Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, the new Congress kicks off today and with its newest elected members even before inauguration of the president, which takes place on January 20th. Yes, Congress does start up today and there is day one drama. Will the most conservative Freedom Caucus wing of the Republican Party block the reelection of Mike Johnson as speaker? Will President-Elect Trump's endorsement of Johnson, and he repeated it again this morning, make the difference? Or will the Freedom Caucus be out to establish its dominance even over Trump? Assuming all the Democrats vote for Hakeem Jeffries, Johnson can only lose one Republican, probably only one, and and still get the 218 votes needed to win. There's even a remote scenario, but I stress remote, where if a few Republicans are absent today or just vote present and all the Democrats hang together, Jeffries could win the speakership despite being in the minority party. They have 215 votes. They need 218 or they need a majority of who's present. That's the scenario if a handful of Republicans were to be out today or protest Johnson by only voting present.

As I say, the chance of that is really remote. We'll get a take on what's at stake in these first days of the year from newly reelected Democrat Tom Suozzi from Queens and Long Island. He won in a district that also voted majority for Trump for president in northeast Queens and the northern part of Nassau County. Congressman Suozzi has a New York Times op-ed called Let's Try Something Different in How We Deal with Trump. Congressman, first of all, congratulations on your reelection and welcome back to WNYC.

Tom Suozzi: Hey, it's so great to be with you. Thank you so much for having me on, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: First on the Speaker, let's--

Tom Suozzi We've been doing this for a long time, Brian. You and I have been talking to each other for a long time.

Brian Lehrer: Back from when you were Nassau County Executive when you ran for governor a few times, a few congressional races, in again and out again, and now back in again. Here we still are. First, on the Speaker election today, what time is the vote and do you think Mike Johnson has the votes to prevail today?

Tom Suozzi: Yes, it's at 12 o'clock and who knows what's going on with them? I'm sure he has 216 or 17 votes, but I don't know if he has 218 votes. These guys have self-sabotaged themselves in the past. I wasn't here for the last time when they went through so many rounds with Kevin McCarthy because I had run for governor and I didn't run for reelection and George Santos was in my seat. Now I'm back again and this will be the first time I'm going to see this sort of circus with these votes or maybe they'll pull it off. Maybe they'll do it in the first round.

Brian Lehrer: One of the concerns I've seen expressed is that in order to win the votes of the most right-leaning Republicans, Johnson will have to make some concessions like on what kind of spending he will agree to cut or how bills are brought to the floor. That's a proced procedural thing that has policy implications. Are there any deals that you as a Democrat are fearing the Republicans might make internally that you think would be bad for the country or bad for your district?

Tom Suozzi: I'm most concerned about them making deals about the procedural things. There's a lot of talk about the idea of making this guy Chip Roy the chairman of the Rules Committee and that would just be a debacle. The last time to get a speaker they gave away to the Freedom Caucus a whole bunch of spots on the Rules Committee. One of the reasons that the last Congress was the most ineffective Congress in the modern history-- Harry Truman used to say the do-nothing Congress. The last two years was the do-nothing-ist Congress under the Republican rule where they got nothing done.

It was all because of this narrow margin which they're going to have even a narrower margin this time. This dysfunction where these far right-wing Freedom Caucus radicals, extremists are controlling what gets on the calendar, what doesn't get on the calendar, and it just makes for bad government and he should-- I'm hoping that Johnson will not cave and give away too much to these nuts.

Brian Lehrer: Can you take me one more step into that? What kinds of bills might not even get to the floor for a vote that you think might otherwise get to the floor for a vote if the right wing gets its way on those rules?

Tom Suozzi: A lot of times if it's not passed through the Rules Committee which requires a vote, a majority of the Rules Committee, it has to go on the floor on suspension. If it goes on the floor in suspension, they have to get two-thirds of the votes. In a way, that could bode well for more bipartisan deals where they'll actually have to go to the Democrats and get the votes from us, which would make for compromise which could be a good thing to happen. If you remember, in the last Congress, when I first came back after winning the special election in February, there was a massive bill to fund Ukraine, fund Israel, fund Taiwan, and some other good stuff.

Johnson was afraid to put it on the floor because Marjorie Taylor Greene was threatening that if he put it on the floor, she would vote to remove him or make a motion to remove him as a member of Congress. That type of control from some of the more extreme people in his party stopped him from doing what would have been a very bipartisan, heavily supported bill. As a matter of fact, in the last Congress, one of the first things I did was say that, ''Mr. Speaker, if you put that bill on the floor, it will pass overwhelmingly bipartisan.

If you put it on the floor and they try to kick you out, I'll vote to keep you as the speaker, even though I don't agree with him on most things and I'm certainly not going to vote for him today.'' I thought that is important to get that bill done. It ended up that the bill was put on the floor. It was passed, overwhelmingly bipartisan, and many Democrats, I think maybe even most Democrats, voted to keep him as speaker just because we wanted to show that we were not going to let the nuts control the institution.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting examples. We'll get into your op-ed. Let's Try Something Different in How We Deal With Trump, but set it up for us by saying why you think you won in a district that also voted majority for Donald Trump for president.

Tom Suozzi: Just to put in perspective, Joe Biden had won my district by 10 or 11 points back in 2020. This time Donald Trump won by five and a half points. He won by 19,000 votes, and I ended up winning by about 11,000 votes, which means that considering some people vote for president, not for Congress, that for me to win, at least 20,000 people who voted for Donald Trump also voted for me in my district. I think that's a combination of things. Number one, people know me. I was the mayor of Glen Cove. I was the county executive of Nassau County.

I was a member of Congress. I talk to the people. The people know me, they know that I fight for them. People know me. That's an important factor. Another important factor is that in my campaign for the special election and in other campaigns, even when I ran for governor and got my butt kicked in the Democratic primaries, I stood up to my own party when I thought they were wrong on issues like crime and immigration and the border and said we do have to secure the border. I want to treat people like human beings.

I have a long record of being very pro-immigrant, but we have to secure the border. People like my common sense approach and my willingness to stand up to the extremes in the Republican Party as well as the extremes in my own party, and they know that I'm going to fight for them on issues that they care about. In my district, a very big issue is the state and local tax deduction.

Brian Lehrer: Right. We'll get into that.

Tom Suozzi: I'm a very big environmentalist, a very big issue for the people in my district in northeastern Queens and along the north shore of Long Island. I'm fighting for the people. I'm not getting caught up in some of these cultural debates. I was even endorsed by the police this year. The Nassau County police have not endorsed a Democrat for Congress in a long, long time. When people were saying defund the police, I was saying I'm all for weeding out bad apples and holding bad actors in the police department accountable, but we have to support the cops.

99% of the cops are doing the right thing. Do we want to try and address issues of mental health and drugs and alcohol? 75% of the people in jail have a drug, alcohol, or mental health problem. Yes, we need to address those things. Yes, we need to go after bad actors in the police department, but we have to support the cops because the cops are putting their lives on the line every day. Some days their job is very boring, and other days they don't know what's going to happen when they do a routine traffic stop, if someone's going to shoot them. They're saving lives, they're delivering babies, they're breaking up crime. We have to support the police. I think--

Brian Lehrer: That's some of the reasons why you think you won in a district that also voted for Trump. What do you think changed so many people from Biden 2020 to Trump 2024? I tend to think of the North Shore as more liberal, more Democratic Party than the South Shore. What happened? That's a pretty big swing in votes from 2020 to 2024 that you cited there.

Tom Suozzi: I think it's a national problem. It's consistent with my op-ed piece. I think that the Democratic brand has been tarnished. Certainly In New York State, in New York City, as we saw so many wild swings happening in New York City with previously Democratic areas still Democratic, but not as overwhelmingly as they were in the past. The Democrats have a brand problem that we are not seen as fighting for the people as much as we are fighting for the party. Some of the more extreme positions that most Democrats, even elected officials do not support defund the police.

The protests on the campuses. People now talking about the murder of this guy who's the head of the UnitedHealth. Well, yes, we have to reform the health system. There's no question that it's been abused, and this guy may have been one of the abusers, but you don't kill people for that. I don't think that the people support anarchy, and I don't think that they support some of the leftward drift that some members of the Democratic Party have gone to the extremes and the Republicans have effectively weaponized that issue.

In New York State, it started with the bail reform and the crime issues, and we got beaten up so badly in 2022. Now it's immigration and the border and some of the hangover on the crime stuff, and also some of the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic stuff, which is not the majority of the Democratic Party, any of these issues, but the Republicans have effectively weaponized them against us.

Brian Lehrer: To your op-ed, you write that your party will be tempted to unite against Trump's bills at every turn, block his nominees, and grind the machinery of the House and Senate to a halt, and see themselves as a national resistance movement. If you're calling for something different, is that what you think the party did the first time when Trump was president, act as a resistance, and you think that was wrong?

Tom Suozzi: There are certain things that you have to resist. There's no question about that. In Trump's previous incarnation as president, I certainly resisted when he tried to undo the Affordable Care Act. I resisted when he tried to deport the Dreamers. We have to continue to resist, as I said in the op-ed piece, other things, when he talks about weaponizing the Justice Department or undoing a lot of the stuff related to climate or treating people, immigrants, not like human beings. We have to resist that stuff. We have to also work together wherever possible on the issues people care about.

People want us to secure the border. They want us to fix the broken asylum system. They want us to do something about immigration overall. I'd like to see us be-- I think there's a lot of waste in government. We can't say we're against waste in government. The only people that ever did anything about waste in the federal government were Bill Clinton and Al Gore. They balanced the budget by reinventing government program. We shouldn't be against the idea of trying to make government more efficient, but we have to push back when it goes too extreme.

We shouldn't be against deporting criminals. Everybody should be in favor of deporting criminals, but we don't want to-- I'm pretty certain they're going to screw it up when they do it. If they do, then we have to hold them accountable. If they go busting down doors of people's homes where a undocumented criminal used to live there, and they're going and they bust down the door of the new residents who live there and the kids are terrorized, you got to hold them accountable for that. We should be working every way we can to deport criminals.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your calls and texts from Tom Suozzi's district in Queens and Nassau County or anywhere else. Do you have questions or do you want to agree or disagree with him on trying something new as Democrats in Congress and dealing with Trump, as he calls it, or his take on how his party has moved too far to the left on some things? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text for Congressman Tom Suozzi today. To follow up on a couple of things you mentioned there along the way, when you say maybe not be so invested in some of the cultural issues.

There are cultural issues where a lot of listeners to this show in the New York area and elsewhere would say you have to take a moral stand on cultural issues. You'll tell me what cultural issues you were referring to. You talked about supporting the campus protests. People have a right to protest, and people have different views as to whether what Israel has been doing in Gaza in response to October 7th crosses a moral line. What aspects of those things do you think your party has moved too far to the left on, or the way you put it made it sound like you should withdraw from those arenas altogether?

Tom Suozzi: If I sounded that way, I didn't certainly mean that. I certainly believe we have to take a moral stance on things. I have a history of taking a moral stance on many issues and will continue to do so. I wasn't suggesting that whatsoever, but I think that the Republicans have effectively weaponized these issues. When they say defund the police, we have to push back. When they spend $200 million, the most run campaign in the entire campaign was about transgender issues. I have a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign and I support LGBT rights and always have.

When they spend $200 million trying to portray us as being for they/them and not for the people, we have to be able to speak back and discuss these difficult issues in ways that respect the populace that's out there. I've said before that I'm concerned about transgender women competing in women's sports, in competitive sports. That's a real concern. We have to be willing to talk about those issues. When the Republicans try to weaponize these issues, we have to be willing to talk back.

Not because they are difficult issues, but a lot of times people won't say something because they're afraid of upsetting our base. In doing so, we turn over the debate to the Republicans to portray us as extremists, and we're not.

Brian Lehrer: Since you mentioned specifically trans athletes in women's sports, one of the things that Harris campaign got criticized for was not responding to those ads that were so ubiquitous.

Tom Suozzi: That's the problem.

Brian Lehrer: How would you have responded?

Tom Suozzi: The first thing is that I think we first have to talk about why didn't they respond and why don't we respond often enough on a lot of issues, including the transgender issue, including defund the police, including other things where they try to portray us as being out of touch with the general populace? The reason that happens, and it happens on the Republican side, too, they don't respond with the-- 90% of Americans are in favor of background checks on guns, but they never talk about background checks on guns.

70% of people are in favor of red flag laws related to guns, and they never talk about that stuff. Everybody's afraid of their base. That's the problem in politics these days, is that everybody's afraid because most of the seats in Congress, for example, are safe seats you can't lose. Republicans going to win the Republican seat, Democrats going to win the Democratic seat. That's 90% of the seats. Obviously, my seat's not that way. As a result, you're not worried about what the people are saying. You're only worried about who the people who vote in the primary say because that's the only people that can beat you in these safe seats.

You're pandering to your base and you're afraid to alienate your base. You won't talk about tough issues. When you ask what would my response have been of the Harris campaign, I haven't really crafted it perfectly the way you would do in a presidential campaign, but I'd say something. Well, yes, I do support transgender Americans, and I do support their rights, but I am concerned about transgender women competing in women's competitive sports. I think that most Americans would agree with that.

Brian Lehrer: Meaning a blanket ban?

Tom Suozzi: Let's talk it out.

Brian Lehrer: Is that your position?

Tom Suozzi: Let's have a civil debate about it and talk about-- I think it's a very tough, confusing issue for people. I think that we have to be willing to talk about it and not be afraid that just because we're bringing it up, we're going to get canceled and people are going to go after us for even bringing up the issue.

Brian Lehrer: 212-433-WNYC for Tom Suozzi. Just one more follow-up on that one, and then we're going to move on to other things. Do you take the position-- because I know you've gotten criticized by LGBTQ advocates for saying things like you just said. Maybe you've gone further before and said no trans women in women's sports. I don't want to misquote you, but that's the impression that I got of your position.

Tom Suozzi: What I originally was talking about it, I said something like boys shouldn't be playing in girls' sports or something like that.

Brian Lehrer: Right.

Tom Suozzi: I've had a lot of conversations with my friends in the LGBT community who've helped me with some of the language. I think the more appropriate language is transgender women competing in competitive women sports. These are very rare instances. This is not affecting most people's lives on a regular basis, but when Donald Trump is getting up there in all of his rallies and saying your little boy is going to school and he's coming home a girl, and there's no control, and there's $200 million worth of commercials trying to portray you as out of touch with reality and the American people, we have to be willing to respond.

We have to be willing to talk about these issues, difficult issues to discuss, and not be intimidated that by having a conversation and by trying to seek the truth, trying to seek the right answer to these difficult questions, we're going to be excoriated for that. Like I said, I have a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign. The bottom line is the question comes down to who's fighting for me? Who's looking out for my interests? That's the American people's interest, who's going to push for me?

If you're remaining silent while you're being barraged with these commercials and not even responding, they're going to assume the worst and they're going to assume that you're not fighting for the people. You're not fighting for them. We have to do that.

Brian Lehrer: We have a caller on this general topic from the district, I think, or near the district. Scott in Huntington, you're on WNYC with Congressman Tom Suozzi. Hello.

Scott: Hi. Thank you. Hi, Congressman Suozzi, I am in your district now that we've been redistricted and I put a sign up on my lawn. Congratulations on the win.

Tom Suozzi: Thank you, Scott.

Scott: Yes, absolutely. I will say I do a lot of work with Long Island United, and I've been close to the trans issues and I guess I'm just curious. I know that it's important to obviously keep the voice of your constituents in mind and the voice of the American people, but where and when do you draw the line on-- populism probably the biggest issue with populism is that people who aren't in the popular majority are left out. I'm curious when and where and how you're going to make the decisions as to where to draw the line on some of these issues, particularly when certain populations of people are being weaponized in that way because we all know the trans issue is a non-issue in terms of athletics.

If we never addressed it, it would have kept going as it had and nothing would have changed. Trans women would have played in women's sports, et cetera. Where and when do you plan to draw that line in this next administration, which is going to be coming after a lot of these people pretty aggressively?

Tom Suozzi: Thank you, Scott. Thanks for putting my sign up on your property. The bottom line is I've got a record. I've been in politics for 30 years. I have a 100% rating from the Human Rights campaign. When the issue of same-sex marriage came up years and years ago, in 2009, I wrote an op-ed piece in favor of same-sex marriage when very few politicians were coming public. I've got a record of fighting for people in the LGBT community and I will continue to do so, but if we are going to be caricatured by our opponents again, why would Donald Trump have spent more money on that one ad or ads related to transgender, $200 million, and we never even responded?

That's out of touch with the people. We have to be willing to speak about these difficult issues without being afraid that we're going to get beaten up for just even talking about it. Listen, I've got a lot of friendships after this campaign and I was talking about transgender issue. I had an hour or two-hour training for me and for my staff on appropriate language to use regarding the LGBT community. I'm going to always fight for my constituents, especially those marginalized communities that you're talking about. I'm always going to fight for the people that I represent, all different people.

At the same time, we've got to be willing to talk about some of these tough issues without being afraid. John F. Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles of Courage after about 175 years in American history, and there were only eight people in that book. A lot of times in politics, the reason that we end up with so much--

Brian Lehrer: They were mostly about talking back to people's own parties. Right?

Tom Suozzi: Right. The reason we end up with so much bad stuff in politics is because people don't have the courage to just talk about what the people are talking about, what the people want. I'm talking about the general populist group that you're talking about, Scott. You've got to be able to represent their views and have the courage to speak about the issues that they care about without being afraid of how your own party or your base of your party is going to respond.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Congressman Tom Suozzi and his New York Times op-ed Let's Try Something Different in How We Deal with Trump. We'll get into developments on the so-called SALT tax cap, big issue in these parts, as many of you know. We'll get into something from his op-ed that seems like he's got an idea for climate and energy compromises in the new Congress and the new administration and more of your calls and texts. Stay with us.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Congressman Tom Suozzi, who just won reelection in his northeast Queens and northern Nassau County. I guess we got that call from Huntington. It goes a little bit into Suffolk County on the North Shore as well, even though it was a district that Donald Trump also won in for the presidential election, and he's got a New York Times op-ed called Let's Try Something Different in How We Deal With Trump. Congressman, I just feel like I need to acknowledge that we're getting many texts not satisfied with your answer on trans athletes and women's sports.

People want you to get more specific and say if you're defending trans people generally, but you agree that we need to talk about this issue that Republicans are raising, what is your actual position on that? One listener writes, ''Gay people are not trans people. Stand up for trans people instead of hiding behind support for an entirely different group. Questioning the validity of trans women in one arena only fuels questioning them in other spaces. If you give a mouse a cookie but for bigots,'' writes that listener.

That's emblematic of a whole thread of texts that are coming in. What would your position be on that? I don't think you answered the question about if you engage in that conversation more than the Harris campaign did, what would your position be?

Tom Suozzi: I certainly did answer the question earlier. I said I'm concerned. I don't think that transgender women should be playing in competitive women's sports.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, period. That's a blanket ban.

Tom Suozzi: I've said that before.

Brian Lehrer: Okay.

Tom Suozzi: I think that we should be having more conversation. There's a lot of experts. I've talked to a lot of experts in this area, in sports, in physical education, high school teachers. There used to be a protocol in place in New York State and elsewhere where it would be left up to the phys ed departments in individual districts based upon the children's abilities and based upon their strength and there would be committees that would actually work on this stuff, but this is not a new phenomenon.

Brian Lehrer: Why not allow that nuance to continue to be studied case by case, district by district?

Tom Suozzi: I think it should be. I absolutely think it should be, especially for young children, but it's different when you get up into the competitive sports level. You get up into college athletes and the NCAA and the Olympics and things like that. We should be relying on those experts as well, quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Because some of the leagues don't take the blanket ban position that you do. Like the LPGA just passed rules allowing participation by trans golfers if they've had hormone replacement by a certain time. That's controversial in the trans community, too, but it isn't no under any circumstances. It's no under these circumstances, according to them, that would keep competition on a level playing field, but still respect people's gender identities. Other leagues have other tests.

Tom Suozzi: I think that this is really an important conversation to have, but I think that this conversation right now is emblematic of what's going on. The concerns of the American people are about the economy and about the border and about public safety and about kitchen table issues, and we're getting wrapped around the axle mainly from people within my own party that say Tom Suozzi is not doing enough on this issue, where I have 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, have been involved in politics for 30 years and have continuously, historically, always, and will in the future continue to defend the LGBT community.

I think that's the problem is that because I'm even seeming to talk about this issue, I'm even opening my mouth on this issue. That's what you're getting all your text about.

Brian Lehrer: People are criticizing your position, and so you're having the conversation. Patrick in Yorkville, you're on WNYC with Congressman Tom Suozzi.Hello.

Patrick: Hi, Congressman Suozzi, congratulations on the reelection. I'm just curious where you're getting your figures from regarding the loss by Democrats. You really want to respond to the hateful rhetoric. You're willing to respond to the rhetoric around trans people and want to have courageous conversations, but you're ignoring the fact that the voters are turned off by the rightward shift. It was a turnout issue why Democrats lost. The trust in institutions is at an all-time low. Defund the police means exactly that.

Defunding the police because we're spending more money to chase after CEOs or fare beaters than landlords and CEOs. That's the courageous conversation. I'm wondering why you're not having that.

Tom Suozzi: I'm not sure what the question is exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Let me frame. Yes, I think he went a few different directions there, but the first part of the question was about a drop in turnout. We're going to talk about this later in the show in the context of New Jersey too. Trump came closer in New Jersey this year than he did in 2020, but he didn't get any more votes. It was just a loss of Democratic turnout for Harris compared to for Biden four years ago in 2020. Is that what happened in your district too, to flip it from Biden to Trump?

Tom Suozzi: No, I think that a lot of people who voted Democratic in the past voted Republican this time in my district. My district is an interesting district. It's a higher-income district compared to a lot of the country. It's over 20% Asian and South Asian, Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, very traditional people that small business historically have voted Democratic because the Republicans were perceived as being just very racist, but they didn't like some of the issues that I've been talking about here and they didn't feel that we were fighting for them on the issues of the economy and taxes and immigration.

I have the fourth-largest Jewish population in the country in my district. People that have historically always voted Democratic were concerned that the Democrats were not looking out for them as much as they had historically in the past. Now, this is still majority of Jewish voters in my district voted Democratic, large majority, but not to the same extent. The same as you saw Black and Latino voters throughout the country shift towards the Republicans. It wasn't just a low turnout. I think I read something just this morning about 18% shift of Latino men that went from Democratic to Republican, 9% percent of Latino women.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Tom Suozzi: Similar numbers not as big with African Americans. Other voters that are Democrats that have voted Democratic historically just concerned about the border in all these different group. Just concerned that we were not paying attention to the border. I've been working on trying to build a bipartisan compromise so we could secure the border, fix the asylum system, and treat people like human beings so that dreamers could have a pathway to legalization and TPS recipients could have a pathway to legalization and that we could do something about the farm workers so that they could have a path to legalization.

We have so many bipartisan efforts that have been made over the years, but we didn't build the coalition of business and law enforcement and people that believe in human rights to work together to make sure that we can actually build a bipartisan compromise on the issue of immigration.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you a climate and energy question. You write in your op-ed quote, ''Democrats cannot abandon our zeal to combat climate change. At the same time, let's balance our commitment to environmental protection with pragmatic measures that safeguard affordable utility bills and manageable costs at the pump.'' How do you do that? What does that compromise look like specifically? For example, that doesn't actually sell out climate change prevention?

Tom Suozzi: Let me just first say that I was the New York League of Conservation Voters Environmentalist of the Year for all of New York State at one point. I'm always endorsed by all the different environmental groups. The Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters and Citizens Campaign for the Environment have given me awards in the past. I have a very long and deep record on the environment. I supported the Green New Deal and I supported efforts to make the largest investment in the history of the world under President Biden to address climate change as part of the IRA, to promote green energy, and moving into the green energy industry.

One of the things we need to do is protect the investments that have been earmarked under the Inflation Reduction Act. Really bad name for that bill, but that had so many investments in green energy. We need to protect those investments. I don't like the idea that Trump is saying he wants to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreements again. What do we need to do? We need to make sure that we use the clean energy supply from America instead of having other countries in the world without the same protections supplying energy. We should be utilizing the clean energy. I'm talking about with natural gas. We should be using it from America as opposed to other places in the world. We should be promoting--

Brian Lehrer: Wait, are you calling? I can hear again, ears perking up out there. Are you calling natural gas clean energy?

Tom Suozzi: The natural gas is cleaner than coal. Natural gas is cleaner than oil. Natural gas is cleaner than heating oil. It's not as clean as obviously solar and wind and nuclear. We should be doing everything that we can to make the transition to non-fossil fuel energy. We can't do it where we're just going to spend ourselves into oblivion so that everybody's utility rates go up and everybody's gas prices go up. We have to do it in a way that it's balanced over a period of time where we get investments from the federal government to help the state government and local governments to make these investments.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing and then we're out of time. The SALT tax cap, big issue all over the New York and other major city suburbs. Trump 1 limited the state and local tax deduction on your federal income tax to $10,000 when we know property taxes and other local taxes way exceed that for many people, many families. Trump ran this time promising to revisit the SALT tax cap issue, but now, from what I read, he may only raise the cap a little bit, not abolish it. Where are you on this and where do you think he is?

Tom Suozzi: We have to restore the state and local tax deduction. Trump is the one who got rid of it, along with the Republicans, capped it at $10,000, as you said. Then he said during the campaign he wanted to restore the state and local tax deduction. Now they're talking about just fixing the marriage penalty so that a husband and wife could deduct $20,000. That's absurd. This was a body blow done directly to hurt New Yorkers and to hurt other Democratic states.

When Trump was confronted with that and said this is going to hurt what was then your home state, this is going to hurt your home state of New York, Mr. President, he said, ''I don't care. They didn't vote for me anyway.'' This is a body blow. What we have to do is build a coalition nationally, Democrats and a few Republicans in Congress, as well as governors and mayors and county executives and local leaders and school teachers and firefighters and other folks that realize how important the state and local tax deduction is.

When we first created this, the federal income tax code, governors and mayors complained and said, ''We don't want a federal tax because if we do that, we can't raise taxes at the local level,'' and they said, ''No, don't worry about that. We're going to do a state and local tax deduction so you won't be taxed on the taxes you've already paid.'' That was in place for 100 years, then the Republicans capped it at $10,000. We need to restore the state and local tax deduction. We need to hold Trump accountable for his campaign pledge, and we need to hold those Republicans for their campaign pledges where they said they would restore the state and local tax deduction.

It's a body blow to New York State. It's one of the reasons so many of our friends are moving to Florida and to North Carolina and to South Carolina and to no income tax states like Tennessee and places like that. We've got to get our state and local tax deduction back. It's unfair to us. We have high taxes in New York State. Why? Because we have the lowest rate of uninsured people in the country. Texas and Florida have the highest rates of uninsured children and families in America. We have unions. Union families can make $200,000 between a husband and wife, even more than $250,000.

In the rest of the country, if you're in Oklahoma, you're rich if you're making $250,000. If you're living on Long Island or in New York City and you're making $250,000, you're doing okay, but you're not rich. If you're making $250,000 in North Dakota or in Iowa, you belong to the country club and you've got an in-home movie theater, but not if you're in New York. We have union families that are being killed by this cap on the state and local tax deduction because of the property taxes and income taxes that they're paying.

We have to fight for those families. We have to fight for the people. Everything we talked about today, we got to listen to the people and we have to fight for what the people want us to be fighting for.

Brian Lehrer: We will leave it there for today and continue to invite Tom Suozzi in addition to all the members of our local congressional delegation and some from around the country. Congressman Suozzi, thank you very much for today. Happy New Year to you.

Tom Suozzi: Thank you, Brian.