Now joining us, one of the folks who is running in tonight's elections is
congressman Jamaal Bowman.
Congressman Bowman, how are you doing tonight?
>> I'm good brother, how you doing man, thanks for having me.
>> No problem, so, of course you're in a race, you're very progressive,
there's gonna be controversies, there's gonna be people gunning for you.
One of your opponents Vedat Gashi seem to have
darkened your picture in some of his mailers, that created a controversy.
>> [LAUGH]. >> Tell us about that,
what was your take on that?
>> Honestly, when I saw it, I was more excited about
my mailer that hit the mailbox at the same time.
So it was a great contrast.
So it was his negative darkened mailer and it was my normal peace and
love joyful in the community with the people mail.
So I was more like excited and happy about mine that I was like pissed off about him.
And honestly, when you're black in America,
you're just used to like racist happening every other day in one way or
another, whether it's an expression of implicit bias or outright racism.
I think what's frustrating also though is not just him,
but the other candidate as well as how I've been covered
throughout my time in Congress by certain publications,
has been a huge dog whistle to racists throughout
the district and neighboring areas as well.
This election is gonna be part of a reckoning if we're able to pull us out of
a lot of this politics as usual, that's been going on for far too long.
And lastly, to have this week on Democrat shows how we need to deal with
racism directly in the Democratic Party and we just can't put it on Republicans.
>> Speaking of which there is another controversy of the New York Times
endorsing three white men including Daniel Goldman,
that was connected to the Sulzberger family who owns the New York Times, but
they didn't bother endorsing you.
They normally endorse incumbents, and yours is an easy endorsement.
What did you make of their non endorsement in your race?
>> Yeah, I mean, to be fair, we didn't aggressively pursue an endorsement from
the New York Times this time around, so
I wouldn't put it completely on them and they didn't endorse an opponent.
So that's also a good thing.
But to your original point, we had amazing progressive people
of color like Mander and and Carlina in New York 10.
Myself in New York 16 and women like Biaggi and New York 17.
Part of my learning and Congress's first cycle has been this complete
backlash against progressives, both nationally and locally.
And I think that has blown me away more than anything.
The beef if you will, that moderates and
corporate democrats have what progressives, it's like, my man,
I don't want no smoke with you, why you keep coming from me.
And when I saw the New York Times editorial write the after
the November elections, blaming progressives for
our loss in Virginia and the almost lost in New Jersey.
My first question is like, what the hell is happening here?
How do you blame progressives for that?
So the party, again, has a lot of work to do in these areas.
>> So I want to let Emma and Jessica get in here in a second.
But you mentioned the very next question I was gonna ask you.
Because we talked about this before you one and right after you won, about
how they were gonna come for progressives and they're not really your allies,
the Democratic leadership, established Democrats, established the media, etc.
And I was gonna ask you, now that you've served a full term, basically your
first term, what has been your biggest takeaway from those two years?
>> Yeah, I mean, that that's one of them, right, the way that moderates and
more conservative and corporate Democrats engage with progressives.
Some of them are even afraid to have a conversation with me.
I've reached out to Democrats in swing districts to tell them that
I want to be helpful after my race and helping them to get re elected.
And they just seem so uncomfortable even engaging me in the conversation because of
this fear for progressives.
And I know why the fear is there, the fear is there because progressives are calling
out the status quo, speaking truth to power regarding the inequity and
inequality and injustice is rooted and throughout the corrupt system and
this is a system that they have benefited from.
So to see that play out after the big vote and after the November elections
really resonated with me how strongly they are in terms of coming after us.
So that was one big learning, the second big learning and
even though I knew this from so far, but to see how money
really controls Congress was really is really startling,
like it's like it's like if a special interest group
wants a bill to move through Congress without committee,
without a mark up without a hearing, it will do so they will try to make it do so.
So those are two big learning, but also lastly, I'll add this,
I've also learned about the power of my own voice in my own office and
how to use that leverage and working with others like the squad and
others to make sure the Bs doesn't happen and doesn't move forward.
So all three of those things have been incredibly important.
>> Jamal, I'm in New York 10, and I voted for for you lean today and
it kind of it was a bit of a bittersweet moment because I I love her candidacy, but
to vote not for Mondale jones who was somebody who I was supportive of,
you know, back when I was with TYT.
And who is somebody who I believe is a strong progressive.
That was something that, you know, was hard for me to do.
But it was a strategic choice.
And I'm just curious about your take generally,
about the redistricting process, how that was so difficult for you and
to navigate in your race and how it kind of edged out some progressive voices and
made a mess of things and made things difficult frankly for
for for a lot of progressive candidates in the state.
>> Yeah, we completely screwed that up.
I mean, we as democrats to have a supermajority in the state legislature,
to have control of the House of Representatives and
to box that up the way we did all because in my opinion,
I think we got greedy with the way we drew the lines and and and
that greed led to the lines being thrown out by democratic appointed judges.
May be small d democrat by name, but not like, but you know,
like corporate cuomo democrats, but they were democrats to have that happen.
The way it happened was just a travesty and to have my dear what happened
to my hair and him having to run in new york 10 was also it's heartbreaking for
me personally, Mandera is an incredible member of Congress.
He's brilliant as a person and in his role as a member of Congress and
he needs to be coming back to Congress and it's unfortunate that he Had
to run in the, in the seat for seat that's not in his district.
And obviously that hurt him and the way Sean, handled that from the beginning.
I mean, he didn't look at the, look at the map for like 20 minutes and was like,
I'm running in 17.
And that was crazy to me and then my dad had a decision to make and, you know,
it's easy for us to say run against Sean, but you know, Sean is the D triple C
chair and has all the money and power and support in the world.
And then on the other side, you got running against me, and
it's something I know he didn't want to do, and obviously I
didn't want him to do because I would've hated to have to run against, you know,
my brother and someone who's another progressive and who's great in Congress.
So it's just, we screwed that up and we need to figure out how to make it right.
As a party and again, it's another example of how the party stumbles over
itself to figure out how to be a real big tent party and really represent everyone
instead of using progressives as proxy weapons to other progressives.
>> So I got to do a quick follow up there.
My take on that situation,
Jamal was that Sean Patrick maloney wanted to push mander into your race so
they could take out at least one of the progressive incumbents.
What's your take on that?
>> I mean, I've heard that, you know, I I don't know for sure,
you know what I'm saying?
That would have been tough man, you know, like I I don't that doesn't to me again,
it doesn't like why would you do that at the same time?
It looks like that's what happened.
And it looks like that was another example of, you know,
the corporate dams trying to come after progressives, right?
So I don't know, you know, I don't I don't I haven't really explored that.
I mean that whole week, I was like chilling and
not even like to me it wasn't even my fight, it was like yo sean and
my dad got to figure that out and then we go from there.
And plus I don't know if you remember that week, but
that was the week where the Buffalo shooting happened.
And I was my office wrote a resolution condemning the great replacement
theory and then we were hustling to try to get that resolution passed.
So I literally on my mind, I wasn't even thinking about redistricting,
I was focused on that, that resolution.
So I don't know man, but you know,
it's not far fetched to think that that's possible.
>> Yeah, Jamal, with rent inflation going out of control,
prices going up everywhere.
It feels like a lot of everyday people care a lot about bills and rent,
that's what's on their mind and there's a lot of momentum among workers to fight for
better wages and stand up to these corporations that are exploiting them.
And you're a co sponsor of the pro act.
What do you feel like your role as a congressman is beyond just sponsoring
the pro act to support that?
Has it come up this election cycle?
>> Yes, it has.
>> So we also authored something called the Emergency Price
stabilization Act which is looking at price controls as a response to
the inflation which we see in different industries.
So what it does is it authorizes the White House to go a little bit further and
really understanding what's happening with supply chain shortages, price gouging and
really forcing corporations to open up their books so that we can see whether
price controls should land if they should land there anywhere.
So we're proud to be the author of that bill.
And we also were also the author of two other bills,
the ending corporate greed Act and the babies over billionaires act,
ending corporate greed is all about taxing windfall profits of companies that
make I believe over 100 million in profits at 95% so that we can again
generate revenue to invest in the area areas and ease inflationary pressures.
So we've introduced a few like a slew of economic bills to again
shift the consciousness and communicated new vision for
how to move forward economically.
And I think if we can figure out a way this is going to be really hard to keep
the House and grow the Senate, there's a way to revisit these issues the next term,
along with what I believe should be a radical care care agenda that
includes universal childcare, paid leave home care in other areas.