Trump Sends Hakeem Jeffries a Bipartisan Terms-of-Service Agreement

WASHINGTON — This is parody inspired by a real event.

With House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries saying he has yet to hear from President Trump after Democrats won a new House majority, the White House on Monday attempted direct bipartisan outreach by emailing Jeffries a 143-page Terms of Service agreement titled Working Together, Tremendously.

The document arrived at 2:14 a.m., required no fewer than six electronic signatures and opened with a cheerful animation of two hands shaking while a small disclaimer clarified that one hand was permitted to withdraw at any time “for reasons including, but not limited to, ratings.”

“The president has been extremely clear that he wants to work with everybody,” said a fictional White House liaison standing beside a monitor displaying a large green button with no label. “All Leader Jeffries has to do is click through the standard conditions of productive governance: acknowledge that the president’s opening offer is historic, waive the right to describe a meeting differently afterward, and consent to occasional policy updates while he sleeps.”

Jeffries initially attempted to reply with a short note proposing an actual phone call. The system immediately marked his message as a “feature request” and informed him that a representative would respond within seven to ten fiscal quarters.

Capitol Hill staffers said the agreement was unusually thorough even by Washington standards. One provision defined “bipartisan” as any event featuring at least one Democrat within camera range of a Republican. Another allowed the White House to declare “major progress” whenever both parties remained in the same building for more than eleven minutes. A third warned that using the phrase “oversight” could cause the session to close unexpectedly.

But the real innovation came in Section 48, which governed disagreements. Under the agreement, any conflict over spending, immigration, investigations or whether the president had contacted Jeffries would first be routed through an informal resolution process known as “the president posting about it.” If that failed, both sides were required to attend binding arbitration conducted by whichever cable panel had booked the most former officials that evening.

At first, Democrats assumed the contract was merely another piece of Washington theater: an elaborate way to turn a call that had not happened into a refusal that could be discussed on television. Then Jeffries discovered that declining the agreement automatically generated a public-facing confirmation reading, “House Democrats have chosen obstruction over an exciting opportunity to accept the terms.”

That was when the offer became less a negotiation than a hostage situation conducted by customer-support software.

Jeffries reportedly asked whether he could simply edit the document. The White House said certainly, then sent him a special link to a version in which every clause had been converted into a high-resolution image. A staffer later suggested that if the Democratic leader wanted to make changes, he could submit them through the administration’s new “Tell Us How We Can Say Yes” portal, which contains one field: Describe why the president is right.

The arrangement briefly appeared to hit a snag when the White House learned that Congress itself has powers, procedures and a deeply inconvenient ability to write legislation without first pressing “I Agree.” Administration officials quickly reassured reporters that this was exactly why the agreement included a free trial. For thirty days, House Democrats may exercise their constitutional authority at no charge before being automatically enrolled in the premium plan, which includes subpoenas, shutdown threats and an annual membership fee paid entirely in headlines.

By late afternoon, Trump aides were reportedly celebrating the outreach as a breakthrough. Jeffries had not signed the agreement, accepted the call, or even opened the attachment, but tracking data showed that someone in his office had hovered over the download icon for nearly four seconds.

The White House promptly called it the longest period of bipartisan cooperation since the app asked whether he was still there.