Democrats say they’ll lower costs. Can they cut deals with Trump? - USA Today

WASHINGTON − House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is promising voters his party will make life more affordable, if they boot Republicans from power in Congress in the midterms.

While Democrats are expected to win the House in November, President Donald Trump will still be in office for two more years. Democrats’ ability to move their agenda may rest on Jeffries’ ability to cut deals with the Republican president.

That could prove tough, with Democrats promising to investigate, and potentially impeach, Trump and members of his administration, and the president insisting he deserves an A+ for his handling of the economy.

It’s a tricky situation that Jeffries is weighing how to navigate, while pledging that Democrats won’t lose focus or give into what they view as extreme Republican demands.

“As long as the president and the people around him continue to pretend like everything is okay, then it's going to be very difficult to actually get to a point of us decisively doing something in all of these areas,” Jeffries told USA TODAY in an interview a month out from the election. 

Jeffries is likely to come under pressure from progressives in his caucus to push party-line bills like Medicare for All, legislation he does not personally support and that the White House has accused of being socialism and a drag on the federal deficit.

If Democrats gain control, Trump said he’ll primarily act as a “blocker.” But the president has also suggested he’s open to some deal-making with Democrats.

“They're going to want some stuff,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham last month. “You make deals. I mean, it's one of those things.”

There may not be much overlap on Trump and Jeffries' wish lists. The House lawmaker told USA TODAY that Democrats’ top priorities would include passing resolutions to end Trump’s war in Iran and terminate his tariffs.

“Congress needs to reclaim its authority in the area of tariffs,” Jeffries said, “because the way in which it's been abused by Donald Trump has had an adverse impact on the high cost of living.”

In a bid to identify areas of potential collaboration, Jeffries recently met with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and special envoy for peace.

Jeffries told USA TODAY they discussed housing affordability and the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform law he and Kushner worked on in Trump’s first term.

House Speaker Mike Johnson sought to distance Republicans from the Jeffries-Kushner meeting that was widely perceived as the White House testing the waters with Democrats. Johnson told Fox News that Kushner is “not really directly involved” in the day-to-day of the administration.

The tete-a-tete sparked backlash from influential Democrats such as former aide to President Barack Obama and “Pod Save America” host Tommy Vietor, who said on X that the only way Jeffries should work with Kushner is on “demands for documents and subpoenas.”

Kushner has not commented publicly on the meeting. The White House did not comment on the meeting directly in a statement it provided to USA TODAY that defended Kushner's overseas work.

Ashley Etienne, a senior adviser to Nancy Pelosi when she was House speaker, said it’s in the interest of the American people for Jeffries to try to find common ground where he can.

“But my caution to him is that Trump plays five-dimensional chess,” she said.

In the interview, Jeffries said it “remains to be seen” whether he can make deals with Trump. He pointed to the criminal justice reform law, which Trump signed in 2018, and a bipartisan housing bill that passed over the summer as examples of Democrats’ ability to work across the aisle.

“You try to find common ground in order to get something meaningful done for the American people,” Jeffries said. “That's a continuing responsibility for all of us.”

The housing law went into effect after Trump declined to block it but said he would not sign the legislation until the GOP-backed SAVE America Act, aimed at overhauling elections, passed in the Senate. Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the bipartisan legislation and called it a “big yawn.” 

Trump is hard to predict, said Neera Tanden, a former domestic policy adviser to President Joe Biden and the current president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. 

The president could lean in harder to executive orders to try to bypass Congress, she assessed. But if Democrats pick up Senate seats in red states such as Texas and Alaska, in addition to winning the House, it could be a very different conversation.

“It’s up to Trump to see what he wants to do and how battered his party is,” Tanden said. “Maybe Trump will feel like he has to deal.”

Trump and Jeffries are not known to have much of a relationship, even though both hail from New York. They’ve met at the White House once in Trump’s second term, during a September 2025 meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. 

Since then they’ve had their fair share of run-ins, with Trump and the White House posting AI-generated videos of Jeffries wearing a sombrero, which were denounced as racist, amid a government shutdown last year that involved expiring health insurance subsidies. 

In a May post, Trump called Jeffries a “Low IQ” individual, “nothing but a THUG” and a “danger to our Country!” 

More recently, the president has softened his tone. “I think he’s a nice guy,” Trump said in a Punchbowl News interview in August. “I’d probably get along with him very well.”

Jeffries has repeatedly accused the Trump administration of corruption and said Democrats have not ruled out impeaching Trump for an unprecedented third time, setting up the potential for a contentious battle between Democrats and the White House that lasts until the end of the president’s second and final term.

“We have a responsibility to, in all instances − whether it relates to the president, the vice president, Cabinet secretaries, corrupt members of the administration, people on the outside − follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the Constitution, and let the chips fall where they may,” Jeffries said.

Democrats are otherwise mulling actions they can take in the first 100 hours, first 100 days and first year of the new Congress, if they win control of the legislative body, to deliver on their promise to lower costs for the American people, two sources familiar with the plans said.

Party leaders have said they’ll act on housing, health care, gas and utilities, caregiving and groceries and goods, while providing few specifics.

They have been intentionally vague about the bills they would pass, and in what order, as they barrel toward reclaiming the majority in Congress. 

“That's to be discussed in terms of how we move forward,” Jeffries said of the first bill his party would seek to pass.

They are expected to include a repeal of Medicaid changes in Trump's tax law and the reinstatement of expired Obamacare subsidies.

Several Democrats in touch with party leadership said they expect Jeffries to lay out what those bills are immediately after the election.

In 2006, when Democrats ultimately won the House, the party put forward six themes, former Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison said. 

“I know that that model is something that Hakeem and his team are working on,” said Harrison, a former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus.

Tanden said her organization, the Center for American Progress, has also had conversations with Democratic Party leaders about bills they’re considering in the five priority areas they’ve put forward.

“He may veto things,” Tanden said of Trump. “But that's still an opportunity to tell people what you're focused on.”