Congressman-Elect Tom Malinowski on Trump’s Foreign Policy

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You can’t really move around this country without hearing people on both sides of the aisle, wherever they are, talking about President Trump. And yet, Leader Pelosi hoped — instructed, hoped, that candidates would not focus on the daily Trump, would not get personal, would not get out of the box and sort of, you know, defuse the message there.

MALINOWSKI: That’s right. And that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a factor. Everybody in my district knew what was happening in Washington and the craziness and the crackpot conspiracy theories, but I didn’t need to remind them of that, I think until the very end. This campaign was mostly run on health care, it was run on protecting kids from gun violence, building infrastructure in my state in New Jersey. I think the last couple of weeks I think Trump inserted himself into the campaign in ways that were terrible for the country but bad for his party.

AMANPOUR: Were you all surprised about that? I mean, some have said, you know, with all the postgame analysis that the Republicans in a way handed you all this fantastic issue, health care, on a plate, or the economy, for instance. They didn’t even focus on the flourishing economy. It was immigration, immigration, immigration and demonization.

MALINOWSKI: Right. It was fear. It was fear, demonization and conspiracy theories. And in a district like mine, that did not play well, especially after the shootings in the Pittsburgh synagogue because we could link very clearly the president’s words to one of the worst acts of violence in religious violence, hateful violence in American history. And our positive message on practical issues like health care, infrastructure, gun violence, the economy, contrasted with fear, was very advantageous for us.

AMANPOUR: I want to play something that maybe speaker, certainly Leader Pelosi, said to me in September, because a lot of people said, “Well, you know what, the Democrats don’t really have a message to compete with make America great again. There’s no slogan, there’s no clear strategy.” But this is what she laid out in September.

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NANCY PELOSI, U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER: What we’re about in our campaign is that we are for the people, for lower health care costs, lowering prescription drug prices, we’re for raising paychecks, increasing — lowering health care costs, increasing paychecks by building the infrastructure of America and for cleaning up government to make sure people understand that the people’s interests not the special interests are served here in the United States capitol.

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AMANPOUR: So, there she was laying out a strategy and one that clearly is a winning strategy. Explain to me, to our viewers, how it worked for you in a Republican-controlled district. As we said, for 37 years your Republican opponents held on to that district.

MALINOWSKI: Yes. A Republican-controlled district full of reasonable, sensible, pragmatic people