Hakeem Jeffries
Who is Hakeem Jeffries?
What was Hakeem Jeffries’s original name?
Is Hakeem Jeffries married?
What is Hakeem Jeffries known for in Congress?
How did Hakeem Jeffries start his political career?
What role did Hakeem Jeffries play in the impeachment of Donald Trump?
What are some criticisms of Hakeem Jeffries?
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As a teenager growing up in the diverse Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, Hakeem Jeffries displayed the intellectual rigor and personal charisma that would catapult him to the highest levels of U.S. government. Inside the classroom, Jeffries answered questions “like a machine,” a friend remembered. Outside school, he’d engage in one-on-one rap battles—the results of which he could still proudly recall decades later. First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012, Jeffries was set to become the first Black speaker of the House of Representatives in 2027.
The contrasts that marked Jeffries’s early life carried through to his political career, where his approach to politics is seen by some on the left as too pragmatic and some on the right as too radical.
Early life and education
- In full: Hakeem Sekou Jeffries
- Title/Office: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, New York’s 8th district (2013– ); House minority leader (2023– ); presumptive speaker of the House of Representatives.
- Political Affiliation: Democratic Party
- Education: Binghamton University (B.A., 1992); Georgetown University (M.A., 1994); New York University (J.D., 1997)
- Family: Married to Kennisandra Arciniegas-Jeffries, whom he met while they were students at Binghamton. They have two grown sons, Jeremiah and Joshua.
- Quotation: “I’m a Black progressive Democrat concerned with addressing racial and social and economic injustice with the fierce urgency of now.…There will never be a moment where I bend the knee to hard-left democratic socialism.” —in The Atlantic, 2021
Jeffries is the eldest of two sons born to Laneda (Gomes) Jeffries, a social worker, and Marland Jeffries, a substance-abuse counselor, who instilled in their children a commitment to academic excellence. Marland Jeffries told his sons, “Whatever you’re going to be, you’re going to be beyond a master’s degree.” (The boys took note, with Hakeem Jeffries receiving a law degree and his brother, Hasan Jeffries, becoming a history professor.) Jeffries was an honors student in high school and noted in his yearbook that he wanted to be a lawyer. But he also harbored dreams of becoming a hip-hop star who went by the name Kid Fresh or playing basketball for the New York Knicks.
Jeffries attended the State University of New York at Binghamton (Binghamton University), where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1992. Two years later he received a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Jeffries then attended New York University’s law school, graduating in 1997. After clerking for Judge Harold Baer, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1997–98, Jeffries entered private practice at the elite law firm Paul, Weiss. There he used his legal skills and musical affinity to represent hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill; he later worked as counsel in the litigation department for CBS and Viacom.
Political career
Jeffries first ran for political office in 2000, seeking a seat in the New York State Assembly held by a long-tenured Black incumbent. He ran on generational change—and lost. In 2002 he ran again against the same incumbent, with the same outcome. He finally won the seat in 2006, when the incumbent did not seek reelection. Jeffries was reelected twice to that body, where he developed a reputation for being able to forge unusual alliances and navigate bureaucracy to enact legislation, much of it in the field of criminal justice reform. Local newspapers even gave him a nickname: “The Barack of Brooklyn.”
Hakeem Jeffries shares a birthday (August 4) with former president Barack Obama, who is nine years older than Jeffries.
In 2012 he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives. Securing broad support, Jeffries easily won the race to represent New York’s 8th congressional district, which includes parts of Brooklyn and the neighboring borough of Queens. After taking office in 2013, he continued the work he began in New York around police reform. He introduced legislation calling for a federal ban on the police use of choke holds following the death of an unarmed Black man, Eric Garner, in July 2014. Garner had died after having a choke hold applied to him during his arrest on Staten Island. Jeffries also championed the First Step Act, which was signed into law in 2018. It aimed in part to improve conditions in federal prisons and to ensure that people convicted of federal crimes were sentenced in a fair and reasonable way. Jeffries served on both the House Judiciary and Budget committees. He was also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
In 2019 Jeffries became chair of the House Democratic Caucus, a post that made him the fifth highest-ranking Democrat in the chamber. In that role he presided over races for other party leadership posts and helped set legislative priorities for the House Democrats. Toward the end of 2019 the House of Representatives impeached Republican Pres. Donald Trump over allegations that he had withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure the country into opening a corruption investigation into one of his political rivals, Democrat Joe Biden. (Biden ultimately defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election.)
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The Senate impeachment trial was held in early 2020. Jeffries was one of seven lawmakers named by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to serve as impeachment managers during the trial and present the House’s case against Trump. The appointment reflected the fact that Jeffries was an effective messenger, especially known for being highly quotable. Delivering part of the House managers’ closing arguments on February 3, he called for Trump’s removal from office, describing him as “a clear and present danger to our national security.” Two days later, however, Trump was acquitted by the Senate in an almost party-line vote.
The Republicans narrowly regained control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. Pelosi subsequently announced that she would step down from the House Democratic leadership and would not pursue the role of minority leader in the new Congress. Jeffries quickly declared his candidacy for the post. He ultimately ran unopposed, and on November 30, 2022, the House Democrats selected him to replace Pelosi as the party’s leader in the upcoming Congress. Jeffries officially became the House minority leader on January 3, 2023.
Known for his charisma and oratorical flair, Jeffries still has his detractors—including members of his own party. The brash upstart who ran against an incumbent for the legislature often finds himself needing to navigate party dynamics to achieve consensus, causing some of the Democratic Party’s more progressive members to say he does not go far enough. “He plays it safe,” one New York Democrat told The New York Times in 2023. Across the aisle, Republicans accused Jeffries of being both too radical and too beholden to Pelosi. Jeffries has long been a target of Trump, who has called him a “lunatic” and “low IQ.”
The always loquacious Jeffries delivered his first speech as minority leader as a lesson in the alphabet, saying that “House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy. Benevolence over bigotry. The Constitution over the cult. Democracy over demagogues.…Zealous representation over zero-sum confrontation.”
With the 2024 election, Jeffries stood on the precipice of history with the chance to become the first Black speaker of the House. In a 2024 interview with National Public Radio he reflected on his theory of governing:
It’s been clear to me from the very beginning of this journey, in this position, that I have to keep my eye on the prize, as John Lewis always instructed us to do, and keep the main thing the main thing, which at this moment, as we approach the election, is taking back control of the majority so we can deliver for the American people.
Although Democrats narrowed the Republican margin in the House in 2024, they did not win the majority, leaving Jeffries with his old title.
In July 2025, as the House prepared to pass Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Jeffries took to the House floor, speaking for a record 8 hours and 44 minutes in a last-ditch, but doomed, bid to stop the legislation by recounting tales of Americans who might lose social safety net benefits with its passage. In August 2026, as the Democrats seemed poised to take control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, The New York Times reported that Jeffries met with Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss potential areas of bipartisan agreement. Neither man acknowledged the meeting, but Jeffries seemed to indicate that any progress would require a change in GOP thinking: “[Democrats] are fighting for an affordable America. The question is whether Republicans will join us.”
As for what more-partisan issues might be on his agenda should he become speaker of the House, Jeffries was unusually blunt, telling The Times: “We’ve got to make sure we continue to get rid of toxic Trump cabinet secretaries. [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth, in my view, should be next on the list.”
On the heels of sweeping Democratic victories in the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections, Jeffries was poised to enact that agenda.
