Tom Suozzi
Appearances
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So let's do the stuff that was in the Senate bill to secure the border, the bipartisan Senate deal that Trump killed during the election. Let's fix the broken asylum system. And Trump said he wants to make a deal on the Dreamers. Let's do that. Let's make a deal on the Dreamers. Let's make a deal on the Dreamers and the TPS recipients and the farm workers and some other groups.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I think so. You know, we all we have to we can't just rely on his good faith. Obviously, we have to be strategic about it. We have to think of things that he needs from us and make that part of the negotiation and then politically say, listen, well, you said you want to secure the border. We got a way to secure the border for real, not just an executive order, but for real.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
You say you want to make a deal on the dreamers. We're ready to make a deal on the dreamers. We're, we're, we're ready to do all the stuff to fix this problem. You put your money where your mouth is instead of just talking about it. Let's do it for real. Cause right now, I, you know, if they want to do a lot of stuff through reconciliation.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Now, for people who may not understand, reconciliation is just a budget bill. You can't change policy. You can't change the laws. You can change the financing of things. So you could get more money for border agents and you could get more money for immigration judges and you get more money for the wall. And, you know, you can get more money for certain things, detention beds.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
you get more money for those things, but you can't change the rules regarding asylum. You can't change, you know, saying we need to stop asylum applications in between the ports of entry of the Southern border. Uh, you can't fix the dreamer issue. You can't fix DPS. You can't fix from, you know, what Trump wants to do between tariffs and deportation of so many people will be very inflationary.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And his biggest problem is to rapidly reduce prices. I'm pretty much willing to predict right now that come two years and four years from now, prices will be either the same or higher because of his policies. It's going to be very hard for him to lower prices, especially with his policies of tariffs and deportation.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So I think the biggest problem the Democrats face is that we've lost the working class. And that's, you know, the reason I'm a Democrat is because I believe that, you know, for America to be successful, we have to have a strong middle class in our country. And that's not going to happen on its own in our system. Government has to play a role in helping to foster the creation of a middle class.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Democrats need to start talking about, you know, Republicans try to say they're for the working class. Well, the minimum wage in America is $7.25 an hour in 20 states. Democrats are in favor of increasing the minimum wage. Republicans are not in favor of increasing the minimum wage.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Democrats are in favor of unions and promoting the PRO Act, which is a way to encourage more union membership in America. Republicans are against... the PRO Act. Democrats are in favor of giving more teeth to the National Labor Relations Board. Republicans are afraid of giving more power to the National Labor Relations Board. So first, we have to understand what happened in our country.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So in the 1980s, America was terrified that the Japanese and the German car companies were crushing America's big three automakers. And we were worried they were going to take over all manufacturing in our country. And we freaked out. And a guy named Milton Friedman, a famous economist, wrote a paper and he said, listen, Stop worrying about the employees.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Stop worrying about the communities that you operate in and focus on the shareholder. If you focus on the shareholder, we will succeed. We will beat this global threat of globalization and we will win. And we did. We focused on the shareholders to the exclusion of the employees and the communities we're in. And we made a lot of money. We were very successful. The Dow Jones has got up 2,500%.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
The GDP has gone up 1,500%, but workers' wages have gone up by less than 30%. And it's best manifest in a couple movies. One is the movie Wall Street. You know the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Gordon Gekko says greed is good. And the idea is we're going to do whatever it takes to stop this fat company that's not changing with the times to be more efficient. And in the movie Pretty Woman, you remember Pretty Woman with Richard Gere?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So Richard Gere and Jason Alexander from Seinfeld, you know, was his sidekick. And they're going to buy up this old guy's company. And chop it up for parts. What's that? And chop it up for parts. And chop it up for parts and sell off the shipbuilding. Guy says, the older man says, but thousands of people will lose their jobs and this town will be decimated.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
He says, yeah, but we're going to make a lot of money. And that's what happened in America is we got rid of a lot of these factory towns. People lost their union jobs. left behind a polluted property. People now, instead of, you know, making a 70 or 80 or $90,000 a year and having health insurance and a pension don't have that anymore. They're working for $10.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
If you make $10 an hour and you work 40 hours a week and you work 50 weeks a year and you have two weeks vacation, you're only making $20,000 a year. If you make $15 an hour, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, that's $30,000 a year. You're not gonna be able to buy a house, educate your kids, pay for health insurance and retire one day without being scared on 20 or 30 or $40,000 a year.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
It's impossible. So we got all these people in these hollowed out communities throughout the country that are pissed off because they're working hard. They're not making enough money. They don't have health insurance. They're getting bankrupt by their debt. Their churches are empty. There's no more Elks Club. Their kids are doing methamphetamine or fentanyl or dying from overdoses.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
People are losing their teeth. And it's like, what happened to my town? What happened to my life? And they're pissed off and they're looking for a savior and they fell for Donald Trump's lying. Joe Biden actually did a lot of great stuff with the Infrastructure Act, with the CHIPS Act, with promoting unions to try and rebuild the middle class.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
He always said, he's just, unfortunately, President Biden was not the greatest communicator in the world. He always said, we wanna build from the bottom up and from the middle out. That's what we need to do in America.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Well, Trump is different in that he's got a lot more experience and he's really set himself up to hit the ground running. And I really think that he was surprised when he won the first time and surrounded himself with... Weren't we all? Yeah, right.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
We need to rebuild the middle class and people who aspire to the middle class so that they make enough money so that they can afford to have a house, educate their kids, pay for health insurance, and retire without being scared. Until we start talking about that as our main issues to people again, we're going to keep on losing the working class.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
As long as we're focused on some of the cultural issues and some of the things that like, you know, why are you so worried about... This guy who came here is undocumented and committed a crime. And I'm not making enough money to take care of my family. I don't have a health insurance or a pension anymore. What about me? What are you doing about me? So we got to get back to The basics.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
One last thing. When Trump was first elected in 2016, I went to a big meeting at the DCCC. People were sitting around a table, 50 people. And one union guy says, the Democrats used to show up at church picnics and at the bars and they would talk to you. They don't do that anymore. And that's the problem.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
When I first started talking about the border in my special election to take the seat that George Santos was kicked out of, and I was talking about the border, everybody's like, why are you talking about the border? That's a Republican issue. I was like, this is what everybody's talking about. We have to stop listening to the consultants and start listening to the people that we represent again.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Yeah. I mean, politics, you know, goes in waves. And, you know, right now we're on the downswing of our wave. We are in trouble. We have to get back to to talking about what people care about and talking to the people.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I think that's more of a tactical thing. You know, the media is fractured now. That's why I'm on your show.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
He surrounded himself with people that the first time, I think, that were seen as being, you know, Washington experts and people have been around, but they weren't necessarily... his team per se. And now he's got a lot more people around him that are just totally pro-Trump and, you know, which is a little scary in a way and that are going to go along with him.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I mean, the bottom line is the media. We have the there's five parts of the media now. Traditional media, which is your local daily newspaper and your local channels and your cable news and, you know, the New York Times and the New York Post for me and, you know, other traditional media. Weekly paper is very important. Anybody who reads a weekly paper, your local paper, they're definitely voting.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I always say my voters are not on social media, they're on social security. You have traditional media. Then you have social media, and that's about organizing people that are there. It's not about saying extreme crazy stuff, which I'll never end up doing that. It's about organizing people that think the way you do to get them to repost your stuff.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
It's like any kind of field organizing of a campaign. You have to figure out how to get other people working with you on the message you're trying to sell. Then you have podcasts, and the thing that Trump did so effectively by reaching out to different groups, especially young men, which was his target, and spending time doing that. And we need to do a better job of that as Democrats.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Then you have ethnic media, and then you have the national media. So it takes a lot of work. First, you gotta figure out who's paying attention, in your district and beyond your district to sell the message. And then you have to do the hard work of spending time in each of these different silos. Because when I came up in politics, you know, you did a press release and the paper's covered.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
It was maybe lucky to get on TV and that was good enough. Now you have to do a lot of work and spend a lot of time in each of these different silos.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I'm learning a lot from this and I love the longer format anyway.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Okay, well, I have to work on the border. That's my big thing.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Secure the border, fix the broken asylum system, DREAMers, TPS recipients, farm workers. I'm working with a conservative Republican from Texas named Morgan Luttrell, former Navy SEAL, young guy, has a lot of 30,000 DREAMers in his district from a border state. Seems like he wants to get this done. He's worried about getting out too far in front of Trump. And we're building a coalition of others
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
But I'm also the new co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus. My Democratic colleagues selected me as the Democratic co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Brian Fitzpatrick is the Republican co-chair. He and I work together. And like you asked a very important question. Who do you have a good relationship with? You have to constantly work at building relationships.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And I try to do that through the Problem Solvers. I go to the prayer breakfast meetings. I go to a bipartisan workout class. You know, wherever I can get a way to hang out with people, to understand where they're coming from, and so they can understand where I'm coming from, we can find common ground.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Thank you so much, Jess. Thank you.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I've been thinking about, you know, he lost so many people from his cabinet the first time. Who's going to be the person with an independent mindset that says, Mr. President, I really don't think this is a good way to go and you should consider doing it this way. So I think only like Rubio is a person who's like an independent person. He's got his own view of the world.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
You know, he wants to be the president or he ran for president previously. But, you know, so far he's going along with President Trump. Everybody else is kind of like they're just part of the MAGA movement. And I don't know that they're going to have the... temerity to stand up and say, Hey, I don't think we're doing this the right way, Mr. President, but we'll see.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
We have, you know, we have, we have, there's so much happening right now. It's just come, you know, I, I just last night realized it's only been a week and, and it's hard to imagine. Trump is really good at, you know, saying, Hey, look over here, look over here. And, you know, he's doing 50 things over there. So when he does that,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Greenland and the Panama Canal and the Gulf of America, you know, what happened to let's reduce prices, let's end the Ukrainian war in one day, let's get, you know, some of these other things done that he said would be so easy to do, you know, get the price of eggs down, get gasoline prices down.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So he's a master of distraction to get you all, and everybody takes the bait, gets all excited, you know, talking about these things, and he's really doing everything 10 other things off to the side. And something's very serious.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
You can't, you know, you can't, you know, blow up at everything. So when he gave his inaugural address, He said a lot of things that I would disagree with and some things that I thought were totally inappropriate. But I'm choosing to say, OK, let's focus on the things we can agree upon. I agree that we need to secure the border. I agree that we should deport criminals.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I support you when you say that we should rapidly reduce prices. He said something about, you know, chronic disease and helping young. Yeah, let's do that stuff. So let's, you know, we've got to pick and choose. you know, what we can work on. And then some things, well, of all the 50 things that gets you maybe a little exercised, you have to pick the one or two things that you want to focus on.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So for example, you know, the, the, the pardons. Okay. That's a pretty big deal because he did a blanket pardon for 1600 people. And I focus on one case that really just, when I read about it, just really blows me away. There's a guy named Daniel Rodriguez. On January 6th, they were beating up a Capitol Police officer. He was on the ground. People were yelling and kicking and punching.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And people were saying, kill him, kill him. And Daniel Rodriguez takes a taser and sticks it in the police officer's neck. And the police officer has a heart attack and has traumatic brain injury as a result of this assault. The guy, Daniel Rodriguez, sent a text out to his buddies that were uncovered as part of his prosecution. And he said, you wouldn't believe this, S.H., I just did.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And I got away and I just tased the you know what out of the blue. Now, this guy pleads guilty, gets a 12 year sentence. And he's one of the people who was pardoned. I mean, how can you say, like, I'm pro-law enforcement, I'm pro-cops? You know, in New York, where I'm from, you know, there's a big thing about people assaulting police officers and then getting out, which is upsetting.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I'm upset by that. How can you pardon a guy like that? And he's not just one example. There's lots of examples, but that's the one that just really stood out to me. Hundreds of people that, you know, did violent assaults against law enforcement. So...
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So right now I'm not focused on making it stick. Okay. Right now I'm focused on Where can we find common ground? Where can we get stuff done? Where can we solve problems and make our country a better place?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And, you know, as we get closer to the 2026 elections and then ultimately the 2028 elections, well, then let's, you know, let's use our platforms to point out, you know, these egregious examples. And, you know, we have to do something about the border. And the Democrats, you know, are behind the eight ball in this. We've lost the plot.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And we have got to, we can't say we're against deporting criminals, okay? We have to deport criminals. And I can guarantee you that they're going to make mistakes as they go. I've been in government a long time. I was the mayor of my hometown for eight years. I was the county executive of a big county for eight years. I was in Congress for six years.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I left to run for governor, got my ass kicked in a Democratic primary. George Santos won my seat, so then they got rid of him. Everybody said, please come back. So I've been in government a long time. So government doesn't always do things right. They make mistakes, and they're going to make a lot of mistakes when it comes to these deportations.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
You know, say we're going after criminals, and we agree, let's go after criminals. Well, what happens when you target a criminal, you go to break down the door to go get them, And he moved and that was an innocent family living there. And these kids are terrorized. What's going to happen when you start taking mommy and daddy away from their kids or, you know, so let's work together.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
to try and address the issues and then save our fire for the more egregious things that we can agree on as people that want to save our country that we need to highlight because it's just way beyond the pale.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
You know, I thought because it was the first thing out of the box and it was mainly targeted towards criminals that we had no choice but to support it. And we had supported it. I think 30 or 40 of us had supported Democrats and supported it last year as well.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And, you know, if I was in law school and I was debating this bill when I was in law school, I would have been like, I have a problem with this and I have a problem with that. And I don't like this thing. And, you know, I would tell you what everything is wrong with it. But I think that, you know, we have to accept the fact that Americans want us to do something about this.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And we have to move forward. And if there are imperfections as we see that will arise, we need to try and correct that as we go along. I mean, you know, one thing I always like to point out is, like, when you pass a bill, that's not the end of the story. I mean, there's things that happen. The government doesn't stop functioning.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And so a lot of this is going to be how they implement it and what they do and what, you know, what can they do under existing law, you know, that this is just a repeat of. So I think it was very important for us to say that we are on board with the idea of securing our border, of making our country safer. And, you know, we are behind on this issue.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And listen, we've been fighting this for 30 years and we still haven't protected the Dreamers completely. and we still haven't protected the TPS recipients, temporary protected status. People that we invited to America after an earthquake or a war or a famine and said, come to America, you'll be safe here.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
They've been here for 20 or 30 years, a lot of these folks, and they still don't have any sort of status. And farm workers, 50% of our farm workers in America are probably undocumented, meatpacking plants. So when I talk about immigration, what I wanna get to is I wanna secure the border, I want to fix the broken asylum system. And I'd like to talk about that if you have time to talk about that.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And I'd like to save these dreamers, kids, you know, that have been here 20, 30 years that are now young adults that are either working, going to college or join the military and give them status here in America. So they have to stop working, looking over their shoulder, let them travel freely, let them work and pay taxes. Same thing with TPS.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
So we have to do all three, secure the border, fix asylum, and treat people like human beings and address some of these longstanding issues. So can I talk about asylum?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Okay, so the asylum law was first passed in 1980. Now, I'm 62 years old. So in the 1980s, we loved asylum. It was the Soviet, a Soviet... someone from the Soviet Union defecting to America. There was a movie with Robin Williams called Moscow on the Hudson. And it was like when someone defected from the Soviet Union, we're like, yes, asylum, come to America. We're better. They're the bad guys.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
We're the good guys. Come here. It's wonderful. We love asylum. You know, people defecting from Cuba. We loved asylum.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
Now what's happening is cartels and coyotes and organized crime is making billions of dollars, billions of dollars by charging people $10,000 a person to take them on this awful trek to get to our southern border, subjecting them to sexual and other physical violence, robbery, even death, human trafficking. And they say, we'll get you to the southern border.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And this is what you do when you get there to claim asylum. Now, they're gaming the system. Most of the people trying to come to America to claim asylum are coming for economic reasons. You can't claim asylum for that. You have to have a credible threat that you're being persecuted in your country because of your political beliefs or something like that.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
And 85% of the people that claim asylum in America, 85%, are denied asylum. The problem is, is because the system is so overwhelmed, it takes six, seven, eight, nine years for that case to be adjudicated where you're actually denied. And the system is broken and it's outdated and it hasn't been updated for 30 years. So we need to fix the broken asylum system.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
I don't think and I have a lot of smart people that I've been talking to, including progressives as well as conservatives, that we should not be accepting asylum applications at the southern border. We should be setting up. what I'm calling foreign and remote application centers. So that's far, like far away. You can apply in Columbia. You can apply in Guatemala. You can apply in Africa.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
You can apply in Europe. You can apply elsewhere in the world to seek asylum at a safe location. And we'll adjudicate your case while you are there in that safe location. Remain in Mexico is a terrible policy because we're saying come to the southern border, apply and remain in Mexico while you get abused in Mexico where people exploit you, where people take advantage of you.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
We shouldn't be encouraging people to come to the southern border to apply for asylum. Apply in these other locations throughout the world. reduce the volume in doing so, and adjudicate the cases. And while your case is being adjudicated, you stay where you are. You don't remain in Mexico. You remain south of Mexico, east of Mexico, west of Mexico. And if you're accepted, you come to America.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Bipartisanship in the Trump Era
If you're not accepted, you don't come to America. But we have to stop this whole stream of people, and we have to stop incentivizing these organized criminals. who are making billions, again, billions of dollars off this system. And they think they're going to keep on making money even under the Trump administration. They're going to gain the system.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
It's going to be way more than that, even. It's going to be way more than $328 billion. You know, he's talking about the rosy assumptions. What they're doing is completely irresponsible, is they are trying to reenact these tax breaks that they gave to the wealthiest people in the country and the corporations again, and they're not paying for it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
And at the same time, they're trying to talk about the deficit and cutting some of the most important programs in the history of our country. So it doesn't make sense. The numbers don't add up. It's completely irresponsible.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
We're very proud of our favorite son and the fact that you have broken the record for the most downloads of anybody.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
I don't think anybody in America who's paying close attention to what's going on is happy that these young guys who've never been vetted. I mean, there's a reason that we have these confirmation hearings for people to join the cabinet. There's a reason that people get security clearances and background checks because you're dealing with highly sensitive information.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
And these 20-something-year-olds who are hackers, who are gamers, who are just looking, like in gaming, looking for a win, looking for something to get, who knows what they're doing with this personal information that people have? Who knows what the keystrokes that they're leaving behind are? Who's supervising what they're doing?
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
And it's almost, there's such a disdain that Musk seems to have for the importance of government and the importance of these records. And he almost like laughs it off. He doesn't realize how serious. If you have somebody in your family, he's got a mental illness. Somebody's got AIDS or somebody's, you know, on on SSI or your bank account.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Who wants to give out that private information to somebody who hasn't even been properly cleared? It doesn't make any sense to me. So I think that people are upset by the way this is being done so cavalierly. I'm all for going after waste, fraud, and abuse. I'm all for disrupting things, but you should have a plan at least.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
You don't fire people who are responsible for safeguarding the nuclear stockpile. You don't fire the people that are responsible for preventing the avian flu or measles outbreaks in the middle of an avian flu or measles outbreak pandemic. I don't wanna say pandemic, it's the wrong word. You don't wanna fire people at the IRS when you're in the middle of tax season.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
I mean, they told the people, they said, we're going to give you a buyout and you can take the buyout, but you can't take it until after tax season because it's too important. We need you here during tax season. Then they went and laid people off. Why are they laying off the people at the lowest level, the probationary employees, at the lowest possible salaries?
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Why not wait for the senior people to retire? Because there's a tradition every single year in the tens of thousands of people, let those people retire and don't replace those positions. I don't understand what they're doing. It's so chaotic. It's irresponsible.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
26% of the federal workforces are veterans, 26%. So in society, 5% of people who work are veterans. 26% of the federal government are veterans. We're laying these people off. What about their lives? What about their service to the country? What about the fact that we encourage them to apply for a job with the federal government? And now we're just like taking away their livelihoods?
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
That doesn't make any sense to me. It's like you said, it's cruel. You know, it's not only chaotic. It's not only cruel. It's unconstitutional. The way that they're doing this is unconstitutional. And some Republicans, thankfully, are starting to stand up and recognize that what's happening is unconstitutional. I think they're hearing from their constituents.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Some of them actually have a conscience and believe in the Constitution. And they realize that what's happening now is the executive branch and Musk are violating the Constitution right as we speak.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
I don't get it. I mean, in the Constitution of the United States of America, it clearly says that this is Congress's responsibility. Now, I can buy the argument that Congress has not done its job for a long, long time in trying to clean up a lot of what's going on in the federal government. I can buy that argument. I'm not going to dispute that. Why doesn't
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Make a list of all the things that he thinks he's found that are waste, fraud, and abuse or programs that he wants to cut. Make a nice long list. Bring it to the Congress, which is controlled by the Republicans. The Republicans control the Senate. The Republicans control the House. Republicans control the presidency. Bring the list.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
to the Congress and let the Congress implement what you think should be done. But the idea of it just being done with a press release and willy-nilly and no plan whatsoever, I mean, we're not even getting to anything. They've been enumerating these things to try and get everybody all excited because it sounds so wild with no debate.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
I bet you that Elon Musk gets more in federal contracts than he's identified in things that he wants to cut. Elon Musk personally and his companies get more money in the billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars, than have been identified in things that they think should be cut.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Listen, I'm all about trying to work together and find common ground. I will never find common ground on this. I'm so pissed off about this. It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. Trump came out and said that Zelensky is a dictator. That is just complete bull. Putin is the dictator.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Zelensky was elected by 73% of the population of Ukraine in an election certified to be a free and fair election by the commission that oversees free and fair elections in Europe. Putin is the dictator. Zelensky is democratically elected. Putin and Russia invaded Ukraine. It wasn't Ukraine's fault. It was Putin that invaded Ukraine.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Ukraine, where they are killing people, they are raping people, they are abducting children and kidnapping them, taking them into Russia and telling their parents who are working at the power plant, for example, hey, if you don't do your job at the power plant, you're not getting your kids back. I mean, it's just so cruel and so brutal what they've done.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
The idea of treating Putin like, I'm going to go negotiate with Putin and we're going to make a deal. This guy cannot be rewarded for his behavior. What message does this send to our allies? What message does it send to the little countries in the area, Lithuania and Latvia and Estonia and Moldova and Poland?
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
What message does it send to them that they're up for grabs next when Putin decides he wants to invade their countries because he's not happy with something or because he wants some assets that they have? This is the wrong message to send to China. That, oh, you go invade, you go fight. We may fight for a little while, but we'll give up in the end.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
This is an existential legacy defining moment for the members of Congress, for the Republicans and the Democrats to push back against what President Trump is proposing here. because we cannot reward Putin for his actions that are violating everything we believe in, everything that we've stood for for decades.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
And by appeasing him, we're being no better than Neville Chamberlain was with Hitler during World War II.
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Congressman Tom Suozzi on Republican Budget Chaos
Hey, congratulations again on moving to number one.
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French President Puts the Dagger in Trump to All of France
I'm a person who wants to work together across party lines to get things done. I pride myself on that. I'm the co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, Democrats and Republicans trying to find common ground to work to get things done. When I saw what happened to the Oval Office the other night, I was so angry. I mean, really angry, because I felt that Zelensky was ambushed.
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French President Puts the Dagger in Trump to All of France
When that guy asked him a question, he said, you don't have a suit? You're coming here without a suit on? That guy was Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend. Why is he asking questions in the Oval Office? And why does he ask that question when Elon Musk shows up with a T-shirt and a ball cap on?
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Uh Oh! Dems Torch the GOP in Their Own Turf
I cherish Medicaid and I've worked within the Medicaid environment quite extensively as I highlighted practicing at Columbia University.
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Uh Oh! Dems Torch the GOP in Their Own Turf
I want to make sure that patients today and in the future have resources to protect them if they get ill. The way you protect Medicaid is by making sure that it's viable at every level, which includes having enough practitioners to afford the services, paying them enough to do what you request of them, and making sure that patients are able to actually use Medicaid.
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Democratic Leaders Destroy Trump in Red Districts
Can I ask you, is it also a little bit because they're afraid to go up against Elon Musk and Donald Trump?
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Democratic Leaders Destroy Trump in Red Districts
Listen, everybody's freaking out. Everybody's like, I'm Mr. Let's work together, let's try and find common ground. What happened in the White House yesterday, I was so pissed off. I wanted you to get that out of your