[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WYNC. Good morning everyone. Let's jump right in today with one of the new history-making members of Congress from New York. One of the new progressives who ran with the backing of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to see what it's been like getting caught insurrection during your first week at your new job. How he thinks Joe Biden is doing so far as president. How to fight the pandemic, inequality, and much more. Our guest is Mondaire Jones, who succeeds Congresswoman Nita Lowey, who retired from the district covering all of Rockland County and parts of Westchester, roughly from White Plains to the Tappan Zee, Mario Cuomo Bridge.

Mondaire Jones grew up in Section 8 subsidized housing in Rockland, Spring Valley. Went on to Stanford University and Harvard Law School. Has worked in the Obama Justice Department and the Westchester County Law Office. He's a progressive from the suburbs, along with Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. He's also just become one of the first two members of Congress to be both African-American and openly gay. He's gotten a seat on the prestigious House Judiciary Committee. He was also one of the first, on January 6th itself, to call for the second impeachment of Donald Trump, and also -and we'll talk about this- for the expulsion of members of Congress who voted to reject the election result.

Congressman Mondaire Jones, thanks so much for some time with us today. I got to congratulate you after you won the primary last summer, and now congratulations on being elected and taking your seat.

Mondaire Jones: Brian, thanks for having me on. It is always a joy to connect with your listeners.

Brian Lehrer: We've heard many stories from other members and their experiences during the insurrection. Would you like to add to this oral history, and share something from those hours that you think you'll never forget?

Mondaire Jones: Not to re-traumatize myself or anyone who's watching on television as the events were unfolding. I was in the House Chamber, I was in the thick of it listening to what was supposed to be a routine certification of a free and fair election from last November. It was anything but that. It was a series of public statements by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle raising issues without evidence. Then all of a sudden, to make matters more dramatic, we received an announcement from either the sergeant in arms or someone from the Capitol Police, that the Capitol had been breached, and that the people who had breached the Capitol were likely making their way to the House Chamber where we were located.

I was in there seated on the floor with Democratic leadership, but also there were approximately 200 of us there, if you count the folks who were on the floor and the folks in the gallery overlooking the House floor. We were instructed to look under our seats for gas masks in the event that tear gas needed to be used. We were told to step away from any of the doors in the room because those would be locked from the inside. We were also told to prepare to lie down on the ground of the House floor, in the event of gunfire.

Then, shortly thereafter there was a very loud banging sound from the mob of domestic terrorists, who had indeed found their way to the House Chamber. Thankfully in the nick of time, we were able to evacuate to a more secure location. It was a very harrowing experience, to say the least. Many of us thought that we might not make out of that room.

Brian Lehrer: You were one of the first, before that day was out, to call for Trump to be impeached the second time. Now we know a Senate trial will begin in two weeks. Early headcounts of Republicans indicate he will likely get acquitted again. How concerned are you that centering him right now, after he's out of office, rather than just marginalizing him, will leave him with more power than you had just announced him?

Mondaire Jones: I am not concerned by that because it is actually not an issue. Donald Trump would be centered in our politics if he were not convicted, and been barred from ever running for Federal Elected Office moving forward. This is the party of Donald Trump, with respect to today's Republican party. He has a chokehold, or a death grip, over a significant share of the Republican electorate, and is why you are seeing people who know well that he bears responsibility, primary responsibility for what happened on January 6th.

Who are deflecting, if not outright lying about their solemn responsibility to convict him during this Senate trial. We are seeing Donald Trump already threatened to create a new party, as he calls it, and to run primary challenges to incumbent Republicans who have not shown, from his perspective, sufficient loyalty to him. [unintelligible 00:05:29] and other prosecutors will do their part in making sure that he is held accountable under state and local law, and I think federal law as well when it comes to this new attorney general, I hope.

We have to make sure, from a political perspective, that we diminish his ability to do what he did on January 6th, which was incite an attempt to overthrow the federal government. Which nearly led to the massacre of hundreds of members of Congress, including members of the Senate.

Brian Lehrer: That's the question, isn't it? Politically, what will the effect of this process be? Will it be to weaken him? Or if he's acquitted, which would largely be because he is successfully exerting power through the electorate on the senators, who at some point will have to stand for reelection. Does it strengthen him?

Mondaire Jones: No. There is no strengthening of him were he to be exonerated by Republicans in the United States Senate. He is at his most influential in this moment within the party. The only thing that can be done right now is to diminish that influence. This is an issue of democracy. This isn't politics. It's why you had people like Mitt Romney and McConnell saying, "Yes, Donald Trump clearly does bear responsibility for what happened on January 6th".

If we don't impeach him for this thing, what in the world would we impeach him and convict him for? If not the attempt to overthrow the United States Government? Despite being, at the time, the sitting president of the United States. It is a straw man people saying, and it's not rooted in actual analysis. People saying that somehow he's going to become stronger if there's an exoneration. We just become weaker as a democracy if we don't stand up to this person who is antithetical to what we stand for as a country.

Brian Lehrer: You're a lawyer who worked in the Justice Department. Now that you're in this binary of convict or acquit, Trump defenders are saying, "He didn't incite the violence. At the rally just before the break-in, he used words like fight and stay strong", which they say everybody uses in politics. He said, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol Building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard".

We're hearing that peacefully and patriotically phrase a lot from his defenders now, and I guess it's come up in the trial. Their case is, he wanted a big rally, but he never suggested they physically break in or try to hurt anybody. Your response?

Mondaire Jones: Those arguments are not made in good faith. It's why you have seen a number of Republicans in both the House and the Senate say otherwise. Acknowledged that this president was fully aware of the violent nature and the violent ideology that drove these white supremacist protestors, or domestic terrorist more accurately, on January 6th. That he knew what they were going to do even before they descended upon Washington D.C., and then the Capitol on January 6th. That he openly, along with a number of my Republican colleagues in the House, encouraged them to storm the Capitol and to take back, as he says, their government.

Again, an instruction not actually rooted in fact. No one has deprived any American of their government. No one stole any election in November. Republican-appointed judges have roundly dismissed the numerous frivolous litigations that have been filed all across the country with respect to the November 6th election. It's why I'm so disappointed in 139 House Republicans who still, after nearly dying themselves on January 6th, voted to perpetuate this big lie.

By the way, they're doing this to lay the groundwork for another decade of voter suppression, primarily of Black and brown people in southern states like Georgia. It is not coincidence that the day after Democratic victory in the Georgia Senate runoffs, Republican officials in Georgia were proposing to make it more difficult for people to vote. The modern Republican party has, as its project, not competing on the merits with these policy ideas that are deeply unpopular with the American people, but rather to disenfranchise entire swabs of the American electorate in order to distort the democratic process, undermine our democracy, and continue to win elections that they had no business winning based on the QAnon conspiracy theories that many of their candidates espouse.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take phone calls for brand newly-minted Congressman Mondaire Jones, from Rockland in Westchester. Not just on impeachment, you can ask him about anything having to do with policy. We'll get into other things, how Biden is doing so far, on particular areas of policy, on the progressive versus other wings of the Democratic Party and those internal politics, whatever you like.

646-435-7280. 646-435-7280 or you can tweet a question for Congressman Mondaire Jones @BrianLehrer. Here's a tweet that already came in following up on something you said about Trump starting potentially, another party. It says, "DJT", Donald J. Trump, "May do us a backhanded favor starting a new party. They'd be the spoiler handing it to the Democrats." What do you think about that political analysis, if there were basically two Republican parties?

Mondaire Jones: If it played out that way, then sure. However, he is talking about in the same breath creating a party and running primary challengers. What I interpret that to mean is that these people would not affiliate registration-wise with the party, that it would maybe be a de facto or unofficial party, but they would still be registered republicans running in Republican primaries because you obviously can't run a primary unless you're-

Brian Lehrer: Rather than third-party candidates in general elections, which really would be spoilers.

Mondaire Jones: Yes, that is how I interpret that.

Brian Lehrer: You also called for the expulsion of all 140 or so members of Congress who voted to reject the state electors on January 6th, and asked for an audit of the vote in different ways, then were done. That's how they characterize it, and that may be outrageous, but it's within the rules to propose something and vote on. It's not a violent riot itself. Why call for the expulsion?

Mondaire Jones: I have co-sponsored Congresswoman Cori Bush's resolution to investigate and expel those members of Congress who helped to incite the violent insurrection that we saw on January 6th. It was an act that was directly tied to this big lie that my Republican colleagues-- Not all of them, by the way. There are a number of Republicans who did not object to the certification until there was presidential election. I want to give those colleagues credit.

I was pleased to see, when I looked at that list that a number of them were folks who I'd already been reaching out to on a bipartisan basis, to work on a number of legislative things. Including a restoration of the self-deduction, which as you do know, Brian, crushed middle-class families and all throughout New York State, but really, in Westchester, Rockland, we pay the highest property taxes in the entire nation by county. I was pleased to see that there are some reasonable Republicans in the House and in the Senate.

Of course, in the Senate, the vast majority of Republicans voted to certify the presidential election, but because of the partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts in this country, largely by Republican control legislators. We are seeing QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other people who have no business, couldn't pass a civics test, let alone any other basic tests. Massing power in peddling lies that are deeply destructive of our democracy, that block common-sense legislation, that would directly benefit the American people. When I speak to my Republican colleagues in good conscience, they too are embarrassed by some of their colleagues within their Caucus.

Brian Lehrer: Before we take calls, I don't want this to get lost. I want to ask you and give you an opportunity to tell a story, about an immigration case that you got involved in for a constituent in these early days of yours in Congress, that is both frightening and heartwarming. As one of the Trump administration's final acts, they were trying to deport a forty-year-old financial consultant from Rockland named Paul Pierrilus, would you pick up the story from there and tell it to our listeners?

Mondaire Jones: Two Mondays ago, I was on a treadmill getting in a much neater workout, when I got a voicemail from an unknown number. I listened to the voicemail and it was the attorney for a constituent of mine, an upstanding member of the Spring Valley and therefore Rockland County Community. His name was Paul Pierrilus, and she said in the voicemail that her client was on the cusp of being illegally deported to Haiti, a country where he's never been. He was born in St. Martin, has never been to Haiti, and so my staff and I immediately took action.

Even at the time, I was not aware that he was scheduled to be deported basically, less than 24 hours later. We were on the phone until 2:00 AM demanding from ICE that they produce to us and it was called an approved travel document. Whenever you deport somebody somewhere, that country, the recipient country has to authorize that deportation. Of course, Haiti, the Haitian Ambassador subsequently said on Twitter, that Mr. Pierrilus is not a citizen, he has no connection to Haiti. This was indeed an illegal, or an attempted deportation that was illegal, it was unconstitutional.

Thankfully, with moments to spare as Mr. Pierrilus was on the tarmac in handcuffs and shackles, those were removed from him, because of our intervention, and obviously important work of his attorney as well and reaching out to us. He since then has, last I heard, still been in detention, which is the other thing that needs to change. He must be reunited with his family and with our community in Rockland County. He is a contributing member of our society. He's an upstanding member of our community, and we saw this in connection with a ramping up in the final days of the Trump administration, of what has for years under that President been a fairly-racist, xenophobic, cruel-immigration-deportation regime and program.

Thankfully, under President Biden, he is by executive action, done a hundred-day pause on deportation so that we can analyze who we are actually deporting in this country, so that we don't include other people like Mr. Pierrilus. Then, of course, as that's happening, Congress needs to be enacting comprehensive immigration reform.

Brian Lehrer: The part of that story that I didn't know, and tell me if I heard you right, is that he's still in detention.

Mondaire Jones: That is my understanding. We have been in contact with his family, with his attorney. My understanding is that he is in Louisiana in an ICE detention facility. It's not like, by the way, ICE is very communicative about these things. It took many, many hours, and many emails, and many conversations in order for us to even get on the phone with ICE, which, as many of you know, is an agency of DHS, the Department of Homeland Security.

Brian Lehrer: I realize it's early, but is this a test case in any way as you see it for the Biden administration's management of ICE and detention in general of people here undocumented?

Mondaire Jones: Well, my colleague, Ritchie Torres, the Congressman Ritchie Torres, has been battling with ICE to prevent another deportation of a constituent within his district. How can that be possible when since last Friday, by executive action, the President of United States has put a 100-day pause on deportations. ICE is a rogue agency, and it must be seriously looked at and managed to prevent the human rights abuses that we have been seeing over the past four years.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to make a specific call to President Biden right now? I don't think he's listening, I'll be honest, but maybe some people who have his ear. What should he do with ICE? What should he do with that case from Ritchie Torres' district in the Bronx?

Mondaire Jones: Well, we have a direct line to the President and I'm very pleased with the work that he has already been doing to make our immigration laws, including our regulations and our policies, more humane. We have a very constructive relationship with his office. I was just on a call yesterday with my colleagues focused on the fairly-good immigration bill that he has proposed, and just talking about how we can improve upon that bill, what will be able to be passed when it gets to the House floor.

Obviously, the Senate is a big issue, given some of the members of the Senate who don't always share the views of most of the members of the Democratic Caucus. That is an ongoing conversation, but I think President Biden is doing a great job when it comes to reversing the damage that we've seen over the past four years.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a call from a constituent, Bob in Ossining. You’re on WNYC with Congressman Mondaire Jones. Hi, Bob.

Bob: Hi, Brian. Hi, Congressman Jones. First of all, congratulations on all the work you're doing to protect democracy. My question is about what the prospects are for action by Congress and the administration this year as part of their Build Back Better that we would see tangible affects in our district that would rebuild the middle class and prepare us for the green economy. I've seen proposals from the Regional Plan Association that are very classic, but I don't see things like, "Bury the power lines, so we're ready for an electrified world and we won't lose power during storms." I don't see things about 5G. Could you just share how you hope to shape whatever The Administration brings forward. Thank you.

Mondaire Jones: Bob, I so appreciate that question. thank you for giving me the opportunity to weigh in on that. This is something I'm very passionate about. The transportation and infrastructure committee is chaired by Congressman DeFazio. In the 116th Congress, which was prior to this year, he made a pretty significant proposal that included resources for projects like what you just described. We have seen, obviously, in this district a number of storms just decimate our communities because we have failed to invest in the infrastructure in the way that a civilized society ought to, frankly, in 2020 or 2021 where we now are.

I'm going to be fighting to make sure we get resources to bury those power lines. I've actually had this conversation with Supervisor George Hoehmann in the town of Clarkstown, which is in Rockland. I know that town supervisors throughout our district in Westchester and in Rockland feel the same way. We have to make sure that we are prepared.

What I also heard in your question was about climate as well. That means that as we think about investing in public transportation as part of an infrastructure bill, we understand the transportation sector is the single biggest contributor to carbon emissions, globally. We need to do more investments in transit, including light rail, which we used to have in places like Peekskill and Ossining.

As we wean ourselves off of reliance on cars and push towards public transportation, hopefully that is high speed, we will get to a place where we are getting net-zero carbon emissions, which obviously is the goal. It's not going to happen overnight. This President and I, we differ, I think, on some of the details. I am more ambitious on what I want to see with respect to climate, but the fact remains that he has proposed the most ambitious climate policy of any President in the United States in history. I'm really proud to be working to iron out those details. Historically this has been something that Is enjoyed bipartisan support. Let's hope that my republican colleagues get on board with that.

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting praise of Biden coming from you, because if we look at climate as an example of something where the progressive wing of the party and the more moderate or whatever the right other term is for other members of the party, that's an example where I would have thought there would be some difference coming out of the gate. Biden has issued a number of executive orders already. We'll remind people no more drilling on federal lands, no more Keystone XL pipeline, rejoin the Paris Climate accords, but he hasn't adopted the full Green New Deal in the way I think you ran on it. Give me a Biden climate report card as you see it that includes that.

Mondaire Jones: I think he's done a great job on climate. It's why you see organizations that are the biggest champions of a Green New Deal, like the Sunrise Movement, give him accolades for what he proposed on the campaign trail. I think you'll continue to see that. Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader Schumer, is saying that climate is his number one priority next to COVID relief. We all are prioritizing COVID relief.

Obviously, I'll be back in DC next week to hopefully vote on a COVID relief bill. I was speaking with Speaker Pelosi yesterday about that. We all get it. This President is no exception. I think he's shown tremendous leadership on the issue of climate. Again, it doesn't mean we agree on timelines, but it's quite ambitious what he has proposed. You have seen the progressive movement move him in that direction, because he hasn't always been there.

This is existential. It is also a jobs creation program. To Bob's question earlier, "How do we rebuild the middle class?" Let's create millions of good-paying jobs in the clean energy space. Let's make this part of a transportation and infrastructure bill. By the way, another way that we're going to build the middle class is by passing this COVID-19 relief bill which contains, as it has been proposed for now, $350 billion for states and local municipalities, many of which had to lay off people by the tens of thousands because of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We've got money in this bill for child care. We've obviously got the survival checks, which I think should be on a recurring basis. That's another area where I'm more ambitious than what the President has proposed, but this is direct relief now for people in this district. Obviously, when we get out of COVID through finally having a national testing and vaccination strategy, the economy will reopen completely. We'll be able to dine out and people will have money again to invest in the economy. Many people who have been laid off will be put back to work. It is also the case in the interim period that COVID-19 relief bill includes an extension of the Supplemental Unemployment Insurance Program.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, I mentioned Senator Schumer and being from the progressive AOC endorsed in your primary wing of the party, I heard on MSNBC this morning that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is considering primarying Schumer in the next election cycle. Do you think that would be good for the party and good for the country?

Mondaire Jones I'm not aware of any plans for her to do that. I would direct that question to her.

Brian Lehrer: Edmond in Westchester, you're on WNYC with Congressman Mondaire Jones. Hi, Edmond.

Edmond: Hello, can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Edmond: Wonderful. Thanks for taking my question. I think the biggest problem that we've got underlying all of this is that there's an alternative reality. We can say, "Oh, we want to agree on some sort of common facts", but as soon as you say that, it means that someone has to be wrong in terms of what truth is, et cetera. How are we going to go out and level set, because there is an incentive for people to, once they see that they've been lied to, there's going to be some energy that comes from that in a good way, in the sense that we're coming together.

How are we addressing? How do you plan on addressing that? Because ithout alienating, without pointing fingers, Nancy Pelosi's daughter did that documentary two years ago. I think it was called Outside the Bubble or something. It was a genuine outreach to better understand. How are we going to continue to invest in that understanding as opposed to feeding that button that I like to push, which is to read the ridiculousness that's just coming out of Florida and all the insanity? On the one hand, it makes it easy to say, "They're daft", but it's much more serious than that. How we address that?

Mondaire Jones: Edmond, I so appreciate that question. It is something I think about every day. It drives me crazy that there is a televised propaganda machine known as Fox News, really, but some other networks, that just spouts lies everyday. Normally you'd be able to agree on a set of facts and maybe you'd still reach a different conclusion, but now half the country, or nearly half the country, believes that the November election was stolen from the president of the United States without there actually being any evidence of mass fraud.

It's something that is existential to our democracy. It must be addressed. I think one of the very first things we can do is get people elected to Congress who will push back on that narrative from within the republican party. That starts with the democracy reforms contained in a piece of legislation known as HR1, The For The People Act. When you end partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, you force people to compete in general election contests and be responsive to the electorate, to speak with facts and to respond to rational people.

Whereas right now, if you prevail in the primary in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district or Lauren Boebert's district, Lauren may have a difficult time in two years because it's not like she won by a landslide. Marjorie Taylor Greene's district in Georgia, you can coast a victory, despite being a QAnon conspiracy theorist who tells lies about pedophilia and eating babies, and other crazy nonsense. When you have a more moderate republican party, the one that is responsive to facts, you won't get a situation like what we saw on January 6th, where a majority of the Republican Caucus voted to overturn the presidential election, despite the fact that none of them--

I don't know if you've seen some of these CNN interviews that Nicole Malliotakis and Madison Cawthorn have done, but they can't even defend what they did when they go on TV, when they're just asked by a journalist and presented with facts. In terms of fixing this alternative reality, it's democracy reforms that will get better people elected to congress who are willing to stand up to that propaganda machine that you just described. Otherwise, it's like we're in the twilight zone and we're not going to be able to have the bipartisanship that historically has existed in this country.

Brian Lehrer: I'm so glad you brought up HR1. Let's finish on that in our last minute and take us one step deeper. Now that the Democrats have a majority in the Senate, that bill won't necessarily go there to die. It's now Senate One as well. Just tell people who aren't familiar, because I know this is so crucial. What you think the biggest reform is in that that could expand voting rights on a nationwide basis, when usually it's state by state. Just at the moment where I think coming off this fraud of that election fraud from the Republicans, there's going to be an attempt to make it harder to vote, restrict mail in balloting, restrict drop-offs, and other things.

Give people the clearest 60 seconds you can on what's in HR1 that's going to expand voting rights for the long term if it gets through both houses of Congress.

Mondaire Jones: Our democracy is under assault. We saw that on January 6th most recently, and in some of the proposals to make it more difficult for people to vote following what happened in Georgia. The bill HR1, which as you noted, is also Senate Bill One, which means that in the Senate it too will take priority, thankfully. Contains three primary things that I think are really worth highlighting. One is automatic voter registration to enfranchise an additional 50 million people nationally. It would end the partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, which is this process by which state legislatures draw lines that look crazy on the map. They distort and dilute the votes of certain communities and they pack districts with other folks who share similar views almost nearly uniformly in many instances.

We will replace that process with independent redistricting commissions that will draw those lines to make them more responsive to the American electorate, so that voters can choose their representatives and not representatives choosing their voters. Finally, it is creating a system of public financing of congressional districts, so that the kind of people we get to Congress will not debate whether we need $2,000 survival checks in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

These will be people who are more likely to come from working class environments who understand that this economy has never worked for everyone, but it's only ever worked for a subset of the American people. There's a separate bill called the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That will primarily be the strengthening of the Voting Rights Act. It's basically a revival of it. You can think of it as a new voting rights act based on more updated data than the one that was passed in 1965 and that was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013, Shelby decision.

Brian Lehrer: Congressman Mondaire Jones, freshman democrat from Westchester and Rockland. Congratulations one more time on taking your seat after your historic election. Come back many times during this term. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Mondaire Jones: Thank you. Take care.

Copyright © 2020 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.