On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) responded to the results of recent Democratic primaries by saying that “we’re seeing this class of candidates pushing things forward, and I think that’s good for our nation.”
Co-host Wolf Blitzer asked, “In your view, is Mamdani’s vision of the future of the Democratic Party — is he the future?”
Kim responded, “What I’ll say is that I think that, right now, the people of America see what I see, which is that we have a broken status quo in politics. There is, of course, a hunger for a new generation of leadership to step up. We have a great candidate in New Jersey, Rebecca Bennett, standing up against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ). I think that’s an example of a new generation of leadership, someone who was a Navy helicopter pilot, serving in different ways. There are many ways that one can be a new generation of leadership, but what will unite us is saying that our politics is fundamentally broken. And so wherever you are on that political spectrum, I think that message is something that is resonant right now, whether from New York or elsewhere around the country, and that’s what’s going to be the future of the Democratic Party.”
Blitzer then asked, “What message do you believe, Senator, that Democratic voters are trying to send from these elections that we just saw in New York this week? Are you confident that your party’s current leadership is receptive to that message ahead of the midterm elections?”
Kim answered, “Well, what’s receptive is, again, what these candidates are putting out there. I ran in the 2018 midterm elections, when Trump was president and the Republicans controlled both branches of — both chambers of Congress. What we want are candidates who are authentic, not candidates that are reading off of talking points given to them by pollsters or others, but people who have genuine passion for changing things, a story of their own commitment to this country. That’s what’s going to be resonant, and that’s what’s going to change. And I believe, my 2018 class, we helped change our politics. We helped move forward on legislation like banning members of Congress from trading stocks. That’s something that leadership told us not to do. But we wanted to push forward otherwise because we know that the American people stand with an anti-corruption agenda. And we’re seeing this class of candidates pushing things forward, and I think that’s good for our nation.”
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