Can Donald Trump and the Democrats just ... get along? Trump certainly sent up a big signal on cooperation in his 60 Minutes interview yesterday, offering an opening on immigration. The Left spent the weekend sending up a few signals of its own, however.
Voters sent a very clear signal in the midterms that they want a change of direction in Washington, D.C. They sent an equally clear message two years ago that they wanted a change of direction from the Biden Regency disaster. Most reasonable observers would conclude that the electorate wants an end to the hyperbolic, Trump-deranged politics of the last decade, and instead want elected officials to get back to work rather than playing Inspector Clouseau in congressional hearings.
Politico wonders whether Jeffries smells that particular brand of coffee, and whether he's got the leverage to serve it up to an emboldened House Democrat caucus:
President Donald Trump said after Tuesday’s midterm drubbing he wants to “work with” Democrats. Now Hakeem Jeffries has to decide if his party will play ball.
As he prepares to lead a massive House Democratic majority, perhaps the presumptive speaker’s toughest call will be how to handle Trump. After years of dismissing and denigrating the president, Jeffries has to weigh varying opinions inside his caucus: Some, including incoming red-district freshmen, want to attempt collaboration, while plenty of others want total war.
Trump is already testing Democrats by appointing Stephen Miller, one of their top administration boogeymen, as his new White House chief of staff — prompting a characteristically fierce reply from Jeffries denouncing Miller as a “dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist” whose “presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor.”
But members close to Jeffries acknowledge he might soon have to strike a different tone as Democrats pledge to make good on their campaign promises to lower costs ahead of 2028 — or at least be seen trying.
"Be seen trying" is likely the main goal. That will be relatively easy to do, too. Democrats control both chambers of the next session of Congress by large enough majorities for their leaders to control outcomes. They can pass bills in the House that give their base the red meat they desire. If Republicans filibuster those bills in the Senate, Democrats will face some pressure to eliminate the filibuster; Schumer might have to commit to its end to save his own leadership position, as I wrote last week.
Either way, Trump can veto anything Jeffries and Schumer get through Congress without his input and negotiation. Neither Jeffries nor Schumer can muster the two-thirds majority necessary to overturn a veto without substantial Republican support. Democrats may still want to pass Medicare for All and other parts of its agenda anyway, just to argue that they tried and that Republicans are obstructing their mandate. It wouldn't be the first time a party has opted for that approach when taking over Congress under an opposing president.
The problem is that strategy rarely benefits the party that controls Congress. First, the agenda is usually an overreach, such as the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, or whatever socialist legislation Democrats offer in this upcoming session. More importantly, it fails to recognize the real mandate from the electorate, which is cooperation rather than confrontation. Voters have had their fill of the latter, and they sent very big signals in the last two elections about it.
That is usually what midterm swings signify, especially second-term midterms, which almost always produce sharply negative reactions to the party controlling the White House. They want moderation, not a radical shift to the Left, and they want leaders of the two parties to act like adults about it.
Trump seems to have grasped that message. He immediately congratulated Democrats on their big midterm victory rather than claim fraud, and pledged to find ways to work with incoming congressional leadership. Trump also noted that he still has veto power if they choose not to work with him, which was Barack Obama's point in 2014 when he declared that "I've got a pen and I've got a phone" if Republicans didn't work with him. And that was ten months before Obama lost nine seats in the Senate:
“We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we're providing Americans the kind of help that they need. I've got a pen, and I've got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward in helping to make sure our kids are getting the best education possible, making sure that our businesses are getting the kind of support and help they need to grow and advance, to make sure that people are getting the skills that they need to get those jobs that our businesses are creating,” the president said.
“I've got a phone that allows me to convene Americans from every walk of life, nonprofits, businesses, the private sector, universities to try to bring more and more Americans together around what I think is a unifying theme: making sure that this is a country where, if you work hard, you can make it,” he added.
That didn't work out well for Democrats that year, nor for the next two years – and arguably for the next decade – that followed. Voters want collaboration and progress, not endless campaigning and blood feuds. If Democrats want to hold their coalition together and compete for the White House in 2028, they will have to produce actual results rather than two years of posturing. Had it not been for the entry of a sui generis outsider in Donald Trump, voters might have elected Hillary Clinton in reaction to two years of Republican obstructionism in the final two Obama years, especially given that the GOP seemed ready to nominate another Bush had Trump stayed out of politics.
Has Jeffries taken the correct lesson from these historical outcomes? We may never know. Even if he has, the activists in his base may not allow Jeffries or Schumer to apply them:
NOW: "No Schumer No Jeffries" Signs as Thousands Join March for Our Democracy in Times Square After Midterm Elections The Naked Cowboy had one comment - "VETO" Video by @yyeeaahhhboiii2 | Licensing @FreedomNTV [email protected] https://t.co/UMBvw4R8vO
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) November 7, 2026
On Saturday, just days after the midterm elections, thousands of demonstrators flooded Midtown Manhattan to demand Democrat leadership change in Congress.
Organized under the banner “March for Our Democracy” by the Hands Off NYC coalition, the post-election rally brought crowds into the heart of the city following Tuesday’s vote. While demanding that every vote be counted, the crowd directed immediate pressure at their own party leaders.
Protesters marched across 42nd Street and Broadway carrying signs reading “No Schumer, No Jeffries,” explicitly targeting Democrat Senate leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and Democrat House leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY). Other signs bobbing through the crowd carried messages such as “People over billionaires” and “We didn’t vote for status quo, let’s ‘chuck’ Schumer + Jeffries.”
Jeffries and Schumer spent the last decade waving the bloody shirt to energize the Left against Trump. Now that Democrats have their hands on two levers of power, they will demand that Jeffries and Schumer use them to wreak vengeance, not pass meaningful, collaborative legislation. And to be fair, the same applied to the GOP in 2024, which failed to seize that moment and instead tried to wreak vengeance for four years of lawfare directed at Trump, not to mention the bungled Epstein Files issue. Voters punished Republicans for that on Tuesday, but if Democrats mistake that as a mandate for socialism, they will get an unpleasant surprise in 2028.
Jeffries and Schumer must know this. Whether they have the gastric fortitude to stand up to the radicals on the Left and avoid backlash in the next election cycle is a very good question. Based on their previous track record, the best bet would be for gridlock until 2029, seeing Trump get a lot of use out of his pen and phone, and Democrats dealing with a dispirited and disillusioned Left when it counts.
