Tommy Vitolo Interviews 4th District Congressional Candidate- Jake Auchincloss [0:00-4:35]

Good afternoon and welcome. I'm representative Tommy Vittolo and I'm here with Newton City Councillor and Massachusetts Congressional District 4 candidate Jake Arconcloss and we've got another great interview today. Jake, thanks for coming. I know you're so busy and also a new father which is marvelous. I'm absolutely tickled for you and so let's let's really dive right in. Tell us what you've been up to since like from birth until early last year. Tell us a little bit about where you're coming from. Well, first time you, thanks for having me on. As you said, this is the home stretch of the campaign busy times, thrilled to be here. I'm a Marine veteran city Councillor in Newton and recently a new dad in fact, I'm actually camping out in the nursery right now for this interview that the houses get a little bit busy these last couple of days and this was my one place where I could be sure that we would have quiet. So what's my best story for the last 32 years? I grew up in a family that valued science and public service. On my dad's side, we had a tradition of serving in the Roosevelt and Kennedy administration's my band mother used to talk about politics and her service and her family service and politics and something she was proud of. And having every Sunday night dinner with her for years and years, that sort of stick with you as a little kid. On my mom's side, a legacy of science and a valuing expertise of doing basic research and of creating cures. And those two issues to me science and public service are deeply intertwined. I think here in Massachusetts, that's particularly salient as we are the biomedical capital of the world. And as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic in which a vaccine is going to be our best way out. Myself, I never had any direct desire to go into healthcare after I graduated from Harvard in 2010. I joined the Marines. The Marines had sent my grandfather to college during the darkest hours of World War II, a poor skinny 17 year old Jewish boy at a time when Jews were being exterminated globally, was sent to Purdue to study engineering by the US Marine Corps. Changed his life, allowed him to achieve the American dream and when I graduated from college in 2010 in the midst of the Surge to Afghanistan, I felt like it was my turn to get back. Surge the tour as the two commander in Helm and Province served the tour as a special operations commander in Panama, came home. And like many Massachusetts grads found myself to be an Obama baker or a voter. I supported Governor Baker's campaign in 2014. I think he's done a good job in COVID response. And he's demonstrated the kind of science driven leadership and governance that we need in this crisis. I myself pursued public service at the local level as a city councilor in Newton over the last five years been a leader on transportation, the environment, housing, immigration, education, issues that are deeply meaningful to me personally and deeply meaningful to me politically as someone who wants to go to Congress and make real change to reinvent transportation through a green new deal to become a country that honors its immigrants as opposed to demonizes them and to become a country where we have an inclusive and green economic recovery. So that's a lot to do in Newton and that's a lot to think about nationally. You got in early to this race. You didn't even wait around for COVID to happen. Can you sort of walk us through your decision to get in the race and then maybe just a minute or two about how you reflect on that decision when COVID broke out and the world of campaigning got very different very quickly. I'm running for Congress because we're a nation in crisis. We were a nation in crisis in October when I first announced because this president's dangerous and hateful agenda has divided us, has threatened our republic and has set this country backwards both domestically and on the global stage. And the COVID pandemic has exacerbated that crisis and accentuated the stakes for 2020. We need people in Washington DC who have led in crisis, who have led in collaboration, who have led through uncertainty. And in the Marines, in business and local government, I've done all three of those things. I'm someone who knows that it gets up done when the stakes are high and the stress is high. And I'll do so in the next term of Congress.