An interview with Andy Kim

Editor’s note: This interview with Rep. Andy Kim was conducted on Wednesday, September 20, before Senator Bob Menendez was indicted on federal corruption charges – and before Kim announced a campaign against him. Despite the momentous events that have happened between last week and today, the New Jersey Globe has decided to publish the interview as-is.

This is the first in a series of in-person, in-depth conversations with New Jersey’s 14 members of Congress. The interviews will be published verbatim, with some editing for length and clarity.

Kim, a Democrat from Burlington County, was first elected to Congress in 2018 after unseating an incumbent Republican congressman. Now serving in his third term, he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He is also a candidate for the U.S. Senate – but again, neither he nor anyone else knew that at the time of this interview.

New Jersey Globe: I’ll start this off with the moment that, at least from a national perspective, was your most prominent moment in office, which is you being photographed cleaning up after the January 6 attack. I wanted to ask you to reflect on that a little bit – do you think that we’ve learned the right lessons since that day? Do you think Congress is in a better place now than it was then?

Andy Kim: I reflect on it a lot in terms of this question of, what came about from that? On that night, when we came back into session, I was back in the House chamber – there was broken glass and all this debris around – and I did have this hope that maybe this was a shock to the system. I’ve written about this – is it the defibrillator moment that’s going to shock us and make us realize we can’t keep going in this direction? It was, for a couple minutes. For about 30 minutes or so, I felt like, okay, people were saying the right things, Kevin McCarthy was saying this was the most tragic day of his time in office. It felt like maybe we’d get there. But then, unfortunately, the muscle memory of partisanship kicked back in pretty quickly. That was what prompted me to leave the chamber and, in my frustration, that’s probably what prompted me to start cleaning. Just this feeling of, like, I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to believe that there’s some way we can pick the pieces up.

Right from the outset, even on the night of January 6, I had my doubts about whether our country – at least in the political world – would draw the right lessons, because it felt like we were already just going back to business as usual. That it would not be this transformative moment like 9/11 was, or other things that prompt us to really self-evaluate as a country whether or not we’re doing what we need to.

When it comes to the broader public, I still am hopeful. About two weeks or so after the 6th, our office started receiving a lot of hand-written notes. I think we counted, it was well over a thousand hand-written notes from random people all over the country that had seen the image of me, talking about how powerful it was and how they felt moved to write. It was powerful for me to hear from all these people and realize that there is a hunger for something different. You probably heard me talk about this in the last election cycle. I talked a lot about how there has to be a different way to do our politics. That’s what I’m committing myself to doing: trying to figure out a better way. What we’re doing right now – we’re on a downward trajectory in terms of trust. We live in the time of the greatest amount of distrust in government in modern American history.

That’s where the lesson needs to be: what do we do to restore trust? I can’t claim that I’ve found the definitive answer, but as of now, my working answer – which is what I am revolving a lot of my work in Congress around – is, you can’t just go from this huge deficit that we’re in right now to trust overnight. The intermediary step, in my opinion, is respect. I believe you cannot trust somebody or some institution unless you respect that person or respect that institution. When you see how I operate in Congress – that’s about that respect. Showing up in people’s towns, showing them respect; even in some of the reddest parts of my district over the course of the last five years, I show up. I’ve found that people, even if they disagree with me, respect me for showing up and listening to them, taking their tough questions.

That’s what I’m hoping the lesson will be: that we find a way to be able to respect one another more, both in the Capitol among colleagues, but also writ large across the country. I believe that we have this crisis of empathy right now – trying to understand that if you respect one another as Americans, that’s what gives us that capacity for empathy. Empathy doesn’t mean you agree with someone else on everything, it doesn’t mean you sympathize with them – it’s a very unique word of just saying you feel connected. You feel like you understand at least what they’re thinking, how they’re approaching things.

Do you see a connection between what you characterize as this lack of empathy, this lack of respect, and the literal day-to-day problems that Congress is facing right now? Obviously, the big news right now is the impeachment inquiry and the potential government shutdown – do you think that is all part of one overarching problem?

Yeah. We don’t have respect running through the halls of Congress. That is a huge problem. I see colleagues of mine literally yelling and screaming at each other in the halls, in hearings. It is disgraceful, in my opinion. It is not how people in this body should act. We work a job whose job description is in the Constitution of the United States. That, to me, is a deeply humbling experience – that I, as a son of immigrants, have the opportunity to do this. It should push us to lift ourselves up, and try to recognize that the job calls upon us to not just do things, but to act in a way in accordance with the respect we give to the Constitution. If you yell at each other and denigrate each other, you’re yelling and denigrating the Constitution – that which gives our body the authority in which we can operate. I do think that creates this space where you see the dysfunction and the problems. You can see this week – it’s not just between the parties, it’s within the parties that there’s that deep distrust. Whether or not everyone in the Republican caucus respects each other – clearly not. I can assure you that’s the case in my party as well. Not everybody respects everybody else. 

I do think that’s a fundamental problem. If you don’t respect each other, and you don’t have that empathy for one another, what you end up having is what I call this divide between the politics of humility – which is something that I am exploring and something I care deeply about – and the politics of hubris that often takes over. If people here think they have all the answers, and they know exactly what to do – if you think you have all the answers, why would you feel like you need to talk to somebody else and learn from them? You already have the answers! It minimizes the ability to actually have conversations, and if you don’t respect that person, that’s when things turn into not just anger, but contempt. It says that, ‘I’m not only angry, but I think you just don’t deserve to be here in Congress, or occupy this space, or say what you want to say.’ That’s where so much of the breakdown of this body comes in.

You mentioned that there are these divides within both parties – fundamentally, both caucuses have different people from different perspectives. When I was covering your race last year, one thing I remember your opponent said was that you have a moderate facade, but you support really liberal issues. That was an attack that got lobbed at you. Obviously you won the race anyways, but I am curious about how you would position yourself in the modern Democratic Party, and in the House Democratic caucus. You’re a member of the House Progressive Caucus; you’re also someone who really values bipartisanship, civility, all of these values that we code as more moderate. Where do you see yourself in that spectrum?

I’ve struggled with this too. The challenge that I have is, I’m not really that political of a person. I don’t consider myself a politician; I’d much rather think of myself as a public servant. My muscle memory is of working for approximately a decade as a career public servant. I worked alongside people at the State Department and in the Pentagon, who came to my wedding, who still to this day I don’t actually know if they’re registered Democrats or Republicans. It just didn’t come up. That’s my muscle memory for how I do public service.

For me, it’s not something I ever thought about, in terms of where I am on the ideological spectrum. This tribalism – I think some of these tribes are, again, part of the problem, creating these fractured identities that are preventing us from recognizing that we’re all Americans, we’re all members of Congress. I don’t really like that kind of breakdown.

In terms of signing up for the Progressive Caucus, that was because I support a very robust effort when it comes to anti-corruption, good governance, the For the People Act, campaign finance reform. [The Progressive Caucus] was where I saw a lot of that conversation happening. So when I got to Congress, I was like, ‘That’s where people are talking about this stuff, so I’m going to talk to those people.’ I disagree with them on a lot of other things. 

I think of myself more as a public servant. I’m a deeply pragmatic person when it comes down to it, in every facet of my life. I worked a job that had to deal with the realism of counterterrorism challenges and whatnot – I didn’t have time to be an idealist. I don’t really associate with any of those ideological groups very strongly. I work with them on particular issues when I agree with them, but it’s not part of my identity – it wouldn’t be how I define myself. That’s just kind of how I’ve felt. And honestly, the longer I’ve been here, the deeper that sentiment has gotten. I’m not somebody that feels at home in any particular tribe, or group, or caucus.

You mentioned all of those anti-corruption and good government bills that you’ve fought for, but at the end of the day, where we stand right now, [the For the People Act] was ultimately unsuccessful, members of Congress can still trade stocks – it’s a tough fight. Do you think that there is any realistic chance of reform on these issues going forward?

Right now, they are struggling. But writ large, legislation struggles right now. I don’t necessarily think that’s unique to good governance-type efforts. Barring some type of filibuster reform, we simply cannot pass large measures apart from reconciliation-type approaches. We’re basically at this point where our democracy is so challenged that it requires a party to have the presidency and both chambers, and even then reconciliation is the main vehicle. That’s unfortunately where we’re at right now, in terms of the health, or rather illness, of our democracy.

The good governance stuff – there is energy for that. And there is talk about it on both sides of the aisle to some extent. But the challenge is, again, it becomes this kind of gamesmanship issue. Like with campaign finance reform – until I got here, I didn’t fully recognize the challenges of trying to manage this. Because what you’re doing is you’re going to 435 people who, by nature of being in Congress, have been successful under the current structures and rules, the game of politics. You’re going to someone who’s great at chess and saying, ‘We’re going to play a different game. We’re not going to play chess, we’re going to play backgammon now.’ It’s hard to convince people who have some of their own self-interest here to change that system.

What I was excited about in 2018 is that I came into Congress alongside a lot of people who, like me, never thought they’d be in elected office. They never imagined it. And that’s a good thing. I think one of the biggest strengths I have in doing this job is that I don’t really want to do this job. I want to do public service, but I never specifically sought out and thought my dream job was to be in elected office or Congress. If I lose an election, I’ll be okay. I’m not going to cry over it. But that allows me to think about my work here without first and foremost thinking about self-preservation. We need more of that kind of mentality – people willing to do things that are going to change the game, that could hurt us. It’s why I can’t stand gerrymandering. Being in elected office – why wouldn’t somebody do everything possible to try to keep themselves in office? For me, I can’t stand it, because that’s the kind of stuff that’s broken. That’s the kind of stuff that erodes trust. That’s the kind of stuff that makes people believe politicians are just in it for themselves.

The single, fundamental question that I’ve now fixated on, and dedicated the rest of my life to, is this question of, how do we heal this country? That is the singular question now that I will spend every waking day trying to deal with. Good governance, anti-corruption – this has to be central to that. I cannot make progress on other issues, like gun violence, the economy, health care – I can’t get the full measure of what I’d like to do on that stuff until we can fix some of these structural problems that are there.

I realize this is not something you have personal control over, but New Jersey is one of the states that has some of these systems that people have often criticized as being stuck in the past. Do you think that in New Jersey, some parts of the political system – like the redistricting commission, like the county line system – need reform?

Yeah. I’d ultimately love that. I’d love for us to have that kind of reform. The ballot lines, the way in which we do redistricting – there are lots of different components there that I think are ripe for reform and modernization. In the same way that at the federal level, there’s a lot more that we could be doing. I’m much more knowledgeable about what we can do at the federal level right now, so I don’t fully know exactly how to redo it in New Jersey. And I know full well how hard that is, too, just given the powers that be and the issues that are there. But my interest when it comes to good governance doesn’t just stop at the federal level. I’d certainly love to see movement elsewhere if we can.

To ask even more directly, would you support ending the county line?

Yeah, I would support that. The way I’d describe it is, I’m really in favor of as many measures as we can to make sure that power resides with the voters. I’m a believer that democracy is something that ultimately resides with the citizens. Other people have different opinions. Other people believe that the party structures need to have greater control and whatnot, and that certainly was a huge part of this country for most of its existence. It’s only in the last few decades that we’ve seen an opening up of primaries and other things like that. But I, for one, am a believer that we can have a lot more of that power reside with the citizens.

We need to, of course, pair that with doing more to make sure that citizens are informed about what’s going on. That’s where sometimes the parties feel like they need to play a role in vetting, or other things like that. But my general instinct is to do as much as we can in that direction.

You’re the first Asian American representative from New Jersey in history. That’s obviously a big population in New Jersey, and it’s growing. How does being the lone representative from that community inform the way that you perform your job here?

It’s interesting. It’s not like that was a goal that I set out to achieve. When I first came into Congress, there were zero Korean Americans. I’ll be honest with you – when I first started to run for office, in 2017, I was not actually fully cognizant of the fact that there were no Korean Americans in Congress. It was not something that I was like, ‘I’m going to do this to make that kind of mark.’

In general, I’m somebody that, over the course of my lifetime, has struggled with how to fully relate to being Asian American and Korean American. Like, what does that mean to me? There have been periods of time where if someone said, ‘Oh, you’re Korean American,’ I’d be like, ‘No, I’m American.’ I would reject it at times. But I think being a dad of two little cute, trouble-making, Asian American boys, and also this job, being here… It has given me a deeper sense of what it means to have a seat at the table and a voice in the room, and how your own lived experiences, and also the experiences you didn’t live because of who you are and where you come from, affect the dynamics here.

For instance, during Covid, there was an uptick in violence against the Asian American community. There was this horrific mass shooting down in Atlanta, where someone murdered Asian American women in particular at three different spas. I remember someone came up to me, a colleague of mine on the Democratic side, and he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Hey, I just wanted to say, I’m so sorry for all the violence and the discrimination that the Asian American community is facing right now.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, wow, thank you. I appreciate that.’ But then he went on, and he said, ‘But don’t worry, the pandemic’s almost over, it will all go back to normal, it will all get better.’ That was a really powerful experience for me to realize, because this is someone in my party who generally thought that the situation was okay for Asian Americans before the pandemic, and that this discrimination was a manifestation of Covid and the dynamics of that. Those are the types of scenarios where I can be like, hey, no. There was discrimination and violence targeting the Asian American community before the pandemic, and there will continue to be after the pandemic.

Again, I didn’t really talk too much about my own race and ethnicity and some of the challenges that I’ve faced until being in Congress. I’ve shared stories about how, when I worked at the State Department, I was banned from working on issues related to Korea because I’m Korean American. I was in Afghanistan, serving my country in harm’s way, and I came back to D.C. for another posting, and I received this letter on my keyboard one day from diplomatic security saying that I’ve been banned from working on issues with Korea. It was really devastating to me. Here I am – I was willing to serve my country in harm’s way, yet I receive a letter that tells me that they don’t fully trust me. It felt like I’m American until my Korean heritage, which, to me, tells me that they don’t think I’m 100% loyal to this country. I was so offended by that.

I’ve been sharing stories like that to help people understand that there is an experience here that I want people to recognize. I can’t speak on behalf of everybody. I don’t know all the different challenges that Asian Americans are facing, and the AAPI community is not monolithic. There are lots of different ethnicities, cultures, communities, languages. But I do feel like I have an ability to at least better empathize than, perhaps, the average person because of some of the lived experiences that I’ve had. In New Jersey, a state that has such a large and growing AAPI population, I think that’s important. I hope to play a role, not just in my own district, which frankly doesn’t have the largest Asian American part of New Jersey – but I have been building ties across the state, because I do think that I have a responsibility. They are not direct constituents of mine, I do not serve them in that way, but I can be potentially a voice, or somebody that they can feel connected to. That, I think, is a role I’m growing into more. I hope to, over time, be somebody that can be that kind of broader voice across the state, and on certain issues and at certain times across the country.

The story about the State Department banning you from working on Korea – I hadn’t heard that. I don’t think anyone would ban me from working on Ireland.

Yeah, you know, I had a good friend who was of German descent who was working on Germany issues at the State Department, no problems there. I found it so frustrating. And here in Congress, I’m now on the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has oversight over the State Department. I’ve raised this as an issue, I’ve worked with the State Department. And the Secretary of State, earlier this year, announced that he’s banning that ability for them to restrict people based on their own heritage and ethnicity. So I was proud of that, but again, that doesn’t mean that everything’s okay. There could be other types of challenges in terms of how that manifests. It’s just about being vigilant.

Your committee portfolio right now is very foreign policy- and national security-focused: The Foreign Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Armed Services Committee. How do you relate that kind of focus back to the constituents in your district, most of whom probably don’t have much of an interaction with that realm of the country’s policies?

My core committee has always been the Armed Services Committee. If you look at what my main responsibility is right now on Armed Services, it’s as the ranking member on the Military Personnel Subcommittee. So, yes, it’s about national security, but the way I connect with it is that it’s about the families that are serving our community and our country. And it’s about [Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst], the largest employer in my district. There are a lot of people who have these kinds of challenges: whether or not military families are getting the support structure or the health care that they need, things like that.

For me, national security is a local issue. When you have that many people in our community who are not just wearing the uniform but serving in civilian capacities or supporting in different ways; when they have to go off on missions around the world; when we’re talking about what could happen next with China and whether or not we need to be prepared on a military level – that is something that we have to talk about. Two meetings before [this interview] was a group of military spouses. And yes, they want to talk about health care and government shutdown concerns, but they also were talking to me about China, saying that they don’t want us to rush into a war. Their family, their spouses serving in uniform – they are prepared to defend this country, but their expectation is that we will do everything humanly possible to make conflict a last resort. That we would use diplomacy, that we would build coalitions in other ways.

What I’m trying to do when it comes to competition between the United States and China, that has implications for people in my district. It has implications for businesses, especially small businesses, which has been a very core part of what I’ve done. I was on [the Small Business Committee] for four years and probably would have continued that had I not been asked to serve on this other select committee.

The other thing I’ll say is, I’m the only career person who’s worked in diplomacy in Congress. I do feel like I have a unique insight, a unique skillset, and it’s a place where I can punch above my weight. It’s a place that I know I have as much knowledge, if not more, than a lot of my colleagues when the rubber hits the road. I want to make sure I can use that kind of knowledge to try to shape what comes next.

So you’ve got your ranking membership on your House subcommittee. That’s kind of the first rung on this path towards power in Congress. Where do you see yourself going from here, either within the House or somewhere outside the House? What’s next?

I don’t know. This year’s been a real inflection point. For me, when I first started on this in 2017 – I never necessarily thought about what the third term would look like. My race was so difficult each cycle. Now, this is my first time where I’m starting to think, like, ‘Okay, do I want to continue to do this type of work?’ I want to be in public service for the rest of my life. That’s the one thing that I do know. I would die a very proud and happy man if I served my country my whole career. I’m not interested in going off to the private sector or anything like that. That’s just not for me.

Right now, I’m very happy, and there’s a lot more that I need to do in the House. I don’t feel like I was able to really engage with this job in quite the way that I wanted in my first two terms, in part because I was new and in part because I had a lot of campaign commitments and things like that hanging over me. I’m a policy nerd when it comes down to it, I like that kind of work, so I do think the committees are more of where I’ll put my emphasis. I’m not the kind of person that’s going to be on the trajectory to be a leader in the caucus in a political way. I do see myself potentially trying to get more and more responsibility and stepping up on the committee side. So we’ll see where that takes us.

I also have a six year old and a seven year old who’s going to turn eight this Saturday, and I just pray to God I can get home to celebrate his birthday and not be stuck here waiting for what happens next on a potential shutdown. I really do feel like I’ve got to be doing this in a way that I can also be the kind of dad that I want to be. I would be very disappointed in myself if I got lost in this job and didn’t pay enough attention to the kids. I’m down here in D.C. about 120, 130 days a year. That’s a lot of their life that I’m missing. It does really push me to say, well, is it worth it? I’m sure I could find other jobs where I could spend every day with my kids – why am I intentionally doing this, away from my kids, when all I want to do is be with them?

I have to believe, and this is what motivates me, that this job is a way for me to effect the kind of world my kids grow up in. That’s what drives me. This is my way of trying to be a good dad. This is my way of giving my kids the kind of future that I want them to have. I don’t want them to grow up in a world of broken politics, where everyone in this country is at each other’s throats. I don’t want them to grow up with this level of dysfunction that is happening right now.

That’s where my mind is at. The singular question that I want to work on for the rest of my life is, how do we heal this country? We’ll see where things go. I’m only 41 now, in my third term in Congress. If all goes well, I have a long runway ahead of me for public service. I’m excited about that. But I don’t want to measure it based on the titles and jobs. I want to measure it based on the impact of what I’m able to get done.