{"id":43802,"date":"2025-11-18T17:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43802\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T17:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:09:16","slug":"brooklyn-council-member-chi-osse-files-paperwork-to-challenge-democratic-house-leader-hakeem-jeffries-from-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/43802\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Council Member Chi Oss\u00e9 files paperwork to challenge Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries from the left"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"City\t\t\t<\/p>\n

City Council Member Oss\u00e9 at a rally before a hearing on his bill to force landlords to pay broker fees. Wednesday, June 12, 2024.<\/p>\n

redit: Emil Cohen\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

Brooklyn City Council Member Chi Oss\u00e9, who recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America, has filed to challenge Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in next year\u2019s primary election.<\/p>\n

The news comes after Oss\u00e9 neither confirmed nor denied<\/a> last month that he was weighing trying to unseat Jeffries from the left.\u00a0At the time, Oss\u00e9 said it would \u201ctake a very dire situation in order for me to even consider spending the rest of my 20s in DC.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, on Monday, he said, \u201cIt seems like we\u2019re in a dire situation,\u201d in a social media post\u00a0<\/a>that appeared to confirm<\/a> his decision to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democratic Party\u2019s leadership is not only failing to effectively fight back against Donald Trump, they have also failed to deliver a vision that we can all believe in,\u201d Oss\u00e9 told Axios in a statement.<\/p>\n

Axios first reported the story.<\/a> Oss\u00e9, who represents Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights in the City Council, did not immediately confirm the news when amNewYork contacted him via text.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oss\u00e9 appears emboldened to make the challenge in the wake of democratic socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani\u2019s victory earlier this month.\n<\/p>\n

However, according to a New York Times report,<\/a> Mamdani does not want Oss\u00e9 to run against Jeffries, fearing it could disrupt his efforts to push forward his ambitious affordability agenda.<\/p>\n

Mamdani spent months during the general election trying to win Jeffries\u2019 support, an effort that ultimately proved successful<\/a> when Jeffries finally threw his support to Mamdani 11 days before the election.<\/p>\n

The incoming mayor would not say whether he would endorse Oss\u00e9 when asked about it during an unrelated Monday Bronx press conference. Instead, he appeared to discourage the council member from running.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I appreciate the great work that Councilmember Oss\u00e9 has done on the council, especially for tenants,\u201d Mamdani said, \u201cI believe that there are many ways right here in New York City to both deliver on an affordability agenda and take on the authoritarian administration in the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffries is in line to be elected speaker of the House if Democrats win back the majority in 2026. Now, with Jeffries himself facing a challenge from the left, the House Democratic leader faces the unusual situation of defending his home seat in what could be a difficult primary while also leading the party\u2019s national efforts to retake the House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justin Chermol, a spokesperson for Jeffries, said he \u201cwelcome(s)\u201d the challenge in response to Oss\u00e9\u2019s reported run.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLeader Jeffries is fighting hard to lower the high cost of living, address the Republican healthcare crisis, combat corruption and win back control of the House for the good of the country,\u201d Chermol said. \u201cWe welcome this primary challenge and look forward to a rigorous debate about the type of serious leadership required to deliver for the people of Brooklyn and the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council Member Oss\u00e9 at a rally before a hearing on his bill to force landlords to pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[13884,98,100,99,25203,1091,2495,19659,9,24,63,25204],"class_list":["post-43802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-2026-midterms","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-council-member-chi-ossu00e9","tag-democratic-socialists-of-america","tag-dsa","tag-mayor-elect-zohran-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-us-rep-hakeem-jeffries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}