Candidate Forum

Added: 2026-06-10

[00:14:07]I mean, I think Hi, how are you? Just going to be a little closer to the not be too far away. So you'll be able That's right.

[00:15:51]It's There we go.

[00:16:38]I thought Good evening everyone. I'll invite everyone to take their seats.

[00:16:58]I'm Rabbi Felicia Saul and on behalf of Rabbi Rolley Matalan and Becca Wine Rabbi Becca Winrab, I want to welcome you to Bened Jasherin. Uh if you're new to the space, welcome. Um we're proud to be hosting this nonpartisan forum to allow voters and particularly Jewish voters to hear directly from candidates running for our congressional and assembly person seats. It's becoming increasingly clear over the years that our power and influence as citizens of this country is more than in just national elections every four years. Of course, this year is of particular importance given the retirement of our beloved BJ member, Jerry Nadler, who served in Congress for 37 years and retires shortly. Our goal for this evening is about civic engagement and to hear on a wide range of issues where the candidates stand. We are a synagogue and this is a sacred space. And so we ask that we honor the values of dialogue for the sake of heaven and respect the dignity of every person and every candidate and every voice even when there is significant disagreement.

[00:18:08]I do want to say we invited all the candidates. Not all the candidates are here. Um but we want you to know that that's a commitment that we have to do and we did. Um so we're so happy for these candidates to be here with us. Uh we also ask that people refrain from applause, shouting or verbally reacting to the candidates's answers um just to have that decorum. We are excited that Michelle Goldberg is here to moderate and we want to give her the time and space to move the conversation along and to get the most out of our candidates being here. Her signs and banners are also not permitted in the space.

[00:18:46]Respectful dialogue and conversation is so lacking in our culture right now, particularly in political spaces. We are deserving of having our elected officials and candidates modeling speech worthy of listening to and we as a community should model curiosity and the holding of our shared democratic values in listening to them and each other. May we be blessed not only preserving a sacred decorum here, but recognize the privilege of what it means to hold free and fair elections and to live in a democracy where there are primaries and many voices can be heard. May this be true for many years to come. I now uh want to introduce uh Kiana Davis who's our senior manager of social action social justice uh to begin the panel.

[00:19:39]>> Hi everybody. Thank you for being here.

[00:19:41]Just to reiterate what Rabbi Felicia shared, as is often the case at this point in the campaign season, schedules change quickly and so some of the candidates who had planned to be here or wanted to be here were unable to make it due to last minute scheduling conflicts.

[00:19:57]Um we are very grateful to the candidates who are here tonight. Um and just a couple logistics. I want to remind folks of the flow of the evening.

[00:20:05]We are going to hear first from our congressional candidates uh for the New York 12 district. Um and then we are going to transition for the sort of second half to the assembly district candidates um who are running for district 69. Um and we know some people may need to leave after the congressional portion. We know there's some other stuff happening tonight, but we'd love to encourage everyone to stay for both conversations. We will plan to wrap promptly at 8:30 so you can make it back to your TVs in time. Um we will have just for the candidates awareness a timekeeper um with some signs here in the front row uh for anyone who is new to our space. The bathrooms are out these double doors and to your left hand side. And now it is my privilege and honor to introduce our moderator for the evening, Michelle Goldberg. Michelle has been an opinion columnist at the New York Times since 2017. She was a part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on issues of workplace sexual harassment and has also won two front page awards from the Newswomen's Club of New York and the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis.

[00:21:18]Michelle is the author of several award-winning books, including Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism about Religious Authoritarianism and American Politics and The Means of Reproduction. Sex Power and the Future World about global battles over gender and reproductive rights. Okay.

[00:21:35]Sorry. Michelle's work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Nation, and many others. And she is an on-air contributor at MS Now. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children. I'm going to hand it over to you, Michelle. Thank you all for being here. Wait, can I please um well, thank you so much for being here. And yeah, you as you heard, we had a last minute change, but we can roll with it. And so to get started, why don't you all just take um like 90 seconds and each introduce yourselves.

[00:22:14]>> All right. I'm really bad at mics, so I want to make sure I'm doing this right.

[00:22:17]It's a down mic, Isaac. It's a down mic.

[00:22:20]Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for having me here tonight. My name is Nina Schwelby. I'm running for Congress in New York 12 because we are in deep trouble. From abortion to vaccines, from SNAP to science, we're losing our democracy and we're losing the systems that keep us safe. We have measles in children in New York. And when we have measles, it's a sign that our basic systems are failing. Not just house, health, housing, education, immigration.

[00:22:54]I'm a public health expert and I've delivered billions of vaccines. I've worked in over a 100 countries. I've negotiated with Russia, North Korea, China.

[00:23:06]I stood up to big pharma and I lowered the cost of cervical cancer vaccines by 65%.

[00:23:13]I faced death threats for this work and I did it anyway.

[00:23:18]I'm a sixth generation New Yorker. I'm a lesbian and a mom. I'm 99.998% Ashkanazi Jew.

[00:23:28]And when I fight, I don't fight by screaming or waving my hands. I fight smart, steady, strategic, and we win. A year ago, Trump gutted life-saving programs, fired 200,000 of my peers, and millions of people lost access to care.

[00:23:47]And that's why I'm here with you tonight running for Congress. Thank you so much.

[00:23:56]>> Good evening, everyone. Beautiful synagogue. Happy to be here. Happy to see everybody on a Monday night. My name is Patrick Timmons. I'm running for congressman in the 12th CD. You may recall my name. I was the only Democrat guts enough to run against Alvin Bragg last June. There was no primary slated for him and I jumped in. Worked very hard at it. Lost, but I received 70,000 votes in that primary and over near 52,000 in the 12th CD. I'm the only candidate in this uh contest that's run in this CT.

[00:24:34]So, I'm looking I'm enjoying reconnecting with the people I campaigned with and I'm looking forward to this uh June 23rd primary. I've been a lawyer, a litigator for 34 years. I was a Bronx assistant district attorney.

[00:24:49]I've represented unions who retirees have come down with asbestous cancer.

[00:24:54]I've been teaching at John J. College for the last 22 years. just finished my finals a few weeks back. So, I've always been fighting for people. As a matter of fact, I think I told the last group, my first public service job was in 1986.

[00:25:09]I ran a 10stall public shower in the Bowery when it was the Bowery. And I also ran a 17 bed men's shelter in the Bowery. Quite an experience. A lot of stories for after if you choose to hear me. Thank you so much for being here tonight.

[00:25:32]Congress is full of cowards and the corrupt, and I am running to offer courage. I'm a campus sexual assault survivor. I never planned on running for office, but I used my story to change federal law and policy to make students safer all across this country. It took me two years of lobbying a bipartisan Congress going doortodoor to Democrats and Republicans alike advocating for section 304 of the Violence Against Women Act, which ended up passing in 2013. To pass, I worked with Nancy Pelosi and the House Minority Leadership at that time because it was Republican controlled under Speaker Boehner. I also worked with Senator Lehey on the Senate Judiciary Committee. And through our efforts, we were not only a able to pass this law, but I was able to go on and be nominated by the Department of Education to work on the rulemaking committee. So, I not only wrote the statute, I helped make the regulations. I then worked with President Obama to coordinate enforcement across federal f several federal agencies and I went on and got a clerkship under Senator Ley, an LGBTQ champion. We worked together on pathways to citizenship, ending human trafficking, judicial nominations, and if all that wasn't enough, after those experiences, I founded my own national legal nonprofit. I used it to sue Donald Trump in his first term in office when he attacked Title 9 and the protections not just of victims of gender violence, but LGBTQ youth. I'm the only one on the stage with that extensive federal experience, and I'm bringing it to lead on day one for Jerry Nadler's open seat.

[00:27:07]Thank you.

[00:27:11]Good. Good evening. I'm Michael Asher. I am a born and raised Upper Westsider and the very proud parent of three kids who I have the great blessing to be raising in the community I grew up in. Nate uh who's 15, Ben is 14, Phoebe is 10. And I have spent the better part of my career in public service because I still believe in the power of government to improve people's lives. I began 18 years ago as an aid to Congressman Nadler. I was a senior aid to Mike Bloomberg at city hall, chief of staff of the New York State Attorney General's office and policy director for the governor. And in those roles, I'm very proud of work on abortion rights and gun safety and expanding child care access. And I represent the part of the upper west side and Morningside Heights in the state assembly where I've been a leader in the fight to use state law and state power to fight back against the fascist in the White House. I can't help uh as we sit in this beautiful sanctuary thinking about uh how my upbringing in this community in the Jewish tradition shaped my progressive values. My name is Micah. It is after the prophet Mika who said uh what does the Lord require of you to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God. We obviously have lost sight of those values uh with the fascist thugcracy that is running our country. We also have a lot of work to do to get the Democratic Party to return to those values in ways that people feel across America and I'm running for Congress to bring that back to our party. Thank you very much.

[00:28:50]>> Okay. So, I am going to I'll ask questions. We'll have about 90 minutes for each of the responses and then we can do what? Yes. 90 seconds for each of the responses and then we can do um you know quick rebuttals if you if you mention um each other. So I'm going to start we're not going to just talk about Israel here but we are going to start by talking about Israel and I'm going to start by talking about um Jerry Nadler.

[00:29:20]You're all running to fill his seat.

[00:29:24]In 2024, he voted against the Anti-semitism Awareness Act in part in large part because it sought to cottify the International Holocaust Remembrance Association's definition of anti-semitism into law. Now, that's a definition that includes many forms of anti-ionism and what it calls disproportionate criticism of Israel. Um, and it's also a definition that although it might seem a little bit obscure, is at the heart of a lot of these battles over which sorts of criticisms of Israel are legitimate and which are rooted in prejudice. So, I guess my first question is, do you think that the IHRC definition of anti-semitism um should be codified into law? And we'll start with um with Ma with Micah.

[00:30:20]Sorry.

[00:30:21]>> I I think candidly we're in a moment where there is a whole set of definitional debates >> that does more to divide people of good will and good faith than it does to bring people together. And uh I have worked a lot on issues of anti-semitism in the state legislature. It is uh we are we are undoubtedly experiencing a dramatic rise in anti-semitism in New York and across the country.

[00:30:52]uh it is not the precisely same thing as anti-Zionism but often they go hand in hand and dealing with that legislatively is a very difficult business and I wish it I wish we could legislate hate out of people's hearts uh and we don't have the capacity to do that and I think that ultimately it is hard complicated ated work to do to bring people together, build common ground, educate people about what hate looks like in its obvious and less obvious forms. Um, and I don't I I'm I I just am going to resist getting drawn into definitional arguments, >> right? But these are but these definitional arguments are arguments about what is going to be in the law, right? I mean, these are questions about do you support these this kind of legislation or not.

[00:31:50]>> I agree. I think a lot of what we do as legislators is make choices about where we want to spend our energy and time.

[00:31:55]And I don't want to spend my energy or time debating this.

[00:32:00]>> I think it's a shame when politicians avoid hard questions.

[00:32:09]>> I'm a civil rights attorney. It's our job to define what's inbounds and out of bounds. And it's not easy, but that means you have to tackle it head on. So, I looked up this definition when Mayor Mom Donnie rolled it back for New York City because I wanted to understand this debate better. I'm not part of the Jewish community, so I'm here to learn.

[00:32:28]I'm here to be educated by those who know more than me. The definition on its face did not offend the First Amendment, but some of the examples that were given were crossing the line into politically protected speech. There is a difference between supporting Israel and its right to exist as a Jewish homeland and preventing criticism for how Israel is currently behaving under Prime Minister Netanyahu. We need to be courageous in drawing that line. It's going to be imperfect. It's probably the issue I get yelled at on the street the most about.

[00:32:59]But what I can assure you as someone who's been victimized, I care deeply about protecting everyone in the Middle East. I don't think someone's life in Israel is more valuable than someone's in Palestine, than someone in Lebanon, than someone in Iran.

[00:33:15]This is about human rights. And that really is a tradition that came from us deciding we will not have World War II.

[00:33:21]We will not have a Holocaust again. We will unite as nations and protect all people equally. So, I'm ready to take on that fight and I am here to learn from you as I take that on. Thank you.

[00:33:37]Jerry Natler was a great man. He'll be missed. Love seeing him on TV and whenever I saw him in public. So that's a loss for us. Um in so far as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, I think that's the definition that Mayor M that mayor Mdani struck on his first day in office. And the important thing about having a definition is that you can codify and work with it because it assists hate crime. When I was at the Bronx DA's office in the '9s, we were dealing with the Bloods and the Latin Kings and I was on a special gang assault group there.

[00:34:20]And the thing that made a difference is in the legislature they came up with a statute called gang assault which meant two or more people attacking somebody it tacked on an extra felony count. So what's happening is the anti-semitism in this city right now is at a very high level. We need to go forward as fast as we can but as thoughtful as we can so we can have more protection. And that's what I'm for. And I like the inter international Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition that I think Mayor Adams had as an executive order, but was struck by Mayor Manni. Mayor Mdani has not done a lot to help the Jewish people right now.

[00:35:10]>> Will there be other questions about Israel or is this the big question about Israel?

[00:35:13]>> I'm going to ask a couple more.

[00:35:14]>> Okay. Okay. Well, I'm I'm just going to kind of start with I believe in a free Palestine and a Jewish democratic state of Israel. And I also think that Israel must be held accountable for its actions of genocide.

[00:35:32]What I am most upset with right now happening in New York is the conflation of criticism of the government of Israel and anti-semitism.

[00:35:42]They're very different things. And I think our mayor has really taken a hit with his criticism of Israel, which to me is not a criticism of Jews or the Jewish people of New York. For me, there is no place for hate anywhere and no place for hate speech, although I do support freedom of speech. You can look on my Instagram page any time and you can see swastikas, hate speech, antihomosexual rhetoric.

[00:36:12]I believe strongly that what we need to do uh and I was talking to Rabbi Schuli about this is the best way to invest in dehate is education and getting kids together and bringing people together to talk in dialogue. And I had a hopeful moment the other day because I spoke at Temple Emanuel and a woman came up to me on the street with her husband and what she said was,"I really disagree with you on Israel, but I agree with you on everything else and thank you for being on the stage. We can agree to disagree.

[00:36:44]That's the world I want to see."

[00:36:48]Um, >> so the Democratic Party's position on Israel is changing very rapidly and in all likelihood the next Congress or at least the Congress after that is going to vote on, you know, perhaps ending aid to Israel, perhaps an arms embargo or an offensive, you know, or at least an offensive arms embargo at this point. and even Rahm Emanuel who you know fought with who fought with the IDF um has called on kind of severing United States aid to Israel and so I want to know where each of you stand on that. Do you want to keep the relationship as it is right now? Do you favor ending aid and do you favor um an offensive arms embargo? And let's start with you Micah.

[00:37:38]>> Do I get to start every question?

[00:37:39]>> I think I think for a minute then we're gonna then we'll go back the other way.

[00:37:43]Great.

[00:37:45]I I want to say I uh spend a great deal of time wrestling with the challenges uh of the and the horrors of what is going on in Israel. I am not obsessed with Israel and um I I worry sometimes that our political dialogue and the political dialogue in this race is obsessed with Israel.

[00:38:14]>> Well, we're in a synagogue. that we we are in a sag and as the adherence of as the leading opponents of the IR excuse me the leading proponents of the idea that anti-semitism is different from anti-ionism will tell you being in a synagogue doesn't mean that your life is about Israel and we have housing issues in this country and this city to worry about and we have child care issues in this housing in this city and this country to worry about and frankly as one of the Jewish candidates in in this race, and we do this every night, and is someone who is heartbroken by the killing of tens of thousands of people in Gaza, and who is angry about settler expansion in the West Bank, and who also cares deeply about the survival of Israel as a Jewish state, and who recognizes that these issues are incredibly complex and not easily fit into a 90 second time limit that I'm already out of. I am exhausted by the dialogue in this campaign. I'm exhausted by the obsession on a plot of land the size of New Jersey. I care about the survival of Israel as a Jewish state. I am heartbroken by the killing of Palestinians. I will look at every policy question through those lenses. My answers will be complicated. They will not fit into 90 seconds. And I'm tired of the obsession on this topic in this campaign.

[00:39:35]I agree with Micah that this seems to be the most important issue coming up in the campaign and I understand that it's because so many of you are tied to the state of Israel. Whether you have lived there, you have visited there, you have relatives there. I understand that you're concerned about the lives of people you know and who you love. And all of us are horrified by the violations of international law and the destruction that is happening. And to the point of the question, which is about what the Democratic party is doing, I see a few different things happening. I see Republicans realizing that they're dying out and trying to appeal to a Jewish population to restock their voters. And I see within the Democratic party a split between establishment Democrats who have significant funding coming from Apac and other sources and non-establishment Democrats that are calling for foreign influence to leave our government so we can make the best decisions. Those of you who are looking at the National Defense Authorization Act know that there were proposals to tie US and Israel military together, our intelligence together, our security together. It's one thing to be an ally.

[00:40:45]Israel is our ally and should remain our ally and we should defend our ally, but we should not empower our ally to commit war crimes. We should not stand by and pretend that we have no role in the genocidal acts that are occurring. and we should definitely get out of Iran because it's going to create more of a global crisis than we already have. So with this tough tough question, what I would say is that someone has to be courageous, take this on, not be afraid, and call the balls and strikes. Again, I'm not part of the Jewish community. I may not be perfect in doing so, but I've spent my time talking to you all and becoming educated, and I will always listen and take your feedback.

[00:41:28]I'm not tired of talking about Israel. I think we need to talk about Israel. I think this campaign has shown craziness about impeaching Donald Trump. I'm the only one up here who thinks that's a dead end and a waste of time. And Hakee Jeff agrees with me. So, it's been much more about impeaching Trump. with Israel and the present war with Iran and Lebanon. All I know is that it's a war and yes, we have provided support and we are involved in that war. Don't know what the outcomes are going. I'd like to see us get away from Iran, get resolve that matter. No boots on the ground, nothing of that sort. And I hope that Israel can work out their resolutions. I think the question dealt with something about supporting Israel. I don't want them left alone in the Middle East. I want the United States to be there for them. However, that's going to work out.

[00:42:27]Thank you.

[00:42:30]>> Uh thank you for the question. I uh support the Block the Bombs Act and I would not support continued funding of the Iron Dome under the current behavior of Israel. I know that differs me from the other candidates in the race. I've spent much of my career working in refugee camps around the world and in war zones. The suffering in Gaza is beyond bare ability, 80,000 counting, most of whom are women and children. And let's not even get into what's happening in the settlements on the West Bank. For me, this question is about the accountability of our government, and that's why it's important. I agree with Micah that as a Jew, I've had to do, and we've spoken about this, it's a lot of soulsearching, and our community is really never happy with anything uh no matter what we say. But I but uh but I I still am a Jew and I can still hold these beliefs. And I think as Jews, we need to stand up and be clear that we're not all aligned. When I was first working at USAID, an agency which has since been destroyed, I was surprised at the protected status of the money for Israel. And when we were questioned about war in Sudan or at that time work in the former Soviet Union, there was always a protected status. I think it's important to question any aid that we give and we should not be using any aid be it in Ghana or Israel or northern Nigeria to support killing of women and children.

[00:44:07]Okay. I actually do want to move on from Israel, but but Micah, I want to ask you one follow-up question because you started talking about Donald Trump's um fascist thugcracy, which seems to me to be a perfectly apt phrase. And one of the ways often when this administration has acted, say, to harass universities, to deport people for their writings, to um keep people out of the country, it's often in the name of fighting anti-semitism. Um and so how would you as somebody who both is very concerned I think about the um maybe turn against Israel on the left and at the same time wants to stand against the attack on civil liberties by this administration.

[00:44:53]How are you going to how do you balance those things in your own mind and how will you balance them as a lawmaker? I think what you said is absolutely right, which is the Trump administration has weaponized ideology and anti-semitism against our universities, against so many of our institutions. That I think that is a truth that is not mutually exclusive of a reality in which there has been a rise in anti-semitism at many of our institutions. But to me, I have absolutely no belief that Donald Trump has any actual concern about anti-semitism uh or dealing with it in a in a thoughtful and appropriate way. And so what we need to get back to I think is a federal government number one that uh that prizes the independence uh and the proper support and funding of our research institutions uh and that doesn't weaponize these issues to pursue its ideological crusades. Donald Trump has targeted the academy because it represents the ideological antithesis of everything that he believes. Uh, and I think I I will fight for a day when he is not in charge of the levers of government that can do enormous violence to our core American institutions and under a government that we can trust to have robust, consistent enforcement of the law when it comes to discrimination and hate against Jews or anyone else on campus and in the workplace and in our society.

[00:46:20]>> Um, so Mina, let me ask you this. As I travel around the country, I hear so much anger among Democrats with their own leadership. Um, you know, I think that that's probably a big part of why Graham Platner has surged so much in Maine. Um, if you were in Congress, would you vote for Hakeim Jeff to be House um majority leader? Assuming Democrats were in the majority, >> I would not. I think the Democrats have had an epic fail. And when the team is having an epic fail, you change its leadership.

[00:46:55]When I was first at that question in the beginning of the race, I said, I want to see who the candidates are before I vote. I I've since learned that's actually not how the Democratic Party works. The Democratic Party chooses its candidates for you. In the last two presidential elections, the Democratic Party has chosen my candidates for me.

[00:47:16]And in this race as well, a couple of candidates, mostly the dudes, have been put up by the media, by the television, by the money, by the clubs, and in a way are choosing for us. So, uh, glad to have the other three of us on the stage tonight. Uh, if it were a fair process, I would love to see the candidates come up, not through some jocking or whipping. Um, does everybody know that term?

[00:47:43]It's incredible how often it comes up in this thing. Whipping the vote means you try and convince everybody else in the room to vote for your guy. Uh it's just not appropriate in the way that it's used. So I'd like to see new leadership step up in the Democratic party and I'd like to see Mr. Jeff step down.

[00:48:04]>> Laura, how about you? Do you think that the Democratic Party needs new leadership um particularly in the House?

[00:48:10]>> Absolutely. So, at the start of the race, I was clear that I would pinch my nose and vote for Hakee Jeff solely for the purpose of focusing on impeaching Donald Trump because the other thing the Democrats do horribly well is disagree so much we get nothing done. And we cannot do that when we reclaim the House and hopefully reclaim the Senate. So, when Hakee Jeff said that it would no longer be a priority to impeach Donald Trump, I broke with him and I am no longer going to endorse him as speaker.

[00:48:39]Jaimeie Rascin is someone who's showed immense integrity and tenaciousness about the Epstein files. And as a sexual assault survivor who knows the importance of these files is not merely the abuse of women, girls, and boys, but also the foreign influence in our government that we must explore and expose. I want to stand for someone who's not going to pull a punch. And I'm disappointed that there's been candidates in this race, Micah is one of them, who is towing the line with Hakee Jeff. We cannot leave Donald Trump in charge of our democracy. He is destroying it. And the world is watching us. The world no longer trusts us. They are not going to send help or aid if we get attacked or if we are in need. And we will be in need. The US dollar is dropping. Oligarchs are rising. The stock market is doing unreasonably well for how bad inflation is. And if you don't think a fall is coming, you're not paying attention. This game is rigged.

[00:49:34]So certain people will become wealthy and the rest of us will suffer. So impeaching and removing Donald Trump is essential because we need to rebuild our alliances and unite with our allies and that is only possible if we show we can take care of our own backyard.

[00:49:50]>> Well, Micah, since um Laura mentioned you um what is your stance on on Hakeem Jeff? I mean, I'd love to tell you that I am not going to vote for Hakee Jeff and let you believe that your dream candidate, the three 300 or 200 different dream candidates that everyone in this room has, none of which we're naming on the stage, but in your mind, you've got an ideal candidate to run against Hakee Jeff. And if I say to you, I'm voting against Hakee Jeff, you go home say, Lashers for my for my candidate. But that's not real life. Uh, real life is >> Sarah McBride. Sarah >> Sarah McBride. Uh, Jamie Raskin, Sarah McBride. Again, we can all we could all have our dream candidate and pretend that a vote against Hakee Jeff is a vote for our dream candidate. That's not that I don't think would be a a particularly honest way of of dealing with the question. Uh, Hakee Jeff is uh from New York. I would be I think um dismissing the significance of that to the city uh to callously say that I would vote against him for leader. So I would vote for him to lead the Democratic caucus and then I would set about to push him and the leadership of the caucus to be far more aggressive in fighting back against what these guys have doing. I've laid out a detailed plan for how House Democrats, even in the minority, can use power that is at their disposal that they have not been using to slow down and stall what Donald Trump and Mike Johnson have been doing. And I think the Democrats need to be a lot more aggressive. I think they need to relocate their spine. And that is not about one person. That is about the energy and the passion of the members of the House and what the member of this district is going to join with new colleagues to push the leadership to do.

[00:51:35]Um, so Patrick, you've said you don't want to impeach Donald Trump. Um, in two years, inshallah, Trump will no longer be the president. And there's going to be a debate within the Democratic party about do you seek some sort of accountability? Do you seek some sort of lustration process to um, you know, kind of remake the to remake the administration? or there's going to be people who say no, you need to look forward, not back. Um, you know, I think much as they said that after um George W. Bush in 2004. So, if you're not for impeachment, what measures, if any, of accountability do you support?

[00:52:22]>> Thank you, Michelle. Um, I think I follow the question. I I am a radical pragmatist.

[00:52:30]I believe that we need to turn the page in this country. We've impeached him twice in his first term. And now I'd like to start with a robust agenda, legislative agenda when we hit the ground running in January, January 27th, I think, in 2027.

[00:52:51]Now, people want to impeach Trump. Okay?

[00:52:56]So, they want to do that. And at the same time, I'm hearing from the people and I also would like to do comprehensive immigration. What? At the same time, if you try to impeach Trump, guess what happens? You need 17 Republican senators to remove them.

[00:53:11]That's never going to happen. And you also get J. D. Vance as your incumbent president going into the next uh election. So why are we even talking about this? It's bad politics. As Hakee Jeff says, he has a sense of what we're going to do. And if if Micah or someone wants to argue with Hakee the first week he's there about his articles of impeachment, I want to talk to Hakee about immigration, not comprehensive. I want HB1. I want the blue card. The blue card is my idea. If you're here 10 years undocumented, you get legal status. Work 15 more years and you become a a citizen. I think there's a lot of things we need to do, not impeach Trump.

[00:53:56]>> Um, Micah, can we turn the page in when when Trump is gone or do you think that there needs to be some sort of accountability process?

[00:54:04]>> I think there absolutely needs to be some sort of accountability process. And the reason I support impeachment is fundamentally this guy has committed more high crimes and misdemeanors than every president before him combined. and whatever we may think of the political wisdom etc. If we were to not impeach him, if we were to basically say what he's done is not going to be worthy of the accountability mechanism that's built into our constitution, we might as well be issuing if joining the Supreme Court in saying presidents can do whatever they want and there will be no accountability. And we can't normalize that. And I think we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

[00:54:51]There needs to be accountability not just for Trump but for his aiders and abeterss in billions of dollars in self-enrichment and illegal wars and a regime of cruelty under ICE. I mean the the the list goes on and on. And we also need to be a party that gets back to making housing more affordable. Making sure there can be jobs for our young people at a time of enormous economic upheaval. Making sure you can get through child child care, the early years of being a parent without getting crushed by the costs. The Democratic Party needs to be a party that stands for the rule of law and for the improvement of the material conditions of people's lives. And we sh can and must do both of those things.

[00:55:36]Governing's hard. It's not meant to be easy. We have to do the hard work.

[00:55:42]>> Um, so Micah mentioned the Supreme Court.

[00:55:46]You've called, I believe, to expand the Supreme Court to 13. Yes. Um, is that right? How do you feel about that?

[00:55:53]>> Yeah. I think we need to fix broken systems, not just try to gerrymander them. Uh, I just want to come back to this issue on holding Trump accountable.

[00:56:03]I could not look my children in the face if I did not every single day call for a vote to impeach Donald Trump. the day I get to Congress. He is he has killed people here and around the world. He's withdrawn HIV programs. He's withdrawn SNAP. Over a million people are at risk of losing their Medicaid in New York State as of June 1st. This man must be held accountable. And to say that we're just going to let it go, I mean, especially sitting in a synagogue and the work that I've done around the world in refugee camps. We prosecute war criminals when well we try to get them out of office and do it while they're in office and we certainly don't stop.

[00:56:45]Imagine in our community if we had not prosecuted the war criminals. Imagine in Cambodia. Imagine in Serbia. The list goes on. So for me that is just an unacceptable position. Bad behavior must be punished and people must be held accountable to the law. Else we're just promoting bad behavior.

[00:57:09]on the Supreme Court. Sorry, I had the 30 seconds left. On the Supreme Court, on the Supreme Court, I mean, for me, this again is fix it. Don't just expand it. What? We're going to have 50 people on the Supreme Court by the time, you know, >> how do you fix it beyond expanding it?

[00:57:21]What else can you do?

[00:57:22]>> You have term limits. You enforce conflict of interest policies. You get rid of this shadow docket business.

[00:57:28]There are a lot of fixes that you could do without just adding more people.

[00:57:33]I think that's my So, as a lawyer who's deeply familiar with how to regulate the legal profession, you can go on my website and see that I am the only candidate running an accountability platform. My priority is congressional and Supreme Court term limits and ethical standards for the US Supreme Court. There are none right now.

[00:57:53]I, as a lawyer who embarred in four states, have to comply with all the regulations for ethics in all those states at all times. And yet, the very top of my profession has none. Congress is able to pass ethical rules and I am in the best position to do so given that this is my profession and one that needs integrity. As just one example, Justice Alo has a son working at a federal agency under the Trump administration.

[00:58:16]He did not identify that. He did not recuse himself. He hid that. Chief Justice Roberts wife is taking millions of dollars from law firms that are appearing before him and he is not identifying that conflict. And do we even have to go to Justice Thomas and his wife? We are fully aware. There's also questions about Justice Alo. The shadow docket itself is very clearly for corporations. And what Democrats have utterly failed at is putting forward progressive Democratic judges the way that Republicans have. That is something that I would commit to in Congress.

[00:58:52]making sure that the courts have representation that upholds our constitutions, pushes democratic values, and that we move to remove these judges that Trump has appointed on mass that are unqualified, not abiding by our constitution, and they're to serve special interests rather than the people. We can do better. We should not court pack. We must hold the line.

[00:59:15]>> Do you want to answer?

[00:59:16]>> Yeah, I I would just and with apologies, I have to jump after this. Um I I do think we need to expand the Supreme Court. I think we have in the absence of doing that we are going to have a deeply ideologically conservative block controlling this court for decades. And when you look at the rot in our democracy on a lot of it resides in Supreme Court juristprudence on campaign finance on voting rights and this is not an accident that you know Lewis Powell 50 years ago wrote a memo about how the conservative movement would reshape the academy would reshape think tanks would reshape the judiciary and and they've won. And if we are going to turn this back, not not to slant it in our direction, but just to have a to have a ideologically diverse court. We need to expand the court. We do need ethics reform. We do need staggered term limits. And I'd go further than this. We need statehood for Washington DC. We need self-determination for Puerto Rico because we have fundamentally an anti-majoritarian United States Senate.

[01:00:23]If we can change the Supreme Court, we can get a fresh look at Citizens United and Buckley versus Valo and pass real campaign finance reform and restore voting rights. What has happened in this country is the massive skewing of our democratic playing field to the point that it is unrecognizable and we are the Democrats have got to stop playing with one hand tied behind our back. We have to fight back. The stakes are so high. Thank you all very much. Thank you.

[01:00:54]>> Um, >> okay.

[01:00:58]>> So, the question is about the >> the question is about expanding the Supreme Court.

[01:01:02]>> Okay. All right. Got lost on that all the various things. But just to to end my kind of say on impeachment, this idea that um there we want retribution, we want revenge, there's hate out there. I'm all against that because I want to bring back to CD12 quality programs for all of us to enjoy.

[01:01:28]We have a diverse group here. We have a diverse citizenry in CD12 and we need to hit the ground running. And that's why I like Hakeim Jeff. He's thinking ahead.

[01:01:37]That's why he made his statements known.

[01:01:39]I'll be very curious to see the people fighting him the first week they get there. If it's me, there'll be no fight on that. will be putting together the legislative agenda. In terms of the Supreme Court, look, this the first time I heard Michael Lasher talk about term limits. I think term limits, we need term limits. These have become generational seats and I'm against that.

[01:02:02]I like robust new organic uh Congress.

[01:02:07]We need that to happen. In terms of the Supreme Court right now, I would just put a cap on their term. Make it 18 years. I signed the Congressional Term limits pledge of which there's 150 members right now in Congress who have signed it. For Congress, it's three two-year terms and for the Senate, it's two six-year terms. So, things are moving forward. We can be very productive in the next two years.

[01:02:34]>> Well, why don't we wrap it up there so that we can get to the assembly members?

[01:02:40]Um, I want to thank you all so much um for participating.

[01:02:50]Do you want Okay. Do you want to make closing statements?

[01:02:53]>> Yeah, I would love to. I just want to thank everybody here. Again, being a Jew running in this race has really gotten me to think through and question what it means to be a Jew in New York. And I must say, I'm very proud to be a Jew in New York and all that that represents.

[01:03:11]Five years ago, six years ago now, my father died of COVID. Uh he got actually COVID in March 2020, which I guess was six years ago. I took care of him. We had no oxygen, no paliative care, no nothing. All he had was me knowing that he wouldn't die alone.

[01:03:28]I got mad and I saw the city, state, and federal government fighting at war with each other. I fought Albany to get ventilators for the city. I fought to keep our kids in school and I fought to get older New Yorkers vaccinated first.

[01:03:43]From there, the Biden administration tapped me to run their 7 billion COVID 19 vaccine program which distributed vaccines to 500 million people around the world.

[01:03:54]I'm not a celebrity. I'm not backed by a legacy Democrat and I'm not backed by a billionaire, nor am I one.

[01:04:03]I'm a fighter. I'm a scientist and I'm a mom and we need to change the broken systems. I've done that and I hope you'll send me to Washington because this party needs change. Thank you, >> Patrick.

[01:04:23]>> Thank you very much for coming out on Monday night. Pleasure to see everybody.

[01:04:27]Hope I can meet somebody after people after uh after our forum here. Uh, like I said before, I'm a radical pragmatist.

[01:04:34]The reign of Donald Trump is coming to an end. At most, he's going to be a lame duck in 28. So, we have 2027 to deal with. We want to put together the best programs we can put together. I do believe the Democratic uh we will win the House by probably a small amount.

[01:04:55]And guess what? The best laws we've ever had were bipartisan. The best laws in our history have been bipartisan.

[01:05:04]If we want good laws to bring back the CD12 nationally and foreign affairs, we're going to need bipartisanship.

[01:05:12]And I think with the end of the reign coming to an end and us getting organized and coming forward with programs for the people like housing, like better healthc care, like the problems with social security, which can be easily fixed with bipartisanship, we can have a very, very robust two years. I hope I can earn your vote to go to Washington.

[01:05:40]I'm sorry that you didn't get to hear from all the candidates. You deserve that level of respect. Some candidates don't show up because they don't want to talk about tough issues. You saw that here tonight from people who did and had the courage to do so. It is important that you have someone in Congress that is unafraid. I am unbought, unbossed, unafraid. I have had everything taken from me when I experienced campus sexual violence. The system did not care. No one came to my aid. No one was there to defend or support me. I know what it's like to be at the bottom. I didn't stay there. I found my voice. I fought back.

[01:06:21]And as a girl from Wisconsin, I found myself roaming the halls of DC, stopping people like Al Franken in the stairs saying, "You must vote for this bill."

[01:06:32]And he did. I do not let anything stop me. This race is full of money. You've seen all the ads. I go out every single day and many of you have seen me. I hand out my own literature with my team. I take nothing for granted. No one owns this race but you, the voters.

[01:06:50]The establishment does not have to stand and it's going to fall whether you vote for it this time or not. I encourage you to pick a candidate who's going to stand for the values of the next wave of change in this nation. people who are going to stand up for the people to make sure that there's affordability, to make sure there's accountability, who aren't going to give you passing lines and talking points you've heard a hundred times, but are going to give you the answers that you deserve and you need.

[01:07:16]That's why I'm here, and I will keep showing up for you.

[01:07:22]>> Thank you so much.

[01:07:26]>> Thank you.

[01:07:30]Thank you.

[01:07:58]responds.

[01:08:03]>> Okay.

[01:08:04]Okay.

[01:08:16]>> Thank you everyone, especially those who are um going to stick around to hear uh from our Assembly District candidates.

[01:08:24]Uh we're going to begin right away. So, we're going to do that now.

[01:08:28]>> Oh, thank you so much.

[01:08:29]>> You night and day.

[01:08:32]>> Thank you so much.

[01:08:39]I'm just gonna grab their You're welcome to come up.

[01:09:41]Okay. So, I have been asked to remind people not to applaud or boo or jeer as the case may be. um mid answer. So, I think that we can wait till people are done talking. Um and now we're going to move on to the assembly race, which I'm excited about because I think everybody has read and heard a lot about the congressional candidates in this district and maybe not as much about the people who are going to be representing you in Albany. So, why don't you start um by each introducing yourselves?

[01:10:19]Yeah, you go first.

[01:10:21]>> Hi everybody. Great to be here tonight.

[01:10:24]Thanks for skipping the game for us. Uh we're going late. Going late. Um anyway, I'm Stephanie Ruske. I am a rabbi. I work at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

[01:10:36]I'm the associate dean of the Rabbitical School and I lead our center for ethics and justice. I'm a public school mom.

[01:10:41]I'm a tenant. I live on 103rd Street.

[01:10:44]And should we tell why we're doing this now? Is this the moment?

[01:10:48]>> Sure. Sure. All right. So, the things that brought me into the race are housing. Our rent went up. There's a 1.2% vacancy rate on the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights. We need more housing. And I also care passionately about immigration and it seems like everything happens at the state level.

[01:11:06]That's the place to be if you want to make change now. So, that's where I'd like to be. Thank you.

[01:11:13]>> Good evening, everybody. My name is Eli Northrup. I am a public defender and a policy advocate. I've spent my career representing people in court, in criminal court, housing court, immigration court, family court, who can't afford to pay for an attorney and seeing inequity in our court system. I spent the last seven years as policy director for my organization, the Bronx Defenders, doing advocacy work in Albany, writing bills, advocating to get them passed, seeing the same sort of inequity up in Albany that I saw in our court system. And um I I really believe that we need strong leadership at the state level in able to make in in order to make the changes that we need to make. You all heard from the congressional candidates many of the laws that impact us on a daily basis come at the state level. Um I went to Cornell University NYU for law school.

[01:12:02]I've lived in the city for almost 20 years. I'm originally from Maryland. My father was a conservationist. He worked for the Nature Conservancy for almost 40 years and instilled in us a deep uh appreciation for our natural world and an obligation to protect it. My mom, Jod, who's actually in the audience today, is a poet and an editor. She's the currently the poetry editor for Moment magazine. Her father Sandy was a civil rights attorney. He worked for the American Jewish Congress for a number of years fighting anti-semitism and segregation. and uh he is he was my idea of what a lawyer was, somebody who helped people and push back and I've lived my Jewish values through my work combating inequity and that's the ethic that I'll bring to the state assembly.

[01:12:46]So, some of the um people I think in this audience actually submitted questions for what they wanted to know.

[01:12:52]And the gist of several of them, I'm just going to say it baldly is like how what do you think are the biggest differences between you two and so yeah, what because you both you're both progressives, right? I think that you both probably overlap on a lot of policy issues, not all. But maybe you can start by saying telling me what do you think is the biggest um points of distinction in this race.

[01:13:16]>> Sure.

[01:13:16]>> Look, when I look at our our mailers that we send you, sometimes I'm not sure. Is it Eli's? Is it mine? They look similar. We have a lot of shared perspectives around policy. I would say the things that differentiate me. I was born on the Upper West Side in Machalama building on 97th Street. I lived here till I was seven. I came back for college and I've been here since. We're raising our kids here. We my husband was born here and lived here his whole life except college. We are westsiders.

[01:13:44]Nobody fights for a place that like more than people who live there and this is where they're raising their family. I will die here hopefully in my apartment that I live in now. But we need people to like work hard to make it liveable.

[01:13:59]So that is one thing. The other thing is I'm a rabbi and rabbis are generalists.

[01:14:03]They do bridge building, peacemaking, pastoral caregiving, moral inspiring, organizing, agitating. This is a moment where we need people who can bring people together. That is what I do. I've been doing multiffaith justice work uptown for the last 11 years. We sit together, we work together, we organize out in the streets, and it's tough. We don't see things all the same way, but we've decided to stay in relationship because we think it's stronger if we do it together. That's what I'll bring to Albany.

[01:14:31]>> Okay.

[01:14:35]Yeah. Um I I I agree that if you look at our platforms, there's a lot of similarities and I think it's representative of this community which uh we we both are seeking to represent.

[01:14:46]But there is a profound difference between us and that's our level of experience in state government. We are both running to be assembly members in the state legislature. I've spent seven years in Albany and I have to tell you it took me like three years to understand anything that was going on there. It is a complicated place. There are 150 assembly members. It is easy to get lost if you don't know how to navigate it. And I've written bills now.

[01:15:13]I've written legislation. I have built coalitions across broad broad ideological spectrums and geographic spectrums. And that's the hard work of this job. You know, I actually did run for state legislature two years ago. I had been an advocate for many years and and I lost to to Micah um who's now moving on. But um I I can tell you that throughout the experience that I've had both running and also advocating, I've just seen how important it is to understand how to move things across the finish line. I also will say um I am the progressive in this race. I'm endorsed by Bernie Sanders, the Working Families Party, the representative Alexandria Okasiocortez, the mayor of the city, and I I think that I've stood on progressive values throughout my career consistently, and that can be trusted.

[01:16:03]>> Um, Eli, you said that you could be a bridge um between the city's Jewish residents, many of whom, I think, either fear or distrust the mayor um and and Mayor Manni. What does that mean?

[01:16:20]>> Yeah, this is something I encounter a lot talking to people on the streets. Um, a genuine fear of the mayor, a belief that the mayor's rhetoric and who he is have increased anti-semitism and made us unsafe as Jews. Um, I'll tell you that I know the mayor personally. I've known him for a number of years because as an advocate I was going up and talking to him when he was an assembly member and advocating in front of him and I've always known him to be a thoughtful person. He grew up in Morningside Heights. I do not believe that he is anti-Semitic and but I also understand that that fear that people have it's coming from a real place. So we need to build a bridge. We need to build a bridge if we're going to move forward. There's a lot of divide within our community and the bridge goes both ways and it means hands reaching out both ways and I think my relationship with him and my relationship with this community I would really seek to gain understanding between the two so that we can work on the things that we all really care about which is affordability in this city which is a safe place to be uh and bring the joy back which I think he really has inspired a lot of people in that way. Um so Stephanie you were talking about interfaith work about organizing kind of across difference.

[01:17:41]How do you see the um both the relationship between the Jewish community and Mayor Mamdani but also these divides within the progressive movement um over Israel but that are sort of radiating out into so many different ways. How are you going to approach those divides?

[01:17:59]>> Look I I will say neither of us has ever done this job before. I think that's important to have out there. I know that you feel very experienced and that that is great. I bring 40 years of experience of living in this community and westsiders. It's a different thing, but neither of us has been the assembly member for this district before it'd be new for both of us. Um, and I would say you do have great endorsements and aside like most of the people are DSA. You're not taking the DSA endorsement, but most of them most of the people who are endorsing you are. And this is a moment where we need people. I think it's a moment of sort of people living in the extremes in this city, in this country.

[01:18:41]And we need people who will be in relationship and be able to sort of talk across lots of different areas. But you build relationships. You understand people's self-interest. You understand who they want to be in the world. And then you figure out where you can work together. It's what I've done my whole career. It's what I'll do now.

[01:18:58]So, it sounds like you're >> Could I respond to that because there was something mentioned that's not true.

[01:19:04]>> Okay. Sure.

[01:19:04]>> Yeah. Because um I I uh while it's true that a number of legislators who are socialists in office have endorsed my campaign, it's not even the majority of my endorsements. Um I have uh aside from the people that I mentioned, the public advocate Jamani Williams, he's not in DSA. Former Assembly member Dick Godfrieded not in in DSA. Congress member Pat Ryan, not in DSA. Former council member Helen Rosenthal, not in DSA. State Senator John Louu, not in DSA. State Senator Gustavo Rivera, not in DSA. Assembly member Latrice Walker, not in DSA. And it goes on and and I think but the point is you need to build coalition. The work of the state legislature is reaching out to people across the state ideologically, geographically, and coming to agreements to move legislation forward. When I lost two years ago, I didn't run for Congress. I didn't run for city council.

[01:20:02]I do have experience in Albany, and that's what I want to bring to bear for this role. It's specific. Like any job, when you apply for it, your experience matters. And the experience I have is navigating the system that in order to be effective for this community, you need to do and I I it's not fair to categorize my support as confined to one uh segment of the Democratic party. It's fact it's wide geographically and ideologically.

[01:20:35]Um, so I but I want to ask h so what is your chief um critique of the DSA and how will you and what do you see as kind of the biggest things that distinguish you from that brand of politics?

[01:20:52]>> I would say my chief critique is it seems inflexible and not willing to sort of be in relationship with people who see the world differently. That's what it feels like. It may not be how people who say they're in it feel. That's what my observation is.

[01:21:08]>> And so I think you can be you can be ideological, but you're not going to get things done. We need change in our actual lifetimes. And so I think being more flexible, being more willing to talk to other people, it's sort of a pendulum swing, I think. So how do you see the coalition? I mean, let's talk about housing in particular. Like, what is the coalition that can get more housing built in um in New York City?

[01:21:35]>> Well, I think I think what we have to do is we have to protect the affordable housing that we actually have. It's less expensive to keep what you have sort of in circulation than to build new housing and then and then you also have to build. But there are lots of apartments.

[01:21:51]The ghost apartments will not solve the problem, but there are many empty apartments. you go doornocking, people could tell you every apartment in a building that's empty. And so you could take an ideological position and demonize the people who were leaving those apartments empty or you could actually talk to them and figure out what would it take to bring it back online or figure out the pressure point and close the loopholes. But so I think you have to bring everyone to the table. We don't have like HPD can't build all the housing that we need. We actually need people who are going to build it. So we should talk to them and not demonize them and make them people who can help solve the problem.

[01:22:31]>> Is your approach on housing significantly different?

[01:22:35]>> I agree that it's a it's a combination of protecting tenants, opening up houses, apartments that are not currently being rented and building new housing. But I can tell you my experience in Albany is that the real estate industry has an outsized political influence and many of the impediments to tenant protections comes from that and also the outcomes that we have are dictated by the money that if you follow it and so um I I'm a big proponent of social housing things like the Mitchell Lama program. We we need to Assembly Member Emily Gallagher has a social housing bill that I would be a big proponent of. I think we need to think about faith-based housing. I do think we need to build more. I'm proud to be endorsed by Open New York and their ethos is in order to solve affordability, part of that is building.

[01:23:21]And when the government has levers, if the government owns the land or if there's going to be a zoning change, then the government can mandate affordability. But it's about politics.

[01:23:30]I mean, there's so many good ideas in Albany. There's no shortage of good ideas. You can look at both of our websites and find a lot of good ideas, but things don't happen unless you send people up there that are going to band together strategically and actually push them across the finish line. I think that's the trick of this job. It is actually the organizing that Stephanie referenced. It's it's all about getting people to come together because those ideas have died for for many many years in Albany. We have 14 open seats in the Democratic conference in this legislative cycle. I mean, it's a real opportunity to change the makeup of the state legislature in a way that will allow for progressive change. And I I'm proud to be part of that movement.

[01:24:09]>> Um, so this is the only Well, I'm not promising anything actually, but I'm I don't want to talk overly much about Israel, but um, you know, this is a Jewish forum. One of the bills that is going to be um or that might come before you in Albany is the not on our dime act um which mayor Mdani introduced when he was a member of the assembly. It sort of didn't go anywhere.

[01:24:39]Now it seems to have possibly a little bit more momentum. Um although it still seems maybe an uphill battle. It's a bill that would it's primarily aimed at sort of um allowing that would crack down on fundraising for settlements in the West Bank. Um although it's been characterized many different ways. A lot of people see it as I think a backdoor attack on Jewish charity more broadly.

[01:25:07]Um I would love to know how you see it and how you would vote on it.

[01:25:12]>> I wouldn't vote for not on our dime. I think I am not for building in the set in the occupied territories at all. And I think that it's written in a way that could be sort of very vague and could turn out to be used in the whole country. I wouldn't vote for it.

[01:25:29]>> Okay.

[01:25:31]the the mechanism that the bill uses is to essentially say that nonprofits that do business in New York but also are promoting settlement in the West Bank will no longer to be able to do business in New York or raise money. And I think it is a laudable goal to for New York to try to prevent violations of international law across the board in the West Bank and anywhere else. I think that's a laudable goal to have. Um, I there there is um I I do I do agree with Stephanie that in order for this to be effective, it needs to be very specific the way it's written so that you don't have humanitarian, you know, aid being prevented because of this. And so that's what I would focus on. And I would when I think about issues like this that the state assembly can do which is not a lot really about international relations to be honest guys um I would want to be seeing the state assembly taking stances on international law across the board.

[01:26:34]>> Okay. So there's one other place actually where I think maybe Israel does come up in the state assembly. It's the same thing I asked the um the congressional candidates which is the IH um the International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of anti-semitism. There's various efforts to codify that into law for all sorts of things um including you know kind of anti-discrimination policies in schools.

[01:26:59]How do you feel about that definition and should it be part of the law?

[01:27:04]Stephanie, >> I hope we will work towards a different definition that is not in existence right now. I think that you have to be able to be critical of the government and not have it automatically be called anti-semitism and I think the definition that we're going for doesn't exist yet. I have hopes that it will be worked on in the coming years, but what is your difference? I mean, maybe this is too deep in the weeds, but do you not like the Nexus definition or the Jerusalem declaration?

[01:27:37]>> I think I like the Nexus one. I think it just hasn't been sort of popularized quite as much as the IRO one.

[01:27:44]>> Okay.

[01:27:46]>> Yeah. I I don't I don't agree with that definition being codified. I wouldn't vote for it. I think that conflating criticism of Israel, criticism of the Israeli government, anti-Zionism with anti-semitism is itself dangerous and and hurtful. So I would be opposed to it um if it came up in front of us.

[01:28:10]>> So I don't know if you saw the news today that Tom Hman has talked about surging ICE into um into into New York City. And I think it's not clear whether he really does mean to make to make New York City the next target like you know Chicago or Minneapolis. There's some um yeah there's some kind of confusion about what that really means. But how do you think both New York City should prepare and what kind of laws do you foresee that can um protect this city from from ICE?

[01:28:48]Stephanie, look, >> I think we should not be cooperating with ICE at all. It should be the law in New York State and New York City that we don't cooperate with ICE. We're not helping and we will. And so from a legal perspective, that's what I think should happen. And then I think faith leaders, civic leaders, everybody has to work together to get in the way and make it as difficult as possible. I mean, I think we learned from Minneapolis. Mhm.

[01:29:16]>> I think this is the urgent issue of our time. I've represented people facing deport deportation for my entire career. About a third of my clients are non-citizens in the Bronx.

[01:29:28]And not only have I represented people facing criminal charges, I've represented them in immigration court.

[01:29:33]And I've been fighting to make New York a sanctuary state since the New York for All Act was introduced in 2020. Bronx Defenders has been on the steering committee of that legislation. So, this is not a new thing and something that many people foresaw and I wish New York had gotten ahead of it. There were, I think, eight measures passed in the budget this past week and some of them are really good and actually will be protective. One um will allow people to sue ICE agents in their individual capacity in state court. You used to be able to sue federal state agents in federal court, but you couldn't sue federal agents in state court. And we know there's going to be no accountability coming from the federal government. So, how do you make these agents feel individually accountable?

[01:30:15]How do you hold them to a standard so that they don't feel like they can get away with anything like like you saw in Minneapolis? One way is to have civil liability for them. Um, then there's measures to create uh so that there's no way that any state agency can cooperate. These 287g agreements, which you may have heard of, are formal cooperation agreements for police departments and ICE. and they're not happening in New York City, but they're happening upstate. But the the government didn't go far enough. The governor didn't go far enough because there's still informal collusion that's allowed in New York State. And as an assembly member, I would fight for that.

[01:30:52]But I would be on the front lines if the if ICE comes into our community, I will be there. When a Colombia student was abducted on 121st Street a few months ago, and I know one of her neighbors is actually in the audience here tonight.

[01:31:04]Um, we showed up. We we created a rally within two hours. We were outside the gates rallying and luckily the mayor was in Washington and that student was returned to the community. But I will show up in person and put put myself on the line to defend our immigrant communities.

[01:31:22]>> And Stephan, do you have any do you also want to see kind of civil liability enacted for ICE agents?

[01:31:28]>> Yes. I mean, I don't think anyone should be wearing a mask and I think there should be personal accountability and you should be fined, you should be punished, you should be in prison. like you can't act. People definitely act poorly when they can do it without anybody knowing who they are. I think that people who are working for ICE should feel it painfully in their own lives. Yes.

[01:31:51]>> Um so you're you would be the first I believe rabbi in the >> female rabbi >> the first female rabbi. Sorry that's an important distinction. Um how now obviously we're in a very very Jewish district. I believe the most Jewish district. um in the country, a place where a lot of people feel tremendous anxiety um about rising anti-semitism.

[01:32:16]What do you see as the most important legislative priority in terms of fighting anti-semitism?

[01:32:23]>> Look, I think if people commit acts like hate crimes, anti-semitism, islamophobia, any kind of biased crime, then it has to be punished. like when you let things go then it sort of gives the signal that it's fine. So it has to be that there are repercussions if you do it. And so that's the like stop it.

[01:32:44]>> And then you also have to be doing education. You have to be doing civic and religious education in schools. You have to create opportunities for people to meet each other and know each other.

[01:32:55]I think even if you are in private school, there should be ways in which we're bringing people together. Like people fear what they don't know. So, you have to I think you have to stop whatever's happening that's negative um with incentives to or disincentives to do it. And then you also have to create many on-ramps for knowing each other.

[01:33:15]>> What do you mean when you say when you let things go? Do you think that there's a problem either with the punishments that are in the law or the way that they're being enforced? Is there too much leniency right now?

[01:33:25]>> Well, I think you have to speak about it and not brush it under the rug. I think you have to tell the real stories of any kinds of hate crimes um and not sort of excuse it.

[01:33:34]>> And do you think that's what's happening right now?

[01:33:38]>> I sometimes and not always. I think people are very anxious. No one acts the best when they're anxious and people are worried. So I think we need to >> be tr I I always ask someone tells me they're very worried about anti-semitism. I always ask is is this a personal do you have a personal story about it or are you repeating something you heard because I feel like we have to not scare ourselves more. We have to be the right amount of sort of attentive and so it's very important to highlight actual stories not sort of feet of fire.

[01:34:13]>> Um how about you? What do you think is the most important legislative priority with regards to anti-semitism?

[01:34:18]>> Yeah, you mentioned it's it's one of the most Jewish districts in the country.

[01:34:22]It's also one of the most democratic districts in the country and one of the most engaged.

[01:34:28]>> More people vote. More Democrats vote in the 69th Assembly District than almost anywhere in America. So this is a powerful district. I mean this is where creative ideas come from. But this anti-semitism is a very difficult thing to legislate. I mean I think Micah said it earlier. You can't legislate away hate and misinformation. And we al often look to government for things that government can't necessarily solve. But I I think that fostering dialogue and education is so important. I think people don't understand each other.

[01:35:02]People are sucked into their phones.

[01:35:04]They have their algorithm. It's feeding them whatever it's feeding them. And that's a huge problem. Getting people to understand each other. And funding for that kind of education and cultural exchange is something that you can legislate. And I think, you know, we're both proudly running as Jewish candidates and will be Jewish leaders and our Jewish values, I think I speak for both of us and they say our Jewish values guide this endeavor. It certainly does for me and I will as a leader I will continue to do it as a Jew as well.

[01:35:34]And I think the more people we have proudly doing that as Jews, the the that can change the dialogue as well. So you said you can't legislate away misinformation, but do you think that there's a role for Albany in taking on, you know, the companies that are spreading this information and taking on the algorithms and take in regulating um, you know, sort of the repetition of falsehoods in artificial, excuse me, in artificial intelligence?

[01:35:59]>> Certainly, I think it's the question of our time what's going to happen with artificial intelligence. And I think it's going to take a comprehensive approach, not just in at the state level, but also at the federal level.

[01:36:10]And I know it's a big topic um in the congressional debate. Yes, absolutely. I mean that's where government needs to step in because we've seen already it influences elections too. I mean it goes to the core of our democratic process.

[01:36:24]That's a place that we can get involved on anti-semitism and a number of different um matters. And the same question kind of what do you think that the that Albany should be doing with regards to these algorithms and these kind of tech giants that have done so much to to kind of spread this um poison.

[01:36:48]>> Look, nobody does better, I think, spending more time on their phone in isolation. I think that like it does have to be regulated. I think just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[01:36:59]And I think that in particular with regard to AI and some of the ways that sort of we're shaping the culture and nobody's in charge. So yes, I think it should be regulated and I think it will happen at the state level.

[01:37:11]>> Do you think there should be a data center, excuse me, a data center moratorum?

[01:37:15]>> Yes.

[01:37:16]>> I mean because who's going to undo it?

[01:37:18]Like we should not do it because once it's built it's a thing.

[01:37:23]>> Yeah. And it did pass the assembly and the senate. So it if the governor signs it into law, which I expect that she and I hope that she will do, there will be one at least for the next year. And I would vote for one if I were up there as well.

[01:37:38]>> What do you see as your biggest um this is going to be the last question.

[01:37:44]You are both um running to succeed um Michael Lasher who was just here. What, if any, do you see as kind of the biggest differences between how you would approach the job and how he approached the job? And you first, Stephanie.

[01:38:02]I mean, look, I'm partially running for the job because I was inspired by how he did it. He was our kids little league coach. We got involved on his assembly race. We did a house party. We volunteered. And then I noticed that all of like everything that feels terrible in the world now practically is coming from the federal government and states are the place to fight back. And I noticed that every piece of advocacy we were doing was going to the state electeds. So and I thought Micah is doing a very creative and excellent job and that guy is changing things right now. And so once he said he was running for Congress, I felt like this I saw somebody making a difference. So, I would like to build on what he is doing.

[01:38:44]Um, and I have not been sitting around thinking like, oh, I would have done it differently if I was in that role.

[01:38:51]>> Yeah, I I have respect for Micah. I got we ran against each other. You get to know somebody very well when you run against somebody. Um, and I do think he's had a lot of creative measures to push back on Trump. He's very smart on policy. He's has a lot of experience doing policy work. We have different backgrounds. I've spent my career as a public defender and I've seen uh deeply how inequitable our court system is and how the amount of money you have and the color of your skin dictates outcomes, not just in in court, but in many other areas. And I represent people in the South Bronx, which is one of the poorest congressional districts in the country.

[01:39:29]And I think that that experience would lead me to advocate in criminal justice measures that exist in the assembly in a way that maybe not were not Micah's focus. And I there's no public defenders uh up there in Albany, but there's one there's one from Albany actually, Gabriella Romero. There's one in a 150 person body that frequently legislates on the legal system. I think that perspective is something that Micah didn't have, which which I will bring.

[01:39:59]And each of us are our own people. The coalitions that we build are different.

[01:40:04]I will go up there with a coalition of people already built in. Um, and I think that's really important. And they're not the same people that that Micah knew, but um, they're good people and they're uh there are different mechanisms and different levers of power that each individual assembly member will need to turn in order to to achieve things. And you got to be yourself in order to get anything done.

[01:40:29]>> Okay. Um well, why don't you both then give your closing statements. Stephanie, you first.

[01:40:37]>> Look, thank you for considering us. When I was a child, my father used to say to us, "What did you do today to make the world safe for democracy? At that time, democracy did not seem at all imperiled." Now, it shockingly does.

[01:40:51]This is my answer. Like I think all of us have to find the way we think we can contribute most to the world to have the biggest impact in the whatever amount of life we have on this earth. And so I feel I was born here. I love this place.

[01:41:06]I want my kids to be able to live here when they're grown-ups if they want to.

[01:41:11]And I'm going to work every day in order to make it a place that all of us can thrive here and that our children and grandchildren could come back to and live if they wanted.

[01:41:24]Uh well, yeah, we have a a big choice coming up in the next two weeks. Early voting starts on Saturday, so we've been running for about six months, but now is when most people are starting to pay attention. Uh I I would ask for your support. Um I love this community. It's become my home and I think this community deserves an advocate who's going to fight for the value values of the community and be able to build the coalitions that make that person effective. I've spent a lot of time advocating. I'm not a political insider.

[01:41:57]I don't come from really a political background, but I've seen how the state legislature works and I want to put that experience to work for this community.

[01:42:06]I'm also somebody who cares deeply about constituent services. I mean, my job is picking up the phone when somebody's in trouble. And so, I will have an office where people are heard, listened to, and get a response. And that's my experience. And I have and and I promise to do that. I just want to say one other thing that didn't really come up. Um, you're going to see a lot of negative advertising against both of us in this race. There are two separate super PACs that are pretty much battling it out, which we don't control and have no ability to stop. Neither Stephanie or I have sent out negative ads towards each other. But those things go in the mailboxes and it's really hard to tell the difference.

[01:42:48]Please, when you get a piece of mail or you see an ad, look for who paid for it.

[01:42:52]If it says not paid for by the candidate or paid for by XP pack, it didn't come from us. And please, please, please do that because I think it's important to know the the messages that we're sending and we really do need to get dark money out of politics.

[01:43:08]>> Okay. Thank you.

[01:43:13]>> Thank you all so much. Uh huge thank you to our moderator Michelle Goldberg.

[01:43:18]Thank you so much for being here. To our candidates from both Eli and Stephanie and the congressional candidates who were here. We had a number of co-sponsors. I just want to mention AJ Hessed, the Jewish Center, Kahilat Hadar Shared Sedek, the Marlene Meyers JCC of Manhattan, the National Council of Jewish Women New York, and West End Synagogue, who all helped promote this event. As Eli said, early voting starts this weekend. Polls are open uh from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and uh on election day, which is June 23rd, and you can go to vote.nyc to find your polling place, hours, uh your unique ballot, and all of those things. Okay, everyone, get home to watch the Knicks.

[01:43:55]Thank you all for being here.