Kathleen Rice Talks Constituency, Syria and Trump

Last week, Patch ran the first part of our Q&A with Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, who represents New York's 4th Congressional District. In it, Rice talked about how the current term is going so far, what it's like to be in the minority party and her opinion on some of President Trump's policies.

This week, Patch presents the second half our interview with Rice. She talks about how her constituents have reacted to the President's policies and proposals, the situation in Syria and more.

Rice, a Democrat, is currently serving her second term. Her district includes Baldwin, Bellmore, East Rockaway, East Meadow, the Five Towns, Lynbrook, Floral Park, Franklin Square, Garden City, Hempstead, Long Beach, Malverne, Freeport, Merrick, Mineola, Carle Place, New Hyde Park, Oceanside, Rockville Centre, Roosevelt, Uniondale, Wantagh, West Hempstead, Westbury and parts of Valley Stream.

You can read read the first half of our interview with Rice here.

Patch: What have your constituents said to you about what’s going on in Washington?

Kathleen Rice: They’re worried. They’re worried about immigration. They’re worried about education, they’re worried about national security. I was taken aback by the level of fear that people expressed at our town hall, of where are we going in this world. Is Russia really injecting themselves into our elections? Which is a fact. Mike McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, says they did it.

We have to get to the bottom of it so we don’t have this happen again. What I remind my Republican friends is, guess what? Three years from now, Trump could have the Russian target on his back. Maybe it will be Republicans they want to do the fake news with. Hack into the RNC instead of the DNC. So it’s not a Republican/Democrat issue -- it’s an American issue. It’s an issue of, are we going to do everything we can to preserve our democracy? When we see everything that Russia’s doing with the French elections and the German elections and what they've done in Ukraine -- there’s no issue that they do this. It’s just, how do we harden our infrastructure to make sure that we are not vulnerable.

Patch: Have you had any success in getting people to acknowledge that it is a problem?

Rice: One of the complications is the fact that there’s all these potential ties, that people in Trump’s campaign and post-campaign have had that have muddied the waters here.

What I think has to happen is that you have to have an investigation into that kind of stuff, and maybe that’s going to turn into criminal charges, or not. I think it’s too early to tell. Separate and apart from all that is the very real investigation that should be solely focused on, how did [Russia] do this? What fake news did they disseminate? I’m not talking about re-litigating whether they affected the end of the election. Did they hack into the DNC and do other stuff like that? There’s no question they did. Did they disseminate fake news? No question they did. Did they give information to Wikileaks? That’s uncontroverted. I think the investigation that needs to be done is, how did they do it, and how do we protect ourselves from this happening again in the future?

Jeh Johnson, when he was on his way out as Homeland Security chief, designated our election system as critical infrastructure. And I think it should be. Because they weren’t able to actually affect voter tallies and voter registrations, but that’s next.

Patch: You mentioned people were worried about education. What do you mean?

Rice: There were a lot of people who were upset that Betsy DeVos is the Education Secretary. Education is a big issue here on Long island. And they’re worried.

Patch: What were they worried about in terms of immigration?

Rice: It was, “what are we doing?” Twenty percent of my district is Latino. And they’re afraid. And I don’t blame them. There was a lot of fear there. It wasn’t, “Oh my god, we have to put a wall up.” People know that “build a wall” was nothing more than a campaign slogan. There are parts of the southern border where you couldn’t put a wall if you wanted to. So I think Trump is kind of walking that back now. As he is on so many other things, like his opposition to the ExIm Bank, labeling China as a currency manipulator and NATO being irrelevant.

Patch: What is the atmosphere like in Washington now?

Rice: It has changed in one way: it went from Republicans opposing everything Obama wants to Democrats opposing everything that Donald Trump wants. That’s it.

My point to my colleagues is, we didn’t like it when Mitch McConnell said, “Our job as Republicans is to make President Obama a one-term president,” and just opposed everything [Obama] wanted to do. Because that was not good for the country. So I don’t want to do that as Democrats. I don’t care who the president is.

Yes, we have to oppose bad policy. Like hopefully [Trump] is not going to pull out of the Paris Accord. He already destroyed TPP, which is a colossal blunder on his part, in my opinion. Yes, there are things we should oppose. But I’m hoping this administration shows some tendency to want to reach across the aisle. I think there’s a lot of room there.

Patch: Has there been anything the administration has done that you feel was good?

Rice: I thought he had an appropriate response to the sarin gas incident in Syria. Having said that, I think we have to reopen the issue of authorizing the use of military force. Because they’re still working on one from 2001 or 2002 -- post 9/11. Obama did it, too. If things are going to escalate, I think that, in order to maintain the Constitutional authority that the president has and we have as a Congress, he has to bring Congress into the conversation. I think his response was appropriate. But I think if he’s going to escalate any military action, there or elsewhere, Congress has to be consulted.

Patch: If military action does escalate and the president wants to send ground troops to Syria, would you support it?

Rice: I don’t know. I would have to see the plan. The problem is coming up with a plan. I don’t know if there’s an appetite in the public to commit our troops to another war in the Middle East. I just don’t. I think the president has been saying, our presence in Syria is not there to engage in regime change. It is to defeat ISIS.

There has to be some kind of political solution to the long-term issues that plague Syria. But right now, I hope the focus is going to remain on trying to eradicate ISIS. Because our country has been doing a better job of late. Not just there, but also in Iraq. This is going to be long-term. This is not going to be fixed by dropping one bomb.

Patch: What is your opinion on allow Syrian refugees into the country?

Rice: I always thought it should have been more. This is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportion. That’s not who we are as Americans. I know for a fact that no refugee, no person that wants to come into this country, is subjected to more thorough, extreme vetting than Syrian refugees. And the majority of them are women and children.

I think that we should increase the number of refugees we’re willing to take. I opposed the travel ban because it was really just anti-American. I sent a letter to Homeland Security saying that part of the ban that the president instituted, the first and second, they both required DHS to do a study on what was working with the extreme vetting program and what was not. They never touched it. If this is what [the travel ban] was about, and it wasn’t just keeping a campaign promise to keep out Muslims, then show us what you have done. And I have yet to see any evidence of that. And my letter has gone unanswered.

Patch: Do you think Washington is working right now in the best interest of the American people?

Rice: Washington is going to work for the American people when Republicans and Democrats can work together. Period.

Photo: Alex Costello/Patch