Donald Trump, who encouraged an insurrection, threatened to shoot protesters and fantasized about public executions of his political rivals, has demanded an apology from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries after he encouraged Democrats to fight the president’s agenda “in the streets.”
“While President Trump remains focused on uniting our country and delivering the mandate set by the American people, the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, incites violence calling for people to fight ‘in the streets’ against President Trump’s agenda,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai told Fox News Digital.
“This unhinged violent rhetoric is dangerous,” Desai said. “Leader Jeffries should immediately apologize.”
Jeffries’ spokesperson Christie Stephenson dismissed the GOP’s pearl-clutching as “laughable.”
“Republicans are the party that pardons violent felons who assault police officers,” she said. “Democrats are the party of John Lewis and the right to petition the government peacefully.”
Jeffries made the “controversial” remarks Friday when asked about Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ continued deference to Trump and whether he remained a “good fit” to lead the Big Apple.
BREAKING: The White House DEMANDS an apology from Hakeem Jeffries for his inciting violence earlier today. pic.twitter.com/FpwgzVcQoQ
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 31, 2025
“Right now, we’re going to keep focus on the need to look out for everyday New Yorkers and everyday Americans who are under assault by an extreme MAGA Republican agenda that is trying to cut taxes for billionaires, donors, and wealthy corporations and then stick New Yorkers and working-class Americans across the country with the bill,” Jeffries said.
“That’s not acceptable. We are going to fight it legislatively,” he continued. “We are going to fight it in the courts. We’re going to fight it in the streets.”
“You should really get a quote from one of the violent criminals President Trump just let on the streets,” a spokesperson for House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California told Fox News Digital, referencing Trump’s recent move pardons of almost all of the defendants with charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. “Or the one who immediately got picked up on child pornography charges.”
Or you could look at Trump’s own speeches, in which he often exhorts his supporters to “fight like hell.”
For instance, in his speech before the Jan. 6 riots Trump used the word “fight” or “fighting” 20 times,” as Rep. Madeleine Dean made note of during the president’s second impeachment trial.
But Republicans seem convinced that their most important function is stoking MAGA indignation.
“The Democratic Leader’s comments are deranged but not unexpected,” Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said in a statement to Fox. “Senate Republicans are fighting to make America safer and more prosperous while the Democrats remain obsessed with protecting criminal illegal aliens, identity politics, and unhinged attacks on President Trump.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota was slightly more measured in his condemnation, posted on X: “House Minority Leader [Jeffries] should promptly apologize for his use of inflammatory and extreme rhetoric.”
“President Trump and the Republicans are focused on uniting the country; Jeffries needs to stop trying to divide it,” Emmert said.
Some, including Fox News, tried to compare Jeffries’ remarks to comments from Democratic California congresswoman Maxine Waters in 2018, when she famously came under fire after she encouraged supporters to fight back against the Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.
“Let’s make sure we show up whenever we have to show up,” Waters said at a protest in Los Angeles. “And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcomed anymore, anywhere,”
Which is a far cry from “fight in the streets.”
