Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. Our first guest this week is Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, who is in the news for a number of things he's fighting for and a number of things he's been reconsidering. Congressman Torres endorsed Andrew Cuomo and opposed Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic mayoral primary. He hasn't endorsed anyone yet for the general election, even though it's mostly Cuomo versus Mamdani again at this point. A staunch supporter of Israel during the Gaza war and a "unapologetic Zionist", as Politico says he called himself last week. Torres has recently started being more critical. Politico has a story this morning that begins. "Ritchie Torres, one of the Democratic Party's most ardent Zionists, has begun questioning Israel as recent images of starving Palestinian children shock leaders around the world." Last week, the Jewish newspaper The Ford quoted Torres saying Netanyahu is doing "irreparable damage to the US-Israel relationship".

Until recently, Congressman Torres was considering a primary challenge next year to Governor Kathy Hochul, a challenge from the right of her politically, but reporting says he gave up that idea because Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor. We'll get the congressman's own words on that, of course. What hasn't changed is the congressman's outspoken opposition to much of President Trump's domestic agenda, such as the Medicaid cuts in the one big budget and policy bill. The congressman's district is often described as the poorest in the U.S. The 15th congressional district runs from Riverdale in the northwest down through much of the Central and South Bronx. Think either side of the Cross Bronx Expressway from about Boston Road to just before the George Washington Bridge, either side of the Bronx River Parkway in the more northern parts of the district, and on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Cortona Park, Morrisania, Melrose, Pelham Parkway, Claremont Village, Bathgate, East Tremont, and more.

Congressman Torres always great to have you with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Ritchie Torres: Good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start with the mayoral primary? You supported Cuomo in the primary, but I am seeing that you haven't endorsed yet in the general election. Is that correct?

Ritchie Torres: That is correct. First, I think I fully accept the results of the election. Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee. He's likely to be the mayor of New York. We spoke briefly on the phone, and I said to him that I look forward to building a working relationship with him. The mayor needs the New York City congressional delegation. The New York City Congressional delegation needs the mayor. It's in the interest of both sides for the two to coexist and have a working relationship for the good of the city. He's likely to be the mayor, and I look forward to working with him.

Brian Lehrer: Cuomo is still running second and still hopes to defeat Mamdani in the general. Of course, you will want to work as a member of New York City's congressional delegation with whoever the mayor is, but it sounds like you've moved away from preferring Cuomo over Mamdani, or are you just being a realist and not endorsing anybody, and just setting up for whoever wins? Part of that question is, why not keep supporting Cuomo if you think he's better than Mamdani and Mamdani is as objectionable as you used to say?

Ritchie Torres: Look, I have profound differences of opinion with the Democratic nominee, but unlike Republicans, we as Democrats accept the results of the election, and he won, and he won decisively. Now my focus has shifted from campaigning to governing.

Brian Lehrer: Why not go all the way and simply endorse your party's nominee?

Ritchie Torres: I have differences of opinion, and it's worth noting that the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, did not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president because of ideological differences, so there's nothing unprecedented about that. We have differences of opinion, but I'm going to meet with them, we'll have a dialogue, and we'll take it from there.

Brian Lehrer: Mamdani has said don't hold him responsible for every national position that the DSA has taken. Actually don't know if he endorsed Kamala Harris for president personally, do you?

Ritchie Torres: I'm not referencing him. I was referencing the DSA. I don't know what he did in the presidential. I have no comment on it.

Brian Lehrer: This came up in one of the debates. Is it fair to hold Mamdani responsible for everything the national DSA does?

Ritchie Torres: I think my position is I'm going to hold Mamdani responsible for everything he says or does going forward. That's my posture.

Brian Lehrer: I see you've defended Assemblyman Mamdani against some of the attacks on him. Politico had a story called "Mamdani's biggest D.C. defender is Ritchie Torres" that said, "Israel supporting defund the police to crying and Cuomo primary aligning. Representative Ritchie Torres seems to be going out of his way to defend Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mandani." It described a resolution you introduced in the House of Representatives. Would you describe some of that and why you've spoken out in the context of Congress?

Ritchie Torres: Sure, but it's not so much defending him as an individual as it is speaking out against anti-Muslim bigotry. You had the President of the United States, Donald Trump, advocating for his denaturalization and his deportation simply because he's a Muslim American and a Democratic nominee. That, to me, is the kind of bigotry against which every Democrat, every person, including myself, should speak out forcefully and with moral clarity.

Brian Lehrer: Just clarifying on Mamdani and Kamala Harris. He did say that he voted for Kamala Harris last year. One area of disagreement between you and Mamdani is on his past calls to defund the police. He is not calling for that in this campaign, to be very clear, but after the office building mass shooting last week, critics were using those past calls against him. That and other things that he said when he expressed his sympathy and support for the family of slain police officer Didarul Islam. Unfair attacks in that case, in your opinion?

Ritchie Torres: Look, I think we have to allow elected officials the ability to rethink their views in light of new evidence and new information. I give him credit for abandoning his earlier support for defund the police and for recognizing the important role that the police play in the public safety of New York City. I feel like he's evolved in the right direction on that issue, and I give him credit for that, and we've all undergone evolution on various issues.

Brian Lehrer: You give him credit for that because I see you spoke at a vigil for Officer Islam.

Ritchie Torres: Look, I just feel like it's important not to politicize the death of a police officer. There's a time and place for politics, but an officer was fatally shot in midtown Manhattan. He honorably served my district. I don't think this is a time for politics. I think it's a time to remember the life and legacy of a police officer. I just feel like it's tasteless for people to politicize something that is a solemn occasion.

Brian Lehrer: You're addressing that to people who were using the occasion to criticize Mamdani for 5-year-old statements.

Ritchie Torres: I just feel like it is improper to seize on that as an opportunity to score political points. It rubs me the wrong way. It strikes me as inappropriate.

Brian Lehrer: In that context, was it news to you, or do you think it's significant that one of the founding officers of the Bangladeshi American Police Association stood with Mamdani last week, remembering Officer Islam? That was NYPD Lieutenant Commander Shamsul Haque, now retired co-founder of the Bangladeshi American Police Association. He's quoted in City and State saying, "I'm supporting Zohran because I believe that when the police department was set up a very, very long time ago, it was designed in a way to police the system, but they kept doing the same exact thing.

It has not made any significant moves in terms of innovations. I'm not talking about technological innovations. I'm talking about strategic innovations." Quote from Lieutenant Commander Shamsul Haque, co-founder of the Bangladeshi American Police Association. Your reaction to that and the larger critique of the NYPD that is therein?

Ritchie Torres: Look, I want to make just two points. First, I do find it poignant that Officer Islam was a Muslim and an immigrant from Bangladesh who came here in search for a better life and gave up his life for the safety of our city. It's a reminder that at a time when immigrants are facing demonization from the Trump administration, a city like New York and an institution like the NYPD is truly a multiracial, multi-religious, multilingual mosaic. It represents multiracial democracy at its best and reminds us of the invaluable contribution of immigrants.

That's a point worth noting, and I feel like it's poignant. As far as policing, look, what most Americans and what most New Yorkers want is not more policing or less policing, but better policing. More transparent and accountable policing. There is a reasonable balance to be struck between public safety and criminal justice reform. It need not be an either/or proposition. We can have both.

Brian Lehrer: How has Mayor Adams done in that respect, in your opinion? Of course, he ran and got elected in part on that dual history of both being a former police officer and being an activist within the NYPD early in his career against police brutality and other police excess. How do you think Mayor Adams has done now in office?

Ritchie Torres: I give him credit for appointing Jessica Tisch, who is an exceptional public servant and has been a disruptor of the status quo at the NYPD and a reformer of the institution. Before Jessica Tisch, the NYPD was an institution in crisis. I felt like one of the criticisms that I have of Mayor Adams is that at times he has surrounded himself with the wrong people, and his personnel decisions have been his undoing as mayor.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take phone calls for Congressman Ritchie Torres from his district or anywhere else. 212-433-WNYC call or text. 212-433-9692 on some of the things that we've touched on so far, or some of the other things that we're going to. We haven't gotten to the one big insert adjective of your choice here bill from President Trump, including the Medicaid cuts that Congressman Torres has been very outspoken against, or some of the other things. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

By the way, I did say in the intro that you were considering running a primary against Governor Hochul next year, widely described as probably coming at her from her right. I've seen reporting that said that because Mamdani won the Democratic primary, that was the make-or-break factor for you. How would you put it?

Ritchie Torres: I was exploring a run for governor actively from November to about February. Since February, because of everything that's happening in Washington, D.C., my focus has been on federal politics.

Brian Lehrer: I'm not sure I understand that change suddenly after the primary. Is it that you got a sense of where New York Democrats are trending, and you didn't--

Ritchie Torres: I think when I saw Donald Trump pursuing legislation that would cut Medicaid by a trillion dollars, I shifted my focus to federal politics because that was the overwhelming concern.

Brian Lehrer: Would you like to talk about your district in that respect? To some degree, it is described as the poorest congressional district over and over again in news stories. Do you accept that label?

Ritchie Torres: Look, it's true that the Bronx historically has been ground zero for racially concentrated poverty, and it's been said that when America sneezes, the Bronx gets the flu. The Bronx is going to be hit the hardest by Donald Trump's frontal assault on the social safety net, by the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. The Republican Reconciliation Bill is the single worst legislation in the recent history of the United States that represents a profound betrayal of working families.

It's going to cut Medicaid by a trillion dollars, the largest health care cut in history. It's going to cut SNAP by $300 billion, the largest food assistance cut in history. It's going to raise the cost of electricity by an average of 7% for families and 10% for businesses, and it's going to put America at grave risk of a debt spiral. What I find most offensive about the legislation is that Republicans are effectively defunding health care and food, and energy for working families in order to hand massive tax breaks to billionaires.

Here's one example of how offensive the legislation can be. Under the Republican Reconciliation Bill, it is theoretically possible for Donald Trump to purchase a $400 million luxury jet, claim it as a business expense, and then completely write off the cost under an obscure provision known as 100% bonus depreciation. The legislation effectively enables billionaires like Donald Trump to subsidize private jets at the expense of working families and their health care, energy, and food needs, and I find that to be outrageous and offensive.

Brian Lehrer: It almost comes back in a way to your concern about the DSA or Democratic socialism as a movement. Which is a bigger threat to people in your district, Democratic socialism or capitalism the way it's practiced in the United States and intersects with politics?

Ritchie Torres: The single greatest threat to my district is Donald Trump and Donald Trump's assault on Medicaid. 70% of my constituents are enrolled in Medicaid. A third of my constituents are enrolled in SNAP. More than 70% of children, more than 80% of nursing home residents, more than 80% of babies receive Medicaid in my district. There's no question that Donald Trump is the single greatest threat to the people I represent.

Brian Lehrer: I understand your position on that, but I am also curious about your thoughts on the larger systemic context of that. Which is a greater threat to your district or to the country, in your opinion? The extremes of democratic socialism or the extremes of American capitalism? You did cite so much of the benefit as they take Medicaid away from people in your district, going to billionaires.

Ritchie Torres: I support capitalism with a social safety net, with a social contract. I definitely reject communism and socialism, but I also reject unfettered capitalism. You need capitalism combined with a social safety net. Look, the market can solve a whole host of problems. It can provide a whole host of goods and services, but there are critical public needs that the market simply cannot meet. There are market failures. The market cannot provide us with affordable housing on the scale that we need. It cannot provide us with affordable health care on the scale we need. When there are market failures, the burden falls on the government to fill those voids and to provide those critical services.

Brian Lehrer: How do you think the city or the state can or should compensate as much as possible? This is also relevant to the mayoral election and next year's gubernatorial election. How much can the city or state, how much should the city or state, and in what ways, compensate for those Medicaid cuts likely to come and make people in your district lose their health care?

Ritchie Torres: Look, there's only so much the city and the state can do. It feels to me tax increases are inevitable, given the scale of the budget cuts coming from Washington, D.C., but there's no substitute for federal funding. New York State might lose around $15 billion between the SNAP cuts and the Medicaid cuts. Even a state as high-income as New York is going to have trouble filling a $15 billion hole in the state budget.

Brian Lehrer: How much do you support Trump on deportation? Politico had a story about you in January, just after the inauguration of President Trump. Headline, Ritchie Torres Deportation Flip Flop. It says in 2021, you led an effort to eliminate funding for a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, an ICE program that facilitated collaboration between local law and federal authorities. Just four years later, this year, as you were eyeing a run for New York governor, it says his views couldn't be more different.

It quotes you saying, "When I first entered politics, I was on the left on the question of migration." It says now, back in January, you were advocating for undertaking some deportations, saying, "Even though law enforcement should prioritize the most violent criminals for deportation, I will no longer put myself in the position of defending anyone who commits a crime." Have you moved to toward President Trump on this issue?

Ritchie Torres: No. Trump wants to deport every undocumented immigrant. If you're an undocumented immigrant who's a law-abiding part of our society, you should be protected from deportation, but if you're a violent criminal who poses a public safety risk, then obviously you should be treated differently. It should be based on public safety risk, whereas Donald Trump is deporting people regardless a public safety risk.

I voted against the Republican Reconciliation Bill, which effectively codifies a mass deportation industrial complex. Under the legislation, ICE will have a larger budget than the FBI, DEA, and ATF combined, which is outrageous. If ICE were a military, it would have the 16th largest military budget in the world under the so-called big beautiful bill, and that's something that I adamantly oppose.

Brian Lehrer: There are nuances. There are grades of support for the deportation effort that even divide some of the mayoral candidates. Mayor Adams, for example, as I understand it, supports rolling back the city's sanctuary city law to where it was before Mayor de Blasio and City Council at that time strengthened it. Adams says it's okay with him if they come and detain people and deport them, if they're just accused of a crime. They don't have to go through the due process of actually being convicted. Cuomo or Mamdani do not hold that position. Which side of that question are you on?

Ritchie Torres: The problem is not that Donald Trump has too little power. The problem is that he has too much power. I would be against revising any laws that effectively cede more power to Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: On whether, let's say, an undocumented immigrant or even a documented immigrant who is accused of a violent crime, should ICE be able to detain and start deportation proceedings against that person? Or in your opinion, need they wait until that person is actually convicted of a crime? Because, of course, in this country, you're innocent until proven guilty of the actual crime itself.

Ritchie Torres: Everyone is entitled to due process. That's a cornerstone principle of American law.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We're going to take a break and continue with Congressman Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. We haven't gotten into some of his recent statements on the Middle East apparently moving away from at least the Netanyahu administration and the way they're fighting the war in Gaza right now. We'll get into that and take your calls and texts. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres, who's in the news mostly for a number of things that he's been reconsidering recently, being seen as a bellwether for large swaths of the Democratic Party. 212-433-WNYC is our phone number. Let's get into the Mideast section of this with two different callers who I think are on two different sides of some of what's going on there now. We'll start with Lou and Katona. Lou, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Lou: Hi. Thanks for taking my call, and hello, congressman. I'll get to my question in a second. Just want to give you a shout-out. I grew up in Throggs Neck, literally right across the street on Swinton Avenue from where you grew up in the Throggs Neck projects, although I'm a lot older than you. Shout out to Throggs Neck there. Onto my question, which is, I'm a lifelong Democrat. I'm 68 years old. I'm what used to be called a liberal Zionist, although that's become a dirty word in the mouth of progressives now.

I'd like you to explain, as somebody who's both a progressive and pro-Israel and a Democrat, why should I remain in the Democratic Party at this point, given the direction that it seems to be going toward a complete anti-Israel bias? Let me just say one last thing. I'm no fan of Bibi Netanyahu or a lot of what's been going on in Israel, but the drift that I see within the Democratic Party is going to eventually lead to a point where more centrist Democrats like me are not going to see themselves as being people who should be in the Democratic Party, but I'd love to hear what you think about that.

Brian Lehrer: Lou, thank you very much for your call, and stand by because I'm going to take one more caller with a different point of view, and then we'll get Congressman Torres on both of you. Marco in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hello, Marco, thank you for calling in.

Marco: Thank you. Congressman Torres, I appreciate your personal story. It's inspiring. Obviously, what happened on October 7th isn't a tragedy. However, you represent a district that sees itself as the most oppressed. You gave a lot of facts in terms of the need for SNAP, the need for care. When folks see what's happening in Israel, they see their own image of the Bronx is burning. They see Reagan saying, "Hey, drop a bomb on it." They see displacement. In terms of getting your pulse in terms of how folks that live in your district feel, how can you continue to support what's been going on, especially most recently, when you see images of famine?

Brian Lehrer: Marco, thank you very much. I'll ask you some specific questions on this as we go, congressman, but I'll give you an open mic first to respond to both of those callers.

Ritchie Torres: Look, I identify as a liberal Zionist, so I share the ideological identity of the first caller. Just like there is more to America than Donald Trump, there is more to Israel than Bibi Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich. You should never judge any country by its worst demagogues. I feel that the majority of Congressional Democrats remain supportive of the US-Israel relationship, but are critical of Netanyahu and his government.

There's a distinction between a country and the government. If you care about the US-Israel relationship, the reality is there's no such thing as a one-party strategy in a two-party system. The US-Israel relationship will ultimately only succeed and survive on the strength of bipartisan support from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. That's the first question. On the second question, look, for me, it should be possible to hold two thoughts at once.

First, Hamas is the central cause of the war and the untold suffering it has unleashed since October 7th against both Israelis and Palestinians. At the same time, there is a genuine humanitarian crisis in Gaza. All parties, including Israel and the United States, have a moral responsibility to do everything in their power to ease the hunger and hardship that has taken hold among Palestinians in Gaza. I feel it should be possible to hold those two thoughts at the same time. I feel that the war has become or is in danger of becoming a quagmire that has no clear end in sight, that has no clearly defined strategic objectives.

The best path forward is an agreement that secures the release of the hostages and ends the war, and enables Palestinian self-governance in Gaza and Israel to build on the momentum of the Abraham Accords, Israeli-Arab peace. Once we secure the release of the hostages, the question then becomes, what are the remaining strategic objectives, and how long will it take to achieve those objectives? Is it going to take five months? Five years? 15 years?

The United States was in Afghanistan for 20 years. According to one study, we spent $8 trillion on post 9/11 wars, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for what? For nothing. There comes a point at which even the strategic cost of a just war can outweigh any strategic benefit, and I've become concerned. I see the makings of a quagmire. America's experience with Afghanistan and Iraq tells us that wars in the Middle East can easily descend into quagmires.

Brian Lehrer: This is a change for you, though, recently.

Ritchie Torres: Brian, I do respond to new realities on the ground. Obviously, the facts on the ground have changed, and the war has persisted for years. It's bringing untold suffering to both Israelis and Palestinians. It's causing overwhelming war fatigue in Israeli civil society, post-traumatic stress in the Israeli military. The majority of Americans and the majority of Israelis want to see an end to the war. There's been a fundamental change in the facts on the ground.

Brian Lehrer: I could hear the Mamdani supporters out there saying, "See, we told you. Mamdani has been more right than you since October 7th in terms of--" Wait, let me ask the question. What Netanyahu is willing to do to the population, and more pro-Israel democrats like you are catching up to reality. What would you say to them?

Ritchie Torres: That's ridiculous. The far left falsely accuses Israel of genocide and deliberate starvation. The Israeli government effectively set up the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for the purpose of feeding Palestinians. The GHF distributed 85 million meals, which is the exact opposite of a policy of deliberate starvation. The trouble is that the GHF experiment has been a failure, but it's a story of incompetence, not malevolence.

Brian Lehrer: There are people who will debate you on that, but we don't have to go into that. Why do you call yourself an unapologetic Zionist? What does that mean to you?

Ritchie Torres: I just have a basic belief that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state. Throughout history, there's been systematic persecution and oppression against Jews. Millennia of exile, pogroms, inquisitions, ethnic cleansing, genocide, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab world. There's one country that serves as a sanctuary for a historically oppressed population, the Jewish people, and that's Israel. That's a basic mission that I support.

Brian Lehrer: The anti Zionist position that's become more prominent in the last two years is there should be a pluralistic democracy there. Like here, they don't support any ethno nationalist state, and Palestinian Arabs already lived there. How could the Zionist movement move in and take unique political power for the Jewish population specifically? That's why they would say they never supported Zionism in the way that it's been applied.

Ritchie Torres: It's one thing to be anti Zionist before 1948, but Israel has been an established nation-state for more than seven decades. Anti Zionism in 2025 means the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. It means the abolition of a nation-state. If you're singling out Israel for abolition, then yes, I would consider that to be outrageous.

Brian Lehrer: They would say it hasn't worked. Look what has happened to the Arab population over all these years. Since 1948, the idea of a Jewish and democratic Israel has never been able to be realized. What would your response to that be?

Ritchie Torres: We have to ask ourselves, what is the greatest stumbling block to peace? I would submit to you, one of the greatest stumbling blocks to peace is a terrorist organization on Hamas, that not only oppresses its own people, but on October 7th, systematically murdered and maimed and mutilated and raped and tortured, and abducted thousands of Jews and Israelis. That strikes me as a prohibitive stumbling block to peace.

Brian Lehrer: Other people would say yes, that plus--

Ritchie Torres: There are people who actually justify it. There were masses of people who in Times Square were actually celebrating and glorifying October 7th on October 8th, within 24 hours of the terrorist attack.

Brian Lehrer: That's true. That's those people, but a lot of other people who didn't do that would say there are two impediments to peace. One is the rejectionists, like Hama,s among the more extreme of the Palestinian population and another is those who've gained increasing power in Israel, who want the whole West Bank and who don't support a two-state solution from that side anymore, and either engage in or allow violent Israeli settlers to do what they're doing to the population there.

Even going back to the failure of the Oslo Accords in the '90s, many people would say it was a failure from both sides. Hamas never gave the Israelis the chance to support a state that would be safe for Israel because there would always be people wanting to attack it from across the border.

Ritchie Torres: Brian, it's not a--

Brian Lehrer: Wait, I'll just finish the question. They would say from the Israeli side, there were rejectionists who assassinated Rabin, who was trying to make peace, who never wanted the two-state solution from that side, because, for religious or other reasons, they wanted all of it. What do you say to that point of view?

Ritchie Torres: Brian, there was a peace process that was unfolding, and what led to the death of the peace process was the second intifada was a wave of terror attacks, suicide bombings and slashings, and stabbings against more than a thousand Israelis.

Brian Lehrer: First, the negotiations. [crosstalk]

Ritchie Torres: Who walked away from those negotiations? It was Yasser Arafat. He abandoned the negotiations and then unleashed the second intifada, which was a wave of terror attacks that unfolded over the course of five years. Children and civilians murdered over the course of five years. Suicide bombings. That's what killed the peace process.

Brian Lehrer: Do you support a two-state solution today?

Ritchie Torres: I remain supportive of a two-state solution because the ultimate just outcome lies not in the existence of a Jewish state to the exclusion of a Palestinian state, nor is it the existence of a Palestinian state to the exclusion of a Jewish state. The just solution is the coexistence of both a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. I support both.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call. Changing topics again, Greg, on something that has to do with prices in the United States. Greg, you're on WNYC. Greg in Stanford with Congressman Ritchie Torres. Greg, you're still there? I think we lost Greg, but I'm going to ask his question. He's asking about your support for a most-favored-nation drug pricing bill, which Trump says he's in favor of. Would you make it legislation so Trump wouldn't back off? This is about reducing drug prices in the United States to make them match drug prices in other countries, prescription drugs.

Ritchie Torres: I would support any legislation that lowers the cost of pharmaceuticals. It's out of control. Donald Trump is a hypocrite because when Democrats had control of Congress, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which empowered the federal government to negotiate more affordable drug prices. We capped the price of insulin at $35 a month, and Donald Trump has reversed the cap that we put on the price of insulin. As far as I'm concerned, he has no real credibility on the subject.

Brian Lehrer: Another call on another topic. Rachel, who works in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I work in the Bronx, and one day I came up from the 3rd Avenue subway and noticed that the hub was cordoned off and a cleanup was underway. I know, congressman, you had released a report on the effort of cleaning up that area because of the drug use, homelessness, things like that. I was curious what happened to the individuals who frequented the area. I've come to care about a few of them, like this gentleman named Ninja who would always hold the door open for me at the deli. I was wondering, now that it's cleaned up, where were those individuals sent for help, hopefully?

Brian Lehrer: Are you familiar with that? The location she cites, I believe in your district.

Ritchie Torres: In the hub of the South Bronx, there was an open-air drug market in which you would have those struggling with addiction injecting themselves in broad daylight in the presence of children. I felt there was nothing remotely progressive or compassionate about allowing those with serious mental illness and serious addiction to simply languish and die on the streets of New York. That's not compassion. That's cruelty masquerading as compassion. The mayor's office has removed, for now, the open-air drug market, but it's far from mission accomplished because of the point that you made.

Without services to those people in need, we're not actually solving the problem. We're simply relocating it. We're playing a game of whack-a-mole. I met with Samaritan Daytop Village, which is a not-for-profit near the hub. Samaritan shared with me there are about 200 unique individuals who have chemical addiction and mental illness, and the city should have an individualized action plan for each of those 200 individuals. What are their challenges? What are their service needs, and what progress are we making toward meeting those needs and challenges? Without individualized intervention, the city is simply relocating rather than resolving the root cause of the problem.

Brian Lehrer: One more from the District. Izzy in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Congressman Torres. Hello.

Izzy: Hi, good morning. Mr. Torres, a pleasure to speak to you. I'm really satisfied with the job you've been doing for us in Washington, D.C. I had a question about limiting the presidential power by, if ever possible, getting bipartisan support for-- I think it would need an amendment to the Constitution. First of all, I think an important point, and this has been true of both Democratic and Republican presidents to limit the amount of pardons that a president can make during his [unintelligible 00:39:39]. During his time in office, maybe 10 per year or something like that.

As you understand, I think people were very critical of President Biden for using the pardon ability of the president, and certainly, Mr. Trump has been using it too much.

Brian Lehrer: Let me leave it there, Izzy, because we're running out of time, but you get his thrust, congressman. Any way to limit presidential pardon and other powers through acts of Congress?

Ritchie Torres: I would support a constitutional amendment that limits the presidential pardon power. A president should be prohibited from issuing pardons for those who commit insurrection against the United States, as Donald Trump has done in relation to the January 6th insurrectionists. Or a president should be prohibited from issuing pardons for his family members. That strikes me as improper. I would favor a constitutional amendment properly restricting or reining in the abuse of presidential pardon power.

Brian Lehrer: He asked about districting. At least he mentioned that to the screener. I don't know that he got to that part on the air. Do you support the new thrust in Albany to try to make it easier to redistrict between censuses to counter what Texas and other Republican states might be doing?

Ritchie Torres: Look, Republicans in Texas and elsewhere are rigging the Democratic process through mid-decade redistricting. We have no choice but to respond. To do nothing or to do too little would mean unilateral disarmament. It would mean a form of complicity in what is essentially an attack on our democracy. We must use every tool at our disposal to counter the effects of Republican cheating. That's what's happening here. If Republicans were so confident in the success of their governing, then why are they attempting to rig the process? This is not a sign of strength. This is a sign of weakness ahead of the midterm elections.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. This mix of positions that you have on issues that we've talked about today in the context of districting, would it be fair to say they make sense in the context of your district in the Bronx? It is often described as the poorest congressional district in the country, but it also includes Riverdale, one of the most pro-Israel, presumably with a large Jewish population, according to the UJA Federation, as they look at where Jews live in New York City.

You've made being pro-Israel one of your signature issues, as well as fighting for the interests of poor people in federal policy, one of your signature issues. Can we look at your district and say, "Of course, a congressman from that district would come out with that mix."

Ritchie Torres: My district is a tale of two cities. It includes the South Bronx, but it also includes Horace Mann. I speak about the affordability crisis because it matters to me, and it matters to my Latino constituents in the South Bronx and my African American constituents in the Northeast Bronx. I speak about issues like Israel because it matters enormously to my Jewish constituents in Riverdale, and it matters to me personally. I represent the full diversity of my congressional district in the Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Ritchie Torres, we always appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Ritchie Torres: Of course.

 

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.