Hostage videos are among the ugliest, most inhumane of things, and we know them when we see them — the poor video quality; the unidentifiable backdrop; the pale, bloodless face; the fearful, sleepless, deer-in-the-headlights eyes; the enemy flag placed prominently nearby; and the utter lack of conviction in the words being uttered: I’m being treated well. My captors’ cause is just. We have the Republicans on the run.

Such was the case with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently, who apparently felt the need to not just stand there but do something.

Hakeem Jeffries says “We have the Republicans on the run” pic.twitter.com/b76XC5WT01

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) March 6, 2025

“We have the Republicans on the run on three core issues,” Jeffries begins. “They are on the run in terms of the economy. In fact, Donald Trump and Republicans are crashing the economy in real time.”

Jeffries continued, quickly losing track of his three core issues: “Donald Trump gave one of the most divisive speeches by a president in American history. A hundred minutes, and he barely spent any time on the economy. Why? Because it’s collapsing on his watch.”

The market uncertainty caused by Trump’s tariffs notwithstanding, the American economy isn’t “crashing” or “collapsing,” much as Jeffries and his Democrat colleagues might wish it so. And whatever weakness we have in the fundamentals of our economy — stubbornly high prices, high energy costs, burdensome regulations — is thanks to four years of Joe Biden, not 50 days of Donald Trump.

Jeffries finally gets to the second and third of his core issues. “We have them on the run in terms of healthcare, particularly as it relates to Medicaid. House Democrats stand on the side of Medicaid and the American people.”

Medicaid is, of course, the iron-oxide standard of healthcare, brought to you in expanded form by Barack Obama’s laughably mis-monikered Affordable Care Act. Indeed, American healthcare is now so “affordable” that 31 million American adults borrowed $74 billion last year for medical care. That means more than one in 10 adults couldn’t afford to pay for their healthcare — even though many of them already had health insurance. And yet he blames Trump.

“And we have them on the run with respect to the GOP tax scam,” Jeffries says, before trotting out a laundry list of unfounded accusations: “They want to cut Medicaid, cut nutritional assistance for children and families, cut veterans’ benefits, and potentially cut [wait for it!] Social Security benefits by trying to decimate the Social Security Administration.”

At this point, it seems the only canard Jeffries hasn’t trotted out is “tax cuts for the rich!” Here, too, he doesn’t disappoint: “All of that is being done in service of trying to pass massive tax breaks for their billionaire donors like Elon Musk and wealthy corporations.”

In closing, Jeffries reverts back to hostage mode: “We have them on the run, and we’re gonna keep our foot on the gas pedal.”

On the one hand, it’s hard not to be sympathetic toward this grim-faced election denier. Talk about being dealt a bad hand. The Democrats’ brand is in the toilet, and their collective congressional approval rating is somewhere south of trial lawyers. Indeed, as former RNC Chair Reince Priebus noted recently, “The Democrats have found themselves on the wrong side of normal.”

In addition, as our Thomas Gallatin recently noted, when it comes to fighting spirit and iron-fisted party discipline, Hakeem Jeffries is no Nancy Pelosi.

Think about what we witnessed just last week from the Democrats. Donald Trump, during his address to a joint session of Congress, introduced the families of illegal alien murder victims Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, and the Democrats just sat on their hands. And when Trump acknowledged an incomparably brave 13-year-old black boy, DJ Daniel — a brain cancer survivor who wants to be a cop when he grows up — the Democrats just sat there disgracefully and chewed glass.

Here, Trump has perfected a commonsense two-step process for electoral success: First, get your political opponents to hate your guts. Then, seek out and embrace the 60-40 and 70-30 issues that are wildly popular with the American people, and force your deranged opponents to adopt the opposite position merely to spite you.

Only now are a handful of Democrats finally acknowledging what was obvious from the jump: They should’ve stood. They should’ve applauded. They should’ve shown some fundamental decency.

As it stands, though, little Hakeem, the Incredible Shrinking Minority Leader, implausibly insists that he’s got Trump and the Republicans on the run.