Congressman Pat Ryan
speaker
72 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Congressman Pat Ryan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Well, I think sort of this idea that as we're in or maybe approaching crisis or maximum division, there actually is opportunity there. I hate to say that, but I think that I've generally been that kind of person in my life where even if you're in a bad situation, you try to make the best of it and use a crisis to bring people together.
So I think focusing on core issues and areas where there's broad resonance and appeal, and without a doubt, that is affordability in the economy right now. It's the only thing we should be talking about as Democrats. And we failed to do it, at least nationally,
in these last elections, myself and other House members that talked obsessively about affordability and listened also, more importantly, to our constituents about their pain on affordability, we way outperformed the national brand because we just actually listened to voters and did everything we could to fight for them and against any power, whether
corporate or government that was sort of harming them from an affordability perspective.
So we should see, for example, this coming potential shutdown or government funding moment that's coming in the next few weeks, I think, as an opportunity to assert a proactive view of what Democrats want to do in lowering housing costs, lowering prescription drug costs, lowering food and grocery costs, and put that out as our marker that if you don't work with us on that,
on these specific proposals, then you're obstructing the number one need of the American people.
I think we're talking about, with respect, you're talking about sort of inside baseball process rather than really talking about, like, what are we for? Like, we should put out a policy focus, not like we're trying to shut things down or stop things, because a lot of, agree or not, a lot of what Trump is doing...
Separate from some of these overreaches is very popular, as you said, in some of the polling numbers. So we should listen to our voters and focus on what he's not doing, which is anything at all in three weeks time to lower costs in any way. In fact, much of what he's done is driving up costs.
the threats and imposition of tariffs, seeing food prices go up, seeing costs of everything go up, we should talk about a proactive agenda that we want the Republicans to support in this budget negotiation about lowering housing, health care, and food costs. And if they don't do that, then that's their choice. They're in the majority.
If they can't summon their majority, that's their decision to shut down the government. But I think we should start from a place of good faith. Let's focus on the number one issue in the country, which is affordability.
just quickly like i think it's the messaging here to your point is super important i learned this day one in the army when in charge take charge they're in charge of everything we the american people chose that they know the american people know that we need to help remind them of that and we can put out we should put out our pro you know proactive agenda of what we stand for
Let them let those in charge respond to that and either get on board with it or not. Yeah.
Well, and I think understandably, this is me not being a lawyer. Most Americans, once it's like in the courts and all that, it's like, all right, that's very complicated and long and slow. Um, we need to be messaging in the moment at a local visceral level.
These are the specific impacts, whether economic, especially, but certainly to key things like childcare and veteran services that are real and visceral and tangible and do it in a nonpartisan way. We've rallied in my district, a bipartisan group of veterans, VFWs, legions, elected officials of both parties who have said, this is like not who we are as a country where we leave our veterans hanging.
And this is some of what that article you mentioned was sort of focused on is what happened with young people and especially young men. I mean, I don't think any person or group likes to be sort of talked to in such a political way of like, here's my plan to... win back men, or here's my plan to win back women. Like, I think that's disingenuous and comes up people's BS meters very high.
And that just rings the bell of like, this is just a politician trying to sell me a, sell me a bridge or whatever. And so I think we need to be much more authentic and real. I think what I talked about in the article is sort of like, there is this conversation about toughness and masculinity happening where if the brand of the Democratic Party is, to me, there's two aspects to sort of leadership.
One is care and one is fight. I have to fight for my people, but I have to do it from a place of caring about them. That's good leadership to me, whether in the army, business, family, politics. The Democratic Party, I think, is very heavy on the care, which is great, but hasn't shown the fight very much, right? Trump and MAGA are big on the fight, less so on the care.
And the sweet spot is both and doing it authentically. I think if we do that, certainly with policy, but more so at a values and culture level, That's when our brand is strongest. When we are fighting for the underdog, we're fighting for you against a person like Musk, by the way. And we can get back to that. Absolutely. That's, you know, we've had FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln.
I mean, these are models of how to have that sort of what I'm calling patriotic populism. I know populism is like a word with a lot of current connotations, but we're in a populist moment in the country and Trump is destructive answers to that. We have to have constructive answers and policies to meet the populists rage to riff on your title here of your great podcast. Like,
That's where we're at. And we got to be we got to listen and hear voters on that.
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