Hakeem Jeffries faces heat for 'rigged' election claims after CBS host confrontation

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., briefly sparred with CBS' Margaret Brennan on Sunday over his claims that President Donald Trump will "rig" the midterm elections.

During an interview on "Face the Nation," Brennan pressed the New York representative about his past comments insisting there were "no election deniers" in the Democratic Party despite recently suggesting the upcoming midterms could be "rigged elections."

"Democrats were appalled when President Trump used language like that," Brennan said. "How do you justify using that now? Doesn’t that undermine faith for voters you need to show up?"

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"No, I’ve been using that term in the context of Donald Trump’s unprecedented effort to gerrymander congressional maps in a partisan fashion all across the country in order to rig the midterm elections and deny the ability of the American people to actually decide who should be in the majority as it relates to the House of Representatives," Jeffries said.

"You know Democrats are also going through gerrymandering and redistricting," Brennan interrupted.

"No. No. No. Well, Democrats are going to push back aggressively to make sure that we have fair maps across the country, not partisan gerrymandering, which Republicans have initiated in state after state after state," Jeffries insisted.

The interview concluded shortly after that exchange.

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