Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Congressman Jim Himes is with us to talk primarily about this first week with Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House and his positions on the Israel-Hamas war, including anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and domestic terror threats here in the US. On that last point, Congressman Himes is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, so he's in a relevant position to react to FBI Director Chris Wray warning now of a heightened possibility of Hamas-inspired terror attacks in this country.

Congressman Himes' other main committee is financial services, so maybe he has a reaction to the Fed holding interest rates steady yesterday or the strong economic growth numbers. We're still hooking up our line with the congressman. Let me play this clip of FBI Director Chris Wray. He said in Senate testimony yesterday that they have no evidence of an imminent threat from a foreign-based terrorist group. As NPR quotes him, he noted that since Hamas' attack on Israel, Al-Qaeda has issued its most specific call for violence against the US in years while the Islamic State has urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe. Here's that clip of FBI Director Chris Wray.

FBI Director Chris Wray: The reality is that the terrorism threat has been elevated throughout 2023, but the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole another level. Since the horrific terrorist attacks committed by Hamas against innocent people in Israel a few weeks ago, we've been working around the clock to support our partners there and to protect Americans here at home. We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration, the likes of which we haven't seen since ISIS launched its so-called "caliphate" several years ago.

Brian Lehrer: FBI Director Chris Wray testifying before the Senate. Congressman Himes is here now. Congressman, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Jim Himes: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You heard the clip. You are the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. How concerned are you and what actions is the government taking or should it take?

Congressman Himes: Well, one is always concerned about the threats of terrorism and the director is exactly right. I would tell you right now, it's more of a potential thing than a real thing. What I mean by that is were this conflict to escalate, were Hezbollah to get involved, were Iran to really ratchet up its efforts, one of those efforts might be both to encourage terrorism and that coming from the IRGC, for example, is considerably more frightening than that just coming from some cleric or minor sheikh.

It might even choose to activate terrorist cells, which it has around the world. Now, we don't believe that that has happened in a meaningful way yet, but it is one of the things that I'm sure the President is considering as the President continues to work to try to keep this conflict from escalating into full-throated involvement of Iran, Hezbollah, and other actors in the region.

Brian Lehrer: At least part of that, as described there by the FBI director, is beyond political into anti-Semitic if Al-Qaeda, as he says, is calling for attacks against Jews per se. Many Jews do, but many Jews do not support the way Israel is waging this war or the occupation before October 7th, but Al-Qaeda and ISIS apparently make no distinction. Any thoughts on that? I see you reacted this week to swastikas being drawn at high school in your district in Stanford.

Congressman Himes: Yes. Well, Brian, it should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody that Hamas and Al-Qaeda and ISIS and Hezbollah are deeply, deeply anti-Semitic. The Hamas charter cites the stones in the trees when a Jew hides behind them say, "Come here and kill the Jew hiding behind me." That should come as no surprise. What is a little more surprising, at least to me, is the staggering amount of anti-Semitism that we're seeing here domestically. Look, to put it in the terms you just put it in, it is completely inbounds to be critical of the State of Israel.

It's completely inbounds to be critical of the way Israel is conducting, in my mind, the attack designed to eradicate an entity which killed 1,400 of its people. That's okay. What's not okay is to be calling for violence against Jews or to be suggesting that the State of Israel's actions are somehow inherently linked to the Jewish people. I really do think it's important, and too few people are doing this, is to keep a really bright line between legitimate criticism of Israel, which is as legitimate as criticizing the United States or Russia or Ukraine or anybody else, and never allowing that to blend into anti-Semitism.

Brian Lehrer: At the beginning of the clip we played, I don't know if your line was connected yet, the FBI director said, "We've already been in a heightened terrorist threat state throughout 2023." Was most of that domestic right-wing terror?

Congressman Himes: Domestic right-wing extremists have been a very real concern for the last five, six, seven years. The rise of that terrorism has been shocking. In fact, over some recent period of time, most of the violence committed in this country has not been radical Muslim extremists. It's been right-wing, white nationalist activities.

Thank God, the numbers have not been high relative, obviously, to what we experienced on 9/11, but yes. To this day, we don't believe that Al-Qaeda or ISIS or other groups are capable of organizing a large-scale attack against the United States. Obviously, the situation in the Middle East bears watching very closely because they may decide to push the buttons, which would encourage or enable more of that violence.

Brian Lehrer: I also want to acknowledge on the anti-Semitism piece from Director Wray's testimony that he said, "When you look at a group that makes up 2.4% roughly of the American population, only about 2%, it should be jarring to everyone that the same population accounts for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes, and so they need our help," said the FBI director.

Congressman Himes: It's been personally deeply, deeply discouraging to me to see the speed and intensity with which clearly anti-Semitic behavior emerged, catalyzed, I suppose, by October 7th and the Israeli reaction to that, but I would have hoped that after the many millennia of history of pogroms and the Holocaust, et cetera, that most people would understand how that's very clearly a no-go zone, but it's not.

We see this in demonstrations again. Let me be clear here. It is okay to demonstrate against the activities of the State of Israel. It is not okay to call for violence against Jews, to call for the eradication of the State of Israel, which is clearly an anti-Semitic thing. It's not just in demonstrations, Brian. It's in elite universities. My own Harvard College has seen horrible examples of students and professors articulating explicit anti-Semitism. It's challenging, right?

We get into this conversation about freedom of expression in academia. The First Amendment issues aren't challenging here. In this country, the First Amendment guarantees the right of people to say things they want no matter how disgusting. How a university, how a private corporation handles an employee or a student or a professor who puts forward blatantly and explicit anti-Semitic thing, ideas, and rhetoric, that's roiling us right now.

Brian Lehrer: At the same time, what about the intimidation and potential terror-inspiring tactics of some conservatives toward people who are outspoken against the actions of the Israeli government? Do you know about the doxing trucks being sent by a conservative group to your Harvard College and others? They reportedly plan to do so outside some students' homes, I read, showing names and faces, which they're already doing, of selected students. I guess if they're outside their homes, they're showing where they live, students who have spoken stridently against Israel. In this environment, that's baiting people to attack specific individuals, no, and deserves to be denounced just as strongly.

Congressman Himes: I don't know if just as strongly. Brian, you're getting me out of my role here as a policymaker. We always say that you have the right to express yourself, full stop. You don't have a right to not be held accountable or to face the consequences of those statements. Now, I personally find the doxing-- my Harvard classmate, Bill Ackman, initially said, "Let's get a list of names of every student that made anti-Semitic comments."

I'm uncomfortable with that frankly for the reason that-- there was a wonderful essay that argued-- look, college students are, by definition-- By the way, I include myself in this category when I was a college student or, by definition, likely to say dumb things. There needs to be some room there. I would draw a distinction frankly between the Harvard semiotic student and the president of Harvard University.

I think those are people who are considered in different lights. Look, I'm personally uncomfortable with the doxing of people, with the identification of people on social media. I don't think that that really helps advance what I would hope would be a much more constructive conversation on how anti-Semitism is pernicious. On the other hand, in my other ear, I have a voice whispering. You have the right to say what you want. You do not have the right to expect that what you say will be completely without consequences.

Brian Lehrer: Well, when you say "completely without consequences," you seem a little wishy-washy maybe on doxing, which, one could argue, puts a target on the back, on the face in this case, of students who say things that that group doesn't like.

Congressman Himes: Yes, look, and don't misunderstand me, I am frankly, as you can tell, uncertain about exactly what the right answer is with doxing. When it comes to, you said, putting a target on the back of somebody, let's be super clear here. Violence in any form targeted against anybody is unacceptable, full stop. By the way, that's not a premise that is accepted by some of the people out there conducting Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Let's say it again. Violence against anybody is not tolerable.

Again, you'll remember, Brian, the ACLU defended the Nazi's right to march in Skokie, Illinois, a Jewish neighborhood. That is the kind of thing that turns your stomach, that creates volatility and heat in the body politic, but the ACLU, because at least they used to stand for absolute freedom of expression, defended that. I do think that we need to be careful of going down the path of encouraging citizens not to express themselves. Because if you express yourself, thus, there will be a risk of violence. We need to move away from whatever horrid instinct creates that risk of violence.

Brian Lehrer: About the Mideast itself, the UN and much of the world are debating whether Israel should call a pause or a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes because thousands of civilians are being killed. Nobody disputes that it's thousands even if the exact number is unknown, including the civilians at the Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza's largest. You've heard about this, I'm sure, the last two days. Israel was going after Hamas leaders in tunnels, but where's the moral line for you and do you support a ceasefire or a pause?

Congressman Himes: Yes, let's set aside the UN. I'm not sure they're the best arbiter of these questions. I will observe to you that both publicly and privately, the entire top of the United States government from the President down to the National Security Advisor to the Secretary of State has spent the last several weeks urging and imploring the Israelis to not act out of retribution, to not act out of emotional rage, which any of us would feel had we've been subjected to what the Israelis were subjected, and to explicitly observe the laws of armed conflict and to take into account the humanitarian situation.

I think it's fair to say that the United States government has daily implored the Israelis in a very emotional moment to be thoughtful about this. I do not support a ceasefire. I do not support a ceasefire because we can't look at ourselves as moral beings and say that Hamas should escape justice for the appalling crimes, the terrorism, the events that almost matched the scale, at least on one day, of the Holocaust that they should escape justice.

Nobody has explained to me how a ceasefire would comply with the moral necessity that they face justice. That doesn't mean that the humanitarian issues aren't important. My own view, and I've expressed this to Israeli generals, to the Israeli ambassador, and to others, is that the Israelis should not think about this as a task that must be accomplished in a very short period of time because that way lies humanitarian disaster.

They should think about this as a project that they can accomplish over many years of eradicating this brutal terrorist threat to their existence, and I have urged the Israelis in as much as they care what I think to not forget that they need to also articulate their vision for how to solve the problem that Hamas has so appallingly fed on, this fact that millions of Palestinians have not been able to live out their aspirations for generations now. It would help the world to see the Israelis as they do the work of visiting justice on Hamas. It would help if they would also articulate a vision for getting out of this god-awful conflict that has consumed generations for decades.

Brian Lehrer: President Biden yesterday said, "I think we need a pause." How do you understand that? Do you agree with it?

Congressman Himes: Yes, I have supported that. I think that occasional pauses to allow for the creation of centers that can receive aid, food, medicine, to allow for centers that will be no-go zones for the Israeli military in a very densely-packed Gaza, civilians can go to a place where they know they will be safe. Pauses that would allow for the creation of humanitarian corridors, for the evacuation of people who want to leave Gaza, that all make sense.

I'm not a military tactician, but a military tactician would say, "A pause is a moment in which Hamas is re-arming." It's a moment in which any IDF forces that are inside Gaza will be very, very vulnerable because they will have stopped and lost their momentum. In my own personal opinion, the humanitarian imperative is such that the Israelis should take on a little bit of additional risk in favor of the humanitarian imperative here.

Brian Lehrer: On the moral question that you're raising, some would argue, yes, Hamas uses children and other civilians as human shields as they embed their military infrastructure among the civilian population, awful, Hamas is terrible, but Israel in the US claim to be the more civilized ones. Is the answer to Hamas as human shields, let's say in the Jabalia refugee camp, that you kill the children to get to them?

Congressman Himes: It's not, Brian. It's absolutely not. Look, I think the Israelis are conscious. Certainly, we're conscious of the fact that every innocent civilian that dies in Gaza is an affront to the values that we abide by generally, not perfectly. We shouldn't exempt ourselves from this, Brian. Our conduct of the wars in the Middle East was hardly spotless. When we do something wrong and contrast to Hamas, which deliberately breaks the laws of armed conflict, in which deliberately targets civilians, we don't do that. War is a messy and horrid thing.

Brian Lehrer: They are knowingly killing civilians, right?

Congressman Himes: Who? The Hamas?

Brian Lehrer: The Israelis. Hamas obviously, but the Israelis, not in the same way as Hamas, specifically going after civilians, to go after civilians, but Israel is knowingly killing a lot of civilians to accomplish a goal that may be a legitimate goal more quickly.

Congressman Himes: If, by knowingly, you mean when they drop a bomb, they know that there will be, as the military so clinically says, collateral damage, civilians killed, of course, they know that just as we know that when we engage in war. I would draw a distinction between knowingly and deliberately. That's the key distinction between the Israelis and Hamas. Now, nobody celebrates war. Nobody says, "I'm okay with that," but the IDF operates with lawyers. They do not deliberately target civilians.

As I said before, the United States government has in ways, public and private, done all that they could to try to slow and inject some prudence and thoughtfulness and long-term thinking into the Israeli response to the brutality of October 7th. I think we cannot let the profound moral distinction between an entity which deliberately targets civilians, deliberately uses civilians as human shields, and another entity, which knowingly but not deliberately and carefully goes about its military activities. We just can't let that distinction fail even as we acknowledge the humanitarian brutality of any war.

Brian Lehrer: If you and the President are calling for a pause and distinguish that from a ceasefire, Israel is arguably not under imminent threat of another attack like October 7th. There's too much attention to the border since October 7th. Those who argue for a ceasefire or a meaningful pause, which is apparently not taking place at the moment, can't they take some slower approach to turning the people of Gaza against Hamas, let's say, or evacuating people or anything other than what's been going on in places like Jabalia the last couple of days?

Congressman Himes: I guess the distinction I draw between a ceasefire, which I don't support, Brian, and a pause, which I do, is the distinction between strategy and tactics. In other words, my problem with a ceasefire is that if you support it, you need to tell me what the alternative is for bringing Hamas, this murderous, appalling, totalitarian terrorist group, to justice. I've not heard an answer to that question.

You also need to accept that a ceasefire will be used by Hamas to prepare for its next atrocity. That's a strategic question. The tactical issue of whether, on any given day, the Israelis can and should stop to allow for humanitarian aid to get in, to allow for quarters, et cetera, to me, that's almost a no-brainer. It does impose additional risk on the Israelis. I believe that the Israelis, because they have to be committed to humanitarian concerns, should do that. Again, let's be very clear.

There shouldn't be doubt in anybody's mind that a ceasefire will be used by Hamas to re-arm, to plan, and to work towards the next set of atrocities that they will commit. Look, we shouldn't argue about this. They've said that. Until somebody can explain to me how this appalling terrorist group is brought to justice and why they should be allowed to re-aggregate, re-plan, re-arm for the purpose that they say they would do so, which is to kill more innocent Israelis, it's going to be hard for me to support a ceasefire.

Brian Lehrer: One more thing on this and I want to acknowledge text messages that are coming in that are not buying your distinction between knowingly and deliberately. They're calling it things like "moral gymnastics." Do we even have two political parties in this country in a meaningful sense when it comes to this war? Maybe you saw the poll result from the progressive group, Data for Progress, on the question.

Do you agree with this statement? The US should call for a ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza. The US should leverage its close diplomatic relationship with Israel to prevent further violence and civilian deaths. The result was that 80% of Democrats, you're a Democrat, 57% of independents, even 56% of Republicans agreed with that statement. My question is, do we even have two political parties in this country in a meaningful sense when it comes to this war?

As you know, during Vietnam after a point, the Democrats were the peace party. The two Iraq wars, Congress was seriously divided in its authorization votes. In this case, many are calling for a ceasefire. We don't even have two camps to debate each other on the question in Congress, it seems like. Is that what the Democratic Party is or wants to be the same as the Republican Party on this?

Congressman Himes: Well, I think it's just plain wrong to say that the Democratic Party is the same as the Republican Party on this. People may not agree with my reasoning, but I think every Democrat is out there articulating the absolute essential need for humanitarian aid to Gaza. I haven't heard a single Republican say that. The Republican Party today, not to get off the subject of the Middle East, is pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine.

At least half of the Republicans in the House are in that position. I should say, to be clear, anti-Ukraine aid. Not all of them are pro-Russia. I don't hear anybody in the Republican Party saying what the President has been articulated since October 8th, which is that the Israelis must act with humanitarian concerns in mind. Senator Marco Rubio, eminent Republican senator, put up a tweet that said Israel should respond disproportionately. Brian, let's be clear. Disproportionate response is a war crime.

Don't try to convince me, if you would, that the Democratic Party, which, look, is split on these issues as is the Labor Party in Great Britain in terms of the intensity of the support for Israel but I think is unanimous in demanding humanitarian considerations and the observance of the laws of armed conflict. Please don't tell me that that's the same as a party that is calling for a disproportionate response, which has not raised its voice in favor of a humanitarian response. I don't see those two as the same at all.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Democratic Congressman Jim Himes from Southwestern Connecticut. We'll take some phone calls and we'll turn to the first week of Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House and his reaction. Stay with us.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Connecticut Congressman Jim Himes. I want to acknowledge that a lot of people are calling in to-- and it doesn't mean that this is where the whole audience is. It's always unscientific, but a lot of people are calling in to react to some of the things you were saying about pause or ceasefire. I'll take one or two of those. Leon in Atlanta, you're on WNYC with Congressman Himes. Hello, Leon.

Leon: Hey, good morning, Brian. Second-time caller, long-time listener. I understand what the congressman is doing. He's using semantics. Knowingly is deliberate. It's a conscious decision to do something. If Israel wants to take the war to Hamas, they need to let the women and children leave. Collateral damage. I understand. I'm a combat-trained, combat-tested Marine Corps officer. I understand collateral damage, but killing over 3,000 children and bombing areas that are concentrated with families, women, and children, that's not the route to go. They need to have a corridor where these people can leave, women and children can leave. Because what they're doing, it's crazy.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Israel says they are trying to establish a corridor, right? An area in southern Gaza and, now, to some degree, across the border into Egypt?

Leon: Well, they have to do it because, from my perspective, is it anti-Semitic to criticize genocide, which is going on? This is from a race of people who faced genocide during World War II. They need to let humanitarian aid in, food, water, and medicine, and let the children and women leave.

Brian Lehrer: Leon, thank you. Congressman?

Congressman Himes: Well, Brian, look, I don't want to get overly legalistic about this, but there is absolutely a difference between knowingly and deliberate. It's the difference between first and second-degree murder. It's the difference between a crime committed with malice aforethought, which we take much more seriously than a crime that is not committed with malice aforethought. Nobody ever went to war, and the United States amongst others has gone to war many, many times, not knowingly killing civilians.

World War II, which we generally consider a just war, was a war in which we killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. When you bomb a rail line of the Nazis, you know that you're going to kill some train crew and others. Nobody, unless they're an idiot, goes to war saying, "I am not knowingly going to kill civilians." That's a fact. That is different than saying, "I'm going to deliberately kill civilians." That is a very, very different decision.

Now, by the way, you can be a pacifist and say, "Because you knowingly kill civilians, you shouldn't go to war." By the way, I have deep, deep respect for the pacifists, even though I generally disagree with them. There is a profound distinction between knowingly and deliberately. That is, quite frankly, the difference between the Israelis and Hamas. We cannot allow that distinction to be lost. Again, it's a distinction that echoes through our entire legal code in the concept of malice aforethought.

You can be outraged, as the caller generally is, at the loss of civilian life. All of us should be outraged, but that doesn't mean we should allow our thinking to collapse into blending a concept, which is very clear in law, very clear in the arguments around just wars and unjust wars, which is the difference between knowingly, which any adult goes into a conflict, knowing that there will be innocent life lost and deliberate, which is the decision to take innocent life as a strategic matter. There is a distinction there.

Brian Lehrer: One more. David in Irvington-on-Hudson, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi. I'm going to give you another semantic thing to grapple with, which is the idea of a temporary ceasefire. It could even be said, "Oh, yes, this is a temporary ceasefire. It can be used strategically in order to achieve more offensive aims if that's what you want to do." Is it just symbolic just to use the word, "Oh yes, we're going to have a ceasefire because we're all in on this"? I'm wondering whether the idea of a ceasefire can be used, whether there can be some subtlety to how you jump into that.

Brian Lehrer:  Congressman, briefly?

Congressman Himes: Yes, I guess a temporary ceasefire, in my mind, is the same as a pause, right? A pause would involve the belligerence, no longer firing at each other, so a pause for some period of time while humanitarian goals were achieved. A ceasefire as I understand it is, "Stop this entirely," which, again, I understand the instinct here. The images of innocent lives lost are absolutely brutal, but then, again, those calling for a ceasefire need to explain how Hamas is brought to justice.

Brian Lehrer: Moving on for our last few minutes, what's your one-week impression of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson? His own politics, obviously, are very far to the right, but he presented in his acceptance speech as someone who wants to work with Democrats and find common ground. He used that term and also said he wants to pass a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown with a deadline for that coming in two weeks. How has he governed in week one as that appears to you?

Congressman Himes: Well, it's too early to say, Brian. Look, as a Democrat, I am profoundly concerned about what I know about his background. Hard, hard right, out on the forefront of taking away women's reproductive rights. I've been heartened to see that he's come around on the issue of Ukraine aid. On the other hand, I think he set up a system by breaking Israel aid and humanitarian aid, by the way. He took humanitarian aid out of the Israel support bill, which I do not support for all the reasons that we've just talked about.

You hear me being a little waffly here because time will tell. So far, what did we do yesterday? We did a resolution to expel George Santos, which failed. There were going to be two censures of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rashida Tlaib, which failed. It feels to me we ought to be in this very perilous moment, operating in a more bipartisan way, and in a more real and adult way than at least our first legislative day back this week has been.

Brian Lehrer: Do you see any specific sticking points on the horizon on avoiding a Thanksgiving week government shutdown?

Congressman Himes: Well, I'm concerned by two things. Look, I'm very well aware that people have passionately held views on all of these issues, but it is important to pass a package for aid to Israel for humanitarian aid, substantial humanitarian aid to Gaza and to Ukraine. That's my opinion. What the new speaker has done is he had said, "We're not passing Israel aid."

By the way, that doesn't include humanitarian aid unless you guys agree to reverse a Democratic policy priority. That's the money that we gave to the IRS so they could go after tax cheats. It doesn't seem, to me, right to be doing that. It doesn't seem, to me, right to be holding Ukraine aid hostage to them achieving what strike me as profoundly unhumanitarian goals on the border.

The speaker has said that, "We'll pass Ukraine aid just as soon as you guys give us what we want on border issues." Now, let's have the border conversation by all means. We should do that. We should have done that 10 years ago, but let's not hold Israel aid hostage to achieving some crazy desire at the IRS. Let's not hold Ukraine aid hostage to us caving on your border plans.

Brian Lehrer: Did you say the House version, meaning the Republican majority version of aid to Israel, excludes humanitarian aid for the Palestinians?

Congressman Himes: That is correct. Earlier, when you asked me whether there's any distinction between the two parties, that is another piece of evidence that I would hold up. The Democratic Party is unanimous behind the notion that any aid package must include very substantial humanitarian aid to the Gazans. The Republican package, which we will vote on later today, excludes that.

Brian Lehrer: The Republicans will ask, and you brought this up, "Why not tie border security funding to Ukraine funding?" Are you against border security funding?

Congressman Himes: Of course, I'm not against border security funding. It's important, but ultimatums is how we drive this country into the ground. If the ultimatum is we're not going to stand with Ukraine against a murderous totalitarian dictator, who will not stop in Ukraine, by the way, because we want you to pass border security money as we define it, what's next, Brian? When the Democrats have the majority two years from now, how are the Republicans going to feel when we say, "We're not going to pass the debt ceiling or pass the military budget unless you give us the Green New Deal"? Let's take these things separately and not--

Brian Lehrer: If you agree on the policy, theoretically, you could look past the ultimatum and say, "Okay, yes, we have common ground on border security funding, so we don't like that it's tied to Ukraine funding, but yes, we can go with that because we're okay with the policy," or maybe you're not okay with the policy.

Congressman Himes: Well, I'm not okay with the policy as the Republicans articulated on the border. Look, this is the party that brought you family separation, that has the Remain in Mexico thing, which, of course, is just a wave, making our poor neighbor deal with the problems we don't want to deal with. Brian, let me put it this way. If I had any confidence at all that there was a lot of common ground and that my Republican colleagues would say, "Oh, okay, well, we found a nice little compromise on the border, so let's do Ukraine aid," if I thought we were in that world, I would say, "Okay, I'm not happy about that, but let's do it."

Look, I've watched the border debate in this place for a decade and a half. That just ain't happening. Our coffers are now empty with respect to supporting Ukraine. There's a great deal of urgency to it. By all means, let's have-- By the way, politically speaking, I actually think the border is a liability for the Democrats. I'm all for trying to fix it, but let's not use it as a grenade on the table as we talk about Ukraine.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, last question about the border. Is there a contradiction or some hypocrisy in American politicians, including Democrats, saying, "We can't absorb 100,000 asylum seekers who've come to the New York area in the last two years from desperate situations in Latin America, but we're demanding that Egypt take in a million Gazans at the snap of our fingers"?

Congressman Himes: Is there a contradiction? First of all, I'm not exactly sure who is saying those two things, but let me outline the principles by which I would think about this. Look, Egypt and Jordan are both very unstable countries with real problems. Jordan already has a couple of million Syrians or a million and a half Syrians in it. Let's set aside the morality of it. Let's be very, very careful about destabilizing Egypt and Jordan.

With respect to our own border, one would hope that the greatest and most powerful country in the world would figure out a way to deal humanely with the many hundreds of thousands or millions of people who are here, including, by the way, giving them temporary rights to unemployment. You would also hope that we would figure out that we do need a secure border. Look, I think we should have a lot more immigration in this country. It'll solve all kinds of problems for us, from social security to more innovation to economic growth, but it has to be legal and regulated. A country can't just throw its borders open and say, "Come under any circumstances."

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Jim Himes, Democrat from Southwestern Connecticut, Fairfield, and a little bit of New Haven counties. Thanks for coming on. We always appreciate it.

Congressman Himes: Thanks so much, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

Copyright © 2023 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.