After Democrats made historic gains in the House and Senate this week, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries made it official.

The New Yorker formally announced he was running for speaker — and he appears to be on a glide-path to the gavel.

For Jeffries, the speakership would be the fulfillment of a dream years in the making. He would become the first Black person to hold the job, capping a political ascent that has carried him from Brooklyn to the top of the Democratic Caucus.

But the prospect of presiding over the House majority will require Jeffries to perform a delicate balancing act.

The 56-year-old will have to hold President Donald Trump accountable, as Democratic voters are demanding, while avoiding the kind of overreach that could alienate swing voters. He will also have to find ways to work with Trump and deliver legislative results on issues such as the high cost of living, even as he draws sharp contrasts with the president and Republicans ahead of the 2028 elections.

Even his position is a paradox. He would be leading the largest Democratic House majority in more than 30 years, but Democrats will largely be acting as an opposition party to Trump for the next two years.

It’s a balance that Jeffries has demonstrated an ability to strike in the past. He served as an impeachment manager during Trump’s Senate trial in 2020, but he has also worked across the aisle, including with the first Trump White House, to help secure legislative achievements like a major criminal justice reform bill in 2018.

Now, in an exclusive interview with MS NOW, Jeffries — known for his love of hip hop — said this moment in American politics makes him think of the Notorious B.I.G. song “Sky’s the Limit.”

“It reflects his journey emerging from negativity to get to a point of positivity and overcoming great adversity along the way,” Jeffries said.

“That’s what we’re dealing with right now,” he said, likening the song to marching orders for him and House Democrats. “We’ve got to show the resilience — and the persistence — to fight through the turbulence.”

“Blowing up like you thought I would”

In another exclusive interview — this one with Jeffries’ younger brother — Hasan Kwame Jeffries offered a glimpse of the future speaker long before he became one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington.

Even as a young man, Hakeem was known for his discipline and focus.

“He wasn’t distracted by the foolishness, right?” Hasan said. “He was like, ‘No, no, no, I got to get to school, and this is the safest route.’”

Growing up in New York City also exposed the brothers to sharp contrasts in opportunity, Hasan said.

“You’re seeing poverty and you’re seeing wealth, right? And so the question is like: what’s happening, right? Why do you have this?”  Hasan said, adding that “trying to figure it out — and then thinking about, ‘How do you solve it?’ — was very much part of our lived experience.”

Jeffries, who was born in 1970, came of age in New York as hip hop was exploding. Hakeem loved local Brooklyn artists, including Biggie Smalls. Hasan recalled them having a “little breakdance crew” and said his older brother had “notebooks with rap lyrics that he is penning.”

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Jeffries also found escape in sports — especially his beloved Yankees and Knicks. The brothers played little league baseball. They transformed their backyard into what Hasan described as a “multi-sports complex,” with their dad using leftover construction scraps to build a basketball hoop.

The backyard was one outlet. Religion was another. The nearby Cornerstone Baptist Church was a pillar of family life in the Jeffries household.

Cornerstone’s senior pastor Lawrence Aker III told MS NOW that the church was where Jeffries “learned how to give speeches,”

“This is where he learned how to lead,” Aker said. “He led other youth ministries right here in this community.”

His parents — a social worker and a substance abuse counselor — had one main expectation for their two sons: they had to get an advanced degree and then use what they learned to serve other people.

Jeffries took the law school route, graduating from NYU in 1997.

His younger brother — now a professor of history at The Ohio State University — told MS NOW the two shared a bedroom through high school. And they often debated each other well into the night.

“He enjoys a good intellectual joust, right?” Hasan said of his brother. “As we’re growing up, it’s sports. But once we got to sort of high school, it begins to shift, and we’re thinking more about the world. We’re talking about Malcolm X, we’re talking about Dr. King.”

Hasan says politics began to infuse the conversation.

“We’re really talking about well, lawyers are the real difference makers – I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s grassroots people,” he said.

“Now we sip Champagne when we thirsty”

Jeffries first entered politics after a brief stint in corporate law. He lost two bids for the New York State Assembly before winning on his third try.

Six years later in 2012, he was elected to Congress and landed a spot on the influential House Judiciary Committee.

The panel helped lay the groundwork for Jeffries’ future high profile efforts, including working with the first Trump White House to pass the first major criminal justice reforms in roughly a decade — a bipartisan accomplishment that would later stand in contrast to his role as an impeachment manager.

It’s a duality that Jeffries will now likely have to balance again as Democrats pledge to work legislatively to lower costs while at the same time holding the second Trump administration accountable.

In his interview with MS NOW, Jeffries insisted the two goals are not mutually exclusive.

“We’ll always be guided by doing the right thing for the American people,” he said. “It’s important to understand there’s a cost to corruption, and the American people know it, which is why they want to make sure we actually have a Congress of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

At the same time, Jeffries spent the past decade and a half climbing the leadership ranks of the House Democratic Caucus. He started as co-chair of the Democrats’ messaging arm, before narrowly winning a race for caucus chair — succeeding fellow New Yorker Joe Crowley, who lost a primary.

When longtime House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi — whom Jeffries has likened to a living legend — announced she would step away from leadership in 2022 to make way for a new generation, Jeffries was elected to replace her unopposed.

“Same number, same hood”

Whereas Pelosi led with a top-down approach, many of Jeffries’s allies — including his first chief of staff, Cedric Grant — say he has a bottom-up style.

“He’s not afraid to make decisions when he needs to and to be decisive, but he likes to build consensus,” Grant told MS NOW.

Those allies say Jeffries’ four years as House Minority Leader offer clues of how he’d serve as Speaker.

During that time, Jeffries broke records by outmaneuvering GOP leadership to force votes on Democratic priorities — including legislation to restore expired healthcare subsidies — through a legislative maneuver called a discharge petition.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. — who says his nickname for Jeffries would be “silk” because he doesn’t panic — described the leader as a “tactical thinker.”

“We’ve been able to do more under Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership, in the minority, than my entire time when we were in the minority previously,” Meeks said.

Of course, not everyone has been satisfied with Jeffries.

He’s been knocked for being too timid and cautious as Trump has blown up norms. Some on the left have criticized his stance on Israel and his relationship with Wall Street.

“There are a lot of people across the country who want to make sure he understands the anger of our base, even against the Democratic Party and old politics,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., told MS NOW.

Jeffries said his track record “speaks for itself.”

And his brother is confident the Democratic leader will meet the moment.

He says his brother’s approach to decision making is rooted in his love of sports. “He plays hard,” he said. “But he’ll play within the rules.”

Asked if he believes Jeffries would break those rules if necessary, given the historic moment — and Trump’s propensity for bending the norms — Hasan predicted “there’s not going to be any law breaking.”

“But there’s gonna be some important challenging of norms as norms dissipate and as other norms are ignored, we got to establish some new patterns and some new norms,” Hasan said.

“If you don’t know, now you know”

In this moment of uncertainty, one thing is certain, though.

If elected Speaker, Jeffries will be breaking a historic barrier, becoming the first Black person to hold the gavel in the nation’s history.

Hasan calls it nearly “inconceivable.”

“You got a kid from Brooklyn, the child of social workers, who slept in the bunk bed above me, who is now Speaker of the House?” he said. “That’s progress.”

For years, Jeffries himself has sidestepped questions about the gravity of that history, insisting he is focused on the work.

But in his recent interview with MS NOW, Jeffries — who says he counts the late civil rights icon John Lewis among his greatest personal influences —  did pull back on the curtain on his thinking some.

“Whatever the future holds, for me as an individual, it’s part of the reality in this country that we truly are a representative democracy — a flawed one, one that’s not always perfect,” he told MS NOW.

“But it’s an honor for me to be part of our continued march toward a more perfect union,” he said.

Peggy Helman, Selena Kuznikov, Adam Hudacek, and Gillian Bagshaw contributed to this report.

The post Inside Hakeem Jeffries’ historic road to the speakership appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.