House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is eyeing the drama around the government shutdown as a chance to amplify his name in national politics.

Jeffries, the least powerful of the four Congressional leaders, suffers from a lack of visibility — a recent Pew poll found that 45% of voters don’t know who he is, compared to just 3% who didn’t know his predecessor when she stepped down. He appears to be consciously positioning himself to counter this issue, adopting a more aggressive approach to force confrontations with President Donald Trump , thereby raising his national prestige.

Recommended Stories

WATCH LIVE: Johnson holds press conference during government shutdown gridlock

House GOP presses Democrats over national security in shutdown fight

NPR and PBS federal funding halt

See Full Page