House minority leader on Democrats’ DHS demands, Iran and midterm elections

(CBS, KYMA) - House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) spoke with Ed O'Keefe on Face the Nation Sunday about the negotiations over reopening the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

According to O'Keefe, the negotiations center around specific policy changes Democrats are demanding in regards to how immigration agents conduct operations.

The Democrats' demands, according to O'Keefe, include requiring agents to show their identification, wear body cameras, take off their masks, stop racial profiling and seek judicial warrants when entering private property.

This prompted O'Keefe to ask Rep. Jeffries if he's willing to compromise to let any of these go to get the government reopened, to which Jeffries said:

"Our value proposition is simple, taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill them, as we horrifically saw in Minneapolis with the cold blooded killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. We know, and the American people clearly know, that ICE is totally out of control and they need to be reined in. Because the American people deserve immigration enforcement that is fair, that is just, and that is humane. And so, we need dramatic change at ICE, including, but not limited to, the types of things that you laid out before any DHS funding bill moves forward...We're willing to have a good faith conversation about everything, but fundamentally we need change that is dramatic, that is bold, that is meaningful and that is transformational. And these are common sense things. For instance, judicial warrants should be required before ICE agents can storm private property or rip everyday Americans out of their homes. We need to make sure that there are actual independent investigations, so that if state and local laws are violated, in many cases, violently violated, that state and local authorities have the ability to criminally investigate and criminally prosecute anyone who has violated the law. Because we cannot trust Kristi Noem or Pam Bondi to conduct an independent investigation. We believe that sensitive locations should be off limits, sensitive locations like houses of worship, schools, hospitals or polling sites, and that fundamentally ICE should be targeting violent felons who are here unlawfully, as opposed to violently targeting law abiding immigrant families, which is completely inconsistent with what Donald Trump promised the American people he would do."

During the interview, O'Keefe and Jeffries talked about the Pentagon reportedly planning for the possibility of a sustained, weeks-long operation against Iran if diplomacy fails and President Donald Trump opts to attack.

This led O'Keefe to ask Jeffries, who is a member of the Gang of Eight as they get briefed on national security matters, what he knows about the plans, or what he would want to learn as a member of the Gang of Eight, and Jeffries said:

"The administration, as has been the case since the very beginning of this presidency, has been slow to provide information both to the Gang of Eight members of Congress, the legislative leadership and the top Democrats and Republicans on the Intel Committee and certainly hasn't provided a significant amount of information to Congress in general. These people within the administration, the extremists, they don't seem to believe that Congress is a separate and co-equal branch of government. We are. In fact, the power to declare war is exclusively given to Congress in Article I of the United States Constitution. Now, the American people want Donald Trump and Republicans to actually keep their promise and focus on driving down the high cost of living and fixing our broken health care system. It was Donald Trump, who promised, in fact, that costs will go down on day one. Costs haven't gone down. We're in the midst of an affordability crisis that hasn't been resolved. Perhaps the president should focus on making life better for the American people. Period. Full stop."

Later in the interview, O'Keefe and Jeffries talked about the midterm elections, with the House Minority Leader saying the Democrats need to net at least three seats in the House to take the majority.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to O'Keefe, considers 44 of the 435 seats in the House in play, including south-central Virginia, a district in South Carolina, southern Minnesota, central Colorado and the at-large seat in Montana; all five were recently added last week.

When asked how many seats, at minimum, does he see Democrats winning if the election were to happen right now, Jeffries said:

"If the election were held today, we're taking back control of the House of Representatives, and I'm not convinced that it would necessarily be close. But these are battles that are going to be waged, district by district by district, we know we're winning seats now in deep red territory. We saw that in Miami in December, where we won the mayor's race for the first time in 30 years by 20 points. And then in January, of course, we flipped a seat in the Texas State Senate that Donald Trump had just won by 17 points. The Democratic candidate won it by 14. That was a 31-point over-performance. And then just last weekend in Louisiana, we flipped the House seat that Trump had won by 14. We won that...by 24 points. That was a 37-point over-performance. My point is we're winning across the country, in blue states and purple states and red states, because the American people know we're the only ones focused on driving down the high cost of living, fixing our broken health care system and making sure that immigration enforcement is fair and just."

To watch more of O'Keefe's interview with Jeffries, click here.