Video: Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA10) Says Future of Democratic Party Is People Like Abigail Spanberger – “she has both the charisma of someone like Mamdani, but also a really good ear to the ground of what people want”

Excellent job by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA10) in this interview:

• “Now, this [Epstein scandal] is becoming a bigger issue, and it’s becoming an inconvenient issue for Republicans on the Hill because it’s dividing them. And so that’s why they want to go to vacation early, is because they want to make sure they don’t have this conversation, and they can kick the can down the road. And in the meantime, the president is trying to distract people by saying, you know, Barack Obama is a traitor and he’s going to, you know, do all these things. And so I think the distractions and trying to recess early is just a sign that they’re uncomfortable right now.”
• [Question: “Why do Democrats want this stuff released? Is it simply because you think there may be something in there that shows the president did something illegal or morally repugnant?”] “Yeah, at first it was. To me, it was about transparency and about trying to see what’s going on. And then seeing the president’s reaction to all these things, including the Wall Street Journal article about his love letter to Epstein, I think shows that maybe there’s a lot of fire where there’s smoke. And so what I want is to see exactly how Donald Trump was involved with Epstein, whether he was complicit, what his involvement was with Ghislaine Maxwell. And I’d like to know what’s in the files at this point, what role the president was playing in those files and the whole situation.”
• “Look, I don’t like government shutdowns. I don’t want one. But at the same time, my constituents are telling me that they’re already shutting down the government. They’ve either gotten RIF’ed, laid off, or they have DOGE walking up and down the hallways of their agencies looking for reasons to fire them. And so it’s a really bad situation right now. And this is the only piece of leverage that we as Democrats really have to be able to fight back and protest. And so i’d like to see what’s happened in past Congresses, which is we use our leverage and we get a bipartisan deal as a result. And I would like to see less of us giving up all our leverage because we’re afraid.”
• “I think what’s hard right now is every part of my district, whether it’s rural, whether it’s suburban, whether it’s federal workers or not, is being hurt by this administration’s policies….And so people that are concerned right now, Democrat and Republican, and you’re starting to see I think you’re going to see this November in the Virginia governor’s race, that there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to show up to the polls angry at this administration.”
• “I know I’m not going to give them what they want. I’m going to use all the leverage that I have. You know, if our caucus decides to unite like we did last time, I think it would make a lot of sense to do that. I would suggest that Chuck Schumer do the same and and keep the Democrats in the Senate united. But we’ll see what happens.”
• “You know, I actually visited several Spanish-speaking services and churches. And one of the things that I heard was, whether it was a Democrat or a Republican, someone who voted for Trump or not, people are really, really concerned and afraid right now of these ICE raids. There’s a lot of concern about the fact that you can be doing whatever, you know, just minding your own business, and then ICE could just show up to your workplace and take you away, or take your family member away. And so I think right now, that’s the biggest concern that I’m hearing on the ground…I mean, we can do that [get criminals out of the country] and also make sure that we have a comprehensive immigration reform and a system that actually works right now. Part of the problem is that we have a broken immigration system. And so there’s a pendulum swinging back and forth on how we address undocumented folks. I’d like to see a path to citizenship for many. And if there’s not citizenship for them, if they have a criminal history, we can deal with that and assess, you know, case by case, whether they should be deported or not.”
• [How do Democrats win back voters?] “It’s very simple. I mean, they passed this big, ugly bill that has a lot of bad stuff in it. It cuts to health care. Some of the immigration stuff you’re talking about. Cuts to clean energy. That means a lot of jobs lost. And so all the stuff that’s in there, we just have to explain to people what’s in there, right? A lot of people don’t actually know about the bill. You know, that’s why we do a lot of creative social media on our team is to try to reach voters that don’t pay attention to the Hill…We’re trying to reach new people, to let them know that, you know, are you suffering right now or are you having trouble getting food assistance? Well, part of it is because of this bill that passed in Congress. And so explaining that and then also having a positive vision for the future, we can’t just be all anti-Trump.”
• “I think right now what we need to look at is the elections in Virginia this November to see a great candidate, Abigail Spanberger, running for governor, and she has both the charisma of someone like Mamdani, but also a really good ear to the ground of what people want, because she…has that lived experience. And so we have more candidates like Spanberger and, you know, also in New Jersey, we have a great candidate for governor. I think that’s the future of the party….people who both have the pragmatism and the ear to the ground on what voters want and need, as well as, you know, are charismatic, really appeal to people and reach people who normally don’t pay attention to politics…It could be both [from the middle or the left]. It’s not even about where you are on the scale. It’s about your tactics and how you’re reaching people.”