Jeffries defends meeting with Kushner, 'No one from the Trump Cartel is getting a pass’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is making efforts to justify his meeting this past weekend with President Donald Trump adviser Jared Kushner, amid backlash from his Democratic Party.

"He asked for a meeting and I took it," he said in a video he posted Tuesday. "We discussed the affordability crisis that exists, that is not a hoax."

Kushner and Jeffries met on Sunday to discuss such issues as housing and "affordability" ahead of the November midterms, in which Democrats could take control of the House from Republicans.

"I shouldn't have to say it, but I am: 'No one is going to get a pass. We're going to hold every single member of the Trump cartel accountable, beginning on day one," Jeffries also said in the video. "No one from the Trump Cartel is getting a pass."

Tommy Vietor, a President Barack Obama aide and now a co-host of the podcast Pod Save America, said about the meeting: “Jared Kushner has no actual government job, he just uses his family connections to get money from Gulf autocrats and fund corrupt deals. The only way Jeffries should work with him is with demands for documents and subpoenas,” Vietor said.

Also on Tuesday, Jeffries told CNN the meeting was "just a high-level, topical conversation.”

"As we have repeatedly indicated as House Democrats from the beginning of this Congress, we're committed to pushing back on the extremism that has been unleashed on the American people." he also told the cable news outlet.  

“At the same time, of course, we have a responsibility to solve problems and sometimes that means meeting with people on the other side of the aisle to figure out what the opportunities will be in order to address the things that the American people definitively want us to address, which, from our standpoint, is the reality that the cost of living in this country is way too high."

While Kushner currently serves as a special envoy for the Trump administration and has played a role in diplomatic negotiations with Iran and in the Middle East, he is less involved with the White House than in his father-in-law's first term.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.