From WNYC Studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Friday, January 3rd.

Well, the new Congress kicks off today and with its newest elected members, even before inauguration of the president, which takes

place on January 20th, yes, Congress does start up today. We'll get a take on what's at stake

in these first days of the year from newly reelected Democrat Tom Swazi from Queens and Long

Island. He won in a district that also voted majority for Trump,

for president, in Northeast Queens and the northern part of Nassau County.

And Congressman Swazi has a New York Times op-ed called Let's Try Something Different

in how we deal with Trump.

Congressman, first of all, congratulations on your re-election, and welcome back to WNYC.

Hey, it's so great to be with you. Thank you so much for having me on, Brian.

We'll get into your op-ed. Let's try something different in how we deal with Trump.

But set it up for us by saying why you think you won in a district that also voted majority for Donald Trump for president?

Yeah, just to put it in perspective, Joe Biden had won my district by 10 or 11 points back in

2020. And this time, Donald Trump won by five and a half points. He won by 19,000 votes.

And I ended up winning by

about 11,000 votes, which means that considering some people vote for president and not for Congress,

that for me to win, at least 20,000 people who voted for Donald Trump also voted for me in my

district. And I think that's a combination of things. Number one, you know, people know me. I was the mayor of

Glencove. I was the county executive in Nashville County. I was a member of Congress. You know,

I talked to the people, the people know me. They know that I fight for them. So people know me.

That's an important factor. But another important factor is that in my campaign for the special

election and in other campaigns, even when I ran for governor, I got my butt kicked in the Democratic important factor. But another important factor is that in my campaign for the special election,

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