\n<\/p>\n
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts<\/em><\/p>\n On this episode of The David Frum Show<\/em>, The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s David Frum opens with a warning about President Donald Trump\u2019s escalating attacks on press freedom. David discusses Trump\u2019s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, explains how Trump is using presidential power to suppress coverage of his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and argues that Trump\u2019s second term represents a deeper threat to the First Amendment than anything seen in modern American history.<\/p>\n Then David is joined by Representative Ritchie Torres of New York for a conversation about the future of the Democratic Party. Torres explains why the Democratic center has become too passive; how the far left gained influence through intensity, not majorities; and why slogans alone can\u2019t solve America\u2019s affordability crisis. They discuss the rise of performative politics, the need for a serious governing agenda, and Torres\u2019s personal journey from public housing to Congress.<\/p>\n The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/p>\n David Frum:<\/strong> Hello, and welcome to another episode of The David Frum Show<\/em>. I\u2019m David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic<\/em>. My guest this week will be Congressman Ritchie Torres, who represents the South Bronx in the United States House of Representatives. It\u2019s such a pleasure and an honor to welcome Congressman Torres to this program. We\u2019ll be discussing the contest, the struggle between Democratic centrists and Democratic progressives in New York City, state, and federal politics, and we\u2019ll talk, as well, about his vision for the future and direction of American politics, and his beliefs and principles as he\u2019s become one of the most important voices in the United States Congress.<\/p>\n I want to begin with a few preliminary remarks about a new Trump administration attack on press freedom and press integrity. The Wall Street Journal<\/em> recently released an important story on the personal connections between Donald Trump, the private citizen\u2014as he then was\u2014and Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex trafficker who died in 2019.<\/p>\n President Trump, as he now is, responded to the story by filing a massive lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, one of many lawsuits in a long series that Donald Trump has brought against press institutions. Now, a private citizen who feels himself or herself ill-used by the press, of course, has a right to sue for defamation. These suits usually don\u2019t go very far. It\u2019s difficult to win a defamation suit in the United States, and people usually\u2014while they may file them or threaten to file them\u2014don\u2019t proceed. For one thing, they bump into the threat of discovery, where the news organization will be able to say, Well, since you\u2019re suing us, we get to ask some questions of you<\/em>, and the person suing often doesn\u2019t want to answer those questions, and that\u2019s where the whole thing tends to break down. But President Trump has approached these lawsuits in a very different way.<\/p>\n The president of the United States\u2014under Donald Trump, the presidency has become a very different kind of institution from what it ever was before. It has acquired large new immunity from criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court of the United States has made it much more difficult than it ever was to hold a president to account for criminal actions committed by that president, or alleged criminal actions committed by the president. The Court has carved out zones of immunity, in which the president simply cannot be questioned or challenged about criminal activity.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Donald Trump, while he has all those august powers of the presidency, he\u2019s using the powers of a private citizen to sue in ways that are augmented by the powers of the presidency. The suits that Donald Trump has brought against ABC News and CBS News were suits he almost certainly was not going to win. The CBS lawsuit was particularly feeble. It was a lawsuit where he said he didn\u2019t like the way 60 Minutes<\/em> had edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, and he was invoking a Texas consumer-protection statute to attack the way that CBS had edited this interview. Now, the courts, for 50 years, have been very clear about the enormous protection of the right to edit under the First Amendment, and the Federal Communications Commission has made it clear they want no part of second-guessing the editorial judgments of news organizations. This lawsuit would not go anywhere. It\u2019s almost guaranteed not to go anywhere. But CBS and ABC have corporate parents, and those corporate parents have a lot of business before the federal government. In the CBS case, the business was especially urgent. Paramount, the owner of CBS, wanted to execute a merger that would need FCC approval. And President Trump\u2019s chairman of the FCC had made clear that regulatory approval could hinge on whether Paramount made some kind of settlement with President Trump in his complaint against CBS.<\/p>\n So President Trump used his regulatory powers overparent corporations to squeeze settlements out of ABC and CBS. He also extracted a big payday for his family from Amazon. At the beginning of the administration, Amazon announced that it was going to make a documentary or a movie about the life of First Lady Melania Trump and pay her millions and millions of dollars for the film rights for a movie that doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s ever going to see the light of day, and maybe was never intended to see the light of day.<\/p>\n So the president is immune criminally. He sues, like any private citizen, but his lawsuits are backed up by the regulatory power of the federal government and under his control, exerting powers in new ways, in ways that had never been contemplated before by the Federal Communications Commission.<\/p>\n Now President Trump is using the same maneuver against The<\/em> Wall Street Journal<\/em>. Shortly before the story appeared, Vice President [J. D.] Vance made a special trip to visit the Murdoch family and presumably, or apparently, to plead the case against the story. So that was another form of pressure. So far, The Wall Street Journal<\/em> has resisted, but how long they will resist is unclear because the parent corporation behind The Wall Street Journal<\/em> also has a lot of business before the federal government, and of course, the Murdoch family that owns the parent corporation and President Trump have deep other causes.<\/p>\n So what we\u2019re witnessing here is an attempt to use federal power by a criminally immune president to snuff out discussion of things that bear on that president\u2019s potential criminal liability or potential civil liability.<\/p>\n You know, abuses of power by the president tend to bleed one into the other. You start with something small, like I don\u2019t want people to know about my connections to Jeffrey Epstein<\/em>, and pretty soon you\u2019re deploying powers over the press, and you\u2019re abusing the FBI.<\/p>\n I think the point is: There\u2019s no easy way out of this for any of us. And I think this is one of the reasons why the Epstein story has become so important. Whatever is the exact truth of what happened between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein\u2014how deeply they were connected, or when their relationship began, when their relationship ended, what happened in between, why it ended, how Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s future career, why his prosecution was handled in the way that it was, what happened in the final hours and moments before his death, all of those unanswered questions\u2014in order to protect the present from potential revelations, we\u2019re having to break apart all kinds of institutions, beginning with the FBI and ending with the First Amendment.<\/p>\n You know, I think a lot of people hope there\u2019s some way to box in or limit the Trump presidency to treat it like, you know, not one of one\u2019s favorite presidents, not one of America\u2019s finest hours, but something that doesn\u2019t threaten to do tremendous and permanent damage to the structure of American government. But as this latest story reveals, even in the most intimate and personal aspects of his life, Donald Trump\u2019s needs and imperatives, and his attitude toward the presidency are a threat to every American institution.<\/p>\n If we\u2019re going to come out of this unscathed, we\u2019re going to have to have a real reckoning with what Donald Trump did. We\u2019re not going to be able to box this in. We\u2019re not going to be able to say, Well, that was then, and this is now, <\/em>or This is his personal life<\/em>, or These are his personal matters<\/em>. For him, there is no barrier between the personal and the constitutional. And for the reverse, there\u2019s no barrier for those who want to protect the Constitution against the person of Donald Trump. It\u2019s going to be one, or it\u2019s going to be the other. And that situation\u2014here we are at the very beginning of the second Trump presidency, and it\u2019s only likely to become more intense as that presidency continues.<\/p>\n Now my dialogue with Congressman Torres, and we\u2019ll be talking about some of these very same issues in that conversation. I hope you\u2019ll continue to watch. But first, a quick break.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Frum: <\/strong>Representative Ritchie Torres is a native of the Bronx, New York. His first introduction to the ugly realities of New York City politics came at an early age. Congressman Torres grew up the child of a single mother in a public-housing project. The mold in the apartment unit inflamed his childhood asthma, but across the way, he could see the city of New York pouring millions of dollars of taxpayer money into subsidies for a golf course.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think he\u2019s ever quite forgotten that lesson. Congressman Torres\u2019s outrage over the misuse of public resources in this way powered his early rise, his astonishingly early rise, in city politics. He was elected to New York City Council at the age of 25: the first openly gay council member from the Bronx. He won election to Congress from New York\u2019s Fifteenth District in 2022, age only 32. The Fifteenth is one of the nation\u2019s poorest districts, and Representative Torres has worked hard on the bread-and-butter issues that matter most to his constituents, becoming a leading voice for the Democratic pragmatic urban center against the extremes of far left and far right.<\/p>\n A champion of civil liberties in every form, Torres has become one of Congress\u2019s most effective and untiring voices against anti-Semitism and the defamation of the state of Israel. At a time when Democrats are questioning their future, Congressman Torres has offered one of the most fearless and forcefully argued visions of a way forward.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m very pleased and grateful to welcome Congressman Torres to The David Frum Show<\/em>. Thank you for joining us.<\/p>\n Ritchie Torres:<\/strong> Always a pleasure to be here.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> I want to ask you about something I\u2019ve heard you say in a number of your interviews, where you say the Democratic center has acquired this passive personality. The Democratic far left feels it can say whatever it likes. The Democratic center retires and reserves. It reminds me in some ways of what happened in the Republican Party, my party, during the Tea Party uprising, when Republican moderates just yielded the floor. What is going on? Why? Is it a personality issue? Is it an ideological issue? Why is the center so retiring?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Well, look\u2014in politics, intensity is destiny. And it\u2019s almost inherently the case that an intensely visible vocal minority will have outsized political power, more political power than a silent majority that largely resides in the center. And so it feels like American politics writ large is dominated by the extremes, by the far right and the far left and the symbiosis between the two. And there\u2019s a sense in which the far left is a reaction\u2014the modern far left, the new left\u2014is a reaction to Donald Trump. I would submit to you that there would be no modern far left without the election of Donald Trump in 2016. You know, it\u2019s Newton\u2019s laws of physics at work: Every action produces an equal and opposite reaction. And it feels like American politics is largely driven by the endless feedback loop between the two extremes in American politics.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, let me draw an analogy to the Republican Party prior to the politics that I know best. I remember I worked a long time ago for President George W. Bush, and there was a big bill coming up, and there was an important Republican vote that President Bush needed. And the vote was shy because this voter, this member of the House or member of the Senate, this member of Congress, was nervous about the vote. And President Bush asked, What do you need from me to win your vote? Give me a request. Give me an ask, something I can say yes to. Is there anything I can do to give you a member to get your vote?<\/em> And the senator said, Yes, I need you to make sure that there are 70 votes in favor of this proposition<\/em>. In other words, he didn\u2019t care what the bill said so long as he could be a member of a herd. I sometimes wonder whether, is it that these people are moderates or they\u2019re just fearful?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> It feels like, should we rename the moderate category \u201cmiscellaneous\u201d? Like, I feel if you were to ask me, \u201cWhat does the far right stand for?\u201d I could easily say it\u2019s \u201cAmerica First.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cMake America great again.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cBuild the wall,\u201d right? There are simple, repeatable phrases that distill the worldview of the far right. And if you would ask me, \u201cWhat does the far left stand for?\u201d Green New Deal, Medicare for All. There are simple phrases that distill the worldview of the far left. I could not tell you what the center stands for. Like, if you were to speak to a hundred center-left Democrats, you would get a hundred different responses about what the center left stands for. And I see that lack of clarity of communication as a real challenge for the party.<\/p>\n Just like the Democratic Party cannot simply stand against Donald Trump, We have to stand for<\/em> something. The center left cannot simply stand against the far left: It has to stand for<\/em> something. And if the best the center left has to offer is Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams, then that\u2019s a challenge that we\u2019re going to have trouble connecting with the next generation of voters.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, a great student of the politics of New York, Fred Siegel, wrote a book about Rudy Giuliani before his tragic later years in which he said that the secret of Rudy Giuliani\u2019s success during the period when he was successful was that he was an immoderate centrist\u2014that is, he had centrist politics, but not a moderate personality at all, not even then. And he was forceful. He was certain. He drove his points home. He was not afraid. Is that the solution? Immoderate centrism?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I thought Giuliani was a vicious person. So there is something to be said for decency. I have profound differences of opinion with a candidate like Zohran Mamdani, but I\u2019m able to separate my appreciation for his skill from my disagreements with his politics\u2014not everyone can make that emotional separation, but I can\u2014and I have to say, I was impressed with the manner in which he ran his campaign. I saw him campaign in the Northeast Bronx a few weeks ago, and he was endlessly smiling. He was visibly enjoying the act of campaigning, the act of interacting with people. I feel like we can all learn from that. Like, we should all project the joy of public service, the joy of campaigning. Like, I prefer that to the viciousness and nastiness of Rudy Giuliani in the 1990s.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, look\u2014politics, like every occupation, has things you have to do and things you do less. And I often do see people in politics, and I think, Why didn\u2019t you choose, like, accountancy? I mean, you love numbers; you hate people. Why did you choose this line of work? There are a lot of things you can do with your one and only life<\/em>. So I mean, politics is for people who like going into a room full of total strangers and grabbing hands and introducing themselves and making friends fast. And if you don\u2019t like that work, there are a lot of other useful, valuable things you can do with your time on this Earth.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Look\u2014for me, loving public service and loving people go hand in hand and you cannot have one without the other. Look\u2014there are moments when we might be in a foul mood, and we have stressful moments, but it\u2019s important to project, at every moment, the joy of public service because it is truly an honor to be a public servant in the greatest country on Earth.<\/p>\n Now, I represent 800,000 people, right? I get to vote on behalf of and speak on behalf of 800,000 people, and that\u2019s an honor that I take to heart every day. And for me, it\u2019s just the greatest gratification of my life because it happens to be the area where I grew up. And so when you keep that perspective in mind, it should inspire you to project the joy of public service and the joy of campaigning.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, let me press you a little harder, without going into personalities, with this contest between different visions of the Democratic Party. In 2016 and 2020, there were national contests\u2014Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders, and then Joe Biden against the field\u2014in which there were far-left pressures and kind of old-fashioned, older, from-a-different-time candidates who spoke from a more moderate approach but didn\u2019t always speak very forcefully. And the contest hung in the balance, and the people who made the difference were sort of older, more religious, more conservative Black voters who pushed the Democratic Party away from unelectable progressivism toward Hillary Clinton in 2016 and toward Biden in 2020. And I don\u2019t know how much credit you give to the state of South Carolina specifically and to any person there, but that does seem to have been the moment where Biden won\u2014and probably the election of 2020 was won.<\/p>\n One of the things I\u2019ve noticed since 2024 is the way that those kinds of voters\u2014older Black voters, churchgoers, people with a stake in the community\u2014they seem to be sort of discounted. I\u2019ll give you two data points that have struck me. First, there have been a couple of polls that have showed Pete Buttigieg in first place as a Democratic choice for president in 2028, which is fine; he\u2019s a very impressive person. But when you look at, okay, Well, what is Pete Buttigieg\u2019s support in the Black community?<\/em> and the answer is zero, according to those polls\u2014like, literally zero\u2014you think, Okay, how do you get to be in first place in a Democratic preference poll when Black voters are saying, \u201cNot our guy?\u201d<\/em> And in the recent Democratic primary in the city of New York, the candidate who won was the candidate who did worst among Black voters. The candidates who did well among Black voters both lost. Is the Democratic Party turning its back on these sort of moderate Black voters? What does that mean? Why is that happening? What does that mean?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Look\u2014it\u2019s certainly true that the strongholds of the Democratic Socialists of America, of the left, in places like New York tend to be college-educated, white-progressive or white Democratic Socialist neighborhoods. In New York City, it\u2019s the gentrified neighborhoods of Queens and Brooklyn and Manhattan, not so much Staten Island and the Bronx. So that\u2019s certainly true. And those voters tend to be much more ideological, much more left leaning.<\/p>\n Older Black voters, I find, tend to be more relational than ideological in their voting. And\u2014<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> As Jim Clyburn said, \u201cJoe knows us.\u201d<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Yeah. You know, there\u2019s a great joke about Jim Clyburn that J. C.<\/em> does not stand for Jesus Christ; it stands for \u201cJim Clyburn\u201d because he was the single driving force behind the resurrection of Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary. But, you know, it\u2019s often said that familiarity breeds contempt. When it comes to older Black voters, the opposite is true: Familiarity breeds comfort. Like, Black voters were more comfortable with [Andrew] Cuomo because he was a familiar brand name. But I would not mistake a preference for a familiar brand name like Andrew Cuomo for opposition to Mamdani. As Mamdani becomes more familiar in Democratic circles, he certainly is in a position to build support within the African American community.<\/p>\n But there is a generational divide. You know, older African Americans tend to gravitate toward more familiar brand names like Cuomo; younger African Americans may be more left leaning and ideological in their politics. So there is a generational divide unfolding within the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> But is there something going on between these ideological, highly educated voters you mentioned and everybody else? So there was this great upsurge of protests in 2020 centered in Black America where it sounded like Black Americans\u2014as a non-Black American, it sounded to me like they\u2019re saying, What we want is fair and respectful policing<\/em>. And a lot of the people who joined up for this movement who were from different communities, who were highly educated, said, Right. What you mean is you want no policing at all<\/em>. And the people at the center were saying, No, we want fair and respectful policing, but we actually would like\u2014if it is fair and respectful\u2014<\/em>more of it, not less<\/em>. And this is one of the things that in the New York primary, that I think one of the big issues between people who said, We want more policing; we want it fair and respectful, but we want more<\/em>. And those who said, Right, what you mean is you want less, and we know better, and we\u2019re telling you<\/em>.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Look\u2014I\u2019m one of the leading critics of the DSA, and my frustration with the DSA is the lack of self-awareness. There seems to be no acknowledgement that Democratic Socialists are different from most of the country, including most Democratic working-class people of color in places like the Bronx. And, you know, you\u2019re entitled to believe whatever you wish, but you should not pretend that your beliefs are orthodoxy or the mainstream in America. I remember, when I would ride the subway as a kid, I would often come across a quote that read Never mistake your field of vision for the world. And I feel like the DSA often mistakes its field of vision for the world, and it often speaks for people of color without actually speaking to them, because if you spoke to people of color in places like the Bronx, you would realize there was never popular support for movements like \u201cDefund the police\u201d and that there were widespread concerns about the destabilizing impact of the migrant crisis on cities like New York. And so there is a lack of ideological self-awareness on the part of the DSA. The DSA is entitled to have whatever beliefs it wishes, but those beliefs are different from those not only of most Americans, but most Democrats.<\/p>\n Now, the one issue where every Democrat is aligned is the concern about the affordability crisis. And the genius of the Mamdani campaign lies in focusing like a laser on the affordability crisis, because it is truly the issue that has the most resonance with most voters. Not everyone agrees on the solution, but everyone agrees\u2014in the Democratic Party, and even beyond\u2014that it\u2019s become the central challenge confronting the city and the country.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m not sure you\u2019re entitled to say you\u2019re\u2014well, suppose I say this: Here I am. I\u2019m a politician. I\u2019m from the Democratic Socialists of America, and I\u2019m very concerned about the affordability crisis<\/em>. Really? Are you? That\u2019s great. Well, what is your solution? My solution is these magic wishing beans I have in my pocket<\/em>. Aren\u2019t I entitled to say, If your solution is magic wishing beans, you\u2019re probably actually not that revved up about the crisis, because if you cared, you would look for a better idea than magic wishing beans<\/em>?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Can I challenge\u2014you\u2019re putting me in the position of defending the DSA, which is making me uncomfortable. Do you think the average establishment Democrat has a thought-out solution to the affordability crisis? Do you think the average politician thinks deeply about cost-benefit analyses and trade-offs and unintended consequences that don\u2019t\u2014<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> You don\u2019t need to think very deeply about the affordability of housing in New York to say\u2014<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> That\u2019s my frustration, though.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> You say, Okay, what we need to do is bring in a bunch of people from the industry<\/em> and say, What would it take to get you to build a quarter of a million units in the five boroughs of New York per year? What would we have to change for you to build a quarter of a million?<\/em> And then they\u2019d give you a list of a bunch of ideas, and you say, Well, I can\u2019t do that one, but yeah, okay, the rest of these we can do.<\/em> And maybe we won\u2019t get a quarter of a million units a year; maybe we\u2019ll get 200,000<\/em>. What is being proposed instead are literally\u2014I mean, to say what we\u2019re going to do is take a million dollars of subsidy per apartment, and take the number of subsidized apartments we\u2019re building from 10,000 a year to 20,000 a year in a city where 6 million people are applying for housing, that\u2019s a magic wishing bean. That\u2019s not going to do anything for anybody.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I agree. But Eric Adams has been mayor for four years. Has he had that convening? I mean, it is not enough for center-left Democrats to denigrate the sloganeering of the far left, which I agree is sloganeering. But we have to actually offer and put forward an affordability agenda, right? We should not put ourselves in the position of defending a status quo that is genuinely failing a generation of young Americans. There are young Americans who are struggling to cope with the crushing cost of housing and higher education and health-care, and we have to address their anxieties about the affordability prices.<\/p>\n I will just echo what I said earlier: It\u2019s not enough for the center left to be against the far left, to sneer at them. We actually have to put forward an affordability agenda. We have to be more introspective about our failures, to be blunt.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Let me ask you about those failures. The Democratic Party is right now doing a big, supposedly, after-action review of the 2024 election. And there are mean stories circulating, which say, Oh, but everything that is actually the questions you\u2019d want to talk about are off the table. We\u2019re not going to talk about Biden staying in the race arguably too long. We\u2019re not going to talk about having or not having a primary to replace him. We\u2019re gonna talk about everything else.<\/em> And it reminds me a little bit of the 2012 Republican autopsy, where the Republican Party decided the solution to Romney\u2019s defeat in 2012 was Jeb Bush. And so it got a team of six people, four of whom had tight connections to Jeb Bush, to write a report saying, What do we need?<\/em> And they wrote a report that took 80 pages to say, What we need is Jeb Bush<\/em>. And that turned out, actually, not to be the correct answer, but it was very much the product of an in-group. And it looks like the Democratic Party is doing the same thing.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Look\u2014I feel like we should acknowledge that we screwed up, and then move on. If we deny that there was an issue, it simply serves to perpetuate the story. We should acknowledge that Biden should have decided early on not to run for reelection. There should have been a full primary process. And I happen to believe that the American primary process\u2014which is much longer than the process in Britain is\u2014is an extraordinary character-building experience. It is a test of character. It\u2019s a test of resilience. And you know, I often quote Frederick Nietzsche, who said, \u201cThat which does not kill [me], makes [me] stronger.\u201d I feel like you\u2019re made better and stronger and wiser by the demands, by the rigors of the Democratic-primary process. And that benefit was denied to Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Is that right? Because\u2014I\u2019m not a Democrat; I\u2019m observing from outside\u2014but the Democratic Party seems to be a family that can\u2019t discuss its business in nondestructive ways. And there\u2019s certain families where you say, Maybe family therapy is actually not the right option for you, because you\u2019ll kill each other<\/em>.<\/p>\n So I mean, let\u2019s see how this would work. Supposing President Biden had done the patriotic thing and said after the election of 2022, We\u2019ve had this extraordinary result in 2022, much better than anybody had reason to expect. I take that as my personal vindication. I\u2019m pronouncing myself the winner here, and I\u2019m now going to gracefully exit the stage, and I\u2019m declaring an open primary<\/em>. What would\u2019ve happened? Well, people would\u2019ve said, Oh, you\u2019re betraying the Black woman. Why wasn\u2019t the Black woman you picked good enough? <\/em>While there would be answers to those questions, no Democrat would easily be able to articulate what the reasons were.<\/p>\n And then you turn into a fight of, you know, when Democrats argue, they don\u2019t argue about ideas. They don\u2019t argue about, even, personalities. They argue about categories. You\u2019re a homophobe. You\u2019re anti-Black woman. You\u2019re anti-this. You\u2019re anti-rural, anti<\/em>\u2014and they would\u2019ve just ripped themselves to pieces in a bloodbath, which would\u2019ve left the party in arguably even worse shape in 2024 than it actually was.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure about that. I feel if we had more time for a full primary process, we would\u2019ve had a full process, and we would\u2019ve respected\u2014we have Democratic primaries where you have a variety of people from every background run, and we conduct those primaries constructively. And infighting is not unique to the Democratic Party. There\u2019s no shortage of infighting in the Republican Party. And frankly, I will argue that we manage our infighting more effectively than the Republicans do, just judging by the overwhelming dysfunction of the Republican House. I mean, we did not vacate our speaker. We did not go through 15 rounds of voting\u2014I forget the exact number\u2014the longest vote in 150 years. For all of our infighting, ours is much more manageable than what I\u2019m seeing on the other side of the aisle.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Let me ask you a personal question. You\u2019re too modest to mention this yourself, but you didn\u2019t go to college. And my wife, who also didn\u2019t go to college, likes to work it into the conversation early. (Laughs<\/em>.) But you don\u2019t do that. But does that give you an advantage? Because one of the things I notice about the Democratic world is there\u2019s this jargon of the university that works itself into all kinds of weird\u2014they have conversations. They have conversations in spaces. They speak from positions of privilege. They belong to certain categories. And none of this is the way anyone spoke English 15 years ago, and it\u2019s the first language of the Democratic Party. Have you sort of acquired immunity to that because of your biography?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> You know, it\u2019s just my nature to speak simply to the extent that I can. Like, just say someone\u2019s hungry rather than food insecure, or say someone is, you know, incarcerated rather than justice-involved. I use a language that\u2019s familiar to everyday people rather than a language that originates from the academy.<\/p>\n But I attribute my pragmatism to a lack of a college degree. If I had graduated from college, I probably, ironically, would be more ideological in my politics and, I feel like, actually less in tune with Economics 101.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Alright, well, let me get you back to this question of Economics 101, because housing is the supreme issue in your city, and there are people who believe that if you build more housing, housing will become more available. There are people who think if you build more housing, you simply put money into the hands of people we hate who are criminals and who deserve to be expropriated and run out of town. How do you have a conversation between people who hold those two views?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I mean, I disagree with the second view. For me, it\u2019s not a morality tale; it\u2019s economics. Now, there are certainly unscrupulous landlords who have to be held accountable, but at the core of the affordability crisis is a gap between supply and demand. The demand for affordable housing far exceeds the supply. So we have to build enough housing to meet the demand, and we have to ensure that the housing we build is affordable to the lowest-income families who are often left behind by housing policy in cities like New York. And I\u2019m a proponent of the abundance movement, which, you know, to me is a challenge for the Democratic Party. If Republicans purport to be the party of less government, we as Democrats should not be the party of more government. We should be the party of better, cheaper, and faster government. And we have to learn how to build better, cheaper, and faster, and bigger.<\/p>\n And there needs to be introspection. Why is it that Texas builds more affordable housing than New York? I think Houston builds 20 units per 1,000 residents; Austin, 10 units per 1,000 residents; New York, fewer than four units per 1,000 residents. So cities like Houston and Austin are outbuilding New York by orders of magnitude. Why is it that Texas, rather than New York, has emerged as the solar superpower of America? One of the cruel ironies of our time is that the states\u2014it\u2019s easier to build clean-energy infrastructure in the states that deny climate change than it is in the states that consider it an emergency. So I feel like the abundance movement is a challenge, is an invitation for Democrats to fundamentally reimagine what it means to govern progressively.<\/p>\n And progressive governance should be defined by actual progress. It should be defined not by more spending, but by more supply. What matters in the end is not only more housing spending\u2014I\u2019m in favor of more housing spending\u2014but also expanding the actual supply of housing so that more people have access to homes.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> There\u2019s a classic novel about American urban politics called The Last Hurrah<\/em>. And in The Last Hurrah<\/em>, a young man is being groomed to run for mayor of Boston, and he is given introductions to this aspect of city politics and this aspect of city politics. And then finally, his coaches say to him, Now we come to the most important part: foreign policy<\/em>. And he says, Foreign policy? Well, why do I need any foreign policy to be mayor of Boston?<\/em> They say, Don\u2019t worry. It\u2019s not that difficult. You just need to remember two sentences: \u201cTrieste belongs to Italy, and all Ireland shall be free.\u201d That\u2019s it<\/em>.<\/p>\n And there seems to be something like that going on in New York, where one of the flash points between you and the Democratic Socialists of America is Gaza, which is not one of the five boroughs. And is not only the<\/em> flashpoint, but almost, like Trieste and Ireland, the only one. They\u2019re this world full of complicated, harrowing problems that Americans won\u2019t even read about, let alone develop an opinion about.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s this one flashpoint: Do you ever find there\u2019s something kind of arbitrary and bizarre about the way that foreign policy does and doesn\u2019t touch the politics of New York City?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Yes and no. If you are Dominican, the Dominican Republic is not a foreign country; it\u2019s an important part of who you are, right? If you\u2019re Irish, Ireland is an important part of who you are. And if you\u2019re Jewish\u2014it\u2019s not true of every Jew, but it\u2019s true of many, maybe most\u2014that Israel is an important part of Jewish identity. So we\u2019re a hyphenated country. We\u2019re a country where we love not only America, but we love the country of our ancestors, as well, right? And that\u2019s part of the American story. So in that sense, it makes sense to me. Like, even though Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, I care deeply about Puerto Rico because I am Puerto Rican. It\u2019s the home of my ancestry.<\/p>\n But it is strange. So I\u2019ll give you an example of how it can be strange. In the summer of 2020, the New York City Democratic Socialists of America sent out a questionnaire to city-council candidates, and the questionnaire had a foreign-policy section\u2014never mind that the city council plays no role in setting foreign policy\u2014and the foreign-policy section only had two questions. Question No. 1: Do you pledge never to travel to Israel if elected to the city council? Question No. 2: Do you support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel?<\/p>\n So in the Democratic Socialist worldview, it is morally permissible to travel to China, which has committed genocide against Uyghur Muslims; to travel to Russia, which invaded a sovereign nation-state like Ukraine; to travel to Iran, which is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. But travel to the world\u2019s only Jewish state, that is strictly forbidden. And that, to me, is an example of how anti-Zionism can morph into a form of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> The two-part question is an example that nothing has changed since\u2014I listened to those two questions, and thought, Huh, Trieste, not there anymore.\u200b\u200b What happened to that?<\/em><\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Well, I think we\u2019ve seen a radicalization of progressive politics on the subject of Israel, right? I mean, progressive politics went from embracing a two-state solution to embracing a one-state solution: \u201cFree Palestine, from the river to the sea.\u201d It went from opposing only offensive aid to Israel to now opposing both defensive and offensive aid to Israel, right? It has become heresy to even support Iron Dome, which exists to protect Israeli Jews and Arabs from acts of terror, from relentless rocket fire. And before October 7, a powerful case could be made that Iron Dome was an effective mechanism for deescalating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Do you think the tendency to polarization and radicalism can be undone? If we get favorable social circumstances, like a slowdown in inflation and a pickup in wage growth; if the Trump administration is replaced by something more provocative; if the Democrats do well enough in 2026 that the most-progressive members get isolated, and they have to play nice if they want to be influential instead of being part of a very narrow majority, where they\u2019re needed\u2014can these things be unwound, or do you think there\u2019s something deeper in our society that is pushing politics toward these ever-more-extreme views?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I\u2019m conflicted. I don\u2019t know. Part of me says yes, and part of me says no. Part of me says polarization is inevitable because the perverse incentive structure of our politics rewards polarization. It rewards political theater. It rewards the extremes. You know, if you\u2019re on the extremes, whether you\u2019re the far left or the far right, you\u2019re going to generate far more fundraising online. You\u2019re going to generate more publicity from cable news and talk radio and elsewhere. You\u2019re gonna have a much larger following on social media. The member of Congress to raise the most in the wake of January 6 was Marjorie Taylor Greene after she voted to decertify the election.<\/p>\n And so it does feel like the perverse incentives of our politics are conducive to extremism. And it feels like the social-media algorithm, just by its very nature, amplifies extremism and disinformation and outrage. So that\u2019s where my concern lies.<\/p>\n At the same time, voters can have a moderating effect on political parties, and if we swing the pendulum too far to the left and the voters punish us, we will adjust. When there was a backlash against the \u201cDefund the police,\u201d even the left has largely abandoned it. I mean, Zohran Mamdani ran away from \u201cDefund the police\u201d because he knew it was deeply unpopular among voters. The mismanagement of the migrant crisis, I felt like, had a moderating, humbling effect on the Democratic Party on the issue of border security. So I see arguments in both directions, and I haven\u2019t settled on what I believe.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> You mentioned these incentives, because there\u2019s an incentive that has disappeared. It\u2019s easy\u2014let\u2019s talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene to make this easier to understand by looking at the other party. Thirty, 40, 50 years ago, a character like Marjorie Taylor Greene would\u2019ve won an election to Congress because as Sam Rayburn said, \u201cThe American people will elect anybody to anything once.\u201d So she\u2019s elected to Congress in 1974 or 1984. At that point, somebody important in the party would\u2019ve come to her and said, Look\u2014maybe you\u2019re a genuinely crazy person, and there\u2019s nothing anyone can do for you, but maybe you\u2019d like to go to the Senate. Maybe you\u2019d like to be governor. And if that\u2019s the case, you need to dial back the crazy, because the crazy can get you to the House, like, once, twice. It won\u2019t make you a committee chair in the House, and it certainly won\u2019t let you run for anything else. So if you have political ambition, you want to dial back the crazy if it\u2019s in you to dial back the crazy<\/em>.<\/p>\n And the Marjorie Taylor Greene of a generation ago, or two, would\u2019ve had to think about that, if she were capable of thinking about it. And if she weren\u2019t, the political system would\u2019ve washed her away, as it washes away various kinds of people who genuinely are mentally unbalanced who sometimes show up in Congress. That doesn\u2019t seem to happen anymore, because people in your party and the Republican Party say, You know, I could be governor, but I\u2019d rather have 12 million Instagram followers<\/em>.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I think one of the most corrosive trends in politics has been the celebritization of politics. There are growing numbers of Congress who see Congress not as an institution, but as a stage on which to perform, as a theatrical production. And that\u2019s a dynamic that\u2019s present both on the left and on the right. But the situation is far worse, I believe, on the far right, because the majority of Democrats remain in the center, whereas I feel like the center right has all but collapsed, and the Republican Party has been reduced to nothing more than a cult of personality around Donald Trump. And Donald Trump truly represents the Freudian id of the Republican base. And he has created an atmosphere in which conspiratorial politics can thrive. And you know, we\u2019re seeing it with the\u2014on the campaign trail, he spent much of his time stoking the fires of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy, and now those fires are threatening to devour his own administration. So he\u2019s being hoisted by his own petard.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Yeah. There is something so weird about that story. Like, did the people around Trump who made it the central issue in their politics not understand or know that if you go to the very heart of the labyrinth here, the person you\u2019re going to find is Donald Trump?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Yes. Yes.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> I sometimes wonder whether\u2014well, Donald Trump Jr. was, like, one of the leading voices on this question. I kind of wonder if there\u2019s something oedipal going on, that at some level he knew this is the story, If I am excited about it in \u201921, \u201922, I look like a super-Trump loyalist, but actually, I know at some deep level that I\u2019m destroying my father, whom I hate because he doesn\u2019t respect me<\/em>. Is there something complicated going on there? I wonder.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Look\u2014I have no insight into the psyche of the Trump family, but here\u2019s what I find strange. You know, MAGA is like a religion that sees Donald Trump as the chosen one, right? Donald Trump was chosen to release the Epstein files as a form of revelation and destroy the deep state and drain the swamp<\/em>. But there\u2019s a simple problem with the narrative of Donald Trump as the savior, is: How can you drain the swamp when you are part of the swamp? Like, there is literally no one in Washington, D.C., who has closer and longer ties to Jeffrey Epstein than Donald Trump himself. Even if you ignore The Wall Street Journal<\/em> story, in 2002 in a New York<\/em> magazine profile of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump went on record praising his longstanding, 15-year relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and said that Epstein loves beautiful women as much as he does, and \u201cmany of them are on the younger side.\u201d He literally said this in 2002. And so the facts just flatly contradict the notion of Donald Trump as the great savior against the Epstein-led deep state.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, this is where I\u2019d like to maybe end then, if you\u2019ll allow a personal\u2014if you are willing to undertake a personal note. I haven\u2019t heard you speak about this in the interviews I\u2019ve heard, but I\u2019ve read this in profiles of you, about the formative experience that, for you, that your politics begin with Donald Trump as\u2014I don\u2019t know how young a boy you were when you looked out the window and saw what was going on. Would you talk a little bit about that, your first encounter with Donald Trump and, if you\u2019re willing, how it shaped the beginning of your political career?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> Yeah, so I should explain the importance of public housing, because public housing is the issue that inspired me to run for public office. It\u2019s my raison d\u2019\u00eatre. It\u2019s the issue that matters most to me. So I was born and raised in the Bronx, raised by a single mother, grew up in public housing. And in New York City, we have an institution known as the New York City Housing Authority, NYCHA, which has endured for about 90 years. It\u2019s the largest provider of affordable housing in the nation, houses a population of about a half a million people. And most of those people, including my mother, would be homeless without\u2014I mean, now that I have means, I could protect her. But most people who live in public housing would be homeless without it. And so it is a safety net of deeply affordable housing that prevents homelessness\u2014street homelessness\u2014on a catastrophic scale in New York City.<\/p>\n Despite the importance of public housing, it\u2019s been chronically underfunded at every level of government. So you have children, asthmatic children, who are struggling to breathe in the face of molded and leaking conditions because of government disinvestment. You have children who have been poisoned by lead in their own homes, who have sustained brain damage for the rest of their lives because of government disinvestment. You have senior citizens who are freezing in their homes with their boilers breaking down because of federal disinvestment. You have disabled people who are left stranded in their top-floor apartments with their elevators breaking down because of federal disinvestment.<\/p>\n And I grew up in conditions of mold and mildew leaks, and lead, without heat and hot water in the winter. And so I felt that these conditions that I lived and that I saw represent a humanitarian crisis that was overlooked by government. And then in the mid-2000s, the government\u2014this local government\u2014decided to invest more than $100 million in a golf course that was ultimately named after Donald Trump.<\/p>\n I remember asking myself at the time, What does it say about our society that we\u2019re willing to invest more in a golf course than in the homes of people, of poor people in public housing who are struggling to survive?<\/em> Like, that, to me, represented just a catastrophic misplacement of our priorities. And so that was the formative experience that inspired me to get my start as a housing organizer and then eventually take the leap of faith and run for public office at age 24. And I spent a whole year doing nothing but knocking on doors. I went into people\u2019s homes; I heard their stories. And in a race of about nine candidates, against improbable odds, I won my first campaign on the strength of door-to-door, face-to-face campaigning, and became the youngest elected official in New York City.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Have you ever had a chance to talk to President Trump about his golf course?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I\u2019ve never spoken to Donald Trump in my life\u2014no. And that would not be the first issue I would bring up if I were to speak to him.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> There are a lot of things to talk about. I wonder whether he could even process what you would want to say.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think he cares, and he does not\u2014he doesn\u2019t know, and he doesn\u2019t care to know. And he doesn\u2019t care about\u2014you know, Jacob Riis famously wrote a piece of photojournalism about How the Other Half Lives<\/em>. Most of the elites of our society, including Donald Trump, do not care about how the \u201cother half\u201d lives, have no concept of racially concentrated poverty in a place like the Bronx. It makes me cringe to listen to Republican colleagues and the manner in which\u2014the disdainful manner in which they speak about my constituents. They don\u2019t know my constituents. I had an argument with Scott Jennings because he gives the impression that everyone on Medicaid is an undocumented immigrant or is a lazy 29-year-old, playing video games. And I said, Most of the nonworking population are caregivers and students. And I can assure you these caregivers are working much harder than you are<\/em>.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> So is this a place where the center and the left reverse themselves again? That there\u2019s something intense and personal and unperformative about the way you approach politics?<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> I think the most successful elected officials are going to be those who defy the simple categorization. And I\u2019m just going to do the best that I can do as a public servant and let the rest take care of itself. But I see the sloganeering of the left for what it is, but I also see the shallowness of the establishment for what it is. I\u2019m not going to put myself in the position of defending an establishment that\u2019s genuinely failing communities like mine.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Congressman Torres, thank you so much for your time today.<\/p>\n Torres:<\/strong> It was an honor to be here.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Bye-bye.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Frum: <\/strong>I thank Congressman Torres for joining The David Frum Show<\/em> today. Thank you all for watching. I thank The<\/em> Picton Gazette<\/em>, whose hospitality I am benefiting from as I record this program here, in Picton, Ontario. I hope you\u2019ll subscribe to the program, like it, share it on various platforms. The best way we can bring this kind of content to more people is with the help and assistance of our viewers and listeners. The best way, of course, always, to support the work of this podcast and of me and all my colleagues at The Atlantic<\/em> is to subscribe to The Atlantic<\/em>. I hope you\u2019ll consider doing just that.<\/p>\n Thanks so much for joining today. I\u2019ll see you soon, on the next edition of The David Frum [Show]<\/em>.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> This episode of The David Frum Show<\/em> was produced by Nathaniel Frum and edited by Andrea Valdez. It was engineered by Dave Grein. Our theme is by Andrew M. Edwards. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic<\/em> audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.<\/p>\n I\u2019m David Frum. Thank you for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic\u2019s David Frum opens with a warning about President Donald Trump\u2019s escalating attacks on press freedom. 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