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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Today, we're interviewing the democratic and republican candidates in an important swing congressional district, New York 17, covering all of Rockland and Putnam and parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties north of New York City, of course. The incumbent who was on earlier in the hour is Republican Mike Lawler. Now we have his democratic challenger, former congressman Mondaire Jones, in this district that might be crucial to deciding control of Congress.

Again, part of the context here is that in 2022, the New York suburbs were one of the only areas of the country to experience a meaningful Republican wave that had been predicted to be much more widespread. Again, there's this weird third-party factor in this race that everybody should be aware of. If you're in the district, the Working Families Party has fielded its own candidate who beat Mondaire Jones in that party's primary, but this is not the third party challenge from the left that you'd normally think of when the Working Families Party goes out on its own.

The candidate is widely believed to be a Republican plant just trying to take votes away from Mondaire Jones. In fact, the Working Families Party itself officially believes that and is urging voters not to vote for their candidate so as not to inadvertently help elect the Republican. How weird is that? Mondaire Jones joins us now. Mr. Jones, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mondaire Jones: Thanks for having me, Brian. It's been a while and it's always a pleasure to be on the show because we have really substantive conversations here.

Brian Lehrer: Same first question I asked Mr. Lawler. Why do you think he won in 2022 over the Democrat he unseeded, Sean Patrick Maloney? Why in general do you think the New York City suburbs and excerpts have a lot of exurbs, have a lot of competitive congressional districts this year?

Mondaire Jones: I think Mike Lawler won in 2022 because I wasn't on the ballot in this district and I'm proud to be running yet again to represent a community I always intended to continue representing in Congress, where I was serving the community that raised me quite well. This is a community that elevated me from poverty in the village of Spring Valley all the way to the halls of Congress, where unlike the chaos and the extremism and the incompetence that has come to define Mike Lawler's time in Congress and the MAGA Republican majority in the House, we actually got to work to rescue this economy from the pandemic at the height of COVID-19 and cap the cost of insulin and other prescription drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act. As a freshman member of Congress, I was able to bring hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, housing, and healthcare in this district.

Brian Lehrer: You say Lawler won because you aren't on the ballot. For listeners who don't know the history, the recent history, you were the congressman from the district for one term before redistricting and Lawler's victory over Maloney. You ran that year, not in this district, to try to win the democratic nomination there in the district you represented, you ran that year in a democratic congressional primary in Brooklyn and Manhattan. For people who may be confused, how can you be based in Brooklyn or Manhattan and this district in the Hudson Valley, where do you really live, and what does that really say about your political interests and values?

Mondaire Jones: Yes, well, what it says is that we got screwed over in the redistricting process, which Sean Patrick Maloney has now publicly apologized for profusely. Here's the thing, what voters here in the 17th Congressional District, where I have spent the vast majority of my life and only left for a period of two months as a refugee in that tragic redistricting process in 2022, that the whole nation is now paying the price for it. What people here care about is how you're going to cut their costs. It is extremely expensive to live here in the lower Hudson Valley, and we have been poorly served by the republican majority in the House.

People are wondering here in the lower Hudson Valley, believe it or not, how we're going to secure our southern border and why Republicans like my opponent are actively blocking a bipartisan border security bill as we have this conversation, despite clamoring for tough legislation to secure our border for the past year and a half.

People here in the lower Hudson Valley are wondering why women's reproductive freedom has been taken away while we've got a member of Congress who joins with Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans in blocking the restoration of that fundamental freedom that was taken away overnight. We've got a lot that people here are talking about, but they are not talking about the inter, intraparty shenanigans in 2022 that led to a number of democrats not continuing to serve in Congress from New York.

Brian Lehrer: Let me follow up on a couple of things you just said. You were just talking about your opponent on abortion rights, and he said in our interview that he would not support any restrictions that come to the floor of the house on abortion. He supports it being a state’s issue, which indicates that he supported overturning Roe versus Wade, but he supports this being a state’s issue, not a federal issue. He would not vote for any kind of a ban. Do you think he was lying?

Mondaire Jones: Yes, what you just described were a series of lies by Mike Lawler, who is pretty good at lying, actually, it turns out. I mean that's another reason how he was able to win in 2022, because what we've seen is a bunch of broken promises. Mike Lawler has voted to restrict access to abortion care on at least 10s different occasions in his freshman term in Congress. He cheered the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which means he supports allowing politicians to ban abortion. Even here in our home state of New York. Every time he votes to restrict access to abortion, he carries with him a disdain for the ability of women to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions, and as someone who--

Brian Lehrer: What's an example of a vote? Because he said he's not advocating restrictions in New York at the state level and wouldn't vote for any in Congress, so just be specific in that charge.

Mondaire Jones: Yes, I'll be specific. Since you mentioned the state level when he was in the assembly, he also was an opponent of abortion rights and has a voting record there, too. This is part of the pattern. It didn't just start in the United States Congress. He has voted, for example, against consideration of the Women's Health Protection Act, which would restore the protections that were taken away in Roe v. Wade.

He has voted on another occasion, for example, against reimbursing the abortion care for our military service members. Our military service members. This is healthcare we're talking about that he wants to deny access to. He recently confirmed to the journal news, our flagship publication here in the lower Hudson Valley, that he would like to see nearly no abortions at all in the state of New York.

You don't have to take my word on any of this. You can just read his own words in the journal news and you can look at his voting record. I'll just add. Brian. Brian. I'll just add that given all of these things, why would anyone believe him when he says he would not be a reliable vote for a national abortion ban next year if he were to remain in Congress and Republicans were to take back the White House and flip the Senate?

Brian Lehrer: All right. You also brought up the cost of living as being a primary issue in your district, and you were touting how the Biden administration helped get America out of the pandemic. When Mr. Lawler was on earlier in the show and I asked him about the cost of living, he said, referring to you, “My opponent was part of the effort to increase spending by $5 trillion in two years, which gave us the record inflation. My opponent accuses me of wanting to cut Social Security. That was a lie. Even the Wall Street Journal says that was a lie. The cost of living is astronomically higher because of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Mondaire Jones reckless spending policy.” Your reaction to that? Some economists do say that the amount of money that was spent on some of the post-pandemic programs or during the pandemic programs contributed to inflation.

Mondaire Jones: A few things I want to quickly address his lie about Social Security. Mike Lawler and I were just at a candidate's forum in North Salem, and he acknowledged that he does support raising the age of eligibility for Social Security, which is a cut, as I explained to seniors in the room, to benefits. When you raise the age of eligibility, you deprive people who would otherwise be eligible of their benefits. Let's just put that out there that he is absolutely someone who ssupports cutting Social Security, and on top of that, has voted on at least 19 different occasions and counting to oppose efforts to protect Social Security and Medicare in his time in Congress.

Now, on the issue of inflation, a global issue, the United States of America has weathered the storm of inflation better than any other nation in the world. That is just an objective truth. I was proud to bring money to this district, to places like, for example, the East Ramapo Central School District, where I was able to bring $150 million to public schools.

Why is that significant? Because earlier that year, they were talking about firing 33 teachers and other staff positions. Municipalities, because of the money that I was able to bring, were able to avoid raising taxes for residents of the lower Hudson Valley. Of course, we gave money to people who were trying to figure out how to keep their businesses open through our expansion of the Paycheck Protection Program. Of course, we put money in the pockets of people who are trying to figure out how to continue to put food on the table for their families.

What we have seen is the rate of inflation go back to nearly what it was before the pandemic, but the reason prices are still about 20% higher than they were before the pandemic is because of corporate greed and price gouging, which is why, as someone who served on the antitrust committee, I have been talking about taking on corporate greed for years. It's why I was pleased to see Kamala Harris talk about the need to do that. We've got meat processing companies and oil and gas companies who are charging way more than what inflation would require in this moment.

My opponent is a former oil and gas lobbyist who got elected to Congress and has proceeded to vote like an oil and gas lobbyist. There are real differences between us. I know what it's like to struggle in this broken economy. I grew up in Section 8 housing and on food stamps. I don't take money from corporations. My opponent does the bidding of these companies in Congress.

Brian Lehrer: I focused a lot with Mr. Lawler and challenged him on whether he's really the bipartisan moderate he touts himself to be, based on his support for Trump and other things, largely his support for Trump, despite all the things that Trump does that Liz Cheney and others who see themselves as moderate Republicans find disqualifying. With you, I want you to try to explain some apparent changes in your positions, not just in your address. An article about you on city and state begins with a line, “Elected as a progressive, Mondaire Jones has since refashioned himself as a moderate and alienated many of his supporters.” Have your views changed on anything since you won in 2020 that you would acknowledge off the bat before I ask you about some specific ones?

Mondaire Jones: What you were describing in that article is a classic example of the lazy reporting that has been done on this race. I would challenge somebody to point to a reversal in my position on any number of issues. I will say that with respect to the lie that my opponent is currently airing about me, this idea that I defunded the police, I mean, that's not true. When I was in Congress, I voted for record levels of police funding, Brian. In fact, it's been my opponent, Mike Lawler, who has voted on three different occasions to cut funding for law enforcement. Thank God we've got the receipts for that. We've got police officers on television in our ads speaking to my support for law enforcement.

Another area that I've been consistent on, there's been some reference, again, lazy reporting that, oh, he's pro-Israel. I've been pro-Israel from the first time I ever ran for office in this deep blue district. You got the voting record and all the interviews I did at the time. Mike Lawler himself complimented me in December of 2021 for never being part of the squad in an interview he gave with The Journal News, but I get it. It's silly season, and the polling shows that we are well-positioned to flip this seat and make Hakeem Jeffries speaker of the House. He's manufacturing stories in the 11th hour to suggest that my record is something other than what it has been.

Brian Lehrer: He said in the interview here, talking about you and Kamala Harris, he said, “Well, he was justifying his support for Trump.” He said, “Harris supports defunding the police. She supports cashless bail. She supports Medicare for all. She supports the Green New Deal. She supported open borders. She wanted to decriminalize border crossings, expand the Supreme Court, and she wants to end the filibuster.” A lot of those things Kamala Harris does not say she supports, just to be clear, but he continued, “You know who agrees with all those positions? Mondaire Jones. I'm running against him because he's a radical extremist.”

You talk about lazy reporting. I don't know if you consider The New Yorker to be prone to lazy reporting. A New Yorker article on the local races that you probably saw just recently said, quote, “Amid the pandemic and the George Floyd protests, Jones distinguished himself by endorsing Medicare for all and calls to defund the police. That November, Jones won by nearly 25% of the vote, and because one of the first openly gay black men ever elected to Congress, many of his supporters thought of him as the New York City suburbs contribution to the squad. Jones told me,” the reporter writes, “that any perception of squadness in him was a mistake.” That from The New Yorker. What would you say to our listeners today about those positions that they attributed to you at the time, Medicare for all and cost to defund the police?

Mondaire Jones: Just to be very clear, I was interviewed before I was ever elected to Congress even after I won my primary and made very clear I was not part of the squad. To the extent anyone would suggest otherwise, including my opponent right now after having complimented me publicly in an interview for not being part of the squad, they’re obviously very mistaken.

Number two, I have never changed my position on Medicare for all. I continue to believe that Medicare is a human right, and so, of course, I support Medicare for all. The defund the police comments were made at a very emotional time at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement after I had, along with the rest of society, watched or otherwise read about a number, in fact, dozens of unarmed, typically Black men being killed without justification by law enforcement. Used words that I never used again and that I never actually fulfilled, because when I was in Congress, I voted for record levels of police funding. Those words were ill advised. They were stupid. It was a dumb phrase, but people know that I never voted to cut funding for law enforcement.

Brian Lehrer: To the city and state article that said, you're refashioning yourself as a moderate, alienating some past supporters. Another thing some progressives got turned off by about you is your support in the democratic primary this year in the district just south of yours for Westchester County Executive George Latimer over Congressman Jamaal Bowman. The issue that got the most attention in that race, as you know, was US policy toward the Israel-Hamas war.

I know you said you've long been a supporter of Israel, but in that race, there was the amount of money that AIPAC and its supporters put behind the Latimer campaign. Latimer refused on this show and elsewhere during that campaign to distance himself from Prime Minister Netanyahu's version of what's right in that war. What do you say to Democrats who became alienated from you for endorsing Latimer and might sit this one out?

Mondaire Jones: Well, they don't live in my district. I mean, I think the polling shows us well positioned to flip this seat. I'm really proud to have stood with the Jewish community and to keep standing with the Jewish community against extremism in my own party. Look, I'm someone who cares about the constituents that I have represented and I'm seeking to represent again. What people in Queens and in Brooklyn are writing about because they're upset with the fact that I stood with the Jewish community doesn't concern me, sadly. I mean, I don't know what else to say to these people who want me to do some--.

Brian Lehrer: What the critics on the left say is there's a difference between standing with the Jewish community and standing with Netanyahu as Latimer did. Your response to that?

Mondaire Jones: Yes, that race for me was not about Bibi Netanyahu. It was about a congressman who said that Hamas did not commit sexual assault of Israeli women and who sought the endorsement of the DSA, an organization that amplified a pro-Hamas rally just days after the worst assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. I could go on and on, but I can tell you that majority minority district, which George Latimer won the primary in by nearly 20 points, there was a lot more going on than Bibi Netanyahu.

People were pointing to his opposition to the bipartisan infrastructure law, which I was proud to vote for, among other things. I get that there are people who don't live in these actual communities who have a perception not rooted in reality. I guess iist's incumbent upon me to push back on that whenever it comes up.

Brian Lehrer: One more issue before you go. You did an interview with New York Magazine recently that then led you to apologize to Governor Hochul for something you said. The quote of in New York was, “I want my Democratic governor of New York to be a political animal. I want them to maximize Democratic power. I want my Democratic governor of New York to be Nancy Pelosi, okay? And not some like little,” and you use the b word, “who is afraid to stick his or her neck out.”s Why did you say that? Why did you apologize to Governor Hochul for it? Do you think the governor is now that kind of political animal, trying to maximize Democratic power who you want?

Mondaire Jones: Brian, I wish you had read the sentence right after that where I said I wasn't talking about any specific person. Of course, when I said those words, I said his or her. The governor understands that I wasn't talking about her. She has said that publicly. The apology that you speak of is an apology I made for the distraction of the story, which became this whole anti-Hochul piece in that New Yorker article. I mean, I thought it was supposed to be about--

Brian Lehrer: New York Magazine.

Mondaire Jones: Actually, it was The New Yorker-

Brian Lehrer: Oh, was it?

Mondasire: -when I was first printed, but that's fine. It's okay. Look, I am really excited to be just at the forefront of this effort to stop Donald Trump's dangerous project 2025 agenda next January. The only way we do that is by flipping this district that Biden won by 10 points, where there are 80,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, and where we have a MAGA extremist who is anti-choice and who, every day he gets to Washington, votes against our values. The only way that we make sure Donald Trump can enact his dangerous project 2025 agenda is to flip this seat. It's why I'm so excited about how close we are to doing that. I would hope anyone who's interested in helping me in that effort would go to mondaireforcongress.com and sign up to volunteer.

Brian Lehrer: Final question. Do you have any comment on this Working Families Party candidate? Usually, that party is to the left of the Democrats and only fields their own candidate when they consider the Democrat too centrist. In this case, they think the candidate who won that primary against you is actually a Republican plant whose job is to take votes away from you and help your Republican opponent, Ms. Lawler. The Working Families Party itself is not supporting the candidate on its line. It's supporting you. Are you commenting on, or at least it's not supporting the candidate who's running against you because they don't want to enable Lawler, are you commenting on that situation at all?

Mondaire Jones: Oh, yes. I mean, The New York Times has reported on how Lawler was able to get this guy who is an adjudicated felon on the ballot on the Working Families Party line. It's extraordinary that he is afraid to face me in a head-to-head race, and so as the spoiler candidate, or would be spoiler candidate on the ballot to try to siphon off, just siphon away votes from me, but the good news is every day he--

Brian Lehrer: You mean you want to debate the Working Families Party candidate?

Mondaire Jones: No, I was saying that Lawler doesn't want to face me in a head-to-head race and so he's introducing a third-party candidate on the ballot. I have a debate. We have three televised debates in this race. Tomorrow is the first one. News 12 is going to air it, I think, at 8:30 tomorrow night. I'm really excited about that because there's a lot to talk about in this race and it will be the first of several. I think CBS news is also doing one, and so will PIX11.

Brian Lehrer: Democrat Mondaire Jones running to get back into Congress in New York's newly redrawn 17th Congressional District covering Rockland and Putnam and parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties. We heard earlier in the show from the Republican incumbent, Mike Lawler. Mr. Jones, thanks a lot for coming on. We really appreciate it.

Mondaire Jones: Thank you so much, Brian. It was a pleasure to be here.

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