Rep. Suozzi Runs for Governor

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Good to be back after we were preempted yesterday for the very good cause of bringing you live coverage of the Supreme Court hearing on Mississippi's abortion law and its direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. Later in the hour, we'll play five short excerpts from the hearing that I selected while listening yesterday morning, and we'll talk about them with a special guest, the CEO of the group that was the lead plaintiff at the Supreme Court yesterday, the Center for Reproductive Rights. Their President and CEO, Nancy Northup, is coming here on the morning after she was down there.

First, we'll talk now to the latest entrant in the race to be Governor of New York, that's Congressman Tom Suozzi. Currently, in his fourth term, I believe, as a member of Congress from Northern Long Island and Northeast Queens, he is being described as a centrist in the context of this race. Congressman Suozzi has been in the news recently for being a major player in the Build Back Better compromise in the House, specifically his insistence on restoring more of a federal tax deduction for your state and local taxes. More progressive members did not want that tax cut that in part would benefit very wealthy people.

Yesterday on his first day of campaigning for Governor, Suozzi, said he could do a better job than Governor Hochul is doing at fighting the pandemic. A few days ago, he turned down Eric Adams' offer to be a New York City Deputy Mayor. Some of you will remember that Tom Suozzi was a two-term Nassau County Executive. Before that, he was the Mayor of Glen Cove. Who listening right now remembers this? Suozzi ran in the gubernatorial primary back in 2006 when he was defeated by Eliot Spitzer. I always expected to see bumper stickers after that that said, "Don't blame me. I voted for Suozzi. Congressman, thanks for joining us today. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Tom Suozzi: Hey, Brian. It's so good to be back with you again. It's been many years that we've been doing this together off and on, so it's great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: That's right, including 2006. Before we even get into your run for Governor, Eric Adams offering you a job as Deputy Mayor of New York City under him. Did you seriously consider it?

Congressman Suozzi: Yes, I have a great relationship with Eric Adams. I endorsed him early, worked hard for him. I believe in him. I share a lot of the same ideas. We share a lot of the same ideas together. Especially, I'm inspired when he talks about he quotes Desmond Tutu and he says it's, "We spend a lifetime pulling people out of the water. We have to go upstream and stop people from falling in the river in the first place." He and I have talked extensively about what we need to do in our schools so that kids have a real opportunity in life because 75% of the people in jail have a drug, alcohol, or mental health problem. He talks about how 50% of the people at Rikers Island have a learning disability.

A lot of the problems that we face in society, whether it's imprisonment, whether it's poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, they're related to drugs, alcohol, and mental health. These issues emerge young in life and we have to do a better job of bringing social services to kids at young ages so that they can have an opportunity to live a productive life.

Brian Lehrer: Since you didn't take the job. This next question, doesn't really matter, I guess, but you don't live in New York City, do you?

Congressman Suozzi: Say it again?

Brian Lehrer: You don't live in New York City, right?

Congressman Suozzi: No, no, no. I live in Glen Cove. I represent New York City as part of Queens and, of course, if I became a Deputy Mayor, I would've to get an apartment in New York City. I decided that I'd be much more effective at helping Mayor Adams to be if I was the Governor of New York State and we can work together to solve the problems that we face in our city and certainly in our state as well.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, I guess I was just wondering, and then we'll move on from this topic. If it would've been weird to get hired as Deputy Mayor of a place you don't even live in and I'm not sure you ever lived in.

Congressman Suozzi: Oh no, I've lived in the city.

Brian Lehrer: You have.

Congressman Suozzi: I lived in Manhattan when I was working for Arthur Andersen & Company.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you did.

Congressman Suozzi: I lived in Manhattan when I was in law school at Fordham Law School and I lived there when I was working for Shearman & Sterling. Off and on, I was probably in the city for about seven, eight years. My father when he first came from Italy lived in Harlem, and my mother's side, my grandfather was in Hell's Kitchen and my mother lived in Queens growing up in St. Albans, Queens.

Brian Lehrer: All right, New York City roots and some New York City experience, but you're not doing that job. Out of the likely field of Kathy Hochul, Letitia James, Jumaane Williams, and probably Bill de Blasio, why are you the best person for the Democratic nomination for governor? Begin to make your case to our listeners.

Congressman Suozzi: Oh, that's a good question. I think that when people look at who the next governor is going to be, they're going to look at three factors. One is what's their ability, their competence, their experience. Two is what's their ideology and approach to governing, and three, what's their vision for the future of New York. When it comes to competence, I have proven executive experience. I was the mayor of my hometown, the County Executive, as you mentioned of Nassau County, larger than 12 states in the United States of America. I'm a member of Congress now. I've trained as a certified public accountant and an attorney.

Everything I've done in my life has prepared me for this particular job at this particular time. I've managed budgets. I've negotiated contracts. I turned Nassau County around from the depths of despair, practically one step above junk bond status on the brink of bankruptcy, and made it one of the most dramatic turns around in the country. I know how to manage and know how to get things done.

My ideology is I'm a common-sense Democrat. I'll work with anybody. I'll work with Democrats or work with Republicans. I'll work with progressives, I'll work with moderates. I'll work with anybody to actually solve problems and make people's lives better, and that's what people want these days. They're sick of the politics. They're sick of the finger-pointing. They want people to work together to get things done to make people's lives better.

I've done that throughout my career as mayor, as County Executive, as a member of Congress, and that's what I'll always do. I'll always try and fight and make people's lives better. I've taken on big fights in my life. Some very successful, some crashing and burning, but fighting for what I thought was the right thing. Even when I lost, I ended up with the changing the debate and making things happen that were very positive.

Third is what is my vision for the future of New York State. I don't think anybody else has really laid out what their big priorities are. For me, it's very clear. Taxes are too high in New York State. Property taxes are too high, income taxes are too high. People are leaving our state because of it. Businesses don't come here because of it. Tax is a major problem in our state, especially when compared to everywhere else in the country.

Second is we've got a problem with crime and I very much have adopt Eric Adams' posture on this is we have to do prevention, but we also have to make sure that we have to do intervention. We have to make sure that we stop the crime that's happening right now. People are concerned about their quality of life. They're afraid to go on the subways. We have to make sure that we make New York City and New York State as safe as possible. My experience as County Executive and mayor overseeing police departments, I know how to get that done in a fair and equitable way.

Thirdly, I've got to continue to fight to promote the environment. It's a big issue for me. I'm a big environmentalist. I was the New York State Environmentalist of the Year by the New York League of Conservation Voters. I was recognized by Al Gore for work I did on the environment. It's going to always be a big priority for me as well.

Fourth is this issue of schools that I was talking about earlier, where we have to figure out how do we take the billions of dollars that we spend in social services and get them into our schools. Not just later on in life when people show up at the window because they need help with a transfer payment, or they need help with heating assistance, or rent assistance, or food stamps. We have to get to people young, early on in life, before problems emerge and help people be successful in school and then that way they can be successful in life.

Someone just told me the other day in New York City or New York State overall, we've spent between $27,000 and $30,000 a year per child in school, but we spend $468,000 a year for each person who's an inmate at Rikers Island. That doesn't make any sense. We have to drive all of our social services into kids, helping kids at young ages when problems first emerge, preschool, kindergarten, third grade.

Test scores in third grade are very similar for the kids in the best school districts and the kids in the at most risk school districts. By the time they get to eighth grade, the kids in the good school districts are soaring, and the kids in the at-risk school districts have fallen up the face of the earth. We have to get to these problems early on in life instead of just trying to solve the problems after the emergency has blown up on us, and that requires management.

It's not even an ideological thing, it's a matter of taking existing resources and forcing our society to work on prevention. Again, we spend a lifetime pulling people out of the water, we need to go upstream and stop people from falling into the river in the first place. I have a whole bunch of other issues, but when it comes to ability and background ideology, and vision, I think I'm very distinguished from the other candidates.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your questions welcome here for Congressman and now New York State gubernatorial hopeful, Tom Suozzi. Find out what kind of governor he says he would be. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can tweet a question @BrianLehrer. Congressman, your hometown newspaper, Newsday, quoted you yesterday saying you're running as a centrist. Some people may have heard the beginning of the case that you just made for US governor. You started on taxes being too high. Some people may hear that as a nice Republican platform in a state that has such massive inequality and needs money for public purposes. Talk about that, and did they get that right in Newsday that you used that label for yourself, centrist?

Congressman Suozzi: That was not a quote. I did not say I was a centrist. A lot of people like to portray me as a centrist or a moderate but if you look at my record, I've got a very progressive record on certain things and I've got a moderate record on anything, everything. I don't like being put in a box. I'm a common-sense Democrat who wants to solve problems.

When it comes to the environment I'm a big progressive. I was one of the early adopters of the Green New Deal. I've got legislation on the Ways and Means Committee that's part of the Build Back Better deal about the tax credits for solar and for wind and for geothermal. When it comes to immigration, I set up the first dayworker site for newcomers in Central and South America anywhere on the East Coast of the United States of America in 1994. I've been fighting for immigrants' rights my whole career. I was the man of the year for the New York City Immigration Coalition.

I'm very very progressive on certain issues and I'm more fiscally responsible or conservative or moderate or whatever you want to call it on other issues. You can't put me in a box. I'll work with anybody to solve problems to actually make people's lives better. That's what I want to do. That's why I'm in public service. That's why I've devoted my life to public service is to solve problems and to try and help people, and I feel like the best place I can help people right now is by becoming the governor of New York State.

Brian Lehrer: On this left-right spectrum question and what kind of governor you would be, you did not support the Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo, India Walton, because she's also a Democratic socialist. Let me read a quote of yours from a rally for her opponent Byron Brown, the incumbent mayor who got reelected on a right-end campaign against Walton. You said, "We don't want to wake up on November 3rd and find that Buffalo has elected the country's first socialist mayor in 50 years. I'm here to say very, very clearly that we need to elect Byron Brown and defeat socialism."

Congressman, you know a lot of Democrats thought that sounded much more like Mitch McConnell or Ted Cruz than a Democrat from Long Island and Queens. Why did you make socialism in the context of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party of the United States sound so threatening for the people of New York?

Congressman Suozzi: Well, I really feel very strongly that we've gone down a bad path in our country overall with people trying to take extreme positions on things. We see that certainly with the crazy stuff with the far-right with the insurrection and the Trump supporters. It's awful. It's terrible. They're not equitable because we're not talking about a violent insurrection by the left but the policies of the left are just not going to work for our party or for our state or for our country.

I'm concerned that we are losing people because of the Democrats being defined as becoming the Democratic socialist. The socialists should start their own party. They shouldn't try and pull the Democratic Party to the far left like that. I think that the policies that they're pushing are not popular with the people. That's why Byron Brown won his election on a write-in candidacy, you know how hard it is to win a write-in candidacy, it's impossible.

Brian Lehrer: Get specific. What policies in the context of Democratic socialists in New York or in the US, I guess you're talking about Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I guess you're talking about Senator Bernie Sanders, so worry you that they're so far left.

Congressman Suozzi: Let me make it clear. I have great respect for Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. I've done press conferences and done work with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez on the Green New Deal. She and I both applied for a grant together and did a press conference together to try and get money for the SUNY Maritime Academy, to try and do job training for apprenticeship programs for cadets there so that they could learn how to work on wind towers because I support unions, I'm Chair of the Labor Caucus in Congress. I support the idea of creating high-skilled union jobs, and I also of support doing that in the context of trying to create a green economy in this country.

Like I said, I'll work with anybody to try and get things done but I do not support Medicare for all. I support the goals of trying to get more people to have access and affordable health insurance but I don't like the idea of taking away insurance from the 160 million people who now get their insurance from their private employer. I don't support the idea of changing Medicaid and Medicare for people who like that health insurance the way it is right now. I don't think it'll succeed and I don't think it's a good way to proceed.

I don't support the idea of that-- We have to do something about crime. We cannot ignore crime. There are inequitable things that exist in our system. When I was a County Executive, I worked to make sure that people who were in jail and had low bail because they're there for a nonviolent offense, actually got the money from private sector donors to actually get them out of jail. Because I think that the cash bail system was inequitable and unfair to people that treated people unfairly based upon their income.

I support that idea but I think we have to give judges the power to make sure that they can ensure public safety. The judges have to have the discretion like they do at other states where they could look at the holistic record of a person before them to find out whether or not they are going to be a danger to public safety. I support strongly the idea of empowering judges to take people that are a threat to public safety off the streets.

I don't support this far-left message and I don't think it's working. I think it's hurting us. I think that we have to stop being so extreme in our views. We have to figure out how to rely on-- I'm a lifelong Democrat I'm Chair of the Labor Caucus, I'm as progressive as you get on immigration, as progressive as you get on the environment. I've worked on- I've created a model for the country for social services when I was County Executive of Nassau County, a thing called No Wrongdoer. I want to bring similar services like that into our schools. I'm a lifelong Democrat who supports our values but I don't like this extreme pull to the left.

Brian Lehrer: Let me push you on this a little bit and then we'll take some calls and we'll get into why you think you would do a better job than Governor Hochul on the pandemic which you said yesterday. If you're just joining us, listeners, my guest is Congressman Tom Suozzi, Democrat from the Northshore or it's not just along the shore, down into Dix Hills, and some of the central northern parts of Long Island as well as Northeast Queens, now running for governor.

Democratic socialists say you have to be as aggressive as they are on the economic stuff, leave the crime stuff aside for the moment, on the economic stuff, to fight the vast racial disparities in wealth in New York State and the United States, and to reverse the decline of the middle class. They'd say, for example, cutting taxes in New York would be the wrong way to go. Do you know the stats on some of this? I looked up a few yesterday. I have a pre-pandemic stat from the Federal Reserve Board, so it's a very mainstream source and pre-pandemic. For every dollar that the average white person has in annual income in New York State, how much does the average Black person make?

Congressman Suozzi: It's a very, very, very low number. Racial inequity that exists in our society is very real. There's no question about it. I support everything the president's talking about in Build Back Better to try and address the historic inequities that we have in our society. I believe that we have to rebuild the middle class. That's why I'm the Chairman of the Labor Caucus and I'm so strongly supportive of unions. We take unions for granted in New York. In the rest of the country, they don't like unions the way we do. I want to fight to make sure that we have them.

Listen, I'm on the Ways and Means Committee. What we came out of our Ways and Means Committee was to raise taxes from 37 back to 39.6 on the wealthiest individuals. We ended up getting a surcharge on people who make enormous amounts of money but I still would like to see the individual rates go up nationwide. I just don't want it to be just for New Yorkers. I want it to be nationwide. I don't want to put New York at a competitive disadvantage to other states where people leave us and go to North Carolina and go to South Carolina and go to Florida and go to Texas because they're going there for lower taxes.

I supported the increase in the corporate tax rate. I support doing everything that we can do to address historic inequities that exist in our society. That's what the concept of Build Back Better is, not just to go back to the way it was before but be better than ever before. I support the idea of making sure that we drive contracts into minority and women-owned businesses, especially minority, people of color's businesses as I did when I was Nassau County Executive. I support the idea of supporting education to make sure we address inequities that exist in our society. I've devoted my life to addressing inequities in society. When I was Nassau County Executive, you looked at my government, my government looked like the people that I represented. I'm totally 100% on board in doing everything that we can to address inequities. That's why I'm fighting for the state and local tax deduction quite frankly because New York State is more expensive. Our taxes are higher. Our property taxes are higher. Our income taxes are higher. Why? Because we have unions and we pay people good wages when they're in unions. Why? Because we have the lowest rates of uninsured children and uninsured adults anywhere in the country. Why? Because we're fighting against climate change. Why? Because we have a mass transit system that's unparalleled that has created one of the greatest economies of the world.

We are a progressive state, that's why our state and local tax is high. That's why I'm trying to get the state and local tax deduction back to the people of New York but we cannot make ourselves so that we're so non-competitive that people can't afford to live here, including lower and middle-income people who can't afford to pay for their mass transit, who can't afford to buy a house because they can't afford the property taxes. Who can't afford their utility payments. We have to make New York State more affordable.

Brian Lehrer: One more question on this as it pertains to where you're positioned in this field of gubernatorial hopefuls in the Democratic Party. By the way, the exact answer, I don't expect you to know the numbers, I wasn't trying to play that kind of got you name, but the exact number from the Fed was for every dollar, a white person makes in New York State, a Black person makes 62 cents. The relative wealth that is total savings and--

Congressman Suozzi: That's a really shocking number, the relative wealth, yes.

Brian Lehrer: You want to take a guess?

Congressman Suozzi: It's like for every dollar, it's like less than 10 cents or some crazy number like that.

Brian Lehrer: It's 10 to one. This is a national number from the Fed.

Congressman Suozzi: No, I know, you know, this is a big part of it.

Brian Lehrer: The average white person in America has $163,000 of wealth, the average Black person, $16,000, so it's 10 to one. I looked at the--

Congressman Suozzi: One of the big reasons for that--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Congressman Suozzi: One of the big reasons for that is homeownership. What happened is, after World War II, we had these massive homeownership programs, Levittown out of Nashville County was affordable housing for returning veterans after World War II. There was support from the federal government and the GI bill and things like that, and Blacks and people of color were frozen out. They were red-lined, they couldn't come, and generational wealth which was created for so many millions and millions and millions of homeowners in the United States of America through federal programs where you could buy a house for $10,000 back in the '50s and '60s, and then now it's worth $500,000 or $600,000, that was a creation of generational wealth for families.

Blacks, people of color were frozen out of that. We have to correct that problem with the work on building affordable housing and making it available for people of color to build generational-- [crosstalk] is writing a paper on it for college.

Brian Lehrer: The more progressive candidates in this race say economically, one has to be as aggressive as they are to really close the shocking and very persistent wealth gap and income gap. I looked up some numbers for your district and I saw the median household income is $126,000 compared to $72,000 statewide, and that only 1.5% of your district is Black, and correct me if that's wrong but that's what I read. That could lead people to wonder, all of those things combined. Who do you really represent as you try to run for the right of the candidates from the city, Letitia James and Jumaane Williams, and presumably, Bill de Blasio?

Congressman Suozzi: Let's not be simplistic about this, okay? That's what's killing our society is people trying to be simplistic, putting people into a box. I've got a very progressive record. When I represented Nassau County, I represented a much more diverse population than I do now in Congress. I was good at it and I love it and I want to represent everybody in New York State. Look at who I endorsed for mayor of New York City when I endorsed Eric Adams. Look at that I fought for an African-American mayor of Buffalo, Byron Brown.

It's not a simplistic of left and right and conservative and moderate. It's not as simple as that. I have devoted my life to public service to try and help people and I'll do whatever I can to try and solve problems on behalf of the people I represent. That means all the different people that I represent if I'm the governor of New York State and I've got a record of doing that throughout my career. It's not about I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. Look at my record. Look at the diversity of my administration when I was Nassau County Executive. Look at what I did to increase contracts for minority and women-owned businesses. Look what I did to lift people up out of poverty and to try and help people from all different circumstances.

Brian Lehrer: Nassau County Executive, just flipped, your old job just flipped from Democrat to Republican. Do you think that was on a left-right spectrum of issues?

Congressman Suozzi: No question about it. I think that what happened throughout the country is we had- the Democrats had bad results. One is because it's cyclical, it's normal. That happens when the new president gets elected, the opposing party comes out stronger and the president's party has less turnout. Secondly, the Republicans weaponized issues of critical race theory down in Virginia and bill reform here in New York and we paid a price for it politically. Thirdly, people are sick and tired of politics, generally, of people just pointing fingers.

Unfortunately, before the election, we hadn't gotten much done down in Washington DC when it was all controlled by the Democrats with very narrow margins since we did the great job on COVID and begin-- Remember when President Biden came in how ecstatic we all were that the president was getting stuff done. Congress was supporting him, getting shots in arms, checks in people's pockets. Finally, getting to the pandemic rates of infection to go down, really getting things done, helping people, but we were so excited.

Then I helped to negotiate with a group called the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and it was passed by the Senate with 19 Republican votes. Even Mitch McConnell voted for it, oh my gosh. It was crazy. Then what happened? The Democrats all started fighting with each other in the house about that bill instead of passing it. We just pointed fingers from August to election day. I think the public saw that and they said, "Listen, we want something done." Soon after the election and the bad results for the Democrats, what do we do? We said, "Listen, we got to pass this bill." We passed the Infrastructure bill and we passed through the House the Build Back Better bill.

I think that we'll get the Build Back Better build done. It's very important to the future of our country. Not only because I want to get SALT done, the state and local tax deduction for the people of New York but because of all the wonderful things in that bill related to the child tax credit that are going to lift children out of poverty, related to all the different things to finally address climate change and so many other important things with childcare and job training and so many good things that'll make our country better than it's ever been.

Brian Lehrer: We've got a few minutes left with Congressman Tom Suozzi from Long Island and Queens now running for governor. In a minute, when we come back from a short break, we'll take some of the phone calls that are coming in for you and also let you make your case about why you think you'd be better at fighting the pandemic than Governor Hochul, which you said yesterday. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. A few more minutes with Congressman Tom Suozzi who's also been the Nassau County Executive and the Mayor of Glen Cove, as he now runs for governor of New York. He entered the race officially this week, Dave in Old Bethpage, you're on WNYC with Congressmen Suozzi. Hi, Dave.

Dave: Hi. I have to say, first of all, that I was so glad when Old Bethpage was moved out of the Second District into the Third, but what I want to ask you now--

Brian Lehrer: Which means you are represented by Suozzi right now.

Dave: Right. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: You like him as your Congressman.

Dave: Yes, very much. What I want to know though is what Governor Suozzi--

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Dave.

Dave: You're more than welcome. What I'd like to know is what you would do as governor to help electric grades on Long Island. Life appears to be a failure. PSEG I wouldn't trust to change the batteries in my flashlight and we're still paying off Shoreham almost 50 years later. Our rates here are about the highest in the country. What will be done about it, what can be done, what would you do?

Congressman Suozzi: It's really such a tough issue because one of the big issues that we face, as you pointed out, Dave, is we have this legacy cost from the Shoreham Nuclear Power, which is literally billions of dollars of debt for something that never generated a cent of revenue because they wanted to build a nuclear plant back in whatever, I forget when that was now, '80s or '90s, and it was stopped from being turned on when the time came.

What I've seen over the years and I've never gotten that much involved in utility politics but this goes to the question I was trying to address early with Brian is we've got an affordability problem in New York State and energy costs and on Long Island and in New York City are a major problem. I think that part of our green economy agenda that we have to have for our state has to be also married with an affordability agenda so that we can try and reduce electric costs and energy costs for people who live in our state.

I don't have a detailed policy plan that I've laid out on it yet, I just announced on Monday, but I will, during the course of this race, lay out a detailed energy policy because affordability combined with a green economy are essential for the future of our state to make us competitive with other states. Right now it's not attractive to be in New York because our property taxes are too high, because our income taxes are too high, and because our energy costs are too high.

Brian Lehrer: How about John in Bay Ridge? John, you're on WNYC. Hello.

John: Hi Congressman. I've admired your work as County Executive and I'm glad you're in Congress and I'm really worried about your congressional seat. We need as many Democrats as possible in Congress. How are we going to help New York if we have a Republican Congress? Finally, isn't it time that we have a woman get elected governor and run the state? Give women a chance, let's have some diversity. Kathy Hochul is a great candidate, and Letitia James could be a good candidate. How about supporting them and just staying in Congress? Thank you.

Congressman Suozzi: Well, listen, let me first say that I want to congratulate again Kathy Hochul as I have before for making history of the first woman governor in the history of New York State. As far as my congressional seat goes, I'm going to do everything I can to try and elect a common-sense Democrat to replace me in that seat. I'm in a swing seat that could go either way. I'm going to work hard to make sure that when I'm running for governor, that the area that I represent now comes out strong for the Democrats to make sure that we can keep that seat in Democratic hands. I'll do everything I can to try and help make that happen.

Brian Lehrer: You do have to give up your seat in Congress in what is definitely a swing district at this point in order to run because you can't run in two primaries at the same time, right?

Congressman Suozzi: Correct, but I hadn't-- Listen, and I love my job in Congress. I've got a great relationship with the mayor as you mentioned earlier, I've got a great relationship with hopefully the next Speaker of the house, who I hope will be Hakeem Jeffries. I'm on Ways and Means, I'm involved in some heavy-duty policy debates regarding not only SALT but other issues as well, foreign policy, China Commission, I was appointed by the Speaker on a commission on human rights in China and the Uyghurs. I'm enjoying, I've got great relationships with my Democratic colleagues, I've even got relationships with my Republican colleagues. I'm enjoying Congress, but I really feel that everything I've done in my life has prepared me for the job of Governor at this particular time to help our state during these very, very challenging times.

Brian Lehrer: You're done in Congress after next year because you have to give up your seat at that time just to run in the primary. Why did you say yesterday that you could do a better job, and this is our last issue, fighting the pandemic than Governor Hochul, who of course is also running for the nomination to serve a full term. Maybe you can address the caller's gender question too. It's time for our first elected woman governor.

Congressman Suozzi: Listen, I'm totally in favor of making history and having a woman governor that we have now. That's wonderful, that's fantastic, but we also have to make sure that New York is successful and I think that I'm the best person to make New York successful. I'm going to do everything I can to make New York successful. As far as COVID goes, I think we're all very concerned about COVID coming back again, and God forbid it comes back in such a way that we've got to go through a shutdown again, we can't let that happen.

We need a holiday plan for COVID. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we're going to have a lot more gatherings of people, a lot more tourism. We've got Delta is already out there. We got this new Omicron variant that everybody's worried about. We've seen the dramatic spike in infections, not in New York City, thank goodness. Out of Long Island, though, and statewide, we have a 5% average rate of infection higher than it's been in a long time. Up in Western New York, where Governor Hochul from, is a 10% rate of infection. It's spiking in many places throughout.

Brian Lehrer: Because we're running out of time, let me play part of Governor Hochul's response to you yesterday. Basically, she said, she's already doing the things you claim as your ideas, like pop-up vaccination sites to meet people where they are. [crosstalk] I'll play the clip.

Congressman Suozzi: We have half the sites we had earlier in the year.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the clip and then you respond.

Governor Hochul: I just told him we just had a nice conversation. He asked for pop-ups, I explained that we already have pop-ups. He wanted more boosters out there. I explained to them we have 4,500 sites for vaccines and boosters and we're micro-targeting by zip code. Any zip code that doesn't have a vaccination site is going to get one.

Brian Lehrer: All right, so what's the difference between your plan and hers and then make any closing statement you want as we run out of time.

Congressman Suozzi: Listen, New York currently has 13 mass vaccination sites. That's half of what it was earlier in the year. We're currently testing 150,000 people when we should be testing 180,000 as we were earlier in the year. We don't have a microcluster strategy. Remember those things where you see the different colors as to where it's a hotspot, red, orange, yellow, green, we need to have an aggressive testing strategy. We need to have a whole bunch of different things in a comprehensive plan to address this issue. Right now, it's been very piecemeal. We need to recognize the fact that if we go back to having serious problems, again, it's going to affect our economy in very dramatic ways.

Let me just close by saying this, Brian. First of all, thanks so much for giving me so much time. I really appreciate it. I love being on your show. You're so smart. You ask great questions. Sometimes they're tough, but it's really a great experience. I believe that everything I've done in my career has prepared me for this particular job at this particular time. I'm a common-sense Democrat. I want to get things done to help people and make their lives better. I've got a vision for the future of New York to address our property taxes, to address our income taxes, to try and get homeless people off the streets, into shelters, into medical facilities, and healthcare facilities into housing.

I want to try and address crime by giving judges the power and the discretion as they do in other states to look at the public safety of the public overall so they can remand people and make sure that the violent folks aren't on the streets. I want to make sure that our schools don't leave our kids behind by bringing social services into the schools like we do in community schools now, but really on steroids and bringing all those social services to kids from very young ages, even before kindergarten, all the way through high school, and I want to continue to fight to protect our environment.

I can do it because I've done it. I'm not going to just say I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. I've got a long record, which I'm sure will come up through the course of this campaign, that the people can look at what Tom Suozzi has done to try and make people's lives better, to try and make our society more equitable. To rebuild our middle class, to make it cleaner, to make it safer, and to make it more affordable in New York State. Thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: New York Congressman Tom Suozzi, now running to be New York Governor Tom Suozzi. We will obviously talk again during the campaign. Thanks so much for today.

Congressman Suozzi: Thanks so much for having me on.

 

 

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