Team Resistance vs. Restraint (feat. Rep. Ritchie Torres)

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Welcome to Raging Moderates.

I'm Scott Galloway.

And I'm Jessica Charlev.

So, Jess, this is a big day.

Joining us today is Congressman Richie Torres, who represents New York's 15th district in the Bronx.

Since coming to Congress, he's made a name for himself as one of the rising voices in the Democratic Party, outspoken, thoughtful, and not afraid to challenge the status quo.

God, that's bullshit language.

He's just very good at what he does.

Memo to self, speak to producer, deflower this bullshit.

He's been a strong advocate for public housing, a supporter of blockchain innovation, and a vocal defender of Israel while also pushing back against some of the more extreme corners of his own party.

Representative Torres, it's an honor to have you.

Thanks for joining us.

It's an honor to be here.

So let's kick off.

Los Angeles, your turn.

What do you make of what's going on in Los Angeles right now?

Well, first, I think we have to be crystal clear about condemning the riots.

Like there should be no place for civil disturbance.

And one of the great miscalculations that we have made as Democrats is ceding the issue of public safety to Republicans.

So we have to be be crystal clear.

We are by no means on the side of civil disturbance.

I do share the concern about deploying the military for domestic law enforcement.

It seems to me that maintaining public order is properly the domain of local law enforcement, but we should be crystal clear in our condemnation of the riots.

So for me, it should be possible to hold those two ideas in your mind at the same time.

So let me provide a thesis and you respond to it.

This is out of a fascist handbook that says try and motivate or create an unnecessarily toxic or incendiary environment to create an overreaction, hope that somebody gets shot such that you can justify sort of a military-like response.

The real problem here is an unnecessary escalation.

When you're trying to rebrand patriotism as militarization or authoritarianism, that this is unnecessary overreach.

Your thoughts?

I get the distinct impression that Donald Trump is spoiling for a fight.

Yeah.

And he delights in, like, he has an anti-democratic Schadenfreude.

He delights in the weaponization of government against his political enemies and he delights in the use of military force against his political enemies.

You know, when I see Donald Trump, I see a man who's aspiring to be a fascistic leader in the mold of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

He has no regard for the norms and rules of American democracy.

He has no regard for anyone or anything but himself.

I mean, he is the center of his own universe, and he's willing to degrade our most basic norms in the service of his malignant narcissism.

So, and I agree with you.

This is all an unnecessary escalation that can lead our country to a dangerous place.

My sense is, and I don't know if you share this frustration, but my frustration is someone who's a progressive is I feel as if we're playing into his hands.

And when you see people showing up with

Palestinian flags and masks and Mexican flags instead of American flags, I love Mexican Americans, but I just feel like from a branding standpoint, we need more American flags.

I just feel, I'm just so frustrated because quite frankly, I feel as if we're just sort of playing into his hands.

Your thoughts?

Look, I feel like the riots play into his hands because it cedes the issue of public safety to Republicans.

And the display of flags other than the American flag plays into his hands because it cedes the value of patriotism to the Republicans.

And we should be going in the opposite direction.

So I share that criticism.

Yeah, I wanted to.

I guess pick up on that.

And you've in previous interviews talked about the difference between being being team resistance and team restraint and actually having a plan on how to counteract this versus just kind of showing up and screaming that the sky is falling because the sky has been falling when it comes to Donald Trump for a very long time at this point.

And the American public consciously chose him in 2024.

So how are you feeling?

about the Democratic response to what's been going on in the first few months of the Trump administration.

Certainly, you know, you can talk about Los Angeles and Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass, who have been leading, thankfully, with there's no place for violence and you shouldn't be assaulting police officers, et cetera.

But what do you think team restraint, which is the team that you would be on, can be doing to make this moment better for people who are opposing Donald Trump?

Look, instead of reacting hysterically and hyperbolically to every single thing he does, like we should pick and choose our battles.

We should be strategic and we should focus on the issues that matter to voters, particularly the economy, cost of living.

You know, I feel like as Democrats, you know, we have a messaging challenge.

Like the genius of Donald Trump is that he's a master of simple, repeatable messaging, right?

Make America great again, build the wall, America first.

And I feel like our side lacks the same clarity and simplicity of messaging.

And it's not enough for us to stand against Donald Trump.

We have to stand for something.

We have to advance an agenda that's going to inspire people and improve their lives.

You know, if Newt Gingrich had the contract with America in the 1990s, you know, maybe we should have our own contract with America.

If Donald Trump had Project 2025, we should have Project 2029.

I think we should aspire to be a party of ideas and focus on the issues that resonate most powerfully with voters rather than react to everything, rather than feed into the 24-hour news cycle.

A lot of that is focusing on governance, right?

And blue state governance, especially blue city governance, has been an abject failure.

You represent the Bronx.

I think you have the highest proportion of people on Medicaid of any representative in the country.

What are some of those practical things that blue governors or representatives can be doing to make quality of life better for our constituents?

Well, for one thing, we should be serious about public safety.

And, you know, admission is the first step toward recovery.

I think as a party, we have to recognize that there is a crisis of blue state and blue city governance, that what needs restructuring is not the Democratic Party, but democratic governance at the state and local level.

And I'm excited about the abundance agenda because I see it as the best framework for fundamentally reimagining what it means for us to govern effectively and progressively as Democrats.

You know, if Republicans are going to be the party of less government, we should not be the party of more more government.

We should be the party of better and cheaper and faster government, right?

A government that works, a government that builds.

I see the movement like abundance as the opposite of degrowth, which says no to economic growth, or the opposite of NIMBYism, which says no to new housing.

Like it's a yes, we can philosophy.

We should say yes to new energy, yes, to new housing, yes to new infrastructure, enable the government to build more efficiently, which is actually going to put more people to work and can transform America from a nation of bureaucrats into a nation of builders.

That should be our objective at the state and local level.

Give us your sense or your general assessment of the big, beautiful tax bill, what you like about it, don't like about it, and what you think its prospects are.

If you had to speculate, where do you think it ends up?

I mean, I feel like the Big Beautiful Bill is the ugliest piece of legislation that I've seen in the recent history of the United States.

I think there are a few issues with it.

First, healthcare.

About 16 million people are projected to lose their healthcare coverage under Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, largely because of the Republican Reconciliation Bill.

Second, it sabotages the clean energy transition

and it radically restricts the amount of energy that we need at a time when we're in the midst of a high-stakes AI arms race with China.

And then, third, it is going it could entangle the United States in a debt spiral.

It would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt if the provisions remain temporary and over $5 trillion if the provisions remain permanent.

And it would add massive debt at a time when the debt has not only never been larger, but more expensive.

Like interest on the debt has surpassed $1 trillion

a year and it is projected to surpass $2 trillion a year.

within a decade.

And at the moment, interest on the debt is the largest line item in the federal budget, second only to Social Security.

We spend more on interest payments than we do on Medicare or Medicaid and Social Security.

And I worry that if we pass the quote-unquote big beautiful bill, it's going to plunge us into a fiscal crisis, the likes of which we have not seen in recent memory.

So I have almost no kind words to say about the bill.

I do feel like Donald Trump has such an iron grip on the Republican Party that he will largely pass it.

I hope that we can limit some of the cuts to Medicaid, but the bill's a catastrophe for communities like mine and for the country.

But you do believe that at the end of the day, I mean, you know how the sausage gets made or not made here.

Neither Jess nor I are privy to these types of conversations.

And my sense is there's a lot of, we've seen this movie before.

A few Republicans posture to come across as moderate or empathetic.

And then at the end of the day, they almost always fold and vote for the bills, very similar to what it was.

That's what you see playing out here.

You do think this bill is going to is going to become law.

I fear because the Republican Party is no longer a normal political party.

It's a cult of personality around Donald Trump.

Like his power within the Republican Party is absolute.

And I see no sign that congressional Republicans are willing to show any degree of independence.

You know, you had a congressman, Valadeo, from California.

He's the only member of Congress whose Medicaid enrollment is higher than mine.

I'm at 67%.

He's at 68%.

And he said publicly that he would never vote for a bill that would cut Medicaid, and then he proceeded to vote for the bill.

There were a number of Republicans who said we would never vote for a bill that would cut the tax credits for clean energy, which are disproportionately benefiting Republican districts, and they proceeded to vote for the bill.

So

I just worry that these people have no courage whatsoever.

and will do whatever Donald Trump demands of them.

You had mentioned that maybe the Democrats need their own contract with America or Project 2028.

If they said, Representative Torres, you're this up-and-coming leader and we want you to have your shot here.

What are the two or three most important things,

public policy, economic policy, that you would have in a contract with America from the Democratic side?

Look, I want the party to be defined based on bread and butter issues, cost of living.

Like we should steer clear of identity politics, steer clear of the culture wars, disassociate ourselves from the extremes of our own party, and let the American people know: you know, here's what we stand for.

We stand for policies that would lower cost.

You know, one idea about which I'm particularly passionate is: I feel like we should rethink the notion that everyone must go to a four-year college and learn Shakespeare and enter the workforce.

It seems to me that instead of imposing a one-size-fits-all policy on everyone, why not allow people the flexibility to choose between career and technical education and college education?

Why, you know, imagine if you had the ability to bring a Pell Grant to a union apprenticeship to become a plumber and build a solidly middle-class life for yourself and your family.

So I think reimagining higher education and workforce development in America should be part of our economic agenda.

So just a quick footnote as a proud recipient of Pell Grants is here talking to you because I received Pell Grants.

This current bill would reduce the loans or outright eliminate grants of Pell Grants to a third of current recipients.

Joss?

Yeah, I feel like we, like this maybe should have come first, but I want to talk a little bit about you because your story is fascinating.

And I feel like you've just been like this rocket ship that as a New York City resident, I've been certainly aware of you, but then onto the national stage.

So you're 37 years old now.

You grew up in the Bronx, Puerto Rican family, single mother, three of you in public housing.

City council then got yourself to Congress.

People are begging you to have saved us from what's coming in the mayoral election.

You've endorsed Andrew Cuomo back in February in that primary, and there are polls showing you neck and neck with Kathy Hochul if you so did decide to run for governor.

Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your path, you know, why you got into public service?

And also,

there is another famous Latina representing a Bronx district, AOC, who is obviously a major voice in Congress as well.

And I feel like the two of you are kind of always squared against each other, her, and the more team resistance, you, and the more team restraint.

So, do you feel like that comparison is fair or that pitting is fair?

And kind of like what you're hoping to bring to the party?

Yeah, no.

That was like 80 questions.

I'm sorry, but I'm excited to have you.

My goal in life is not to be better than anyone.

It's to be the best that I can be.

I seek excellence, not necessarily to out-compete everyone around me.

I've seen the stories that pit me against AOC.

I mean, I feel like she is not a conventional member of Congress.

Like she's a larger than life celebrity.

Like there's no real comparison.

I have nothing resembling the celebrity and iconic status that she has built in our political culture.

So she, you know, regardless of what one thinks about her ideology, She's in a class of her own.

She's like has an incomparable celebrity that, frankly, I don't think has any precedent in the recent history of our country.

And it's quite impressive.

So it's something that I do admire from afar.

You know, as far as my own personal story, I'm just born and raised in the Bronx, spent all my childhood in poverty.

I was raised by a single mother who had to raise three children on minimum wage, which in the 1990s was $4.25.

And the most formative experience of my life was growing up in public housing.

which is so chronically underfunded that at the moment it has a capital need of $80 billion in counting.

and so i was among hundreds of thousands of residents who were living with mold and mildew leaks and lead without consistent heat and hot water in the winter and my experience of slum conditions and public housing is what inspired me to get my start in housing politics as a housing organizer and then eventually run for public office i was only 24.

i had no deep pockets had no ties to the party machine, but I just spent a whole year doing nothing but knocking on doors.

I went into people's homes.

I heard their stories.

And in a race of about 10 candidates, I won my first campaign on the strength of door-to-door, face-to-face campaigning, became the first openly LGBTQ elected official from the Bronx, which at the time had a tradition of social conservatism.

What's unusual about my story is a few years before running for office, you know, I had dropped out of college because I found myself struggling with depression.

and abusing substances and even attempted suicide and underwent hospitalization because I felt as if the world around me had collapsed.

You know, I felt a profound sense of failure.

And I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would have a fighting chance to rebuild my life and become the youngest elected official in America's largest city and then ultimately become a member of the United States Congress.

And I feel strongly only in America is a story like mine possible.

And so I do not fit into the typical profile of a member of Congress.

I don't come from a political family.

I don't have a net worth of a million dollars.

And I don't even have a college degree.

But what I lack in traditional qualifications, I make up for in life experience.

You know, I know what it's like to experience poverty and inequality.

I know what it's like to have siblings who have contact with the criminal justice system or to struggle with mental illness.

And I bring that lived experience to bear on my work as a policymaker.

I'm sure your family is wildly proud of you and what you've been able to achieve.

And no doubt, your mother worked really hard to make sure that this was possible for you to do.

I'm sure Scott is hankering to talk to you about the plight of young men and what we can do to fix that.

But just before that line of questioning, do you feel like there's enough conversation within the Democratic Party about the brilliance of the United States of America, of these kinds of stories, right?

That this is only possible here in America.

Because I feel like there are a lot of wonderful and important stories that could get amplified, but it's all drowned out by cynicism and negativity.

And that the Democratic Party has kind of, I don't want to say lost the plot, but that we are not amplifying positive, patriotic stories about the country enough as we just fight tooth and nail against an administration that is wildly overreaching.

I certainly feel that way.

But

when you just add to the kind of cloud of negativity, it's hard for people to see us as a beacon of light or as a positive force.

Look, if it were up to me, we would double down on patriotism.

I think one of the fundamental differences between the far left and the center left is that the center left sees America as fundamentally as a force for good in the world,

and the far left sees America as fundamentally a force for ill.

You know, I find, and I'm generalizing here, but I find that there's a difference between

the immigrant perspective of America and the college-educated white progressive perspective of America.

An immigrant sees America and sees a land of opportunity because he's comparing America to his frame of reference, to his foreign country.

But many college-educated elites see America and see nothing but a system of oppression, nothing but a system of colonialism and racism and homophobia and white supremacy and every conceivable evil.

And, you know, I've long felt that, you know, just like an excess of patriotism or nationalism can be dangerous, the same is true of a deficit.

You know, like I'm not aware of any civilization in human history that has ever succeeded on the strength of self-loathing.

And I worry, a society that no longer believes in itself will not long endure.

And so I feel strongly about promoting patriotism.

And I feel like we have much to learn from the patriotism of the Israeli left.

You know, I vividly remember before October 7th, during the debates around judicial reforms, you know, you had masses of Israelis from the left who were singing the Israeli anthem, haqtikvah, and proudly proclaiming their Israeli patriotism and waving the Israeli flag.

And I want to see the same fusion of liberalism and patriotism here in the United States.

I think of myself as a patriotic liberal Democrat.

And the best definition of patriotic liberalism came from Bill Clinton, who once said, There's nothing that's wrong with America that cannot be cured by what's right with America.

And I feel like the mission of the Democratic Party should be to harness what is best about our country,

to fix what is broken and to correct what is wrong.

And we should recognize that the genius of America, the essence of America, is not perfection, it's perfectibility.

Our project is to build a more perfect union.

But I love this country.

I feel like it's the greatest multiracial, multi-ethnic democracy the world has ever seen.

You know, throughout history, you've seen empires that have had diversity, but no democracy.

You see democracies like Japan that have no diversity.

We're a rare combination of both, and we should be celebrating the majesty of the American project.

Okay, let's take a quick break.

Stay with us.

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Welcome back.

So as Jessica referenced, we think a lot about young men, and I think of you as really an iconic or aspirational aspirational role model for masculinity.

You're strong, you're unafraid, you're kind,

and very much appreciate your vulnerability.

And in the U.S., we have a real mental health crisis among young people, the most anxious, depressed generation in history, and especially among young men who are four times more likely to kill themselves, three times more likely to be addicted, three times more likely to be homeless, 12 times more likely to be incarcerated.

Would you be willing to talk a little bit about your mental health issues when you were a younger man and if and what advice you would offer to a young man who

may be spilling over into a mental health crisis?

What were the influences that helped lift you out of that period in your life?

Well, look, I mean, I would not be alive today, let alone a member of Congress, were it not for mental health treatment.

Were it not for the treatment that I received when I was hospitalized and should have received long before hospitalization.

And I feel an obligation to tell my story in order to break the silence and shame and stigma that often surrounds the subject of mental health.

Every morning I take the same antidepressant that I've taken my whole life, well butren XL, 150 milligrams.

And I feel no shame in admitting it because mental health is nothing of which to be ashamed.

And it has enabled me to be the best version of myself and to excel in politics.

And so I hope that my story inspires hope in others.

You know, I worry about the plight of young men in our society who are overrepresented in our jails and prisons and underrepresented in the ranks of higher education.

And it goes back to what I said about workforce development.

I genuinely believe there is nothing more destructive to a society than the disappearance of work.

Like work is not only about economics.

It's about creating meaning in one's life.

It's about giving someone the dignity of building a foundation on which to raise a family, on which to live a life of meaning and utility.

And, you know, we essentially tell young men that if you cannot put yourself through a four-year college, then you're doomed to structural unemployment.

And that to me is just profoundly corrosive and it will lead to more mental illness and more substance abuse and more deaths of despair and more violence and more contact with the criminal justice system.

I actually feel like the need to create work that brings meaning to people's lives feels to me like

the core solution to the problem.

So, your background, non-white, gay, single mother, and yet you are pro-Israel, moderate.

I just think I can't figure out who you're a bigger nightmare for, the far right or the far left.

And I'm curious when you caucus with

your fellow Democrats, who I would think would say, oh, this guy's the perfect identity for

our policies on the far left, yet he doesn't toe the far left party line.

I'm curious how,

one,

do you feel pressure to sort of sign up for the narrative?

And two, how are you perceived amongst your colleagues?

You're this jenga of intersectionality that they probably don't know how to deal with.

What's What's it like for you being part of this caucus where you're out of central casting to join the far left and yet you don't?

Do they embrace it as a key component of the Democratic Party?

Do you feel pressure and disappointment that you haven't kind of, if you will, signed up for what are seen as sort of, I don't know, sometimes where the Progressive Party or Progressive Ideals are headed?

How are you received, Richie Torres, amongst your colleagues?

I suspect I'm an enigma.

I'm probably a polarizing figure.

I think there are those on the far left who despise me for the reasons.

Look, I mean, Scott, you and I could have the same politics, right?

But the left will see you as the enemy and will see me as a traitor because of who I am, because of my identities.

An apostate.

That's how I would think people would treat you as an apostate.

Like there's an assumption that if you're Black, Latino, gay, and from the Bronx, that you should have certain beliefs and values for it.

And so there's a special hatred reserved for traitors.

And I'm seen as a traitor to my race, which is an absurdity.

But

that's the dynamic.

And then, of course, there are those who respect the courage that I've shown, the moral clarity that I've shown in the face of relentless harassment and hate.

and even death threats.

I feel like what makes me unusual is not that I'm expressing views that are far removed from the mainstream.

What makes me unusual is that I'm saying what many people are thinking, but are often too afraid to say.

And I've often said that the greatest threat to the liberalism of our democracy does not come from the far right or from the far left.

It comes from the complacency and cowardice of a center that lives in fear of the extremes.

You know, Franklin Roosevelt was exactly right when he said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

And I have found that the Achilles heel of most elected officials is a pathological need to be loved by everyone, to go along, to get along, to pander.

And I thank God every day that I'm so socially ill-adjusted that I have no need to be loved by anyone.

And if you give up that need for approval, if you give up that need to be superficially loved, then that to me is the beginning of liberation and leadership.

And so the blight answer to your question is I could care less what people think about me.

I'm going to do what I think is right and pay whatever political price comes with it and let the dice fall where they may.

One group that I do know loves you is the Jewish community in your district.

I have a very good friend who lives in Riverdale.

His children go to SAR.

Yeah, I know you visit the school on an almost weekly basis.

Yeah, you are like McJagger to them.

I heard there are yarmulcas with your face on it.

How did you

fall in love with Israel?

And what has it taken

for you to to be so steadfast in your support during a very difficult time with the college protests and crackdowns on the First Amendment?

Tell us what it's like to represent such a huge Jewish population in your district and for standing up for Israel, something that we have been very appreciative of.

Yeah, I have a special relationship with the Jewish community in Riverdale and SAR is the anchor of the modern Orthodox Jewish community and Riverdale.

And my running joke is SAR may be the only place on earth where I'm more popular than Taylor Swift.

And it's true one day I saw there was a student who had a keeper featuring my likeness, which at first creeped me out.

And then,

and then I said, I said, where can I get one?

And so I went to the website and flatteringly, it was sold out.

So that was.

Lean in.

That's as good as it gets.

But I've been, you know, long before representing Riverdale, long before entering Congress, I mean, I've been a Zionist for about a decade.

I've been traveling to Israel for a decade, thinking and writing about Israel.

You know, when I first entered public office in 2014, I was Tabula Rasa on the subject.

And then I was invited by the Jewish Community Relations Council to go on a delegation to Israel.

It was the first time that this poor kid from the Bronx had an opportunity to travel abroad.

And when you experience firsthand both the complexity and the majesty of Israel, when you go to Yav Vashem and the Masada and the old city and a place place like Stay Rote, it has a profound effect on you.

And I remember speaking to the local mayor of Stay Rote who said that the majority of his children struggle with post-traumatic stress because families like his live under the threat of relentless rocket fire.

And I remember seeing bus stops doubling as bomb shelters.

And I come from the Bronx.

You know, I had two half-brothers who were gang leaders in the Bronx.

You know, I have family members and friends and constituents who live in fear of bullets and guns, but no one anywhere in America lives in fear of rockets or missiles.

A lot of us worry that Mexico and Canada are going to fire rockets and missiles into American homes and communities.

And so I came to realize early on that Israel faces a level of volatility and insecurity that has no equivalent in the American experience.

And I tell people, before you rush to judge Israel, you should actually go to Israel and speak to both Israelis and Palestinians.

Speak to both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.

Go to a place like Stay Road.

See the facts on the ground with your own eyes.

And I guarantee you that you will come to realize that the reality of Israel is far more nuanced than the caricature that percolates on Twitter or Twitch or TikTok.

And what I find is that the most virulent critics of Israel refuse to see the facts on the ground with their own eyes, refuse to even go there, openly boycott.

Israel, even though experiencing it firsthand is the best form of self-education.

And so, you you know, I've had profound empathy, not only for the plight of the Jewish people, but for the unique security situation that Israel confronts.

And when I'm speaking to constituents, most of whom are not Jewish, about October 7th, I tell them, imagine if the United States had been invaded and thousands of American civilians and children had been murdered and maimed on American soil.

An American woman had been raped, and American babies were butchered, and hundreds of young Americans were gunned down in a New York City festival, and thousands of rockets and missiles are fired into American homes and communities.

Like, can you imagine the overwhelming terror and fear and grief and trauma that that would bring to you and your family?

And what would you expect your government to do in the face of such overwhelming terror?

And I feel like there's just no attempt to offer any empathy.

for the security situation that Israel faces.

You know, if I were Rip Van Winkle and I was asleep from 2020 to 2025 and I woke up today, I would think that Israel was the aggressor, was the villain in the war.

I would be unaware that the war began on October 7th when Hamas brutally murdered and maimed and abducted and tortured thousands of Jews in Israel.

I'm curious what you think about.

Well, I mean, you're age-gated from running for president right now.

You couldn't run for president.

You're too young.

I'm older than you.

I'm congressionally young, but I'm 37.

Oh, you're 37.

I thought you were 34.

He could be your ticket.

There you go.

Okay.

I'm in.

Problem solved.

Where I was headed with this is: do you think we need age limits on the upper end?

And we have, I believe, the oldest elected representative government of any democracy right now.

One, do you think that we have a problem with an aged electorate?

And B, what do you think if you believe that, what can we do about it?

Well, I'm more concerned about the aging government than the aging electorate.

I feel like Congress has become the most prestigious senior center in the world.

It's a gerontocracy.

You know, just about every ranking member is at or above the age of 70.

And were it not for the fact that three of my colleagues died in 2025, we would have had the votes to derail a reconciliation bill that's going to do an enormous amount of harm to an enormous number of Americans.

So I feel like we desperately need a new generation of leadership.

And strangely, in Congress, the Republicans are more egalitarian than we are.

So unlike the Democrats, who feel that every committee chair has a God-given right to die with his gavel,

Republicans have term limits on their committee chairs, which creates space for a new generation of leadership.

And even if you grandfather in the old guard, I would be in favor of term limits that allows for just a new generation of leadership and makes our caucus much more dynamic.

Because we have a wealth of talent in the Democratic Party.

Agreed.

But the whole, the whole is less than the sum of the parts.

Yeah.

What do you think of the idea?

Well, let me ask you a blunt question.

Who would you describe as the leader of the Democratic Party right now?

Look, in theory, it's the legislative leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.

And I don't think this is like the fault of the Democratic Party.

I feel like we're going to be leaderless until there's a Democratic nominee.

Like only a Democratic presidential nominee is going to have the platform to speak for the party, the legitimacy to speak for the party.

I have trouble imagining anyone else emerging as the leader of the Democratic Party until then.

Do you think, and this is a leading question, but do you think that if

Representative Torres or

Senator Bennett or Governor Whitmer, if someone announced right now that they were running for president and put out their own version of the tax bill and was sort of there to respond to some of these, you know, these multiple actions that come across as non-American, but give voice to some of our concerns.

Do you think that'd be a good strategy right now just to create, if you will, the optics or give someone a platform to start pushing back?

I do.

I feel like we should be putting forward an affirmative agenda because our politics has become personality driven.

It feels like the central principle of the Republican Party is loyalty to Donald Trump and the central principle of the Democratic Party is opposition to Donald Trump.

And I feel like we should be offering something more substantive than resistance to Donald Trump because, you know, he will eventually be gone from our politics.

And look, I also feel like there's a need for a deep restructuring.

When I spoke about the difference between team resistance and team restraint,

I worry that an enormous expenditure of energy on performative politics will crowd out the restructuring that needs to happen within the Democratic Party.

Like, I'm hopeful that we will win in 2026,

but how we win matters.

Why we win matters.

Are we winning because of our strength or because of Donald Trump's weakness?

You know, sometimes your electoral success can reveal your strength, but sometimes it can disguise our weakness.

In 2022,

our electoral success in reducing the Republican red wave to nothing more than a trickle, that was more.

disguising our weakness than revealing our strength.

Yeah, I think about that a lot.

I was pleased with the results, obviously, but when you look at the 2024 results, in light of the midterms, you realize the impact of the Dobbs decision.

And frankly, I feel like at this point, we probably would have been better off if Trump had won again in 2020 and we could be done with this and moving on to what the next phase of politics looks like.

But alas, that is not the case.

One last thing that we ask every guest: what's one issue that really makes you absolutely rage and one thing that you think we should all calm down about?

I mean, the Liberation Day tariffs.

We didn't even talk about tariffs.

Yeah.

It is the most, probably the greatest act of national self-sabotage that I've ever seen.

I mean, the Liberation Day tariffs had the same single-day impact on the S ⁇ P 500 as 9-11, the terrorist attack.

And I worry that, you know, we have the greatest country on earth.

We have the greatest financial system.

We have the greatest institutions of higher learning.

And Donald Trump is actively dismantling the greatest strategic assets, the jewels and the crown of American leadership.

And it just makes my blood boil and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Like the greatest threat to America is not China, Russia, or North Korea or Iran.

The greatest threat is Donald Trump.

And more deeply, it's the deepening dysfunction and maddening myopia of our politics.

It's ourselves.

So that's what makes me rage.

And then I do feel like people need to chill out about AI.

And I look, I tend to be a techno-optimist and feel that, you know, technology is the single greatest catalyst for human progress and prosperity.

But, you know, a few years ago, when I saw members of the tech community calling for a moratorium on AI, I thought it was over the top.

I think some of these apocalyptic predictions are over the top.

I feel like we have to recognize that there are limits to what we know,

and we have to be careful not to mistake science fiction for actual science.

Love it.

Representative of Congress Richie Torres represents New York's 15th district and the Bronx.

He's made a name for himself.

Representative Torres, we are just such an enormous, we're supposed to be, well, just can legitimately claim to be a journalist and try and be more even balanced.

I absolutely hope you announce your candidacy for governor or president.

I am so on board.

with you and what you represent and how unafraid you are, your lack of identity politics, despite having every asset from an identity politics standpoint.

I think you're exactly what the Democratic Party needs, and I hope that you throw caution to the wind and throw your hat in the ring sooner rather than later.

I really do think there's a calling here for someone with your background and your courage.

Very much appreciate your leadership and your time today.

I appreciate those kind words, Scott.

Thank you for joining us.

Thanks, Representative.

Take care.

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