The Co-op and Condo Insider
The Co-op & Condo Insider is your trusted source for expert commentary led by advocates within New York City’s co-op and condo world. Each episode offers insights into the challenges, news, and stories that shape a community making up more than 20% of this great city’s residents.
The Co-op and Condo Insider
The Voice for the Co-op Community in Washington DC with guest CM Tom Suozzi
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Congress Member Tom Suozzi, who represents New York's 3rd Congressional District across Nassau County and Queens, joins Geoffrey Mazel and Richard Solomon to talk about Washington, affordability, and the federal fights that matter to one of the largest co-op homeowner populations in the country. Suozzi traces his path from growing up with a photo of his father campaigning alongside John F. Kennedy to starting the Fordham Law School Public Service Project, working as a lawyer and CPA at Shearman & Sterling and Arthur Andersen, and serving as mayor of Glen Cove and Nassau County Executive. He talks candidly about losing two races for governor, stepping away from politics, and returning to Congress after George Santos was expelled from the seat.
The conversation then turns to how Washington works, or doesn't. As co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, made up of 23 Democrats and 23 Republicans, Suozzi explains the caucus's push for common ground on issues like artificial intelligence. He lays out five federal policies he says are driving up household bills, from tariffs and gas prices to the national debt, health insurance premiums, and energy supply cuts at a time when data centers are pushing demand up for the first time in 20 years.
For co-op and condo owners, the core message is that federal agencies need to treat shareholders as homeowners. Suozzi and Mazel revisit the 2020 fight to get co-ops included in the Paycheck Protection Program after they were classified as passive entities. They discuss Fannie Mae's nationwide underwriting guidelines, which apply the same standards to a New York City co-op as to a homeowners association in Utah, along with problems around ground leases and insurance requirements. Suozzi also covers the coalition of local officials pushing back on Local Law 97, which he says could cost co-op owners $30,000 to $40,000 each, and the history of the SALT deduction, including the increase of the cap from $10,000 to $40,000 and why he argues it should go higher to keep residents and their tax dollars in New York.
The episode closes with Richard's lightning round, which turns more serious than usual. Suozzi explains how foreign adversaries use bots on social media to pit Americans against each other, names the public speakers who influenced him most, from Ed Koch and Bill Clinton to Jesse Jackson and Ronald Reagan, and talks about why talented people stay out of public service and what the weekly commute to Washington takes out of family life.
For anyone serving on a board or managing a building, this is a direct look at how federal policy reaches co-op and condo owners and where the next fights are.
It's just that, there, there were these changes with the noble goal of trying to improve the environment, but you can't just say all of a sudden we're gonna flip a switch and everybody's gotta change all of their gas stoves to electric, for example, or, change their generators. They're trying to do a bunch of generators over in North Shore Towers, for example, and they're trying to g- get them to hook up and make these dramatic changes in every single apartment building. It'll cost m- it'll cost every co-op owner 30 or $40,000 to fix it. It's just not fair the way that they're trying to implement this law, and there should be provisions made that it's fair and can be done over a long period of time, not just overnight. It's just, it's a, it's not a well-thought-out law, I don't think. And so we're trying to build a coalition along with guys like Ed Braunstein and Linda Lee and Sandra Ung and Grace Meng and other local elected officials to all work together to fight against this. This is the Co-op and Condo Insider, the podcast dedicated to New York's cooperative and condominium communities. This is your trusted source for the latest insights, strategies, and stories shaping the world of shared housing. You will hear from the people who are leaders in this community, information and insights you will not hear anywhere else. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you're in the right place. The views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of the host or any affiliated individuals or organizations Welcome to the Co-op and Condo Insider, a top ranked co-op and condo podcast recently rated number four in the country by FeedSpot. I'm Jeffrey Maisel, joined by my co-host, Richard Solomon. Welcome, Richard. Glad to have you on the mic today. Great to be here. Great to see everybody, and to our special guest. And our guest today is Congress member Tom Suozzi, who represents New York's 3rd Congressional District, covering communities in Nassau County and Queens. Tom, I- no doubt our ranking will get higher with you as our guest today, so thank you for being here. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Richard. It's great to be with you guys. Thank you. Just some- by way of some background, Congressman Suozzi has served as mayor of Glen Cove, which is when we met many years ago, Nassau County Executive, and of course now as a member of Congress. Significantly, Tom serves as the co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, which we'll get into in a minute. And for purposes of this podcast, his district includes one of the largest co-op homeowner populations in the country, and we will discuss issues, both national issues and of course our rule of thumb is we have to talk about co-ops a little bit because the name of the show is Co-op and Condo Insider. I like talking about co-ops. Me too. Me too, and we've done it for years. And I'm gonna call you Tom because I saw your commercial and it's, it says, "Call me Tom." So so Tom, let's start with, let's start at the beginning. What drew you to public service? Did you have a particular aha moment when you decided politics was a path where you could make a difference? I actually grew up ... My father was born in Italy, and he was the first kid in the neighborhood to go to college, and he fought in World War II as a navigator on a B-24. He got the Distinguished Flying Cross. He came home and went to Harvard Law School on the GI Bill, which, what a country. In the 1940s, it's pretty rare for an Italian immigrant to go to Harvard Law School. And then he graduated from Harvard Law School. He couldn't get a job at a law firm 'cause nobody liked the Italians after World War II 'cause they had teamed up with the Germans, and then between that and the mafia, you couldn't get to first base. So even though he went to Harvard, he couldn't get a job at a law firm. So he teamed up with another Italian guy and he started a, a law firm in our hometown of Glen Cove, Long Island, and he ended up running for a city court judge, and at 28 years old he became the youngest judge in the history of New York State. So what a country. So I grew up seeing a picture of my father campaigning with John F. Kennedy in 19 ... I actually have it in my office. I was just looking to before. So you can see it. You see it up there. It's it's a picture of my ... Oh, you can, this is a radio. You can't see it . Anyway, so I saw a picture of my father campaigning- For the record, I saw a picture of John F. Kennedy and Mr. Suozzi. I grew up seeing a picture of my dad with JFK, so it was like, wow, that's kinda, that's normal to be hanging out with the President of the United States of America. So I would hear all these inspiring things. I grew up in the '60s, all these inspiring things about JFK and I was like, that's the guy hanging out with my dad. So I was always interested in politics, and I think that I always kinda was attracted to it from a, a very young age. And I was a goofball for most of my life. Didn't work as hard as I should have in high school and college. And then I went to law school, and I really started working really hard. And I... The dean of the law school actually asked me to start the Fordham Law School Public Service Project because he had heard a story. I was working at a soup kitchen, and I had to make the sandwiches at the soup kitchen, and he heard how I got everybody in the law library to come help me make the sandwiches one day because it was in the middle of finals. And I s- I went around to my buddies and I said, "Hey, I need you to help me make these sandwiches at the soup kitchen." And they were like what are you talking about? We're busy. We got finals. Are you crazy?" I said, "Yeah, I got finals, too." I said, "If we all go together, we can do it in 15 minutes instead of me taking two or three hours. Come help me out." So we went and got all these people to go make the sandwiches. Anyway, he heard about that, and he asked me to start a public service project at school. And it was the first time I really had some real responsibility leading an organization and getting people to sleep at homeless shelters and work at a soup kitchen and visit homebound elderly and read to kids who couldn't read and hold babies in the hospital that had been abandoned and things like that. So it was a great... I really was like, wow, this is awesome. I love this, the idea of everybody working together to solve problems. And then I was working for a big law firm. I'm trained as a, a lawyer and a CPA. I worked for Arthur Andersen & Companies, Sherman Sterling. And it was a complete fluke, but I ended up running for mayor of my hometown, and I lost, but I loved it. And from then on, I was just... I was totally hooked. And I was mayor for eight years. I was county executive for eight years. You know the story. I ran for governor against Elliot Spitzer, got my butt kicked. Didn't turn out very well for Elliot Spitzer either. But then I lost my re-election for county executive. That guy's in jail for 12 and a half years. So the rule is you can run against me, but if you beat me, your, your life is over after that, so don't beat Tom Suozzi. Anyway, I was in the private sector again, and missed public service, and then my congressman announced he wasn't running for re-election, and I ran for Congress. And then there's more to this story, but I'm talking too much already, so I- Oh, no, this is your show, so let's just go back a little bit, But I gotta tell you one more interesting thing, then, if y'all- Oh ... let's tell you before. Tell me anything you want. So I was in Congress again for six years, and I ran for governor again against sitting Governor Kathy Hochul in a Democratic primary. I got killed. And so I... There's a second time I had run for governor, the second time I had lost, and I did not run for re-election to Congress. So I was out of politics, and now I'm never gonna be the governor or the president. It's all over for me. I can't be in politics anymore. I'm gonna never do my dream. And it turns out I surrendered. I accepted the fact I was... I was like, I have a great life, a great wife, great kids. I've helped thousands of people throughout my life. I'm okay. I don't have to be in politics. The guy who won my seat became very famous. His name is George Santos. So they kicked him out of Congress, and everybody in the Democratic Party came to me and said, "Please run. Please run." I never had everybody help me like that before. So everybody helped me, and I won the special election. I was back in politics. I won the general election, and now I'm on your radio show. There you go. Let- let's go back to, did you work on any specific campaigns a- as a kid? Did you work on your father's campaigns? Did you work- No ... at Brooks? My father was really out of politics. He was a judge when I was growing up. Never really worked with us. I did a little bit on my, one of my uncle's campaign. My uncle was also the mayor of Glen Cove. But I did in law school- I was the issues director for the New York State campaign for Mike Dukakis for president. There you go. Which meant, as issues director meant I made a lot of copies. I copied all the platform papers and distributing it throughout the state. And that was a very good experience for me. I learned a lot. And I actually ran Mario Cuomo's campaign on Long Island, really the volunteer coordinator, but they said I was the Long Island director for Mario Cuomo's campaign in between clerking for the chief judge of the Eastern District and working for S- Sherman and Sterling, and that was a great experience. I learned so much. Did you meet the governor? Did you meet the governor? I was very close to Mario Cuomo. Mario Cuomo is my hero. You have to re- understand, when I was growing up, I the first time I voted was 1980 for Jimmy Carter. Then the next election for president was Mike Duka- it was Walter Mondale, then it was Mike Dukakis. And the Democrats, were just losing, and I didn't feel anybody, anybody was, like, fighting back and was like, pushing the Democratic viewpoints. And Mario Cuomo was like, wow, this guy is like, gives these beautiful speeches at the Democratic Convention, and he was strong, and he was up- he had these strong opinions, and he would be happy to mix it up if somebody wanted to fight with him, and he was Italian American on top of that, and he was from New York. I was like, "This is my guy." So I loved Mario Cuomo. And I was a young, idealistic kid, and he really made me happy as far as standing up for things that I believed in. And I'm, I always say I'm a new kind of old-fashioned Democrat. I don't really these DSA guys. I'm totally against them actually. I don't I don't like the extremists on either side. I don't like the far, far left, and I don't like the far, far right. I'm more of a left of center person, and I'm a new kind of old-fashioned Democrat. But yes, I loved Mario Cuomo. I have a handwritten note from Mario Cuomo encouraging me to be in public service. And the last event Mario Cuomo did as governor, the night before his election in 1994, was in Glen Cove. I was the young mayor of Glen Cove, and his last event, campaign event he did in that campaign that he ended up losing was in Glen Cove for the expansion of a, a circuit board manufacturer company. So it was like, I was like, wow, the governor, and I'm gonna be the mayor, and it's gonna be great and then he lost, which was very devastating. You've had your ups and downs, and mostly ups and Yeah. No listen, my grandfather used to say, "Non ci sono rose senza spine." You can't have a rose without the thorns. You can't have the good things in life without the suffering as well. And part of my whole journey after I lost the race for governor and I didn't get reelected to Congress, was to accept the fact that I have a very good, I've had a very good life. I've, I have a great wife, I have great children, everybody's healthy. Like I said, I've helped thousands of people, I've cleaned up pollution, I've built buildings, I've solved problems. And I had to accept the fact that I have to be happy with my life, even though I could never achieve my dream of being the governor of New York, which I ran for twice and got killed, or the President of the United States of America. And I decided I'm not in control. I surrender. I just, I gotta work, I can work hard and stick with my values, but I accept whatever comes my way. Good and bad, I can handle it. So let's transition a little bit. So you served as Nassau County Executive before you ran for Congress. What lessons did you take from local government and that has proven most valuable in Washington? I would say both as mayor and as county executive, is that people, a lot of people come to you when you're in government. They want something. They want you to do something for them. And- The best policy is to just tell people right up front, "Yes, I can help you. Yes, I like that idea," or, "No, I can't help you. No, I don't like that idea." They just want you to be straight, because when you string people along 'cause you don't wanna give them the bad news, for example, the, "No, I can't do it," or, "No, I can't help you," then they're just more frustrated. They're, they go through these ups and downs, and they're trying to play this game of trying to get something done, and the, it takes forever to get something processed. So I would say the biggest thing is just be straightforward with people, even if you gotta deliver bad news. "Yes, I can help you. No, I can't help you." It's you should not equivocate. And another thing is that, And that, that helps in Congress also, 'cause a lot of people come to you, about legislation and things. "Yes, I can help you. No, I can't help you. Yes, I like this idea. No, I don't like that idea." Just be straight with people. And also in politics and in government, you have to be in the customer service business. It, you have to, and that's something you have to communicate to your team. We're here to serve. We're here to help you. It's not that people call you up, "Oh, another call. These people are bother-" No, it's like, "Hey, how can I help you?" And you have to try and treat people like they're cu- your customer. So I've tried to always instill that ideal and work ethic in my staff as well. Having dealt with your staff over the years, y- you've always had a great staff and very responsive, and always appreciated. Thank you. Appreciate that. Our staff was voted the most educated staff in all of the House of Representatives and all of the Senate by a group- Yeah ... called LegiStats. I have a great, smart, hardworking- Constituent-oriented staff And you have the most overqualified chief of staff in Washington. Yeah, John Ca- John Camden is my new chief of staff. He ran against me for Congress. We gr- grew up together in politics, and he ran against me, and now he's my chief of staff, so I'm trying to do Abraham Lincoln's team of rivals. Let's work together. Let's get this, get the best people. So speaking of Washington just and how did it feel the first time you walked on the floor of the House chamber as a member of Congress? It's pretty cool. It's it's a pretty... It's a great honor, obviously. There've been... I forgot, I did the math once. Is it something like, is it like 11,000 or 12,000 people have been members of Congress? It's, it's I can remember comparing it to comparing it to Major League Baseball players. It's not that many of us. So it's kind of a big deal. I loved being the mayor and county executive. I liked being the chief executive, where you're the boss, and it's kinda "Let's get this done. Let's do that." You see a problem, you go fix it. Being a legislator is very different. You can't say, "Let's do this. Let's do that." You have to say, "Hey, guys, what do you think? Do you think this will work? How about that idea?" You gotta... it's a lot more collaborative. But it's also very important issues, and one of the things that kills me right now in our country is we have these very serious problems in our nation. Really serious stuff. But we have always had problems in America's history, and what happened was is leaders would come along, and people would work together to actually solve the problems. Now, there's not enough working together. A lot of it's just fighting with each other and performing for your phone, the video on your phone, and it's not about solving problems. It's about, winning, and that's not gonna work. That's why we're, we have the far left and far right are gaining power in our country, these extremists, because people are just so frustrated with what's going on, the lack of things that are going on. So I'm very committed to working together with people, both across the aisle and with the people in my own party that I may disagree with o- on some of their views, but let's work together and actually solve problems and make people's lives better. So th-that actually leads me to my next question, and, we all know you're the co-chair of the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. What is the caucus designed to accomplish? How does it operate? And what are some of the key issues you're working on in Congress? There's 23 Democrats and 23 R- Republicans in the House of Representatives, and we meet together pretty regularly. We just had a meeting today, talk... We set up a working group on AI. You have the far left, or not the far left, you have one side, the president even, saying, "Hands off. Don't do anything." And then you have other people like Bernie Sanders saying, "Shut the whole thing down." It's not don't do anything, and it's not shut the whole thing down. It's somewhere that's in the middle of that, which is, like, how do you slow things down? How do we get leverage over China? How do we get China to cooperate? But they're not gonna do it on their own. You have to get leverage over them. So it's trying to find common ground on issues, and that's hard to do in this very toxic environment that is Washington, DC. If the Democrats win the majority in the House of Representatives this November, I think it's more likely we'll get things done because it'll force the administration to collaborate. Right now there's no collaboration between the administration and Congress. They don't talk to us. It's all my way or the highway, and one, one party bills. The president did a, a press conference the other day with Mamdani in New York City. I said, "Okay, I like the idea of trying to work together with somebody. I don't agree with either one of you, quite frankly, but I'm happy you're trying to work together, but why aren't you meeting with the members of Congress?" He met once with John Fetterman in March of 2025, and he met once with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries before the government shutdown. That's when they did the memes putting a sombrero on Hakeem Jeffries' head. It was just, so disrespectful. But, why don't you just work together to fix the problems? Affordability is the number one problem in our country right now, and people are choking on their bills. And if you look at the policies of this administration, there are five things this administration is doing that are making your bills higher. Number one is the tariffs. I don't have to persuade you of that. Everybody knows that's Donald Trump's policy, and it's making things more expensive. Number two is the war. It's making the gas prices higher. Everybody knows that's what's making the gas prices higher. Number three is the debt. We have more debt than ever in the history of the United States of America, and the big, beautiful bill caused more debt than any previous bill in the history of the country. And when there's more debt, there's upward pressure on interest rates. Makes it impossible to buy your condo, or your house, or lease a car, or pay your credit card bill. Number four is health insurance. They cut the premium tax credits, kicked a bunch of people off their health insurance, causes everybody's health insurance rates to go up. Health insurance has been expensive for years. Now it's skyrocketing because of these policies. And number five is energy. Energy demand has been flat for 20 years. For the first time in 20 years, it's going up because of the data centers. When you have increased demand for energy, you shouldn't be cutting supply. But we cut a lot of supply just because this administration doesn't like green energy. That doesn't make any sense. What happened to all of the above? Let's have the supply. You can wanna do your oil and gas stuff, you know I'm a big environmentalist, but let's do the green energy stuff as well. And it'll make it cheaper for people in the long run if we do all of the above, like they used to say, but they don't say anymore. So we have problems in our country. They will not be solved with each party or each individual thinking they have all the answers and nobody else has any answers. You have to collaborate. You need people of goodwill work- willing to work on complex issues to solve those problems So let's we are the Co-op and Condo Insider, so let's talk about cooperative home ownership. Your district contains one of the largest concentrations of cooperative homeowners in the country. Just talk about the uniqueness of co-op housing, the importance of co-op housing, for generational wealth, for community wellbeing, and the like. I love the co-ops. It's really remarkable. I can't tell you how nice the communities are, how well-kept they are. And quite frankly, they're, th- even though they're getting more expensive now, they're more affordable than a lot of other places. It's a really sense of community living, a very active co-op and condo boards that meet with each other and really think about the common grounds and the things that they can do together. And unfortunately, a lot of government agencies, especially the federal government, treat co-ops very poorly because they don't think of them as s- simply homeowners. They're homeowners, and there are a lot of different anomalies in the law that result in co-ops and, having a very difficult situation. And we've had to fight, I've been in a couple battles side by side with you and the other co-op owners fighting to make sure that co-ops are treated fairly and with respect and recognizing the important function they play in our communities. So I'll just, it, when the pandemic came about and the Paycheck Protection Program came about and co-ops were treated as what they call passive entities- Yeah ... and did not qualify I called your office and you guys got on it right away, and I think that was, I wanna say April 2020. By May 2020, you amended the bill and included co-ops, so thank you for that. That was a big victory for us. That was a big victory. That would've been a very bad treatment of the co-ops, and we were actually... That's something that, you're never gonna get on the front page of a newspaper for something like that, but that helped the co-ops tremendously. I do know that certainly the co-ops in your district, it was tens of millions of dollars. Of course, we have to pass the Senate. That's until December, but y- your, you guys laid the f- the groundwork and it was appreciated. The mil- t- really literally tens of millions of dollars- Yeah ... that, that helped co-ops pay for fuel bills salaries and, people who are not working, so they were not collecting We've still got other big fights ahead of us. That was a big victory to help the co-ops, but we have other big fights ahead of us. This local law 97 is a real pain in the neck. It's- Why don't you speak to that? I know it's not a federal law, but you've used, leveraged your office in the past to express your opinion on it and try to help set policy. Why don't you just speak about that briefly? It's just that, there, there were these changes with the noble goal of trying to improve the environment, but you can't just say all of a sudden we're gonna flip a switch and everybody's gotta change all of their gas stoves to electric, for example, or, change their generators. They're trying to do a bunch of generators over in North Shore Towers, for example, and they're trying to g- get them to hook up and make these dramatic changes in every single apartment building. It'll cost m- it'll cost every co-op owner 30 or $40,000 a year. 30 or $40,000 a year. 30 or $40,000 to fix it. It's just not fair the way that they're trying to implement this law, and there should be provisions made that it's fair and can be done over a long period of time, not just overnight. It's just, it's a, it's not a well-thought-out law, I don't think. And so we're trying to build a coalition along with guys like Ed Braunstein and Linda Lee and Sandra Ung and Grace Meng and other local elected officials to all work together to fight against this. I think even Vicky Paladino's with us on this, obviously. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, she's in. And, as we discussed earlier, New York State even recognized by pushing back their environment deadlines till 2040, and G- Governor Hochul just signed that into law. So there is recognition that- Toby Stavisky also is helping us Oh, Toby's been terrific, yes. Okay. Let's go on to an issue that is a federal issue, and you and I have worked on many times in the past. That's Fannie's Mae, Fannie Mae's treatment of co-ops and condos, unfair underwriting guidelines or just plain mistakes, and just the the difficulty in accessing them. We literally... I always joke that when I speak to my co-op boards, if we wanna do something with Fannie Mae, you gotta call your congressman. Yeah. We, and we do, and you've been terrific on several occasions, whether it's ground lease issues or just underwriting issues with insurance or repair issues. So why don't you speak to Fannie Mae and what you see your role is and how you can help co-ops and condos. I don't know if earlier in this conversation I talked about how I view our job in government is we have to treat our customers well, which are the taxpayers and the, our clients, and it shouldn't be so hard to get through to government to try and address a concern that you have. And unfortunately, a lot of bureaucracies are very difficult to deal with, and Fannie Mae is w- right at the top of the list of a difficult bureaucracy. I would add the F- Federal Aviation Administration up there, and Army Corps, I'm starting to like them a little bit better than I used to. But anyway, so Fannie Mae's is very difficult to deal with, and the problem is they just don't treat- co-op owners like they're homeowners, and they are homeowners, and they should be getting the same type of treatment as somebody who owns a single family house. And they set up these, these draconian rules that sometimes result in you refer to the underwriters. It's, it's a massive insurance bill that you can't even, you can't even access that type of insurance. It's impossible. We had the problem with the ground leases in the past. So we just have to, we have to persuade these a- different agencies that co-op owners are homeowners, and that they have to treat them like that. And I'll just, I'll always fight on your side to make sure that these agencies listen to us and that's why one of the reasons I'm in public service is just trying to make people's lives better. Yeah, one thing in our recent meeting and y- your staff was there we found out that the underwriting guidelines are countrywide. So there's no regional office. There's no consideration for the unique circumstances in New York City with respect to co-ops and condos. It's the same guidelines as a homeowners association in Utah, which makes no sense. Yeah, they're very different. They're very different places, and it results in these unfair- Results like having to pay a lot more money. So we just have, that's another one we just have to keep on fighting to look out for the interest of the co-op owners. And another issue that you've been very vocal on is the SALT deductions. Why don't you just and a lot of co-op owners and condo owners have benefited from the work you've done. So where are we with that and- So SALT, I recently think- Where is it going, if anywhere, new? SALT is a state and local tax deduction. So in 1913 when we first passed a federal income tax in the federal government Abraham Lincoln had tried that before, but it was dec- declared unconstitutional, so they fixed it in 1913. And the governors and the mayors said, "We don't want a federal income tax. We've gotta do the roads, we have to do the garbage, we have to do the cops and the schools and the sewers and the water, and we have to do all the different programs. We don't want a st- a federal income tax." They said, "Don't worry. We're gonna have a state and local tax deduction so you can deduct the taxes you pay at the local level, so you can continue to c- do collect your taxes, and you can deduct it from your income tax, of your income, so you won't have to pay taxes on the tax- on the taxes you've already paid. It would, just wouldn't be fair to tax people on the taxes they've already paid at the state and local level." That was in place for 100 years. Unfortunately, President Trump and the Republicans got rid of it in 2017, and they capped the de- deduction at $10,000 for state and local taxes. That's really bad for a, a co-op owner in Queens. It's really bad for the people on Long Island too, who have really incredible high power property taxes. And I made this a big issue about how unfair it was and said we have to restore the state and local tax deduction. I passed it three times through the House. I couldn't get it through the Senate. I made such a big stink about it that Republicans from high tax states, of which there's more Democrats typically than Republicans, they realized they had to make a big issue out of it. And so some New York Republicans- when the president wanted to do what's called the big, beautiful bill, we don't call it that, it's the big... I call it the big, ugly bill, said, "We will not vote for it," the Republicans said, "We will not vote for it unless you increase the cap from 10,000 to 40,000." And they held out, I give them credit for that and we got an increase to $40,000, which helps a lot of people. The problem is it should be higher than that. The deduction should be higher than that. Why? Not because we wanna give money to rich people. It's because we wanna keep people in New York State. Because when they leave us, they take away their, all their tax dollars, and they go down to Florida, or they go down to Texas, or they go to North Carolina, South Carolina. And if you're one of these super-duper rich people, you're not giving money anymore to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or to the ballet or the opera or whatever it is that you care about. You're giving it to the Sarasota Art Center or the Sarasota Ballet or the, the, the Naples whatever. So we're losing a lot of very talented successful people that support our economy and take the burden off the rest of us with the taxes they pay. We can't afford to lose these folks So we gotta just keep on fighting for it. I'm happy it's gone from 10,000 to 40,000. I actually am taking some credit. The Republicans say that they did it, but I don't think it would've been an issue unless I had made it the big issue that it was for five years and put the pressure on everybody. I'm sure that's the case because they were not talking about it till you s- No ... till you brought it up. Not at all. Tom, we we're running out of time here. We do something called our lightning round. It's a little- Okay ... lighter in scope. Richard who is gonna ask you a few questions. Hopefully fun questions and- All right, I'm ready to go. Go ahead, Richard. I go off script, but I'm sure they'll be okay. I- so you've been in c- all these different campaigns when it was more analog than internet and social media. What has changed over the years for you as somebody who either ran campaigns or was the, the campaign person, and what has improved and what has degraded and what... How has AI either made it better or worse? So- the social media can be very destructive. It can be very productive, but it can also be very destructive. Because they just reported the other day on X, which is also known as Twitter, it used to be known as Twitter, there are more bots, which are fake accounts, than there are human beings. And so that is really a destructive force because our foreign adversaries, quite frankly, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, they are using our social media to try and get us to fight with each other because they think our diversity and our freedom is our biggest weakness. They can't defeat us economically. They can't defeat us militarily. So they try and get us to divide from within, and they pump up both sides of an issue that there's some debate about, and they make it much bigger, not 'cause they wanna win the argument. They just want us fighting. So they take Black Lives Matter versus Blue Lives Matter. They blow up s- both sides. They take evangelicals and transgender. They blow up both sides. They take Israel, they take... And Hamas, and they send one message to the Muslims and the young people, and another message to the Jewish people, and they say, "Don't you see what I see?" And they don't see it 'cause everybody's fractured, and they're beginning getting these different message and different alg- algorithms just to... with disinformation to get us to all hate each other, and it's killing us, and we can't fall for it. Yeah. In terms of public speakers, I know Mario Cuomo was probably one of the best out there Loved him who else did you love as a public speaker in your lifetime, regardless of content, but just efficacy of message and communication? I really did Ed Koch. I really just, I liked Ed Koch 'cause he was just very straightforward. He was just very blunt and said exactly what he was thinking, and I actually always admired that about him. So I think that he was always very a g- I thought he was a great elected official. And I'm, I've, I really think that Bill Clinton was a great president. He was really... I've met him in person on many occasions. Just so smart. Just really just an incredibly smart, knows things about every topic you can possibly imagine. He was always a, I was always very fond of him. Jesse Jackson actually was a great, just a fantastic speaker. I would say when I heard him speak I've b- I've been in a, an arena where he spoke at a Democratic National Convention, and I couldn't believe the way the, people would do applause, and they'd clap politely and start to slowly stand up. The place would erupt on occasions when he was, when he's speaking. He once told a story about his father coming back from the war, and they were Black soldiers in World War II, and they were all, "We won the war. We won the war." And they get on the train to go back down South, and there's German POWs on the train, and they put the German POWs, like the generals and stuff, up in the front of the train, and they had to go in the back steerage part of the train 'cause they were the Black guys, even though they were US soldiers. And it was like, "But what hap- we won the war. What happened?" So that was just one of the m- a really impactful speech that I remember from my life. Of course, Martin Luther King was so great. I could go on and on. I could s- Ronald Reagan was a great speaker. He was just fantastic. And when I was a y- I didn't a- agree with a lot of stuff, but looking back, boy would we love to have him back compared to what we got now, by the way, I actually interviewed Ed Koch on the radio I share that. How... Do you feel or do you sense that some of the best people out there that could be in politics are deterred because it's so contentious, and they'd rather maybe just focus on business or other things? Oh, there's no question about it. Yeah. I'm a lawyer and a CPA. Worked for some of the best firms in the country. If I was in the private sector, I'd be making a tremendous amount of money, but I have no regrets. I'm happy that I've had the opportunity to help make people's lives better. And I'm happy I've devoted a lot of my life to public service. And but I th- I see a lot of people, they always say that politics is a great spectator sport. People love to talk about, "Hey, they should say this. They should do this. Why don't you say that? Why don't you do this commercial? Why don't you do this in your literature? Why don't you..." People love to... But it's a really hard life. It's a, a very challenging experience with people beating you up all the time and trying to take your pound of flesh, and it's long hours. I miss being home, and but I'm very happy I'm doing it. I'm very honored to have the opportunity to be in it. Last question. I appreciate it. Last question. How do you balance, being in Douglaston versus DC and just, the travel and the time and the meetings, and still meeting people and still trying to have a family life, and how does that get done? It seems that the number one thing that gets sacrificed is probably sleep. Yeah. It's not easy, like I said, but I feel bad for the guys from California 'cause they gotta fly from California, that's 10, 12 hours a week on the airplane, three-hour time difference on top of that. So as whenever I feel like complaining about my commute back and forth to Washington, DC, I think about my, my buddies from California and I'm like, "I have it easier than them." And again, it's a great honor to have this opportunity. Tom, we're gonna wrap it up. I just wanna congratulate you. You're officially a co-op condo insider. I'm sure you will cher- cherish that always. Where is it? Someday if I ever see you, we'll give you a- Do I get a plaque? What do I get, a coffee mug? You get a mug. Thank you, buddy. We wanna thank you for your time. And we would invite our listeners to follow the Co-op and Condo Insider for future conversations about cooperative, condominium living, government, and public policy. Thank you once again, Tom. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Rich.