During portions of an interview with NPR aired on Monday’s broadcast of “All Things Considered,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) said that it’s clear Republicans want to shrink government and cut taxes, but what Democrats want to do on anything other than abortion and LGBT rights is unclear.
Suozzi said, “We can’t just resist. It can’t just be why we’re against Trump and what’s wrong with Trump.” And that “the Democratic brand has been damaged.”
NPR Correspondent Barbara Sprunt then said, “He says Republicans have done a better job at marketing their ideas.”
She then played a clip where Suozzi said, “When you ask people, you say, well, what do the Republicans stand for? They say, well, Make American Great Again, they want to cut the size of government, they want to give tax cuts, stuff like –. And what do the Democrats stand for? And I think the people are kind of scratching their head a little bit, they believe in, like, choice and LGBT rights — which I believe in those things too — but I don’t know that you can build a whole party around that.”
Sprunt then stated, “He nods to his own campaign where he won an issue that, traditionally, puts Democrats on defense: Immigration.”
She then played a clip where Suozzi stated, “I was running on the issue of the border. So, the consultants come to me and they say, well, Tom, that’s a Republican issue, I don’t know if you should be talking — I said, no, this is what the people of my district are talking about. We can’t ignore what the people are talking about.”
NPR also reported that Suozzi said, “We need to do more things that show we are in favor of creating jobs that pay good wages to people that are willing to work hard,” and “That is part of the historic Democratic brand and we’ve just lost that.”
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