From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, November 18th.

We'll talk to Brooklyn Congressman and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in just a minute.

I wonder if we might even call him kind of the

leader of the Democratic Party right now with Biden and Harris on their way out of power,

Chuck Schumer having lost his position as Senate Majority Leader in this election, and no other

clear Democratic Party leader like the Republicans obviously have Trump. So we'll get leader Jeffrey's take on why

the election came out the way it did and what new role he sees for the House Democratic minority

now in the coming era of Republican control of all three branches of government. But Hakeem Jeffries

also has a new book out. It's an illustrated book for children and adults called the

ABCs of Democracy. It's based on part of the speech that Jeffries gave last year when he first

became minority leader. So before we have leader, Jeffries on live, here is that speech excerpt.

This is only a minute and 15 seconds, but follow along here. Here's how you

listen to this. He'll be going through the alphabet from A to Z, contrasting what he thinks

his party is for and against. House Democrats will always put American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the Constitution

over the cult, democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over extremism, freedom

over fascism, governing over gaslighting. Hopefulness over hatred. Inclusion

over isolation. Justice over judicial overreach. Knowledge over kangaroo courts. Liberty over

limitation. Maturity over Mar-a-Lago, normalcy over negativity, opportunity over obstruction,

people over politics, quality of life issues over QAnon, reason over racism, substance over slander,

triumph over tyranny, understanding over ugliness, voting rights over voter suppression, working families over the well connected, xenial over xenophobia, yes we can over you can't do it and zealous representation over zero-sum confrontations.

Brooklyn Congressman and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, reciting his ABCs of Democracy on the House floor last year.

The text of that stretch now out as a book, by that title, an illustrated book

...