The following is the transcript of an interview with Rep. Tom Suozzi, Democrat of New York, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on July 6, 2025.
WEIJIA JIANG: We turn now to New York Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi. Congressman, thank you so much for your time this morning.
REP. TOM SUOZZI: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
WEIJIA JIANG: Well, you just heard from Kevin Hassett- you know, like President Trump, he said, without this bill, it would be one of the greatest tax hikes for the American public. They say it is the greatest tax cut in American history. You sit on the Ways and Means Committee, so I have to wonder how you describe it.
REP. SUOZZI: I describe it as the big, ugly bill, not the 'big, beautiful bill.' It's going to do a lot of things that are going to hurt a lot of people in our country. The biggest one, which you talked about with Mr. Hassett, is increase the deficit enormously in the country. And what that does, is that creates inflation, that keeps interest rates high, that makes it hard for people to buy homes, makes it hard for them to borrow money, to do the things that they want to do. In addition, it's going to knock a bunch of people off of health care. We know the Republicans have tried for a decade to undo the Affordable Care Act- Obamacare, and this is kind of a backdoor way to take health insurance away from people that really need it the most here in our nation. And it's going to cause health insurance costs to go up for a lot of people. One of the President's biggest issues he campaigned on was reducing prices rapidly on day one, we're going to cut the costs. Well, costs are not going down, inflation- inflation is going to be affected by this deficit. Interest rates are going to stay high, and this is going to have a negative impact on health insurance costs for many people in our country.
WEIJIA JIANG: I know that you just brought up Medicaid and potential loss of coverage. What do you say to some Americans who might wonder, well, why should the able bodied not have to work in order to access Medicaid?
REP. SUOZZI: Well, you have to understand that 92% of the people that are able to work are currently working, and the 8% that are not are often people that are taking care of disabled children. Remember that two thirds of the people in nursing homes are on Medicaid. One-tenth of all the veterans in the United States of America are on Medicaid. Medicaid is a lifeline for so many people that are facing such difficult circumstances that we can't even possibly imagine. And why would we be taking health insurance and food benefits away from some of the most needy Americans while we're providing what I believe is an unnecessary tax break for some of the wealthiest Americans. It just doesn't make sense that you're reducing taxes for some of the wealthiest people, hurting some of the lowest income people, while blowing the biggest deficit in the budget that we've had in the history of the country. Those things just don't add up.
WEIJIA JIANG: Well, just last week, you said you agree with 75% of what's in this package, that's a pretty significant number. So why isn't it worth the 25% that you don't like?
REP. SUOZZI: Because those things that I just mentioned are so devastating. I like the idea that we're investing more money to secure the border. I like the idea that we are providing tax breaks to lower income folks and hard working middle class folks and people aspiring to the middle class. I like the idea of providing tax breaks for those folks. But why are we providing- and when the economy is doing as well as it has been over the past several years, why would we be providing a tax decrease- tax breaks for some of the wealthiest Americans in our country, while blowing a massive hole in the deficit?
WEIJIA JIANG: Congressman, I want to turn to an op-ed that you wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week saying, Zohran Mamdani's win in the New York City's Democratic mayoral primary should be a quote, 'loud wake up call for Democrats.' What lessons do you think your party can learn from- from his campaign?
REP. SUOZZI: Well, you know, I disagree with Mr. Mamdani. I have to make that very clear that, you know, I'm a Democratic capitalist. I'm not a Democratic socialist. And- but you have to recognize that he tapped into something. He tapped into the same thing that Donald Trump tapped into, which is that people are concerned that the economy is not working for them. Affordability and the economy is the number one issue in the country. And too often, Democrats are not perceived as being focused on affordability and the economy and the middle class, and people aspiring to the middle class and their economic concerns. They see Democrats as being primarily focused on reproductive rights and on LGBT protections, which are important issues, but they're not the issues that people think about every night when they're lying in bed thinking about paying their bills or when they're talking about how they're going to send their kids to school. So Democrats have got to do a better job learning from both Trump and Mamdani not with their solutions, which I think are wrong, but with the diagnosis of the problem that we're frustrated, we're concerned. Everybody in America, whether you're a right wing conservative or a left wing progressive, should believe that in return for working hard, you make enough money so you can live a good life. You can buy a home, you can educate your children, you can pay for your health insurance, you can retire one day without being scared. People don't feel that currently, and we have to do a better job of communicating that.
WEIJIA JIANG: Well, I'm glad you brought up the perception, because you also wrote that 'Democrats must recognize the future starts with a message of economic security for American families.' I covered the Biden campaign. I covered the Harris campaign. That was the center of their messages. So what's the problem here? Is it the messenger? Is it the messaging? Because they have that message already.
REP. SUOZZI: It's a combination. Number- the Democratic Party as a whole has to have this platform that focuses on what the people care about. They care about the economy, they care about immigration, they care about taxes, they care about crime, they care about health care. But then we have to recognize that the media infrastructure is fractured, and Trump figured it out before the Democrats have, which is that it's not just traditional media like your shows and newspapers, but it's social media. It's podcasts. Podcasts, the top 500 podcasts in America, 400 of the top 500 are right leaning. 100 are left leaning. And of the 100 left leaning ones, half of them beat the, you know what, out of the Democrats. Then you have other national media, and then you have some of this ethnic and underground media related to WeChat and WhatsApp and different types of apps that people use. So we have to communicate across all those platforms, because people are getting their messages in these fractured environments and living in these echo chambers, and we have to do a better job communicating across all these platforms and getting Democrats as a whole to focus on the economy, immigration, et cetera.
WEIJIA JIANG: Alright, Congressman, we are all trying to learn all those new languages. Thank you so much for your time this morning. And we'll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.
