The First 10 Days: A Prediction

Trump’s & Biden’s First 10 Days A satirical perspective on what each one would do on his first day in o ce

BY NATE DAVIS

TRUMP

DAY 1: Fire Dr. Fauci for being against masks before being for masks even though he himself doesn’t wear a mask when he thinks nobody is looking. And for having a bad arm.

DAY 2: Will remind everyone that Dr. Fauci has a really bad arm.

DAY 3: Will call Gov. Cuomo and tell him that if the Black Lives Matter mural on the street in front of Trump Tower is not removed by 5 p.m., New York City will never get another federal dollar.

DAY 4: Issue an order to engrave his face on Mt. Rushmore, right near Abe Lincoln, because he is the best president for African Americans, except for Lincoln, perhaps.

DAY 5: Release his tax returns with everything redacted other than his name. Just to give Rachel Maddow “breaking news!!”

DAY 6: Turn Central Park into an oil refinery.

DAY 7: Offer Joe Biden a position on the Dementia Research Council…as Exhibit 1.

DAY 8: Release The Art of Making Liberals’ Heads Explode.

DAY 9: Nuke China for engaging in viral warfare and sending us the China Plague.

BIDEN

DAY 1: Spend the day exploring the White House basement…where he will be spending the next four years, if he makes it.

DAY 2: Make the slogan of the country— “U.S.A., C’mon Man!”

DAY 3: Send Hunter on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney.

DAY 4: Drive to the Supreme Court with a U-Haul truck. After all, his handlers told him that he has to pack the Supreme Court.

DAY 5: Announce a tax credit for all who get hair plugs.

DAY 6: Give a speech about how Republicans are “lying pony horse face soldiers who are full of malarky.”

DAY 7: Add an extra fence to the White House to prevent himself from accidentally wandering off.

DAY 8: Give a speech about how China has unleashed a plague on the U.S and must be held responsible…after all, fried dumplings are not healthy!

DAY 9: Celebrate his 90th birthday.

Finding Blessings Each Day TJH Speaks with Congresswoman Kathleen Rice

BY SUSAN SCHWAMM

Congresswoman Rice, thank you for your time. I recently spoke with Jeremy Feder of the Lawrence School District, who mentioned that you were very involved in obtaining federal funds for the food distribution program held at the Lawrence Middle School.

I visited the program a few times, and met with Jeremy Feder, and I was so impressed. They had that thing running like a well-oiled machine. I understand that now it’s going to actually continue through the summer, which is so critical. There are more food-insecure families in our district and across the country now since the Great Depression. It’s awful how many people are food-insecure, especially children.

What are your thoughts about opening up the economy during this pandemic versus the desire to keep people safe?

I don’t see it that way. I think that you can do both. I think that we can safely reopen our economy as long as we have in place robust testing. There’s probably going to be vaccine by the middle of next year, I would say. But in terms of testing, we have never had a federal national approach to testing. Not just testing, but contact tracing, containment, and all of that. Had we done that from the very beginning, if this president had put together a national plan for how we’re going to crush this virus, I think we could have opened up earlier and safely.

We do about just over a million tests a day now in this country; that number should be four million. We’re still not where we need to be for testing.

We have been pushing for robust and federal investment in testing and a national testing strategy. The administration has been pushing back against it. They basically want every state to be on their own. Well, guess what? Our state has no money. I talk to school districts all the time that say, “We’re dipping into our rainy day fund in order to pay for screens and PPE and all of that stuff.” That’s ridiculous. We would have been able to have a better plan to open schools up in September if back in March and April, when the economy was beginning to shut down, we had said, “Okay. Full force of the federal government behind crushing this pandemic because we can’t have a closed economy forever, it’s going to affect families, businesses, etc.” I think that if we’d spent those five months trying to figure out a really robust testing regime and listening to the scientists, we would have been in a much better place.

What about opening up the economy in your district, the 4th Congressional District?

The businesses are basically open with some limitations. For instance, restaurants are, I think, at 25 percent capacity inside. We’re still under the 5% test positive level – we’re at about 1½ percent now – so we’re doing it right. Until we have a vaccine, there will be limitations on certain activities.

When do you think that vaccine’s coming out?

I don’t think it’s going to be until next year. I know that Trump is like, “Oh, it’s right around the corner,” and no, it’s not. There are a lot of companies that are developing vaccines, and the federal government is heavily invested in finding a vaccine. That is one good thing that the Trump administration is doing.

What do you think about Cuomo’s role in the coronavirus pandemic?

We were the hardest-hit state in the country. We shut down before anyone. Behind New York City, my district was hit the hardest. Nassau County was hit the hardest of any other county in the state.

I think that what Cuomo did that was so good was that every day he was on TV talking about what the science was saying, what the scientists were saying, “Here’s what the CDC is saying.” He was following those recommendations. And with the exception of what happened in the nursing homes, I think he did a good job.

You’re a former district attorney. What do you think about the bail reform laws in New York?

I wish that the legislature and the governor had actually included prosecutors in that whole process. They were, for the most part, kind of kept outside of the process and that was a mistake because they ended up having to involve them. There was such an outcry in terms of how almost any criminal could get bail. Prosecutors were totally taken out of the consideration of what bail should be set. And I think that was wrong.

But it did some good things as well. They made some changes earlier this year, so that it’s not like any person will be walking free – any crime alleged to have caused death, crimes involving obscenities or first-degree grand larceny, etc. These are the people who should be in prison, right? Not your drug addict who possessed a misdemeanor or a low-level felony amounts of drugs.

We’ve got a crime problem in this country, writ large. The overall direction we should be going in from a criminal justice standpoint is to understand which people need to be kept away from society. Those are the most violent people or your recidivists who are over and over and over again committing violent felony crimes.

We have to spend more money on addressing the issue of mental health because we don’t have a lot of mental health facilities in this state, and the prisons have, to some extent, become a place to house people with mental

Meeting with constituents at AIPAC in March

health issues as opposed to violence issues

I’m not as immersed in this issue as I was when I was DA, but I think that de Blasio has fumbled a lot of this stuff in the city. The pandemic has just made it worse because a lot of people left this city. But you know what? New York City is resilient just like New York State is, and we’re going to come back and we’re going to come back better.

The last time I met you personally was at the anti-Semitism conference you put together in Cedarhurst Village Hall. That was truly admirable – how you were able to gather together

so many elected officials

in one spot about this one issue that touches so many people in our community. What could you,

as an elected official, do

to decrease these acts of anti-Semitism in the county?

I would like to start by talking about the Never Again Education Act. I was a co-sponsor of that bill. There were 294 co-sponsors, bipartisan, that finally recognized the importance of Holocaust education in the U.S. We are not many years away from not having any living survivors of the Holocaust. Their stories need to be told. There are all these crazy Holocaust deniers that put all this stuff out on social media that is insane. So when you talk about that level of anti-Semitism, the one thing that we can do is ensure that kids in middle schools and high schools are learning about the Holocaust. This bill creates a Holocaust education website as a central hub of resources for teachers. It was signed into law in May of this year. That’s one big step that we can take.

In terms of the BDS movement, I am on the record as being completely against it. It’s just crazy what’s happening on our campuses and from all different places all over the world.

I’ve always been a big supporter of the nonprofit security grant program that actually enabled me to bring about $1.3 million back to 14 synagogues and other faith-based organizations in my district. The entire New York City area received $12.6 million, but we got $1.3 million. It’s sad that we have to have security at our synagogues and faithbased organizations, but that’s another thing we have to do. If we can’t educate people about how not to be anti-Semitic, we need to offer the protection so that people can worship without being worried about being attacked.

These are really big issues. I would even go so far as to say one of the big things that we have to do in the next Congress – which, G-d willing, I’ll be serving in – is to regulate these social media platforms. They allow the most vile, disgusting, race-baiting, violent communication ever.

We have a First Amendment, freedom of speech, but what they allow to go on their social media platforms with very little responsibility is just outrageous. We have to regulate all of those social media platforms.

I would love for every parent to see the movie The Social Dilemma on Netflix because it talks about how all these social media platforms started, the algorithms they came up with to kind of enter your brain and influence you and how they feed you information. It is frightening. And by the way, the people who have built these platforms say they don’t let their kids go on these social media platforms because they’re so bad.

A lot of your constituents are pro-Israel. Is there anything that you’ve seen happening there that you are happy about? Is there anything else that can be done?

Well, I think these peace deals with Bahrain and the UAE and Sudan are huge. Now, you know me. If Trump does something well like putting a ton of money behind finding a vaccine for this virus, I say it. I think these peace deals with Israel are a good thing. We’re going down the right path. I think my record of supporting pro-Israel legislation in Washington, whether it’s the Cooperation Enhancement and Regional Security Act, what we’re doing with PTSD Collaborative Research Act that’s between the U.S. and Israel, the expanding medical partnerships with Israel to lessen dependence on China – that speaks for itself.

I support a two-state solution, and I think that’s what we have to focus on. And I will also say that, when members of my party who take a different position on Israel say something that is incendiary about Israel or that is totally unwarranted, I respond. I call them out on that. I think that we need to do more of that. I have a feeling that if we pick up any Democratic seats in 2020 there are going to be people who are more moderate like me voted into office. They’ll be a good counterweight to people who don’t appreciate the strong relationship that we should have with Israel and Israel’s right to exist.

On that note, do you feel the Democratic Party is starting to lean a little too far left?

The good thing about the divides us.” Democratic Party is that we are incredibly diverse. When I look over the aisle on the Republican side, there’s a bunch of white men and maybe a handful of women, and that’s no joke. I think diversity is good. I think a difference of opinions is good. Do I think the media gives far more of a focus on the comments that are made by some of my colleagues about Israel that are not positive? Yes. I think that’s irresponsible because I think that there are more Democrats who feel like I do, but that’s not exciting, I guess. You’ve been in Congress for six years. What are some of pieces of legislation that you sponsored or that you were involved with that you are most proud of?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership that we did – the trade countries where we could set the rules for trade – was one of the best trade bills ever passed in Washington. One of the first things Trump did was do away with it. And now what do we have? We have outsized influence by China in the South China Sea, which is an incredibly important trade group because we are a global world. We are part of the global society, and we can’t go it alone in America. We need too much from the rest of the world. I was very proud of

“There’s so much more that unites us than

that, and I hope that if Biden deal with the Pacific Rim

wins, he will rejoin that trade deal.

We’ve done a lot in the Homeland Security Department to strengthen all of our technology at our airports because we can’t take our eye off safe travel even though no one is really traveling right now.

I will tell you something that I’m very proud of: The motto of the VA was adopted about 60 years ago, and it took a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” We’ve had over two million women wear the uniform of this great country. That motto is outdated. When Lincoln said those words, it was outdated. The bill to change the word “him” to “them” and to change the words “his” to “their” passed in the House, and I’m hoping that we can get some support

in the Senate right now. It would go a long way in recognizing and respecting the service that women give to this country.

What’s your prediction for the November 3rd elections on the presidential front?

I have to say that I don’t know. A lot of pollsters say they learned a lot from 2016. I take a lot of these polls with a grain of salt, but I do think that the fact that over 50 million people have already voted early has to mean something. Is it too early to tell if that’s the enthusiasm on the Democratic side or the Republican side? Not sure yet, but we have a massive increase in voter ballots.

I want to encourage as many people who feel that they can do it safely to please vote in person. Early voting starts on Saturday, October 24 and it goes until November 1. And of course, you can vote on Election Day.

How has the pandemic

affected the day-to-day

legislative process?

What I loved and what I really do miss is not being there physically, not being in hearings together and meetings together. We do much of it on Zoom, and even when we go down to D.C., we stayed in our offices and wear our masks. Also, no outside people are allowed on the Capitol Hill campus – only if you’re a member or if you work there. I hope that we get back to some sense of normalcy by the middle of next year.

I miss seeing my colleagues, especially the ones on the other side of the aisle because that’s how you learn about each other. When you’re friends with people, you’re much less likely to engage in ad hominem attacks which have just become so commonplace with this president calling people losers and suckers and all that kind of stuff. I’m 55 years old. I don’t remember the last time I called someone a name. We need to get back to a level of civility and respect for each other because that’s how we’re going to get stuff done.

I’ve been in public service my whole life, and I love what I do.

I wish that we could all appreciate how wonderful it is that we live in such a diverse community and maybe make an effort to try to find something that you have in common with someone who doesn’t look like you or come from where you came from or have the education you have. There’s so much more that unites us than divides us. We’re in such a divisive environment right now that we’re

With Rabbi Friedman, Rabbi Eliach and students at Rambam Mesivta

putting Americans against Americans, and we can’t do that. We can’t.

My mother, G-d rest her soul, always said, “This too shall pass” during the bad times. And she would always remind us, “Count your blessings.” And so even during this pandemic, I have found something every day to be grateful for because I’ve been able to see my family members. But this is really hard. Think of how hard it must be for our older generation of Americans, a lot of whom are isolated just because of either a health condition or because they’re in a nursing home. It’s so sad. I would encourage you to ask your readers to remember to reach out. Try to once a day reach out to someone, with a phone call, a Zoom, an email, a text, to just say, “Hey, I’m thinking about you. How are you?”