Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., has emerged as one of the favorite representatives of the centrist faction of the Democratic Party after winning in a suburban district on Long Island that President Donald Trump carried in 2024.
After the election, Suozzi criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for failing to respond to attack ads from the Trump campaign on trans women participating in women's sports, which itself drew criticism from Democrats and LGBTQ+ advocates.
While he's perhaps best known for his support for restoring the state and local tax deduction, Suozzi now cautions against doing so without first hiking taxes on the rich. Moving forward, he’s calling on Democrats to turn to a message of building America’s middle class, raising taxes on billionaires and supporting organized labor, arguing that can help the party rebuild majority support in the United States.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I want to start off talking about some of the comments from WelcomeFest. In my view, you describe a slightly different approach to running as a moderate than some of the other panelists and elected officials that were there, suggesting that it's maybe more of a question of emphasis as much as it is policy positions.
You said, “I've got a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood. I have a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign. I'm good on all the issues, but that's not what I campaign on. I campaign on the economy, immigration, taxes and crime. That's what people are talking about.”
You later discussed how Democrats need to provide a positive alternative vision on immigration, and learn how to say no to consultants. To me, that sounds similar to some of the progressive critiques of the 2024 campaign, and even somewhat similar to Bernie Sanders' message. I'm wondering if you see an economy-first, populist message as the way forward for the Democratic Party — and, if so, what you see as moderates' and centrists' role in that.
I think that we have to get back to the historic message of the Democratic Party: We want to build the middle class and people who aspire to the middle class. We have to get back to the idea that, in return for hard work, you make enough money so you can have a decent life. You can buy a house, you can educate your kids, you know, [get] health insurance. You can retire.
The middle class, and the opportunities to get into the middle class, have been decimated over the past 50 years or so. I don't know if you know this episode, but in the 80s, we were all worried about the Japanese and the German car companies, and they were like, you know, they started eating our lunch with their cars versus American cars.
And people were very worried that this was the end of America. They were closing our factories; people were losing their jobs. And so there was a big switch in our country, manifested in a paper written by a guy named Milton Friedman that said, “Stop worrying about the employees, and stop worrying about the community you're in, and start worrying about more about the shareholders. And if you take care of shareholders, everything will work out.”
And so we kind of did that in America, and we made a lot of money. The problem is we didn't share that money. And did you ever see the movie "Pretty Woman"?
No, I haven't.
In the movie, one of the storylines is about these guys who want to buy this older man's company, and they're going to sell off the shipyard, and the older guy says it will be decimated. And the response was, yeah, but we'll make a lot of money. And so that's what we did in America.
We went with this pure globalist crowd, pure figuring out to make the most money possible, and we left behind a bunch of towns with polluted properties, and people lost their union jobs, typically, and as a result, they're pretty miserable, because they're willing to work hard, but they can't — they don't have the opportunity to make the same kind of wages as they used to, and they're now.
There’s a polluted site in town. Their churches are empty, and there's no more Elks Club, and there's no more Rotary Club, and their kids are doing methamphetamine and fentanyl. They're mad. And we have to figure out how to create those opportunities together for people in our country, especially considering the fact that 60% of Americans do not graduate from college, and we've been talking about the need to learn more for years, but it just has not proven to be effective, and we need to instead focus on opportunities to get the skills to get decent wages in our country.
So yes, that's a very important part of what we need to do. So when we're fighting with the Republicans, we need to point out that, you know, we Democrats are in favor of increasing the minimum wage; Republicans are against an increase in the minimum wage. Democrats are for unions; Republicans are against unions.
Do you think that was emphasized in the 2024 campaign?
Not at all.
And it sounds like that would be something you’d want to emphasize going forward.
Absolutely. We have to emphasize that. That’s what people care about. I talked at the WelcomeFest, were you there?
No, unfortunately, I had other commitments. I couldn’t go.
One of the most important things I said is if you ask the American people, “What do you care about? What are the issues you care about the most?” They say, “The economy, immigration, taxes, crime and health care.” And if you ask the same people, what do you think the Democrats care about, or what the Democratic Party emphasizes? They say, “Choice, LGBT protections, health care,” so there’s a little bit of crossover there; “protecting democracy and climate.” So those are all very important issues, but they’re not issues that the American people are concentrating on. We need to talk about the issues that people care about. That’s why you’re a representative.
I think some of the discussion around transgender Americans' participation in sports might be potentially helpful in illustrating your point here. You caught a lot of criticism when, shortly after the election, you said, “I don't want to discriminate against anybody, but I don't think biological boys should be playing girls sports. Democrats aren't saying that, and they should be.”
You later voted against the GOP measure that would have effectively banned trans participation in sports, which you know didn't draw nearly as much attention as your previous statement. But I'm hoping you could explain how you came to the decision to vote against that bill in light of the previous statement, and how you see that fitting into your broader philosophy of talking about kitchen table issues while simultaneously maintaining the support for human and civil rights that people expect from Democrats.
After the election, I was very angry because I had been asking the campaign to say something about the commercials that they were running against them, and they didn't say anything. And that's when I said, really, I was just angry at my own party for not saying something about it, and I agreed to have a class with my staff, with some LGBT activist. I think it was the Human Rights Campaign, actually. And, you know, I don't say that the same way anymore.
Now, I say I don't think transgender women should be playing in competitive women's sports. I still mean the same thing, but I’m using language that may be more appropriate. And like I said, I have a 100% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, but I also don't think that transgender women should be playing in competitive sports. I think that's what most people think.
But the bill that was suggested in Congress was poorly written, and I spoke to a lot of my friends, and I thought that this bill did not make a distinction between competitive women's sports and young girls playing in elementary school. It was totally irresponsible.
I don't think that the federal government should be taking on this role, as it should be something done at the local level and by sports organizations. But the idea that, you know, Congress is going to say, “Hey, we've got to do physical exams of young girls and women,” I don’t think makes sense, and I just think it was irresponsible.
I talked to a lot of my colleagues. There's one colleague, Susie Lee from Nevada, who wrote a beautiful statement that I ended up reposting about how she was a former high school and college swimmer, and she doesn't support transgender athletes competing in girls' and women’s sports, especially when fairness or safety are compromised. But she doesn't think that this law was done appropriate the way that they did it.
So I mean, all these topics are very, very difficult to talk about. And one of the problems in our party that we've had historically is that it's hard to even open your mouth to discuss these issues — the language police, the cancel-ers shut you down right away and and that's that's just plain wrong, and we can't all be walking around on eggshells every time and not being able to say what we feel. And I think that certainly amongst my colleagues, they have been very, very good about giving people grace. We have to give them an opportunity to say what they think.
If somebody's for religious reasons or moral reasons, or maybe just not comfortable talking about these things, we can't just try and paint them as though there's something wrong with them. If we start to listen to people and what we allowing people to express themselves.
I’d like to move on to a few questions about sort of the meat and potatoes issues that you touched on earlier. My first one is about health care. I think most people in this country can agree that our health care system doesn't work very well for your average person. When I speak to a lot of Democrats, many of them tell me that Democrats need to offer the public some sort of transformative change for our health care system in future elections.
Some say that we should have a public option. Others prefer Medicare-for-all; members of leadership often like to talk about protecting and expanding on the Affordable Care Act. Understanding that there's not a specific bill on the table in this Congress, I'm wondering which of these policies you prefer, and do you think any of them would make a good marquee campaign issue going forward? And in general, I'm wondering, what's your vision for trying to fix the American healthcare system?
So that's a really hard question, and I wish I had the perfect answer. As a matter of fact, I bring this up often with think tanks and with provider groups of doctors and hospitals and health care advocates. Everybody's looking for their little thing instead of laying out a comprehensive solution to our health care problem.
I believe that Obamacare has done dramatic things to improve health care in America, but there still has to be more things done to improve affordability and these enormous amounts of money, and especially with end-of-life care. It’s such a big, huge, complicated topic. I don't think I can give you the answer right now, but I think with Obamacare, of the Affordable Care Act, we have to amend it, not end it. And right now, I think that what the Republicans are doing as part of their bill, with the reconciliation bill, is they're trying to gut Obamacare in a way that's not obvious to everybody that that's exactly what they're doing, and they're going to kick a lot of people off of the affordable health care and but because the President is such a master of distraction, nobody's even talking about the reconciliation bill.
I mean, there's been so little attention given to it, because at the hottest times that we were spending 24 hours a day working on this issue in Washington, D.C., he was cutting the tariffs that he had imposed on China, and he was accepting the plane from Qatar. Now he's doing the protest and military response in LA and now today, even the arrest of Senator, but not the arrest, but the forcible hands-on [detention] of Senator Padilla.
This is going to be a huge distraction, and the issue is the fact that they're cutting all these people's health care while they're giving a tax cut tax break, I should say tax break to the wealthiest people in our country who don't need a tax break. It's a losing issue for the President and the Republicans, but it's not getting enough attention, because he's such a master of distractions.
And so, I always equate it to a pickpocket. They usually work in teams, and one person comes in and bumps into you, and when you're reacting to that person bumping into you, the other person picks your pocket.
And so he does that, getting people all excited, whipped up. And meanwhile, he's cutting Medicaid and giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, so and creating the largest deficit in all of the country.
So, healthcare is one of the biggest challenges that I've always had. I love the idea of universal health care. Lovely idea, academically, but as a practical matter, it’s just not going to happen. Some of the people who have the best, best, best health insurance in the world are union employees. They're never going to give us their plans, and politically, they'll never do that. You've got other people, you know, working for large employers that have great health insurance, they don't want to give up their health insurance. So we have to figure out, getting more and more coverage for people. That has been very, very important.
But there are all kinds of things that need to be done regarding costs, the most important thing that Democrats should be holding President Trump's feet to the fire on is negotiating pharmaceutical drug prices. He was talking about that 2016 before, right before he became president, he said, “The pharmaceutical companies, these guys are getting away with making Americans pay so much more than other countries.” And then he banned them.
And then Biden and the Democrats did something about it, but it was only for like 10 drugs, 25 drugs, I can't remember, but we should be doing that for all the drugs, negotiating. We should be negotiating prescription drug prices, which would save the largest purchasers of prescription drugs in the world, Medicare and Medicaid, enormous amounts of money that can be used for other things, to fix the healthcare system.
So I really don't have the right answer. I've always supported the idea of allowing people who are younger than 65 to purchase Medicare, so it would be a less expensive option.
Basically, a public option by allowing people who are not of retirement age to purchase Medicare.
Yes, but I’m talking to other people. It's so hard because of all the things going on, that it's not like, you know, the hot burner issue, that it's always been historically, because there's some really crazy things happening.
But I'm very open. I need some ideas to protect people as to what to do, to create more competition in the system to drive down prices, and to get better results from people. People's life expectancy is less than it used to be, and I just — I don't have the answer yet. That's the challenge. I wish I could do that, say This is the plan, and then I'll go work on it.”
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On taxes, you've been called “Mr. SALT” for your dedication to restoring the state and local tax deduction. At the same time, you have said that you support raising the top marginal tax rate so the policy would not be a giveaway to wealthy Americans. I'd like to ask to what extent you would support raising the top marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, or, for that matter, potentially the Social Security cap? And do you think raising taxes on billionaires is a good campaign issue for Democrats?
Yes.
If you have nothing further out I have some more questions on the economy.
There's been a lot of talk recently about creating a more heterodox Democratic Party. But at the same time, I think there needs to be a tent pole that keeps Democrats recognizable as Democrats, and helps define what the party stands for, especially if there's going to be a more heterodox Democratic Party. I'm wondering what you think the tent pole should be?
Rewarding hard work.
America is founded on two big systems, capitalism and democracy. And capitalism says we have a society based upon competition. Capitalism as a system has lifted more people out of poverty, created more innovation. It's the best economic system in the history of the world, and it's based on competition.
The smarter you are, the stronger you are, the healthier you are, the harder working you are, the luckier you are, the better you’re going to do. Unfortunately, in a system based on competition, some people are not good competitors.
Little babies are not good competitors. Senior citizens, who are getting failed as they age, are not good competitors. You get hit by a car and you break both your legs, you’re not going to be a good competitor. You have a drug, alcohol, mental health problem, you get cancer, just something bad happens — you're not going to necessarily be a good competitor.
So if you have just that system alone, you're gonna have some people that do really, really well, and you have a bunch of people that do really poorly with a life of misery, but you're not going to naturally create a middle class in that system. So there’s a second system in America called democracy. It says, “All men and women are created equal."
We don't want you to be relegated to a life of misery because you're a little baby and your parents are not taking care of you. You can’t take care of yourself. We don't want you to starve to death. We don’t want to have senior citizens living in the cold. So we're going to put protection in place, and those protections are going to be like worker safety issues, so you don't cut your fingers off at work. And we're going to put a smokestack filter on top of your smokestack so you don't pollute there and give everybody cancer. And we're going to have a 40-hour work week, and we're going to give you overtime pay and, you know, etc., etc.
So it's not a choice of, "I'm going to pick this system or that system." You're all this, you're all that. You have to find a balance between these two systems, because if you do too much on the capitalist side, with no guardrails, you can end up with a lot of people who have a miserable life, and they'll get into an awful existence. If you put too much, too many rules in place, too many protections in place, you're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, where all this innovation and wealth has been created from. You have to find a balance. Balance is a very central theme of everything I believe, and you can't find that balance in the current environment, where everything is based on fear and anger. You have to give people goodwill, willing to sit down, talk to each other and try to find. And so, that’s not happening.
When you say what the tent pole is, you mean what’s going to stand out above everything else?
Yes. What is the defining set of policies or positions that make someone a Democrat?
We have to rebuild the middle class. That does not happen on its own. There has to be laws and provisions put in place to make that happen. We have to raise the minimum wage and help unions. That's why I'm working on legislation that you know will give you corporate discounts if you share 5% of your company stock with your lowest 80% wage earners of your company, because with AI and a lot of the other things happening in the contemporary global economy, we have to create more of an ownership economy in the country.
I’ve got a couple more questions on the economy. One is related to what I think some within the party, or at least some people adjacent to the party, are thinking about a kind of tent pole set of issues, which is “abundance,” and the “abundance movement,” as people have called it, particularly at the WelcomeFest and some of the characters there. You often emphasize the importance of speaking to regular people in their district and just talking to everyday working Americans. I'm wondering if your constituents ask you about abundance, or if it's something that they bring up to you?
No, I don’t think that’s something that would come up in regular conversation. It’s more of a new idea and an academic idea, but it’s not something that people would come up in normal conversation.
If you were to say to people that we need to build more. When I think of the whole abundance movement, and I agree with a lot of it, it’s related to permitting reform. What can we do to make sure that we continue to have the safeguards in place that government and private sector people do not harm the public, but we also have this problem where we want to build all this green energy stuff, and we can't do it. Why does it take so long to build more solar, more wind, more transmission lines.
The example that those guys were writing high-speed trains out in California, it took them 20 years and its not done. We have to figure out how to get things done. They want to see results.
I’ve got one more longer question and then a few rapid-fire questions for you. Some of the WelcomeFest types have talked about learning to say no to the groups. But in my observation, I think elected officials have at times hesitated to sign on to this prescription from some of the pundits in the space, and you actually specifically discussed the importance of talking to ethnic media or niche media outlets. And, in our conversation here, you've, you know, expressed the importance of unions, which I believe Josh Barro asked whether or not, whether or not it was necessary to break the unions to get things done in New York.
I'm wondering what you think of this notion of learning to say no to “the groups.” I'm wondering what it means to you and how that might be different from some of the other people discussing it as something that Democrats need to learn to do.
I don’t like the idea of framing it as "saying no to the groups." I think you have to listen to groups, same as you listen to people. They're groups of people that you know care passionately about a topic, and they put a lot of time and energy into thinking it through and trying to advance an agenda. So they're all very talented, passionate people that have an important perspective on things. However, you can't be intimidated by them. You can't be, like “I’m going to do whatever they say, no matter what they say.” That’s a prescription for failure.
You have to have a set of values and stick with your values. You’ve got to do the hard work of listening to what different people say, and it requires a tremendous amount of patience at times, both with individuals and groups. But then you have to make a decision based upon what your values are and what you think is best for the people and to listen to what the people say.
So you have to be willing to say no when it's appropriate.
I believe Rep. Torres expressed it as being willing to listen, but not allowing any single group to have a veto.
I've got a couple of quick questions for you, and then I can let you go. I understand you're not in New York City, but I'm wondering if you were, who you would be supporting in the city's Democratic primary later this month.
Well, I do have a piece in New York City, northeast Queens, and I've decided to support Andrew Cuomo. Historically, he and I have not gotten along that well but I feel like the city ... needs a strong executive who can navigate the many different things happening in the city right now. And I don't like the Democratic Socialist movement, and I don't think that the guy now in second place, who's a Democratic socialist, has the requisite experience or background to manage the city larger than Fortune 500 companies. You have to have the executive experience to be able to run things.
In terms of other members of the party. I’m wondering who you think is doing the Trump era right, the second time around?
I admire Hakeem Jeffries. I think he's a very, very reasoned person, very intelligent, has tremendous ability. He’s obviously a wonderful orator. I don't know if you know Joe Neguse, I think he is doing a good job. I think Richie Torres is doing a good job. I think that Jason Crow is doing a good job.
