House Democrats scored two huge victories on Tuesday. Then they faceplanted.
After months of embarrassing Republicans over Jeffrey Epstein, all but one House member — GOP Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana — voted to release the disgraced financier’s files. It was a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, both of whom had worked for months to prevent the Epstein discharge petition from ever reaching the floor. It was also a validation of the Democrats’ persistence on the matter.
Then the 2026 electoral map was upended in Democrats’ favor — for now — as a three-judge panel threw out Republicans’ gerrymandered Texas map.
And yet you would have no idea that Democrats were coming off these two big wins.
Instead, Democrats spent much of the day defending two of their own — Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) and Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) — from House floor reprimands. The effort to defend Garcia failed — he was reprimanded in a floor vote — while the Plaskett push succeeded after Democrats threatened to retaliate against embattled GOP Rep. Cory Mills (Fla.).
If you ask some House Democrats, it just proves once again that they can mess up a sunny day.
“It didn’t help the party,” Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) said of Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s (D-Wash.) resolution disapproving of Garcia’s attempt to basically hand his seat to a top aide. “Distracted from the message — very selfish of her.”
It was an embarrassing fight for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team at a high-profile moment. And it comes after Jeffries managed to keep his caucus united for months on both the Epstein files and the government shutdown.
“Coming after Epstein and right after the Democratic Party being united and winning a big victory on Election Day,” Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) said. “It beats me. I have no clue what that was all about.”
MGP interrupted Democrats’ messaging on the shutdown to introduce the Garcia disapproval resolution last week. Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and other top Democrats pushed their members to stay united against the measure.
But 22 Democrats — including two of Garcia’s fellow Illinois delegation members — broke with their leadership and ended up backing the MGP resolution once Democrats lost a procedural move to kill it.
Some of the party’s vulnerable Frontline lawmakers — including Reps. Laura Gillen (N.Y.), Adam Gray (Calif.) and Greg Landsman (Ohio) — sided with Republicans. Same goes for Democrats seeking statewide office, including Reps. Angie Craig (Minn.), Haley Stevens (Mich.), Chris Pappas (N.H.) and Seth Moulton (Mass.).
For her part, Plaskett found herself under scrutiny after files from Epstein’s estate revealed she had been texting with him as she grilled former Trump attorney Michael Cohen during a 2019 Oversight Committee hearing.
Top Democrats, including Jeffries and Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), vigorously defended Plaskett on the House floor. Plaskett herself explained away the chummy texts with Epstein — in which he complimented her outfit and seemed to shape her questions — as a text from a constituent.
Plaskett also claimed it wasn’t public knowledge at the time of Cohen’s Feb. 2019 hearing that Epstein was under federal investigation.
“Let me tell you something — I don’t need to get advice on how to question anybody from any individual,” Plaskett said in her own defense on the House floor.
But Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida felony charges including solicitation of prostitution with a minor. He ended up serving 13 months in state prison. The Miami Herald also ran a major exposé in Nov. 2018 laying out how Epstein and his lawyers were able to obtain an extraordinary non-prosecution agreement from the Justice Department.
For months Democrats have claimed the moral high ground on Epstein and GOP ties with him — including Trump. Hours after the Epstein vote, those same party leaders were forced to defend one of their own member’s association with him.
“It’s pretty hard to take away from such an incredible victory, but of course it’s not ideal,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said.
