Trump says he would probably get along with Hakeem Jeffries if Democrats win House

Donald Trump said he would probably get along with Hakeem Jeffries if Democrats win back the House, a notable shift toward the Democrat most likely to become speaker in a divided Congress. Asked whether he could do business with Jeffries, Trump told Punchbowl News, “I’d probably get along with him very well.”

Jeffries is the House Democratic Leader, having been unanimously elected by his colleagues in 2022 and again in 2024. He represents New York’s Eighth Congressional District and is serving his seventh term in Congress, giving him a central role in any House majority fight if Democrats reclaim the chamber in the midterms.

The comment lands against a long record of public hostility between the two men. Trump has previously referred to Jeffries as a “low IQ thug,” and earlier this year called for incitement charges against him over “maximum warfare” remarks tied to election maps. Jeffries, for his part, has been one of the most visible Democratic antagonists to Trump’s agenda in the House.

That clash was on display during Jeffries’ 8 hours and 44 minutes on the House floor on July 3, 2025, a speech that set the record for the longest-ever House floor speech and was used to delay final passage of Trump’s tax cut and spending bill. More recently, Jeffries has been opening Democrats’ midterm strategy around an affordability agenda, a signal that he is trying to make the next House race about economic pressure rather than personality.

If Democrats retake the House, Trump’s willingness to say he could “get along” with Jeffries would matter less as a personal olive branch than as a preview of how he might handle a chamber where no party fully controls the agenda. A Jeffries-led House would sit at the center of any fights over government funding, debt-limit legislation, Ukraine aid or border packages, and either side could decide that selective bipartisan deals are worth the political risk.

For Trump, that creates a more complicated playbook than pure confrontation. For Jeffries, it raises the possibility that a Democratic House speaker could use leverage on must-pass legislation while still testing whether Trump sees any advantage in striking deals across the aisle. The line between hardball and cooperation could become one of the most consequential political questions of the next Congress.