By JEFF MORRIS
Incumbent Rep. Mike Lawler and former Rep. Mondaire Jones, running for the 17th Congressional District seat Lawler won two years ago, have not participated in any League of Women Voters forums — they were invited to an Oct. 21 forum in Ossining that was canceled after Lawler would not commit to participating — but they have appeared together and shared their views in other venues.
Most visibly, they debated Oct. 23 on WCBS-TV, and Oct. 16 on News 12. They were also interviewed separately by Brian Lehrer of WNYC radio on Oct. 15.
The subject matter, questions, and answers given by the two candidates were nearly identical on each occasion — as were the accusations each of the candidates leveled at the other, while accusing each other of lying.
The most substance emerged during the WNYC interviews. Appearing in separate Oct. 15 segments of the “Brian Lehrer Show,” Lawler and Jones answered a series of pointed questions, with some equally pointed answers.
Asked why he thought he won two years ago, Lawler said it was because he showed up everywhere and outworked his opponent at the time, Sean Patrick Maloney. Lawler promoted his bipartisan bona fides, and Lehrer acknowledged that he had been ranked the fourth most bipartisan House member by an annual Georgetown University tracker, which counts the number of bills members sponsor or cosponsor with members of the other party.
“In this polarized era, is there one you would like to single out as actually bridging a political divide?” asked Lehrer.
Lawler cited leading the effort to pass the Undetectable Firearms Act, a bill he said was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan 35 years ago, “and we were able to extend by seven years.” He mentioned several other bills on which he had worked with Democrats, noting he is a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, while pointing out that Jones was a member of the Progressive Caucus, and was rated 381st in terms of bipartisanship. He said he thought there was a “very stark difference” between how they approached their time in congress.
When Lehrer asked, “Are you voting for Donald Trump?” Lawler answered, “I am.”
He was challenged by Lehrer: “If you’re the moderate that you say you are, in a way that actually matters to the future of the country, why not be a Liz Cheney Republican, some people would ask, and say that you may disagree with Kamala Harris on many issues, but Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy, a wannabe autocrat, and you just can’t support him?”
“Look, this is a choice between two candidates,” Lawler responded. “Elections are binary choices. And Kamala Harris supports defunding the police, she supports cashless bail, she supports Medicare for all, she supports the Green New Deal, she supported open borders, she wanted to decriminalize border crossings, she wants to expand the Supreme Court, and she wants to end the filibuster. You know who else agrees with all those positions? Mondaire Jones. And I’m running against him because he’s a radical extremist.”
He said his choice is based on policy. “But at the end of the day, this is a choice for the American people to make, and I will respect the election results and certify the election results no matter who wins.”
Lehrer pushed back, saying, “For the record, Harris and Jones would say they don’t hold some of those positions that you just said they hold,” and Jones later confirmed that.
Asked about Trump’s recent comments about “the enemy within,” characterizing his opponents as “radical left lunatics” who are “more dangerous than Russia or China,” Lawler said, “Respectfully, what we’ve heard over the last few years is that Republicans are fascists, that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy; we’ve heard that over and over and over from members of the press and from a leading Democrat.” He said ultimately, the threats facing the country are our adversaries — Russia, China, Iran — “and what we are seeing right now is the world is a tinderbox, and frankly, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have failed in their responsibility to keep the world safe.”
Jones was later asked the same question Lawler had been asked — why do you think he won in 2022? — and said, “Lawler won because I wasn’t on the ballot.”
After the state was redistricted in 2022, Jones found himself potentially having to face Maloney in a primary, and instead bowed out and moved to Brooklyn for two months, losing a primary there.
In the News 12 debate, Lawler immediately went on the attack in his opening statement, charging that Jones supports “cashless bail and defunding the police, allowing cop killers and rapists the right to vote from prison, calling all cops racists and white supremacists, open borders and amnesty for criminal illegals, socialism, congestion pricing, government-run health care, and higher taxes, reckless spending, and inflationary policies.” He said Jones was the third most radical leftist when he was a member of congress, “voting with AOC and the squad over 97 percent of the time,” whereas he is the fourth most bipartisan member.
Jones countered that he never called all cops racist, and has always supported an exemption for the lower Hudson Valley from congestion pricing. He characterized Lawler’s charges as “misinformation and disinformation.”
Lehrer pressed Jones about reports that his positions have changed as he has tried to tack to the center — a question also asked by Marcia Kramer at the CBS debate. In each instance, Jones rejected that notion, stating that his positions and votes have been consistent. Lawler then took the opposite approach, agreeing with Jones that he has been consistent, but that he has been consistently radical. But in every forum, Jones was adamant that he never voted to cut funding for law enforcement, and had actually voted consistently to increase funding, while insisting that it was Lawler who had voted repeatedly to cut funding for law enforcement.
The two candidates were at loggerheads on News 12 when discussing women’s reproductive health. Jones insisted Lawler had repeatedly voted against abortion rights, something Lawler vehemently denied. Lawler claimed he would never vote for a federal abortion ban, and that abortion rights were firmly settled in New York; Jones pointed out that Lawler had always opposed abortion in the past, and there was no reason to believe he would stand up to Trump should he propose a nationwide ban.
Each followed the party line on most issues, including those that are not relevant to the House. Asked how, as New York residents, they would vote on the state’s Equal Rights Amendment Proposition One, Lawler was opposed and Jones in favor.
They disagreed on immigration, climate change, nuclear power, inflation, and every other issue, each holding the other’s party responsible for problems and crediting their own party for making things better.
With many pundits claiming that control of the House could hinge on who wins this district, voters may find themselves deciding not which candidate most appeals to them, but whether they prefer to see Mike Johnson or Hakeem Jeffries as speaker.