#418 — A Future for Democrats

I am here with Richie Torres. Richie, thanks for joining me. It's an honor to be here. It's really great to meet you. Finally, I've seen I've seen footage, and, your that footage convinced me that there was still some sanity in the Democratic Party which, there were moments there where it really seemed like there was none. So, thank you for existing first. I fear the mythology is more impressive than the reality. No. I don't I don't think so. We're gonna we're gonna get to the reality. So just maybe you can summarize your background in politics. How did you get here, and and what is your situation now in politics? I mean, the starting point for me is The Bronx. Mhmm. I was born and raised in The Bronx, spent all of my childhood in poverty. I was raised by a single mother who had to raise three of us on minimum wage, which in the nineteen nineties was $4.25 an hour. And probably the most formative experience of my life was growing up in public housing, which is owned and operated by the government. And in New York City, public housing is so savagely starved the funding that it has a capital need of $80,000,000,000 in county. Mhmm. So, like, hundreds of thousands of tenants, I grew up in conditions of mold and mildew leaks and lead without consistent heat and hot water in the winter. And I got my start in politics as a tenant organizer because of my lived experience in public housing. And then at age 24, I took the leap of faith and ran for public office. I had no deep pockets, no ties to the party machine, but I just spent a whole year doing nothing but knocking on doors. Mhmm. I went into people's homes. I heard their stories, and I won my first campaign on the strength of door to door, face to face campaigning. I became an elected official at age 25. And what was that office? New York City Council. Yeah. Mhmm. And so I served in the New York City Council for seven years before running for congress. But about a decade before entering congress, like, I was at the lowest point of my life. I had dropped out of college. I found myself struggling with depression. I even attempted to take my own life because I felt as if the world around me had collapsed and underwent hospitalization. Mhmm. And I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would have a fighting chance to rebuild my life and a few years later become the youngest elected official in America's largest city and then ultimately become a member of the United States Congress. So I have a story that's highly unusual, but I feel deeply American. Yeah. Yeah. And and what's your background? What are your your parents? So I was raised by a single mother, but both of them are Puerto Rican. Mhmm. My …