Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Ritchie Torres:

I want to be remembered as an advocate for the urban poor, as an advocate for people of color in the South Bronx in public housing and someone who never forgot where he came from, that even when I left the South Bronx, the South Bronx never left.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Ritchie Torres. He’s a freshman Congressman from New York, representing most of the South Bronx and at just 33 years old, he’s a rising star and the Democratic Party. Torres made history last November, when he and fellow New York representative Mondaire Jones became the first openly gay black men ever elected to Congress. In his first year on Capitol Hill, Torres has become an outspoken advocate on issues of poverty, housing, and mental health. He’s also emerged as a staunch defender of Israel, a position that has garnered some criticism from his fellow progressives. Torres talks to me this week about his political philosophy, poverty, and why he supports Israel. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.

Preet Bharara:

Hey, folks, I hope you’ve been listening to the newest podcast from CAFE, Now & Then co hosted by star historians, Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman. Tonight, Thursday, July 15, at 6:30pm Eastern Time, there’ll be a live taping of the next episode of their podcast. It’ll be streamed live on CAFE’s, Facebook. To RSVP go to cafe.com/live and if you miss it, you can catch that episode of Now & Then wherever you get your podcasts next week.

Preet Bharara:

Now let’s get to your questions. This question comes in an email from Evelyn, who writes, “I hope you can comment on the hearing regarding the lawsuit in Michigan. I listened to a good bit of it today. In my unqualified opinion, the complainant’s legal team is using a defense, much like the president and his cronies use in the court of public opinion. It reminds me of the, because I said so reason my parents used to give when they didn’t feel like arguing.”

Preet Bharara:

So you call yourself unqualified to render an opinion, but your opinion is pretty good here, Evelyn. Of course, you’re talking about the hearing that took place on Monday of this week, relating to a sanctions issue against Sidney Powell and Lin Wood and some other of Trump’s election lawyers, who brought a series of lawsuits around the country, including in Detroit in federal court, over alleged voter fraud in those elections seeking to overturn those elections.

Preet Bharara:

As you know by now, every single one of those suits, save perhaps one, depending on how you consider it, failed and failed miserably and lawyers for Detroit are seeking sanctions against Trump’s election lawyers on the grounds that they didn’t obey ethics rules in bringing those suits. So the proceeding lasted a pretty long time, I think upwards of six hours. So congratulations on getting through a lot of it, and the basic question that the district court judge, Judge Linda Parker asked was, “Shouldn’t an attorney be sanctioned for his or her failure to withdraw allegations the attorney came to know were untrue? Is that sanctionable behavior?”

Preet Bharara:

The judge also sort of answered her own question at one point in the hearing, when she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an affidavit that makes so many leaps. This is really fantastical. So my question to counsel here is, how could any of you as officers of the court present this affidavit?” The judge also made the point that the lawsuit and the affidavits attached to the lawsuit should have been withdrawn when the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory on December 14 of last year.

Preet Bharara:

The judge asked, why did the plaintiffs not recognize this lawsuit as moot, and dismiss it on that date, and as you point out, Evelyn, time after time after time, the lawyers had no answer, with the possible exception of Lin Wood who said repeatedly, and somewhat humorously to my ear, that he had nothing to do with the drafting of the complaint. He said it again and again. “I had nothing to do with the drafting the complaint. I wasn’t involved with it in any way.”

Preet Bharara:

Raises the question, of course, why was his name on the complaint? He didn’t ask for it to be withdrawn. There was a debate back and forth about whether or not Lin Wood had given permission to use his name and then there was another discussion about whether or not Li Wood had in some other proceeding, in some other jurisdiction, in some other court had boasted that he had been involved in the Detroit litigation. All in all, it was a bit of a circus, and a bit of a mess.

Preet Bharara:

So I’ll make a couple of quick comments. I think it’s clear that the judge will impose some kind of sanction here. It could be a monetary sanction, it could be referral to bar authorities. The irony here is that Donald Trump got away with lying again and again and again in public forums, at rallies, on television, in print interviews, and there was not much that anybody could do about it, and his lawyers may actually face some penalty for engaging that kind of lying or misrepresentation by omission for doing those same things in court.

Preet Bharara:

We’ve already seen that Rudy Giuliani, one of Trumps lawyers, has had his bar license suspended in two different jurisdictions and here, you have Lin Wood and Sidney Powell and others. By the way, the other interesting thing is some of the representations made by Sidney Powell and the other lawyers in the election cases were so outrageous, and so far fetched that the Trump team itself distanced themselves from Sidney Powell.

Preet Bharara:

That’s a red flag, if you ever saw one before, but importantly, I want to mention, again, a distinction that Joyce Vance and I talked about on the CAFE Insider podcast and that is, it is one thing to make creative, far fetched legal arguments to try to get the law to fit some claim that you have and maybe it’s a claim that’s never been made before or articulated in a particular way before.

Preet Bharara:

That’s probably not generally going to be sanctionable. So claims that clearly seem to go against settled law or statute or constitutional provision, although they may be sort of out of left field, generally speaking, the consequence of that is you just lose your case. On the other hand, what was being focused on here is time after time after time, factual assertions were being made and affidavits and otherwise, that were not just not backed up, but as the judge points out over and over again, there was literally no vetting of claims that on their face should have been challenged by good faith lawyers, and that didn’t happen here.

Preet Bharara:

By the way, by the end of the hearing, Sidney Powell, who is not in good standing with this judge and with this court, doubled down on the submissions that were made. She said, “We have practice law with the highest standards.” Then she says, and this is kind of remarkable, it shows she doesn’t know how to read the room, “We would file these same complaints again. We welcome an opportunity to prove our case. No court has ever given us that opportunity.”

Preet Bharara:

That seems to have been an error. So the original Kraken lawyers did not do a great job in representing Donald Trump’s campaign, and then the lawyers that the Kraken lawyers hired also did not do a great job in connection with this proceeding earlier this week.

Preet Bharara:

Perhaps my favorite comment of all was a tweet posted by lawyer Bradley Moss, who wrote, “All of the lawyers in the #KrakenHearing owe the court reporter a drink. Multiple drinks.” This question comes in an email from Helene. “Question. Can you talk about subpoenas? I thought, by definition, they were not optional, but during the Trump administration, they seemed to be. No consequences for ignoring, but what about now? Everyone talks about Democratic Congress and their subpoena power. Can they actually be ignored by Republicans and even Trump? What are the consequences? Why call it a subpoena if it can’t be enforced?”

Preet Bharara:

Well, Helene, those are great questions that have been asked for a number of years now and I think part of the confusion is that people are conflating different kinds of subpoenas. So ordinarily, even lay people understand that in a criminal investigation or a criminal case, when a subpoena is issued, that there can be a basis for the recipient of the subpoena to make a motion, what’s known as a motion to quash, to say the subpoena is in some way, faulty or doesn’t apply to them or is onerous and then that gets adjudicated by a court and the court decides whether or not the subpoena is enforceable.

Preet Bharara:

In almost all cases, it would be, and then the consequence for the person who does not comply with the subpoena even after that is contempt of court, which carries with it a visit to jail. There have been lots and lots of famous cases, including those involving controversially, journalists, who have decided to justify a subpoena from the Department of Justice or from some other prosecutor, and they sometimes go to jail for it. So that’s why a lot of people ask, “Well, why isn’t that happening in the cases that you’re referring to?”

Preet Bharara:

So there’s subpoenas that are issued in criminal cases that are technically from grand juries that are convened by prosecutors, what I just described, and then their congressional subpoenas. Congressional subpoenas, although they carry the same name, have a different kind of flavor to them. First, when congressional subpoenas are issued to the executive branch, there has been a long, long history of back and forth, and negotiation and accommodation between two co equal branches of government.

Preet Bharara:

It’s not like a federal grand jury trying to subpoena a witness in a securities fraud case. This is an attempt in the kinds of cases you’re referring to where Congress is trying to get information from the White House or from an executive agency, and they’re often are real defenses, with respect to the scope of the information being requested, executive privilege, deliberative process privilege. All of those things have been asserted by White Houses and administration’s of both parties, Republicans and Democrats.

Preet Bharara:

Now, some assert them more in good faith and others, but everyone asserts them. Unlike in criminal cases, courts are really loath to get involved to be the third co equal branch of government mediating a fight between the other two co equal branches of government. They don’t like to do it. Justice Roberts and others have pointed out over and over again, that, generally speaking, there was some kind of accommodations reached in the investigation that I’ve talked about on the show before.

Preet Bharara:

With respect to politicization of the Justice Department back in 2007, the judiciary committee that I served, served a number of subpoenas on executive branch officials, and former executive branch officials and there was a back and forth and ultimately, under terms that were mutually agreeable, some testimony was taken. That we’ve also seen, even in recent times, happened with the former White House Counsel, Don McGahn.

Preet Bharara:

So that’s one point about how they’re different. They’re just sort of a different nature and the fights are a little bit different. Then second, even in the case where there’s no excuse for non compliance with a subpoena. There’s not really the same enforcement mechanism. In the criminal case, you would have contempt of court. There are deputy US Marshals who have guns, there are jails that exist. So you can incarcerate somebody for contempt of court for defiance of a subpoena.

Preet Bharara:

Now, on the congressional side, there’s been some talk about this, but contempt of Congress is a bit more toothless than contempt of court. I’m not aware that Congress, the House of Representatives, or the Senate, even has a facility like a jail to put someone who unlawfully defies a subpoena. Also, it’s not clear what procedure they would follow. Who would go out and do it? Is this something that Capitol Police officers can do, sergeant-at-arms can do? It’s just a very complicated, tricky, messy thing that has not been done at least in a long, long, long time, if ever.

Preet Bharara:

So I understand your frustration, and I understand a lot of people’s frustration. Congressional subpoenas are a different kind of animal. It’s a different kind of fight and there’s not much enforcement mechanism.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes in an email from Andrea, who writes, “My son recently graduated from law school, and I couldn’t be prouder. There are zero lawyers in our family. So he is a true pioneer. He has a job starting in September and is currently studying for the bar exam. He actually left his apartment to come back home to study. He spends just about every day studying and as the test draws nearer, I can tell his stress level is getting higher. I’m hoping you can offer some advice on how to stay calm and confident in the face of this impossible-to-know-everything, high stakes test. Love your show, and thanks in advance if you can offer some support. Sincerely, James’s mom.”

Preet Bharara:

Well, first of all, Andrea, congratulation to James, congratulation to you and now you have a family lawyer for the first time, or I guess, very, very soon. The good news is, you’ve already indicated in your email that James is doing the right thing. He’s studying. It takes a lot of study. That was true in my day, I assume that’s still true in modern times, even though the bar exam has probably changed a little bit since when I was in law school.

Preet Bharara:

A couple other observations and maybe this gives some comfort. You refer to it as a impossible-to-know-everything, high stakes tests. I think that’s half right. Impossible to know everything, surely. There are lots of things on the bar exam, that people did not take classes in, in law school, and you just got to learn it. Whatever service you use to get tutored on questions on the bar exam and topics on the bar exam, you just got to suck it up and study.

Preet Bharara:

With respect to high stakes, I have a slightly different view of that. First of all, the most important thing to remember about the bar exam, and obviously everyone knows this, it’s pass-fail. Unlike the SAT, the ACT, or the LSAT or other exams that you’re trying to do really, really well on, somebody once said to me, I think when I was approaching the bar exam many years ago, “The key to victory is to be the person who passes by one point, because it doesn’t matter if you crush the exam, or if you barely pass.”

Preet Bharara:

The other thing I’ll say is, I felt terrible when I came out of the bar exam, and it took some time to find out the results. I was a pretty good student throughout school and in graduate school. So I was used to coming out of an exam, feeling like I’d gotten most of the questions right. I did not feel that way after the bar exam, and if they scored anything like they were back in my day, you have room to get many, many questions wrong, and still comfortably pass the bar exam.

Preet Bharara:

So if James takes it doesn’t feel good about it, don’t worry about it, I felt the same way, and you can still pass handily. Then the final point I’ll make is it’s not make or break. Obviously, at some point, you want to pass the bar exam. Unlike some other things, for which the consequences of failure are pretty terrible, in most cases, and with respect to most employers, if you fail the bar exam The first time you can take it again in a few months, and no harm, no foul.

Preet Bharara:

There are lots of smart people in the world, including those who graduated from great law schools and close to the top of their class who have failed the bar exam. You don’t want it to happen. You don’t want to take it again, of course, but I just don’t think it’s as high stakes as everyone makes it out to be. So James, good luck. I have every confidence you’re going to do well and if you would, Andrea, keep us posted and to all the other people by the way in the country who are taking the bar exam soon, I wish you luck as well.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned. There’s more coming up after this. My guest this week is Ritchie Torres. He’s a freshman Congressman from New York, representing the South Bronx. His congressional district is, by some estimates, the poorest in America. Torres got an early start in politics when he was elected to the New York City Council in 2013. He was the youngest ever elected New York City official. While often aligned with progressive Democrats in Washington, Torres treads his own path.

Preet Bharara:

I’m joined by the Congressman to talk about the Bronx, mental health, and how to address poverty in our country. Congressman Ritchie Torres, thanks for making the time to be on the show.

Ritchie Torres:

It is an honor to be here.

Preet Bharara:

So I wanted to speak to you for a long time. My first question, I guess is, you’re a freshman, as they say, in the House of Representatives. Does it ever feel weird still to be referred to as Congressman?

Ritchie Torres:

It does. I spent most of my life in poverty. So the experience of becoming a member of Congress is surreal on its own. If you had said to me that I would become a member of Congress during an infectious disease outbreak, and witness an insurrection against the US Capitol during the Electoral College vote count, and then vote to impeach an outgoing president and all of that would happen. Within the first two weeks, I would have said that sounds like fiction.

Preet Bharara:

Bad fiction. It sounds like bad fiction.

Ritchie Torres:

It sounds like bad fiction. It dawned on me that I was a Congressman, when I came home from orientation, freshman orientation and I had dinner with my mother and she said, “This is the first time I’m having dinner with a Congressperson,” and that put a smile on my face.

Preet Bharara:

This is not your first elective office. You were member the New York City Council? How does Congressman sound and feel compared to council member?

Ritchie Torres:

When you’re a member of Congress, you matter far more to far more people and you deal with a much wider range of issues, not only locally here in New York City, but nationally and internationally. You’re part of one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, the most powerful legislation in the world. In the history of the United States Congress, there have been about 130 Latino members, and about 160 black members and none of them were openly LGBTQ until I was sworn in on January 3. So every time I set foot on the House floor, I cannot help but feel the weight of history on my shoulders.

Preet Bharara:

So to recap, as people may know, you were the first ever openly gay Afro Latino member of Congress. Does that matter to you and does that matter to your constituents, and if so, how much?

Ritchie Torres:

It’s not everything, but it certainly matters. I take pride in belonging to the Democratic caucus in the House. 70% of the Democratic caucus consists of people of color, woman, and members of the LGBTQ community. I think we are a caucus that increasingly, is every bit as diverse as America itself. I think it’s in our interest to have a government that reflects the mosaic of America as a multiracial, multi ethnic, LGBTQ inclusive democracy and it’s important to have Americans from every walk of life, see themselves represented in government to feel inspired to run for public office themselves.

Preet Bharara:

Something you said struck me. Given the diversity of the Democratic caucus, do you think it is naturally the case that it’s harder for Nancy Pelosi to organize and lead her caucus than it is for the republicans to lead theirs?

Ritchie Torres:

Yes, I would say a genuine political party is much, much more unwieldy than a cult of personality around Donald Trump.

Preet Bharara:

So that makes them easier to lead, as long as they’re purging the people who are not in that cult like Liz Cheney?

Ritchie Torres:

She’s the exception, but for the overwhelming majority of Republicans, their operating principle seems to be absolute obedience to their lord and savior, Donald Trump.

Preet Bharara:

I want to ask you one parochial question before I get to your congressional district. People may not be aware, and we’ll talk maybe about some city politics later as well, because New York is very important, at least people like you and me think so. The city council did not use to be subject to term limits until fairly recently in New York’s history. Term limits are a good thing or a bad thing?

Ritchie Torres:

I have a nuanced view. The legislature certainly should have more terms in the executive, but I do ask myself, there should come a point when elected officials should learn the art exiting gracefully. If I become a shadow of my former self in a few decades, then I ought to move on and I ought to create space for the next generation of leadership to emerge. So I feel like there’s a balance to be struck between institutional memory and novelty and a new generation of leadership.

Preet Bharara:

That’s interesting. When I worked in the Senate, there was a lot of chafing on the part of younger members of that body because the way to get seniority, the way to get a chairmanship, the way to have influence was simply the passage of time, and the length of your tenure there as opposed to whatever skills you might have, or energy you might have. Do the young folks, and I put you in that category you’re 33, and without naming names to get people in trouble with the speaker, is there sort of a collective frustration about how assignments are made and about how younger members of Congress wield power and how they’re organized around seniority and age?

Ritchie Torres:

There’s certainly frustration with a system that excessively rewards seniority regardless of merit, but one would expect a freshman member like me to be critical of a seniority based system. I often refer to Congress as a gerontocracy. One of my colleagues made the observation to me that all but two of the Democratic committee chairs selected by the caucus are at or above the age of 70. So there is a shocking lack of age diversity in the committee leadership of the Democratic caucus.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think that’s shifting? Sort of anecdotally, I haven’t done an analysis, but there’s you, there’s a number of seemingly young members who have been recently elected in 2020 and in 2018, are you aware of there’s a trend towards younger?

Ritchie Torres:

There have been attempts to create leadership opportunities for new members of Congress. So one example is myself. I was appointed as the vice chair of the Homeland Security Committee, and I am the freshman representative in weekly meetings with the speaker. These weekly meetings are referred to as Crescendo. So the freshmen class has the same seat at the table as the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the other powerful caucus in the US Congress. So there have been attempts to ensure that freshmen have a greater voice in the decision making of the caucus. I’m pleased with my ability to effectuate change within the caucus.

Preet Bharara:

So you represent New York’s 15th district, the South Bronx. It’s a very interesting district for a lot of reasons I want to talk about and give you a chance to explain to listeners, what your district is like, what the makeup is, and how you feel about it.

Ritchie Torres:

So the South Bronx is often said to be the poorest congressional district in America. We are ground zero for racially concentrated poverty. We were hit their earliest and the hardest by COVID-19. More than 5,000 Bronx residents lost their lives and more than half the residents in the South Bronx pay more than half their income for their rent, and that’s before you factor in the cost of food and transportation, utilities and healthcare.

Ritchie Torres:

So to live in the Bronx is often to struggle to survive, to put food on the table and pay the rent and keep your families afloat. At the same time, I think of the South Bronx as the essential congressional district. It’s the home of essential workers who put their lives at risk during the peak of the pandemic, so that the rest of the city could safely shelter in place. I see it as my central mission to ensure that those essential workers who are disproportionately women of color, have a fighting chance at a decent and dignified life.

Ritchie Torres:

When I won the primary in June of 2020, I publicly said that this moment belongs as much to my mother as it does to me, and that the Bronx is full of single mothers like mine, who have struggled and suffered and sacrificed so that their children can have a better life. So the question I ask myself every morning, is, am I doing right by the essential workers and powerful mothers of the South Bronx?

Preet Bharara:

What’s the racial and ethnic makeup of your district?

Ritchie Torres:

Overwhelmingly Latino and African American. There is a small white population, but it’s mostly Latino and African American and then among Latinos, it’s mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican. It’s historically Puerto Rican district. It’s becoming increasingly Dominican, but the Bronx has long been a sanctuary for immigrants. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was a sanctuary for Jewish immigrants and Italian immigrants and Irish immigrants and then we saw a wave about being immigrants, and now it’s home to many Latino immigrants.

Preet Bharara:

Were you surprised or are people surprised to learn, according to various analyses that the poorest congressional district in the country is in New York City, and not someplace like Mississippi, Arkansas, which are thought of as relatively more impoverished states?

Ritchie Torres:

No, because I represent a densely populated area with heavier concentrations of poverty. So it’s worth noting that urban poverty is different from rural poverty, but you would expect much heavier concentrations of poverty in a densely populated area, like the Bronx, the South Bronx.

Preet Bharara:

What’s the mood in your district with respect to how the government is dealing with problems, particularly COVID, given the makeup of so many of the folks is essential to the COVID response?

Ritchie Torres:

Hopeful. Even though people are struggling, people are hopeful about President Biden, about a Democratic Congress, about the American Rescue Plan. The centerpiece of the American Rescue Plan was the child tax credit and no policy did more and would do more to lift the South Bronx out of poverty than the child tax credit which cut child poverty by 50%. So the dominant mood is one of hopefulness.

Preet Bharara:

You have referred to your district as the bible belt of New York City. What do you mean by that?

Ritchie Torres:

Historically. So even though we think of New York City as the progressive Capitol, and as the birthplace of the LGBTQ civil rights movement, the Stonewall uprising, the Bronx had a long tradition of socially conservative Democrats, who were vehemently anti LGBTQ. One of them was a man by the name of Ruben Diaz Sr. He was my main opponent when I ran for congress in 2020. He was known to be the voice and face of homophobia in New York state politics in the 1990s. He said the gay Olympics would lead to the spread of AIDS.

Ritchie Torres:

In 2011, he was the only Democrat in the State Senate, the New York State Senate to vote against marriage equality and two years ago, he said the city council is controlled by a homosexual cabal to which I jokingly replied, “That’s the most accurate thing you’ve ever said,” as a card carrying member of the velvet mafia. Despite his odious views, the conventional wisdom held that Ruben Diaz Sr., was well positioned to win the congressional seat in the South Bronx, because he has been a brand name and Bronx politics longer than I’ve been alive.

Preet Bharara:

For a long time. That’s true.

Ritchie Torres:

For a long time. He’s been a giant and has a well oiled machine in the South Bronx and people thought I was going to lose by double digits. Now, the outcome was double digit, but I won by double digits. I defeated Ruben Diaz so decisively that I sent him into retirement.

Preet Bharara:

How’d you do that?

Ritchie Torres:

Knocking on doors and telling my story, and even though … People thought that … The electorate in the South Bronx is much older. The median voter is at or above the age of 55 and two thirds of the electorate are female. So mostly Latinas and African American women. The political establishment took for granted that those voters would naturally gravitate toward Ruben Diaz Sr., and I thought differently.

Ritchie Torres:

I thought those voters would hunger for a new generation of leadership in the South Bronx, and would see in me, their own child and grandchild. Would see in me the embodiment of their highest hopes and aspirations for their own children and grandchildren. My basic intuition about the electorate of the South Bronx was vindicated by the outcome.

Preet Bharara:

You have a very particular kind of district. They’re formed in 35 of them around the country. Some of them have similarities. There are probably similarities between your district and others in other parts of the country, but every district is unique and every state is unique. I wonder how you think about this question that goes around in Democratic circles, where there’s a lot of frustration and anger, in some cases, contempt, towards a Democratic senator like Joe Manchin, who comes from a particularly conservative state that went for Trump by like a million points.

Preet Bharara:

I don’t have a number in front of me, or Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, and they get criticized by Democrats for not being progressive enough. Some people respond and say, “Well look at where they’re from. That’s what they reflect.” How do you think about them and how do you think about the necessity for you to hew to the politics, and concerns of your own district?

Ritchie Torres:

My criticism of Senator Manchin is not that he’s not progressive. He’s entitled to holds whatever views he wishes, he’s entitled to reflect the sensibilities and views of his constituents. My issue is that he is maintaining a status quo, i.e., the filibuster, that derails democracy, that essentially disenfranchises communities like mine. Nowhere is the abuse of the filibuster more egregious than on the subject of gun safety.

Ritchie Torres:

In a rational world, every gun would be registered and safely stored, every gun owner would be licensed and trained, every gun sale would be subject to a background check, but there’s nothing rational about a political system that enables one US senator from a state smaller than my congressional district to filibuster gun safety at the expense of 330 million Americans.

Preet Bharara:

You feel that the filibuster on this issue is the most egregious, more egregious even then the filibuster with respect to voting rights?

Ritchie Torres:

Although in the case of voting rights, I fear that whatever we might pass, the Supreme Court is intent on striking down, but it’s egregious on several fronts. The filibuster has made the Senate a graveyard for voting rights enforcement, immigration reform, LGBTQ equality, gun safety, criminal justice reform. You name an issue, you name a cause, and it has likely died at the hands of the filibuster, and keep in mind that the structure of the Senate on its own is profoundly undemocratic.

Ritchie Torres:

The Senate concentrates political power in a small subset of states that are much wider, much more rural and much more conservative than the rest of the country. There’s a sense in which there is systemic racism built into the very structure of the Senate, and that is taken to an extreme by the filibuster.

Preet Bharara:

But you would rather have Joe Manchin in the Senate than a Republican, correct?

Ritchie Torres:

Of course, of course, but I feel like he can represent his district without defending a filibuster that sabotages a Democratic government.

Preet Bharara:

Unless he’s made the determination, and I don’t know and I’m not polled in West Virginia. Unless he’s made a determination among others that is sort of the slowing down aspect of the filibuster. By the way, on the substance, I agree with you, with respect to the filibuster. I’m just trying to analyze his thinking and the rationale there.

Preet Bharara:

If he’s made a determination that the constituents of his state, on a host of issues believe a certain thing, and on this issue, believe whether it’s principled or not, or erroneous or not, that the filibuster should remain that. It isn’t, in a sense, a reflection of the views of his state or maybe he’s like, some people have suggested, occupying a particular place in that state as somebody who from time to time makes angry Democrats. So that makes him more palatable to the overwhelming majority of conservatives in his state. I don’t know, but I just wonder, sometimes, how he thinks about it and how other people should think about it.

Ritchie Torres:

It seems to me, Senator Manchin, has a misguided, romanticized vision of the filibuster as the last [inaudible 00:33:51] for bipartisanship. The filibuster has not given us more bipartisanship. It’s given us nothing but gridlock. It empowers the extremes. Any senator, no matter how extreme in their views, can filibuster any piece of legislation, can subject any piece of legislation to a 60 vote threshold.

Ritchie Torres:

Keep in mind, Senator Manchin came out against S1 and he’s entitled to his view, and then he put forward an alternative in good faith, only to have it rejected immediately by the Republicans. Like if you’re a Republican, and you have the power to sabotage Democratic legislation, you have no incentive to negotiate on an issue like voting rights.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve called yourself a pragmatic progressive.

Ritchie Torres:

Yeah, I never let progressive purity be the enemy of progress.

Preet Bharara:

You point to a figure who you put into that category, Ted Kennedy. Is he among your principal political role models?

Ritchie Torres:

He’s one of the greatest legislators ever to serve in the history of the United States Congress.

Preet Bharara:

What made him great, in your mind?

Ritchie Torres:

He was a prolific legislator and even though he had passionately held progressive principles and convictions, he was always able and willing to build coalitions in order to pass legislation. There are some people who go to Washington DC to be performers, and then there are others who go to DC to be policymakers and problem solvers, and Ted Kennedy was the consummate policymaker. He was the consummate problem solver. He, to me, is the gold standard of legislative acumen and the same can be said of Lyndon Johnson.

Preet Bharara:

Is there anyone in the house with whom you would not work on some principle?

Ritchie Torres:

There are extremists on the right who are odious to me. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert. I think representative Paul Gosar is holding events with white supremacist.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve picked my exact three least favorites, as well. Can I ask you an odd question before that, we get to the possibility of working with them. Because people may not understand it and maybe things have devolved even further, from the time that I was working in the Senate, which is now a number of years ago. When you come across folks who you’ve just identified, who you find odious, that’s your word, or when you come across people who may find that they have that view about you because of what you believe, do you shake each other’s hands? You haven’t been there a long time. Do you walk the other way? Do you smile? What’s the social atmosphere like, particularly in the wake of January 6?

Ritchie Torres:

I tend to be a gracious person. I will greet whoever greets me. Actually, one of the first people to greet me during my freshman orientation was Madison Cawthorn and even though his views are radically different from mine, we often have mutually respectful conversations and exchange pleasantries. So I’m capable of showing decency toward members of the opposing party, but there are some members who crossed a line for me and Mr. Gosar, in particular, should be ashamed of himself, for openly affiliating with a white nationalist.

Preet Bharara:

So I want to go to some of the issues that are very important in the country, and very important to you, I know and we’ve touched on one of them already and that’s the issue of poverty. I want to talk about this a little bit from the pragmatic, progressive standpoint, which is where you seem to be coming at this issue and other issues. You mentioned in passing a few minutes ago, the child tax credit. If there’s one thing that you thought would most remediate or mitigate poverty in the country, would it be some version of that and a more robust version of that or was there something else?

Ritchie Torres:

In my judgment, a permanent progressive child tax credit is the most powerful tool that we have for radically reducing poverty, in particular child poverty in the United States. Child poverty cost our economy up to a trillion dollars every year, in lost productivity and lost economic growth. Republicans often speak about the need to be individualistic and pull yourself by your own bootstraps, and make the right choices, personal choices, but no child in America chose to be poor.

Ritchie Torres:

Poverty is an accident of birth, but it’s an accident of birth that has lifelong consequences and it seems to me that we have an obligation to do everything we can to lift our children out of poverty, and set them on an upward trajectory in life. Before the American Rescue Plan, the structure of the child tax credit was so regressive that it left behind a third of American children, the poorest children in America, about 27 million children.

Ritchie Torres:

No district was more left behind than New York 15, the South Bronx where two thirds of children were excluded from the full benefit of the child tax credit. So the expansion of the child tax credit under the American Rescue Plan, which we passed back in March, cuts child poverty by 50%, not only in the Bronx, but elsewhere in the United States. For me, the central priority of the next infrastructure investment should be to make permanent the expansion of the child tax credit because a permanent progressive child tax credit would be to families with children, what Social Security has long been to senior citizens. Without Social Security, up to 40% of senior citizens would be languishing in poverty.

Preet Bharara:

When you advocate on behalf of these policies and issues, do you tend to stress the moral aspect of your position and how in a just and fair country that children, as you said, a moment ago, don’t choose their poverty. They can’t be blamed for it. So the right and righteous thing to do is to develop and enact these policies that help those folks, or do you tend to argue depending on who the person you’re arguing about it with is that it’s pragmatically good for everyone and that the costs, like the trillion dollar amount that you mentioned, that it’s good for folks economically around the country or otherwise, because the cost to society that you don’t necessarily see, and that people don’t necessarily calculate and they downplay and ignore are such that this is well worth it and pays for itself overall. Which arguments do you focus on?

Ritchie Torres:

Both. For me, a permanent progressive child tax credit is both good economics and good morals. I evaluate policies in light of both moral values and empirical facts. For me as a pragmatic, progressive, I set goals that reflect my moral values, but then how I measure progress for achieving those goals in the real world, that’s a deeply empirical enterprise. So I feel like you have to consider both.

Preet Bharara:

That answer makes me ask the question, do you have a philosophy of what it means to be a Congressman? Do you have a philosophy of politics or philosophy of government, or do you pragmatically look at each issue one by one and case by case so that some overarching particular philosophy may apply one way when you’re talking about poverty or a different way when you’re talking about trade or something else? Do you think about that or do you take things one issue at a time?

Ritchie Torres:

Both. I don’t mean to appear to be avoiding the question, but it’s both. I consider each and every issue on its own merits and the empirical facts and how it implicates the values that I hold dear, but at the same time, for me, I think of myself as a progressive and progressivism is different from utopianism. The central value of progressivism is progress, which you can measure empirically in the real world.

Ritchie Torres:

So I try to advocate for policies that have been shown or known to create progress for the people I represent. I feel like my obligation as an elected official is to do an enormous amount of good for an enormous number of people. For me, we are judged, the quality of our lives is judged by the impact we have on others. I often ask myself, what am I going to be remembered for? What is going to be said about me in my eulogy? What’s going to be spoken about me or written about me in my obituary? Those are the questions that I keep in mind.

Preet Bharara:

Well, what would you like the first sentence to be then?

Ritchie Torres:

I want to be remembered as an advocate for the urban poor, as an advocate for poor people of color in the south Bronx, in public housing and someone who never forgot where he came from. That even when I left the South Bronx, the South Bronx never left me and that I never forgot my roots in public housing, which to me is the greatest safety net of deeply affordable housing in the United States.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Ritchie Torres continues after this. You mentioned urban poverty, and I think you said earlier that urban poverty is different from rural poverty. So my questions are one, explain how it’s different and two, the extent that they were both forms of poverty, do you find, or do you have optimism that you can break common ground with or find common faith with people who represent rural poverty stricken districts in the country to do something for both?

Ritchie Torres:

Policies that I’ve championed like the child tax credit, benefit those living in both rural America and urban America. The attempt to close the digital divide, which became even more glaring during COVID-19, benefits those living in rural America and urban America. I speak more often about urban poverty because that’s the reality in my district and that’s my-

Preet Bharara:

There are no large farms, I don’t believe in the 15th.

Ritchie Torres:

There were more than a century ago, but no longer. I tend to speak about issues and champion causes through the prism of my lived experience. I do not fit into the typical profile of a member of Congress. I do not have a college degree or a law degree. I do not have deep pockets or come from a political family, but I feel like the greatest contribution I make is the wisdom of lived experience. I draw on my lived experience as a poor kid from the Bronx to inform the policies that I advocate for in the United States Congress. I feel like that’s what distinguishes me from the average member of Congress.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think that progressives fight for, speak about, advocate for policies that help the middle-class, the so-called middle-class that we’re always talking about, that politicians are always talking about, that that happens at the expense of the urban and rural poor?

Ritchie Torres:

I often ask myself who gets to set the agenda, who gets to decide what qualifies as progressive or what ought to be the priorities of the progressive movement. Because I find that the clauses that generate the most retweets are often different from the practical bread and butter concerns of the people I represent in the South Bronx. So I do feel like historically we have a system that overlooks the plight of the poor, and for me, there’s no greater manifestation of systemic racism than racially concentrated poverty.

Ritchie Torres:

Wherever you have racially concentrated poverty, you will have worse social outcomes in every aspect of society. Less public safety, higher rates of addiction and mental illness, higher rates of violence. So for me, if we’re able to radically reduce racially concentrated poverty, we can produce benefits that reverberate across society,

Preet Bharara:

In thinking about speaking with you and preparing for this interview, what came to mind I think is my favorite quote from Gandhi, which is not one that people usually recite, and it’s not about independence from Great Britain, but it’s about some of these issues we’ve been talking about. Gandhi once said, “There are people in the world so hungry, then God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” Then a more famous quote of his that is often recited where he said, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

Preet Bharara:

So one of the reasons I asked you the earlier question about morality versus a pragmatism and economic effect is, from my perspective as a moral imperative, when you think about the quotes from Gandhi, when you think about the things that are happening in your district, it is in some ways more important and some ways more important to the values of the country than some of the things that we do for the rich certainly, and also for the middle-class. Is that a fair way of thinking about it and is that going to get me in trouble?

Ritchie Torres:

I agree with you. I agree with you. I spoke of the South Bronx as the essential congressional district of America. I feel, even more deeply after COVID or during COVID, that we are judged by how we treat the most essential among us and take the subject of affordable housing. The essential workers of New York city having right, a moral right to live, to afford to live in a city that cannot succeed and survive without them.

Preet Bharara:

What about universal basic income? Where do you rank that in terms of the potential tools to eradicate or alleviate poverty?

Ritchie Torres:

We’re as closest as we’ve ever been to UBI. The child tax credit is essentially-

Preet Bharara:

It’s a form of that-

Ritchie Torres:

A basic income for families with children. It’s means test, but it’s close to a universal entitlement.

Preet Bharara:

Can we talk about means testing for a moment because this is the thing I’ve been thinking about since … You mentioned social security. Social security is politically strong and perhaps immortal because it’s not means tested. Everyone gets their social security check and there are rich people who don’t need it, but there are people, depending on where on the spectrum you think they … Necessity ends and luxury begins. It makes it very, very politically popular, and I wonder, as you think about some of these proposals, child tax credit, universal basic income and other things, on the one hand, it’s much more expensive to give them to everybody. On the other hand, it has this other political benefit that I referred to. How do you think about that?

Ritchie Torres:

You have to approach it on a case by case basis, but I recognize that the broader the constituency for a program, the more staying power the program will have. So one of the strengths of the child tax credit, the great strength of social security is that it’s either universal or widespread enough to implicate most families with children, and that to me is a net benefit. So I tend to favor broader safety nets that have more staying power in the long run.

Preet Bharara:

How important is the minimum wage and what should the minimum wage be?

Ritchie Torres:

I support the attempt to establish $15 an hour as a national minimum wage.

Preet Bharara:

But should it be higher than that? Is that just the least common denominator number that maybe is attainable? Would you make it more?

Ritchie Torres:

Want it to be a floor and not a ceiling, but there are places where, like New York state where the minimum wage certainly could be higher.

Preet Bharara:

When small business people or coalitions of business people, particularly small business, people say that will be ruinous, how do you argue against that?

Ritchie Torres:

Look, I never take those concerns lightly, and I’m particularly sensitive to the plight of restaurants. Restaurants are the hardest businesses to run, even in the best of times, even before the outbreak of COVID. The critique of the minimum wage is often accompanied by apocalyptic predictions of mass unemployment that never come true. So I tend to be skeptical about the apocalyptic arguments against the minimum wage.

Preet Bharara:

Part of the issue for lots of people, and you’ve been very open and transparent about your own struggles. These have to do with mental health, and it’s really extraordinary for folks who don’t know this about you, you have disclosed publicly that you have struggled with depression and mental health over the course of your life. Have you done that in part, because it’s something to get off your chest?

Preet Bharara:

Have you done it in part, because it gives you some credibility in talking about these issues, and there’s another thing I know you’ve said about it, that you get to be a member of Congress who is also a real person and people will, I don’t mean to use your words and you should describe it in a way that is correct for you, that they look at you and respect you in a way they might not otherwise, because you have talked about problems that you have had that maybe lots of other people have had and are scared about and are worried about speaking about publicly. How’d you think about both the disclosures that you have made publicly and how we can do better at treating mental health problems in this country?

Ritchie Torres:

I’ve been open about my struggles with depression, because it is an important part of who I am, and it explains an important part of what motivates me to be in public service and it’s important for elected officials to be authentic and assessable to the people we represent, to enable the people you represent to see their own struggles, their own lived experiences in your personal story.

Ritchie Torres:

I have said publicly that I take an antidepressant every day. I feel no shame in admitting it. It enables me to be a productive public servant in national politics. 15 years ago I had dropped out of college because I found myself struggling with depression. I was abusing substances. I even attempted suicide because I felt as if the world around me had collapsed. Then seven years later, I became the youngest elected official in the largest city in America and today I’m a United States Congressman, and I would not be alive today, let alone a member of Congress were it not for mental health treatment, which saved my life.

Preet Bharara:

Amen to that. You’ve mentioned a couple of times that you are not a graduate of college and people who listen to the show on a regular basis, may know that this has been an issue that has been increasingly interesting to me ever since I had Michael Sandel, my old philosophy professor in college write a book called The Tyranny of Merit and he talks about how progressives and Democrats in particular valorize college.

Preet Bharara:

One of the reasons for this great divide, political divide in the country is not necessarily between ethnic or racial groups or coasts and the Heartland, but people who went to college and people who didn’t go to college. Do you have a view, as a sitting democratic member of Congress about whether or not the Democratic party pays too much attention to college and overemphasizes college, when I think something like three quarters or two thirds of Americans, don’t go to college?

Ritchie Torres:

Let me be clear. I value education, which is different from college. I do feel we have to rethink the notion that everyone must go to a four year college. Everyone must go through four years of local education, learn Shakespeare and then enter the workforce. It seems to me that there are some people who prefer, who may even be better suited to workforce development, apprenticeships, vocational schooling, and instead of imposing a one-size-fits-all model, instead of steering everyone in one direction, why not allow people the freedom and flexibility to choose the path that’s right for them?

Ritchie Torres:

Why not allow federal funding for higher education, like a Pell grant to be every bit as available to an apprenticeship, to career and technical education, as it is to conventional college education? I’m reminded of a quote from John Gardner who said that a society that tolerated shoddiness in philosophy, but scorns excellence in plumbing will have neither good philosophy nor good plumbing, neither its types nor its theories will hold water. For me, what matters is not what you do, but how well you do it. We ought to celebrate excellence in every form.

Preet Bharara:

Do you have a view on the proposal by various people to forgive college debt and how that will play in the country?

Ritchie Torres:

I am in favor of broad debt cancellation because the $1.7 trillion in student debt that weighs heavily on more than 40 million households is a real drain on the American economy. If you have student debt, it has a distorting and delaying effect on the most important life choices. The decision about when to buy a home or when to open a business, or when to form a family and have children. All of these decisions can be distorted by the overhang of student debt.

Ritchie Torres:

There have been attempts to pursue narrow debt cancellation. There was a public service forgiveness program dating back to 2007, which said that if you committed 10 years of your life to public service or government or not-for-profit, then you could qualify for student forgiveness. In 2017, there were tens of thousands of people who applied for public service student forgiveness, but if I recall correctly, less than 100 actually received student forgiveness.

Ritchie Torres:

So there were people who organized their career choices around the expectation of student debt forgiveness only to be effectively defrauded by the federal government. So I tend to favor broader debt cancellation programs because narrow debt cancellation has proven to be ineffective as evidenced by the public service forgiveness program.

Preet Bharara:

Before you go, I want to switch gears for a few minutes and talk about an issue and a topic that you have been outspoken on, and that is Israel and the sovereignty of Israel, Israel’s right to defend itself. Can I ask you a preliminary question, is the topic of Israel at the forefront of people’s minds in your district?

Ritchie Torres:

No. Most residents in the South Bronx are struggling to put food on the table and pay the rent. So their concerns are kitchen table.

Preet Bharara:

So my first question, and we’ll get into in a moment is how you think about the issues that you focus on, speak about, make an impact on given that you have a constituency and why this was important for you to talk about and then to make this … The great thing about doing a podcast is I can ask all sorts of questions that would have been objectionable in court because they’re compound, but I can ask podcast guests. Were you surprised that the reaction you got from fellow progressives when you stood up for the right of Israel to defend itself?

Ritchie Torres:

No. I’ve seen the extremism of the BDS movement as far back as 2014. When I was a city council member, I was invited to join a delegation to Israel in late 2014, early 2015, and I had never traveled abroad. So I took up the opportunity, and when I announced that I was going to Israel, I was taken aback by the overwhelming vitriol and hatred directed against me. Like people said, “How dare you, as an LGBTQ person of color travel to an apartheid state?”

Preet Bharara:

To which your retort was?

Ritchie Torres:

Well, first I reject the premise and there was one encounter in particular that left an impression on me. There was an activist who had a shirt that read, “Queers for Palestine,” and I remember approaching the activists and I asked her, “What is your opinion of Hamas?” She said that Hamas is defending the liberation of the Palestinian people, and at that moment I had an epiphany.

Ritchie Torres:

The fact that an LGBTQ activists could defend a terrorist organization that systematically and savagely murders LGBTQ people, that to me was as definitive a sign as any of the stupidity and absurdity and moral bankruptcy that BDS has inflicted on progressive politics.

Preet Bharara:

How did that conversation end?

Ritchie Torres:

That was the end of the conversation.

Preet Bharara:

That was the end of the conversation. Let me ask you a broader question, but in the context of what you’re talking about. Do you think the discussion, and I have my own negative view of this, do you think the discussion about political issues, particularly sensitive political issues has over time, and by over time, I mean recent times become, less capable of nuance and if so, why has that happened? Because you talk about nuance a lot.

Ritchie Torres:

There are multiple clauses, but the single greatest short-term clause is social media and in particular Twitter, which has become a cesspool of extremism and antisemitism. We are facing an epistemic crisis in which Americans are operating, not on facts, but on tweets and hashtags and infographics

Preet Bharara:

And also preferred outcomes. I feel like this is true in the area of my own expertise, the law, criminal law, in particular. People want certain outcomes, and so any bit of evidence or theorizing or speculation in favor of their outcome, they like, otherwise, no.

Ritchie Torres:

Jonathan Haidt often points out, Jonathan Haidt, the moral psychologist, critic of Plato, who was the first to distinguish between reason and emotion. I agree with Jonathan Haidt that Plato was wrong, that we do not operate purely, or even primarily on reason. We tend to operate on emotions that motivate our reasoning, and there’s no greater case study of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias than Twitter.

Preet Bharara:

You said the following in speaking about your experiences on Israel in a recent interview. I just want to read it back to you, then ask you to elaborate and then I have a question. “For me, it should be possible to speak out against the eviction of a Palestinian family without equating it to ethnic cleansing. It should be possible to constructively critique the policies and practices of the Israeli government without calling for the destruction of Israel itself. My issue,” you said, “Is not criticism. My issue is the lack of nuance in the democratic socialists critique of Israel. What is often directed towards Israel is not criticism. It feels like hatred.” Can you say something more about that?

Ritchie Torres:

My views of the deliberate use of hyperbolic rhetoric is aimed at inciting hatred for Israel, rather than promoting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and promoting peace ought to be the end goal. For me, the principle here is a two-state solution. I oppose settlements and annexation because it undermines a two-state solution, but I also [inaudible 01:03:45] the BDS movement because it undermines a two-state solution.

Preet Bharara:

But you’re not saying that, the people who criticize Israel and Israel’s policies particular with respect to the Palestinians, that’s not automatically antisemitism, correct?

Ritchie Torres:

Constructive criticism of Israeli practices and policies is not only healthy, it’s morally necessary as it is against every country in the world.

Preet Bharara:

Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment. Might some people think that you are quick to take the position that critics are operating in bad faith, even if they’re using sometimes hyperbolic language, but that they’re doing it in good faith and maybe their words or the language of their arguments are too strong and not nuanced, but they have a reason to be upset. Is that fair enough?

Ritchie Torres:

I’m not questioning their faith. I’m expressing concern, not about their intent, which can be impossible to discern, but about the practical consequences. Ideas and words have consequences and in my view, you cannot incite hatred for the world’s only Jewish state without ultimately inciting hatred for the Jewish community, and this is not a theoretical concern. We saw during the month of May, the amplification of anti-Zionism on Twitter lead to an outbreak of antisemitic violence.

Ritchie Torres:

That was not a coincidence. The two are connected, and it’s fair to say that all of us, especially those of us in elected office, ought to be mindful of the words we choose. It should be possible to constructively critique Israeli practices and policies without de-legitimizing Israel as a Jewish state. I would welcome constructive criticism, but incitement of hatred, inflammatory rhetoric is quite different from what I would regard as constructive criticism.

Preet Bharara:

And you yourself have constructive criticism for Israel, correct?

Ritchie Torres:

Annexation is abhorrent to me. The denial of … It’s profoundly incompatible with Palestinian sovereignty and with the two-state solution and I strongly oppose it and I found Netanyahu to be an odious figure. He was the Donald Trump of Israel.

Preet Bharara:

Well, do you think the current leader is better?

Ritchie Torres:

There’s a sense of when you’re analyzing a parliamentary democracy, you have to look at the broader coalition. I think the broader coalition is an improvement upon Netanyahu. I wish the Israeli government had a much more progressive prime minister, but an alternative to Netanyahu is certainly welcomed.

Preet Bharara:

Final question for you, sir. You’ve been very generous with your time. Something I didn’t know until my team prepared a very thorough dossier on you, and I smiled when I saw this. Could you tell the folks and I presume that this is true, how you got your first name?

Ritchie Torres:

So my mother was watching the movie, La Bamba.

Preet Bharara:

Great movie, by the way. I told my kids about it yesterday.

Ritchie Torres:

She was inspired to name me after Ritchie Valens. So that’s why my name includes a T. Normally Richie is spelled without a T. R-I-C-H-I-E as in Richie Rich, but I was named after Ritchie Valens. My twin brother was named after the Reuben sandwich. So I infer from that, that I’m the favorite son.

Preet Bharara:

Ritchie Valens, of course, very popular musician. Died young in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly.

Ritchie Torres:

17 years old.

Preet Bharara:

Are you musical?

Ritchie Torres:

I went into politics because I have no talent.

Preet Bharara:

You didn’t feel any sort of pressure from the origin story to become a musician, singer of some sort?

Ritchie Torres:

If I had the talent, I would have but I have to play with the cards I’m dealt.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve been very generous with your time. Congressman Ritchie, I was going to say Ritchie Valens. No, Congressman Ritchie Torres, thanks for your time. Thanks for your service and get back to work and fix a lot of stuff for us, please.

Ritchie Torres:

I appreciate it, and thank you for everything you do. Take care.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Ritchie Torres continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership free for two weeks, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

Preet Bharara:

I want to end show this week by reflecting on something that’s pretty fundamental and that is our democracy and what we can do to improve it and in particular, I’m talking about it and thinking about it because I participated in a panel last week that was organized by the Brennan Center for Justice and Protect Democracy and the Project On Government Oversight, and it got me thinking about various things and I wanted to share some of the points made during that session.

Preet Bharara:

Some of you may know that I co-chaired a task force on democracy with former governor Christie Todd Whitman. She was the former governor of New Jersey and the former EPA administrator and a lifelong Republican, and we proposed various things and two reports to try to codify some of the norms that have been trampled in recent years.

Preet Bharara:

So on this panel, Governor Whitman and I were joined by Bob Bauer, the former Obama white house counsel, and the moderator Hayes Brown from MSNBC to talk about how we can go forward and make sure that our democracy functions better than it has. Are there things that need to be put into law as opposed trusted to the honor system, which is how so many things have operated in the country to date and among the proposals that we have offered and some of the proposals that are sitting around in Congress waiting to be passed, are things like erecting a better wall between DOJ prosecutors and elected officials, requiring people who aspire to be president or vice president of the United States to disclose their tax returns, something that did not happen with respect to one of the candidates last time around. Giving more teeth to ethics, watchdogs, starting to apply conflicts of interest rules and principles to the president of the United States.

Preet Bharara:

Also proposals to protect scientific integrity, which has come under fire and has been a problem elucidated, I think, and crystallized most clearly because of the coronavirus pandemic. So one of the questions that arose in this panel and that arises otherwise is how do you convince people that these reforms are necessary? Obviously, lots of Democrats feel that they are because their view is that these norms were trampled by a Republican president, Donald Trump, but how do you persuade folks on both sides of the aisle to get some of these provisions passed?

Preet Bharara:

I guess, two answers to that question and that we’re thinking about, and the first, the answer I most often give is one of pragmatism. The people on both sides of the aisle have an interest in making sure that the executive branch member, up to and including the president doesn’t trample norms, because if it happened now, it can happen again.

Preet Bharara:

As I said, at the event, there’s no law of nature or ideology or politics or psychology that says that some of those norms that were trampled by Donald Trump will not be trampled by a counterpart of his in the Democratic party or an independent party, either at the state, local or federal levels. To the extent that legislation takes bipartisan support in either chamber to get passed, to the extent that folks who want to talk about these issues can make the point that this is not just about Donald Trump. This is not just about some particulars relating to that particular president.

Preet Bharara:

It’s not even just about January 6th. It’s about a degradation of politics and norms and the honor system that can be transgressed by anybody, Democratic or Republican. It might seem farfetched to some people on the progressive side, but to me, it’s not. That you could have somebody who decides to learn some of the lessons from Donald Trump, about lying, about obfuscating, about attacking the press, about challenging the results of an election.

Preet Bharara:

There’s nothing particularly ideological about any of that. So you would think on the principle of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Republicans also would want to employ and codify some of these safeguards and guardrails so that what Donald Trump did to the country cannot be done by anyone in the future. I, from time to time talked about the philosophy of John Rawls, who’s talked about the principle of evaluating policies and the propriety and fairness of policies from behind what he calls the veil of ignorance.

Preet Bharara:

If you presume that veil in this hypothetical and you don’t know who’s going to be in control for eight, 12, 16 years from now. Could be a Democrat. It could be Republican, could be an independent. I think people of good faith and right mindedness would want to make sure that you had those safeguards in place.

Preet Bharara:

It may be the case that today a lack of these rules advantages one side, but that won’t necessarily be true in the future. So that’s point one, pragmatic appeal to folks to say, this can happen on the other side too. So do your best to fix democracy while you have the opportunity today, but there’s a more high-minded reason as well and that is, there’s something about the institution of the presidency that deserves to be saved and not talked about in the partisan way that I just discussed it.

Preet Bharara:

Bob Bauer was asked the question, “How would you suggest to Joe Biden that he should adopt some of these reforms?” And it’s an interesting question because presidents like power, presidents of both parties and proposals to limit power, limit accountability are not things that generally executive branch officials embrace and love. Bob Bauer says that the president has to understand, and I think this president does, that he is himself, not the office of the presidency and that in some sense, he holds it as a custodian for presidents to come.

Preet Bharara:

So it’s not all about him. It’s about the future as well and Bob’s response got me thinking about not just the pragmatic arguments in favor of these reforms and shoring up our democracy, but also the moral imperative to do so because there’s been something missing in a lot of discussion and debate in the last number of years, at least to my eye and my ear.

Preet Bharara:

We always ask, is it good for the party? Is it good for that person? Is it good for that person’s political prospects? Is it better for the Democrats? Is it better for the Republicans? What’s missing is I think the more fundamental and important question, what is the right thing to do?

Preet Bharara:

Is it right that the Justice Department can be weaponized? Is it right that people can try to overturn an election? Not whether or not it can be used against you in the future, but is it right, sort of as a priority matter. One of the most distressing things about the last number of years to me, of course, has been the shift in norms, but to me also distressing has been the shift and even the rhetoric with which we talk about these cases.

Preet Bharara:

How often do you think, in the last number of years that the first and most important question was actually asked, what is the right thing to do as opposed to, does it help us politically? Does it help the Republican party? Does it help Donald Trump? Certainly, I don’t think Donald Trump was asking those questions and maybe some of this is a little naive and overly idealistic, but I’ve been thinking more and more about how we need leaders to return to the fundamental question.

Preet Bharara:

Not whether it’s good for your political standing, not whether it’s good for your party’s popularity, but whether the thing you’re considering, the action you’re thinking about taking, ask yourself whether it’s right for the democracy and for the country. As we discussed on the panel, there are reasons to be pessimistic about what can be accomplished. We had a period of reform some years ago after a corrupt administration known as the Nixon administration, and as Bob Bauer pointed out and Judge Whitman pointed out, there was a coming together by people on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, to see what we could fix and a lot of things were fixed, and there was a lot of accountability as well.

Preet Bharara:

We’re not really seeing that just yet, but I have hope and confidence that if good people keep talking about it, keep proposing these things, keep lobbying their members of Congress to pass some of these laws, keep attention to it in the public square, that people will finally ultimately see what the right thing to do is for our country and we can get along much better.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Ritchie Torres. If you like what we do rate and review the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the #AskPreet, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338 at 66924 Preet, or you can send an email to stay tuned@cafe.com.

Preet Bharara:

Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE Studios and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Your host is Preet Bharara. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The CAFE team is Matthew Billy, David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Jennifer Korn, Chris Boylan and Sean Walsh. Our music is by Andrew dost. I’m Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.