( AP Photo/Hans Pennink) / AP Photo )
U. S. Representative Pat Ryan (D, NY-18) talks about Democrats' longshot attempts to pass gun control legislation besides broad opposition from Republicans in the House - and other national political news.
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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. In case you missed it, President Biden was in our area heading into the three-day weekend, he came to the Gun Safety Summit in Connecticut and said the gun laws have got to change, partly because of what he's hearing more often these days from parents.
Biden: I don't know how many times I've met with people at events in the country who shake my hand and say, "I'm worried, there has been another shooting not far from where I live. I'm scared to send my kid to school."
Brian Lehrer: President Biden in Connecticut on Friday when fronting the gun control battle has now opened in Congress, where Democrats announced last week a rare parliamentary maneuver to get some basic gun safety reforms to a floor vote even if speaker Kevin McCarthy is using the power he has to block them. We'll hear about that and more now from New York Congressman, Pat Ryan, the Democrat representing District 18, that's the swing district in the Hudson Valley, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, New Paltz, Kingston, Middletown around there.
Congressman Ryan is an Iraq war vet and was the founder of a tech company before being elected to Congress last year. With another high-stakes election year right around the corner, president and everything else, we'll talk about guns and the first anniversary of the Dobbs decision on abortion rights and other issues that will be key to control of Congress and the White House in swing districts like his. Congressman Ryan, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.
Pat Ryan: Hey, Brian, good morning. Thanks for having me.
Brian Lehrer: Let's start on those discharge petitions as they're called in the house on guns. I don't know if they're going anywhere but what's the strategy on what specific measures?
Pat Ryan: They have to go somewhere because as you said, this is our duty as Americans, as members of Congress, we here on the far right, especially from Kevin McCarthy, all this talk, all this pandering about public safety, public safety, public safety. the number one killer of young people and kids in this country is guns and yet, they won't even bring to the floor a vote for an assault weapons ban, for common sense bipartisan background checks, for enhanced background checks that would have blocked what happened in Charleston and many other places across the country.
We are forcing the issue, we are making, frankly, McCarthy and his MAGA allies do their job. Hey, if you want to vote against this, I disagree with you strongly, but at least have the courage and a backbone to bring it to the floor of the house for a vote and show the American people where you stand.
Brian Lehrer: I've seen one Republican quoted already who supports these measures as policy saying he won't support getting them to a vote with this kind of and run around the speaker. Have you already lost on these? Do you have the headcount that indicates anything other?
Pat Ryan: This is a long-term strategy here over the next year, we're, unfortunately, right now in the minority in the house. We've seen these extreme forces, the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world hijack the Congress, they paralyze us for weeks. We could barely elect a speaker going back to January. When Congress isn't working, particularly to keep kids safe, I'm a dad, I've got an almost four-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old, there's no way I'm going to stand by and my colleagues and I are going to stand by and just let this sit and let there be no action.
We are building momentum. I think that if we continue and the American people continue to demand accountability, demand action from their members of Congress, we will see some folks step up and we're going to continue to ratchet up this pressure. I met a few days before we introduced the discharge petitions with a group of survivors, kids, and parents, including some of the Uvalde parents and New Town parents and students.
They had spent days sitting out, camping out on the hill, trying to push and demand, and continuing to push. Across the country, we have groups like Moms Demand Action and others working to address and bring forward common-sense gun safety measures. We have to keep up the pressure.
Brian Lehrer: The three bills that I see as being focused on in this discharge petition effort are an Assault Weapons Ban HR, 698, which prohibits the sale transfer, manufacture and importation of semi-automatic weapons and ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 15 rounds. That's one bill. One called the Background Checks Act, HR 715 that requires every sale of a firearm to have a backgound check with exemptions only for family transfers and temporary hunting transfers.
Then an Enhanced Background Checks Act as it's called, HR 2403, that marks the eight-year anniversary of the massacre at the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, that brought awareness to what's called the Charleston loophole. You just mentioned that briefly a minute ago. Can you describe to our listeners what the Charleston loophole is?
Pat Ryan: Basically, and we have so many of these god awful incidents that it's easy to forget, one of the so many from eight years ago in Charleston, but this was where an individual went into it a church, deliberately targeted the church knowing that it had almost exclusively Black congregants and spent several days sitting with the congregants only on the third day to walk into a meeting in the basement of the church in the middle of prayer and kill them all save one who he told that he spared their life so that they could tell the story.
What happened from a policy perspective is there had been a rule that if, for some reason, a background check wasn't completed in three days, well, then we'll just give the gun to whoever, which is outrageous. This would add an additional seven days, going from 3 to 10 days so that we can complete a background check before transferring a firearm to a purchaser. Again, these are broadly supported by the American people. Universal background checks, about 90% of Americans support that.
The assault weapons ban, 65% of Americans support that. This is something very personal to me. I served 27 months in combat, I've carried these assault weapons, I've seen the rate of fire, the velocity of fire, I've unfortunately, tragically seen what these high-velocity rounds do to human bodies and human flesh. I can't imagine what these scenes look like in schools in Uvalde, in New Town, in so many other places. We can't turn away, we can't put our head in the sand. This is something that we can absolutely prevent and we have to take action.
Brian Lehrer: By the way, listeners, I want to acknowledge something that we're seeing in our text message feed, a lot of you writing questions for the UFT President, Michael Mulgrew. I know we talked about this on yesterday's show and previewed the fact that he was going to be on today with the new, tentative contract agreement with the City of New York. Michael Mulgrew is scheduled for shortly after eleven o'clock on today's show. I know some of you eager teachers and others who are covered by UFT contracts are very eager to get in a question from Michael Mulgrew.
He's in our third segment of the show today that will be a little bit after eleven o'clock. Spread the word if you want to teachers on prep period, whatever. Of course, you'll be able to share that with teachers who are working during the school day today after the show, podcast, downloads. There you go, because there's so much interest in the Michael Mulgrew segment and we're getting so many texts already, just letting you know that's going to be a little after eleven o'clock.
We continue right now with Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan from the Hudson Valley. Is the gun issue-- Oh, and of course listeners you can call in for Congressman Ryan on guns or anything else, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or text to that number or tweet @BrianLehrer. is gun control even a winning issue for you in your district? I think you have your fair share of gun owners and gun rights people in many of your Hudson Valley towns, correct me if I'm wrong.
Pat Ryan: This is an issue that across the board, people want action on. I think it's important. This is gun safety. This is saying that, again, I know these weapons, I've carried them, I've used them responsibly, there's lots of responsible folks out there that own weapons but we have to draw lines. Weapons of war don't belong on our streets. I think that is something we can all agree on, regardless of where you are and where you live. I was in the fifth closest house race in the country out of 435.
I was loudly strongly unequivocally calling for an assault weapons ban, for universal background checks, for red flag laws to keep our guns out of the hands of those with mental health issues, for safe storage laws. These are all things that the American people support, people in my district support. You're talking about teachers and a future guest. My mom's a retired first and second-grade teacher.
One of the very first wake-up calls for me on this issue was speaking with her about putting her first-grade students into closets for these active shooter drills and how excruciating and heartbreaking that was for her and scary for the kids.
Brian Lehrer: We wonder why the kids are growing up with so much anxiety compared to previous generations. We heard the clip of the president visiting east of your district in Connecticut last week, of course, because of the Newtown School shooting, which in a certain respect though, it was hardly the first shooting in a school maybe because it was first graders or for other reasons seemed to have marked the beginning of the modern era in the gun control debate. The NRA basically resisted at that time when a lot of people thought things were going to get through, but they resisted successfully in Congress.
We've been in a stalemate except for one bill that got through last year, ever since. It's more than a decade now. More parents are expressing concerns about school shootings and the potential for other mass shootings. There seems to be a mass shooting in the news about every other day now. It actually seems that way, but conservatives say we've always had the assault weapons, or at least for decades, we've had these same assault weapons. What's changed is not the guns, but mental health. Look at the real changing variable and focus on that not guns. A response to that?
Pat Ryan: I think that's just patently dishonest and inaccurate. Certainly, we have this toxic cocktail. We have growing mental health issues. We have unequivocally, factually more guns and more assault weapons on our streets than we ever have. That variable has changed, by the way. Then thirdly, we have this growing really violent extremist and hateful rhetoric and language spreading on social media and even in our real physical lives.
All those forces come together and escalate to a situation where, to your point, we have had more mass shootings in the United States of America in 2023 than there have been days in the year, so many that it's near impossible to even keep track. It's easy to become cold to it. To think that removing the literal physical weapons that are designed, by the way, the AR-15 in particular was originally designed for use in the Vietnam War to fire up to 30-round magazines, to fire at high velocities.
By the way, the high velocity 5.56 millimeter round do something called tumbling so that when they enter the human body, they're literally designed to shred and bounce around and rip up human flesh and organs. To say that we could take some of those weapons out of the hands of those who certainly are struggling with mental health and that that wouldn't help the situation is just such a cop out and such cowardice and so pathetic in my opinion. It's because they are beholden to and afraid of the NRA and the gun lobby and these extremist forces that don't want to keep our kids safe.
Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Ellen, in Denville in Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ellen.
Ellen: Hi. Good morning. I have to draw a parallel between Moms Demand Action who are for gun regulations, sensible gun laws, and then you have on the other end of the extreme, Moms for Liberty who address guns. They're going after the books. What do you make of this?
Brian Lehrer: They're going after the books. In other words, book banning in schools and trying to restrict how identity is respected in the classroom and how the history of race and other things is taught in our classrooms. Right?
Ellen: Yes, and we have moms. Go ahead.
Brian Lehrer: You can moms with different opinions and all be moms, but Congressman, go ahead.
Pat Ryan: Yes. I think, one, we need to be able to have multiple debates and do multiple things at once. I personally and strongly disagree with Moms for Liberty and the idea that we should ban books. I think it's one of the most dangerous, authoritarian, fascist things that we've seen pop up in our country to be very direct. Even if you agree with that, which I don't, and I don't think certainly wouldn't want to happen to my kids' schools, that shouldn't stop us from also banning the weapons that are the number one killer of our kids.
The number one cause of death, and we're doing nothing about it. I think, if we want to have that other debate, let's have it. Certainly in my area, in the Hudson Valley, we've had some of these debates. We have seen the Moms for Liberty groups in a small democratic way soundly defeated in school board election after school board election. As long as it's a peaceful debate, then we should be open to that.
Brian Lehrer: Frank in Locust Valley, you're on WNYC. Hi, Frank.
Frank: Hey Brian. Good morning. Thanks for taking my phone call. I'm a pro-Second Amendment citizen, law-abiding, legal gun-owning citizen. Like Ryan is saying there, I do agree with mental checks, background checks, 100%. You shouldn't be on any kind of psychedelic drugs or psychosis drugs if you are legally buying a gun. I'd like to back that up with maybe even, we should check that out with driving a vehicle on the road. It's a 3,000 pound vehicle. It can do a lot of damage if you did it correctly.
I want to ask a question. Everyone's pushing against this big nasty AR-15, which is probably the best rifle ever invented. I'm sure Ryan can vouch for that. How come we're not going after handguns? The more deaths occur from handguns and also the statistic changed from 18 to 19-year-olds with these children being killed mostly by guns. That's because they included the 19-year-old group in that study. We all know 19-year-old thugs and their illegal pistols are dangerous.
Brian Lehrer: Frank, thank you very much. Frank, put a couple of things on the table, Congressman and I want to touch each. Before we talk about handguns versus assault weapon regulation, he painted with such a broad brush talking about mental health at the beginning of his call. We just have to note that. When he says, "People on anti-psychotic medications maybe shouldn't even be allowed to drive." That's not the kind of background checks you're talking about as some people try to put this all on a mental health crisis, right?
Pat Ryan: The red flag laws that we're talking about and New York has enacted these recently, as have many states across the country are very specific and targeted and still afford significant due process to folks, which is obviously foundational to our constitution and very important to me. The way that these laws essentially work is, if an individual is aware of someone who might pose a threat or might become violent, whether that's a teacher in a school, a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a coworker, you can essentially file a report.
It then goes to a judge, at least this is how it works in New York State, goes to a judge who reviews that flag, determines is this a real flag. If so, the individual then for a determined period of time is not able to either purchase or own weapons. These have been used to tremendously good effect, and again, quite narrow and tailored. I agree that we certainly need to be very careful in how we talk about those dealing with mental health and not over-stigmatize there. The idea is that we need to treat those with mental health and while they're being treated, ensure that they can't hurt others.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, because there is certainly concern in the mental health advocacy community that even red flag laws as well intended as they are and as effective as they can be in some situations, can stigmatize and can paint with too broad a brush and that people who have, let's say, a well-controlled mental health issue because they are on medications, shouldn't be excluded from any of their rights, including second Amendment rights, just for that reason, right?
Pat Ryan: I totally agree. Generally, these require specific threats ideations statements to, I'm not a judge making these final decisions, but the law requires specificity. It can't just be a, "Hey, I think this person has some mental health issue broadly."
Brian Lehrer: What about the caller's other point saying there's all this focus among politicians and in the media on the AR-15 when the real bigger problem is handguns that are used in more individual shootings, less in mass shootings,
Pat Ryan: Right. We need to focus on both. Again, in our New York legislation, which I know not everyone agrees with but is broadly supported and obviously put in place by the legislature. It addresses both. The other point that the caller brought up, which I agree with is we have to be real, a lot of the violent incidents are from illegal guns that are either coming from other states or are even built to these ghost guns that are able to be fabricated now essentially via the internet.
We are also working, and I've supported legislation number one to address ghost guns and make it harder to get access to them. Number two, to ensure that folks aren't able to go to a neighboring state or bring in illegal weapons from some other location to our state to conduct those incidents. I think it's very important to look at the period in America from 1994 to 2004, we had a bipartisan assault weapons ban put in place for that 10-year period.
The data is crystal clear, gun violence deaths went down significantly. It doesn't address everything. We have to, of course, address handguns, both legal and illegal used in these incidents, but to say that we shouldn't do anything because we can't do everything is just, doesn't make sense.
Brian Lehrer: A lot more to do with Hudson Valley Congressman, Pat Ryan. Stay with us.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Congressman, Pat Ryan from District 18, a swing district in the Hudson Valley, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, New Paltz, Kingston, Middletown around there, New York Democrat, and again, resetting his bio just a little bit. He's an Iraq war vet and was the founder of a tech company before being elected to Congress last year in this swing district.
We're talking about gun control measures that he is very behind, that Democrats are trying to get to a floor vote in the house in Congress right now and other issues as we head toward 2024. There's a little breaking news just in the last hour, two items shortly before we went on that I'm going to pass along to you folks right now that might have presidential election implications for next year. One, the judge in the Trump classified document's case has set a trial date for August. That would come up very quickly.
I think it's the 14th, although the commentary I'm seeing is that it's probably not actually going to happen then because the Trump team, which has incentive to delay the actual trial has a lot of motions it can file. There is at least a preliminary on-the-books trial date now for Trump and the classified documents case and it's coming up in less than two months. Also, a plea deal was announced just before we went on involving Hunter Biden that closes apparently the Justice Department's investigation of the president's son.
I'm going to read you the full one-paragraph statement from Hunter Biden's attorney Christopher Clark. I'm getting this from CNN's website. It says, "With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved. Hunter will take responsibility for two instances of misdemeanor, failure to file tax payments when due pursuant to a plea agreement.
A firearm charge, which will be subject to a pre-trial diversion agreement and will not be the subject of the plea agreement, will also be filed by the government. I know Hunter believes that is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward." Again, that's the text of a statement from the lawyer for Hunter Biden, but with this plea deal on misdemeanor tax charges or that's what he's pleading guilty to, is a misdemeanor and the resolution of the gun charge as well. The Justice Department's investigation into the president's son is now apparently closed.
Congressman Ryan, you're probably hearing this for the first time, at least some of it as I'm reading right now because it broke just before we go on, and I don't expect you to be an expert on the investigations of Hunter Biden or anything else, but do you have any first impression about whether this forecloses all this non-evidence line of attack or many of the, let's say, attacks without any evidence that have been leveled? We haven't even brought them up on the show because they've been so groundless in terms of any kind of evidence so far regarding President Biden and any family business matters having to do with Hunter Biden.
Pat Ryan: Yes, I hadn't heard it, but yes, I think, look, he's taking responsibility. We're letting the justice system work, and I think those are values that especially to your point in the United States of America right now that are under tremendous pressure and stress from others that are not doing that. I think it's important across the board that those principles, an ironclad commitment to the rule of law is essential, and it seems that that's what happened there.
The other thing I'll just say is that I have very young kids, but I think I worry about as a dad being in office, what that can do in terms of bringing their personal lives into the public sphere. I think that that's something that I'm sure is really hard for the family and I feel for them in that dimension.
Brian Lehrer: Do you have any perspective on the classified document's case that comes from your time serving in the Iraq war? We know that some of what the special counsel laid out against Trump had to do with him showing somebody who was a reporter a document and saying, "This is highly classified. I didn't declassify it as president, so it's still highly classified, "and it had to do with US war plans potentially with regard to Iran, according to the text of the indictment. I wonder how you reacted to that as an Iraq war vet who has actually fought in America's wars?
Pat Ryan: Yes, and as someone who had a top-secret clearance, I was an army intelligence officer, so had to deal with and took very seriously my responsibility to deal with this information. I've said very publicly from the beginning, if I or any of my colleagues that have these clearances, whether in the intel community or the military, if I had done what he has already admitted to doing, I would be in jail, period. There should only be to our previous comment, one standard in our justice system and no one should be above the law.
Let this case play out, but I think it's one of the most dangerous things to happen in our republic when you have someone flouting the rules with such sensitive to my understanding, nuclear intelligence about ourselves and allies, some of the most sensitive classified information. One small detail here that I think is important. There are all these different, they're called caveats, sort of compartmentalized classifications of information.
Some of this information was so secret that the government in releasing the documents had to even redact the name of the caveat, which I know is maybe hard to follow. Essentially, the information is so secret that they don't even want to share, it's usually a few letters, the sort of compartment of classification that is highly unusual and speaks to how sensitive this information was.
Brian Lehrer: I don't know if you saw Trump's interview with Brett Bayer on Fox News last night. I watched it and he was using as a defense the fact that, "Well, these documents, they want me to go through all my stuff. It takes time. These documents were in with my golf shorts and other things." He was using that in his defense that he was storing classified documents mixed up with golf shorts and other personal possessions. Can you believe it?
Pat Ryan: One of the things that has bothered me from the very beginning with the former president is his disregard for those willing to risk their lives for our country. This is a guy who called my fellow veterans suckers and losers, who doesn't understand what sacrifice and selflessness is about. Those in uniform. We have intelligence sources and agents in harm's way as we speak, and releasing this information can cost their lives, and he just doesn't get that. That blatant disregard for our national security, it makes him very clearly, in my opinion, unfit to hold that office ever again.
Brian Lehrer: Now, Trump may or may not be on the ballot next year once we get to November, but obviously, many Republicans will for Congress and some Republican will for President, Trump or someone else. You ran and won twice last year for people who don't know your political background, first in a special election to fill an open seat, then after redistricting in a redrawn district in November in the Hudson Valley.
In your first race, abortion rights was seen as an especially big reason that you won. Do you think that will still be top of mind for swing voters next year enough to make a difference either in your presumed reelection bid or in other swing districts around the country?
Pat Ryan: Absolutely, because we've seen the far right. We've seen as extremists double down, triple down on trying to rip away reproductive freedom, even after so many clear signs from the American people, from the referendum in Kansas to my special election to another special election in Alaska, all of which happened last year, about a year ago, after the original Dobbs decision, which we're coming up on the one year anniversary of, of course. The American people said, "This is not who we are as a country. We are for freedom. We are for reproductive freedom."
Right now, you have one party attempting to defend that reproductive freedom and another continuing to go further and further to rip it away, to propose a six-week and actually to pass a six-week abortion ban in Florida to propose legislation to ban interstate travel among certain residents of certain states. This is very, very dangerous, slippery slope stuff. As long as these extremists continue in this direction, we and myself certainly will stand up and strongly defend these reproductive freedoms and other freedoms.
Brian Lehrer: You and Congressman Jamaal Bowman were just about the only Democrats to win your congressional races in the New York City suburbs last year, another Hudson Valley district went to a Republican. That's where Sean Patrick Maloney lost his seat. Democrats got wiped out on Long Island. There were no Democrats serving in Congress from Long Island anymore, and the issue was largely considered crime. I'm curious if you want to look beyond your district to all the races in the region.
New York is seen as the state that basically lost Congress for the Democrats last year, lost the House because the New York City suburbs. Can you look beyond your district and give us a regional view as you see it? How can Democrats win back those districts? Those same issues were on the table, abortion rights were on the table, gun safety was on the table, but crime seemed to be more on swing voters' minds by the time we got to November last year.
Pat Ryan: Well, I think we have to do two critical things, and I'll certainly try my best to talk about other areas, but I try to only really talk about what I know and what I'm doing, where I'm at, rather than punditry more broadly. The two key things to me are delivering relief. Number one, talking about the economic pressure that so many are feeling. We certainly center that in my last race. I think there's a need and an opportunity to really hit that more strongly, especially coming out of the pandemic, all the inflation, everything that we're doing and we've done to lower costs and deliver relief.
In our area, we've battled our local utility company that's been ripping folks off with 10 times, 20 times higher utility bills than they should. I've joined the bipartisan push, the so-called SALT caucus to lower and cap the state and local tax deduction piece that's hurt New Yorkers and a lot of others across the country, pushing to get infrastructure dollars back to the district. Anything we can do to lower costs for housing, for healthcare, and continuing on that message of-- and the results, of course, of relief for people who are feeling the financial strain. That's number one.
Number two, continuing in the midst of delivering relief to defend fundamental American rights and freedoms like reproductive freedom, like the freedom to drop my kids off at daycare or school and not be worried they're going to get gunned down by the same weapons I carried in combat, like the ability to have clean water. One of the biggest battles in my district is cleaning up these toxic PFAS chemicals, dealing with lead pipes that still plague far too many of our cities and disproportionately affect Black and brown communities across the country in New York and in the Hudson Valley.
I still believe if we talk clearly about delivering that relief and defending rights, and we show people what we are for and what we're willing to fight for, we will always win against those who are really running on a very dark, divisive, fear-mongering message. As long as we offer that alternative and show the results, I'm confident we can win certainly my district and other places across the state in the country.
Brian Lehrer: Let me get one more caller in for you before we run out of time, and I think it's going to take us back to the gun safety issue. Chris in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Congressman Pat Ryan. Hi, Chris.
Chris: Good morning, Brian and Congressman. I just had a quick question. It's not really quick. It's complex, but coming from a tech background as a tech founder, I'm a little bit south of you in the district, but I've seen a huge shift. Technology plays an enormous role in all the things we're talking about, both influencing and honestly profiteering from all of this stuff. As somebody who spent time in tech when it was a service industry instead of a speculative profiteering industry, I'm sure you remember that shift.
As somebody who's out in the burbs, we know that's where all the new tax and housing purchases, it's all coming from this income inequality, political inequality. I just was wondering maybe you have an insight. I feel hopeless these days.
Brian Lehrer: Chris, thank you. What tech company did you found, again, Congressman Ryan?
Pat Ryan: We founded a company, two vets and I to try to get better software to our troops in harms way around the world. We were really focusing on data analytics and things like that, less consumer-oriented things, which I think is what the caller Chris is talking about.
Brian Lehrer: He is talking about the tech sector being involved in gun technology and profiteering off that. Any comment?
Pat Ryan: No, absolutely. I agree with you, Chris. I think that some of the most profitable companies now in the world are these technology companies, and yet, they've been able to largely evade and often buy their way with lobbying dollars out of common sense regulations to keep people safe. Particularly, I'm very worried about our kids. We talked about the gun violence issue and this toxic cocktail of disinformation, misinformation, hate, anger. We know so much more now.
It's become public from some whistleblowers of their algorithms literally, incentivizing and rewarding anger and fear and all these dangerous emotions. Those algorithms are then tied to the dollars and the profits to the caller's point. There is a bipartisan push to try to at least begin to put in place some reasonable regulations. We've seen Europe head in this direction on consumer tech, data privacy, and also now they're heading this direction on AI.
By the way, last week the EU put in place some pretty important legislation to put some guardrails around AI. This is something I've also been focusing on here where essentially, it's wild west right now. No limited oversight and no regulation. That's another area we're looking at, but absolutely, this is feeding the gun violence epidemic and it's also causing so many other issues and problems for everyone, especially our young people.
Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go, but do you want to give us one brief comment on the work you're doing as an Iraq vet and West Point grad helping veterans enter the workforce through apprenticeship programs? People who have not served might think, "Well, wait, vets get the G.I. Bill as it is already," and yet, we always hear about veterans unemployment, veterans who are homeless, veterans with mental health problems. Some of that could be the trauma of war, of course, but tell us about the apprenticeship program and why it seems like there are a lot of troubled vets out there.
Pat Ryan: Yes, well that's obviously a huge broad topic, but yes, we have over 22 veterans a day taking their own lives in this country. We do a lot to try to help, but often, it's overly bureaucratic. It's over-engineered and regulated. The bill you're alluding to or the issue you're alluding to is something I've been working on. Actually, my West Point classmate from Michigan, John James, a Republican and I have been working to put forward legislation that would essentially make it easier for folks to use their G.I. Bill to get into pre-apprenticeship.
Many folks increasingly see college as maybe not the best path and the quickest path to provide for their family even with G.I. Bill benefits. What this does is it allows folks to have more flexibility, veterans as they're transitioning, to have more flexibility to use their G.I. Bill for apprenticeship programs, either in the trades or in other areas where we desperately need folks to work, but currently, you actually can't use your G.I. Bill benefits for that. We're excited about this. We think it can help.
A big part of where we see that we lose so many vets is when they're leaving active duty, they've had this structure and this purpose and direction, and now they're back in civilian life and need to navigate on their own, and finding a good job with income and dignity and pride is often one of the biggest stumbling blocks. We think this is a really important way to give alternative paths, particularly given the increasing, and I agree with a focus that college just isn't and shouldn't be the only path for a lot of our young people, including our vets.
Brian Lehrer: Interesting and probably illuminating for a lot of listeners that the G.I. Bill doesn't already cover apprentice programs, only more traditional kinds of college education. Congressman Pat Ryan, thanks for talking through so many issues with us. We really appreciate it.
Pat Ryan: Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me.
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