate to reconcile, I presume. Can you tell us what's most important to you in the House Bill and where you see the most difficult points of difference likely to come from the Senate?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: The most important thing that we can do is to enact a comprehensive, thorough, and transformative response, which is what the HEROES Act was all about on May 15th. We have to start with that concept because if you don't understand that we are in the midst of a pandemic that has been incredibly deadly. More than 140,000 people dead. More than 4 million Americans infected by the coronavirus. Over 50 million Americans unemployed. The economy in recession, possibly heading towards depression-like conditions but Mitch McConnell thinks it's all good, there's no reason to do anything significant that is the fundamental problem which has brought us to this moment. That's been led, that idea that everything's fine, it's all going to work out. We had 15 cases it'll be down to zero. All of a sudden, like magic, the virus is going to disappear. If you have that kind of mindset, then you fail to act transformatively. Hopefully, we're seeing some indications based on the most recent cancellation, for instance, of the Make America Hate Again convention that was being planned in Jacksonville, Florida. That the President gets, for political reasons, that he has to now act responsibly and decisively. If that change in approach has occurred, then the data can drive the intervention. That means that we're going to do things similar to what was done in the HEROES Act where we have $875 billion set aside for states and localities so that we don't see dramatic cuts to public health, public education, public transportation, public safety, public sanitation, and the public good. We set aside about $185 billion to provide direct assistance to tenants and to homeowners who are struggling to pay their rent and/or their mortgages. We authorized an additional round of direct stimulus payments at the same level that was authorized in the CARES Act to every American who makes $75,000 or less, who would get $1,200. We increased the amount of eligibility per child from $500 to $1,200, recognizing that things haven't gotten better, they continue to get worse. The last thing, Brian, which is probably the most pressing item in terms of deadline and timeline is extending that $600 per week, increase in unemployment insurance, that is scheduled to run out on July 31st. The HEROES Act extends that into next year because we recognize that we're still in the midst of a dangerous recession that is hurting the well-being of the American people.

Brian Lehrer: I’ve seen a small-business group in New York City say they're having trouble getting employees to return to work because the $600 enhancement over the usual unemployment benefits is giving many people more income by staying out of work than by working. I've heard one proposal for the new bill that would cap benefits at 70% of the person's income from their jobs. Is that something you could support?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: That's not something that I can support because I think this moment requires us to reevaluate how we are going to create prosperity in every single zip code. Not just for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected, but in every single zip code. There's a difference in approach here. There are some-- Not saying this is the perspective of the small business group. However, there are some Republican senators who basically believe that everyday Americans should work on poverty wages. That the problem with the unemployment insurance is that we are trying to provide everyone with a decent ability to live with some degree of integrity and comfort to every American. That is what the $600 per week increase is designed to accomplish. If wages were higher throughout America, then the $600 per week increase would not be a disincentive to work to the extent that that is even a legitimate argument that is being advanced. It seems to me the market should respond at this moment by making sure that everyone can receive a living wage. I believe that the overwhelming majority of the American people want to work, but they just want to make sure that their basic American contract, when you work hard and play by the rules, it allows you to live and provide a comfortable living for yourself and for your family. That is the American middle-class dream. It has been threatened by an approach where the overwhelming majority of prosperity has been shared by the privileged few, not by the people. That has to change.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Brian in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Hi Brian.

Brian: Hi Brian. Thank you very much for having me.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Good morning, Brian.

Brian: Good morning. I wanted to make a point that I think people really need to start acting on in many different ways. You both talked about, I believe it's Congressman Yoho, his half apology, or his apology. I think we need to start saying he did not apologize at all. What he said was, "I have a wife a daughter. I'm very careful about my words." He never apologized. I think in that statement, he deliberately did not apologize. For the people on the right, that just put more fuel to the fire then say, "Yes, we don't have to apologize. Especially people like these." Targets like Cortez who they're going to continue to attack. He called her disgusting. As if that wasn't bad enough. Then he called her this F and B. I think people should-- I'm not sure who, but they should be rising up to ask for his resignation because there was no apology. It was absolutely disgusting. They should be rising up for Trump. The reason I say that is because I think sometimes there's this tendency to let these things go and think they're smaller and that there are bigger fish to fry, but there are not. The more we let them go, the more they're getting away with it, yes, but they're moving on to other topics. People are being silenced. People are afraid to speak out. This is also perfect fuel for the fire that everyone's complaining about. Trump is a terrible person. He is a racist. It's not a question of, "Oh, he says this or that." He's a racist. A couple of weeks ago, he told students from foreign countries who are here illegally at school that if there are only online courses because of corona, they have to go back to their countries. That's racist. That's racism and people who support him or don't say anything are racist. I think people have to start calling people out for simple support of Trump as being racist. Almost the whole party is racist. In this case, I think we need to stop calling it an apology or a bad apology. He didn't make an apology. That's a fact. He did not. He knows it in his head. Republicans know it. They hate her. They hate people like her. I put forth the idea that there's this overall feeling on the right that with the protest and corona, but especially with the protest and George Floyd, I think this race discussion-- I don't want to be offensive to anyone who is of color, but I think this race discussion, race war, in a sense, really is over. This war everybody done, it lost huge I think desperate things on the internet. I see a lot of right people saying, "Why are we letting these things happen? Why are we sitting back and watching all this stuff?" I think it's because they know they lost. They can't go out and protest against what's going on because there's some extremity as far as the violence is still going on, but it was a war. It was a war of the people and it became an international war. Global. It's over. They lost as far as or at least in your ideology-

Brian Lehrer: Who lost?

Brian: Again.

Brian Lehrer: Who lost?

Brian: The right or anyone supporting racism. I think all the people supporting the right and Trump in any way are racist by support, by silence. They don't have to come out and sing, "Oh, we don't like black people. Oh, we don't like this and that." If they're supporting it. All of these facts or what he was doing has to be brought to the floor. It has to be defined [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Brian, let me get a response from the Congressman. You've put a lot of good stuff out there on the table. Congressman, you want to respond to a couple of points there. One on the apology. I think in fairness, we should say that Congressman Yoho used the words I apologize at some point. I think he did that, but then the way he did it wasn't really an apology in certain respects. I just want to be accurate in the reporting if he did use those words, confirm that for me, if that's accurate. Then on labeling Trump supporters racists, the other main point that the caller brought up, where are you on either of those things?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Well, you are correct Brian with respect to Ted Yoho that he did use the word I apologize on the floor, but subsequently walked it back with his words and his characterizations. It was a half-baked fake apology. The good news is, as you pointed out, Brian, he's on his way out, never to be seen again and presumably never to be heard from again in any meaningful way. I think history has a way of creating that dynamic generally. We, of course, are in the midst of honoring the life and legacy of the great John Lewis. He taught us to never give up, never give in, keep our eyes on the prize, keep the faith, and of course, to go out and make good trouble. That's exactly what he did. John Lewis, the boy from Troy, helped to change America through all of his actions, including on the Edmund Pettus bridge. We know that Sheriff Jim Clark of Dallas County was the provocateur in that situation. The instrument of trying to maintain racial oppression and Jim Crow, once that voting rights act was passed in 1965, inspired by what took place on the Edmund Pettus bridge with great leadership, of course, from Dr. King and Lyndon Baines Johnson, the voters of Dallas County, which includes Selma, voted out Sheriff Jim Clark in the next election. You know what he did the rest of his life? He went on to sell trailers, never to be heard from again. Today we celebrate the life and the legacy Democrats and Republicans on the floor of the house of a great hero and a great American, John Lewis. I don't want to spend too much time talking about Ted Yoho. He's going to go the way of people like Sheriff Jim Clark, but I appreciate the caller's points. In terms of the broader dynamics, without question, you had a lot of Trump supporters who were voting for what they believe to be change as compared to the status quo. They thought that Donald Trump was the stick of dynamite, and we're going to roll him into the city and blow up the whole thing because it all needs to change. That's why you have Obama-Trump voters, as hard as that is to believe, hundreds of counties that voted for Obama twice, then voted for Donald Trump. Those would change versus the status quo voters who I don't believe were voting based on the racially provocative rhetoric of Donald Trump. Then you add a whole set of people that Donald Trump was appealing to explicitly based on racial fear and racial identity. In part, that's what Make America Great Again was all about. In part, that was what his sentence, "This is your last chance, folks." It was a diabolically clever way of saying, "You got a black president. You've had one for eight years." The country is changing. Immigration is altering the complexion of this nation, so to speak. He explicitly went after Mexicans and Mexican Americans. "This is your last chance folks. Elect me. I am the firewall." That was racially provocative and everything else that we've seen him do in many ways in that xenophobic space is designed and to appeal to those type of voters. Of course, for five years, he perpetrated the racist lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States of America in order to try and delegitimize the nation's first black president. We know who Donald Trump is. His behavior speaks for itself. Res ipsa loquitur is the Latin phrase that I learned in law school. It speaks for itself. At this point, we need to articulate a broader vision of America that brings people together, that promotes prosperity in every single zip code, and that fights for the people. That's The House Democratic Caucus agenda. That's what we're all about. That's what I think will prevail in November.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about status quo, there's no bigger status quo in American history than white and male supremacy. There's that. I know you've got to go in a minute. Let me get in one more call for you. Carol, in Manhattan, you're on WYNC with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. Hi, Carol. Right to your point because he's got to go in a minute to go vote. Hi.

Carol: Okay, I think Yoho should be censored. I'd heard Ocasio-Cortez's speech. I watched it twice, actually. He also called her dangerous. The other thing I want to add since you're short of time, way back in the day, Jesse Jackson said, "Educate rather than incarcerate." I think we need to bring that back where there's an emphasis on services. Instead of saying, "Defund the police," find some other phrasing, re-frame that. There's a whole lot more I'd like to say, but you said I have short time, so there it is.

Brian Lehrer: Call again, Carol. Congressman, any reaction to Carol in Manhattan?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: Yes. Thank you, Carol, for laying that out. With respect to what Jesse Jackson referred to as the prison industrial complex system that was constructed where you basically take the lives of young, black and brown individuals, largely males in its initial incarnation in the inner city and view them as economic commodities as part of the war on drugs when their incarceration becomes the fuel for the economy in other parts of the country with factories and plants and manufacturing activity has left and prisons were built up in their place. That's a system that we certainly need to deconstruct and disinvest and strike a series of blows against the mass incarceration epidemic as we began to do in Congress with passage of the bipartisan First Step Act in 2018. There's much more work that needs to be done. We incarcerate more people in America than any other country in the world. When the failed war on drugs first started in 1971, when Nixon declared drug abuse public enemy number one, we had less than 350,000 people incarcerated in America. Today it's 2.2 million disproportionately black and Latino, a significant number of them, nonviolent drug offenders. It's a stain on our society. It has destroyed lives, destroyed families, destroyed individuals, destroyed communities, and we need to reverse it with the fierce urgency of now.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, you're on the judiciary committee and you were one of the House impeachment managers. What's your reaction to a new report about Trump and Russia, that includes a note sent by FBI Agent Peter Strzok a month after Trump's inauguration in 2017, that reportedly says, "We have not seen evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with Russian intelligence officers"? If that really came from the very Trump skeptical Peter Strzok right there after the inauguration, Republicans are asking, why did you all spend two years having the Mueller investigation? Have you seen that?

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries: I did see that. I think that note came very early and it's certainly being taken out of context. Had that note come two years into the investigation, that would be one thing. The investigation hadn't even really begun at that particular point in time because Bob Mueller had not been appointed as the special counsel to investigate the entire situation. What he did uncover, Bob Mueller, is that Russia interfered in the election in sweeping and systematic fashion, point one. He also uncovered that the intent was to artificially place Donald Trump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, point two, not disputable. Third, that the Trump campaign explicitly welcomed Russia's assistance. That is all in Volume One of the Mueller Report. Bob Mueller is not a flaming liberal or progressive. He is a lifelong Republican, so was Jim Comey, so is Christopher Wray, the current FBI Director, so was Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General who appointed Mueller as the special counsel and oversaw the investigation. This is all indisputable. The other last point that I'll make, Brian, as I head to the House floor to vote is that no one is disputing that in August of 2016, Paul Manafort sat down with a Russian connected individual named Kilimnik and shared with Kilimnik polling data for the following states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and I believe Minnesota and one or two other states as well. It just so happens that subsequent to that meeting the mullein and malignant Russian activity that took place in those states started to occur. Obviously, those are the states that were central to Donald Trump's electoral victory. The past is the past, but we have the historical record does speak for itself. Donald Trump will do himself in, in terms of his re-election, not because of the Russian investigation, not even because of the Ukrainian scandal where he engaged in an incredibly corrupt abuse of power, but because his coronavirus response has been the worst failure of a president in American history and the American people see it for what it is at this point and know we have to move in a different direction.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat from Brooklyn and Queens. We always appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

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