The following is a transcript of an interview with Rep. Pat Ryan, Democrat of New York, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Aug. 25, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: All right, Congresswoman Lee, thank you for your perspective. For a slightly different one from a fellow Democrat, we are joined now by New York Congressman Pat Ryan. Good morning.
REP. PAT RYAN: Hey, how are you doing, Margaret?
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m doing well. You know you were at the DNC this week, speaking on stage. You were one of the very first House Democrats to call out and publicly say Joe Biden needed to pass the torch. You’re in a tight rear election race in Hudson Valley, New York. Do you think that having Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket makes it easier for you to win than if Joe Biden had stayed?
REP. PAT RYAN: Without question. I mean coming out of the DNC and for the last, now month plus, we have just seen such energy, such enthusiasm, such true joy and optimism at a time when even this morning in your coverage, it’s a challenging, dark and divided time, and that’s what people in my district are desperate for. That that is what we’ve been working on. When Kamala Harris talks about freedom, patriotism, reproductive freedom, economic freedom, freedom to breathe clean air and water. That is what folks regardless of party, they want to believe in something, to be for something. And she has delivered that. And I think over the next 72 days, we’re going to see that momentum continue to build.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The former Speaker points to five seats in New York State as determining the difference between democrats having a minority or majority spot in Congress. You are one of those seats. Do you think that now Democrats have a better shot at gaining the majority?
REP. PAT RYAN: Yes–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Definitely
PAT RYAN: No doubt. It’s just been a sea change. I mean, I won my last race by 1.3%–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly
PAT RYAN: Very attuned to what’s happening in my district and talking to folks all day, every day, it has been just kind of putting rocket fuel into a jet engine and seeing, blast off. It’s such– it’s so important, I think, to understand, It’s one thing to be against a set of things.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right–
REP. PAT RYAN: But, but to be for a set of things and for core freedoms that’s rallying people
MARGARET BRENNAN: So then let’s put this in specific terms, because some of the policies aren’t that different from Joe Biden’s policies. In fact, they’re exactly the same on on the border. And you, when you issued that statement calling for Biden to step aside, you called for him to restore order at the border. Your district has been hit with a lot of migrants being sent from New York City up to the Hudson Valley. What is any different about the Harris platform on the border?
REP. PAT RYAN 2:35
I served 27 months in combat. I know what it means to secure a border, and I think foundational to the responsibilities of a nation state is to secure the border. That’s not a partisan thing. That’s a widely held view. So I did, you know, call on and sort of call out President Biden in not doing enough–
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: -but that was a Biden-Harris policy
REP. PAT RYAN: They’ve, they’ve stepped up. And what we heard from Vice President Harris at the convention in her speech was exactly what folks in my district want to hear. Which is– we’re going to secure the border, restore order at the border. But not lose who we are as Americans, to welcome folks that want to come here, make a better life, serve our country, make it better and stronger. We can do both. We will do both
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, but it’s still not articulated as a different policy in the specifics. We haven’t heard the vice president at least say things in detail. But on the issue of abortion, which is already protected in New York State up to 24 weeks. After that point it has to be that the mother’s life is at risk for that procedure to be taken. But it’s going to be on the ballot in some form or fashion in November. Do you think that this is just about driving up turnout?
REP. PAT RYAN: The whole founding–
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s already protected.
REP. PAT RYAN: The whole founding ideology of our country is about freedom. People don’t forget that just two years ago, the, Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court ripped away a fundamental freedom. There have been more states across the country now taking away American freedoms. You want to piss off the American people? Take their freedom away. And so this is not like a political thing. Again, this gets to the core of who we are. And so in New York, things like the Comstock Act that are on the books, outlined in Project 2025. Even without congressional action, the Trump, hypothetical Trump administration says they can put in place essentially a backdoor national abortion ban. We are standing up against that as Democrats, really, as Americans, though, and that will be a huge issue in my district.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Trump and Vance haven’t been very clear on the Comstock Act. I asked, I asked JD Vance a lot of questions about it just a few weeks ago. Just to put that aside, though, I want to ask you about Afghanistan, because in your in your call for Joe Biden to step aside, you also pointed to that as a Biden Harris problem. In fact, you said it was a “strategic and a moral failure”, that withdrawal. The vice president says she was that last person in the room on that decision. Is that failure also hers?
REP. PAT RYAN: We’ve got to stop assigning partisan blame on fundamental things like our national security.
(CROSSTALK)
MARGARET BRENNAN: You said that
REP. PAT RYAN: I said it as an American. I said it as someone who served in combat. Who had friends that served in Afghanistan. If we can’t make mistakes and wrestle with that with a little bit of space to do better in the future. How do we expect to continue on the next 250 years as this great country that we are? So we have to be and I’ve called on presidents of both parties when I disagree with them, on behalf of my constituents, on behalf of what I think is right for the country. So we have to be able to do that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I bring that up because we are coming up on the three year anniversary of that withdrawal and that fatal attack at Abbey gate where 13 service people lost their lives in that ISIS-K suicide bombing. The family members of some of those service people took the stage at the RNC and said that President Biden hasn’t spoken their names and how hurtful that was to them. Do you think the Vice President should speak to tha now, this week?
REP. PAT RYAN: I’ll let the vice president make her decisions about things like that. What I do think we need to recognize is you want to talk about how we’re speaking to veterans and military families. Just 10 days ago, Donald Trump got up and said Medal of Honor recipients, the most revered heroes in our country’s history. There’s only 62 living Medal of Honor recipients in the United States. He directly denigrated and insulted them. On top of years of insulting Gold Star families, calling our troops suckers and losers. That’s something I spoke about at the convention, and I believe we’re in a place where the Democratic party is a party of patriots. Folks voting for Kamala Harris can feel that they are doing, and I certainly feel, their patriotic duty to bring our country together. Stop insulting veterans and military families that have made the ultimate sacrifice, and Kamala Harris has done that, and will continue to do that.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it would mean something to those in your district if that loss was acknowledged this week?
REP. PAT RYAN: I think that it would mean a lot to the family members, of course, to acknowledge their loss. And we’ve lost far too many veterans, not just in active duty combat, but we’ve talked about this before, coming home. We’ve now lost more Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to suicide than we lost in active duty. So we need to properly fund the VA, another thing that Donald Trump failed to do. So it’s an, these are important, stark choices ahead. Congressman.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman. Congressman, good to have you here.
REP. PAT RYAN: Thanks, Margaret.