The Far Left’s Gift to Trump - with Ritchie Torres
Regardless of who you voted for in the U.S. presidential election, many of us are continuing to attempt to unpack what happened in this extraordinary election. There has been a lot of analysis of the various demographic shifts.
But less attention has been paid to Jewish voters and the role they played - as well as the issues of the Israel-Hamas war and rising antisemitism in the U.S. How did these issues impact how Americans - both Jewish and non-Jewish - chose to vote?
To discuss, our guest today is Congressman Ritchie Torres. Rep. Torres lives in the Bronx and represents New York’s 15th congressional district. He is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services and the House’s Elect Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He has been on the front lines of electoral politics this year, both in his congressional district in the Bronx, and nationally, as a champion on the issue of Israel and antisemitism.
Item discussed in this episode: Michael Powell’s interview with Ritchie Torres in the Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/democrats-lost-voters-ritchie-torres/680599/
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
RT: The far left is a gift to Donald Trump, and it will be the gift that we'll keep on giving until there's a serious reckoning with the results of the election. And it's worth noting the magnitude of the defeat. Not only did he crack the blue wall in the industrial midwest, but he's beginning to crack the blue wall in urban America. The cruel irony of Donald Trump is that he has managed to build the coalitions that the socialist dream of building. And as a party, we have to ask why, and my diagnosis is that we have to stop hindering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter and tick tock that it is of the real world and start listening to working class people of color, working class people in general who have historically been the heart and soul.
DS: It's 5:30 PM on Sunday, November 10th, here in New York City. It's 12:30 AM on Monday, November 11th, in Israel, as Israelis turn to a new day. Regardless of who you voted for in the U.S. presidential election, we are all, or at least most of us are continuing to try to unpack what happened in this extraordinary election. There's been a lot of analysis of the various demographic shifts, focused on the shifting voting behaviors of Latinos, of younger voters, of some subsets of women and on and on and on. But there's been less attention on Jewish voters and the role they played and the issues of the Hamas Israel war and rising anti Semitism here in the U.S. And the impact of those issues on the election, even among non Jewish voters, I continue to believe those issues did have an impact, not just on Jewish voters, but also on non-Jewish voters. It's an area that I've been focused on, but so has my guest today, Congressman Richie Torres, who lives in the Bronx and represents New York's 15th congressional district. Congressman Torres is a member of the committee on financial services in the house and also on the house select committee on the Chinese communist party. He's also been a leader on foreign policy, and an outspoken advocate and champion for the U.S. Israel relationship. Just to sum up where we are in terms of these election results; Donald Trump won the popular vote. He won more electoral college votes than he won in the previous two presidential elections. There seems to have been a wholesale shift of approximately 4% in the vote. He won every swing state, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania also where Republicans defeated a Senate incumbent and Republicans have won the Senate majority. President Trump came within five points of winning very blue states like New Jersey and within five points of winning Virginia, which was supposed to be a democratic stronghold. He came within 11 points of winning New York state. That's right, Vice President Harris only won New York state deep blue, New York by 11 points. President Trump had the best showing for a Republican in New York city in 44 years. He even did well in the Bronx. And it's something our guest today knows a lot about because Richie Torres has been on the front lines of electoral politics this cycle, both in his congressional district in the Bronx, but also nationally, as he's been very active on the issue of Israel and anti Semitism. Richie Torres on the far left's gift to Donald Trump. This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my longtime friend, Congressman Richie Torres from New York. Congressman, thanks for being here.
RT: Always a pleasure to be with you.
DS: Richie, you and I spoke after the election. And I thought you had some of the most interesting insights about what happened in this election. And then I read a piece by another Call Me Back guest, Michael Powell in the Atlantic, who's also from New York, that just posted over the weekend. And it was an interview of you. And I want to get specifically into the role that Israel and Gaza and rising anti Semitism and all the connected issues played in the election with you. I think your insights on that are extremely important. Before we get to that I just want to talk at a more general level about what your takeaway was from the election. I want to quote Michael Powell here. He says “Torres pointed as well to the cumulative toll taken by progressives who for at least a decade have loudly championed cultural causes, enchanted slogans that turned off rank and file Democrats across many demographics. Donald Trump had no greater friend than the left, Torres told me, which alienated historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews with absurdities like defund the police or from the river to the sea or Latinx.” So can you just expand upon that? Because you seemed in this interview with Powell, you seem to stitch together a thread, you know, between all these slogans as representative of something much larger and ultimately much more offensive to the general electorate.
RT: The far left is a gift to Donald Trump, and it will be the gift that we'll keep on giving until there's a serious reckoning with the results of the election, and it's worth noting the magnitude of the defeat. You know, Donald Trump's gains among Latinos in particular is nothing short of catastrophic for the Democratic Party. Not only did he crack the blue wall in the industrial Midwest, but he's beginning to crack the blue wall in urban America. Like, the cruel irony of Donald Trump is that he has managed to build the coalitions that the socialists dream of building. United the white working class of rural America with the black and brown working class of urban America. And as a party, we have to ask why. And my diagnosis is that we have to stop hindering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter and TikTok than it is of the real world and start listening to working class people of color, working class people in general, who have historically been the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. The losses that we've seen are nothing short of staggering. Donald Trump came within 12 points of winning New York.
DS: It's amazing to me. The New York numbers to me are mind blowing. He did better in New York City than one would have expected, and you're right, he did exceptionally well in New York State. And we were, by the way, we’re starting to see this trend even in the last gubernatorial election in 2022, when Lee Zeldin came within a few points of beating Governor Hochul. So Trump, I think, is a driving force, a lot of what you're describing, but it's almost bigger than that.
RT: But that's a key point. Lee Zeldin was a master at weaponizing the words of the far left against the Democratic Party. And he ran on a platform. of public safety against Defund the Police and it was so effective that it led to the loss of five congressional seats for Democrats in New York in one of the bluest states in America and Kathy Hochul came within five points of losing the governorship and the trends that we saw unfolding in the 2024 election long predate 2024. Donald Trump made inroads among Latinos, among working class people of color in general, in 2020 during the public backlash against Defund the Police. The movement of Defund the Police has done almost irreparable damage to the brand of the Democratic Party. And if our goal is to win elections on Twitter, then we should continue embracing movements like Defund the Police. But if the objective is to win elections in the real world, then we have to marginalize the far left in favor of working class Americans.
DS: Okay, so you have a real electoral life laboratory in the district you represent, in the Bronx. So while you have been very successful politically in the Bronx, Vice President Harris should have done much better than she did. So can you just describe the makeup of your district and then what you saw specifically in your district on these issues, or what you see when you interact with constituents? I'm just trying to bring your frontline experience with, with what you're describing, because I want our listeners to understand you're not just sitting there analyzing you know, voting trends and exit poll data. And you're not just, as you say, just following Twitter and watching the conversation. You're actually living and breathing this as a political actor in a district where you can see the reactions to the very issues that you're describing.
RT: I mean, not only do I represent one of the most Latino and African American districts in the country, one of the most democratic districts in the country, but I was born and raised here. Like, these are the communities that I've spent my whole life representing. In which I brought up and to which I was brought. So for me, it's not an abstraction, it's a reality that I've lived my whole life. And the most important message I can send is that most black and brown voters in places like the Bronx are not progressive in the ideological sense in which the far left defines it. Most working class voters of color, much like the working class in general, are moderate rather than radical, are pragmatic rather than ideological, are principally concerned about bread and butter issues like the cost of living. The two overriding reasons we lost the election were inflation and immigration. Like the communities that I represent were hit the hardest by the record high inflation that we've seen in the past four years. And we ignore that reality at our own peril.
DS: Okay, when you talked about these slogans, these progressive left slogans that were flourishing on Twitter, but you're saying we're not the base of the Democratic Party, and not just the base, but the independent voters, by your lights were not responding to. You were seeing that in your district. Like the voters in your district, the people who are moderate Democrats and independent voters, you never hear them using terms like defund the police from river to the sea and Latinx. So nowhere did I see more political malpractice on the part of the Biden administration than on the subject of immigration. We've known since 2022 that there's been an unprecedented wave of migration whose impact was felt not only at the border, not only in counties like Star and Texas, but also in cities like New York, where our shelter system and our safety net and our municipal finances were completely overwhelmed to an extent that we have not seen before the shelter system more than doubled in the span of a year. And according to Quinnipiac in December of 2023, 85% of Americans, 85% of New Yorkers were concerned about the impact of the migrant crisis on New York City. Despite clear signs of popular discontent in New York and elsewhere in the country. The Biden administration waited two and a half years before issuing an executive order restricting migration at the border. And by then, it was too late. The damage was done. And when the president issued the executive order, the polling revealed that it was broadly popular among a majority of the American people, among every racial category, Blacks and Latinos, Asians and whites. And so if it was broadly popular, then what kept the administration from issuing the executive order two years ago during the peak of the crisis? And the answer is that the executive order was unpopular among the far left. Is that the far left has been given outsized power over the messaging and policymaking of the Democratic Party, which is causing us to fall out of touch with working class people, particularly working class voters of color, who have been the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Take as an example the movement Defund the Police. If you were living on Twitter with the far left, then you could be forgiven for thinking that Defund the Police is a popular movement in America. But if you're in a place like the Bronx, speaking to working class people of color, there was never anything approaching popular support for defund the police. It was a radioactive position from day one, and it should never have been treated as a respectable position in progressive politics. Or take as an example, the term Latinx. You know, I'm not suggesting that we lost the election because of the term Latinx, but the term tells a larger story.
DS: Right. Which is representative of mindset.
RT: Well, first, I've never met a single constituent in the South Bronx who uses the term Latinx. Like, if I were to use it in a town hall full of Latinos, I would be laughed out of the room. But Pew Research found that the majority of Latinos either never use the term, or disapprove of the term. Find it offensive. So if the majority of Latinos neither use the term nor approve of it, then how did it come to be the default term in corporate America and in governments? And the reason is simple, it's the preferred term of white progressives of the far left that has outsized power over the messaging and policymaking of the Democratic Party. So I've seen, there are countless examples of how we are swinging the pendulum too far to the left.
DS: Can I just ask you? So there you are, it's an election year, you are a very popular Democrat, electorally successful Democrat. Some of these internal Democratic, intra Democratic discussions, fights, depending on what debates, are occurring. Are you telling your fellow Democrats, guys, like, this is, as you said, this is electoral, this is political malpractice, what we're doing here. Like, I live in a district which is majority, people of color, Americans, New Yorkers of color, and they are not interested in defunding the police. And they recognize there's a real migrant crisis. And is that conversation happening? I know it's happening now, but was it happening before November?
RT: No, because we were misled by the results in 2022. Success can sometimes reveal your strength, but sometimes it can disguise your weakness.
DS: So just for our listeners, meaning in 2022 midterms, given how unpopular the president Biden was, there was this expectation that the Republicans were going to do exceptionally well in the midterms, and they didn't, and the Democrats exceeded expectations. And so what you're, what you're referring to when you say that is many Democrats are saying, well, we heard all these concerns before, so, and we did just fine. So rinse and repeat.
RT: We did not win in 2022. The Republicans lost. And if we continue to swing the pendulum too far to the left, we either will continue losing the elections, or we will only win the Repub when the Republicans self-destruct more than we do. The Republicans lost in 2022 because the Republican party swung the pendulum too far to the right on the issue of abortion. But I think that was widely interpreted as success on the part of the Democratic party, rather than failure on the part of the Republicans.
DS: But could they not say, well, it worked in 2022, the Dobbs vs. Roe issue, and there was ample evidence that it would yield the same political benefit in 2024. Like it's not, was that a crazy leap for them to say that the issue would have the same resonance in ‘24 that it had in ‘22? Or you're saying that they were misunderstanding that there were other issues that were creeping up that would overwhelm the power of that issue.
RT: There are masses of democratic voters, progressive voters, for whom democracy and abortion are are the central issues. But it's not true of every voter. If you would ask voters in the South Bronx, what are your primary concerns? It's not abstractions like democracy. It's not abortion. It's the cost of living. It's public safety. It's the fundamentals of governing. And we have to speak to those issues or else we risk losing voters. And 2022 was not a complete success. We lost five congressional seats in 2022. And we regained them in the latest congressional election in 2024. And we regained them on the strength of candidates like Josh Reilly, Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen, Pat Ryan. The common thread among all of them is that every one of them is a center left Democrat. Like the road to 270 electoral votes, the road to a congressional majority, Runs not through the far left, but through the center left.
DS: Okay, I want to talk now specifically about Jewish voters. You have cited this poll that has, exit poll, that's been released from the Orthodox Union, one of the organizing groups for the Orthodox Jewish community here in the United States. And you cited one showing a serious split. In the Jewish vote in Pennsylvania, just to use one example, but Pennsylvania was obviously important because it was a critical swing state for the presidential election. And it was also critical U.S. Senate race, full disclosure race that I was involved with on the Republican side, Dave McCormick. And you pointed out here that Jewish voters went 48% for Harris versus 41% for Trump. And the 41% for Trump, and it is an astonishingly high number. If you look at previous elections, you know, Republicans tend to hover somewhere between 20 and 30%, and that's been pretty consistent. Generally speaking, it's always kind of hovered between 20 and 30%. Some years, 22%, sometimes 24%, could get up to close to sometimes 30%, but according to this poll, way more. Now, why does that matter? And I know you know this, but I just want to explain. Take a state like Pennsylvania where you have somewhere in the neighborhood, we don't have the precise number, but 350,000 Jewish voters. Now, if it's an election where President Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by about 11,000 votes, in 2020, President Biden won Pennsylvania by close to 100,000 votes. So that's like you're band when you have a really tight election. Somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, 10,000 to 100,000 votes swinging in one direction or the other can make the difference both for control of the Senate potentially and obviously the winning the electoral college, the presidency. So Jewish voters in a state like that, like in the Philly suburbs, in Pittsburgh, matter a lot. So in a close election, when the battleground states have large Jewish communities and it's going to be really, really tight potentially in those battleground states, then the Jewish community has outsized electoral impact. Normally the Jewish community has minimal electoral impact, but an election like this, this dynamic is different. And so it's clear to me, and it was clear to me before the election that something was going on in the Jewish communities. When I would do these events in Pennsylvania and I'd talk to the people turning out, I would say to them, by the way, who'd you vote for in 2020? They'd say, Joe Biden. I'd say, who'd you vote for in 2016? Hillary Clinton. And they were at an event for the Republican candidate for Senate. And I said, who are you voting for president? And they said, we don't know. They were up for grabs for the first time after having voted in two of the closest elections for Pennsylvania voters for the presidency, they, two of the previous elections, they had voted Democrat and now they were not sure. So that was sort of obvious to me. It sounds like it was obvious to you before Tuesday. And I guess I have two questions then. I'm sure this conversation was happening in Democratic circles. And what was the calculation? And the second question is, is there some recognition now, post Tuesday, post this last election, that they really have gotten themselves in a jam on this issue, or with this community.
RT: It's not clear, and there have been multiple exit polls, and a number of operatives have been pointing to exit polls showing no hemorrhaging of support. I find that to be dubious, based on my own anecdotal experience on the ground. I have extensive engagement with pro Israel communities, and I've heard ample concern about the trajectory of the Democratic Party on the issue of Israel. And look, you know, Donald Trump cannot come within five points of defeating Kamala Harris in New Jersey or 12 points of defeating Kamala Harris in New York without making substantial inroads among Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Jews, historically loyal constituencies of the Democratic Party. There should be a recognition that if you have a far left that is uttering phrases like, globalize the Intifada, or from the river to the sea in the wake of October 7th, in the wake of the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. You are going to alienate many Jewish voters, right? The majority of Jews are supportive of Israel, identify as pro Israel. And there is a decisive Jewish vote, not only in Pennsylvania, but in Michigan. In Georgia, in Arizona, and, you know, we saw how destructive the anti Semitism of the far left can be. You know, you might recall during the process of selecting a vice president, the far left chose to wage an anti Semitic smear campaign in an attempt to sabotage Josh Shapiro simply because he was a Jew who spoke out against anti Semitism in the wake of October 6th. Never mind that Pennsylvania was the single most pivotal swing state. Never mind that Josh Shapiro was the exceptionally popular governor of Pennsylvania. Never mind that the outcome of the presidential race, in theory, could have been decided by a single Shapiro voter in Pennsylvania. None of that mattered to the far left. The far left's hatred for Donald Trump was exceeded only by its hatred for Israel and any Jew who identifies unequivocally is for Israel. And that to me was the ultimate example of how destructive the far left can be to our ability to win elections. I feel the party should follow the John Fetterman, Richie Torres model of moral clarity. That that would be my proposition. I felt like there was a misperception of Vice President Harris, in my view, and people might disagree. I felt that Vice President Harris is a mainstream, pro Israel, establishment Democrat who falls squarely within what I call the pro Israel consensus that has historically governed American politics. But because of the virulent anti Zionism of the far left, You know, she was perceived differently among elements of the Jewish community. And there was an attempt to navigate or finesse the issue of Israel in order to placate the anti Israel vote. I suspect you took note that Donald Trump won Dearborn, Michigan. He defeated Kamala Harris, even though he's pro Israel and has no sympathy for Palestinians at all. And so the lesson learned is that when you play both sides, you please no one and alienate everyone. We spent all this effort obsessing about the Michigan vote and alienating Jewish voters, for what benefit? To lose Dearborn, Michigan to Donald Trump? Whereas if we had spoken with moral clarity, then we would have sustained the historic level of support that we have traditionally enjoyed among Jewish voters.
DS: In this piece, in the Atlantic piece, with Michael Powell, he writes that Vice President Harris, I'm quoting here, “although she sometimes tossed up clouds of vagueness, when asked about past positions, she was disciplined and avoided mouthing the buzzwords of the cultural left during her 2024 campaign.” So, the vagueness part, I was struck by. Because during the campaign, whenever she would talk about Israel, she would say, what Hamas did on October 7th is barbaric, horrendous, and Israel absolutely has a right to defend itself. Hamas is responsible for what happened on October 7th. And Hamas is a terrorist organization, she would say, and Israel has a right to defend itself, but, and I always get worried when I hear the but come in. But, and then she would always follow it by saying, including in her convention speech, I think including in the debate, she says, but how Israel defends itself matters. And then she would go on to talk about the suffering of the Palestinian people. And that was the tell. That was to me, the tell that someone was advising her. Yes, you can make a pro Israel, you can lock arms with Israel on October 7th, but then you have to hit the butt to get some kind of bat signal, if you will, to the pro Palestinian pro Hamas activists in the United States to let them know that you still get that Israel's responsible for the suffering of Palestinians post October 7th, as opposed to saying the truth, which is that Hamas is responsible for the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza before October 7th and October 7th, but you would always do this, don't worry, I get it. We're still going to criticize Israel for what Israel has done since October 7th. And to any reasonably sophisticated Jewish voter that equivocating a little bit of equivocating a little bit of moral equivalency was a tell. And then her on top of that, she was unwilling to confront activists who would show up protesters who would show up at her events and talk about Israel being responsible for genocide and the administration supporting a genocidal government in Israel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's not like she'd give a nod to it, although sometimes she would say when asked about the protests on U.S. campuses, she would say, I hear them. She was like legitimizing their voice. She wasn't locking arms. She wasn't saying she was supportive of what they were saying, but there was a degree of legitimization of that point of view that again, I think for many Jewish voters was a tell that she needed a Clarifying moment, a sister soldier moment going back to Clinton ‘92. Some way to say, I'm not standing with you, not, oh, I hear you even though I have a slightly different view. What she was basically saying is to say, no, I don't hear you. The position you're articulating is unacceptable and could, because she never responded with rhetoric and bright lines, I think it sent a dangerous signal.
RT: There are Jewish Americans who fear for their safety, who fear for the safety of their children on college campuses. who fear for the security and survival of the Jewish state. And we have to speak to those fears with moral clarity. What matters is not only our vote in Congress, but our voice. So much of politics is not cerebral, it's visceral. And people want to know that you have their back, that you feel their pain, that you feel it in your kishka, so to speak. And when you refuse to condemn the extremes with moral clarity, you're simply reinforcing those fears rather than addressing them. You know, it's not enough not to utter the phrase from the river to the sea. You have to condemn those who do. You have to speak with the moral clarity of a John Fetterman or the moral clarity that I've attempted to show since October 7th. You know, after Governor Shapiro was not chosen for the vice presidential nomination and I was quite critical saying a lot of things you were saying just now. I was saying them publicly that I felt that Harris had caved to this online anti Semitic campaign to cancel, if you will, Josh Shapiro from contention. And then several friends of mine who were involved with the Harris campaign reached out to me and said, no, no, no, no, you're overreacting. You're misreading it. You know, the chemistry they met, the chemistry wasn't great. It's not a great fit or others more distant from the decision making would say the real issue is Josh Shapiro's a star and she didn't want to be overshadowed by Shapiro. She wanted, Tim Walsh was like the perfect person for her to run with. They gave all these reasons to make the point, whatever they may be, that she wasn't responding to the anti Semitic campaign. And my response to them was, okay. You know, I can understand there may be other reasons to have not picked Josh Shapiro. I think it was ultimately proved to be a bad move politically, but then say, publicly, I chose Tim Walsh for Vice President, but I want to be clear, my decision had nothing to do with Josh Shapiro's Judaism. With his proud unapologetic support for Israel, with his proud public embrace of his Jewish identity. In fact, I stand with Josh Shapiro in his support for Israel. I stand with Josh Shapiro in his very public and passionate condemnations of anti Semitism on college campuses in Pennsylvania. Instead of just trying to brush it away and say, no, no, no, there are other reasons, she could have confronted this issue head on. You know, again, that's the signal, to your point. It's the visceral reaction to what voters are saying.
RT: Look, when the center is silent, who's defining the Democratic Party? It's going to be the far right and the far left who are going to define the public's perception of the Democratic Party. You know, rule number one in politics is if you do not clearly define what you stand for, others will define it for you. And we'll define it in a far less flattering light, which is precisely the dynamic that is unfolding in the 2024 election. Again, I completely accept that Vice President Harris chose Tim Walz for reasons relating to personal chemistry. But for me, that's beside the point. Like, the fact that the far left would wage an anti Semitic smear campaign. against the most popular governor of the most popular of the most pivotal swing state. That should have been a wake up call that the far left is willing to sacrifice what is best for the democratic party on the altar of ideological purity and anti zionism.
DS: I have wondered for some time and had many discussions months ago that analysts and politicians tend to view this issue we're talking about now as purely an issue of concern to the Jewish community and there were moments since October 7th where I would see the anti semitic protests, encampments, sometimes pogroms here in the United States as representative of something larger than a threat just to the Jewish community. There were moments like, and we've talked about a lot on this podcast because it still gives me chills, that scene on a New York City subway car where, these pro Hamas activists, cheerleaders are wearing their keffiyehs, a mob of them come on the packed subway train and the subway car and they declare, they effectively take over the subway car and they say, if you are a Zionist, raise your hand. This is your last chance to get out, meaning before the subway doors close, meaning they were clearing and cleansing New York city subways of Zionists of Jews. And I remember watching, I've watched that video so many times. I had my kids watch that video. When you watch a video, you just look at all the other people in that subway car who most of whom are probably not Jewish and they're just keeping their heads down. But I'm sitting there thinking, what are they thinking? Are they thinking this is total breakdown of order? This is total madness. Who are these people wreaking havoc in our city? There was that scene, I don't know if you remember soon after October 7th where the pro Hamas, Protesters had shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and this guy, an African American father was on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge and he was trying to get across the Brooklyn Bridge to pick up his daughter from school and he gets out of his car and he starts yelling at the protesters. He's like, I'm trying to pick up my daughter from school. And I can't get across the bridge and he's like wailing at them and moving them away so they can't block his car physically like confronting them and saying, I don't care what you're arguing about. I got to pick my daughter from school. And then there was a scene in front of a hospital in New York City because the hospital was affiliated with the Jewish community. They were protesting in front of one of the wards or banging drums. Banging pots, making noise, being totally disruptive, while there are people in the hospital, some of whom are being treated for cancer, who have to listen to all this. It was scene after scene after scene that wasn't just, although there were plenty of scenes, of tormenting Jews, and vilifying Jews, there were also scenes of them just shutting down life. Destroying quality of life for regular New Yorkers. I mean, I saw this firsthand in New York, but obviously you could see it all over the place. And I often wondered, this is not just an issue that the Jewish community is paying attention to. They're looking at these people. They look at the organizations they're celebrating, Hamas, Hezbollah, which are defined as terrorist organizations by the United States, the leader of Hezbollah. more than one leader of Hezbollah, was on the U.S. Most Wanted list for decades for slaughtering Americans and you all are parading through our streets and shutting down city life, waving the flags of these organizations. So was your sense that non Jewish voters that you were dealing with just viewed what was happening to the Jewish community as something unique to the Jewish community? And while they were not supportive of it, it didn't really affect their lives? Or do you think it contributed to this sense of chaos, general chaos?
RT: Look, it could be the case that it undercut the sense of public safety in New York City, and it undercut confidence in government, because the government felt powerless to confront the scenes of lawlessness and disorder that had taken hold in New York City. When you have agitators setting up encampments on college campuses and blocking traffic and tearing down flags and vandalizing property, it creates a sense that the city is no longer safe. It creates a sense that government is no longer capable of keeping people safe. I cannot help but conclude that part of the reason for Trump's gains in New York is an indictment of both New York State and New York City government.
DS: Final question for you, Richie. There was a op-ed in the New York Times by Peter Beinart in which he argued, and I'll quote the headline, the title of the piece was, Democrats ignored Gaza and brought down their party. So, he's going farther than I think most Democratic analysts, where he's saying, because of Vice President Harris, President Biden, and the Democratic Party's position on Israel, whatever he characterizes as that, that is the reason Democrats lost voters. It's like, literally is the opposite of what you're saying. I know you had a strong reaction to that piece, and it's not just Peter, in fairness. There is this whole narrative out there that President Biden's early support of Israel after October 7th was a feature in why Democrats suffered electorally.
RT: The outcome of an election is often a Rorschach test on which you project your own ideology and one's analysis can reveal more about you than it does about the actual outcome of an election. Peter Beinart claims that outrage against Israel among young black men was one of the causes of democratic defeat in the election. It's fair to say that Mr. Beinart has zero insight into communities of color. And I speak as a person of color who was born into communities of color, who was raised in communities of color, who has spent my adult life representing communities of color in the city council and in Congress. If you speak to a young man of color struggling to put food on the table, struggling to pay the bills, struggling to keep his family afloat, the farthest issue on his mind is a conflict 5,000 miles away, right? The existential issue for him is inflation. The cause of his discontent with the system is the crippling cost of living. And anyone claiming otherwise is representing their own ideology rather than reality. Alright, Richie, we will leave it there. I completely agree with what you said about John Fetterman and yourself, and you know, maybe there's the beginning of a presidential, vice presidential ticket there, but you know, that's my speculation, not yours, uh, but I think it would be a breath of fresh air for
RT: Dan, when I'm 80, I will announce my bid for president, so you have my word.
DS: That's right, you got plenty of time!
RT: I'm 36, so, yeah.
DS: Congressman Richie Torres, thanks for doing this and, uh, look forward to keeping in touch on this issue and a whole range of others. Your voice has been extremely important as are your insights and analysis. So thank you.
RT: All the best. Take care.
DS: Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.