( AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file )
U.S. Representative Nick LaLota (R, 1st) talks about his first few weeks representing his Suffolk County district in Congress and his goals for his first term in the House, and issues including policing, the IRS, and more.
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Benjamin Crump: How many of these tragedies do we have to see on video before we say, "We have a problem, America"?
Brian Lehrer: How many of these tragedies indeed? That was Benjamin Crump, attorney for the family of Tyre Nichols and who has had to represent way too many families who have faced the tragedy and outrage of death of a loved one at the hands of police. He has represented the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, for example, as well. Ben Crump on CNN State of the Union yesterday. In this case, condemnation of the police officers' actions has been nearly universal.
Very pro-police New York Post editorial page said they were, "Horrified at the senseless brutality of officers sworn to uphold the law. Decent folks should be outraged. The cops held accountable." That from the New York Post. Republican Congressman from Long Island, Anthony D'Esposito, a former NYPD detective himself, released a statement saying the incident was "absolutely sickening" and the officers must be held accountable and the federal government must utilize all tools at their disposal to see that justice is served in this case.
He cites a need for greater federal involvement in setting police training standards. Interesting that that comes from a former cop and newly-elected Republican in Congress from Long Island. I think that's one of the questions coming out of this case. As with the police killing of George Floyd, there was almost universal condemnation of that, you'll remember, but then a stalemate in Congress over a federal policy response and reforms in some local departments, but not others. Now, we see, of course, that even reforms aren't enough to prevent incidents like this.
Later in the show, we'll have Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, also the Tony Award-winning playwright, author, and activist, V, formerly known as Eve Ensler, who has a new book, which is largely about the trauma of having had violence visited upon her. Domestic violence in her case, but she addresses police brutality in the book as well. There is the question of trust in police officers and police departments generally, even good ones, after an incident like this. Here's the Memphis police chief, CJ Davis, on ABC's Good Morning America.
CJ Davis: This is going to be very difficult for the police department. I've always been a supporter of police reform and the tenets of 21st-century policing. As we continue to try to build trust with our community, this is a very, very heavy cross to bear, not just for our department but for departments around the country. Building trust is a day-by-day interaction between every traffic stop, every encounter with the community. We all have to be responsible for that now and it's going to be difficult in the days to come.
Brian Lehrer: Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis on ABC. Another thing we'll talk about with Janai Nelson from the NAACP when we get to that segment is the simultaneous news in New York of Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell condemning the police actions in Memphis while touting a reduction in subway crime that they say is the result of adding many more officers on the ground. Less is the answer, better policing, not necessarily less policing even after such a breach of trust.
There is other news today too. The new Republican Congress holds its first oversight hearings this week on President Biden's border and COVID spending policies. Interestingly, Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plan to meet on Wednesday for the first time since McCarthy became speaker on ways to avoid a federal government debt ceiling breach, avoid the government defaulting on its debts, which would be catastrophic. Speaker McCarthy said this on CBS Face the Nation yesterday.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy: I want to find a reasonable and a responsible way that we can lift the debt ceiling but take control of this runaway spending.
Brian Lehrer: We'll see if McCarthy and Biden can establish a good working relationship. The Washington Post reports the White House released a statement signaling that the two men were not close to reaching a debt-ceiling deal in advance of this meeting. It said, "Biden will ask what the speaker's plan is," according to the statement, which added that the first bill passed by the Republican House to eliminate funding for hiring new employees at the Internal Revenue Service would add to the nation's deficit. That reporting on Biden and McCarthy from The Washington Post.
With me now, one of the newly-elected members of Congress from our area as we continue to invite all the New York area freshman members on the show. Today, it's Congressman Nicholas LaLota, newly elected to the first Congressional district seat in Suffolk County. That's the seat that Congressman Lee Zeldin gave up to run for governor. It remains a Republican seat in Congress with the election of Congressman LaLota. Before being elected to Congress, the congressman's bio page says he served in the Navy.
He has both an MBA and a law degree from Hofstra, has served on the Amityville Board of Trustees. As the village's budget officer, he says he helped craft four consecutive budgets that complied with the 2% property tax cap without eliminating any village services. He's been chief of staff to the Suffolk County Legislature. An interesting array of legislative, budgetary and educational experiences, as well as military service coming into Congress. Congressman LaLota, belated congratulations on your election, and welcome to WNYC.
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Thanks a bunch. Happy Monday morning to you. Good to be on with you and your audience this morning.
Brian Lehrer: First, just to let people get to know you a little more, a law degree and an MBA is a pretty rare combination. Go, Hofstra. How did that come about for you and how have you applied it?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Well, I'm 44 years old and I left the Navy in my late 20s after serving in uniform for 11 years. Soon after I got out, I started working for our government. In that time on the weekends, for the most part using the GI Bill, I was able to get an MBA. Then about 10 years later, I went back to get a law degree. Both have helped me be a leader in government, helped me frame some of my legislative priorities the right way to not only run for Congress but my first couple of weeks here in Congress be an effective lawmaker.
Brian Lehrer: Not cutting services in Amityville when you were the budget officer while sticking to the 2% property tax increased cap, is anything from that experience applicable in your opinion to the kind of talk Speaker McCarthy and President Biden are about to start having? Can the federal government cut spending and not cut services at the same time in your opinion?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I think so. I think there's three realities we all need to acknowledge as the President and the speaker engage in these very, very important discussions. Not only for this budget year, for America's budgetary future. Here are the three realities. One, if we don't raise the debt ceiling now, our economy is likely to crash. Two, if we don't curb our spending, which is the cause of 125% debt-to-GDP ratio, the highest since World War II, our economy will crash eventually.
Three, seniors especially have earned their rights to Medicare and Social Security and those shouldn't be cut. I think the President and the speaker will be guided by or I hope they're guided by those three realities as we put our nation back on the right course to fiscal health and responsibility. Some of those things I learned while governing around village government, town government, county, and state. I hope that we can do so here in the federal government too.
Brian Lehrer: I mentioned that President Biden in this statement singled out the bill the House has already passed. I see you voted for it to eliminate IRS employees. The President's position is, "Wait, you want to cut to deficit? Let's keep those new employees who are going to help make sure everybody's taxes that they owe get collected." I see your statement on it on your website said, "Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act," which is what it's called, "would prevent the Biden administration from unleashing 87,000 new IRS agents on American families and small businesses."
The Democrats say the aim is to stop big businesses and wealthy individuals with complex tax returns from getting away with not paying taxes, the wealthiest Americans and biggest businesses. We saw the case even of President Trump where the IRS reportedly did not complete an audit, his first two years in office, as they're supposed to because of the complexity of his returns. Are you really protecting big business and wealthy Americans in the name of protecting families and small businesses?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I think the fundamental thing on which Republicans and Democrats disagree on this issue is government spending. I think the government has plenty of revenue. We don't need to hire 87,000 more IRS agents to get us more revenue. I think the government has a spending problem. That spending problem is what needs to be addressed, first and foremost, in the next Congress.
There are plenty of discretionary areas which we can look at and tackle in order to ensure that we put America back on the right path. It's not by extracting more and more taxes out of regular families and businesses. We have a tax code. That tax code should be simpler. It shouldn't take you an army of accountants to file whether you're a small business or a big business or a family. It shouldn't take you an army of accountants to file your taxes. We owe it to the American people to have a simpler tax code. We don't need 200 more IRS agents in every congressional district throughout the country.
Brian Lehrer: I think the Democrats would say the complexity of the tax code favors the wealthy, and that's who would have the power to maintain a lot of the complexity that works in their favor if reforms were to be made to simplify it for others. Your reaction?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Sure. I've only been in Congress about three or four weeks now, but I've recognized there's a lot of double-talk in this town. The Democrats have had control of the House, the Senate, and the White House for two years prior to me getting sworn in three weeks ago. If they had that policy preference to change the tax code to make it in their mind or in their words different and/or better, why the heck didn't they do it when they had the entire government for two years? I don't think it's fair or appropriate for them to assert that argument now. They could have made that legislative choice when they had power in the whole government here in Washington. The fact that they didn't suggests to me at least, that's not the most genuine argument they can make.
Brian Lehrer: Before we move on from that issue, wouldn't it be best if the federal government had the agents to make sure that it collects all the taxes that are actually owed under the tax code in addition to looking to be as efficient as possible with spending?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Sure. I think that the departments that we have as a government should be properly staffed to enforce the laws and rules we have. I would point you to the Customs and Border Patrol in the Department of Homeland Security. We have a very porous border right now because those departments are not properly staffed and enforcing rules.
I would join in the concept of properly staffing our executive branch departments to ensure that they enforce the rules. Let's do so fairly and equally across the whole spectrum and not just focus on getting more and more into people's financial lives, which has only become a new thing of the Democrats. They had to in order to fund some of their massive spending.
They're the ones who proposed hiring these 87,000 more IRS agents to be able to reach more into people's pocketbooks to fund things like their Green New Deal. I think that's wrong for America, but I do agree with the point that you made, Brian. We should properly staff our executive branch departments for the size of government we can afford, especially when it pertains to our national security and especially at the border.
Brian Lehrer: Congressman Nick LaLota with us, freshman Republican, just elected, just seated from Suffolk County, East End of Long Island, the seat that Lee Zeldin used to hold before leaving to run for governor. I do want to ask some of your take on the death of Tyre Nichols on just about everyone's mind now, of course. I see both your grandfather served in the NYPD. Did you watch the video personally and what's your reaction to what's known about this case?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I did, Brian. Together, my wife and I watched the video from Memphis. I can think of no lawful reason that a suspect who was in handcuffs and not resisting arrest deserved to be beaten by law enforcement officers. Now, I know a lot of good cops. You mentioned both my grandfathers were NYPD and I appreciate that. The overwhelming number of cops, probably more than 99%, uphold the proper standards and are rightfully heralded as heroes in our community.
Even the most honorable professions has bad apples. I know that nobody dislikes a bad cop more than a good cop. I think it's right to hold these five law enforcement officers accountable just as it was right to hold Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed George Floyd, accountable. I think, however, it's wrong to stereotype the remaining 800,000 law enforcement officers in the United States based on the action of a much smaller group because the overwhelming majority of cops signed up for the job to protect our communities and to keep them safer, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take phone calls, of course, for Congressman LaLota. First priority, we'll go to people from the district, but anyone may call 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer on federal spending and the debt ceiling and the tax code and all the things we were talking about first on what could be Congress's reaction to the death of Tyre Nichols or anything else relevant for Congressman LaLota.
212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. I think you heard the clip we played in the intro of the Memphis police chief talking about how it's going to be hard to rebuild trust in her city and nationally after a video like this, an incident like this, that it comes to visit distrust on good cops as well as bad cops. How much do you agree with that and what do the police departments around the country in your opinion need to do?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: We can always do more, but I wouldn't subscribe to the one needs to distrust every village, town, or county police department throughout the country because of the terrible actions of a few. I don't want to minimize how terrible these actions are and others that we've seen with our own eyes have been, but I think it would be wrong to stereotype every police department throughout the country and start to subscribe to this notion of mistrusting cops in general.
Cops are good people. Cops are protecting us every day. They wear a bulletproof vest and they wear a weapon in order to make sure that we're safe. Yes, there are some bad apples just as there are bad apples in the education world, sometimes the military. I think that we need to deal with these bad apples and these bad actors with quick and severe consequences to show the public how serious we are about the remainder of the profession, how honorable the rest of the profession is.
I push back a little bit on what that police chief said because I know personally in Suffolk County where I represent hundreds if not thousands of awesome, honorable cops who signed up for the job, who gave up other careers to ensure that their community was protected. I wouldn't want to conflate their honorable actions with the dishonorable ones like some of the ones we've seen on video.
Brian Lehrer: I read the statement from your fellow Long Island freshman, Republican Anthony D'Esposito from just west of you on the island, a former NYPD detective himself who said there does need to be more federal involvement in setting training standards for local police departments. I guess that implies to deal with things that are, in fact, systemic. Would you support something like that as a member of Congress if a bill were to come up?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: My neighbor to the west, Anthony D'Esposito, is probably the most knowledgeable person in Congress on local police matters, given that he was an NYPD detective. I do think that there are opportunities for local departments to train more. As a military officer, we were on a 3:1 ratio. We would generally train for 18 months before we went on a six-month deployment, so 3:1 training to actual operations.
In the police world, it's way backwards. They roughly have one hour of training for every 20 out in the field. I think if we got that ratio a little better, you would have and you would see better methods of de-escalation and other sensitivities that have been brought to our attention over the last couple of years. If we improve that ratio through federal funding of those types of training, you would see better ratios that would minimize or decrease the number of incidents we've seen like the ones we saw in Memphis and in Minnesota as well.
Brian Lehrer: Could you potentially support what the Democrats call the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act? This has been introduced since the death of George Floyd but has failed in the Senate because of Republican opposition. I want to go down a few of the bullet point items in that bill and get your take with your-- I know you're not in law enforcement yourself, but your father was a police officer in Long Island. Your grandfathers were in the NYPD. First of all, on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act generally, have you looked at it and formed an opinion as to if it comes up again, would you vote for it?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I think there are elements of that act which good cops want. Good cops don't mind there being body-worn cameras. I think a lot of good cops want to be able to have their actions validated when called into question by evidence that is shown by body cameras and same thing with dashboard cameras. I think that using federal funding to ensure those things or make grants contingent of those things is generally a good idea. I think that there are some aspects of that bill, which I would support prospectively.
Brian Lehrer: One of the things that it would do is lower the criminal intent standard in cases of police violence from willful to knowing or reckless to convict the law enforcement officer for misconduct in a federal prosecution. For you as a lawyer, you know the difference there. They're saying you don't need to just have intent to harm somebody. You could be reckless in the way you administered your power as a police officer. That would be enough to prosecute. Your opinion on that?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Well, I think that each of these cases-- and I regret I haven't analyzed that specific issue of the act enough to give you a very solid response. I would be guided by this that each of these incidents is really pertained on the facts. Some of the things like we saw in Memphis are quite clear. I can see no justification for beating a suspect who is handcuffed and not resisting. I would encourage and I would support holding folks like that accountable for that vastly substandard behavior.
However, in the George Floyd Act, there is the prohibitation of the no-knock warrants, which I wouldn't support. No-knock warrants have had the benefit of ensuring that officers tend to be more protected. When you don't alert the bad guy to your presence, you tend to be able to be safer. Yet when you knock on the door and announce your presence, you tend to make yourself a target sometimes. I wouldn't want to make a black-and-white rule on no-knock warrants. That's one of the things in the bill that many Republicans legitimately objected to.
Brian Lehrer: Another thing in the bill is that it would create a national registry, what the bill calls the national police misconduct registry, to compile data on complaints and records of police misconduct. I think there's been resistance to even knowing the extent to which documented cases of police misconduct occur around the country. This goes to, you said, bad apples. A lot of people would say "systemic." That's one way to know. Would you support a national registry of such incidents?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I come from a blue state of New York and there's plenty of those registries in New York. I think that the public has gotten a large view into accusations made against law enforcement officers. Let's be clear. Those are accusations and due process follows those accusations. The argument against that, it tends to de-legitimize the person accused when their name and the accusation is published somewhere. Oftentimes, these are good cops walking a beat.
You take away the legitimacy of their authority when you create and publicize a registry like that. That's not to say I don't support oversight and accountability. That's one of the drums that House Republicans have been beating for a while. We want to ensure that there is oversight and accountability on the administration and other aspects of government. We do support administration and accountability and oversight, but I think how it is specifically administered is important as well.
Brian Lehrer: Shannon in Great Neck, you're on WNYC with Congressman Nick LaLota. Hi, Shannon.
Shannon: Hi, Brian. How's it going? Longtime listener, first-time caller. I don't mean to detract from this very important conversation, but I just wanted to thank Congressman LaLota's office for fielding calls from Congressman Santos's district for a couple of weeks now, all of the calls to his Douglaston office. I'm not sure if it's the case now, but they've been forwarding directly to LaLota. I'll take your comments and answer off the air, but thank you.
Brian Lehrer: All right, thank you very much. I know, so I'll tell the listeners that you've called on Congressman Santos to resign because of all the ways he made up in his bio. Have you been taking calls from his constituents? Is there something like that that the caller refers to?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Yes, somehow, and I have called for his resignation. I think I was the first House Republican to call for ethics investigation into his very substandard conduct because, like I said earlier, House Republicans, we want there to be accountability in our government. Somehow, a week or two ago, his phone calls were being forwarded to my district office and constituents who needed the help of the federal government or the attention of their member of Congress. Their calls were forwarded to my office. To the extent possible and to the extent ethically permissible, my staff was helping those Queens and Nassau constituents with their interactions with federal government.
Brian Lehrer: Did you know anything in advance? Apparently, some local Republicans did about that. Maybe not everyone, but that candidate Santos had made up a lot of important things on his bio?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: No, I don't think many people knew there was a conflict with his story in the facts. I don't think anybody knew that he didn't actually graduate from Baruch College or get a graduate degree from NYU. I don't think people knew that he was lying about being Jewish or his ancestors escaping the Holocaust, or that he would lie about his mother escaping the south tower on 9/11 and subsequently dying from 9/11-related injuries. I don't think any of us knew that anybody would be capable of those bold-faced lies. Now, we all thought he was a little bit off, a little bit strange, but I don't think that perception concluded and anybody thinking that his entire story in persona lack any integrity.
Brian Lehrer: Listener tweets, "I'm a constituent of @nicklalota, would like to ask the congressman how he or will he work with Democrats across the aisle in a constructive way versus being purely performative like not meeting with President Biden because of vaccine requirement." Would you tell the listeners that story? I understand that the President held an event for all the incoming freshman members of Congress, Democrat and Republican. You and Congressman Santos from the newly-elected Long Island delegation declined to go. Congressman D'Esposito did go. In your case, it had to do with a vaccine requirement for the event?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Right. I'm eager to work with folks across the aisle on things that will benefit my constituents. On the top of the list is SALT, the state and local tax deduction, which had been repealed a number of years ago. Democrats failed to reinstate it when they had the power of all the government a couple of years back as well. I'm eager to work with folks across the aisle for a solution there.
I have been working with folks from both the New York and New Jersey Democrat delegations to find ways to have a bill that could get the right amount of votes in the House and the Senate to deliver for our common constituents. Brian, I was extremely offended when the President invited a bunch of new freshman House members to the White House contingent on taking a test to prove one was COVID-negative.
I haven't been forced to take that test in quite some time, so that had to be done by everybody, and either declare that you were vaccinated or wear a mask and social distance from everybody. The President said it himself, the pandemic is over. Everywhere else I've gone in my district and in Washington, this is not an issue. For the President to make visiting him contingent upon those arcane, draconian, and arbitrary requirements, I think, is inappropriate.
I made the decision to not go to the event and tell the public that I wasn't going to the event to draw attention to these arcane and arbitrary COVID protocols. Now, listen, I'm not against the vaccine. If after a consultation with your family and your medical professional, you want to take the vaccine, God bless. We live in a world where you can do that and you can wear a mask. I won't judge you for wearing it or not wearing it or for being vaccinated or not being vaccinated.
I don't think that we should live in a world where members of Congress have to conform to this regimen that exists nowhere else in government and nowhere else in my district just because the President wants to make that a condition upon meeting him. I think that's wrong. I was proud to bring attention to it and I hope that he reconsiders that policy going forward.
Brian Lehrer: It sounds like you objected to the testing also in a crowded room with a lot of people older than you. President himself is 80. If your 80-year-old uncle wanted testing for his birthday party guests, would you decline?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: [chuckles] It wasn't just the testing. It was the testing plus the declaration of the vaccine and/or being masked and being socially distanced. I don't think that science legitimizes that anywhere because, by the way, my uncle hasn't been asking for that. My grandparents don't ask for that. No other place I go to asks for that as well. I think that there's something afoot with the President's make or staff by the way. I'm not sure that the President himself signed off on these directions or if it was his staff. I think it has a way of screening out people with whom they may not want to meet.
Brian Lehrer: One more call and it goes back to the IRS agents and taxing issues that we were talking about before. Judah in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Congressman Nick LaLota from Suffolk County. Hi, Judah.
Judah: Thank you, Brian. Right to the point. The IRS is broken. The congressman, everything that he says is pews of misinformation and outright lies. The IRS needs funding for customer support. People who do refunds, they cannot call the IRS because their numbers are jammed. I myself had a lot of problems getting my 2020 refunds. I have several clients who have not gotten the 2020 refunds and have not even gotten notices. The IRS is short-handed and your guest is disingenuous and outright spreading lies about IRS. The IRS is not--
Brian Lehrer: You're saying, Judah, just to be clear, for you as a professional tax preparer, you would like to see more staff added to the IRS because you think that's what will serve the public?
Judah: Yes, customer support. That's all it goes to, customer support. Furthermore, it is well-known that the IRS computer system is antiquated. In Congress, in particular, Republicans have denied the IRS funding for decades. Your guest is disingenuous, misinformed, and cleverly outright spreading lies just like Trump did.
Brian Lehrer: Judah, thank you very much. Congressman?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Well, I like to try to keep it simple and not call your liar when he's called me. However, folks like that have benefited from a very complex tax code. It's the reason that many of us are forced to pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars to tax preparers to do just that work. I advocate for a simpler tax code and I think the IRS has plenty of staff. The fact is, is that the administration has put a lot of money into the IRS to look more and more into folks' lives. If the caller is complaining about a tax return from 2020, we just got here and passed this thing in 2023.
The environment in which he's complaining existed in 2021, 2022, and up until leading till now. I'm not so sure it's the fault of a one-House bill that only passed the House and hasn't even been presented to the Senate or signed by the President yet. I'm not so sure that our initiatives not to fund those 87,000 IRS agents is the cause for his clients not getting their 2020 returns. That said, call my office or better yet have the constituent call their local member of Congress. We can do our casework team look into why there's such a delay in that one return.
Brian Lehrer: A couple of things to finish up. I see you were an early backer of Kevin McCarthy for speaker. You are not one of the 20 Republicans who held out for a while. You want to tell us briefly why and if you feel like you're in a different ideological lane if that's the right way to put it than the 20 Republicans who held out from the Freedom Caucus?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I came here to govern. I'm looking for results more than rhetoric. When I look at Kevin McCarthy, he's the personification of the commitment to America. He's the chief architect of the commitment to America, which is going to put our country back on the right track with respect to our economy, our borders, our freedom in holding the administration accountable.
I think those are things that are important to the American people. They're certainly things upon which I campaigned early on. Kevin had supported 91% of the Republican conference for his speakership. I supported him because I think he's the best person to help me deliver for Long Islanders and to put our country back on the right track, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Are you going to join the Freedom Caucus or any other particular caucus?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I don't intend to join the Freedom Caucus, but I have joined the four-country caucus. It's a bipartisan group of military veterans who are aimed to work together to find common ground to help ensure that America remains the greatest country our world has ever known. That's the caucus of which I'm most proud of.
Brian Lehrer: Meaning that the US maintains a strong military, I guess, that aspect of being great, right?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I think all aspects of being great. That's our freedom. That's our presence in the world, yes, economically, militarily, socially. I think that those who are in the caucus celebrate American exceptionalism and want to govern through budgets and policy to ensure that we remain the greatest on the face of the earth.
Brian Lehrer: I guess last thing. Of course, people can hold big conversations about American exceptionalism and what it means and doesn't mean, but there does seem to be disagreement within the Republican caucus of conference in the House over the military budget, whether the $80 billion or so that Congress added last year on top of what President Biden requested should be maintained or should be cut out. Why do you think Republicans are disagreeing with each other on that and which camp are you in?
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: I think that Republicans disagree with each other because we're an ideologically diverse group. We don't mind airing some of that in public and having a public debate as to which policy is best to govern our nation. We had that with four or five days of voting for speaker. We're going to have that for a couple of years now. We have a very tight majority and you're going to see in here groups of five advance their policy priorities and have those discussed.
That doesn't mean that every time one Republican introduced the bill in something that all of us 222 agree with it, but you're going to hear a diversity of ideas and opinions on how to best govern the country. Sunlight is going to be shown onto those policies and those ideas. We're going to have a public debate, discussion. We're going to swear in witnesses and give testimony to hear what is best for our country. Ultimately, we're going to make a decision and put bills in the House floor that are going to stand for the premise of putting America back on the right track after all those ideas are flushed out. I think America benefits from that sort of debate.
Brian Lehrer: Those who disagree with you and there seems to be-- Maybe we call it strange bedfellows coalition between some Republicans, maybe to the right of you in Congress, and some very progressive Democrats who say, "We need to have that money to spend on domestic priorities," as well as they would say, "That's another way to reduce the debt since everybody's concerned about the debt." Your specific response to that, then we're out of time.
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Sure. Let's have a conversation. Let's bring those ideas. Let's clash them together. Let's get on radio shows like this, TV shows. Let's talk about it in town halls and other places and let's have the best ideas flow to the top. That's where a democracy ought to be. There are to be genuine people advocating for their well-thought-out principles backed up by facts. I think that's the best way to govern going forward.
Brian Lehrer: Congressman Nick LaLota, just a few weeks into his job, newly elected from Suffolk County. Thank you for coming on with us. Congratulations again and we look forward to talking to you as your term goes on.
Congressman Nicholas LaLota: Thanks, Brian. Be well.
Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.
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