Boston Globe: Only four months on the job, and Congressman Gabe Amo has his hands full

US Representative Gabe Amo was a bite-and-a-half into his Buffalo chicken wrap from Gregg’s on North Main Street in Providence when he offered a profound takeaway from his recent trip to the Munich Security Conference and his role on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“To think about the power that an individual voter in Pennsylvania has on the global order is something I had not really conceived,” Amo, a Democrat who worked for President Joe Biden before running in a special election for Rhode Island’s First Congressional District last year, told me. 

At this point, I expected Amo to launch into the all-too-robotic Democratic pitch for why President Joe Biden should be reelected against former president Donald Trump in November. Something like, the “he may be old, but he asks such tough questions to his staff” line that we hear on the Sunday talk shows every week.

Instead, he explained that the world leaders he spoke with in Munich and the people he interacts with as a member of two Foreign Affairs subcommittees -- one on Europe and the other on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia -- are gravely concerned about Trump’s threats against NATO allies and his admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“They’re worried about Trump,” Amo said. “They’re all worried about Trump. The entire through-line is, ‘People of America, please don’t let us down.’”

So how worried is Amo that Trump could beat his former boss?

“I can’t fathom it,” he said.

As he sees it, the decision before voters will crystalize in the coming months as they realize there almost certainly won’t be a superhero candidate who swoops in to wrestle the Democratic nomination from Biden or the Republican nomination from Trump.

At the same time, Amo said Democrats like him need to make the case that voters are better off than they were four years ago, with an economy that is humming and surprisingly low unemployment numbers, even if inflation has increased the cost of… well, everything.

In an alternative world, Amo acknowledges he would probably have shifted from the White House to working on the campaign, helping to make the case for Biden in swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He still plans to be heavily involved in the campaign, even as he runs for reelection himself for the first time (he’s basically a shoo-in to win).

“I’m now a new type of resource that they can use,” Amo, the 36-year-old son of West African immigrants, said. “I can go to parts of this country – Philadelphia, Milwaukee, you name it – and sit in rooms and verify the capacity of the president to finish the job he started.”

Indeed, it has been a whirlwind couple of months for Amo, who won a hotly contested Democratic primary last September and then cruised to victory in the general election. He said it hasn’t been easy to fill the shoes of former representative David Cicilline, who was known for keeping a crowded schedule both in the First District and in Washington, D.C.

Amo took Cicilline’s seat on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia Subcommittee – Cicilline was the ranking Democrat – so he’s spent much of his first few months in Congress getting a grasp on the conflict in Gaza and being thrust into debates about funding wars in Gaza as well as Ukraine. He initially took heat from some of his more progressive constituents for his pro-Israel stance, but he is now condemning the loss of innocent Palestinian lives.

He’s hopeful a peaceful solution can be reached, one that doesn’t include Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remaining in power.

“I would say I don’t think him being around much longer is going to aid the lasting peace that we deserve,” Amo said.

Closer to home, Amo also inherited Cicilline’s district office on Main Street in Pawtucket, but he said he may have to find new space because a charter school is planning to move into the building. He said he would like to find an office close to I-95 in the district.

Of course, I couldn’t let him finish his lunch without discussing the closure of the westbound side of the Washington Bridge, which is in his district and has paralyzed the commutes of many of his constituents. He pointed out that businesses also have been harmed by the closure.

Amo said he has talked directly with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about the bridge, and “everyone is aware of the situation.”

“They’re spending trillions of dollars right now,” Amo said. “But we better get some of those resources. That’s our delegation’s job.”