Interview with Representative Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) about Trump's Campaign Rhetoric

Interview

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"Well, first, Jim, thanks for having me. I mean, President Trump said he wants to be a dictator on day one, as all the great dictators of course said, right? They only want to do it for just one day, and now he's literally quoting them using their language, and in fact he's actually quoting Vladimir Putin in order to take shots at a U.S. president.

You know, my fear is that unfortunately Trump is flooding the zone and has flooded the zone with so much nonsense that people tune it out and they say to themselves, oh, he's just kidding, he doesn't really mean it. But Trump is literally telegraphing, he'll really telling the American people exactly what he's going to do on his revenge tour. We should listen to him. This is not going to get better. It is going to get worse with former president Trump.

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Well, first of all, as Trump's own Republican opponents have said, Trump had four years to build a wall, didn't build a wall. Trump had several years to, quote-unquote, "stop immigration," get immigration under control, and he did none of that. He did separate parents from their children in a horrible policy that didn't stop immigration.

And so this is really more Trump just -- more bluster and more using talking points from the internet, trying to get people foaming out of the mouth with anger, trying to blame obviously minority groups, trying to get obviously, you know, non-educated white Americans mad at the fact that America is becoming more of a melting pot.

What would Democrats do? Democrats would respond, obviously, with the same fervor as we did the first time. What I hope, Jim, is that we don't have to see how Democrats respond because quite frankly we should never let Donald Trump get anywhere near the White House, not even for a tour, quite frankly.

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Well, obviously the news of the hostages is horrific. Those hostages, obviously, would never have been there had they not been taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th, and had Hamas actually not know where all the hostages are because some of the other groups came in after -- on October 7th attack. Obviously, you know, what happened in that instance was done by some soldiers on the ground. There has to be a full investigation of how that happened.

I actually met with the brothers of one of those hostages that was killed by the IDF in Washington, D.C., so it's absolutely heartbreaking. As far as the tactics that Israel is employing, I do think obviously, they need to do more on the ground rather than from the air. I do think they need to transition into a new phase. And I think they're doing that, quite frankly, which is unfortunately why this episode happened because they are doing more on the ground than from the air.

But obviously, you know, Israel is making progress, the world will want to see them make progress as fast as possible. They're going to want to see them get the folks that are still -- that planned this attack, that are still in these bunkers and these tunnels. But obviously, you know, Israel has the full support of the United States and we've got to pass the Israel aid package that so far right now is hung up in Congress.

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Well, look, while I would like to have seen this done quite frankly a month ago, we could have funded Israel had Speaker Johnson not played politics within weeks of the attack in his first week as speaker quite frankly he could have brought Congress together on the Capitol steps, but instead he decided to be divisive and put, you know, the IRS into an Israel bill, which had never happened before, violates the single subject rule which they pled to do in the 118th Congress. And as a result which, you know, the Israel aid didn't go anywhere, and the speaker knew that that was going to happen. He was told that by the Senate.

On Ukraine, obviously, it's imperative that we continue to help our friends and ally, Ukraine, against Vladimir Putin, who invaded a sovereign country. We cannot let Vladimir Putin win. If we do China is going to look at what happened there. It's going to have massive repercussions in Taiwan. And let's not forget the rest of Europe. If he can just go in and take a country or take half a country he won't stop there. Again, that's not what dictators do. They don't just stop. They continue, especially if they think they are successful.

And on the border, look, there are issues at the border. I think we need more border agents. I think we need more technology. I think we can refine some of our policies. So I hope we get a grand deal in the new year. To me, I always thought that they were going to punt this into the new year, with the holidays coming up. That just seemed to be where the 118th Congress is. I mean, look what happened in the House.

They voted for the impeachment inquiry and then they ran out of town for three weeks because they wanted to show the American people how important that was. They literally just ran out of town for three weeks. Again, the House also left without doing Israel-Ukraine and the border, they punted that to the Senate.

But, Jim, I'm hopeful that we can get a deal because it's too important to the world, quite frankly.

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Look, we're a year before the election. You know a little less than a year before the election. So there's plenty of time. So, you know, as far as we can get in there in January and solve this problem, quite frankly, you know, it would take the talking point away, but let's not pretend like Donald Trump will stick to the facts. He's telling his crowd that gasoline is $6, $7 and $8 when we know that's no longer the case.

But, look, I think the president is right. I think putting a big deal, a grand deal together with all of these issues -- obviously we've got to make sure that this country is still the beacon of the world, that people who are escaping persecution, like my grandparents escaped Europe during the Holocaust and came to this country, we've got to make sure that we're still that beacon of freedom for the rest of the world.

But there's no doubt that we can overhaul, you know, what's going on at the border and we can enforce the border through technology and through more border agents and things of that nature. But we need massive, you know, immigration reform here. You know, we have people in this country that we have to protect. The Republicans, you know, don't want to do that. And so, you know, there are people on both sides of this that make valid points, but I think because the issues in Israel and the issue of Ukraine we have to figure out where we can find some middle ground here, and get accomplished where there's bipartisan agreement.

Sure, there might be folks on the left and the right that want a voting against this grand deal for different reasons but if there's massive bipartisan agreement in both Houses, I think we've got to figure out how to make a deal.

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Thanks, Jim.

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