A major congressional adversary of President Donald Trump said that his rhetoric has gone too far.
During CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, host Dana Bash asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about his response to Trump’s Truth Social post from earlier in the day, where he wrote: “Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat Party!”
The Democratic congressman responded bluntly: “Donald Trump should keep his reckless mouth shut before he gets somebody killed.”
Throughout both of his presidential terms, Trump, 79, has repeatedly railed against the Democratic Party, blaming oppositional officials for nearly every single problem in America.
The president and his officials frequently scapegoat their bipartisan counterparts for issues such as affordability, immigration, and, most recently, airport chaos.
On Sunday, Trump reaffirmed his Saturday claim that he would move ICE agents to assist TSA employees at airport security, as the effects of the Department of Homeland Security shutdown have led to longer wait times and staffing shortages.
Democratic lawmakers have refused to approve an additional funding bill for DHS until ICE and Border Patrol commit to reforming their aggressive immigration enforcement tactics. The decision follows the agency’s disastrous crackdown in Minnesota, which resulted in two American citizens being shot and killed by federal officers.
The president’s announcement surprised DHS officials and left them scrambling to formulate a plan to accommodate it, CBS News reported on Sunday.
“I have no idea what we’re doing,” one unnamed DHS official told the outlet regarding Trump’s decision.
Earlier in his appearance, Jeffries criticized Trump’s decision to deploy ICE agents in airports to assist TSA employees, saying that putting immigration officials in airports is “the last thing” that Americans need.
“There are three things that have been true since Donald Trump and Republicans came back into power last January,” the New York representative said. “Life is more expensive, life is more chaotic, and life is more extreme. The last thing that the American people need is for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize, or in some instances, kill them.”
“It’s unfortunate that Republicans have decided that they would rather force TSA agents to work without pay, inconvenience millions of Americans all across the country, and now potentially expose them to untrained ICE agents and create chaos at airports throughout the land rather than get our ICE agents under control,” Jeffries added.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House and DHS for comment.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Jeffries referred the Daily Beast to the congressman’s social media post, which included a clip from his CNN appearance.
“Donald Trump should do his job, make life more affordable and keep his reckless mouth shut,” Jeffries said.
