Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Sunday addressed claims by Republican lawmakers that he branded the 2016 election “illegitimate” and called former President Donald Trump a “fake president.”
House Democrats on Nov. 30 voted for Jeffries to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as the party’s top leader in the lower chamber.
In a speech on the Senate floor shortly after Jeffries’s appointment as leader of House Democrats was announced, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took aim at the decision, and branded Jeffries an “election denier” who he said had “mounted reckless attacks on our independent judiciary.”
During an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Jeffries was asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos for his response to McConnell’s comments, noting that the New York Democrat did in fact say that “history will never accept Donald Trump as a legitimate president.”…