WASHINGTON—Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and the Rev. William Barber, leader of the “Moral Monday” movement, staged a 12-hour sit-in on the U.S. Capitol steps Sunday surrounded by grassroots activists.
They angrily denounced the MAGA Republican budget plan, introduced Monday, to slash over a trillion dollars from Medicaid, SNAP, and other vital human needs programs to lavish another huge tax cut on the rich.
Continuing with a prayer protest in the Rotunda on Monday, Rev. Barber was arrested and hauled off to jail. Capitol Police alleged he was “crowding, obstructing, and incommoding” their officers. He was taken into custody alongside other faith leaders, including Rev. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Steve Swayne, director of St. Francis Springs Prayer Center.
“If you pray, you are seen as violating the rules of the Rotunda,” Barber said after being detained. “What we hope is that folks will see this and it will begin to remove some of the fear, and people will understand that this is the time—now—that we must engage in nonviolent direct action to register our discontent.”
His message was a continuation of the themes that defined the Sunday sit-in.
“Budgets are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet,” said Booker, his comments live-streamed to the nation during the weekend event. “They are moral documents…. They reveal what we value, who we protect, and what we stand for.”
Republicans in Congress, he charged, “are proposing cuts that will take food from children, health care from the sick, and dignity from those who are struggling. It’s wrong!”
The aim of the sit-in is to persuade at least four Republicans in the House and Senate to join with the Democrats in voting against the MAGA budget. Earlier in April, 12 Republican lawmakers said they will not support a budget with these drastic cutbacks to lifeline human needs programs.
The Republican majority leadership in the House and Senate seek to ram their pro-billionaire budget through and deliver it to Trump by July 4. Medicaid serves 36 million people and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) serves 41 million people.
Later, Booker said that working people across the nation, stunned by MAGA Republican proposals to slash $880 billion from Medicaid, and $230 billion from SNAP, and other vicious cutbacks are asking, “Why? Why? Why? Well, we know why: Because they want to give tax cuts to the wealthy billionaires.”
The multiracial crowd with mothers holding their infant children on their laps, burst into applause.
Jeffries, Minority Leader of the House, added, “Republicans are crashing the economy, undermining American values, assaulting our democracy, and driving us toward a recession. Now they want to jam a reckless budget down the throats of the American people that will end Medicaid as we know it, rip food from the mouths of children, senior citizens, and veterans. This is not America.”
Rev. Barber quoted Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that in the U.S. “violence against poor people and minority people is routine. Starving a child is violence. Suppression of culture and history is violence. Neglecting school children is violence. Discrimination against a working man or woman is violence. Ghetto housing is violence. Ignoring medical and healthcare needs is violence.”
Rev. Barber added, “If we talk about this budget, we are talking about policies of violence.”
He charged that 140 million people in the U.S. were poor and low income even before the MAGA Republicans unveiled their new steal-from-the-poor-give-to-the-rich budget plan. “Now they are exacerbating it, one big ugly deal. How many people are going to die?”
Over time, he charged, policies that cut these lifeline programs will cause many thousands of the poor, sick, and wounded to die. His charge was later proven by a report released by the Center for American Progress that the proposed Republican cut in Medicaid will result in 34,200 additional deaths each year.
Rev. Barber quoted Matthew 25:35, the parable of the “Sheep and Goats,” in which Jesus proclaims, “For when you saw me hungry, you fed me… Thirsty you gave me drink… An immigrant, you invited me in… When you cared for the least of these, my little ones, my brothers and sisters, you demonstrated love for me.”
Rev. Barber added another message from Holy scriptures: “Woe unto you who legislate evil!”
He denounced the lawmakers who “pray” at the beginning of every legislative session yet act like predators who consider their constituents “prey.” He called on people across the nation to rise up and fight back against Trump-MAGA tyranny.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, both joined the sit-in. Pringle told the crowd NEA is fighting for full funding of the school nutrition program that provides breakfasts and lunches for tens of millions of youngsters in the nation’s schools. “I don’t feel no way tired,” she said. “All the injustice that is happening, we are not going to give up. We’ve come too far to give up.”
She cited recent mass demonstrations like the two million who joined the “Hands Off” protests April 5. “Millions and millions are saying ‘Hands Off,’ so we understand the power of community,” she said. “They are trying to visit on the American people the largest Medicaid cut in history.”
Booker mentioned the proposed $230 billion cut to SNAP. “We know that if children do not have proper nutrition, they cannot learn,” Pringle replied. “Its all connected. Millions of children are covered by Medicaid. We worked so hard with the past (Biden) administration to help lawmakers understand how crucial these nutrition and healthcare programs are for our children. If you are not going to feed the children, you lose your humanity. We need to make sure that children have everything they need to learn.”
Weingarten later joined the sit-in, telling the crowd, “We need to fight back in a way that brings people with us.”
She denounced the drive by Trump to sow chaos, fear, and intimidation among the people. “They attack public schools, seek to dismantle the Department of Education, use antisemitism as a cover to attack education.”
She was referring to Trump’s termination of tax-exempt status on Harvard and other colleges and universities using the specious charge that they are “antisemitic” because pro-Palestine protesters staged demonstrations against Israel’s Gaza genocide on these campuses.
“They want to create such fright and fear and intimidation,” Weingarten said. She cited the raids by ICE thugs wearing hoods to conceal their identities. “They are knocking on the door, or knocking down the door” to terrorize the people, she warned. “We need to escalate, educate, mobilize fightback together in the streets. The courts are doing their job but if the court of public opinion fails to do its job, we will fail.”
Lizzie Linthicum with her family sat on the Capitol steps with Rep. Jeffries on one side, Sen. Booker on the other. She told a heartbreaking story of their struggle to provide round-the-clock care for Calvin, the mentally disabled 11-year-old son who leaned against her, buried his face in her chest as she spoke.
Ten years ago, she said, Calvin was diagnosed with a severe developmental condition. The private insurer ruled that his condition was not acute enough to warrant coverage. Medicaid was the lifeline that provided the $5,500 each month for the medicine that enables Calvin to survive and for the family to maintain a stable, positive home life.
“If we didn’t have Medicaid, we would have hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses for the medicine he needs four times each day,” she said. “It is unconscionable to cut programs that allow families to lead their lives.”
Her husband took the mic. He told the crowd their private health care rejected their claim, “Who picked it up? Medicaid.”
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