Downstate Democratic Congressman has Thurman home, is keen on Chronicle

By Mark Frost & Ben Westcott, Chronicle Editor & Staff Writer

The email began: “Mark, Long time part-time reader of The Chronicle…my wife and I have had a second home in Thurman for the last 25 years and spend time in the area when we can. We’re residents of Westchester County, and I’m currently serving in Congress NY CD-16 in a Westchester/Bronx district…

“For the first time, I thought to reach out to see if you’d like me to come in to the office for an interview – so much is happening in DC, and perhaps my perspective as a Dem would be of some interest. Normally I would hesitate since Elise, my colleague, represents this area, but since she’s leaving it may be the right time to just get another perspective if you’re interested.”

Of course we were interested. Congressman Latimer and his wife Robin came to The Chronicle office on August 14.

Has never lost an election

At age 72, George Latimer is a first-term Congressman, but his electoral career spans more than three decades, after a career in marketing and sales in the hospitality industry.

He has never lost an election. He was a member of the Rye City Council 1988-91, Westchester County Board of Legislators 1992-2004, New York State Assembly 2005-12, New York State Senate 2013-17, and was the Westchester County Executive from 2018 to 2025.

Rep. Latimer notes, “It’s odd to be 72 and a freshman, because all the other 70-year-old guys in the Congress have been there 20 years or more They have seniority…And then my fellow freshmen are all 45, 50. And when you’re 45, you’re dreaming dreams about the U.S. Senate and being president someday, and I don’t think that way at this stage of the game.”
Ousted Jamaal Bowman

In 2024, Mr. Latimer challenged incumbent Congressman Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary.

“A lot of people came to me and said that they weren’t happy with his leadership in Congress, representing our county. I didn’t care for his leadership…”

“A few things happened, the fire alarm thing…And I don’t think anybody objective can deny that he lied about it, ‘cause we saw a video that showed that he purposely pulled it, and he was saying, ‘Oh, it was an accident.’” (Rep. Bowman pulled a fire alarm in a House office building during a tight deadline for a government funding vote.)

“And his position on Israel I thought was not in keeping with what should be the policy, and certainly not consistent with the district.”

Rep. Latimer won 59% to 41%.

“It was a tough primary, ugly primary….I mean, we’re standing like this close to each other, looking straight in my eyes, doing like this to me, and I’m looking right back at him, like, go ahead, hit me on TV. You know, because he pumps the iron. He’s got 25 years on me. I do not win that fight.

But I won the fight about making the logical case. The line that he used was…you have the money, I have the many.

“I knew I had the local support. I worked the Westchester portion of the District extensively. I had as good a relationship in the African American community as any white elected official could have. I grew up in an African American neighborhood in Mount Vernon, which gave me not special support, but I’m not an alien figure.”

Mr. Latimer won the 2024 general election, 71%-28%. This year no one challenged him in a primary. He’ll face a Republican and an independent on Nov. 3.

His political approach

Rep. Latimer says, “I’m considered a moderate Democrat. I don’t consider myself moderate. I just don’t hold all of this kind of view or all of that kind of view….

“When I governed Westchester County, I’m a Democrat, left of center in certain ways but we cut taxes or froze taxes six of seven years. We fully funded the police. We honored our veterans and our EMS with a variety of different things. We came up with a program to help volunteer firefighters get tuition remission. So those would all be considered, you know, fairly conservative positions.

“And on the other side of the coin, we electrified our bus system for environmental purposes. We expanded recycling. We codified respect for the LGBTQ community, with a couple of actions. So, we considered liberal things.”

Rep. Latimer says, “In local government, I found that you can work across the aisle….And I have colleagues who are in the [New York] delegation now who are clearly, you know, further to the right. They’re MAGA. I’m not on bad terms. I actually like Nick Langworthy. I like Claudia Tenney.”

But he says he hears from long-time House Reps that in the past “You could work across the aisle more easily. That has not been the case in this session. Some of the newer folks elected in the last couple cycles have more of an ideological edge, in both parties.”
Will Democrats take House?

Does he assume Democrats will win control of the House in November?

“I don’t assume it. Right now, it looks like we would, but…I’ve been in elections where I was behind at this stage of the game, that I wound up winning…And you have to look at President Trump. You don’t know what that man will do….With that kind of volatility, things could turn an October surprise.”

If the Democrats win the House, Rep. Latimer advises against moving “right off the bat” to impeach President Trump.

“If you impeach him in the House on a party line vote, you’re not going to convict him in the Senate. And if you hate Donald Trump and you were to impeach him, you get J.D. Vance as your President, and he’s not term limited. He can run in ’28 as the incumbent president. So ask yourself, is that the smart political move?”

As for the U.S. Senate, Rep. Latimer terms it “a coin flip” which party will win control in November. He says it could even come down to “what’s John Fetterman going to do?,” suggesting the Pennsylvania Democrat “could flip” Republican.

Biden made ‘mistakes’

Rep. Latimer says of Joe Biden’s presidency, “He did do some very good things. It was not a failed presidency, but he had mistakes that were significant, and the Republicans made good use of those mistakes.”

A key mistake, he said, was that Biden “did not secure the border properly and needed to do that. I said that at the time as a county executive, because I had to deal with the overflow.”

Also, Biden “delayed getting out” of the race for re-election. “[Kamala] Harris became the automatic candidate….A primary process might have brought you calm…and the winner is strengthened by that process. And she had a very short period of time.”

Challenge to Trump’s base

Asked why Trump won the Presidency again in 2024, Rep. Latimer said, “In my opinion, there are people who will vote for Donald Trump because of cultural issues…He has anger. They have anger, and he codifies it, and they’re with him.

“And then if I show you how this is a bad policy, it doesn’t matter….that core connection, that depth of feeling for him, I don’t know that’s replicated by anybody else….He’s connected with you in a way that’s profound. 25%, maybe it’s 30%, maybe it’s 35% probably in this area.”

Rep. Latimer contends Trump and the Republican Congress are directly harming those voters.

“This Big, Beautiful Bill that was passed last year, HR1, their big cuts to Medicaid. They haven’t hit yet. They’re coming. When those Medicaid cuts — talk to Hudson Headwarters and find out what that does to their bottom line — because people who get medical services at the neighborhood health centers, at the local hospitals, Glens Falls Hospital, and some of the nursing homes — a lot of those people pay for those services through Medicaid…..What’s gonna happen when a hospital, if it doesn’t close, has to reduce its staff, its levels of services, because of HR1.

“Now, you’re gonna sit there as a conservative voter in, we’ll pick another place. Franklin County. You’re sitting in Franklin County. You’re affected by his tariff policies and his policies toward Canada. You’re affected by the healthcare cuts that he’s made. You’re affected by the cuts to SNAP, but you connect with him because you’re angry at the libs.

“He’s angry at the libs, and you have to decide what matters to you more, the way you’re living your life, or your cultural connections to the things that he connects to, that you feel strongly about.

“And that will tell the tale, I think, of what happens in this election, and in ’28, depending on who the Democrats run and the Republicans run.”

Cautious: ‘Medicare for all’

Does Rep, Latimer support ‘Medicare for all’? “I’m for a national healthcare plan, something more than what we have now,” he replied. “ACA [Affordable Care Act] was a step in that direction.

“Medicare for all, for my purposes, has to be priced out, it has to be analyzed.

“It’s become a slogan. Tell me what really happens in that. Tell me what happens to hospitals, nursing homes, and to nurse associations, unions and all the other players in the game. I mean, the insurance industry. How does this all fit together?

“I’m concerned. You need to have healthcare coverage that’s more accessible to everybody. You can’t have people that are either poorly covered or uncovered at all. But I can’t just stick with a slogan. I want to deal with a bill.”

Backs Israel; faults leader

On Israel, Rep. Latimer said, “I support its right to exist. There’s any number of Netanyahu’s policies that I don’t like, but I don’t think the way to go after it is by these resolutions that keep coming up that say let’s completely defund Israel.”

His hope? “Ultimately, it’s a two-state solution. When I look at Israel, I don’t want them to be as aggressive as they are. I don’t want them to start wars every chance they get.”

A solution? “Well, ultimately, it’s a two-state solution. It’s not a one-state solution. And there have been efforts to try to make that happen over time. The Oslo agreements, in the very beginning, there was an opportunity to have two states in ’48, and that wasn’t acceptable to the Arab side…They went to war….Lately, Israel has been much more aggressive. But if you look at the whole scope of time, there’s plenty to justify them feeling like ‘these guys want to kill us.’…

“What happened on October 7th? Imagine if that happened in Plattsburgh. Imagine if there were a group of people sitting in Quebec south of Montreal…and they decided one day to come over the border into Canada and New York. And they killed 1,400 people between Burlington to Plattsburgh. We would be livid as a country. We would send the Fifth Armored Division up there, and if the military was hiding inside houses with women and children, that wouldn’t be a factor for us. Would it?”

Toward peace, Rep. Latimer urges “re-establishing the Abraham Accords….that’s the path how we get there. It’d be difficult. I may not live long enough to see that happen.”

Trump, Iran & ‘go-at-alone’

Rep. Latimer calls the Trump-initiated war in Iran a “serious miscalculation to go in the way we did. They’ve [Iran has]shown now that they can grab the Strait of Hormuz, and what that means to our economy. Both Trump and Netanyahu take the attitude that we’re tough, we’re strong, we can do it our way. But sometimes, you’ve got to think these things through.”

“I’m a Democrat, complimenting a Republican,” he says, but “George H.W. Bush, when they went into Iraq, to Kuwait, to get Iraq out of Kuwait, he wrote the book and how to…. put together a coalition, worldwide coalition. He spent time, he worked relationships, and he had X number of countries with him. And then he went before the American people to tell us why we were going in to do this. And the support for that particular action was tremendous, almost unanimous….

“If we are in an ultimate battle with China, which I think we all believe we are, and if we’re in a battle against China, North Korea, Russia, we need allies, too. And if we’re going to give the impression to Western Europe, to Japan, our North American allies, that we’re not a reliable ally, we’re gonna do whatever we want when we want it, and we might take Greenland, and we might do this, and, you know, at the very moment that we’re gonna need those allies, they’re not gonna be there.

Says AIPAC ‘not evil entity’

Rep. Latimer doesn’t apologize for taking money from AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee).

“AIPAC, to me, is not this evil entity as it’s been described. These are American citizens, not Israelis. And I receive it because I support the independence of the state of Israel and protection of the state of Israel. That doesn’t mean I support everything Netanyahu is doing.”

“I can tell you, the people who are members of AIPAC, who live in my district, many of them are Democrats, and they donate to me for that, but they also donate to me for other reasons.”

Change the Supreme Court?

Changing the Supreme Court is a priority cited by many Democrats. What does Rep. Latimer think about it?

On adding more Justices, he says, “You can expand it probably with congressional action, the President agreeing with it. I don’t know how that’s gonna happen with a filibuster in the Senate.

“I do think there should be a limited term for Supreme Court judges…a 15 year term, 18 year term. I don’t have the number in my head. A President appoints them…and then when that term expires, the next president, whoever’s there at the time, makes the decision, whether they stay or not.”

He says “the whole concept of the lifetime terms [is that it] would get you out of politics, and that’s not what’s happened ing appointed because they have an ideological point of view, and you want that ideological point of view to dominate the court. And you can make the case that both sides have done if you want to go back to the ‘60s or something.

But many of the most liberal judges were appointed by Republican presidents. Warren was appointed by Eisenhower. Souter was appointed by Bush. So it wasn’t clear that, you know, I’m going to only appoint these people to do this. So I would say that would be the reform that I think would make the most sense.

Washington, D.C. statehood

Statehood for Washington, D.C., is another cited priority of Democrats.

“I do think the fact that D.C. does not have a voting representative in the House is wrong,” says Rep. Latimer. “I could lean toward it, but there’s other things that have to be discussed to understand how …the federal government…would function if D.C. was a state.”

How about Republicans who say D.C. statehood is a ploy to add two Democratic Senators? Rep. Latimer says, “Well, that’s what you would say if you thought you couldn’t win D.C., which you can’t. And you’d probably say the same thing about Puerto Rico. So I think it’s just a political response. It’s not an analysis response.

“If they responded and said, ‘We’re concerned about how the federal government would operate when it’s completely within a jurisdiction that’s not under their control, and now, under an independent state,’ those are legitimate concerns. That would be a response that says to me, Oh, you’ve thought about it, but when you give a political response, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be two more Democratic senators,’ then that’s more about politics than it is about analyzing the situation.

AOC: ‘Rock star, different world’

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [AOC] represents New York’s 14th Congressional district that encompasses the eastern part of The Bronx and part of north-central Queens.

Does her fellow Democrat Rep. Latimer have much connection to her?

“She’s a rock star, a national star,” he responds. “Her name’s known everywhere. Speculation is that she’s gonna either be the candidate for Senate or President. So, you know, she’s on a different platform than I am.

“I’m working local neighborhood organizations and meetings all the time. I’m not flying to other parts of the country to…You’re probably the first person outside of my district that ever, you know, ‘let’s talk to him’.”

Rep. Latimer’s political heritage

“My parents were Roosevelt Democrats, blue collar,” says Rep. Latimer. “Dad was a maintenance man, had a maintenance place. My mom a factory worker. And she’s [his wife Robin is] Republican…

“When I went to high school, Vietnam dominated the dialogue. And when I was in college, Watergate dominated the dialogue. It’s hard to imagine, if you think there’s no social media, there’s no cable, there’s only the main TV stations and the main newspapers [yet] Watergate was completely absorptive of everything.”

Backed Cuomo vs. Mamdani for Mayor

Rep. George Latimer says he thought Andrew Cuomo would beat Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City.

“I actually endorsed Cuomo later in the campaign,” he said.

“And I thought he’d be a good mayor of New York, because he’s a tough guy. He gets things done. His record as governor had a lot of successes in it. Unfortunately, the scandal that brought him down is significant.”

When it’s suggested that Rep. Latimer’s district, which includes part of the Bronx, seems it could be fertile ground for the Democratic Socialists of America, he replies, “Mamdani lost to Cuomo in the primary in the Bronx overall. He won Queens, he won Brooklyn, he won Manhattan, he didn’t win the Bronx.”

Rep. Latimer says that in his District’s portion of the Bronx, “You have a lot of minority folks, but a lot of voters are older voters, they’re churchgoers, and they don’t necessarily attach to some of the things that DSA said.”

Vouches for Jeffries, in line to be Speaker of House if Dems win

“Good man,” says Rep. George Latimer when asked about his fellow Democratic New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries. He is the House Minority Leader, in line to become Speaker of the House is Democrats win the majority this November.”

“I served with him in the Assembly,” says Rep. Latimer. “He has a tough job. …If he becomes Speaker, I believe he can navigate the difficulties that are ahead. He’s a very smart guy. If you could talk to him like this, and he gives you a sense of his thinking, there’s a depth to him that I respect.”

Rep. Latimer notes, “You saw how a DSA [Democratic Socialists of America backer] started to poke at him like he’s gonna be their next target. That pretty much tells you where he falls on the philosophical spectrum.

“I think he’s gonna be a good, solid Democrat. What happens around him, the Senate? The President’s response to this? All yet to be seen.

Note subsequent to this interview, Rep. Jeffries has drawn some criticism from his own party, first for meeting privately with Jared Kushner and second over Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) defying their Democratic colleagues by providing the crucial votes to advance Republican-backed legislation.

Says Stefanik would have been stronger candidate vs. Hochul

“Democrats are lucky,” says Democratic Congressman George Latimer, that Congresswoman Elise Stefanik opted out of challenging Governor Kathy Hochul in this year’s election.

“I think she’d have been a tougher candidate than Blakeman,” he says. “It’s not for me to pick who the Republicans should have picked, but I think they made a mistake.”

Rep. Stefanik quit the race after President Trump backed Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

Why Rep. Latimer likes The Chronicle

Westchester-Bronx Congressman George Latimer told us more on what appeals to him about The Chronicle.

“I think you guys are the symbol of how you cover local stuff. When I pick up your publication, you can see where you’re doing your own reporting. You’re not just taking a press release and printing it, and I see other publications that can be like that.

“And you have dialogue about certain issues that come up, and it tells me that you’re in the community, you have a vibe for the community, and you love the community that you’re in. You have to have that if you’re gonna really project it. So I think it’s a terrific publication.”

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