Congressman Pat Ryan
Appearances
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
That's where we're at. And we got to be we got to listen and hear voters on that.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
That is the mood, certainly in my district, especially in any purple or competitive district. You talk to members of Congress, House members, which is where I just, you know, by virtue of where I'm sitting, tend to have the most conversations within my party is like, regardless of what like traditional caucus or group you belong to, progressive or moderate or blue dog.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
The common theme is an economic populist set of policies and rhetoric that is just grounded in actually listening to voters, understanding that, like in my community, for example, wages for 20 years have been flat and costs are just piling up on everybody. Neither party has actually solved that. And Trump was kind of the first one to actually channel that and get that and speak to that.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And shame on us for not understanding having a better, more constructive set of solutions and rhetoric around it to give a case that people can trust and believe in around solving those problems.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Well, by the way, I'm not saying I'm certainly right here. I'm just at a moment where I think we have to be willing to take risk and, you know, kind of say what we're hearing and then we see where it goes. So I'm not saying I have this all figured out by any means. But what I think the moment we're at as a party is I actually think exciting.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
where I'm a big believer in, yes, you have formal official titles, but leadership to me is not about that. Good leadership is about by power of example or by power of taking action and seeing people respond to it, you can set direction for... any organization or group.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And there's a lot of folks in the Democratic Party right now tend to be relatively younger, although that's a low bar, and newer, and many of whom were mobilized by Trump's election in the first place. uh, term by the way, myself included to come into politics, who I think have a different theory of change and are willing to be out there and kind of pushing.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And I think that's healthy at a moment, like we're in, and we just, sometimes leadership is creating formal leaders, creating a space for that innovation and nudging and pushing. is what's needed.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And I think we're going to start to see that bear out here in a way that's actually will ultimately in the medium and long term be healthy for the party, especially as you look ahead to 2028 and a presidential primary where we'll really choose who's our next national leader.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
But in the meantime, I don't mind letting House members and local elected officials and senators see what's working and connecting. And it really requires us to go back to listen to voters and not just talk to Dems, but talk to everybody and see what helps rebuild this sort of patriotic coalition. And I think from that, we're going to come through this okay.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
as long as we just bring intensity to that process.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Yeah. I mean, especially in New York specifically, I'm a data person. If you look at young voter registration in New York, my district is one of the highest of this actually in the state and in the country. Young voters are registering, which is great, but they're increasingly registering unaffiliated. In New York, that just means you don't choose either party. We don't have like an
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
independent label. You just registered but unaffiliated. That's a growing, growing... That's now the second biggest group in New York. Democrats, number one. Unaffiliated, number two. Republicans are third. And that's mirrored across a lot of countries. So I think for a lot of good reason, trust in both parties is at historic lows.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And figuring out how to speak to those Americans and those voters in a way that's still grounded in
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
values but doesn't come with the typical like partisan purity tests and and framing and you're either fully on this agenda or not like that's not how anybody lives their life in the real world we focus on the area where we have common cause you build a coalition around it that's clearly affordability in the economy and that's the space we're going to have as each day trump fails to do anything to fix the number one problem of the american people
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
folks are smart. They will see that and feel that. And he's talking about invading Gaza and sending American troops instead of bringing down egg and food costs and bringing down rents and housing costs, bringing down prescription drug costs and health care costs. So that's the one, even in early polling, that's the one place that American people are already seeing and feeling like, huh,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
He said he was going to do this. Instead, he's doing a lot of other stuff, some of which I might agree with. But that's not my core problem that I elected you to focus on.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Yeah, very quickly, I think the case which we should make every chance we get is that my life was changed by military service and exposing me to a bunch of people I wouldn't have otherwise met, forcing me to work together with them towards a common mission and showing me that like the greatest sort of reward and joy in life is accomplishing something for a cause greater
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Yeah, and I think it's really important to center the American people and my constituents on what they're hearing and feeling, which is an unprecedented, we've got an unprecedented level of calls, emails, texts. Honestly, friends, I haven't talked to like a decade or texting me like, dude, what is going on? What can we do? And people are rightly deeply concerned about an unprecedented encroachment
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
than yourself with a group of people. And I think that's a big part of the answer, by the way, to the problem that young people are feeling to our prior conversation where they want to be part of something, but they don't see those options right now.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
So one of my big legislative priorities is a national service push, which has been really hard, sadly, to get moving through Congress, even though it's such a bipartisan idea that everybody you talk to is like, oh, that sounds great. But when it comes time to fund it, generally, Republicans, unfortunately, don't want to put up the money.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Like, for example, even if we just funded every person, every like if we doubled the slots in some of our existing national service programs where you have more qualified applicants than you have slots, that would double the number of people in the country doing service. The cost is very, very low compared to many other things we invest in. And the return on that is just transformational.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And you think about like the GI Bill of my grandfather's World War II generation. So legislatively, it's way harder than it should be. And so I'm going to devote a bunch of energy to trying to build not only Democratic support, but Republican support. And there is a group in Congress that gives me some hope called the Four Country Caucus, which is a bipartisan group of military veterans.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
There's about 40 of us now. Actually, it might even be more than that now. grew with some new members of both parties this time. And there is a consensus there that this is something we really need to prioritize through this caucus. So I think that's a logical place to build some support and try to grow it. But maybe I'll come back to when we can sort of say, okay, if I only had a few more
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
People on this, I think we can get over the line and see if we can rally more folks.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
I think, honestly, the issue that really makes me want to rage is you've got a president again in Donald Trump who has a documented record of calling our troops suckers and losers, who's insulted military families, gold star families, trampled on the honor of Arlington National Cemetery, all documented. not even really up for debate. And he ran largely on getting us out of wars, by the way.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And since taking office, has talked about invading Canada, Mexico, Panama, and just the other day, doubled down on Gaza. And as someone who served and lost friends, and I still wear this memorial bracelet of all my West Point classmates that were lost in combat, that's bullshit. Like, that is a disservice to our whole country and certainly to those who we lost. So
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
That's the thing that makes me rage. I've been very public about that and tried to make that case in the 2024 election. Unfortunately, did not succeed. But the thing I think we should be less outraged about is that the second half of this.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
I mean, this is maybe a slight variation on the less rigid, but I'm getting a ton of calls in my office from constituents saying, what are you doing to stand up against Musk and Trump and the MAGA movement? Which I understand that, but I've not seen any of my Republican colleagues ever in charge get this question answered.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
As they all watch and say nothing about all the things happening, like even there were some Democratic activists that were protesting Democratic elected officials rather than protesting Republicans. Like, I think that that is just just doesn't make sense to me.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
So that's less a calm down, more of a at least if you have reached channel it appropriately from an accountability perspective at the people who have the opportunity to fix the thing that you're concerned about.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Lots of feelings on that one.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
on our privacy, on at least one, if not multiple amendments in the Bill of Rights. And I think that it calls for appropriate aggressive action. And I've tried to give all the new administration the benefit of the doubt, but it's very clear to me, Elon Musk is a villain and we have to talk in our The moment we're in, we have to have heroes and villains in our story as Democrats.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Thank you for having me. Keep the faith. I'm still actually quite optimistic about our country.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Thanks.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And Musk has now certainly earned that title. And we should hold him accountable, not only for getting all up in everybody's private data at Treasury and these other agencies, but also I'm going to start shining a light through my role in the Armed Services Committee.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
in the potential, if not certain, corruption around all his defense contracts, where he stands to personally make an incredible billions of dollars with access to privilege, access to information and connections based on how much money his companies have already been paid before he was in this position. Forget about now.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
So I think we're in a moment right now, more broadly, maybe talk about this more later, where
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
We have to be in just constant communication with, in my case, 800,000 constituents, with the American people, and without judgment, and certainly without any condescension, just describing what the real harmful impacts of this is and will be, the harmful impacts of the funding freeze, whether that's Head Starts in my district that still don't have funding to feed and care for kids, or 20 veteran inpatient beds at my local VA that I go to,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
in the Hudson Valley of New York State that had to close because of Trump's hiring freeze on personnel. This is hurting people deeply, and we have to get back on our front foot and start talking about the impacts of these decisions. Even if you voted for President Trump, you should at least know and be an informed citizen about what the impacts are.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Well, I think... We should certainly start with the most egregious violator of our constitution, which is Elon Musk. Everything he's doing and increasingly things he stands for and says are just directly contrary to the oath that I took as an army officer, the oath I've taken as a member of Congress, the oath that all my colleagues, by the way, have taken regardless of party.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And the oath that even the president himself took. And Elon didn't take that oath. He is an unelected, unaccountable guy who, as I think you said recently, wasn't even an American until not that long ago.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Well, these are just facts. I mean, we just have to share the facts. And I think not getting in the place of I told you so or condescension or judgment, we just have to inform people.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And my goal is to speak less myself and more highlight the voices of my constituents, whether that's veterans in my district that now don't have a place to go if they're at a crisis of a drug overdose, for example, or parents who don't know where to drop off their five rule because their head start might
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
close or farmers who just learned that a bunch of USDA payments are still frozen and all screwed up. So we need to elevate those voices of the American people, center the American people as the heroes, and make clear that Musk is the villain. And there are others too, but he's certainly number one.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Yeah, this is this is my if I do one thing in however many years, I'm fortunate to have this job goal, which is to stop the direction where in our country where having an American flag at your home or
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
know loving our country is somehow belongs to one party we need two functioning healthy parties at least we need three branches of government that have checks and balances these are all the things that our founding fathers and mothers talked about wrote about the federalist papers and so on and i think we're at a moment in the country we we do need as leaders not just in politics but all leaders need to remind people
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And sort of go back to our patriotic founding revolutionary roots, where we had a Monarch with all power and control unaccountable and unelected taking our money for their own gain. And, you know, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. I think we're at a moment where we need patriots without partisanship attached to rise up here again. and reassert that.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And my goal is, you know, from within the democratic party, largely, although I have my disagreements with the party to build that coalition out from there. Because if you look at the last eight years, the Democrats are the patriotic party. We stood for our constitution and against an insurrection. We stood, um,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
to keep our government open multiple times in my first two years in Congress when the Republicans wanted to shut it down. And so we have to make that proactive case. And I think so much of the frustration I have with the Democratic Party is right now we've left a vacuum
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
for our opponents to define us, in many cases, not grounded in reality or focusing on sort of the loudest voices that represent the far extreme. And we need to make sure we're proactively putting out this patriotic vision, really, of where we think the country can and should go.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Well, I think sort of this idea that as we're in or maybe approaching crisis or maximum division, there actually is opportunity there. I hate to say that, but I think that I've generally been that kind of person in my life where even if you're in a bad situation, you try to make the best of it and use a crisis to bring people together.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
So I think focusing on core issues and areas where there's broad resonance and appeal, and without a doubt, that is affordability in the economy right now. It's the only thing we should be talking about as Democrats. And we failed to do it, at least nationally,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
in these last elections, myself and other House members that talked obsessively about affordability and listened also, more importantly, to our constituents about their pain on affordability, we way outperformed the national brand because we just actually listened to voters and did everything we could to fight for them and against any power, whether
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
corporate or government that was sort of harming them from an affordability perspective.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
So we should see, for example, this coming potential shutdown or government funding moment that's coming in the next few weeks, I think, as an opportunity to assert a proactive view of what Democrats want to do in lowering housing costs, lowering prescription drug costs, lowering food and grocery costs, and put that out as our marker that if you don't work with us on that,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
on these specific proposals, then you're obstructing the number one need of the American people.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
I think we're talking about, with respect, you're talking about sort of inside baseball process rather than really talking about, like, what are we for? Like, we should put out a policy focus, not like we're trying to shut things down or stop things, because a lot of, agree or not, a lot of what Trump is doing...
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Separate from some of these overreaches is very popular, as you said, in some of the polling numbers. So we should listen to our voters and focus on what he's not doing, which is anything at all in three weeks time to lower costs in any way. In fact, much of what he's done is driving up costs.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Thanks for having me, Jess. I'm sorry, I'm choking on my coffee here. I apologize.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
the threats and imposition of tariffs, seeing food prices go up, seeing costs of everything go up, we should talk about a proactive agenda that we want the Republicans to support in this budget negotiation about lowering housing, health care, and food costs. And if they don't do that, then that's their choice. They're in the majority.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
If they can't summon their majority, that's their decision to shut down the government. But I think we should start from a place of good faith. Let's focus on the number one issue in the country, which is affordability.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
just quickly like i think it's the messaging here to your point is super important i learned this day one in the army when in charge take charge they're in charge of everything we the american people chose that they know the american people know that we need to help remind them of that and we can put out we should put out our pro you know proactive agenda of what we stand for
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Let them let those in charge respond to that and either get on board with it or not. Yeah.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
That's how excited I am to be on the show. I'm just like chugging coffee and got too excited. So I'm a huge fan of yours and appreciate the good fight that you continue to fight to actually say things that are truthful and authentic and honest on an important news channel that we all know is out there.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Well, and I think understandably, this is me not being a lawyer. Most Americans, once it's like in the courts and all that, it's like, all right, that's very complicated and long and slow. Um, we need to be messaging in the moment at a local visceral level.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
These are the specific impacts, whether economic, especially, but certainly to key things like childcare and veteran services that are real and visceral and tangible and do it in a nonpartisan way. We've rallied in my district, a bipartisan group of veterans, VFWs, legions, elected officials of both parties who have said, this is like not who we are as a country where we leave our veterans hanging.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And this is some of what that article you mentioned was sort of focused on is what happened with young people and especially young men. I mean, I don't think any person or group likes to be sort of talked to in such a political way of like, here's my plan to... win back men, or here's my plan to win back women. Like, I think that's disingenuous and comes up people's BS meters very high.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And that just rings the bell of like, this is just a politician trying to sell me a, sell me a bridge or whatever. And so I think we need to be much more authentic and real. I think what I talked about in the article is sort of like, there is this conversation about toughness and masculinity happening where if the brand of the Democratic Party is, to me, there's two aspects to sort of leadership.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
One is care and one is fight. I have to fight for my people, but I have to do it from a place of caring about them. That's good leadership to me, whether in the army, business, family, politics. The Democratic Party, I think, is very heavy on the care, which is great, but hasn't shown the fight very much, right? Trump and MAGA are big on the fight, less so on the care.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
And the sweet spot is both and doing it authentically. I think if we do that, certainly with policy, but more so at a values and culture level, That's when our brand is strongest. When we are fighting for the underdog, we're fighting for you against a person like Musk, by the way. And we can get back to that. Absolutely. That's, you know, we've had FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
I mean, these are models of how to have that sort of what I'm calling patriotic populism. I know populism is like a word with a lot of current connotations, but we're in a populist moment in the country and Trump is destructive answers to that. We have to have constructive answers and policies to meet the populists rage to riff on your title here of your great podcast. Like,