New York's 17th Congressional District – The race between Republican incumbent Mike Lawler and Democratic Mondaire Jones for New York’s 17th Congressional district has national implications as a swing district that could determine control of the House of Representatives. Both sides have accused the other of being on the extreme of their respective parties, and both tout their own ability to cross party lines and focus on the needs of the lower Hudson Valley.
We spoke to the candidates on Oct. 26: Lawler for about 45 minutes in person at the Halston Media offices; Jones for 30 minutes by telephone later that day. The first part of the interview, which focused on abortion, was published HERE. The interview continued on the topics of Israel, antisemitism and Ukraine, which you can read HERE.
Below, the candidates discuss immigration and pocketbook issues.
Mondaire Jones
Halston Media: What needs to be done to improve the situation at the U.S. border with Mexico?
Jones: We have to pass bipartisan border security legislation that is very tough and co-authored by some of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, but that Mike Lawler, sadly, is blocking right now, at the direction of Donald Trump. That bipartisan border security legislation would hire more Border Patrol agents and judges to adjudicate claims of asylum. It would also provide new authorities to the President of the United States to shut down the border in the event it is being overwhelmed. Mike Lawler is acting at the behest of Donald Trump when he blocks that legislation by calling it dead on arrival in the House.
Halston Media: Probably the most important topics for many voters here are pocketbook issues: the SALT deduction, inflation and housing prices. Do you support lifting the State and Local Taxes deduction?
Jones: In fact, the first bill I introduced on a bipartisan basis in Congress would have fully restored the SALT deduction. Mike Lawler bears responsibility for having helped elect Donald Trump, who put the $10,000 cap in place in the first place, but also for not using his leverage as a majority maker in the House to get the SALT cap lifted.
Halston Media: Where do you stand on tariffs? Do you think they’re a useful tool?
Jones: I do think tariffs are a useful tool. I don’t support the massive tax increases that Donald Trump will put into place through his proposed tariffs, but there’s absolutely a role for tariffs to play—as when it comes to China, for example.
Halston Media: How would you address the problem of inflation?
Jones: I would urge you to look at the rate of inflation today and compare it to what it was pre-pandemic. Put another way, while the rate of inflation is roughly where it was pre-pandemic, the price of goods continues to be sky high as a result of corporate greed that I am the only candidate in this race committed to taking on. The reason that the price at the pump is so high and the cost of groceries is so high is because of price gouging and corporate greed.
Halston Media: Where do you see yourself on the political spectrum? Center left? Left of that? Progressive?
Jones: It’s fair to ask the question. It’s a dynamic situation in American politics, what these labels mean. And for that reason, what I’ve long felt comfortable with is the word “pragmatic.”
People thought I was pragmatic, for example, when I brought progressives and conservative Democrats together and even got some Republican votes to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill into law. I was proud to stand up to the Squad in my support of Israel and for law enforcement funding as a member of Congress,
Halston Media: One of the criticisms that Lawler had of you is your support for the Green New Deal and congestion pricing. What is your stand on congestion pricing?
Jones: So I’ve been very clear from the outset that if there is to be congestion pricing in the state of New York, there must be an exemption for the lower Hudson Valley. I’ve been very clear that communities that do not have adequate public transportation should not be penalized under a congestion pricing scheme. [Lawler] distorts my record, but I’ve been very clear on that. And so as proposed, no: I don’t support [congestion pricing] because it doesn’t contain an exemption for the lower Hudson Valley.
Halston Media: Parts of our coverage area and this congressional district are heavily Republican, and some felt that Sean Patrick Maloney ignored GOP-heavy sections of the district, at least in terms of personal appearances. Would you commit to coming to all parts of your constituency?
Jones: Absolutely, and I’ve always done that. I’ve gotten so many accolades from people in Putnam, in East Fishkill and Pawling, and in Northern Westchester for just showing up and engaging and organizing and talking about issues that matter to people.
And that’s always been who I am. Look, I’m 37 years old. I’ve still got a lot of energy [laughs].
Halston Media: Finally, why should people vote for you?
Jones: People should vote for me because I have a record of delivering for the people of the 17th Congressional district, and unlike my opponent, am willing to stand up to Donald Trump’s dangerous Project 2025 agenda next January.
I am committed to lowering costs by protecting the progress we made last term, when we capped the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and created millions of good-paying jobs. My opponent does the bidding of the super-rich and is completely out of touch on these economic issues. He wants to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which means he would raise prescription drug costs for seniors. He also wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means he would throw millions of Americans off their health insurance plans and allow insurance companies to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions even here in the state of New York.
Can I say something else? An economic issue: My opponent has come out and supported raising the retirement age—which I oppose—as his way of making Social Security and Medicare solvent.
Halston Media: How would you address Social Security?
Jones: Have Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk—my opponent’s largest backer in this race—and a whole bunch of billionaires pay their fair share so that seniors can retire in dignity for generations to come.
Mike Lawler
Halston Media: How would you handle the migrant crisis?
Lawler: So first and foremost, the crisis was created by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They reversed 94 executive orders of President Trump and reinstated an Obama-era policy of catch-and-release. So over three and a half years, you’ve had over 10 million migrants come into the United States, most of them illegally, 90 percent of them released into the U.S. cities like New York, states like New York, with its sanctuary city and state policies, the right to shelter policy now spending billions of dollars to provide free housing, free clothing, free food, free healthcare, free education. Eric Adams says it’s destroying the city. This is a result of their policy decisions. They chose to allow this, number one. Number two, House Republicans passed HR 2 in May of 2023. I introduced the Dignity Act, the first bipartisan border and immigration reform package in over a decade. We passed HR 2, sent it to the Senate. The Senate sat on it for months, refused to do anything on it. The only reason they took up a border bill was because the Speaker said we will not consider a supplemental aid package without border security. When they finally started negotiating a bill towards the end of the year in 2023, nobody saw what was in the bill, and everybody said, “Oh, it’s bipartisan. We have to support it.”
Well, when the bill finally came out and people read it, it codified catch-and-release into law. It allowed upwards of 7,000 migrants a day to cross our border before they did anything about shutting down the border. It did nothing to reinstate Remain in Mexico, and it didn’t do anything on the border wall.
And so at the end of the day, it was not a good bill. Ultimately, it had no bipartisan support in the Senate, and in fact, six Democrats voted against it in the Senate. So the only actual bipartisan vote was against the bill, and the Democrats in the Senate couldn’t pass anything. So this idea that somehow this bill was the panacea, where Democrats want to try and make this the focal point—and not even accept the fact that they created the mess in the first place—is a distraction.
The bottom line is there has to be a serious bill that reforms the asylum and parole process, that increases border personnel, increases court personnel, reinstates Remain in Mexico and Title 42, and increases the use of a physical barrier as well as drone technology.
In addition, you have to treat the cartels for what they are: terrorist organizations. They are engaged in human trafficking, drug trafficking, gun trafficking across our southern border. Fentanyl pouring in, killing over 70,000 Americans a year, most of it coming from the southern border, and you have to treat them, as I said, as terrorist organizations. But you have to exert maximum pressure on Mexico. Mexico refuses to crack down on the cartels, so the United States needs to use the terms of the U.S., Mexico, Canada trade deal to exert economic pressure on them and stop the flow of goods if they are unwilling to crack down on the number of migrants coming through Mexico, number one; and number two, crack down on the cartels.
Halston Media: What are the biggest economic challenges in your district?
Lawler: Housing, to me, is one of the biggest issues facing the country. We’re six-and-a-half million units under built, and so that is creating a lot of pressure, and it is jacking up the price of housing to the point where people can’t afford it. The average housing value in Westchester went from $700,000 to $1.1 million. The average home price in Rockland went from $400,000 to $700,000. The average mortgage cost has increased, obviously, because of inflation and the effort to curtail it by raising interest rates, it has increased by over $1,000 a month. So that’s over $12,000 more a year people are paying in mortgage costs than they were a year and a half ago. That is unsustainable. So we need to increase the housing supply across the country.
What works in New York City does not necessarily work in Yorktown or Somers or Putnam County or Rockland. You have to be cognizant of that; local control of zoning must be respected.
I strongly support local control, but you have to incentivize states and municipalities to reduce some of the barriers to construction, reduce some of the cost to construction, and incentivize working together to increase the housing stock. That does not mean high-density housing everywhere.
I think it is paramount that the federal government put forth a housing plan that helps incentivize, not mandate, but incentivize states and municipalities to increase the housing supply with a housing plan that works for that community.
Halston Media: How can we lower inflation?
Lawler: First and foremost, you have to rein in federal spending. You cannot continue to borrow and print new money at the levels that we have. That’s what gave us, in large part, the inflation. The Democrats increased spending by $5 trillion in new spending in two years.
We started that process in this Congress by capping federal spending at 1 percent growth over the next six years by reducing deficit spending by $2.1 trillion over the next decade. But there’s more work to be done on this and to get our spending the right size.
Revenue has not been the problem. We’re at record high revenues. People said after the tax cuts and Jobs Act, we’re going to lose revenues. No, we have record revenues. Why? Because corporations came back to the U.S. They started moving business and manufacturing back to the U.S. for the first time in a very long time. So that, obviously, is vital. You need a growing economy. You need to reduce red tape and regulations. You need to bring advanced manufacturing back from China.
One of the things I do agree with the Biden administration was the Chips Act. We should be manufacturing advanced semiconductors here in the United States, period. Trade matters.
Halston Media: Where do you stand on tariffs?
Lawler: When the former president talks about tariffs, the point is that it is used as a negotiating tactic. If a country is not going to employ fair trade with the United States...for instance, Europe prevents a lot of American products from going in, right? Europe also puts price caps on American pharmaceuticals and prescription drugs. That causes a big problem for us here and jacks up the cost to Americans with respect to prescription drug medication. So how we approach this is critical. A lot of the tariffs that the former president put in place on China, for instance, this administration kept. Why? Because it was working. I’m not saying you go tariff everything. But the point is, if you use it strategically, if you use it correctly, it will do one of two things. It will either force people to purchase American products, which is a good thing, or it’ll force the country on which the tariffs are being placed to start to renegotiate, to lift those tariffs; those are the two options. Tariffs can be a necessary tool in the tool kit; it does not mean they should be the primary driver. With the tax bill coming up for renegotiation next year, all of this is going to be on the table as we move forward.
Halston Media: Speaking of taxes, where do you stand on the state and local tax exemption (SALT)?
Lawler: This was a top priority for me. I fought for 13 months to get a bill on the floor to lift the cap on SALT, and in February of this year, we were able to get a bill on the floor, and every single Democrat in New York voted against it—so they refused to do something that actually would benefit their constituents because of politics and Hakeem Jeffries telling them they cannot give New York Republicans a win for their constituents. So they voted against it, and the bill unfortunately failed. But the cap expires next year as part of the tax cuts and Jobs Act. Many of the provisions are expiring, so this will be renegotiated as part of a new tax deal.
Obviously, what happens in November will determine a lot in terms of where things stand. But President Trump has already said that he will lift the cap on SALT. I will not support any tax bill that does not lift the cap on SALT. Ideally, we would get unlimited [exemptions]. But I think as you renegotiate the tax deal, and there’s many provisions that people like and want, including the doubling of the standard deduction that was in there, the elimination of the alternative minimum tax, the 20 percent business exemption, so there’s a lot that obviously will be up for renegotiation as part of this. But I can tell you, New York Republicans will work with Democrats in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, and Republicans to address this. And we’ve already made it very clear to our colleagues, our leadership, and to the former president.
When you have this debate and discussion, you see that folks on the far right and folks on the far left are actually in agreement about capping SALT. Those on the far left think it’s a giveaway to the wealthy. Those on the far right think it’s a giveaway to blue states that don’t control their spending. The problem is, it’s double taxation. To penalize people simply because they live in a blue state is not right, and I’ve consistently pushed back against that. I introduced a bill this Congress with Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat from New Jersey. We’re pushing to get it unlimited again, but this is what will be negotiated and discussed. But I can guarantee it won’t be $10,000.
Halston Media: Finally, why should people vote for you?
Lawler: Because I’ve done the job, and I’ve done it effectively on behalf of this district, regardless of whether one agrees with me or disagrees with me, I have sought to represent everybody. We’ve been in every community; my office has worked tirelessly to address issues that constituents have directly. We’ve brought back over $70 million in community project funding for this district, more than double what my opponent did. I’ve passed 10 bills, five of which have been signed into law. We… have been able to close over 4,500 individual constituent cases. And I think that matters to people, whether they agree with me fully or not on the substance of the issues.
At the end of the day, I’ve been rated the fourth most bipartisan member. He rated 381st. He was the third most progressive member of Congress. He voted with AOC in the Squad over 97 percent of the time. He supported defunding the police, cashless bail, open borders, wanted to decriminalize border crossings. He wanted to give blanket amnesty to criminal aliens. He wanted to allow cop killers and rapists the right to vote from prison. Called himself a socialist. Supported congestion pricing, the Green New Deal, government takeover of health care, and now supports the largest tax increase in American history, if he gets his way. And at the end of the day, people are struggling to afford to live here to begin with, we have a quality-of-life issue with continued crime. He is not somebody who can work with people of either party, and frankly has proven himself to be an extreme radical and not someone who is trying to bridge divides. And I think that is a stark contrast to how I have operated during my time in Congress.
Halston Media: How can you work with the rest of your New York delegation when you see some of them as very radical?
Lawler: I work closely with any of my colleagues that are willing to address issues impacting the district and the state. I’ve worked very closely with Ritchie Torres, for instance, a progressive Democrat from the Bronx. Where you can find commonality, you should. But obviously there are stark differences between me and somebody like AOC on issues pertaining to Israel, to antisemitism, to spending, taxes, congestion pricing, and cashless bail. And where those differences are, I have no problem saying them and distinguishing them. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t deal with people directly, and I do.
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