Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
How Democrats Can Win Back Young Men (feat. Rep. Pat Ryan)
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
Jessica sits down with Congressman Pat Ryan, the Hudson Valley native representing New York’s 18th District. They discuss everything from his recent viral moment calling Elon Musk a "villain" to how the Democratic Party can better connect with young men and working-class voters. Congressman Ryan shares his thoughts on national service, what Democrats need to focus on to win in the future, and why leadership matters more than ever. Plus, find out what makes him want to rage—and what he thinks we should all calm down about. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Congressman Ryan, @RepPatRyanNY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Congressman Pat Ryan?
His main focus in Congress is providing relief for Hudson Valley families, improving transportation for folks in his district, and investing in the United States Military Academy, where he hopes to provide for the next generation of military leaders. The congressman recently made headlines for calling Elon Musk a villain on CNN, which I loved.
and for discussing how he believes young men can benefit from the Democratic Party. Congressman Ryan, welcome to the show. It's great to have you on.
Thanks for having me, Jess. I'm sorry, I'm choking on my coffee here. I apologize.
That's okay. I'm choking on my own voice, which is very millennial of me.
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.
I appreciate that. And I was thinking to myself as I was walking down here that it's nice to actually meet you in person because I use you as an example all the time because my colleagues on The Five will say, the Democratic Party is so crazy and you don't have anyone normal. And I'm like, have you met Congressman Pat Ryan? And now I have you here. Super excited to have you here.
I want to get to the meta stuff, but it start with a news of the day topic. Everyone is talking about Elon Musk and Doge and the quote unquote forensic audit they're doing of the government. You made, as I already referenced, a comment about him being a villain.
Can you talk a little bit about what you think is going on with the Trump administration and also what you're hearing from your constituents as we're just a few weeks into Trump 2.0?
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
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Chapter 2: What did Pat Ryan mean by calling Elon Musk a villain?
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.
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.
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.
So I think we're in a moment right now, more broadly, maybe talk about this more later, where
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,
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.
Well, that seems like the important lane that Democrats can go down, which is to make this about Elon Musk and what's happening writ large in the administration without going after Donald Trump, who is still enjoying a 53% approval rating. You know, we tried... just making it all about Trump for years, and it didn't really get us very far, certainly in the last election.
So how do you think that Democrats can effectively do this? I know Jared Golden, who represents also a swing district, voted for Trump. He's a Democrat, though, has said, you know, this is all about Musk for me. You know, you can't sit up there just railing about Trump. How are you going to be approaching it?
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.
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Chapter 3: How can Democrats connect with young men?
Chapter 4: What role does military service play in leadership?
corporate or government that was sort of harming them from an affordability perspective.
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,
on these specific proposals, then you're obstructing the number one need of the American people.
Should I take you as a no on the idea of being open to shutting down the government from the Democratic side? Because that's something that's being floated. Senators Booker, Andy Kim are saying that they are open to a shutdown if it means being able to hold Musk and co accountable. Where are you on that?
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...
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.
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.
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.
I like that. I think making it Mike Johnson's problem as opposed to making it our problem is definitely the right way to go about it.
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Chapter 5: How can Democrats focus on affordability?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
That's where we're at. And we got to be we got to listen and hear voters on that.
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Chapter 6: What is the importance of messaging in politics?
It's definitely what seems to be in vogue and most resonant with voters. I have a lot of friends. I'm more of a normie Democrat or establishment Democrat, I guess. But I have a lot of friends who like to kind of goad me with Bernie would have won. I'm like, well, you know, he's out there on this or that. They said, but he's a populist fighter. And that is the mood right now.
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.
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.
Chapter 7: What is Pat Ryan's vision for the Democratic Party?
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.
Absolutely. One of the core complaints that I hear is about Democratic leadership at this particular moment, that we seem flat-footed, we don't have a unified message, we have these... you know, weird rallies with Chuck Schumer screaming, we will win after we just lost. And, you know, Al Green's cane blocking the shot. What do you think leadership can do?
You know, I'm certainly not asking you to go against anyone. And I think that Hakeem Jeffries does a great job in the House. But where do you think leadership can improve, let's say, in making sure that the topics that you're discussing are what are in the forefront versus the sideshow stuff when people go to the polls?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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