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more at rosettastone.com. Hey

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there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

0:25

I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

0:27

And we're celebrating Juneteenth, so something

0:29

a little different today. I

0:31

recently sat down with New Jersey Democratic

0:33

Congressman Andy Kim to talk about his

0:35

run for Senate. He went from long

0:37

shot candidate to presumptive front runner in

0:39

a matter of months. And he did

0:42

it by taking on his own party's

0:44

power brokers and indicted incumbent Senator Bob

0:46

Menendez, who's running as an independent while

0:48

on trial for corruption charges. Kim's

0:50

also a Democrat who won a district Donald

0:52

Trump one twice. So I wanted

0:54

to get his take on the Senate race and the

0:57

state of American politics. Congressman Andy Kim, thank you so

0:59

much for coming into studio. Thanks for having me today.

1:02

I was hoping we could start with you

1:04

recalling back to the day

1:06

that you ultimately decided that you were going

1:08

to jump into the Senate race because it

1:10

does seem like it was a jump. This

1:12

wasn't a big, long thought out, long running

1:14

plan of yours to get into this race. No,

1:16

it was definitely not. You know, I have a

1:19

six year old and an eight year old, two

1:21

little boys. My it was not necessarily think I

1:23

would take on a statewide Senate campaign, but

1:25

I saw the indictment of Senator

1:27

Menendez come out. And like

1:30

many other people across New Jersey, across the

1:32

country, just, yeah, we

1:34

saw it. And it just like, it just

1:36

unfortunately just feeds into this

1:38

deep distrust that so many people have of

1:40

government right now. 84% of

1:43

people in New Jersey believe that their

1:45

politicians are corrupt. And

1:47

it just broke my heart that just

1:49

like another example, that's just going to

1:51

further weaken and make things more toxic.

1:54

So I just, you know, I call for the senator to

1:56

step down. I was the first from New Jersey and I

1:58

thought maybe that might be the end of my

2:00

political career, just given how things often go

2:03

in New Jersey with our machine politics. But

2:06

I remember talking to my wife and just thinking

2:08

through what it is that is

2:11

our role. Like, what should we do about this

2:13

as, you know, we're now in a place where

2:15

I'm a congressman right now. So

2:18

we decided to take the plunge and just jump

2:20

in. We announced my campaign for

2:22

Senate within 24 hours of

2:24

the indictment, not something I planned to do, but

2:26

it's something I felt compelled to do. You

2:29

basically had no campaign infrastructure set up before you announced

2:31

you were going to run. No,

2:33

I remember talking to some of my political

2:35

advisors, my past campaign managers. I talked to

2:37

them and I asked them,

2:39

like, you know, I'm thinking about doing this. What

2:41

would you recommend? And many of them said, oh,

2:44

well, look, we can build out a six week

2:46

roadmap here. We can have a launch video. We

2:48

can have a website and a press

2:50

plan. And I remember just telling

2:52

them on the phone, like, what would you say

2:55

if I launched in three hours from now? What

2:57

if I hit send on this tweet that I have sitting

2:59

on my phone right now? Which is basically I

3:01

read, I actually drafted a tweet, which is actually

3:03

ended up being what I sent off. I

3:06

didn't get a single minute of sleep

3:08

that night. You know, I just, I really felt like

3:11

I had to do something and really

3:13

show people that, you know,

3:15

when there's these problems in our politics, that there

3:18

are people who want to step up and try

3:20

to fix it. I don't want people to just

3:22

feel apathetic about the, you know,

3:24

the distrust in government. I've been saying this

3:26

line a lot lately where I say, I

3:29

believe that the opposite of democracy is apathy.

3:32

And I think that apathy grows

3:34

so strong when people believe that,

3:37

you know, people in politics are corrupt or

3:39

not in it for the right reasons, just

3:41

in it for their own ego and their

3:43

ambition. You know, I work at the Capitol

3:45

and I work alongside a lot of people

3:47

there that are more interested in being social

3:50

influencers rather than lawmakers. Sure. So

3:52

you can see why people feel like, you know,

3:54

this isn't working. So you

3:56

get into this race and you're running an

3:58

estate which has... this really

4:01

prescriptive political process in the way that candidates

4:03

are endorsed, the way they run, and the

4:05

way that they appear on the ballot. I'm

4:08

hoping that you could articulate what the line

4:10

is to someone who is not from New

4:12

Jersey and has never seen a ballot that

4:14

looked like the ones that most voters in

4:17

New Jersey have seen for generations. Yeah. I

4:20

mean, I think the best way to frame

4:22

it is just, you know, we're the last

4:24

statewide machine politics in America, and what that

4:26

allows is that it allows party leaders to

4:29

give preferential placement on their ballots

4:32

for their preferred candidates. And

4:35

it's designed in a way that's different

4:37

than 49 other states. New Jersey has

4:39

their ballots in a unique way, and

4:42

it's one that is just inherently unfair.

4:44

The ballot is paid by taxpayers. Like,

4:46

it is a sacred document. It's

4:49

not just some political partisan document

4:51

owned by political parties. Did

4:54

you benefit, though, from the line ballot in running

4:56

in your first three campaigns for the House? Like,

4:59

did that was the ballot you kind of appeared on for your first campaigns? I

5:01

mean, I didn't have primary challenges for my

5:03

first few races, so it didn't necessarily have

5:06

an impact. It

5:08

could have potentially had an impact if there

5:10

was someone who maybe thought about running but

5:13

chose not to because of the line issue

5:15

on that front. But

5:17

yeah, look, I mean, you know, it

5:19

is a system that I didn't really

5:21

fully understand when I first came into

5:23

politics because, you know,

5:26

that's just the ballot I knew. I didn't

5:28

fully understand, like, how different it was. I

5:31

took the step of filing a lawsuit, and

5:33

that was, I'll tell you, very scary. It

5:35

was nerve-wracking. I mean... I imagine that made

5:38

a lot of people mad in the state of New Jersey. They were

5:40

still... Yeah, some still quite upset at me. But

5:42

it was the right thing to do, and

5:45

it was important to take on and

5:47

show that this type of entrenched power doesn't

5:49

need to continue on, that this is not

5:52

something that allows for people to have the

5:54

kind of say in their politics that they

5:56

deserve to have in New Jersey. What

5:59

was your message to people that was resonating and

6:01

was part of it like this whole system stinks.

6:03

Like there's an element of having a senator

6:05

under indictment, a ballot system

6:08

that seems like intended to protect

6:10

the people in power and, you know,

6:13

nepo baby politics of having the governor's wife run.

6:15

It seemed like just the right sort of stew

6:17

to be able to make the average Joe voter

6:19

be like, something here isn't right. So

6:22

I think a lot of people felt

6:24

what I felt, just deep frustration and

6:26

disappointment in our politics and

6:29

that it needs to change. It

6:31

just cannot, and it's not just about the

6:33

senator. I mean, people, you know, I've been feeling this for a

6:35

while. I mean, that's why I stepped up to run deep

6:38

problems structurally of gerrymandering or, you

6:40

know, big money and dark money

6:43

and citizens united decision and the

6:45

filibuster, all these structural things that

6:47

we get so frustrated about. And

6:49

I think I was able to channel that frustration

6:52

because I feel it too. I

6:54

think about this mistrust thing a lot as I

6:56

think to your point, like right now, there's so

6:58

much mistrust, not just in government, but almost in

7:01

like your fellow Americans like the polarization and people

7:03

don't trust you. They don't trust me, right? They

7:05

don't trust government. They don't trust the media. If

7:08

you had like a magic wand, right? Like if you had

7:10

unilateral power to try and improve that situation, like where do

7:12

you put your focus? Like how do you think you start

7:14

to build that back? And is it

7:17

something you can legislate or is it

7:19

something that you just have to demonstrate? Well, there's

7:21

no single piece of legislation I can write that

7:23

will immediately fix this or rid

7:25

the world. I mean, part of this is an

7:28

unraveling of what I

7:31

see happening in our democracy that

7:33

we're losing touch with the idea that we're

7:35

part of something bigger than all of us,

7:37

that there's some commonality there. You know, our

7:39

the motto above the Oval Office and the

7:41

Capitol Dome is E Plur Bizunum, right, out

7:43

of many one. But we've

7:45

gotten to the point where it's like out

7:48

of many, many, like we're not finding that

7:50

common thread anymore. And it's demonstrated

7:52

by the fact that 50% of

7:54

Americans surveyed believe that people in the other

7:56

political party are the enemy. They're like, they'll

7:58

use that word enemy. This

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16:00

losing touch with just how to interact

16:02

with each other with a sense of

16:04

respect. But it does require

16:07

a level of investment and engagement. And

16:09

the way I'll sort of describe it

16:11

here is, is it

16:13

requires a certain amount of

16:16

acceptance of discomfort in one's life.

16:19

Like in politics in particular, like if you're only

16:21

having comfortable conversations out there with people, it means

16:23

you're not talking to all the people you need

16:25

to talk to. But a lot

16:27

of times people wanna just, kind

16:30

of surround themselves with those that already

16:32

agree with them. And most lawmakers live

16:35

in very safe bubbles, right? Most

16:37

Democrats are in very blue and most Republicans are

16:39

in very red. Yeah, in 2020, I was one

16:42

of only seven Democrats in the country that won

16:44

a district Trump one. There were about, what,

16:46

223 Democrats in

16:48

the House of Representatives. Only seven of us won districts

16:50

Trump one. It requires you

16:52

to go out and try

16:55

to listen to people and actually engage

16:57

and not section off. So I

17:00

really try to encourage people. It's okay to

17:02

feel discomfort. It's okay to be uncomfortable when

17:04

you're talking with people, but you can still

17:07

respect them and still engage with that. Let's

17:09

assume for the sake of this argument that

17:11

you win in November, which we can't be

17:13

predicted, but you're well positioned assuming that you

17:16

win on the primary. You get to

17:18

the Senate. What do you wanna do there? Yeah,

17:21

I can't say I necessarily already

17:23

have a vision. I

17:26

think the kind of politics I practice, if

17:28

there's one word I try to associate, it's

17:30

humility. I try to come into my work.

17:32

I don't have all the answers. I don't

17:34

know exactly how to be able to navigate

17:36

all this, but I hope to

17:38

be somebody that can bring some strategic

17:41

vision and planning, try to push the

17:43

horizon of what it is that we're

17:45

trying to do. The way I

17:47

sort of describe is what does success look like

17:49

for America? What would we say 20, 30 years from

17:51

now, oh, that's

17:54

what we wanna achieve and

17:56

be able to build towards. I want to be

17:58

able to bring a reform agenda. to be able

18:00

to deliver and show that we're trying to fix

18:02

this. And yeah, I'm excited. Like I said, I

18:04

think there's a hunger in this country for a

18:06

new generation of leadership to step up. I

18:09

would be 42 years old when sworn in. I

18:12

think it's valuable to have the perspective of

18:14

young parents in the Senate, in our government,

18:16

to bring a lot of other types of

18:18

diversity to that mix. Do you

18:21

think that the people of New Jersey are ready to

18:23

have two senators who are known for just being very

18:25

polite and nice? Because that kind

18:27

of goes against the stereotype of your state. And

18:29

I can say that as a Philadelphia and born

18:31

and raised. Yeah. Yeah. You

18:34

know, I think people are ready

18:36

for something different. And I think

18:38

we can really show that maybe

18:40

it was that type of kind

18:43

of brash and aggressive and

18:45

machine politics. Maybe that was the outlier

18:47

this whole time rather than us. Congressman,

18:50

thank you so much for coming in. Thanks for having me. That's

18:53

all for today. We'll be back in your

18:55

feeds tomorrow. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

18:57

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