National Politics With Rep. Ritchie Torres

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Brian Lehrer: It's the WNYC. Good Friday morning, everyone. We'll begin today with Congressman Ritchie Torres from the Bronx at this weird transitional moment in national politics. Democrats got wiped in the elections more than they hoped and are debating how to keep Congress in next year's midterms. The president just declared inflation a top priority for the first time.

House Republican leaders are not denouncing Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, who released an animated video showing him stabbing President Biden and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but they are denouncing Republicans in Congress who voted for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. That Infrastructure Bill could bring not just new construction but revisiting the harms of old construction like the Cross-Bronx Expressway in Congressman Torres's district.

It passed without being tied to the president's Build Back Better Plan for childcare, elder care, universal Pre-K, a few weeks of paid family leave, and more that Torres and other house progressives wanted in the bargain. What the Democrats know is that they're on their own on that one. Here's Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado unpaid family leave. I'm a

Lauren Boebert: I'm a mother of four. I delivered one of my children in the front seat of my truck because as a mom of four, we got things to do. Ain't nobody got time for two and a half months of maternity leave. We have a world to save here.

Brian Lehrer: Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Her Republican colleagues may not all put it that way, but they've announced their intention to vote that way. With us now is Congressman Ritchie Torres, Democrat from New York's 15th Congressional District in the Bronx covering the neighborhoods of-- are you ready? In alphabetical order from his website, Bathgate, Belmont, Claremont, Clason Point, East Tremont, Fordham, Harding Park, Highbridge, Hunts Point, Little Italy, that's the Bronx's Little Italy, Arthur Avenue, and around there, Longwood, Melrose, Morrisania, Morris Heights, Mott Haven, Soundview, Tremont, Unionport, West Farms 10460. Congressman, we always appreciate when you come on, welcome back to WNYC.

Ritchie Torres: It's an honor to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Unionport, really? That's a neighborhood in the Bronx?

Ritchie Torres: I just simply refer to it all as the South Bronx, much simpler.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. All right, want to react to that Lauren Boebert clip?

Ritchie Torres: Lauren Boebert is not a moral authority on anything, much less on paid family leave, but look, we fully expect to pass the Build Back Better Act on purely democratic votes. We take the position that infrastructure is about more than physical infrastructure, more than roads and bridges, but it should be about human and social infrastructure.

If we pass the Build Back Better Act, senior citizens will have access to home care, which is critical. We will lift millions of children out of poverty with an expanded Child Tax Credit, and every three-year-old and four-year-old would have access to Pre-K throughout the country. These are transformational investments that would benefit the most vulnerable in our society.

Brian Lehrer: You're in the House Progressive Caucus, two of the other members who represent the Bronx, AOC and Jamaal Bowman voted no on the Infrastructure Bill, because it got untethered from the Build Back Better human Infrastructure Bill. Why did you vote yes?

Ritchie Torres: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment is historic in more ways than one. It's the largest investment in passenger rails since the creation of Amtrak. The largest investment in roads and bridges since the creation interstate highway system. The largest investment in clean energy transmission and electrification, both of which is critical to combating climate change. Largest investment in clean water, which has implications for lead safety.

It represents a trillion dollars in funding for roads and bridges, waterways and highways, ports and airports, transit and rail, clean energy, clean water, broadband expansion. The Bipartisan Infrastructure framework is far from perfect, but it will do an enormous amount of good for an enormous number of people. New York State alone could receive up to $170 billion in funding.

Brian Lehrer: In fairness to you, there's like 90 members of the House Progressive Caucus all but six voted for the Infrastructure Bill. Was that a defensive measure on your part after the election losses for the Democrats in Virginia and on Long Island and elsewhere to get at least the Infrastructure Bill through but taking the risk that Build Back Better will fail because you untethered it.

Ritchie Torres: It was untethered before the vote. The Progressive Caucus had agreed to move forward with the Bipartisan Infrastructure framework based on the president's promise that he could deliver Manchin, but there was no guarantee that Manchin would in fact vote for the Bill, right? The original progressive position was we would only wait for a vote in the Senate before voting on BIF, and the Progressive Caucus made a concession there.

I have to be honest, the notion that delaying BIF, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment, would give us leverage when it comes to the Build Back Better act is dubious. There's no evidence that Manchin cares about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment. He would be more than happy to see none of these bills pass. The only infrastructure that he cares about is coal in West Virginia.

Brian Lehrer: Why was it tethered in the first place by the Progressive Caucus? It used to be your position. You said, so on this show, there was a time when you were thinking of voting no on infrastructure because it wasn't tethered to Build Back Better.

Ritchie Torres: I think no one anticipated the level of obstructionism that we've had to face from Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. I've said that we no longer live in a democracy. We live under the tyranny of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and it's been a greater obstacle than most of us originally thought it would be.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your calls and tweets. Welcome from Congressman Ritchie Torres, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. What do you want to say or ask from Unionport the Bronx or anywhere else? 212-433-9692 about the Infrastructure Bill, Build Back Better, or anything else? 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Congressman Torres, we talked this week on the show about using some of that infrastructure money, as you've been hoping for, for reducing the harm from some Robert Moses era infrastructure, like the Cross-Bronx Expressway that runs through your district. Can you tell us what you have in mind or what you can promise at this point?

Ritchie Torres: Yes, I actually know in the South Bronx, there are about 15,000 trucks trips to and from the Hunts Point Terminal Market. There are thousands of trucks that create congestion on the Cross-Bronx every day, and children and who live near the Cross Bronx, or who attend school near the Cross-Bronx are through no fault of their own breathing in pollutants that cause respiratory diseases like asthma.

The prevalence of asthma in the South Bronx is not an accident. That is a consequence of the Cross Bronx Expressway. I've been on a mission to secure funding for the capping of the Cross-Bronx Expressway. We've earned a new supporter in that cause, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Both Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, and I have spoken to Secretary Buttigieg, and we're confident that we're going to secure what is known as RAISE grant funding for a feasibility study. Once the feasibility study is complete then a subset of those infrastructure dollars could potentially go toward capping the Cross-Bronx.

It's far from mission accomplished, but we're making progress as we have the support of the future mayor, Eric Adams, the support of the majority leader. I've spoken to Secretary Buttigieg directly, and as you know he brought up the name of Robert Moses. For me, the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which was built by Robert Moses is both literally and metaphorically a structure of racism. William Faulkner once said that the past is not dead. It's not even passed. We in the Bronx continue to be haunted by the ghost of Robert Moses.

Brian Lehrer: Some people say we should just remove certain stretches of highway in some places, not just cap them like you're talking about for the Cross-Bronx, like the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx. That they're unredeemable from a public health and quality of life standpoint, and we should start dismantling the Fossil Fuel Infrastructure anyway. Your thoughts about that?

Ritchie Torres: I think what we're proposing is much more realistic, much simpler, much less disruptive solution. Capping a highway is much less expensive than digging it underground. The project that Big Dig in Boston dragged on for decades had billions of dollars in cost. I think the ultimate cost was $20 billion. The projected cost of capping the Cross-Bronx is less than $1 billion. Again, this is not meant to be pursued in isolation. I think we are committed to electrifying vehicles. The combination of electrification and capping, the Cross-Bronx would have a real impact in improving not only the environment but the public health of the South Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: How else do you foresee the infrastructure money benefiting your constituents or the city?

Ritchie Torres: In several ways, one in the United States in 2020 there were 22 extreme weather events that cost the United States up to $100 billion. New York City saw not only one, but two record rainfalls, which led to almost biblical levels of flooding. We saw residents drown in their own apartments. We saw straphangers who were stranded in flooded subways. We saw motorists who had to be evacuated from the rooftop of their vehicles by emergency responders on lifeboats.

We have become ground zero for catastrophic climate change here in New York City. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment will allocate about $0.5 billion for climate resilience, coastal resilience, flooding resilience, which is desperately needed. It invests not only in traditional roads and bridges but also public transit. The MTA alone will receive $10 billion, which will mean funding for subways and buses and rail. It will support the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan. It will support the siting of the four Metro-North stations in the Bronx.

Amtrak is set to receive $66 billion dollars and 24 billion of those dollars will go toward the Northeast corridor, which will disproportionally benefit New York City. It will support the reconstruction of the Hudson river tunnels and the East River tunnels, which are said to be critical to the siting of the Metro-North stations in the Bronx. The benefit for New York city is outsized.

Brian Lehrer: My guest is Congressman Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and Gerard in Queens you're on WNYC. Hi Gerard.

Gerard: Yes. Hey Brian. I'm a big admirer of the Congressman. My question is, was it evident from when you are in the freshman class of Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Boebert. Was it evident from meeting them right from the get-go that they were just in the cult of Trump or is this something that's evolved since the Biden administration has come in and they just want to be obstructionist on everything?

Was there ever any hope that these people, you could work with him, and are there any Republican freshmen-- I know Mr. Mayor voted for impeachment and Ms. Mace from South Carolina. Are there any Republican freshman Congresspeople who you can work with or who on the side speak with you privately and you sense some hope that maybe after this period has gone that we can move forward on and get a Bipartisan Infrastructure deal where people who vote for it are and being threatened? Is there some hope?

Brian Lehrer: Gerard, thank you much. Congressman.

Ritchie Torres: Look, the Republican Party increasingly has become a culture personality around Donald Trump. We see Republicans deny the truth about the 2020 election. We've seen Republicans reject the peaceful transfer of power. Half of the Republican court voted to overturn the results of the Electoral College, which was an unprecedented assault on the peaceful transfer of power.

To oversimplify, there are two kinds of people who go to Washington DC. There are policymakers and performers. It was clear to me from day one that Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn are performers, are interested in performative rather than substantive politics. There are Republicans who are constructive, I've been able to partner with Congressman Katko and Congressman Garbarino on matters relating to cybersecurity. We've passed legislation together. I partnered with Congressman Meijer--

Brian Lehrer: Just for context, Katko from Upstate New York, Garbarino from Long Island. Go ahead.

Ritchie Torres: Exactly right. Congress member Peter Meijer from Michigan who actually voted to impeach Donald Trump, I partnered with him on legislation relating to veteran housing. I do have working relationships with Republicans who are serious about policymaking.

Brian Lehrer: I guess that brings us to the news about Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, not a freshman, the animated video that a lot of people, if they haven't seen, they've heard about by now, doesn't just depict him attacking Biden and AOC with swords, it depicts AOC as a giant that little Paul Gosar is going after like he's David and she's Goliath. I'm seeing Michael Brown, I'm seeing Tamir Rice. I'm seeing, scary dark people perceived by certain white people as bigger and more powerful than they are. Am I overreacting here?

Ritchie Torres: If you were to ask me who is the single most despicable member of Congress, it would be Paul Gosar. Here's a man who has done events with a valid white supremacist. He has not only incited, but he may have aided and abetted the insurrection against the US capital and now he's promoting images that incite violence against his colleagues. If that is not disqualifying then I'm not sure what would be.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of Republicans say whether or not they agree with everything Paul Gosar has ever done or said that it's just a cartoon. It's a symbolic, political slaying, not permission for anyone to commit real violence. What's your reaction to that?

Ritchie Torres: Again, if we turn a blind eye to his misconduct, then we become complicit. Congress member Ocasio-Cortez is one of our highest-profiled members. I suspect she's often the target of threats and the kind of images that he is propagating will only serve to incite violence and put her life at risk. That is unacceptable and he should be held accountable.

Brian Lehrer: I see that just a few weeks ago before this anime, you called for Gosar and a few others to be expelled from Congress for their roles in January 6th. What do you believe Gosar did with respect to that?

Ritchie Torres: If there is a finding that those members of Congress not only engaged in inflammatory rhetoric but actively aided and abetted a frontal assault on the Electoral College in January 6th, then that, in my opinion, is grounds for expulsion.

Brian Lehrer: That hasn't been determined yet, but do you think there's evidence indicating that might have happened?

Ritchie Torres: There have been preliminary reports, but I would want to wait to see a final report from the January 6th Commission or a select committee.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call from Andrew about capping the Cross-Bronx Expressway. Andrew, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Andrew: Good morning to the both of you. Thank you very much for all that you do congressman. I think there's a lot of misinformation surrounding what you mean by capping the Cross-Bronx. I've heard some more conservative friends say that you're proposing to close the Cross-Bronx to traffic. By the sounds of this discussion, that certainly doesn't sound like what you're asking to do. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on what you mean by capping it?

Ritchie Torres: It's essentially a two-step process, but you're exactly right. We're not closing the Cross-Bronx, we're simply capping it with a deck park which has been done elsewhere. Then we're going to install electrostatic filters that would prevent the exhaust from the diesel truck traffic from recirculating in the air. It's about capping it with a park and installing filters. It's not about closing the Cross-Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew, thank you very much. I hope that clarifies it. Did you want to say something else, Andrew? You can.

Andrew: No, I just thank you for clarifying it. Misinformation's tough and I'm not surprised to hear that reasonable policy, so thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Yes. We used to feel on this show that we were mostly in the business of having policy discussions and hearing different points of view, which we are certainly still primarily in the business of today, but elevated to unfortunately close to that is just battling misinformation and disinformation with clarifications like that. How much do you think that capping can change? Are there public health studies that show that there would be X percent less asthma in your district or would it really be usable green space, like park space above the Cross-Bronx Expressway?

Ritchie Torres: The proposal for capping the Cross-Bronx comes not only from grassroots environmental organizations in the Bronx, particularly one of my favorite civic leaders, Nilka Martell, but it also has been supported by the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, which has actually done research showing that capping the Cross-Bronx would radically reduce healthcare costs, radically reduce asthma rates.

There's also research showing that green spaces bring substantial public health benefit to those who live within a three-mile radius and there are more than 200,000 New Yorkers who live within three miles of the Cross-Bronx. Capping the Cross-Bronx would bring public health benefits to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who live nearby.

Brian Lehrer: Here is perhaps a skeptic about capping the Cross-Bronx. Lisa in Harlem you're on WNYC with Congressman Ritchie Torres. Hi Lisa?

Lisa: It's an honor to speak to you this morning, thank you. I am a skeptic in that I think capping the Cross-Bronx Expressway would create a corridor of lethal poison for people to breathe, even with ventilation, even with filters. I have been caught in traffic in places like that, an hour and 45 minutes if there's a traffic jam and an emergency might even kill a small child because the air gets so filthy and so toxic so quickly.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, I want you to be clear. You're talking about the pollution that the actual drivers on the Cross-Bronx would have to be exposed to and the passengers in their cars if it weren't closed?

Lisa: -take up too much time. May I give a counter proposal?

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Lisa: This would displace more people and that would be very regrettable. I'm in favor of the city, paying them a nice sum of money to clear a block on either side of it and to grow tall trees. That would take some time but in my opinion, that's the only thing that would work well in the long run, including, obviously, are giving up fossil fuels. Thank you, I don't--

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Lisa. Thank you very much. Congressmen to that?

Ritchie Torres: I stand by the proposal and there are researchers, public health professionals from Columbia University who have found that capping the Cross-Bronx and installing filters would be effective at preventing air pollution and preventing the poisoning of our children. I think here's where we do agree, that's only one part of a much broader strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We have to electrify vehicles in the United States. The US electric vehicle market is 1/3 of China's electric vehicle market.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework would for the first time set up a first-ever national network of electric vehicle charging stations. They will electrify buses, transit buses, and school buses. It would create a grid deployment authority, which would lay the foundation for a national clean energy grid. It would invest billions of dollars in not only the creation but also the distribution of clean energy.

Like here in New York City more than 80% of power generation in Upstate New York comes from renewables. Whereas the opposite is true in New York City, more than 80% of power in New York City comes from fossil fuels. We need infrastructure that will transmit clean energy from Upstate New York to Downstate New York and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment invest well over $73 billion in clean energy transmission.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Congressman Ritchie Torres, more of your calls, we'll get his impression of the election results last week, we'll get to inflation and more with Congressman Ritchie Torres, stay with us Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer in WNYC with Congressman Ritchie Torres from the Bronx and Jane in the Bronx you're on WNYC. Hi Jane. Thanks for calling in.

Jane: Great, good morning everybody? I'm wondering if the Congressmen could comment about our own backyard. He talked about Manchin and Sinema great, but we in New York like to point fingers at other parts of the country and maybe sometimes ignore our own backyard. Particularly with respect to the ballot proposals in New York State, which take a lot of effort to get on the ballot.

Conservative Party put in apparently a ton of money to have the no votes prevail and the Democratic Party apparently did not. Things that would have enfranchised, more of Congressman Torres's voters and helped with our districting et cetera, et cetera did not pass. I'm wondering if he could comment on this because some people are calling for some big changes in the New York State Democratic Party.

Brian Lehrer: Jane, thank you very much. For people who don't know the background there, these two big voting rights ballot proposals that you would think would be no-brainers and blew New York for permanent, no excuse mail-in ballots like we've had during the pandemic to make that permanent. You don't have to be out of state or something and ask for an absentee ballot. Anybody could do mail-in permanently that lost, in a statewide referendum last week, so did same-day voter registration. Congressman, I think she characterizes it correctly that the Conservatives just put in more effort than the Democratic Party on that. What's your take?

Ritchie Torres: I agree completely. It's inexplicable that the Democratic Party has spent no money defending our own policy proposals. We cannot trust that our policy initiatives are going to prevail on the merits. We have to campaign for them, we have to make the case for them and we have to combat the disinformation campaigns that are likely to come from the right. I agree with the critique completely.

Brian Lehrer: Also about the election results, we talked on the show yesterday with Assemblymember, Ron Kim from Queens about East Asian Americans, his district which voted for him and other very Progressive politician voted for him, but voted in the main for Curtis Sliwa according to the election results and East Asian Americans in general. In New York City voting majority were Republican, according, at least to exit polls and the data that people are parsing. What do you make of that and what task does it give the democratic party?

Ritchie Torres: I find it alarming. We saw a Republican surge in the vote in places like the East Bronx and in Southern Brooklyn among the Asian population in Queens and it should be a wake-up call for us as a party. We cannot take any constituency or any neighborhood for granted. I do worry that the Republicans are making gains among Latinos, less so in New York City but elsewhere in the country. We might've seen it in Virginia and New Jersey, we saw it in Texas and Florida in the 2020 Presidential Election.

I worry that Republicans are now making gains among college-educated whites, exploiting issues like critical race theory. For me, the best politics is effective governing, and if we govern effectively then I'm hopeful that the politics will take care of itself, but we have to run on pocketbook issues. There's no better issue on which to run than something like affordable prescription drugs. It commands almost 90% support from Democrats and Republicans. There's a debate within the party--

Brian Lehrer: That's back in Build Back Better as I understand it?

Ritchie Torres: It is, yes. There are those in the party who argue that we should focus on issues that are popular with swing voters who decide the outcome of elections. Then there are those who argue that we should focus on issues that galvanize the base that turn out the vote. The truth is we can do both. There are issues like affordable prescription drugs that both galvanize the base and appeal to swing voters. Those are the issues on which we should run and win elections.

Brian Lehrer: You talk about pocketbook issues. Let me ask you about inflation. President Biden had to declare it a top priority yesterday for the first time. Are your constituents feeling it?

Ritchie Torres: We're all feeling inflation, especially and I represent the poorest congressional district in America. My constituents are certainly coping with the rising cost of living. During COVID-19 we saw and we continue to see a shift in consumer demand from services to durable goods. Even though the supply chain is actually moving more goods than ever before, the demand for durable goods is so overwhelming that it's put a strain on the supply chain.

It's led to cargo container pileups at ports, it's led to supply chain disruptions in the lays, it's led to higher prices. As you know there's a severe semiconductor shortage which has led to employment losses in the automotive sector. There are larger structural forces at work caused largely by COVID-19, but it's worth noting that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment will allocate tens of billions of dollars to modernize ports and freight rail in order to address these disruptions in the supply chain.

Brian Lehrer: That will take years and years of construction projects, won't it? You want inflation to go away much quicker than that.

Ritchie Torres: In the short-term, we've made the cargo operations 24/7 to get goods moving to market, but look the reality is the United States has a supply chain designed for a pre-COVID world. It was built for a world that no longer exists and we have to modernize it. We have to bring it into the 21st century.

Brian Lehrer: You're going to hear from Republicans that all this government spending by democratic legislation fuels inflation and that's going to be at a new argument against the Build Back Better Bill at $1.75 trillion.

Ritchie Torres: No matter what we do, the Republican Party will promote disinformation and misrepresent the policies of the Democratic Party. It's clear to me that the inflation that we've seen take hold is more attributable to disruptions in the supply chain than to public investment. There has been chronic underinvestment in the United States. Since the 1960s public investment as a share of GDP has fallen by 40%. There are countries that invest as much as 5% of their GDP in research and development. We in the United States invest less than 1%.

I often ask myself, if we can squander $2 trillion on a failed war in Afghanistan, why can we not invest trillions of dollars in our own people, in our own infrastructure, in our own future? If we refuse to invest in ourselves, how can we expect to be competitive abroad and productive at home?

Brian Lehrer: Also, I always like to point out when we talk about the Build Back Better Bill, that 1.75 trillion price tag that casually gets bandied about in the media is really over 10 years. It's 1/10 of that per year, which is really not very much in the federal budget. Supposedly, it's going to be paid for by the tax hikes on corporations and wealthy Americans in the Bill and some other things. It wouldn't increase the deficit by a dollar theoretically.

I know that some of your more conservative Democratic colleagues in the house are waiting for the official Congressional budget office score on that. If they see zero increase in the deficit, then they say they'll vote yes. Do you know when that's going to come? I have a feeling when you get back into session on Monday, it should be ready by the usual timeline of how they work, and do you have any information about whether it's going to come back zero or something larger?

Ritchie Torres: We expect the CBL score to show that the package is fully paid for. As you said, it's not 1.7 trillion over 10 years, it's 170-- It's not 1.7 trillion over a year, it's 1.7 trillion over 10 years, it's 170 billion a year. The defense budget alone is more than 800 billion. Keep in mind that 170 billion is less than 1% of the American economy, which has a GDP of over 20 trillion. Less than 1% is a manageable investment in the infrastructure of the United States.

The package as you pointed out is fully paid for by tax reforms. I'm actually excited about the tax reforms. There's going to be a global minimum tax of 15%, which will prevent corporations from shipping operations and jobs overseas. In order to evade taxation here in the United States. There are corporations like Amazon that have gone years without paying a dollar in corporate taxes, we're imposing a corporate minimum tax at 15%. Everyone, no matter what loopholes persist in the tax code have to pay 15%.

In the United States, we have hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes that go uncollected because the IRS is chronically understaffed. It has less staff now than it did in the 1950s. The IRS has a misplacement of priorities. It is twice as likely to audit those earning $50,000 or less than those earning $1 million or more. We are modernizing the infrastructure of the IRS, which will enable us to collect trillions of dollars over the course of the next decade.

Brian Lehrer: One more call before we run out of time. Michael in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Congressman Ritchie Torres.

Michael: Good morning, Brian, and good morning, Ritchie. I was born and raised in the South Bronx. I'm a fellow asthmatic, I read Caro series on LBJ and then I've read The Power Broker.

Brian Lehrer: Robert Caro, author of The Power Broker about Robert Moses. Go ahead.

Michael: Yes. My question for the Congressman is this, what has the story of Bob Moses taught him about the use of power against the powerless, and what has a series on Lyndon Johnson taught him about the use of legislative power in Congress currently as a Progressive? Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, bringing the big think to wrap up this set Congressman Torres.

Ritchie Torres: For me, keep in mind that Robert Moses entered public service as an idealist advocating for the civil service, speaking out against patronage, but then he became corrupted by the pursuit of power. He was arguably the most powerful figure in the political life of New York City. He had the power to demolish whole neighborhoods, to clear slums all under the guise of urban renewal. What it teaches me is that we have to be first, mindful of the impact that our infrastructure projects have on the most vulnerable communities.

I think Mayor Pete was exactly right when he said that there was racism that underlied the urban planning decisions of Robert Moses. I think the present political moment in which we live presents us with an opportunity to finally reverse the legacy of Robert Moses, to liberate the South Bronx from its greatest public health and environmental burden.

Regarding Lyndon Johnson, we need President Biden to be like Lyndon Johnson. We need him to be the master of the Senate and the House because we have no votes to spear in the Senate. We have only three votes to spare in the House and any faction, no matter how small, can hold the rest of us hostage, and the only person powerful enough to unite the Democratic Party around the Build Back Better Act is the president of the United States. We need Joe Biden to give a few members the Lyndon Johnson treatment.

Brian Lehrer: How do you give Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema, the Lyndon Johnson treatment? What does that look like?

Ritchie Torres: Manchin is the hardest case. I think there are house members who are more susceptible to the Lyndon Johnson treatment. Manchin is a complicated case because he's a miracle in the age of hyperpolarization. He is a Democrat coming from the most pro-Trump state in the union. He has far more leverage than everyone else, but the President is the most powerful person on earth. He has carrots and sticks to offer every member, including Joe Manchin. I'm sure Joe Manchin has priorities that the President can meet.

I think the President needs to harness the full power of his platform to bring this home. This is a legacy moment for him, for speaker Pelosi, for Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, and all of them are going to have every incentive to use all of their political capital to pass the Build Back Better Act, which would be historic.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Ritchie Torres from the Bronx, we always appreciate when you come on. Thank you so much for today.

Ritchie Torres: Take care.

 

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