There's a lot of talk about Greenland, for example. There's a lot of freakouts, you know, and of course I would never support taking it by force. I do think it's a responsible conversation if they were open to acquiring it and, you know, whether just buying it outright. I mean, if anyone thinks that's bonkers, it's like, well, well, remember the Louisiana purchase? Alaska was pretty, pretty a great deal to $50 million.
I think it was, it was referred to as Seward's Folly. And he went on to say, for those people who want to freak out with Trump every time, pace yourself. He's not even in office yet.
Just be open to what he brings it up and don't get caught up in the unorthodox way in which he presents it. That's similar to the editorial that Congressman Tom Suozzi authored last week in the New York Times. He's Homeland Security's third district of New York, right by my house over on Long Island. He wrote, let's try something different. It's the title and how we deal with Trump. He went on to say, if Trump wants to have more effective presidency than he had the first term, he needs to embrace his inner deal maker and negotiate with the other party that holds just shy of half the seats in Congress and key governorships around the country.
And if he does that, if he does that work, Democrats should meet him halfway rather than be the party of no. Joining us now, Congressman Tom Suozzi. Congressman, I loved your editorial. I love your approach. What's been the feedback since, since you put that out?
Hey, thanks for having me on, Brian. You know, the feedback's been what you would expect. Some of the far left, more extreme people in my party are like, what are you doing?
We can't make any deals. And a lot of normal people that I see on the streets and people that reach out to me and say, oh, I read your editorial was great. And I've said that to my friends. And so it's been, it's been a mixed, a mixed bag. I think overall, it's been very positive. But aren't you representing your area effectively when Trump wins it and you win it too?
Yeah. Trump won, President-elect Trump won my district by 19,000 votes, almost over 5%. And for me to win by 11,000 votes, at least 20,000 people had a vote for Donald Trump and Tom Suozzi. So yeah, I think that's what my people want. My people want us to work. I think all everybody in America wants this. They want us to work together to actually get stuff done to make their lives better. Everybody's sick of the finger pointing. Everybody's sick of the partisan politics.
They want us to work together to secure the border, to address inflation, to try and make their lives better. So it's interesting because you're from New York. You're not new to Trump. You used to him before he was on The Apprentice. You know what he was like when he was promoting fights and was in Atlantic City.
You know, it's the same, same way. When I was the Nassau County executive, he made a contribution to my campaign. So, and I met with him a couple times in his office at Trump Tower when I was, I don't know if I did it when I was the mayor of Glen Cove or county executive. I know he did it when I was county executive.
I may have done it when I was mayor also. So I knew President Trump before. As a matter of fact, I've been in meetings with him in the situation room as part of the problem solvers caucus.
You know, problem solvers caucus, 25 Democrats, 25 Republicans meet every week, try and find common ground to try and get things done. But I met with him and he said, you know, I know Tom longer than most of you in here. He said, I gave him a big contribution for his campaign when he was a county executive. I said, Mr. President, that hurt me a lot when I was running in my primary. He said, oh, you liked it when I did it.
Right. That's the way he is. You know, it's not personal, but he wants to win. And you write this, since the day Trump announced his candidacy at Trump Tower 10 years ago, politicians, pundits, activists, members of the news media have detailed every failing, every misstep. Every word he ever spoke has been criticized.
Yet he won again. People are exhausted by the endless finger pointing, the nitpicking, the daily battling for political advantage. They want leaders to work together to get things done. I mean, that that's that's somebody that wants to be a national figure.
In my view, that's very Joe Manchin like that's very Senator Fetterman like. Is that a different approach for you? And you realize when you said this, that there's going to be people mad at you?
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've always tried to run my politics that way. I think that's why, you know, I got reelected, quite frankly. I ran for governor of New York once. I got my ass kicked in a Democratic primary.
I did it twice. I mean, I ran for governor twice, once against Elliot Spitzer, when it's against Kathy Hochul, and got buried in the primary because I'm not I'm not far left enough to win a primary in New York State. But I think that's what, you know, regular people want. And listen, I'm going to listen, I'm going to fight President Trump when I disagree with him. When he was when he was the president the first time, I didn't agree with him trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. I didn't agree with deporting the dreamers.
And I'll fight back on that stuff. But I supported him when he wanted to move the embassy, American Embassy to Jerusalem. I supported him on the Abraham Accords. I supported him on when he wanted to make Mattis the defense secretary, and we had a vote on giving an exception. And I voted, worked with him on the first STEP Act, which was like a criminal reform thing. I voted for the big vote yesterday. So I mean, when I can do it, I'm going to do it, especially if that's what my people want.
So I got to fight, I'll fight. So the Lake and Riley Act is what you're referring to. And it passed the House 264 to 159. 216 Republicans, nobody voted against it.
Only 48 Democrats voted for it. Essentially, if you commit a crime, you're illegal immigrants, you're gone, right? You go to jail. So there's too many of them out in the streets. We saw this, this guy burn this New Jersey woman alive, said I was so drunk, you know, he was kicked out in 2018, came back, had a minor offense, came back again, left a free, his free room and board to go on a subway drunk and light her on fire, like things like that. Yeah, I've said very clearly, since I, since the beginning, I mean, we should be, Democrats should embrace the idea of deporting criminals. I mean, that's, we need to secure the border, we need to fix the asylum system. We need to treat dreamers. We should give dreamers a path to legalization.
We should do the same thing with temporary protected status folks that we invited to America 20 and 30 years ago. We should do something about the farm workers, but there, you know, there's a deal to be made here that, that we can find some common ground on this. And this is what the people said clearly in the election. That's what they want.
So we got to work together. Nassau County is not a sanctuary county, but New York City is a sanctuary city. Where do you stand? Well, the mayor of New York City recently met with the incoming border czar, Tom Holman, and said that, you know, he's going to work with them to make sure that they can go up to Rikers Island and people that are in convicted of crimes can be deported. How do you feel about that?
I know you're friends with Adams and he wanted you to go work with him, but how do you feel? I mean, do you feel, do you feel like sanctuary cities? That's the right thing. That's what we should be doing. You know, I don't like the term sanctuary cities because I don't think people know what it really means. I think in the case of, this is an important thing, Brian, if somebody's in jail, we should be working with the federal government and the local governments to deport criminals. If, I don't want the local cops doing it, though. I don't want the local police officers doing it, because police officers have to do community policing.
They have to build a relationship with the community. So if a person is robbed, even if they're undocumented, and they're afraid to go to the cops, then they're not going to report crimes. And where will they go for protection if they can't get protection from the cops?
They'll go to gangs. That's what creates an underground community. That's the antithesis of community policing. The cops have to know who they can talk to in the community, and the community has to trust the cops. So you don't want the local police forces becoming an arm of the federal government.
Plus it violates a whole bunch of other rules. But it's, as a practical matter, the cops have to be trusted by the local community, whether you're documented or undocumented. They can't get into the business of, you know, social security and immigration laws. They've got to enforce the local laws. And community policing is very, very important.
That's how it was intended, but how's it being used now in places like Chicago? Oh, it's gone too far in a lot of places. I mean, it can't be that we say we're not going to cooperate with the federal government to deport criminals. That's wrong.
I totally disagree with that. And I think that Democrats would make a big mistake. And I think that they're getting this message right so far, at least at the federal level. You know, you're going to have examples of people who are not going to get it right.
And, you know, a lot of commentators and political opponents are going to say, the Democrats. But I would say most the Democrats agree that we should be working to deport criminals. I want you to hear what Fetterman said, because he's going to have a chance to vote for the bill you vote for yesterday.
Here's what he said yesterday on the Lake and Riley Bill 32. I have a lot of enormous respect for my colleague in the House, but I just happen to disagree on this. And for me, just like my friend and colleague in the Senate, like it's really common sense. And I'd like to remind everybody that we have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of of migrants here illegally that have convicted of crimes. And I don't know why, you know, who wants to defend that to allow them to remain in our nation after that?
And now if you're here illegally and you're committing crimes and those things, I don't know why anybody thinks that it's controversial that they all need to go. It's just it's common sense. It's not conservative.
It's not conservative. I mean, we have to what do we have? Fifty seven thousand illegal aliens here, as much as eighty seven thousand at one point that are being housed in hotels that were once nice. These people paid the maximum dollar using taxpayer dollars. So the hotels are more than happy to turn it over to the city and they fill it up with illegal immigrants and they sit there and they wait and they get free food. Now they get debit cards in some cases where they can buy their own food and they wait. I mean, how does that help the city? Well, I got a little pushback on on that issue because, you know, I've been around a long time.
You've been around a long time. And it used to be when people would come as immigrants documented or undocumented or, you know, seeking asylum and in the system, which is broken and we got to fix that. They would it would seek its own level. People would go to communities where they knew people already. They'd find family that find people from their hometown. They'd find other people and they'd live with them and they'd find jobs.
They go working as landscapers and contractors and in restaurants and stuff like that. What happened was, is when they started shipping people up from Texas and Florida, you know, just sending them to New York, you know, in the middle of the winter, say, for example, on a bus or to just come live here. And then the city started this whole idea of housing everybody and giving them these hotels.
That's when the whole thing fell apart. Now, it brought a lot of political pressure. So that's one of the reasons I think people get the message now on what we need to do on immigration.
But, you know, we never housed people before. But that happened because of this artificial thing that was set up where Florida and Texas started shipping people up here. Fox News Audio presents the Fox Nation Investigates podcast. The Menendez brothers, monsters or misunderstood.
We have evolved to understanding that this kind of stuff can happen. Judge Jeanine Pirro and a panel of experts break down the Menendez brothers new fight for freedom and their defense attorney explains why he's optimistic he can clear their names. Are these convicted killers monsters or just misunderstood?
Listen and follow at Fox True Crime dot com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I think you brought up a good point. And here's the thing. If you look at all the people that Texas put up there, it's about twenty thousand what it was.
They are here illegally. And they said, I'd love to go to New York rather than stay in Lubbock. You know, I don't need to stay. I don't need to stay in a border city. So I'll go. So that was a that was a mission that was put out there.
Hey, guys, you can go. And I love what DeSantis said. He said, why should Texas or Arizona, New Mexico be burdened with these illegal, these immigration policies and not not against it, you know, and not and just created this article. Listen, every family, every Irish family, every time my father was born in Italy, every legal or illegal, they found it sought its own level. And this just created this artificial problem.
Listen, it's a problem. I've been working with Morgan Luttrell from Texas and trying to find some common ground on this to build a coalition of business badges and the border so that we can, number one, secure the border. Number two, we can fix the broken asylum system. And number three, we can treat people like human beings have a pathway for dreamers who've been here for decades, who've graduated from college or work in a full time job or in the military. Same thing with temporary protective status. They had an earthquake, they had a civil war, something happened.
We invited them to America 20 and 30 years ago, and they still don't have status. And these farm workers, I mean, there's so many bipartisan bills out there. Absolutely. On all these issues.
We just haven't got them over the finish line. Yeah. I mean, I've seen these features of people in the farms in California and their their families that live there and they're they're technically illegal. And I think that if they said if they left, the farmers say we have nobody that would take these jobs, not an American.
And I've seen Republicans out there and Democrats. So I think you're right. 50% of farm workers meet packers.
50% of them are probably undocumented. Right. So real problem unless we find some common ground. But I would think this until you seal the border, until you stop the bleeding, then I just don't see anything getting done. But the other stuff. I agree.
Yeah, I agree. We've got to build the wall. We've got to hire the border patrol agents. We've got to hire the immigration judges, the asylum officers. We have to get Democrats and Republicans to stop fighting each other and fight our common enemy.
And the common enemy is organized crime, cartels and coyotes that are making billions of dollars by abusing these people, getting to these awful ways across Mexico, subjecting them to this miserable life and then making our country weaker in the process. Well, Tom Swasey, a lot of Democrats and I've never heard many Republicans. I have not heard many Democrats say that outside Joe Manchin. But I want you to hear this from one of the Sunday face the nation over the weekend.
Undercover and underreported. That would be to me, Joe Biden's obvious cognizant decline that became undeniable in the televised at the presidential debate with unquestioned. And, you know, it's starting to emerge now that his advisers kind of managed his limitations. It's been reported in the Wall Street Journal for four years. And yet he insisted that he could still run for president. We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office. So that was Jan Crawford. I've never met just on CBS on Face the Nation, a show I've never been on saying that she said she feels responsible for not doing a better job reporting it.
I could say four or five others I've seen in traditional newspapers say the same thing from what you've seen. Congressman, you weren't there. I mean, you got Santos a seat. You ran for governor. But from what you say, do you think that more Democrats should have spoken up and and say, man, this president's failing, he can't do the job? Well, I'm not going to speak against President Biden. I mean, I endorsed him early on when he first ran because I thought he was the most moderate of the people running Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Wharton and others. And I really feel very fondly towards President Biden.
And, you know, newsflash, he's 82 years old. But as the president of the United States of America, he did implement the infrastructure bill. He bipartisan. No, but what do you think?
No, I know what you did. But what do you think about how he's been functioning with the revelations about good days, bad days, only meeting with his cabinet nine times in four years? I mean, he clearly wasn't doing the job. Well, I think he did do a good job. I think he accomplished a lot of great things.
He held the West together. You think he's OK, Congressman? I think he's old.
I think he's 82 years old. So is Bernie Sanders. He's at the top of this game, whether you like his game or not. Yeah, well, I don't like his game that much. Do I?
But he's old, too, but he's doing you know, I don't think he's slipping. Congressman, it's great to have you on. Hopefully you do this regular and it's going to be exciting to see someone on both sides taking it case by case instead of looking for a D or an R. Best of luck, Congressman Tom Swazee. Thank you. I read your book about the cult perspiring. You should.
It's Long Island. I read it. I read it. I'm honored.
Thank you, Congressman. Fox News Audio presents the Fox Nation Investigates podcast. The Menendez brothers, victims or villains. Lyle and Eric Menendez were motivated by greed. Others have called the brothers arrogant and spoiled. The reason behind this was financial gain or so it seemed. These two brothers should be out of prison by now. I don't see how the years of sexual, physical and mental abuse amount to life without parole. Listen and follow at Fox, true crime dot com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Listen to the show at free on Fox News podcast plus on Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
