Hakeem Jeffries Shutdown Livestream Draws Smaller Audience Than Jimmy Kimmel

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) drew an audience of dozens to his recent livestream event, which featured a handful of Democrats complaining about — and blaming Republicans for — the government shutdown triggered by Democrat demands.

Jeffries named the event “Stop the Republican Shutdown,” went live prior to the shutdown, and stayed online after it took effect. As people checked in on him throughout the livestream, several noticed that the number of people streaming struggled to approach 200 — well below even the numbers late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel has generated since returning from suspension over his comments about assassinated conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

“Currently 152 people watching Hakeem Jeffries ’24 hour shutdown livestream’ on YouTube,” GOP communications strategist Matt Whitlock commented, sharing a screenshot that showed the number of live viewers (152) as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) spoke.

Currently 152 people watching Hakeem Jeffries “24 hour shutdown livestream” on YouTube. pic.twitter.com/dmlzBUJxAf

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 1, 2025

Another screenshot shared by independent reporter Ken Klippenstein showed A.B. Burns-Tucker speaking with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who was sporting a “no kings” cap in an apparent protest of President Donald Trump. The viewer count sat at 156.

About 20 minutes into shutdown and Hakeem Jeffries’ livestream is down to 93 viewers pic.twitter.com/MssThRSsJb

— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) October 1, 2025

A short time later, the viewer count dropped to fewer than 100.

Get 40% off new DailyWire+ annual memberships with code FALL40 at checkout! 

A screenshot shared by the Republican Party showed viewership of the stream dropping to just 66 in the 10 a.m. hour.

Congrats to @RepJeffries for a full 66 viewers in the 10 am hour on his 24-hour “shutdown livestream” pic.twitter.com/oeW34LeRJu

— GOP (@GOP) October 1, 2025

Even Politico jabbed at the debacle, with reporter Adam Wren noting that he’d watched much of the stream “so you didn’t have to,” and then laying out a series of missteps made by Democrats trying to win the messaging war over the shutdown.

“In launching the livestream, which featured the feel of a throwback telethon with none of the charisma or surprise, Jeffries and his allies seemed to tacitly acknowledge that they needed to be fighting, and sounding and looking as if they were. (‘Y’all, I ain’t scared,’ Jeffries said at one point. ‘I’m from Brooklyn.’) But few Dems seemed willing to fight on camera,” he wrote.

Wren noted that while Jeffries himself appeared — as did Swalwell and a few others — most of the party’s more prominent voices had not. In addition to the glaring absence of progressives like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), there was a very noticeable chunk of the broadcast filled with rerun content rather than live conversation. According to Wren, despite an internal email begging Democrats to rally and fill the empty time slots, no one was available between 2:30 and 5:30 a.m.

A spokesperson for Jeffries claimed in a statement that the total viewership for the event was significantly higher, stating that there had been approximately 60,000 viewers across several streams and that “clips from the livestream are continuing to also generate hundreds of thousands of views and we still have more coming.”