A rush transcript of "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, April 5, 2026 on ABC News is below.
A rush transcript of "
This Week with George Stephanopoulos" airing on Sunday, April 5, 2026 on ABC News is below. This copy may not be in its final form, may be updated and may contain minor transcription errors. For previous show transcripts, visit the "
This Week" transcript archive.
, ABC “THIS WEEK” ANCHOR: Now, I want to bring in the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries. Congressman, thank you for joining us this morning. Your reaction to these developments overnight? REP.
: Well, I'm thankful that a second U.S. airman has been rescued heroically by our Special Forces. And we, of course, continue to pray for the safety, the health, the well-being of all of our men and women who are in uniform in a very dangerous theater of war. Of course, Donald Trump has gotten us involved in this reckless war of choice without any plan, any strategic objectives and no clear exit strategy.
Instead, billions of dollars are being spent every day to drop bombs in the Middle East when Donald Trump, as a candidate, promised to never get us involved in this type of conflict. STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you've made it clear you're opposed to the war, but what should the exit strategy be right now? JEFFRIES: Well, that's the challenge that, of course, Donald Trump has gotten us into this reckless war of choice without ever clearly laying out the strategic objectives, the plan, how this is designed to actually make life better for the American people.
We've seen the exact opposite, particularly as it relates to the dramatic increase in gas prices when we already are dealing with an affordability crisis here in the United States of America. Donald Trump purported to deliver a speech to lay out a case to the American people a few days ago, but he failed dramatically. STEPHANOPOULOS: He is expanding.
He's threatening this morning to expand again. He says the Iranians are going to be living in hell if they don't — if they don't open up the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday. Is that possible without U.S. ground troops?
JEFFRIES: Well, certainly, there's no circumstance where U.S. ground troops should be sent over to the Middle East. This war is already deeply unpopular for obvious reasons amongst the American people and the American people are not going to accept ground troops being put into harm's way in this war of choice when there's no clear evidence that it actually is designed to improve our national security interests. Instead, we see a war that continues to escalate.
More than a dozen countries are involved and billions of dollars of taxpayer money are being spent overseas. The administration refuses to actually spend a dime to make life more affordable for the American people. STEPHANOPOULOS: And the president has sent a request for $200 billion in supplemental spending to the Defense Department as well.
It's pretty clear Democrats are going to oppose that. And are you concerned that that will undercut the war effort? JEFFRIES: Listen, the Department of Defense has been given over a trillion dollars within the last year.
They have more than enough resources, as far as we can tell, in order to do what is necessary. At the same period of time, Congress has to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. The cost of living in this country is out of control.
And Donald Trump promised to actually lower costs on day one. That hasn't happened. In fact, life has become more expensive for the American people because of decisions made by Donald Trump and extreme Republicans in the Congress.
The Trump tariffs have increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year, as well as on small business entrepreneurs and on farmers throughout this nation. Republicans have refused to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. And that has resulted in tens of millions of Americans experiencing dramatically increased health insurance premiums.
And now, this reckless and costly war of choice is increasing the cost of living on everyday Americans, particularly through gas prices and soon through food prices all across the country in ways that are hurting the American people. STEPHANOPOULOS: The president said this week that the United States is considering withdrawing from NATO, a sentiment that was echoed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Are you confident that Congress can keep the United States in NATO?
JEFFRIES: Certainly, I hope that there will be a bipartisan effort to convince this administration that withdrawing from NATO would be a reckless choice. This is a dangerous world. We need more friends, not more adversaries.
And we should not walk away from an alliance that has actually kept the world and the United States as safe as possible in the aftermath of World War II. And the president should stop issuing these threats and attacking our allies while coddling up to people like Vladimir Putin and Russia, which is a sworn enemy of the United States of America. He's got our priorities in terms of our friends and our adversaries all wrong.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me switch gears now to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE funding. As you know — as you know, the Democrats have been pushing for reforms in ICE as a condition for that funding, but now the Republicans are say they're going to try to circumvent that by going through the reconciliation process, which means they could get the funding just by having a majority vote. So, does that moot your efforts?
JEFFRIES: Well, the first thing that needs to happen is that the House of Representatives under the leadership of Speaker Johnson and Republicans need to bring us back into session so we can actually reopen the Department of Homeland Security, stop creating chaos at airports all across the country and forcing people, including what happened to TSA agents for weeks, to work without pay. There is a bipartisan bill that has been sent over from the Senate, not once, but twice. Every single Democrat, every single Republican in the Senate supports that legislation.
House Democrats support that legislation, so we can reopen every other aspect of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA, Coast Guard, FEMA, and our cybersecurity professionals, while continuing to work on the effort to get ICE under control. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's look ahead to the midterm elections. We saw the president sign that executive order this week on mail-in voting.
I know you believe it's unconstitutional, but what is your message to Democrats who are concerned that the president and his party are going to be able to find ways to subvert the elections? JEFFRIES: We're going to work as hard as we can to make sure that this is a free and fair election. That executive order is unlawful and unconstitutional.
We've already filed litigation and we expect that it will be declared so in short order by the courts. We've won victory after victory in terms of even this very conservative Supreme Court, most recently, of course, in connection with the unlawful Trump tariffs.
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