House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is expressing the belief that Republicans will cave to Democrats, attributing that prediction to “public sentiment.”

He didn’t mention, however, that it was the Democrats who shut down the government for political purposes.

“Given the way that the president has been tweeting memes about you, has been in your words, in the words of Democrats, already dismantling health care, what makes you think that he will negotiate anything?” a reporter asked Jeffries. “What makes you think that he and Republicans will cave to you?”

“Public sentiment. At the end of the day, the public knows that Donald Trump and Republicans have shut the federal government down and that they’re continuing to engage in the chaos and the cruelty and the corruption that we’ve seen from this administration, from day one of the presidency,” Jeffries replied.

“Again, this is, this is the first week of their shutdown, but we’ve had months of chaos and cruelty unleashed on the American people, and the American people are paying close attention, and they know that it was Donald Trump and Republicans who have shut the government down,” he claimed, despite the fact that some Democrats have openly admitted that they shut down the government to fight for healthcare for illegal immigrants.

Jeffries continued, claiming:

They also know that House Democrats are fighting and Senate Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people, because the Republican healthcare crisis has been devastating to people all across the country, devastating to working class Americans, devastating to rural America, to urban America, to the heartland of America, to small town America and to black and brown communities all across America. We’ve never seen anything like this in terms of the pain that has been inflicted on the American people by Republicans.

“House Democrats are simply making the case that we need to cancel the cuts, lower the costs, and save health care,” he said, absolving himself and his colleagues of any sort of guilt for refusing to jump on board the GOP’s clean continuing resolution (CR).

WATCH:

Polling ahead of the shutdown indicated that Americans were already blaming Democrats for the shutdown, as a majority of Americans reject the Democrat push to shut down the government.

Breitbart News reported on a New York Times/Siena Poll:

Across the board, the majority of all respondents — 65 percent — said Democrats should not shut down the government, compared to just 27 percent who said they should.

Surprisingly, Democrats themselves remain relatively split, as less than a majority, 47 percent, said they believe fellow Democrats should shut down the government if their demands are not met. However, 43 percent said they should not.

Additionally, most independents, 59 percent, believe the Democrats should not shut down the government, aligning with the vast majority of Republicans — a massive 92 percent.

Vice President JD Vance said this week that it is “obvious” that this is a Democrat shutdown, despite the left’s claims.

“Nearly every single House Republican voted to open the government, Matt. Nearly every single Senate Republican voted to open the government last night, and even to their credit, a few moderate Democrats voted to open the government. That’s not a Republican shutdown when nearly every single Senate Democrat votes to shut it down and every Republican voted to open it up,” Vance said.

RELATED — JD Vance Debunks Democrats’ Shutdown LIES

“Now you can disagree about a number of things, but you can’t disagree about the obvious fact that Republicans voted to open the government,” he continued. “The President stands ready to sign that opening of the government. We just need a few more Democrats to join us in that effort to open the government.”