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WCP&PBlockB_2026-03-22-12-41-55

Welcome back to Power and Politics. Still with us this week is Congressman George Latimer. The ongoing fight over funding for Homeland Security continues, and people are reporting issues at airports, for example, who's responsible for this and what is the path forward to resolving it? The proper way to deal with this would be for the majority leadership of the House to divide off the budget for ICE out of the DHS budget. The remaining component pieces of the DHA DHS budget do not have controversy attached to them. TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, uh, elements like that. If they could divide it off, then we have the battle over ICE, which is what this is about. And, and it's about the way ISIS conducted themselves. They operate in a way that no law enforcement agency in this country does. I had the, I had the opportunity to serve as a civilian head of the county police. You have professionals who actually run the department every day, but you do not put masked police out in the streets, no badge numbers, no, no body cams, no identification. And they go with bully boy tactics. It's almost as if you took the mindset of the January 6th insurrectionists. You've pardoned them, and you said, now put on a mask and go out there and crack heads. That is what is holding up this discussion, and it's the administration and my friends in the majority side of the aisle that will not divide off the ICE portion of the budget. Then we could argue about ICE and ICE alone, but because they won't do that, they want to try to create a political. Climate, let's blame the Democrats for the lines at the airport because TSA is part of it. We don't disagree with the TSA part of the budget. We don't disagree with the Coast Guard part of the budget. We don't disagree with the, with the, uh, FEMA part of the budget, but you've tied them together for political purposes. Divide it off and let us have the argument that we have to have. There is a legitimate public policy argument to have over the way ICE has been managed. Christine Nomem just lost her job, deservedly so. Uh, for her management of the department because she was too busy, you know, taking her jet around and with Lewandowski and so forth instead of managing the department intelligently, and, and you get back to that negotiation, and that'd be give and take. It's not going to be, uh, what, what the minority side of the aisle thinks and everything, but deal with ICE, separated, move the rest. Of the budget forward and Jonathan, you've solved the problem. That's how we would have handled it at other levels of government. That's how the town supervisor in the town handles it when he or she is engaged with the town council. Let's put this aside, debate this. Let's move everything else forward. That's not what you have here. That's the core of why the DH budget is still, uh, in its difficult, uh, iteration. ICE as as an as an entity is necessary. People say abolish ICE, but you're really saying abolish the way it's being run today with its current leadership and many of its current membership properly configured, you have uh uh enforced immigration and customs control, but not this way, and these changes have to happen and that's what we're holding. Out for we're holding out for substantive changes so that what happened on the streets of Minneapolis do not happen on the streets of Port Chester and on the streets of Tarrytown and on the streets of Yonkers. That can't happen all across the country, and it will unless ICE agrees to make significant changes in the way they operate. Congressman, you recently introduced a bill that would prevent the president from interfering with the administration. Of elections, sort of a counterpunch to the Save Act. What exactly would your bill do? The bottom line of the Pot Act is we see something that is possible in 2026 and 2028 that was inconceivable at any point in time in prior American history a president of the United States ordering federal departments to interfere in an election. To ensure that his party has a positive outcome. Where do I get that fear from? I get that fear from Donald Trump himself. He publicly called on Republican states and governors to redistrict their districts, not because there was any irrationality or illegality involved in the current district lines, but he said, I. Want more Republican House members. We want you to redistrict. Texas took him up on it, of course, California, run by Democrats, said, look, if you're gonna do that, we're gonna do the same darn thing. And so you went into this crazy frenzy of Missouri and Indiana and Virginia and everybody doing these things, but he said in so many words what he wanted. He wanted to influence the election. Uh, not by, uh, advocating his good policies, but by trying to manipulate the process by which people are elected. The bill that, uh, that, that they're so enamored with, the SAV Act, they have a different acronym. I think mine's more accurate, suppressing. American voter engagement. What are you saying? You're saying if you're a woman, you get married and you change your last name. You can't change that by mail. I now have a new last name. You've got to go to the board of elections, take time off from work, go re-register, and when you re-register, you have to prove your citizenship. Well, you know, I'm 52 years old. Uh, uh, why should I have to prove my citizenship? I've been voting for, you know, 35, uh, no, no, you gotta prove your citizenship and the driver's license. License is not proof. Gotta go get your birth certificate. Well, if you, if you happen to live in the town you were born in, getting your birth certificate is not a problem. But if you grew up in another part of the country, it's not easily done, or a passport. Many of us have passports. A lot of people do not have passports. This is a way to eliminate voters, college students who move around a fair bit. I'm gonna vote at my college campus, or I'm gonna go back and vote at my parents' house. No, no, you got to be there during a certain period of time. If you don't do it by that date, you're ineligible to vote. And you go up and down the line with these restrictions. That's what that law does. And then the most important thing, uh, he wants to get his hands on the voter rolls of all the states. In the Constitution, it is clearly given the right to the states to manage state elections. The federal government can set certain rules, but the state administers. If you turn those voting rolls over into the Department of Justice, which has already been weaponized. By Donald Trump to go after his enemies, you can bet people are going to get eliminated from the voting list to suit his political needs. So the POIT Act addresses these issues. It, it identifies who is not eligible to interfere with the election president, vice president, various appointees. It, it establishes definitions of what interference looks like. I'll give you a couple of examples, and Lord knows if you stay up late at night and stare at the ceiling, I, you get 5 more examples of things that they could do. And it also establishes penalties that include uh civil penalties, jail time, if you're appropriate to jail time, and it certainly sets out a basis for an impeachment, not just impeach somebody because you don't like him, you impeach him because he breaks the law that clearly says you can't do these things. Now the chances of this bill passing are very small. I, I understand the Republicans are not about to buck the president and vote for a bill like this, and they're in charge of both houses, but this bill is a marker in the ground. This bill tells people, we see what is possible. You should see what is possible. And now using the power of governors, state attorney generals, local or federal courts, but in the local area, let us do everything we can do to make sure that this election happens. We'll wrap up the show right after the break.

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WCP&PBlockC_2026-03-22-12-39-33

Welcome back to Power and Politics. We're wrapping up this week's show with Congressman George Latimer. Congressman, you've had a very quiet reelection campaign so far. Where do things stand, Jonathan, I'm old school, and before there was an internet, you know, I had run for local office as a county legislator, councilman, and so forth. So I don't worry about making an announcement on, uh, video for the world to see on, on the social media. I'm out every day in the community. I'm gonna be, uh, in. In a host of different communities talking to people, some of it is symbolic. You're out at a community event, but you're also listening to people, and some of them will be substantive conversations. I've done that my whole career. Folks who, who watch this station have seen me as a state, state official, as a county executive, and I did the same thing then that I'm doing now. I think that's the best form of government. Uh, I know there's a Republican that's running in the 16th district in November. Uh, I take every race. Seriously, uh, I, I treat every opponent as a person where we can have an intelligent debate about the issues. And then, of course, when I get attacked, then, you know, I don't serve as a pincushion. I'll push back, but I'm not looking for the attack scenario. But I have strong opinions, and I think the people of this county know me after a long period of time. You might get a campaign mailing that says something about me, but you pretty much know my strengths and weaknesses by this point. And uh it'll be up to people if they determine that I deserve a second term. And if I go back for a second term, I'm going to continue to work as hard as I ever have. There's no, there's no slacking off. There's been some talk from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans calling to reopen Indian Point. What are your thoughts on that? The time to have exerted your interest in seeing Indian Point stay alive was when it was being closed 5 or 456 years ago, whatever it was. Um, I, I think a lot of that discussion now is more of a PR situation. I think there's an effort being made by, uh, by the Republicans to say, well, Indian Point is closed, and that's why you have high utility rates, and, and they want to make that correlation. If Indian Point is to be analyzed, it's going to take the state government to do it, so I'm going to defer to the state legislators and the governor to have that discussion. Uh, it's gonna involve the, the, the 4 counties involved, Westchester County and the other 3 counties, and they're gonna have to be involved. If you reopen the plant, uh, it's gonna cost a tremendous amount of money. Where's the money coming from? That will have to be identified. Um, I know it's an economic driver, but when it was being closed, the county, uh, at the time, uh, made certain concessions to help out the village of Buchanan and the Henrick Hudson School District to deal with the economic hit of that time to the best extent possible. So, if all of that's gonna be reversed, that's a dialogue happen. I don't think that's a dialogue that begins in Washington. I think that's a dialogue that begins in Albany. Once again, I'm Jonathan Gordon, and this is Power and Politics on News 12, where local elections lead to national change.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/834a21b1-61b8-450c-a65e-753ca1884dac/834a21b1-61b8-450c-a65e-753ca1884dac.transcribe

This weekend's guest is Rep. George Latimer.

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