House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries privately told his caucus Friday morning that communication had restarted with Republicans, according to two people familiar with his remarks granted anonymity to discuss the dynamics.
“Because of our display of unity, the lines of communication have been reopened,” Jeffries said, according to the people in the room.
House Democrats have been fuming since billionaire Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump tanked the stopgap measure negotiated by appropriators and leadership earlier this week, and then when Speaker Mike Johnson moved forward with a funding bill that included raising the debt ceiling. That bill failed spectacularly on the House floor Thursday night.
Heading into the meeting, Jeffries appeared to be holding to his position that Johnson needs to bring back the bipartisan stopgap spending deal that Musk and Trump torpedoed earlier this week. The New York Democrat’s statement, however, was careful not to exclude all other options.
“The best path forward is the bipartisan agreement that was reached between House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats,” he told reporters earlier, as he headed into the closed-door caucus meeting.
House Republicans are preparing to bring back a stopgap funding bill Friday through the Rules Committee, according to Rules member Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), which would allow legislation to pass by a simple majority. Their attempt to pass legislation by a two-thirds majority failed Thursday when almost all Democrats opposed it and dozens of Republicans did too.
And Democrats exiting the caucus meeting sounded more cautiously optimistic than after the vote failed.
“I think people are feeling a lot better than yesterday, I can sense that,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said. “We’ll take the caucus lead.”
“It feels like what is necessary to get to an agreement is happening,” echoed Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.