Alex Bores on Housing, AI Regulation, and His Campaign for Congress in New York's 12th District - The New York Editorial Board

The New York Editorial Board spoke with Assembly Member Alex Bores, who represents parts of Manhattan’s East Side, about his campaign in the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District (parts of Manhattan’s East and West Sides and Roosevelt Island) on the morning of May 7, 2026. Bores is among the candidates running to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler. The primary election will take place in June. (photo by Juan Manuel Benítez)

Participating journalists: Juan Manuel Benítez, Nicole Gelinas, Ben Max, Myles Miller, Ben Smith, Liena Žagare.

Full Transcript

Ben Smith
I’ll just kick this off as I often do by saying thank you for coming. It’s a moment when I think an increasing number of politicians left and right feel like they don’t need to talk to journalists anymore. Actually, I should note that this is the only race this cycle in which one of the candidates…seems uninterested in coming. Jack Schlossberg didn’t respond to our inquiries. He’s running a different campaign, but still, it’s disappointing. I appreciate you, and Micah Lasher is going to be by soon, participating in this.

Alex Bores
Appreciate all of you taking the time to dig into all these races, so thank you.

Nicole Gelinas
Good morning.

Alex Bores
Morning.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think that Congressman Nadler has done a good job? If so, what would be the problem for voters in electing the person who Congressman Nadler has endorsed [Lasher]?

Alex Bores
I think Congressman Nadler has done a fantastic job and had a distinguished 34 years of service. This race is not about what has happened over the past 34 years, but what’s coming in the next set of years. When he was first elected, he was part of the “West Side kids” that were bringing new, fresh ideas into elected office. Now, 50 years later from his first election, 52, it’s another time when people are asking about what are the fresh new ideas that are facing the challenges of the day.

Ben Max
Digging into the district a little, how would you describe the different politics on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and say a little bit about the different political constituencies in this district and how you’re thinking about their needs in a new congressperson?

Alex Bores
For decades, every elected official would go before the redistricting committee and say why the East Side and West Side were so different and could never be combined into one district, and then obviously they were in 2022. Honestly, Congressman Nadler’s funniest moment I’ve seen was right after he won that primary in 2022.

He came to an East Side Democratic club and was waxing poetic about all kinds of policy things and giving really detailed answers. Someone asked a puff question, which was, “Oh, now you’re representing the East Side for the first time. Are the East Side and West Side different? How are they different,” and he just goes, “Not at all.”

Obviously, like any district has its own pieces, this district is the densest in the country. It’s the smallest geographic district in the country, and yet it feels so large because there’s so much pride of place in the individual neighborhoods. Even within the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, you’ll have divisions that are there. I think this is less a race about geography and more a race about records, results, and about vision for the future.

Ben Max
You are certainly counting on a path to victory that includes performing very strongly on the East Side.

Alex Bores
I plan to perform very strongly everywhere.

Ben Max
Do you have a different answer than Nadler mostly jokingly saying there’s no differences?

Alex Bores
No, certainly there are differences.

Ben Max
The voting patterns are different.

Alex Bores
There are. Murray Hill is different than Turtle Bay is different than Yorkville is different than Carnegie Hill. Around Lincoln Center on the West Side’s different than higher up. There’s lots of micro-neighborhoods that are very different. I think the dividing line is less east and west and actually much more mixed in the district.

Alyssa Katz
Now that since we’re talking about the district, it also happens to be the most Jewish district in the country. Nadler, he occupied it very much as that and had a particular standing in Washington as a result of that. I want to get a sense from you of how you approach that. You would be leading the most Jewish district in the country. How do you wear that? How do you own that in this particular moment?

Alex Bores
I currently represent one of the most Jewish Assembly districts in the state. I’ve been very involved in the Jewish community, like I have every community in my district. I do think that nationwide, New York is, in a good way, an outlier in terms of its diversity of communities, including having the largest Jewish population. I would continue to engage with that community as I have in the Assembly. Just like we were talking about how there’s differences in geography, there’s differences within that community and their political views as well.

Alyssa Katz
There certainly are. Let’s dig into them a little bit.

Alex Bores
Sure.

Alyssa Katz
I think among the most significant — clearly, Nadler was I think, especially over time, had staked out a position a little bit to the left of center on Israel. Now you have a situation where, as I’m sure you’re aware, a significant number of Democrats have been endorsing measures to defund U.S. aid to Israel. There’s the Block the Bombs Act and other measures that already have Democratic majority support. Where do you stand on those, on that particular measure and on generally— I’ll break it down into a couple of things: one is just U.S. aid to Israel: Ban it entirely? Is it Block the Bombs? Is it in support of funding for the Iron Dome? Let’s talk about that first.

Alex Bores
Broadly or do you want—

Alyssa Katz
I’m giving you a bunch of items that you can respond to or not.

Alex Bores
I’ll respond broadly but poke and prod on any. Aid to Israel is and should be subject to the conditions that aid to any other country is subject to, which is Leahy Law vetting. There are flaws in that process that can and should be strengthened. On my website, I’ve talked about the Safeguard Act as one of them. I am usually very suspicious of bills that are specifically targeting one country.

I don’t think that has generally helped the process of peace or the process of human rights to legislatively or politically go country by country. We should be setting universal standards. I think in many ways that should be strengthened, and I’ve put proposals for that. If it’s within those laws of the U.S., then aid should continue.

Ben Smith
Just to follow one thing you said.

Alex Bores
Yes.

Ben Smith
It sounds like New York and the U.S. have traditionally had a special relationship with Israel. You’d like, you’d like to see that end?

Alex Bores
No, there’s a difference between a special relationship, a deep relationship that ties between countries and saying that laws are universal. We have allies and we have countries that are, enemies might be too strong, but not allies. We still have universal laws that apply.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Israel is an ally?

Alex Bores
Yes, Israel is an ally.

Juan Manuel Benítez
How do you feel about a real estate company coming to a nearby synagogue to sell property in the occupied West Bank?

Alex Bores
I’m opposed to the settlements. The settlements are making it harder to have a two-state solution, which is ultimately the only way we’ll have an enduring peace in the region, as dim as it looks right now. Israel has massively ramped up the approval of settlements. I think they’ve done more approved settlements in the West Bank this year or last year, 2025, than in the 20 years prior to that, and that makes it incredibly difficult to think about what a future Palestinian state could look like. No, I don’t support the settlements at all. I think it’s harming everyone in the region.

Ben Max
But you’re not out there, people aren’t out there right now who say you’ve got to subject aid to Leahy Law vetting and strengthen it, and watching what you’re saying you disapprove of Israel’s actions in the West Bank or elsewhere — but people aren’t out there saying, or correct me if I’m wrong, you’re not out there saying [the U.S.] should be using leverage now to change that behavior, or are you?

Alex Bores
Well, I guess it depends what you mean by the term leverage there—

Ben Max
On aid.

Alex Bores
—but there’s many ways that we engage in foreign policy, in soft diplomacy and hard diplomacy, and I think we have an alliance with Israel that should continue, and even with allies, the same way within families, you can have tough conversations. Yes, the policy of the United States, forever, and insofar as we still have one, has been against the settlements in the West Bank. That should continue, that should be part of the conversation. If you want to talk about specific kinds of leverage, we can do that.

Alyssa Katz
Actually, I do want to ask about that, just to bring it full circle, which is Leahy Law — Congress does not control it, it’s actually a very technical thing that the State Department can do and has never used against Israel, and probably never will, I suspect. You would be in Congress, what would you be doing in Congress, if you’re concerned about the settlements, that falls in your court?

Alex Bores
It’s two separate pieces because Leahy Law is about abuses of human rights, and it’s different than the settlements. I think we should strengthen the Leahy Laws. That’s what I would do in Congress. I do think that the standards of who we’re supplying aid to should be done by career people and separated from politics. It should be technical experts that are really digging into it. We should improve those standards, improve the reporting, improve the transparency, all of those. On the settlements piece, again, I think a lot of that you’re talking about executive power and negotiations. Settler violence, I would support Jerry Nadler’s bill, that would codify Biden’s sanctions on the violent settlers in the West Bank. I think it was a mistake for Trump to rescind those, and I think it’s made it harder to reign them in.

Liena Žagare
Speaking of allies, enemies, and wars, do you think that government should invest more heavily in the Department of War? If so, what level of investment would be appropriate and why?

Alex Bores
Should the federal government invest more in the Department of War? Basically, Trump’s exceedingly high budget—

Liena Žagare
The Department of Defense.

Alex Bores
I shudder at the “Department of War” and try to use the old terminology. I think this is the first time a budget’s proposed over a trillion dollars in one year for the Department of Defense, a department that has never really passed a full audit. Individual branches, I think one has passed. The excessive spending on our military is not making us safer. General Mattis was the one who said, “If you don’t fund the State Department, you’re going to have to buy me more bullets.” The defunding of our soft power, of the experts in the State Department, makes us significantly less safe in a way that throwing more money at the military, I don’t think makes us safer.

We should be providing for our troops, we should be providing for our common defense, but I don’t see a need to have this massive increase that the Trump administration has put forward on the Department of Defense.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Tell us one thing that you would be fighting for in Washington that you align with Mayor Mamdani, something that you guys share, and something that you would tell him that he’s wrong about.

Alex Bores
Specifically federally?

Juan Manuel Benítez
Federally.

Alex Bores
I will fight to get childcare and childcare funds from the federal government. I will fight to build in Sunnyside Yards. I think getting more money for housing in New York is very important. I’ll fight for the funding for the Gateway Tunnel, 2nd Avenue Subway...I have been pleased with his overall focus on city issues and on delivery of services, and so that’s why I asked that, federally, because I think there’s been a difference there. He’s mostly stayed out of federal issues. I’m trying to think of explicit federal issues that he has been pushing on.

Juan Manuel Benítez
How about locally?

Alex Bores
The thing that was coming to mind was he said that the city should review its relationship with Cornell Tech because it has a partnership with Technion. That’s like injecting a federal issue into a city, or an international issue and, I think that’s wrong. I think Cornell Tech is a wonderful institution, and I said as such publicly.

Juan Manuel Benítez
I know that you’re talking about housing. What’s your policy in housing? When you go to Congress, also should we build more affordable housing on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side? What is your plan?

Alex Bores
Yes. Yes. We should build a lot more housing. I say that as someone running to represent the densest district in the country, so we’re doing our part and still. You need all kinds of housing: market, affordable, and public housing. There’s a lot that can be done. That includes adjusting the AMI [Area Median Income] calculation so that it actually reflects the cost of living. Obviously, New York, it [AMI] includes the region of Westchester and beyond that, because our rents are so high, it actually opts into a different calculation from HUD that is based on rents itself and not income. That needs to be adjusted so it’s actually affordable levels. The federal government gives private activity bonds to every state to encourage investments in affordable housing or other means. They are exempt from federal taxation, so you have a lower cost of capital that allows us to build.

New York uses our allocation of bonds every year. California uses their allocation of bonds every year. Lots of states don’t. This is already allocated money from the federal government. We should be able to use their unused cap. This is more for market[-rate], but for everything, the same way that the state will often encourage municipalities to liberalize zoning by funding infrastructure, by having grant matching programs, the federal government should be doing that to the states.

When it comes to public housing, we should be repealing the Faircloth Amendment. We should be fighting for as many dollars as we can to make direct repairs to NYCHA, which has $78 billion capital deferred maintenance budget. We should also be allowing well-capitalized public housing authorities to issue federally backed bonds so they can do it at a much lower rate, so that they can actually do more of the repairs themselves. I’ve probably gone on too long for this answer, but a lot more.

Nicole Gelinas
One of your opponents, Jack Schlossberg, is against the Chelsea Elliott [NYCHA] tear-down and rebuild. That part of the City Council district voted heavily in the election a couple weeks ago for the candidate who’s aligned with Schlossberg on that.

Alex Bores
Yes.

Nicole Gelinas
What’s your position on the [Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea] project?

Alex Bores
I think projects like that can be a great thing. They have to be approved by the residents, and I have concerns about the vote that was held among the residents. If the residents unambiguously support it, then absolutely, I think that’s a great thing to go forward.

Nicole Gelinas
More broadly, you said a couple times that your district is the densest in the country.

Alex Bores
I just want to make sure that we in the transcript note: population density.

Nicole Gelinas
My part of your district has increased its housing by 54% since the year 2000. Can a city densify itself into affordability? If so, what would be an example of a global city that has densified itself into affordability, in contrast to places that just build out sprawl, build cheap housing, and call it housing investment?

Alex Bores
Dallas, for example, has built out a lot of housing even as its population has grown an incredible amount. When you put in sprawl, like obviously Dallas has spread out and has an example of land. But study after study shows that if you are building more housing, if you are building more supply, that lowers the pressure on housing costs and on rent. When you artificially constrain that supply, that accelerates the increases in rent. We shouldn’t overpromise and say you can build enough that rents will go down, although there are isolated incidents where that has occurred.

The issue is how much and how quickly are those rents going up, and are they vastly exceeding the way wages are going up, as they have for decades, or are they actually in a realm that is manageable for people, where you can put down roots and grow your family and not be worried about being priced out.

Alyssa Katz
Do those rules apply in your district? You’re in a district where many people, certainly not most, have multiple homes, where New York is a place that is one of many that they have a foothold in, but they want to maintain a domicile in New York for all the reasons we all live here. Your district, is it exceptional, and how do you address the affordability issue given the kind of nature of global capital?

Alex Bores
I support the pied-à-terre tax [moving in Albany]. I’ve also proposed my own version of it years ago, that is there, that would put a tax on vacant apartments and use all of the money that is raised by that tax to lower other people’s property taxes, which actually helps future projects net out and helps reduce the pressure on rents. We’re not going to solve the housing crisis just in New York 12, but New York 12 will continue to do our part, as this is a city, state, and countrywide conversation.

Ben Smith
Did Mamdani make a mistake by attacking Ken Griffin personally in his presentation of the pied-à-terre tax?

Alex Bores
I actually haven’t seen the specific quote on Ken Griffin.

Ben Smith
He shot a social media video outside his home. Griffin is now saying he’ll basically slow down Citadel’s construction and building of jobs here. More broadly, there’s a tonal attack on like-named specific rich guys.

Alex Bores
I think generally we should not engage in tonal attacks. Maybe I should spend more time on social media, but I haven’t seen the specific presentation there. I think it should be about the policy.

Ben Max
Just on NYCHA, you said you have concerns about the [Fulton and Chelsea-Elliott] vote? Can you explain what your concerns about the vote are?

Alex Bores
Yes. The vote was conducted a while ago now, after the developers had spent a lot of time organizing, finding their supporters, taking people out to presentations, et cetera. It had 57% in favor, 43% against, and I think 26% turnout. Now granted, that might be higher than this [NY-12] election itself, but it’s not something I would tout as when it comes to, like, people’s apartments. When I talk to people involved in the project, I say, “Are you confident you still have support? If there were a snap election today, would you support that and win it?” It’s like, “No, no, no, we could never do that.”

You see the results of the City Council [District 3 special election], where it seems like support inside is changing. If both sides have equal representation and both people get to make their pitch, and there are organizers on both sides, and that’s a fair vote, then great, it should go forward.

Ben Max
I think there was a lot of attention on that and opposition leading up to the vote, too, no?

Alex Bores
I don’t think there was the same on either side, and I think the reactions since that I’ve heard suggest that people don’t feel like there is support there.

Juan Manuel Benítez
These are a really good example on housing development and fixing NYCHA. We can keep going on and on and on about technicalities and vote, but then nothing’s happening.

Alex Bores
I don’t think votes are technicalities.

Juan Manuel Benítez
No, but what is the alternative to the proposal right now in place? What do you offer?

Alex Bores
The proposal itself seems to be a good one. When you are talking about tearing down people’s homes, they get a vote on that. This is not about the neighbors getting votes, this is the people whose homes are getting torn down get to vote, and I just want to ensure that they are in support. If they are, then it’s a great project to go forward.

Juan Manuel Benítez
If they’re not?

Alex Bores
If they aren’t, it’s their homes.

Alyssa Katz
And I think the point is that their homes are falling apart. And to be clear, too. Absolutely. I think there’s one concern is that if you can’t do it there, where it’s high-value real estate, where they’re going to be providing each of those tenants and their homes back on that property once the project is built, and I believe they’re actually going to be able to move in, we’ll have to fact-check this, but right away. They will not have a disruption under the plan. If you cannot do it there, where you have that land value to unlock in Chelsea, where can you do that? You’ve talked about this as a model. It’s hard to see how that would be viable in a lot of places where land values are lower.

Alex Bores
The plan itself, the policy of it seems solid to me. I think that the tenants get a vote in that. If they were to vote it down, you look at the alternatives. I don’t want to say there’s definitely a thing that is better. I’m not advocating for a different plan, I think the plan from my eyes looks good.

Ben Smith
Isn’t this the point? I know you’re an Ezra Klein fan and listener. They were just talking about this, but it just seems like housing people who talk about wanting more housing than in every specific case, I think I find some complicated reason why, “Well, this one is different. This vote, they did have a vote, but maybe it wasn’t the right vote.” Sounds like that’s what you’re doing.

Alex Bores
No, I think the big difference here is we’re talking about the people themselves directly impacted. Often, what it is, is neighbors that are next door that don’t want construction voting to limit what you can do on your own property.

Ben Smith
Aren’t those also the people who live in rentals that would be replaced by larger rentals? Do you think broadly people who live in single-family, small rental units should be able to block larger buildings being built in those spaces?

Alex Bores
I think what we’re talking about here is public housing, is a promise that the government has made to people who are economically in the toughest situations that have the least political power, generally, that have the least economic power, generally. You probably want to be careful, given our history of railroading the concerns of people from both of these communities, to ensure that their concerns are heard. I think that is when you’re talking about public housing and government actions, having the people directly impacted living in those homes have a fair say, feels to me like an OK principle.

Nicole Gelinas
Speaking of teardowns, another project in your district, you mentioned Gateway Tunnel. There is concern with the current configuration of the tunnel that it would require the mass scale teardown of a thriving mixed-use and very dense block of apartment buildings, small businesses, large buildings, retail called Block 780. Would you support or oppose the teardown of Block 780 to do the Penn South project?

Alex Bores
To do as part of the Gateway Tunnel?

Nicole Gelinas
As you know, it’s complicated, but unless they reconfigure the tunnel, you’re going to be building a dead-end tunnel, unless— you’ve had elected officials say they’re against tearing down Block 780. Unless they do something now, that is the result they’re going to get.

Alex Bores
I haven’t dug into the specific block, so I’m happy to get back to you on that. I would say that generally, yes, when you are having infrastructure projects, when you’re having any new construction, that does involve changes. I think that is something that the city, the state and the federal government have to deal with and enable. I don’t know the specific project. I think there are times when there are calls for specific protection, like in public housing, but happy to get back to you on 780.

Liena Žagare
Going back very quickly to objections and teardowns. There is eminent domain in order to facilitate…construction, can that apply to the situation in NYCHA? Because a handful of tenants could hold up a massive project that would be in the interest of the bigger city?

Alex Bores
There’s two parts to that question.

Liena Žagare
Ideologically I think similar.

Alex Bores
Eminent domain is a power of the government that sometimes should be used. I don’t think it’s the first tool that the federal government should reach for, or a state should reach for. Again, this is what I’m calling for with NYCHA is a clean majority vote, not everyone expressing their consensus.

Ben Max
But a different one than the one that already occurred.

Alex Bores
I don’t think that was a clean vote.

Ben Max
Maybe this is easy for you to say since a lot of money’s being spent against you in this race, but if the money’s not equally spent in this race and you don’t win, are you going to say it’s an illegitimate—?

Alex Bores
It’s different. To say that I have concerns that I’m hearing from the tenants, that all of the data on current election results, all of the conversations I’ve had where people are afraid to even have a snap election, all of the conversations about how there was so much more organizing on one side than the other, and 26% turnout — I have questions. That is what I’m saying. I think generally these sorts of developments can go forward. I think they should be put to a vote, and it feels like in this one, what I have heard in talking to the tenants is a lot of concern that they don’t feel like that happened.

Alyssa Katz
I saw in Politico this morning that you got the endorsement of Our Revolution, the Bernie Sanders-linked PAC. I’m wondering what voters should make of that. Does that mean you sign on to everything that Our Revolution stands for? What is that about, and then why are you—

Alex Bores
I treat them like I treat every group that I pursue an endorsement, just like I treat every voter. I tell them what I agree with and what I disagree with, and they make their own decision. I’m very proud to have their support. I think you’ve seen Bernie really take the lead in communicating around AI risks and what that means for disempowering workers. I’ll leave to them to say exactly why they endorsed, but I think that [AI regulation] was a big piece of it. Happy to have them as part of the coalition. I have a broad coalition that doesn’t agree with themselves on everything, and I don’t agree with everyone who endorses on everything.

Ben Smith
I think we’ve held off the AI conversation long enough.

Juan Manuel Benítez
The mayor, when was the last time you spoke to the mayor, and have you spoken to him about getting an endorsement by him?

Alex Bores
No, I haven’t talked to him about an endorsement. I spoke to him briefly at the NAN event. That might’ve been the last time. I’m forgetting if I bumped into him at another event. I spoke to him at the 32BJ rally at Park Avenue. That’s where I spoke to him last. I welcome his endorsement, just like I welcome the endorsement of any voter in the district.

Ben Smith
That’s a little lukewarm.

Alex Bores
Given the opportunity to ask and, yes, I would love to have his endorsement, but I don’t expect that he will get involved in this race. Regardless of whether he does or doesn’t, I look forward to working with him as a partner in Congress, and working together where we agree, and when we disagree, settling that as colleagues the same way we did in the Assembly.

Nicole Gelinas
So, AI, both politics and policy — every day I get multiple text messages, and most days a flyer in the mail telling me what a terrible person you are, I would say—

Alex Bores
The fun thing is I’m a voter in the district. I get them too.

Nicole Gelinas
Oh, yes. If someone’s not paying attention to the race, this is the only thing they’ve heard so far in this race. Can you talk about the motives of this extremely negative anti-campaign? Do you think that any of your opponents support this negative campaigning against you?

Alex Bores
[laughs] That’s a question for them. The motivations are three Trump mega-donors who— Ben Horowitz, Marc Andreessen, who in the last filing was the RNC’s largest mega-donor, and Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, who, in the last filing, was Donald Trump’s single largest mega-donor — who don’t want there to be any regulation of AI whatsoever. I know they say differently, but their actions belie what they say. They say they want a national framework; part of my platform is a national framework. If that’s what they truly believe, they’d be supporting me.

Instead, they just want there to be no regulation whatsoever, and they want to punish anyone who tries. They’ve given quotes about how they’re trying to make an example out of me, and the idea is not just to win this race, but to send a message to any member of Congress that if they dare actually try to get something done in AI that goes against these extreme interests, that that will be a career killer. Some of the spending is directly to defeat me, some of it is just to seemingly cause pain. They have made the stakes of this race, which were not the stakes when I declared, but they have made the stakes of this race, whether anyone can stand up and try to regulate AI at all.

Ben Smith
You’ve also attracted, I think at this point, an enormous amount of spending on your behalf from profit, I think it’s the CEO of the crypto company Ripple. I think that now, at least, I read, it exceeds the spending against you. How should voters weigh that, and how should they feel about being involved in this proxy war and an issue that is not one of the top five, not right on top when you ask people, “What’s the top thing on your mind?” There’s two separate questions.

Alex Bores
The Leading the Future [PAC] came out of the gate saying that they were pledging to spend at least $10 million against me, and they wanted to make clear that regulating AI at all was anathema and something that no one should do. I talk to members of the delegation all the time, and in quiet conversation, they say, “Hey, we’re watching this race.” We saw House leadership just a few weeks ago give a, reportedly, give advice to marginal members in red to blue to not talk about AI ‘cause you’re going to attract so much spending against you if you do that.

I think it’s important to remember that Leading the Future, though it has $140 million in its bankroll, is a small minority in terms of its political viewpoints of Americans writ large or even the tech community itself. Others have come in in response to try to support and equalize—

Ben Smith
That’s obviously people associated with the other largest and most powerful AI company in the country, Anthropic, right?

Alex Bores
Yes, I also have support from almost all of the companies in terms of the employees. There is an ideological set of AI billionaires that think there should be no regulation whatsoever. That is a view held by 10% of Americans. There’s been broad support for the view that we should have some say in the development of AI.

Ben Smith
Just to move to the substance, there’s this semi-satirical measure called p-doom, the probability of the apocalypse. What is your p-doom?

Alex Bores
It is high enough that it should be a real concern of the federal government. I think a lot of the debates on—

Ben Smith
Like 5%, 10%?

Alex Bores
I wouldn’t put a number on it, but I think a lot of the debates on it, is it 5%, is it 10%, is it 50%, is it 90%? If your chance of human extinction is measurable in percentage points, the federal government should be thinking about it and acting on it.

Ben Smith
Do you think it is in integers?

Alex Bores
Yes. The median AI researcher, when polled, puts the risk of extinction at 10%.

Ben Smith
Do you think that’s reasonable?

Alex Bores
I think so.

Ben Smith
There’s that recent, Eliezer Yudkowsky book, If Anybody Builds It, Everybody Dies. Do you associate yourself with that? Is it basically your point of view on this?

Alex Bores
No. I thought it was a very interesting book, and I read it with interest. I think I have some disagreements on the exact calculations there. I think what the vast majority of people agree on is that this technology is moving very quickly, comes with massive amounts of risk, and we need to have a government functioning and regulating it if we’re going to look for the benefit for everyone.

Ben Smith
Can I ask one more on this, because I think the most pressing kind of municipal issue around AI, around autonomy, is Waymo and is driverless vehicles. I enjoyed you on the Ezra Klein podcast, but I was not totally satisfied with your answer on Waymo, which is you’d once been in one, it rained, and you didn’t like it because it stopped. I don’t know. If it was a sunny day, but it seems like politicians’ consumer preferences are a funny way to regulate.

Alex Bores
I wasn’t expressing a consumer preference.

Ben Smith
I am curious, it sounds like you would like to block it here. There are other cities full of insane people and hills, like San Francisco, where it seems to be quite a popular service that consumers like. I’m curious, I just did feel like I didn’t understand why you would say to consumers, “Here’s a thing you might like. I don’t personally like it.” And I feel like, what’s the logic for blocking it?

Alex Bores
No. What I said is that my experience with it and what I have seen shows it’s not ready for the urban environment of New York right now, in that my one-time riding a Waymo was a little bit of rain in L.A. Every Waymo in the city shut down, pulled over to the side of the road. Thankfully, there was parking on the side of the road, which is another thing that isn’t here. We were all stuck for 10, 12 minutes while the remote drivers came in and got everyone out. If that happens in New York City, if you have mass deployment of Waymos and when it rains, they all shut down in the middle of the street, that’s going to have impacts on everyone else.

Ben Smith
I’m sorry that happened to you, but this is a technology that is in wide use in several cities and has been for years.

Alex Bores
Where there’s very little rain, and there’s a lot of parking. Listen, I think it should continue to test. I’m not against that. I think it is coming. I think it doesn’t seem ready yet, but it is coming, and we should continue to test it, and it will be here. I’m not saying there will never be autonomous vehicles. They will come, and I think it will come with many benefits when it does. We see it coming down the pike. Let’s start preparing now in terms of job displacement, in terms of traffic regulation, and all of that. You’re asking me right now if I have confidence that if they were mass-deployed, they’d be a good thing? Absolutely not.

Ben Smith
What do you think about the job displacement, traffic regulation stuff? How would you structure that?

Alex Bores
How would I structure…?

Ben Smith
New York’s the most important market in the world for any car-sharing service. What regulations would you suggest?

Alex Bores
I’m struggling with like—

Ben Max
On driver displacements, what else…How would you want to regulate driverless cars?

Alex Bores
I don’t think any place has nailed this yet. I think this is still policy that we’re developing. I saw Brad Lander’s proposal about a high license fee. Maybe there’s something there. There are proposals I’ve talked about elsewhere of where you still require a medallion for a generation in the transition, so it’s not an immediate wipeout for people that have invested life savings there. We’ve really struggled with what global trade did to some of our cities, de-industrialization, job replacement, job training didn’t solve that. We missed it there. I don’t think there’s a magic easy bullet here. I think this is a tough question where you’re going to need a lot of action at city and state levels, trying different things and seeing what works. Anyone that promises you that we have that figured out is lying to you. That’s why I’m saying it’s not ready yet. We know it’s coming. Now is the time to be having these conversations and preparing.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Very quickly, because we were talking about how AI is going so fast, the progress and all that. When it comes to regulations, you get into Congress May 2027, a year from now, if you’re not elected to Congress, what does it look like?

Alex Bores
[laughs]

Juan Manuel Benítez
If somebody like you is not elected to Congress…

Alex Bores
Yes.

Juan Manuel Benítez
No, that’s it. You’re trying to instill this fear; we need to regulate and regulate.

Alex Bores
To be clear, I’m not trying to instill fear. I use AI all the time. I see lots of benefits that can come from AI. My mom has multiple sclerosis. She’s doing great, but autoimmune diseases are some of the toughest for modern medicine to deal with. I’m really excited about what AI could unlock there. I am not trying to instill fear or roll it back. I think there’s three sides in this debate, and I’ll get specifically to what it looks like in a year.

I think there’s three sides in this debate, which is 10% of Americans that want to pretend AI doesn’t exist and put the genie back in the bottle. I empathize with the fear, but I don’t think that’s the way forward. 10% represented by Leading the Future that just want to let it rip and don’t care how many people it hurts, they just care how fast it moves. 80% of Americans, that I count myself in, that see some benefits, see some risks, see some harms, and just think we should have a say in that. The battle lines in this race right now are, do we get that say at all? There’s lots of tough coalitional questions to come on exactly which we prioritize and when. It’s why I was so focused on putting out my AI framework with 43 specific points, and then following that up with an AI dividend plan.

I want to dive into those details. Fundamentally, the question right now is, do we get a say or not? When you say, “What does it look like in May of 2027 [if I’m not elected]?” I actually think, again, there’s the impact that I will have myself in Congress as the second Democrat ever elected to Congress with a degree in computer science, as someone that has experience standing up to them and fighting and legislating, and being able to have those member-to-member conversations.

That will be one impact. Perhaps the larger impact [if I lose] will be every other member of Congress looking at this race and saying, “Oh, shoot, if I actually try to regulate AI, that will end my career, and so I’ll go on podcasts and say nice things, and I’ll put out press releases, but I won’t do the hard work of passing a bill because that’s what got Alex targeted, and that’s what, what ended things here.” I think May 2027 is [potentially] a world where AI is continuing to be controlled by five billionaires, insofar as they still have control, which is a whole other question. The American people don’t get to direct the evolution, the direction of this technology.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Do you have any paid membership for any of these models?

Alex Bores
Yes.

Juan Manuel Benítez
OpenAI?

Alex Bores
I used to use OpenAI, but then, when Chris Lehane got hired and his master of the dark arts, I figured everything I was typing in was going straight into his inbox. I canceled ChatGPT, and I pay for Claude, and through our Google Drive stuff, we pay for Gemini as well.

Ben Smith
Oh, the unedited version.

Liena Žagare
What level of government should be regulating AI? State, federal?

Alex Bores
Yes. To be clear, most of it should be done at the federal level. I think having one national framework on most of these questions is what makes sense. Obviously, there are some things that are restricted to the states. States have the right to regulate their own elections. I’ve passed two bills about the use of AI to create political ads. That will probably still be a lot of state action. Why municipalities use AI internally, how they use it internally, will be decided by municipalities, et cetera. Also, in any technology that’s as fast-moving as AI, states and cities tend to be able to move much quicker.

They are the laboratories of democracy, as is said. You have 50 of them. They pass far more bills than Congress. There’ll be a lot of experimentation at the city and state level, and the policies that don’t work should be rolled back, and the ones that do should become national. Ultimately, the best place overall is at the federal government, but there’ll be action at all of these levels.

Nicole Gelinas
Should states be able to pass regulation that is stronger than federal regulation?

Alex Bores
In most cases. It depends on the specifics of it.

Nicole Gelinas
What about the RAISE Act? What’s your one-sentence, like, success pitch on the RAISE Act? Is it good enough, and why is that?

Alex Bores
It doesn’t go far enough.

Nicole Gelinas
What good did it do, and what’s wrong?

Alex Bores
It is the strongest AI safety law in the country, and I’m embarrassed by that fact on behalf of the country.

Nicole Gelinas
In what way is it strong? If someone doesn’t know anything about AI and what’s the problem here and what’s the solution, like what did it do?

Alex Bores
It took a number of steps beyond California’s SB53 to require more disclosure, more detailed disclosure, more detailed safety plans and steps and responsibilities on behalf of the frontier labs in how they test their own models, in what they have to disclose to government if and when things go wrong, and set up a whole new agency within New York to continue to gather data and study and suggest additional changes in the future to ensure that everyone is kept safe.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think that’s a model for autonomous vehicles in the state and city as well, these reporting requirements, because right now all we have to go on is anecdotes in New York? There is no data reported.

Alex Bores
I’m absolutely a data guy. That’s to my point, it should continue to be tested, and data gathered. In general, I always try to lead with how to measure a bill based on data and reporting that.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think the governor was scared of the anti-AI regulation money and she watered down the RAISE Act?

Alex Bores
That is a question for the governor. The red lines we got back from the executive did significantly water down the bill. We got to a place where the final version is the strongest in the country. It is weaker than the bill that we passed through the Legislature, and weaker still than versions that I proposed earlier. Still, it’s the strongest in the country.

Alyssa Katz
Speaking of the governor…She’s announcing a budget deal right now—

Alex Bores
As we speak.

Alyssa Katz
—as we speak. One of the major concerns about AI is the energy usage of data centers, right?

Alex Bores
Yes.

Alyssa Katz
I believe also that this budget deal is expected to significantly roll back New York’s Climate Act, which set targets for greenhouse gas reduction. I know that you don’t, as an Assembly member, get to do a line-item vote on anything in the budget, you’re going to vote the whole budget up or down. I am wondering what you think of what has been reported about the changes to the climate law and what you might do about them in the Legislature.

Alex Bores
I’m really upset about the changes that have been proposed. I think they’re moving us in the wrong direction. I think there was also very confusing pitching about it, where initially it was, “Oh, this will save New Yorkers $4,100,” and then later, “Oh no, actually it won’t.” I read this morning that we’re the first state, if this goes forward, to actually enact into law a rollback of a climate law, which is not a proud moment for the state. I think we need to be stepping into this fight, encouraging renewable energy, encouraging upgrades to the grid moving forward. To roll that back is the wrong direction.

Alyssa Katz
To push back a little bit on that.

Alex Bores
Please.

Alyssa Katz
The point of the burden on individual households while the data centers are letting it rip, like, what do you do about the data centers so that the burden of addressing climate change doesn’t strictly fall on renters, owners—

Alex Bores
This is one of the missed points of this whole conversation, which is — I’ll get specifically to data centers, but our grid is horribly outdated, and we have been trying to upgrade it for decades. We have lost tens of thousands of jobs in the state because we couldn’t provide enough power, mostly upstate with it, but I’ve talked to entrepreneurs in the city that have said that their biggest challenge is power. And the only solutions that have been put forward generally have been the state directly pays for it, which is taxpayer money, which is you and me, or the utilities put forward and then take a 10% CapEx on top of that, and utility payers pay, which again, you and me.

Here comes an industry with, for all intents and purposes, unlimited private capital that is really willing to pay for speed. I don’t think this can be done on just the state level, because you could play states off each other. I think at the federal level, we should be setting up a system where if these frontier labs agree to a very high percentage renewable energy, you probably can’t say 100%, but some very high percentage, they pay for all of their direct upgrades to the grid and the interconnect to the grid, and pay an additional premium on top of that. Anytime you’re hooking up new load to the system, you have to increase your base load and your margin and all of that. They’re paying additional money to upgrade the entire grid, then you get moved to the front of the permitting line, and you get moved to the front of the interconnection queue.

By doing that, we’re also pushing back your competitors’ data centers that are going there. You could set up these incentives where the only data centers that get built for the near-term, or if the incentives are raw enough, all of them are ones that are leaving the grid more powered, more reliable, and crucially, greener. It is a narrow path, but I do think to leave that opportunity on the table and not try to make that happen is a climate mistake.

Liena Žagare
Is there a level of immigration that’s politically unsustainable in this country?

Alex Bores
Is there a level of immigration that is politically unsustainable?

Liena Žagare
Yes.

Alex Bores
Call me naïve and an idealist, but I don’t think we should be primarily making our decisions on immigration based on what’s politically feasible. I realize that that comes in as part of any elected official’s calculation, but immigrants have made our city, state, and country great.

Ben Smith
What’s the appropriate level of immigration then, like what percentage of America should be foreign-born in an ideal world?

Alex Bores
Our country is made stronger by people wanting to come here. Our country is made stronger by having people reach for the American dream. Such a disproportionate share of our entrepreneurs are immigrants. Our population as a whole would be decreasing without immigration. I think in general, we make it far too hard to come to this country. I think we should be making it easier in lots of ways. I don’t know that I have a specific level in mind, but I think it’s far more than we have right now.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think that Palantir is good for America or bad for America?

Alex Bores
[laughs] Palantir leadership has thrown in their lots with what I call a fascist regime. I think the work that they are enabling now is bad for America.

Nicole Gelinas
What was your goal in going to work there, and do you think you accomplished that goal?

Alex Bores
I was 24. I don’t know that I had a grand goal, but—

Nicole Gelinas
I had goals when I took jobs at 24.

Alex Bores
Fair. I don’t know that I had a grand, like, this is the goal, other than this was during the Obama administration. I’m a Democrat. I believe that government can and should be a force for good, but that also means we have the burden of proving it. Here was a company who was saying, and its leader was very forcibly saying that their goal was to help government actually work and accomplish goals on behalf of people.

I ended up working with the Department of Justice to go after the opioid epidemic and shut down pill-mills, to go after the big banks for their role in the Great Recession and recover $20 billion for taxpayers, to help the VA better staff their hospitals and provide veterans with care, to help the CDC better track epidemics. It was making government actually function and deliver on its promises.

Ben Smith
As a member of a Democratic congressional majority, would you try to cut back on Palantir contracts with the federal government?

Alex Bores
I think generally, who we contract with should be done universally. I wouldn’t go in targeting one company or another, but I do think that every person, company, entity that has been involved in the incredibly illegal things that we see ICE doing right now should be part—

Ben Smith
Do you think Palantir specifically faces legal jeopardy?

Alex Bores
I think there should be investigations into the illegality that is occurring, and that we should follow those investigations wherever they lead.

Ben Max
Just to come back to some of your proposed regulations. I know we only have a few more minutes. You have a lot in your platform around data privacy, and I’m just curious if you could talk a little bit about that because I think a lot of Americans at this point are just like, “The ship has sailed. Everybody’s got my information on everything.” Not everybody thinks this way, but how do you think about that, and do you worry at all that a lot of regulation of data privacy could lead to higher user fees because companies are offering free tools and services because they get to use our data?

Alex Bores
On the first part of the question, there’s a lot that is out there. There’s even more data that all these companies want on each of us. I’m glad we’re regulating data brokers in the state budget this year. I think that is a good thing going forward. I think that should be done federally. I think people’s data also changes over time. They know your address now, but you want protection on movement in the future. There are some things that don’t change that aren’t really out there, like your iris, and let’s protect that before that becomes out there and broad.

The need is still very much there and only increasing in the age of AI, because one of the things that AI is best at is de-anonymizing previously anonymized data. There’s a whole new challenge that is coming that we need to get ahead of as well. In general, there are 20 states that have privacy laws, I believe. None of them have had any of these services shut down and charge more. Obviously, Europe has a much stronger privacy law. There haven’t been huge shutdowns of services there. Could theoretically you design a privacy law that is so strong that there’s no way? Yes, but there is wide room to be protecting Americans’ privacy without leading to mass shutdowns of any of these platforms.

Juan Manuel Benítez
What’s your housing situation? Do you rent, own?

Alex Bores
I own my apartment. As we discussed on your podcast, I’m in a junior four. I plan to never leave it. It is just enough room for our one kid, and that is all we are having. We had a fun exchange on that.

Juan Manuel Benítez
You’re young. You could be having a really high-paying job right now. With your degree and your experience and with all these AI that you’re very well versed on, why do you want to do this? Is this like an ego thing like it happens with a lot of politicians, that they just have this thing that they want to be an elected official? What is this about?

Alex Bores
I love the work of government. I get paid to think about and act on how to make my city, state, and hopefully country better. What is better than that? I love the act of making a difference. I’ve passed 32 bills at the state level, which is about the same amount Congress as a whole passed in 2023, because I dive in and figure out how to get to a solution and actually get something across the finish line. There’s no better feeling than that. When Jerry announced his retirement, I did have every reason to just stay at the state level. I’m getting things done. I was ranked the most effective new legislator in New York City. We had just had our kid.

There were certain challenges that really can only be settled at the federal level. The threats to our democracy being a really big one, and the threats and opportunities from tech and AI. The criticism of the RAISE Act that I actually agree with is, “This shouldn’t be settled in Albany.” Here’s the opportunity at an incredibly fast-changing time to jump in and be able to really change an issue in a way that’s better for everyone, along with the threats to our democracy. I grew up proud of government work, proud of this country, and I look at my kid’s eyes, and it’s like, what are the stories I’m going to tell him about democracy? Given those threats, I knew I had to do this.

Ben Max
Other than what you’ve said about your background in AI and regulation and all that — all that separate — is there something you would say is the biggest difference between putting yourself in Congress versus Micah Lasher? You’re both pretty into the weeds on a lot of policy, seemingly share a lot of the same politics. Any difference you’d point to other than your expertise in AI and related matters that you’ve talked about at length?

Alex Bores
My effectiveness in office. Micah’s passed seven bills. I’ve passed 32. I’ve passed 10 this year alone.

Ben Max
Is more bills always good?

Alex Bores
My bills are.

The fact that I have extensive private and public sector experience, whereas Micah’s largely been in the public sector, other than a lobbying stint. The fact that I think I’m the only one in the race broadly that’s had a top secret security clearance. I come in with a little more of the understanding of what happens there. And the fact that in a race where we’re all promising to fight Donald Trump, I am the only one that Donald Trump’s mega-donors are spending millions of dollars against. They are telling you who they’re afraid of. If you’re someone, like there are many in this district that think, “Oh, you guys are really close,” or broadly there’s a real binary choice in terms of what every other member of Congress will learn from this race in standing up to AI or not.

The last little bit I would say is when you’re one of 435 members, you need to know how to build coalitions both within your party and outside of it. Micah has a long institutional history in New York politics and has a lot of long endorsements to reflect that. The people that have seen both of us operate have overwhelmingly chosen me: 12 out of 14 Assembly members who have endorsed in this race have endorsed me.

Beyond that, I’ve proven very adept at working with the other party, which is not something you need to do at the state level, but is something you need to do in Congress, whether that’s my leadership of the bipartisan Future Caucus, whether that’s the fact that every single one of those 32 bills got at least one Republican vote, and that includes bills I didn’t expect to. I put forward gun bills that I didn’t expect to get those votes. I put forward a gender identity bill I didn’t expect to, but I always had the conversation with the other side. I always reached out to the ranking member, reached out to the minority floor leader, talked about what I was trying to do, what their feedback was. I’ve proven adept at working across the aisle, which again, you don’t need to do in Albany, you will need to do to be effective for this district.

Ben Smith
Then, I guess, maybe a final question on a similar front, which is, do you think that Jack Schlossberg is qualified to be in Congress?

Alex Bores
I’m here to talk about myself.

Ben Smith
You’ve been so open on so many topics, including on Micah Lasher. I’m surprised that you would be so critical of Micah and—

Alex Bores
I wasn’t critical. I was asked for differences. I think he’s a friend and an ally in many things.

Ben Smith
Let’s change the way that I framed that. How would you compare your qualifications to Jack Schlossberg’s?

Alex Bores
I’ve had a job in the last two years.

Ben Smith
OK. Well, thank you. This was great.

Everyone
Thank you.

Alex Bores
Thank you.