Name: 'The ultimate betrayal': Congressman appalled at Republican colleague's indifference to constituents
Uploaded: 2025-07-04T07:58:52.000Z
Duration: 7 min 23 s
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Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Richie Torres of New York.

Adverbs of degree

His district stands to be one of the hardest hit by the big ugly bill that Republicans just passed.

And I know you've been talking about this relentlessly, but I think it's so important for people to understand how this will impact people.

As I understand it, 67 percent of your constituents are enrolled in Medicaid.

That is one of the largest percentages of any congressional district in the country.

The other one that's about as large is David Valdeo out in California.

Talk to me a little bit about this bill's not passed today.

How is that going to affect both of your districts?

I mean, I represent the Bronx, which is ground zero for racially concentrated poverty.

Sixty seven percent of my residents are enrolled in Medicaid.

One third of my residents are enrolled in SNAP.

Just about every hospital in my district is in the red or teetering on the brink and depends fundamentally on Medicaid.

And so the Republican reconciliation bill is a catastrophe.

You know, when America sneezes, the Bronx gets the flu and the Bronx is going to be the hardest hit by the trillion dollar cut to Medicaid and the 300 billion dollar cut to SNAP.

But I have to say it's galling for me to see Valdeo vote for the bill.

He had he's the only member of Congress who has a higher rate of Medicaid enrollment than I do.

And for him to vote to defund by a trillion dollars a program that enrolls two thirds of his own constituents, to me, is the ultimate betrayal.

I barely know the man, but I'm appalled by his behavior.

You fought like hell to prevent this from passing, as did many, many of your colleagues.

The question I often get is like, what can be done?

What can be done about all of these people who are going to lose access?

Is the answer vote people out in a year and a half or is there anything that can be done before then?

We need to hold the so-called moderate Republicans accountable in states like New York.

Like we have to ask them where your loyalties lie.

Do your loyalties lie with the American people or does it lie with Donald Trump?

And consistently, these so-called moderates have chosen Donald Trump over the American people.

And we should hold them accountable and we should drive them out of power.

And we need to desperately win back the House in 2026.

I'm all in for Hakeem Jeffries Project 2026 because we have to reverse these cuts.

It affects everything, food, health care, everything, education.

We just played kind of a bit from every hour of Jeffries.

How important was him doing that to the caucus?

Look, it just sends a powerful message that we're not going to stand by idly and allow Donald Trump to decimate the social safety net for working people.

He spoke about the Declaration of Independence, which is an indictment of tyranny.

It's an indictment of an out-of-control king.

And Donald Trump thinks that he's a king and that we are his subjects.

And Leader Jeffries sent a powerful message that we're not his subjects.

America's a democracy and we're citizens who are able and willing and ready to fight for it.

One of the challenges I think every Democrat and everybody who's against this bill is going to deal with is what I'm just going to call the era of gaslighting that we have fully entered.

And I want to play you something that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said during the debate over the bill this morning, because it is a very good example of that.

If you're disabled on Medicaid right now, you've been crowded out of those programs by people turning down work, able-bodied people, 35-year-olds sitting at home playing video games.

They're going to now have to go get a job.

And by the way, that's a good thing for them.

Their mom doesn't want them sitting in the basement playing video games anyway.

But now it no longer will be crowding out Medicaid for the truly needy people who deserve it.

We're not trying to, you know, platform Steve Scalise.

It's important people to hear what the argument is going to be, because we're going to hear that over and over and over and over again.

You know how this impacts people, given your district.

What is the best pushback and argument against that for people to do?

The truth, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, is built on a lie, that there are masses of welfare kings and welfare kings who are simply sitting on their couches and playing video games and living off the system.

The majority of people on SNAP and Medicaid are working people.

And of those who are unemployed, most of them are students or caregivers or those who are homeless or those with temporary disabilities.

The number of people who are able-bodied and simply refuse to work is vanishingly small.

It's less than 1 percent of enrollees in both SNAP and Medicaid.

The majority of people on SNAP are families with children, senior citizens, and those with disabilities.

And in New York State, most of the Medicaid dollars are spent on the elderly and the disabled.

The largest category of Medicaid enrollees are children.

These are programs that almost exclusively benefit those in greatest need.

And defunding these programs will weaken those in greatest need.

This is what people should tell their neighbors and people on social media about this, which is why I want to ask you about it.

I just want to change gears for a moment because you're also from New York, you're a member of the Bronx.

You endorsed Maumdani's opponent, but what's been so interesting for me to watch, and I think so many, and you've made your policy differences with him, which you can certainly talk about.

But you said you committed to work with him if he should win.

And you've also been relentless, I would say, in defending and pushing back against these Islamophobic attacks against him.

Talk to me about what that means to you, why you've been doing that, and kind of how you see the state of this race moving forward.

Well, look, first of all, unlike Republicans, Democrats accept the results of the election.

The people of the Democratic primary have spoken, and I accept the results, right?

I have profound differences of opinion with Assemblymember Maumdani, but we had a mutually respectful conversation last weekend, and we're committed to building a relationship and continuing the dialogue.

But I have a deeply felt obligation to speak out against hate, whether it's anti-Jewish bigotry or anti-Muslim bigotry, and as an example, I'm in the process of drafting a resolution that would condemn Andy Ogles for not only engaging in racist rhetoric about Leader Jeffries, but also in calling upon the attorney general to deport a Muslim-American Democratic nominee simply because he's Muslim-American.

That kind of bigotry has no place in the United States of America.

America is and should be a multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious democracy whose creed is e pluribus unum.

That's what we should be celebrating on Independence Day.

So we'll see that Andy Ogles resolution when you get back?

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'The ultimate betrayal': Congressman appalled at Republican colleague's indifference to constituents

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