Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
Why Democrats Need to Focus On the Economy (feat. Rep. Jared Moskowitz)
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
Jessica is joined by Florida Congressman Jared Moskowitz for a candid, fiery, and unexpectedly funny conversation about the state of American politics—from legislative wins to messaging missteps. They dive into his bipartisan work with Rep. Byron Donalds to reform FEMA, efforts to expand the Child Tax Credit, and opposition to Pentagon research cuts. Moskowitz also reflects on the FSU shooting and how the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act became a national reform model. Then, Jess and Jared unload on Democrats’ fixation with “20% issues,” their weak economic messaging, and how the GOP keeps outplaying them. Moskowitz drops truth bombs on media distractions, misallocated campaign dollars, and why the next generation of public servants might want to study PR, not poli-sci. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov. Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the key issues discussed in the episode?
Along with this, the congressman has been vocal in his disagreement with the 57% cuts made to the Pentagon's congressionally directed medical research programs after the continuing resolution went into effect. Congressman Moskowitz, welcome to the show.
How you doing?
I'm doing great. How are you?
Just another day, you know, I mean... In paradise? Yeah, I mean, I don't know what we're raging about today, but I'm sure it's something amazing...
Well, you're going to tell me. I take the pressure off myself and I invite people on to tell me what you're raging about.
Fair. I like that.
Yeah. But we'll do that at the end. Well, it'll trickle out actually throughout. And the first thing that I wanted to talk to you about, I'm sure does make you rage and you've been so vocal in talking about. school shootings. And I wanted to touch on last week's incident at Florida State University. Two dead, five wounded.
Can you talk to me about, you know, what lawmakers are doing about this, how you felt, obviously, representing Parkland from that shooting in 2018? Like, Where are you in the headspace? And we continue to think about the families affected by yet another tragic American school shooting.
Yeah, well, I'm from Parkland. I'm in Parkland right now. I went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I remember February 2018 like it was yesterday, seven years ago. Coming to my school that evening and seeing, you know, your school look like a war zone, you know, all these police cars and FBI and triage, mass casualty triage outside of your school.
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Chapter 2: How does Congressman Moskowitz address school shootings?
me fun really no no she finds me boring no really she's just trying to keep me grounded yeah that's i mean all good wives do that like my i'm pretty sure my husband thinks that i that i hate him but yeah like show her a clip i'm like how is that she's like it's fine yeah that's the worst when you send a clip and you're like isn't this hilarious and they're like It could have been better.
It was OK.
And it feels like we are missing that energy on a grand scale within the party. How do you think about the way that you legislate and present and build relationships with people in Congress? And how do you think about that in terms of the party more generally?
So look, David and I know each other very well, obviously, but being from Parkland, right? And so look, there are bits of the strategy that he's doing that I agree with, and there's a bunch of bits I don't, right? And this is something that the Democratic Party has gone through before, right?
We've gone through where, you know, people, incumbents that were there in safe seats were being primaried by more progressive members. And we were kind of spending a ton of money eating our own rather than fighting Republicans, right? And hold on. Republicans have gone through this, too. Let's not pretend like this is just an issue on the Democratic side.
Republicans went through this with the whole Tea Party movement. I mean, they removed, you know, Representative Cantor, if you recall, right, who was in leadership. OK, Eric Cantor. So they've gone through this as well. We're so frustrated because we're not in we have no power. OK, we have no branches of government. The rules of Congress in the minority don't give you power.
And so, you know, Democrats are frustrated. So there's no doubt about that frustration boiling over. But what we have to do is we have to realize the only thing that matters is making Hakeem Jeffries speaker at the moment and getting a chamber, getting a gavel. That has to be the sole mission. And so every dollar we have should be going to that, right?
All these other things sometimes I feel like are distractions. I mean, look, we've spent like $400 million in Texas trying to win the governor's mansion or the Senate races there, $400 million, and we've never come close. Right. We just spent 20 million dollars in House races in Florida. We lost them by double digits.
So we got to stay focused on, in my opinion, the seats that are going to make King Jeffrey's speaker. What David is channeling into, though, and David's very good at messaging, is that Republicans have a lot of messengers. They have moderate messengers, they have, you know, obviously MAGA messengers, and they have the Flat Earth messengers, who are my favorite, those people, okay?
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