Latest / Pod Save America / 2020: Bill de Blasio on taxing the rich and rooting for the Red Sox

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2020: Bill de Blasio on taxing the rich and rooting for the Red Sox · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Lovett. On Friday,
0:22
Speaker 1: I sat down with New York Mayor and presidential candidate
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Speaker 1: Bill de Blasio for the latest installment of our series
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Speaker 1: interviewing all the Democratic presidential candidates We talked about why
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Speaker 1: he's staying in the race, the work he's done in
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Speaker 1: New York City, the ill-fated Amazon deal, his progressive record,
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Speaker 1: and why, as the mayor of New York, he's still
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Speaker 1: a Red Sox fan. It was a fascinating conversation. He's
0:43
Speaker 1: very tall. Check it out. He's a Democratic candidate for
0:52
Speaker 1: president and the mayor of New York City. Bill de Blasio,
0:55
Speaker 1: welcome back to the pod. Thank you, John. You were
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Speaker 1: a guest when we were in Brooklyn. That was, I believe,
1:01
Speaker 1: our very first live show. It was very cool. We
1:03
Speaker 1: had no idea what we were doing. We didn't know
1:06
Speaker 1: that we needed to have chairs in advance, that there
1:07
Speaker 1: wasn't someone to be in charge of chairs. The chairperson
1:10
Speaker 1: is very important. We've professionalized. Now you're in our studio.
1:14
Speaker 1: Thank you. You've seen us from the very beginning. Now
1:17
Speaker 1: you're here. You're running the biggest city in the country.
1:20
Speaker 1: You can start every day with an edible bagel. You're
1:23
Speaker 1: the first Democratic mayor. You're the first Democratic mayor to
1:26
Speaker 1: be reelected in New York City since Ed Koch more
1:28
Speaker 1: than 30 years ago. Then a little over a year
1:31
Speaker 1: into your second term, you decide to run for president. Yep. Why?
1:35
Speaker 2: Because the country is just not working for a lot
1:38
Speaker 2: of people. I mean, look, it became clearer and clearer
1:42
Speaker 2: to me, even though we've been able to make big
1:44
Speaker 2: changes in New York, that we can't make the changes
1:48
Speaker 2: we need for people all over this country without a very,
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Speaker 2: very different approach in Washington. America is not working for
1:54
Speaker 2: working people. That's just the bottom line. The government at
1:57
Speaker 2: this point is captive to the 1%. And to change
2:02
Speaker 2: it is not just a matter of having good ideas.
2:04
Speaker 2: Good ideas are crucial. Good policy positions are crucial. But
2:08
Speaker 2: understanding how to actually make big changes and fight the
2:13
Speaker 2: opposition that comes with that. That's what I've been doing
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Speaker 2: for six years in what I think we would all
2:19
Speaker 2: agree is one of the toughest environments in the country.
2:22
Speaker 1: And it works.
2:23
Speaker 2: The approach I've taken is progressive, bold, sharp, Not half measures.
2:29
Speaker 2: I said we're going to get pre-K for all our kids.
2:31
Speaker 1: We did that.
2:32
Speaker 2: I said we were going to give people paid sick
2:34
Speaker 2: leave who didn't have it.
2:35
Speaker 1: We did it.
2:36
Speaker 2: I said that folks who don't have health insurance should
2:38
Speaker 2: have a guarantee of health care. We're doing that right
2:40
Speaker 2: now in New York. Anyone who doesn't have health insurance
2:43
Speaker 2: will have access to a primary care doctor at our
2:45
Speaker 2: public hospitals and clinics. These are not easy things to do,
2:49
Speaker 2: especially on the scale of a city of 8.6 million people.
2:52
Speaker 2: But I've been doing it. And look, I look at
2:55
Speaker 2: other candidates with great appreciation and admiration, but they just
2:58
Speaker 2: have not done that. They have not had to take
3:00
Speaker 2: the ideas and put them into action. So I'm running
3:02
Speaker 2: because I believe I can actually bring these changes to people.
3:05
Speaker 1: So is that, you know, you share a lot ideologically
3:08
Speaker 1: with Elizabeth Warren, I think with Bernie Sanders. They have
3:11
Speaker 1: mounted a campaign based around taking on structural economic challenges
3:15
Speaker 1: on recentering power in the working class, very similar to
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Speaker 1: the message you're arguing. Is this an implicit critique of
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Speaker 1: those candidates that while you share a lot of the
3:24
Speaker 1: same ideas, they don't know how to do what you
3:27
Speaker 1: know how to do? That seems to be the difference.
3:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I can honestly admire my colleagues, and Bernie
3:35
Speaker 2: and Elizabeth are two people I profoundly admire, but also
3:39
Speaker 2: say that I bring a different set of skills, a
3:42
Speaker 2: different history, a different approach. And the issue always is,
3:46
Speaker 2: you know something about the presidency. This is a job
3:51
Speaker 2: that On one level, no one could be prepared for it, right?
3:55
Speaker 2: But on the other level, you could say that it
3:57
Speaker 2: really helps to walk through the fire. It really helps
3:59
Speaker 2: to have run something, to have gone through the challenges,
4:02
Speaker 2: to have taken ideas, put them into practice, dealt with
4:04
Speaker 2: the opposition. I mean, one of the key things you
4:06
Speaker 2: learn as a leader is you are guaranteed a lot
4:09
Speaker 2: of folks are going to try and stop you, especially
4:11
Speaker 2: if you're trying to make big changes, especially if you're
4:13
Speaker 2: calling for higher taxes on the wealthy or a real
4:17
Speaker 2: redistribution in this country. A lot of folks, very powerful folks,
4:20
Speaker 2: will try and stop you. You've got to know how
4:22
Speaker 2: to deal with that, and not just theoretically, but from
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Speaker 2: real life. So I argue that, hey, there's no greater crucible,
4:29
Speaker 2: there's no greater proving ground than New York City. The
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Speaker 2: job is called the second toughest job in America, being
4:36
Speaker 2: mayor of New York City. And as a progressive, and
4:40
Speaker 2: I was one of the folks who, I'm very proud
4:42
Speaker 2: of this, you know, in the wave of folks who
4:45
Speaker 2: came out of the post-Occupy movement era, I was one
4:49
Speaker 2: of the first to run on a bold platform that
4:53
Speaker 2: said we have to go at income inequality just right
4:57
Speaker 2: at the heart of it. We cannot accept a country
4:59
Speaker 2: with this kind of stratification, nor a city like New York.
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Speaker 2: And I was not supposed to be able to win.
5:05
Speaker 2: I was an underdog's underdog. But I was really blunt
5:08
Speaker 2: with people about we had ended up in a situation
5:10
Speaker 2: that was unacceptable and change was needed. And I was
5:13
Speaker 2: able to motivate a lot of people to believe that
5:15
Speaker 2: change could happen. And lo and behold, create that momentum,
5:18
Speaker 2: that constituency, that energy for actual change. Knowing how to
5:22
Speaker 2: do that, living that, is a very different reality than
5:25
Speaker 2: being a legislator. And God bless the legislators, but I
5:28
Speaker 2: bring something different to the equation. Why do you think
5:31
Speaker 2: right now, you know, you did not make the third debate.
5:35
Speaker 2: I think you had a great debate performance, a little aggro,
5:38
Speaker 2: but you made your case. You've been campaigning in Iowa.
5:42
Speaker 1: There are a bunch of candidates who did not make
5:44
Speaker 1: the next round of debates who said, you know what,
5:46
Speaker 1: this is my moment to step aside. You're not doing that.
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Speaker 1: It seems to me that if you're going to continue
5:50
Speaker 1: in the race, you have to do something different to
5:52
Speaker 1: make that message reach people. Are you thinking about that? Oh, yeah.
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Speaker 2: John, I think one part of it is, and it's
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Speaker 2: very interesting, the opportunities I've had in the month of
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Speaker 2: August to speak to the American people directly are far
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Speaker 2: superior to the opportunities I had before that. This shows
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Speaker 2: a great example. So many people.
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Speaker 1: Well, you should be proud of it. You're going to
6:16
Speaker 1: reach so many people. So many people.
6:18
Speaker 2: You've come a long way since that humble first appearance
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Speaker 2: in Brooklyn. You bet. But I went on Hannity as
6:27
Speaker 2: a very explicit act to go and confront him and
6:29
Speaker 2: challenge him.
6:30
Speaker 1: I thought you did a good job on Hannity. Thank you.
6:32
Speaker 2: And a lot of people appreciated the notion of going
6:34
Speaker 2: into the lion's den and actually speaking to the Fox
6:37
Speaker 2: listeners and viewers who are not necessarily... lost to Democrats
6:42
Speaker 2: and progressives on many levels. And we should never separate,
6:45
Speaker 2: we should be able to separate the network from the
6:46
Speaker 2: people who watch it, a lot of whom are working
6:48
Speaker 2: people who want change. So what I'm saying to you
6:51
Speaker 2: is I'm seeing more and more opportunity to get a
6:53
Speaker 2: message across. Clearly, I got to keep updating the strategy
6:56
Speaker 2: and I need to get from where I've been in
6:58
Speaker 2: the polls, which bluntly has been 1% to 2% to
7:01
Speaker 2: be able to get in those debates. So it's a
7:03
Speaker 2: manageable distance. But I keep reminding folks, this thing is
7:06
Speaker 2: so unpredictable. I mean, look, I think You know, in
7:11
Speaker 2: the time that you were involved with the Obama world,
7:16
Speaker 2: you know, that may have been the last time we
7:17
Speaker 2: saw something that was, I don't want to use a
7:20
Speaker 2: word like normal, but predictable, let's say, where the rules
7:23
Speaker 2: of politics had something we could make sense of. We're
7:26
Speaker 2: in the great unknown now. I always say there is
7:28
Speaker 2: no one who understands American politics at this point. And
7:31
Speaker 2: that means there's also tremendous opportunity if someone has a
7:33
Speaker 2: different idea, a different approach, different history, to break through
7:37
Speaker 2: at any given moment. And that breakthrough can happen in
7:39
Speaker 2: a matter of days.
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Speaker 1: So, you know, I was actually listening to some of
7:43
Speaker 1: your Ask the Mayor segments. Yeah. And they were fascinating.
7:46
Speaker 1: They're fascinating because as the mayor of New York, you
7:49
Speaker 1: get questions about sweeping economic changes confronting the country and
7:53
Speaker 1: about trees putting too much waste on sidewalks. Potholes. Potholes.
8:01
Speaker 1: So New York faces very serious issues right now. There's
8:06
Speaker 1: a public housing crisis. There's a federal monitor. That's been
8:10
Speaker 1: put in charge. The homeless population. Not in charge, a monitor.
8:13
Speaker 1: A monitor. Right. The homeless population remains stubbornly high. You're
8:17
Speaker 1: dealing with a rise in homelessness on the subways. You've
8:20
Speaker 1: just been handed a report about gifted and talented programs.
8:24
Speaker 1: That's created a whole new controversy. You passed a measure
8:28
Speaker 1: to basically put a Green New Deal in place that's
8:31
Speaker 1: going to have, it's a massive undertaking. Yes. New York
8:34
Speaker 1: City is one of the largest economies in the world.
8:36
Speaker 1: The last sitting New York City mayor to run for
8:38
Speaker 1: president was John Lindsay half a century ago. Didn't work
8:41
Speaker 1: out well, in part because of blowback he faced from
8:43
Speaker 1: the city for not doing the job. You were in
8:45
Speaker 1: Iowa when there was a blackout in New York. What
8:49
Speaker 1: do you say to New Yorkers who say, we just
8:51
Speaker 1: gave you a second term? You want to run on
8:53
Speaker 1: your record, great, but do it when you're done because
8:56
Speaker 1: this job, as you said, is the second hardest job
8:59
Speaker 1: in the country. Right. And you're running for the first
9:01
Speaker 1: while still trying to do the second. Right.
9:03
Speaker 2: I would say, first of all, think about the other
9:06
Speaker 2: way of interpreting that. I'll answer it, but I just
9:09
Speaker 2: want to say there's a flip of that that's pretty profound.
9:12
Speaker 2: Right now, New York City has the most jobs it's
9:15
Speaker 2: ever had in its history. We've added half a million
9:17
Speaker 2: jobs since I became mayor. We have the highest graduation
9:21
Speaker 2: rate we've ever had. We just got test scores that
9:23
Speaker 2: came back the highest we've ever had and proved the
9:25
Speaker 2: impact of our pre-K program. First time we've been able
9:28
Speaker 2: to show the real numerical proof of that. We are
9:31
Speaker 2: the safest big city in America. Crime continues to go down.
9:33
Speaker 2: We've healed a lot of the social fabric and a
9:37
Speaker 2: lot of the tensions that existed just a few years ago,
9:39
Speaker 2: particularly between police and community. There are many, many big
9:43
Speaker 2: changes that have happened. And I think the point is
9:46
Speaker 2: I've been able to do all that and continue to
9:48
Speaker 2: do all that while running this campaign and raising important
9:52
Speaker 2: issues of the kinds of changes we need. I think
9:55
Speaker 2: that shows capacity. I don't want people to miss the
9:57
Speaker 2: fact that if you are really able to run something,
10:01
Speaker 2: you choose really good people to do the job, you
10:03
Speaker 2: put strong policies in place, and all the things I
10:05
Speaker 2: just mentioned continue to grow even over the months as
10:08
Speaker 2: I've been in this campaign. Now, the things that you
10:10
Speaker 2: mentioned that are real problems, what unites most of the
10:14
Speaker 2: things you've talked about is decades and decades that those
10:17
Speaker 2: problems had built and Have bedeviled New York and other
10:21
Speaker 2: cities public housing and homelessness are bedeviling American cities everywhere
10:25
Speaker 2: in this country That does not that's not a cop-out
10:27
Speaker 2: It's just not as truth and why because the federal
10:29
Speaker 2: government stepped away From its commitment to public housing decades
10:33
Speaker 2: ago starting with Reagan Stepped away from his commitment to
10:35
Speaker 2: affordable housing that would have been part of how we
10:37
Speaker 2: would have stopped homelessness things like section 8 vouchers This
10:40
Speaker 2: has been going on for a long time. We at
10:42
Speaker 2: the local level have to pick it up and deal
10:44
Speaker 2: with it now the truth is that We've actually started
10:47
Speaker 2: to drive down the number of folks in shelter and
10:49
Speaker 2: the number of people on the street. We have real
10:51
Speaker 2: issues on the subway, but we're confronting them with a
10:53
Speaker 2: whole lot of people and a lot of energy to
10:55
Speaker 2: address that. We're actually turning around public housing. Even though
10:59
Speaker 2: it was left in a horrible situation for decades, we're
11:03
Speaker 2: actually starting to turn around. We have real visible evidence
11:06
Speaker 2: of improving the quality of life for people in public housing.
11:08
Speaker 2: We're putting a huge, huge investment into it. So I
11:11
Speaker 2: just want to be clear that every day I wake
11:14
Speaker 2: up and think about the things I got to do
11:15
Speaker 2: to make the city better.
11:16
Speaker 1: But that can't be true. No, it can be true. Well,
11:19
Speaker 1: you have to be now spending time. You're thinking about
11:21
Speaker 1: New York, but you're thinking about Iowa. You're thinking about
11:23
Speaker 1: South Carolina, right? Isn't it just definitionally true? If you
11:26
Speaker 1: decide to run for president while you're the sitting mayor
11:28
Speaker 1: of New York, you are not devoting all of your
11:30
Speaker 1: attention to the city of New York.
11:32
Speaker 2: There's no question that if you're running a campaign, you
11:35
Speaker 2: have to put energy into it and attention into it.
11:36
Speaker 2: But again, I don't mean this to be pretentious, but
11:41
Speaker 2: it is true. Yes, I do wake up every morning.
11:43
Speaker 2: In fact, start with a whole slew of emails with
11:46
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of updates and give instructions from the
11:49
Speaker 2: very beginning of the day to the very end of
11:50
Speaker 2: the day because you actually run something big and complex.
11:53
Speaker 1: That's what you do.
11:54
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter where I am. I will be on
11:57
Speaker 2: the phone with people giving instructions all the time every
11:59
Speaker 2: day and also out there expressing what I think needs
12:03
Speaker 2: to change in this country and why I think I
12:05
Speaker 2: can do it. So the fact is it takes a
12:07
Speaker 2: whole lot of energy. It takes a whole lot of
12:10
Speaker 2: focus on both. But by the way, President of the
12:12
Speaker 2: United States is more challenging than what I just described
12:17
Speaker 2: and more challenging than what any of my colleagues.
12:19
Speaker 1: Have gone through.
12:19
Speaker 2: So you better have been able to play at a
12:21
Speaker 2: high level and dealt with a lot of challenges and
12:23
Speaker 2: crises and then find a way to move forward nonetheless.
12:26
Speaker 2: I get when people say we want to see change
12:29
Speaker 2: on a host of issues in our city. But for
12:31
Speaker 2: everything you just mentioned, there is a very specific plan
12:34
Speaker 2: being worked on right now. We, right this minute, have
12:36
Speaker 2: a plan to entirely revamp public housing. We announced it
12:40
Speaker 2: last year. It's well underway. We have a plan to
12:42
Speaker 2: reduce homelessness further. You go down the list, and they're
12:45
Speaker 2: being acted on, each and every one of them. So
12:48
Speaker 2: I get what someone might say, hey, we want to
12:51
Speaker 2: see the progress right this minute.
12:53
Speaker 1: I get that.
12:54
Speaker 2: But what really matters in your leader is do you
12:55
Speaker 2: put the right plan in place? Do you put the
12:56
Speaker 2: right resources on it? Do you put the right people
12:58
Speaker 2: on it? Can you show actual results on a regular basis?
13:00
Speaker 2: The answer is yes on those things.
13:04
Speaker 1: And you do have a record to run on, right?
13:06
Speaker 1: You talked about universal pre-K. Green New Deal, ending stop
13:09
Speaker 1: and frisk, raising the minimum wage. There is a record
13:11
Speaker 1: of progressive achievement in New York City that a lot
13:14
Speaker 1: of people say, you know, I'll just be honest, a
13:17
Speaker 1: lot of people say Bill de Blasio doesn't get his
13:20
Speaker 1: due because people don't like him and we don't totally
13:23
Speaker 1: understand why. That's a common refrain you see. You know,
13:26
Speaker 1: right now, 75% of New Yorkers said you shouldn't run
13:28
Speaker 1: for president. Your approval rating right now is underwater in
13:31
Speaker 1: New York, not with everybody in New York, but with
13:33
Speaker 1: a lot of people in New York. what is, what
13:36
Speaker 1: is that disconnect? Do you think between the record that
13:39
Speaker 1: I think that you can be proud of and the
13:42
Speaker 1: sense that people in New York have that, that they're,
13:45
Speaker 1: they don't approve of the job that you're doing? What, what,
13:47
Speaker 1: what is, what, where are you? What is the space
13:51
Speaker 1: between what you're describing as your accomplishments and, and reaching
13:54
Speaker 1: people with that message?
13:55
Speaker 2: So John, look, first of all, I appreciate what you
13:58
Speaker 2: just said.
13:58
Speaker 1: And that's, that's literally why we come here, right? To
14:02
Speaker 1: make changes.
14:03
Speaker 2: And again, there is, there's a, uh, uh, contradiction we
14:06
Speaker 2: have to get to the heart of here. If people
14:09
Speaker 2: just want, and I'm not saying it's about any individual,
14:11
Speaker 2: I'm saying about the political process, if they just want
14:14
Speaker 2: someone who gives a great speech or puts forward a
14:17
Speaker 2: great position paper and has not proven that they can
14:20
Speaker 2: make huge changes consistently, there are plenty of other folks
14:24
Speaker 2: to choose from, right? But there's something strange about the
14:27
Speaker 2: fact there's almost a preference against the folks who have
14:30
Speaker 2: done the work. This job, the presidency, has gotten more
14:35
Speaker 2: complex with every passing year. The challenges facing this world,
14:38
Speaker 2: starting with global warming, are going to require tremendous executive capacity,
14:43
Speaker 2: ability to move an agenda, to move a whole government,
14:47
Speaker 2: to get people to believe something can happen differently. I've
14:51
Speaker 2: had to do that in unquestionably one of the toughest
14:55
Speaker 2: environments in the country, the most diversity on earth, a
14:59
Speaker 2: place with the toughest press corps anywhere, and a huge
15:02
Speaker 2: press corps, But the interesting question is what happened? Like
15:06
Speaker 2: what actually happened? Not what are the poll numbers show
15:09
Speaker 2: at any given moment or what do people talk about
15:11
Speaker 2: the cocktail parties or what do commentators talk about?
15:13
Speaker 1: But what actually happened? Were we able to get that
15:15
Speaker 1: agenda done? Thank you.
15:17
Speaker 2: You just delineated to many good people out there listening
15:21
Speaker 2: that massive changes have happened in New York in a
15:23
Speaker 2: way that's happened almost nowhere else. So I argue to
15:27
Speaker 2: you first, the getting things done part is what people
15:31
Speaker 2: yearn for. They actually don't want the noise and the
15:35
Speaker 2: punditry and the what does the poll say today versus
15:38
Speaker 2: three weeks from now. They want to know can you
15:40
Speaker 2: actually do something for them. And I'll tell you, in
15:42
Speaker 2: the early states, particularly Iowa and New Hampshire, where you
15:45
Speaker 2: know people are like professional interviewers, like everyday citizens are
15:49
Speaker 2: amazingly good at vetting candidates, they value proof. But then
15:55
Speaker 2: the other side of the equation is everything you said,
15:58
Speaker 2: I understand why you say it, But you opened with
16:01
Speaker 2: something very important. First Democratic mayor reelected in New York.
16:05
Speaker 1: Since the 1980s.
16:06
Speaker 2: The initial election I won was 73%. After four years
16:11
Speaker 2: of being asked all the tough questions and put through
16:14
Speaker 2: all the challenges, I won re-election with 67%, which any
16:18
Speaker 2: elected official in America would be very happy to have
16:20
Speaker 2: those numbers. So the polls, I don't get lost in
16:23
Speaker 2: the polls because, boy, have I been down in polls before.
16:28
Speaker 2: especially 2013 election. Anyone with any common sense would have
16:33
Speaker 2: looked at where I was in the spring of 2013
16:34
Speaker 2: and said, this guy has no chance in hell of
16:36
Speaker 2: being mayor of New York City until the message got
16:40
Speaker 2: through and the world changed. And so I just don't
16:43
Speaker 2: get lost in the noise. I'm like, when I talk
16:46
Speaker 2: to people in neighborhoods around the city, and I have
16:48
Speaker 2: done 65 town hall meetings in New York City, and
16:51
Speaker 2: I always say I represent 8.6 million highly opinionated people.
16:54
Speaker 2: So if you spend hours out there, like, let it fly, everybody.
16:58
Speaker 2: You're going to hear a lot of stuff. In the end,
17:00
Speaker 2: I think New Yorkers very consistently understand what these changes
17:05
Speaker 2: are and appreciate them. It doesn't mean they don't have
17:08
Speaker 2: a gripe. It doesn't mean they don't want to see
17:09
Speaker 2: something be different. But talk to people about, like talk
17:13
Speaker 2: to parents who got pre-K for free and how it
17:15
Speaker 2: changed their lives. Talk to folks who got paid sick
17:18
Speaker 2: days who now can actually go to the doctor and
17:20
Speaker 2: not lose a day's pay. Talk to folks now who
17:23
Speaker 2: are getting a primary care doctor for whatever they can afford,
17:26
Speaker 2: who used to not have any option because they didn't
17:28
Speaker 2: have health insurance. I mean, you talk to people who
17:30
Speaker 2: are being left out or couldn't take care of their
17:34
Speaker 2: kids the way they wanted to or give them the
17:36
Speaker 2: start they wanted to, and now they're getting it. It
17:39
Speaker 2: actually starts to do that much bigger thing that every
17:42
Speaker 2: progressive should have on their mind, which is restoring faith
17:44
Speaker 2: that government can be a force for good. Because I
17:47
Speaker 2: gotta say, the right wing's done a hell of a
17:50
Speaker 2: good job trying to undermine faith that government can be
17:54
Speaker 2: positive and productive and effective, and connected to people. But
17:57
Speaker 2: if you talk to someone who their life changed because
18:01
Speaker 2: their child got something they never would have gotten otherwise,
18:04
Speaker 2: that person starts to believe that we can actually move forward.
18:07
Speaker 2: And that's what I'm proud of.
18:08
Speaker 1: So let's talk about government as a force for good
18:11
Speaker 1: and how you kind of balance the practical concerns of
18:15
Speaker 1: governing with the desire to show people a different way
18:21
Speaker 1: of running a city, of running a country. I want
18:24
Speaker 1: to talk about the Eric Garner case. The officer involved
18:26
Speaker 1: was fired this month. I want to put aside the
18:29
Speaker 1: debate about whether the city had to wait on the
18:31
Speaker 1: Justice Department before moving ahead. I know that that's what
18:34
Speaker 1: you say is the case. How do you navigate the
18:36
Speaker 1: politics of law enforcement when there's so much distrust on
18:40
Speaker 1: all sides? And what do you use as your guidepost
18:43
Speaker 1: in these kinds of situations? There have been issues where
18:46
Speaker 1: you've weighed in and stepped into the fray. There's issues
18:48
Speaker 1: where you've where you've waited and held back. This was
18:50
Speaker 1: one of those five years later. And it does seem
18:52
Speaker 1: at this moment that With the firing of that officer,
18:55
Speaker 1: there is now acrimony and dissatisfaction on both sides, which
18:59
Speaker 1: was maybe inevitable. But is there a lesson you learned
19:03
Speaker 1: here about what the mayor's role is in these kinds
19:07
Speaker 1: of public crises?
19:09
Speaker 2: So I'm going to start with, is the agenda actually working,
19:15
Speaker 2: which is where I start everything.
19:16
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's interesting.
19:18
Speaker 2: The public debate, the discourse... to some extent, is inherently
19:23
Speaker 2: disconnected from everyday people on the ground. When I ran,
19:27
Speaker 2: I said we had to get rid of stop and frisk,
19:29
Speaker 2: which was a horrible, unconstitutional approach that was being used.
19:32
Speaker 2: There was a massive disconnect between the NYPD and families
19:36
Speaker 2: all over communities of color in this city. And I
19:38
Speaker 2: want to make it real visceral here, John. I talked
19:41
Speaker 2: to parents, I talked to grandparents, and they would just
19:44
Speaker 2: tell me how angry they were that they did everything
19:48
Speaker 2: they knew how to do to bring up children, to
19:51
Speaker 2: give them self-confidence, to love them, to give them self-esteem,
19:54
Speaker 2: and then for doing absolutely nothing, their young men of
19:58
Speaker 2: color were being stopped by police regularly.
20:01
Speaker 1: Regularly.
20:03
Speaker 2: Kids who were doing everything right. And it was ultimately
20:06
Speaker 2: a horrible blow to a lot of these kids in
20:09
Speaker 2: their sense of security and self-esteem and hope. And I
20:14
Speaker 2: said from the beginning we were going to change that.
20:15
Speaker 2: And a lot of the kind of commentary class and
20:20
Speaker 2: a lot of the old guard said, if you change
20:22
Speaker 2: a policy like that, there would be a return to
20:26
Speaker 2: the bad old days. There would be chaos. There would
20:27
Speaker 2: be more crime, et cetera. We managed to show, and
20:30
Speaker 2: this is crucial for the whole national discussion, six years
20:33
Speaker 2: after Crime has gone down in New York City because
20:37
Speaker 2: we got rid of those very invasive, aggressive, unnecessary strategies.
20:43
Speaker 2: Last year in New York City, 150,000 fewer arrests than
20:47
Speaker 2: five years earlier, and we got safer, which is not
20:51
Speaker 2: only about the right way to police, but I'm sure
20:54
Speaker 2: we all care about mass incarceration too. You want to
20:57
Speaker 2: end mass incarceration, stop arresting people who don't need to
21:00
Speaker 2: be arrested to begin with. Now, I'm not talking theory,
21:03
Speaker 2: and I'm not talking like we did this in some
21:04
Speaker 2: small university town, right? We did this in the biggest
21:07
Speaker 2: city in the country and proved that you could do
21:11
Speaker 2: something very, very different. So when I look at that,
21:14
Speaker 2: it's a great question you're asking, like how do you
21:17
Speaker 2: move the levers and when do you weigh in intensely
21:19
Speaker 2: and when do you hang back? My mission from the beginning,
21:23
Speaker 2: based on hearing people, hearing their anguish over what had
21:26
Speaker 2: been and their hope for a very different society, was
21:29
Speaker 2: that we could actually construct a world with a vision
21:33
Speaker 2: of neighborhood policing, which is all about building personal relationships
21:36
Speaker 2: between officers and community members and keeping police officers in
21:39
Speaker 2: the same community and just disrupting the entire model before,
21:42
Speaker 2: which was like outsiders come into your community to protect
21:47
Speaker 2: you and then move on and don't have a connection
21:49
Speaker 2: and don't feel they're part of the community and the
21:50
Speaker 2: community doesn't feel part of them. We reworked that entire approach.
21:54
Speaker 2: We retrained our entire police force in neighborhood policing, in
21:57
Speaker 2: de-escalation of conflict, in implicit bias, all of the things
22:02
Speaker 2: that have made it possible to not have another tragedy
22:05
Speaker 2: like what happened with Eric Garner. It's an entirely different
22:07
Speaker 2: police force today. So when you ask the question, what
22:11
Speaker 2: was I thinking all along? I was thinking about how
22:14
Speaker 2: we get to that place where there would not be
22:17
Speaker 2: another tragedy because the whole structure had changed, the whole
22:21
Speaker 2: idea had changed, and where we could keep the city
22:25
Speaker 2: safe because, look, I say this as a progressivist. And
22:29
Speaker 2: progressives have to be very humble about some of the
22:31
Speaker 2: times in the past where we had really good intentions
22:33
Speaker 2: and missed reality. My job was to keep people safe
22:37
Speaker 2: and to prove there was a progressive way to do
22:39
Speaker 2: it and a just way to do it and that
22:41
Speaker 2: safety and fairness could walk hand in hand. For six years,
22:44
Speaker 2: we'd done it. There are specific things where you say, hey,
22:48
Speaker 2: it's so important to weigh in and speak up and
22:52
Speaker 2: make a change. And yes, accept the opposition. I'm never
22:56
Speaker 2: surprised by the opposition. And there's other times when you say,
23:00
Speaker 2: we have a reality here that we have to honor.
23:03
Speaker 2: And that's what I felt with the Justice Department. And
23:06
Speaker 2: that's what I felt about the trial that just happened
23:08
Speaker 2: in NYPD, where if I had spoken up the wrong
23:11
Speaker 2: way at the wrong time, it actually would have undermined
23:12
Speaker 2: that trial and that result and made it potentially something
23:16
Speaker 2: that could be challenged and overturned in court. But I'll
23:18
Speaker 2: tell you something. Here's the kicker that's being missed entirely.
23:21
Speaker 2: The Justice Department, under two administrations, literally didn't act. They
23:25
Speaker 2: waited until the very last day, then they said they
23:26
Speaker 2: were not going to act.
23:27
Speaker 1: They did nothing.
23:28
Speaker 2: The DA in the case found there was no reason
23:31
Speaker 2: for even a trial, which was impossible for people to
23:33
Speaker 2: understand how there wasn't at least going to be an
23:35
Speaker 2: airing of the facts. When was the only time that
23:37
Speaker 2: there was actually a public trial and an airing? It
23:40
Speaker 2: was when the NYPD did its own internal trial. And
23:44
Speaker 2: then an NYPD judge said guilty, followed by the first
23:48
Speaker 2: deputy commissioner, followed by the commissioner. That was not something
23:51
Speaker 2: you would have conceived of happening not so long ago
23:54
Speaker 2: in New York City or a lot of other American cities.
23:57
Speaker 2: And it took a lot of painstaking change to get
24:00
Speaker 2: to the point where there's a just process. And now
24:04
Speaker 2: I think people can see is our job is to
24:08
Speaker 2: make sure there's never, ever another tragedy.
24:10
Speaker 1: I mean it.
24:11
Speaker 2: I literally believe it's possible that we would never have
24:13
Speaker 2: another tragedy because of the kinds of changes we're making.
24:17
Speaker 2: But if there ever were one, for the first time
24:20
Speaker 2: people have been shown they can have faith that even
24:23
Speaker 2: the internal process of NYPD is just. That changes society
24:28
Speaker 2: when people can feel that, you know, it's not a
24:31
Speaker 2: police department that's other than us or different or separated.
24:34
Speaker 2: It's actually part of us now. That's what I sought
24:37
Speaker 2: to do.
24:39
Speaker 1: I want to move into what you would do as president,
24:41
Speaker 1: but I think it's helpful to understand what you've been
24:44
Speaker 1: doing as mayor. Can I, I want to talk about
24:46
Speaker 1: Amazon and I want to ask a question just sort
24:48
Speaker 1: of as a layman who just was observing it from
24:50
Speaker 1: the outside. And I'm curious if you think that what
24:53
Speaker 1: I'm describing is right. It seemed to me, that there
24:59
Speaker 1: was a deal to get Amazon to come to New York.
25:01
Speaker 1: It was a deal that would have been good for
25:03
Speaker 1: the New York economy. There were some downsides. There were
25:05
Speaker 1: activists raising very legitimate concerns and that nobody really knew
25:10
Speaker 1: that Amazon was at risk of leaving. And so everyone
25:13
Speaker 1: just sort of said, take your shots, make your points.
25:16
Speaker 1: Let's see if we can get some changes. We'll hang back.
25:21
Speaker 1: As mayor, you don't want to get in that fray.
25:23
Speaker 1: You want to kind of have the deal go through
25:25
Speaker 1: while not pissing off the activists, and then all of
25:28
Speaker 1: a sudden Amazon says, we're out. And then you and
25:31
Speaker 1: the governor realize this was far more dire than we realized.
25:35
Speaker 1: You publish an op-ed criticizing Amazon, reframing the debate. But
25:38
Speaker 1: really what happened was nobody understood that a deal that
25:40
Speaker 1: was really important to the growth of the New York
25:42
Speaker 1: economy was this much at risk. And if it was,
25:44
Speaker 1: you might have done more. You might have stepped in earlier.
25:46
Speaker 1: You might have said something. Is that right? I think
25:49
Speaker 1: you're very much in the ballpark. Look, I think the.
25:55
Speaker 2: And I like to always say when I think I
25:57
Speaker 2: missed something, and what I missed was the very beginning,
26:00
Speaker 2: meaning we accepted the terms of this national competition. And
26:06
Speaker 2: I think that was a mistake. Because now, having lived
26:09
Speaker 2: through it and seen the injustice of it, I mean,
26:11
Speaker 2: you know, every city in America, every state will tell
26:13
Speaker 2: you how unjust it is that there's this constant race
26:16
Speaker 2: to the bottom, fight with each other for jobs, give
26:19
Speaker 2: tax breaks.
26:20
Speaker 1: It's not appropriate. It is wrong.
26:22
Speaker 2: So I had no illusion about that. but I think
26:28
Speaker 2: that this is something I look back on with frustration.
26:30
Speaker 2: You know, I thought this was a company that if
26:34
Speaker 2: they made a commitment would keep their commitment. I thought
26:37
Speaker 2: the very fact that it was such a big competition
26:40
Speaker 2: would give them even more reason to keep their commitment, right?
26:43
Speaker 2: And so I felt from the beginning New York had
26:46
Speaker 2: an extraordinarily strong hand to play and like, okay, we'll
26:50
Speaker 2: compete with other folks and we think we'll win and
26:52
Speaker 2: we think in the end, they'll keep their commitment. There's
26:54
Speaker 2: not even a thought to the core of your question.
26:57
Speaker 2: No one for a second thought, hey, wait a minute,
26:58
Speaker 2: these guys may make a big public announcement sitting next
27:00
Speaker 2: to us and then pull out X number of weeks later, right?
27:03
Speaker 2: That was inconceivable.
27:05
Speaker 1: But what I.
27:08
Speaker 2: Should have seen is, you know, we in New York
27:12
Speaker 2: had something very, very particular to offer. And we could
27:15
Speaker 2: have had just a really clear message to them. If
27:17
Speaker 2: you want to negotiate with us, come negotiate with us.
27:19
Speaker 2: But we're not going to sort of be part of
27:20
Speaker 2: this bigger circus. So that's point one. But then to
27:23
Speaker 2: your other points, I would say, you know, I spent
27:26
Speaker 2: a lot of time making the case. I respected the activists.
27:30
Speaker 2: Some of them are people I feel very close to.
27:31
Speaker 2: But I really thought they were missing the core point,
27:35
Speaker 2: which was it was the ultimate package was over $ 20
27:39
Speaker 2: billion in public revenue for city and state, which for
27:42
Speaker 2: everything we as progressives want to do, you know, public education,
27:45
Speaker 2: mass transit, affordable housing, like you need money for that.
27:48
Speaker 2: It was a huge amount of money to help us
27:50
Speaker 2: move a progressive agenda. And it was a ridiculous number
27:53
Speaker 2: of jobs. I mean, it would have been the single
27:55
Speaker 2: biggest economic development deal ever. It was 25,000 jobs minimum
27:58
Speaker 2: as high as 40,000. So it didn't surprise me. It
28:03
Speaker 2: never surprised me in New York where the folks in
28:04
Speaker 2: the immediate area don't want change.
28:06
Speaker 1: Okay, that's legitimate.
28:07
Speaker 2: They have concerns. They want to argue for what they
28:10
Speaker 2: need to mitigate the impact.
28:12
Speaker 1: That's fair.
28:14
Speaker 2: But it became this bigger thing where no matter how
28:16
Speaker 2: many times, and I said it a bunch of times, guys,
28:18
Speaker 2: this is a huge amount of money we need for
28:20
Speaker 2: stuff we need and jobs and jobs for working people
28:22
Speaker 2: and jobs for folks who live in public housing. Biggest
28:25
Speaker 2: public housing development in North America was down the street
28:29
Speaker 2: from this. And we were going to bond that development
28:33
Speaker 2: to Amazon and create a stream of jobs directly. Folks,
28:37
Speaker 2: young people coming out of our city university system really
28:41
Speaker 2: would have benefited from those jobs. So I thought by
28:45
Speaker 2: constantly reiterating the value, and the public polling showed, by
28:48
Speaker 2: the way, the clear majority of New Yorkers, particularly working
28:51
Speaker 2: class New Yorkers and people of color, wanted it. So
28:54
Speaker 2: I thought, and this is the part of your analysis
28:55
Speaker 2: I think is spot on, there would be noise, there
28:58
Speaker 2: would be drama, welcome to New York City, you know,
28:59
Speaker 2: it would keep going. But in the end, you know,
29:02
Speaker 2: when you have me and the governor agree, which is
29:04
Speaker 2: not always an everyday occurrence, and the entire framework was
29:09
Speaker 2: all set up, and everyone had explained that to Amazon,
29:11
Speaker 2: and they made a public announcement, like, I could not
29:14
Speaker 2: believe my ears when I got the call saying they
29:17
Speaker 2: were pulling out. No discussion, no negotiation, just pulling out.
29:22
Speaker 2: And so, no, I wish we had engineered the entire
29:26
Speaker 2: discussion differently from the beginning. And I think there were
29:30
Speaker 2: some things, I mean, I obviously wish I had been
29:32
Speaker 2: even more explicit about the benefits, but I don't think
29:35
Speaker 2: the folks who were against it, some of it's very,
29:38
Speaker 2: very local. And I don't think if I, you know,
29:40
Speaker 2: tried to explain a hundred times over, it wouldn't necessarily
29:42
Speaker 2: change that. And some of it was very ideological folks
29:44
Speaker 2: who don't like Amazon as a company, which I understand.
29:47
Speaker 2: And folks who don't want to see the government funded
29:50
Speaker 2: by private sector investment and needing that tax revenue, which
29:55
Speaker 2: I totally emotionally get, but I'm like, folks, this is,
29:58
Speaker 2: We've got to be real as progressives who want to
30:01
Speaker 2: change the world until we have a very different federal government.
30:05
Speaker 2: If you don't have revenue coming out of these kind
30:07
Speaker 2: of economic development actions, how the hell are we going
30:11
Speaker 2: to create economic justice? How the hell are we going
30:14
Speaker 2: to reach the people who want to reach it?
30:15
Speaker 1: And let's be blunt.
30:17
Speaker 2: Why are the working class people and people of color
30:19
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly want Amazon? Because they understood it could improve their lives.
30:22
Speaker 2: A lot of folks who opposed it didn't have to
30:25
Speaker 2: deal with some of those same struggles. And it was
30:27
Speaker 2: a more abstract discussion for them. But I live in
30:30
Speaker 2: the real world. I mean, the people elected me, you know,
30:32
Speaker 2: the working class in New York City elected me. And
30:35
Speaker 2: they expected me to do things that would actually reach them,
30:38
Speaker 2: not just, you know, pretty pictures, like things that would
30:40
Speaker 2: actually reach them. And I think it was a huge
30:42
Speaker 2: lost opportunity. But no, Amazon stunned us all. And it
30:46
Speaker 2: was highly irresponsible. And by the way, if you talk
30:48
Speaker 2: about why people are pissed off at corporate America, here's
30:51
Speaker 2: your poster child. So that walking away was entirely unfair
30:54
Speaker 2: to the city.
30:55
Speaker 1: So you wish that there had been a different process
30:57
Speaker 1: from the start, one that wasn't part of this trend
31:00
Speaker 1: of corporations sort of pitting cities against each other, getting
31:03
Speaker 1: incredible dispensations for the privilege of having them come to
31:07
Speaker 1: the city. But that aside, you still wanted the deal
31:12
Speaker 1: that was made to go through.
31:14
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
31:15
Speaker 1: Do you wish you had been as forceful as you
31:17
Speaker 1: are now in defending the deal? Oh, I was.
31:20
Speaker 2: No, I can get you the many, many... You know, broadcast...
31:23
Speaker 2: Because that's the criticism, right? The criticism, but again, this
31:26
Speaker 2: perception reality game of everything in public life, but particularly
31:29
Speaker 2: in my dear city, I can show you so many
31:32
Speaker 2: instances where I made the exact arguments that I just
31:36
Speaker 2: shared with you about why we needed this.
31:39
Speaker 1: And look, I agree.
31:40
Speaker 2: If you had called me up in the middle of
31:41
Speaker 2: it and said, hey, in two weeks they're going to
31:43
Speaker 2: pull out, I would have gone on a barnstorming tour
31:46
Speaker 2: to be even more intense and overt about it. But
31:50
Speaker 2: I made the case constantly that.
31:54
Speaker 2: And the polling showed that people got it. And so
31:57
Speaker 2: maybe there is a conventionality problem of we all think
32:00
Speaker 2: we're living in the world that we came from, and
32:02
Speaker 2: the world is changing intensely. Here was a deal that
32:06
Speaker 2: was done, announced, had public support, had a very narrow
32:11
Speaker 2: pocket of opposition in the scheme of things. And by
32:15
Speaker 2: any normal measure, and it was clear what the benefits were,
32:18
Speaker 2: and yeah, if you don't like Amazon, you don't like Amazon,
32:20
Speaker 2: but that didn't stop the benefits from being real. Even
32:23
Speaker 2: a lot of folks in labor who didn't like Amazon
32:25
Speaker 2: agreed with something else I said publicly, which is if
32:27
Speaker 2: Amazon was in the New York environment, they were going
32:29
Speaker 2: to have to deal with the New York reality. A
32:31
Speaker 2: pro-labor city, a progressive city, a city with a government
32:34
Speaker 2: that demanded a lot of accountability and social responsibility. So, yeah,
32:40
Speaker 2: you know, this one is just perverse to me, honestly. Like,
32:43
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone could have... It's like the election
32:47
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump and then some. Like, literally no one had...
32:51
Speaker 2: even the idea that they might walk away. And now,
32:57
Speaker 2: is New York City going to fall into the Hudson
33:00
Speaker 2: River because Amazon walked away?
33:02
Speaker 1: No.
33:03
Speaker 2: We have over 4.5 million jobs right now in New York.
33:06
Speaker 2: We're very, very strong economically. We're going to be fine.
33:09
Speaker 2: In fact, the rest of the tech community is growing constantly.
33:13
Speaker 2: So we're going to be fine. But it is an
33:15
Speaker 2: interesting lesson in how we disrupt this race to the bottom.
33:19
Speaker 2: So what I came out of this feeling was, one,
33:22
Speaker 2: no more national competitions. Two, there needs to be legislation
33:27
Speaker 2: in Washington to limit, literally put a legal limit on
33:31
Speaker 2: how much a company can ask of a state or
33:33
Speaker 2: locality in terms of any subsidies, tax breaks, whatever. We
33:36
Speaker 2: have to set the rules. We know our history. When
33:39
Speaker 2: there's progressive governance in this country, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
33:43
Speaker 2: the great exemplar of this, changed the entire all the
33:47
Speaker 2: rules of the game about how the private sector had
33:49
Speaker 2: to relate to unions and working people and what they
33:51
Speaker 2: could and could not do in the Glass-Steagall Act. We
33:54
Speaker 2: have to remember that actually these rules are really movable.
33:58
Speaker 2: And so there should be a rule that bans this
34:01
Speaker 2: practice of sort of forcing communities to do untenable things.
34:05
Speaker 2: Because you can't blame a community that wants the jobs.
34:07
Speaker 2: You can't blame a community that wants the tax revenue.
34:09
Speaker 2: It's part of like actually running something. It gets back
34:11
Speaker 2: to the point from before. If you're running something, You know,
34:15
Speaker 2: every day I'm thinking about how can I do more
34:19
Speaker 2: and where am I going to get the money to
34:20
Speaker 2: pay for it? This is like literally a constant conversation.
34:22
Speaker 2: Like one of the things we're doing next, what we
34:24
Speaker 2: did with pre-K, we're going to do the same for three-year-olds.
34:26
Speaker 2: We're going to be the place that on the biggest
34:29
Speaker 2: scale in the history of this country is going to
34:30
Speaker 2: provide every three-year-old with early childhood education for free. It's
34:34
Speaker 2: going to revolutionize education in New York. It's going to
34:36
Speaker 2: change the whole discussion in this country when we show
34:38
Speaker 2: how much can be done with early childhood education.
34:40
Speaker 1: It costs a lot of money. So.
34:43
Speaker 2: When we were thinking Amazon, we were thinking of things
34:45
Speaker 2: like that. And every city and town in America is
34:48
Speaker 2: thinking of things like that when they're trying to deal
34:50
Speaker 2: with a company. But the rules of the game must change.
34:52
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that.
34:54
Speaker 1: Being president is about setting priorities. What would be your
34:58
Speaker 1: number one priority? What could you do as president to help?
35:04
Speaker 1: There's a president right now who is on your side.
35:06
Speaker 1: What would be the policy that would be most helpful
35:07
Speaker 1: for you as mayor? to help the people of New
35:11
Speaker 1: York that you're not currently getting. Okay. You asked two
35:13
Speaker 1: different questions. Yeah.
35:14
Speaker 2: So let me just do the what would help right now.
35:17
Speaker 2: A national infrastructure plan that included public housing. So right
35:21
Speaker 2: now we are just putting billions. I mean, in my
35:23
Speaker 2: time as mayor, I put $ 6 billion into public housing
35:28
Speaker 2: in a city that used to put nothing into public
35:30
Speaker 2: housing in terms of having to pay out of our
35:32
Speaker 2: own budget. So I'm doing that because we have to
35:36
Speaker 2: help the 400,000 people who live in public housing. And
35:39
Speaker 2: the federal government has walked away. I'm putting a huge
35:42
Speaker 2: amount of the biggest capital budget the city's ever had
35:44
Speaker 2: because we have to fix our roads and bridges. You know,
35:47
Speaker 2: the things that used to be a federal priority. This
35:50
Speaker 2: is happening in every city, every town, every state. And
35:53
Speaker 2: we can't keep up with it.
36:01
Speaker 1: One of the things that I actually I mean, I mean,
36:04
Speaker 1: curious about, you know, We see this trend. It's not
36:07
Speaker 1: a New York trend. It's a national trend that building infrastructure, roads,
36:11
Speaker 1: subway projects, tunnel projects, they're incredibly expensive. They're more expensive
36:15
Speaker 1: here than anywhere else in the world. Chris Christie cancels
36:18
Speaker 1: the arc tunnel, blames costs. One of the great derelictions
36:20
Speaker 1: of duty of any leader in a long time at
36:25
Speaker 1: the state level. And yet we have this problem of
36:29
Speaker 1: the rising costs of infrastructure. What have you learned in
36:32
Speaker 1: managing these projects to explain why it costs... two times,
36:36
Speaker 1: three times as much to build a mile of tunnel in, say,
36:39
Speaker 1: the U.S. or a mile of bridge in the U.S.
36:41
Speaker 1: versus Europe, where they have labor standards, where they have
36:43
Speaker 1: environmental standards?
36:45
Speaker 2: Okay, first I would say what we're also learning is
36:49
Speaker 2: there are a lot of ways to start saving money,
36:51
Speaker 2: and we've been doing that and having some success at that.
36:54
Speaker 2: And so I don't think it's sort of a fixed reality, right? Bluntly,
36:58
Speaker 2: some of those higher costs in this country have been
37:01
Speaker 2: just really.
37:02
Speaker 1: Really bad approaches.
37:06
Speaker 2: And public authorities that weren't particularly efficient, weren't particularly accountable.
37:11
Speaker 2: And until recently, that was certainly true of the MTA
37:14
Speaker 2: in New York City, where the accountability, literally no one knew,
37:17
Speaker 2: no one was sure until recently who was actually in
37:19
Speaker 2: charge of the subways and buses in New York City.
37:21
Speaker 2: And one good thing that's happened in the last few
37:23
Speaker 2: years is it's been made very clear the state of
37:25
Speaker 2: New York has that responsibility. And then lo and behold,
37:28
Speaker 2: once responsibility was finally assigned, a bunch of stuff started
37:31
Speaker 2: to happen, and that's good. But we have found that
37:33
Speaker 2: we've been changing a lot of the approach saving a
37:36
Speaker 2: lot of money, speeding up the process. I would say
37:39
Speaker 2: there's three things. Yes, and I believe in labor. I
37:43
Speaker 2: believe in organized labor. But yeah, there is cost when
37:45
Speaker 2: you work with labor. I think the environmental dynamics here,
37:49
Speaker 2: I can't compare them to Europe, but I can say
37:50
Speaker 2: they're very, very intensive and time-consuming. And I think just
37:55
Speaker 2: the legal dynamics across the board, there are so many
37:59
Speaker 2: areas where we could go faster and do things better
38:02
Speaker 2: if we could clean up some of the laws that
38:04
Speaker 2: stand in the way of it that are not about
38:06
Speaker 2: safety and health, that are just arcane. Some of that's
38:09
Speaker 2: starting to happen in New York.
38:10
Speaker 1: That's a good thing. But no, I'm not hopeless about
38:14
Speaker 1: the ability to build big.
38:16
Speaker 2: Things and do it faster going forward. I think the
38:19
Speaker 2: problem is we're out of practice. I mean, the Second
38:22
Speaker 2: Avenue subway finally got built in New York after decades, decades, decades, right?
38:25
Speaker 2: And it was like a pretty short... Yeah, it's not.
38:28
Speaker 1: It doesn't go that far. It's a few stops. So,
38:32
Speaker 1: you know.
38:33
Speaker 2: We need to get into a place for our survival, literally.
38:37
Speaker 2: First and foremost, surviving global warming and having a resiliency vision,
38:43
Speaker 2: a strategic vision from the federal government to literally nonexistent.
38:45
Speaker 2: There's no policy to stop global warming. There's no resiliency policy.
38:49
Speaker 2: But there's also no national infrastructure policy. When you start
38:52
Speaker 2: to invest on a really huge level, which is what
38:55
Speaker 2: we need, you exercise the muscle. And you have an imperative.
39:00
Speaker 2: One of the things I learned with all the big
39:01
Speaker 2: things we've done is we put really rigorous timelines out.
39:05
Speaker 2: For example, and this is infrastructure, affordable housing. We put
39:08
Speaker 2: together the biggest affordable housing initiative in the history of
39:10
Speaker 2: New York City. It was going to be 200,000 apartments.
39:12
Speaker 2: People said it was crazy.
39:13
Speaker 1: It was overambitious.
39:15
Speaker 2: We got it moving so well that it was literally
39:19
Speaker 2: ahead of schedule and on budget. We added 100,000 more apartments.
39:23
Speaker 2: The ambition actually drives action and effectiveness and efficiency. But
39:28
Speaker 2: one of the things I found I'm proud of is
39:29
Speaker 2: that we would purposely put ourselves on a limb. We
39:32
Speaker 2: would purposely put a target on our back. We'd say,
39:34
Speaker 2: here's a big, bold goal. We were going to do
39:35
Speaker 2: pre-K for all in two years. We were going to
39:37
Speaker 2: do 200,000 apartments in 10 years. And all of these
39:40
Speaker 2: things forced action and forced change, forced innovation. So what Bluntly,
39:45
Speaker 2: a lot of politicians do is the opposite. They try
39:47
Speaker 2: and do really amorphous goals and try and avoid accountability.
39:51
Speaker 2: And bureaucracies respond accordingly, right? So I think the exciting idea,
39:55
Speaker 2: and this is what this election should be all about,
39:57
Speaker 2: is like really bold ideas that force action on a
40:01
Speaker 2: level we haven't seen before. So to your other point,
40:05
Speaker 2: I mean, look, to me, global warming is an existential crisis. Um, There,
40:12
Speaker 2: we know from playing the Green New Deal already in
40:14
Speaker 2: New York City, we literally passed a law, the toughest
40:18
Speaker 2: standards for buildings anywhere on the earth, on the earth.
40:23
Speaker 2: And there was a hue and cry from the real
40:24
Speaker 2: estate industry, but you know what? We passed it. It's moving.
40:27
Speaker 2: It's going to force a whole host of changes in
40:29
Speaker 2: how people build buildings and run their buildings and save
40:31
Speaker 2: a huge amount of energy and stop a whole lot
40:34
Speaker 2: of emissions, right? We're putting up electric vehicle charging stations
40:37
Speaker 2: all over New York City. We're not waiting for the
40:39
Speaker 2: federal government. We're not asking the private sector to do
40:41
Speaker 2: it because they weren't going to do it. We're doing
40:42
Speaker 2: it ourselves to make it easier for people to get
40:44
Speaker 2: electric cars. All of our city government energy is going
40:47
Speaker 2: to be– all electricity will be renewable in the next
40:49
Speaker 2: five years. We're doing things right now, and this is,
40:53
Speaker 2: to me, why Job 1, of course, addressed global warming
40:58
Speaker 2: with the aggressiveness that the Green New Deal calls for.
41:01
Speaker 2: And then I think– To me, the second, the sort
41:05
Speaker 2: of core economic mission, which typifies everything I've been trying
41:08
Speaker 2: to do in New York, but this is what I
41:09
Speaker 2: want to do for working.
41:10
Speaker 1: People in the country.
41:11
Speaker 2: Just rewrite the rules of the game for working people.
41:14
Speaker 2: So it's $ 15 minimum wage. It's benefits like paid sick
41:17
Speaker 2: leave and paid family leave. It's going to the heart
41:20
Speaker 2: of the matter on taxation, which is, you know, literally
41:24
Speaker 2: I have a plan. I'm going to say to all
41:26
Speaker 2: your listeners, go to BillDeBlasio.com and look it up.
41:29
Speaker 1: It is the most aggressive. He got one in.
41:31
Speaker 2: There's one.
41:31
Speaker 1: Just mark it. It's the most aggressive. tax plan of
41:35
Speaker 1: any of the candidates. So I want to talk about
41:37
Speaker 1: that because it is the most aggressive tax plan of
41:39
Speaker 1: the candidates. But when I saw the plan, what struck
41:43
Speaker 1: me is that it looks like Elizabeth Warren's plan, but
41:46
Speaker 1: you just move the numbers down. Elizabeth Warren rolls out
41:49
Speaker 1: a wealth tax that kicks in at 1%, 2%, 3%.
41:52
Speaker 1: And it seems like your plan is just very similar.
41:54
Speaker 1: It just is a little bit more aggressive when those
41:59
Speaker 1: numbers kick in.
41:59
Speaker 2: Well, I think the world of Elizabeth, and I'm very
42:02
Speaker 2: happy she put forward her plan, but I would argue
42:04
Speaker 2: to you that the question is, who's willing to go
42:07
Speaker 2: the farthest? I know, but there's like, you're suggesting.
42:11
Speaker 1: Is it who's willing to go the farthest? Because a
42:13
Speaker 1: wealth tax is already a massive transformative new policy. And
42:17
Speaker 1: to say, okay, Elizabeth Warren proposes a wealth tax, well,
42:21
Speaker 1: I have wealth tax- 1.5 wealth tax.
42:25
Speaker 2: I get what you're saying, but I want to make
42:26
Speaker 2: the argument clearly. My tax plan, so let's just go
42:30
Speaker 2: to the pure income tax element of it, 70% level
42:36
Speaker 2: when you get above $ 2 million, and that includes, I
42:40
Speaker 2: very much envision, as I think all Democrats do, repealing
42:42
Speaker 2: the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations
42:45
Speaker 2: and putting back deductibility for state and local taxes, which
42:48
Speaker 2: is something I think.
42:49
Speaker 1: Was fair and needs to be restored. Well, you have
42:51
Speaker 1: to be for that.
42:52
Speaker 2: No, I believe in that. I really believe in that.
42:54
Speaker 2: I believe in it for the whole country. So that
42:59
Speaker 2: tax level was the tax level during the Eisenhower administration.
43:04
Speaker 2: So one, no, I believe I actually marked my plan
43:09
Speaker 2: to what I thought historically worked and was proven. And
43:14
Speaker 2: what did you see then? A huge amount of investment
43:17
Speaker 2: in the country. infrastructure, education, higher education, science, research. That
43:23
Speaker 2: was the heyday, 50s into 60s. You saw a much
43:28
Speaker 2: greater sharing of prosperity. You saw CEO pay not as
43:32
Speaker 2: crazily out of whack, which also I try to address
43:35
Speaker 2: in my plan. So, no, I'm arguing that we actually
43:39
Speaker 2: know the kind of tax level that works. And we
43:43
Speaker 2: should be willing to defend it to people in this country.
43:46
Speaker 2: And most Americans would like to see across the ideological spectrum,
43:50
Speaker 2: would like to see much higher taxes.
43:52
Speaker 1: On the wealthy. On healthcare, you're for Medicare for All.
43:56
Speaker 1: There are a few plans. There's Bernie's plan. Kamala Harris
43:59
Speaker 1: put out a plan that involved the ability to choose
44:03
Speaker 1: among several public-private options. What is your healthcare policy? Support
44:08
Speaker 1: Medicare for All, but I don't believe you've put out.
44:11
Speaker 2: The final plan is coming out soon, and one of
44:14
Speaker 2: the things I want to address, which needs to be
44:16
Speaker 2: bluntly discussed at this point, is sort of the sequencing
44:19
Speaker 2: of it, the phasing in of it, because it's not
44:20
Speaker 2: going to happen overnight. Again, I run a huge operation,
44:24
Speaker 2: and anyone who says, oh, we're going to have Medicare
44:25
Speaker 2: for all, we're going to have single payer in four
44:27
Speaker 2: years or something, I don't buy that in any way, shape,
44:30
Speaker 2: or form. These are massive changes in reengineering.
44:33
Speaker 1: I mean, look what... So you don't think the Bernie
44:35
Speaker 1: plan can work? No, not in that time frame.
44:37
Speaker 2: No, no, no. I think the world of Bernie, but
44:39
Speaker 2: that's not... Again, this is a difference of... God bless legislators,
44:43
Speaker 2: but if you run big things, you know the amount
44:45
Speaker 2: of time that things take. It's going to take a
44:48
Speaker 2: longer period of time to be able to go through
44:50
Speaker 2: the phases. I mean, look, the fight over Obamacare reminds
44:55
Speaker 2: us of how contentious this stuff can be. And thank
44:58
Speaker 2: God Obamacare was passed, and it's made a huge difference.
45:00
Speaker 2: But I always say we should start the discussion from
45:02
Speaker 2: an aspirational place. I mean, this is being missed in
45:05
Speaker 2: the discussion. What is the state of health care in America,
45:08
Speaker 2: and what should it be? So I represent 8.6 million people.
45:11
Speaker 2: A lot of them happen to have health insurance and
45:13
Speaker 2: are unionized. I got 600,000 people who don't have any
45:16
Speaker 2: health insurance. So most of the people I talk to
45:18
Speaker 2: have health insurance. Are they telling me how wonderful their
45:21
Speaker 2: lives are? No, they're telling me all the things they
45:23
Speaker 2: can't get and all the frustrations they face. Mental health care,
45:27
Speaker 2: which is finally being given the respect it deserves in
45:29
Speaker 2: our public debate, is very, very hard to access with
45:33
Speaker 2: the vast majority of insurance plans. Dental care is like
45:36
Speaker 2: the great American white whale, right? Like trying to get
45:38
Speaker 2: affordable dental care in America is like this mythology. Why
45:42
Speaker 2: is it not a matter of public policy to crack
45:45
Speaker 2: that code, right? A huge number of people have health
45:48
Speaker 2: care plans that hit them like over a head with
45:52
Speaker 2: a two by four with the deductibles that really, really
45:55
Speaker 2: stress people and cause people to not get health care
45:58
Speaker 2: they need because they can't handle the deductibles. There's always
46:02
Speaker 2: the danger of a serious disease that can bankrupt a family.
46:05
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not, you know, this is not
46:08
Speaker 2: greatest nation on earth kind of stuff. This is not
46:10
Speaker 2: what we should be aspiring to. So the question, and
46:12
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this in my plan, is say, okay,
46:15
Speaker 2: what is the end of the rainbow where you actually
46:16
Speaker 2: could have truly universal health care? It's a single-payer system.
46:20
Speaker 2: It has been proven in countries around the world. That's
46:22
Speaker 2: where we have to get to. Are we getting there
46:23
Speaker 2: in four years?
46:24
Speaker 1: No. Are we getting there in one jump? No.
46:26
Speaker 2: We're going to have to go through a series of steps.
46:28
Speaker 2: And I'm going to try and delineate that in the
46:29
Speaker 2: coming weeks, including respect. And this is something my brothers
46:32
Speaker 2: and sisters in labor have raised, and I hear it
46:34
Speaker 2: very loud and clear. Folks fought, fought, fought for these
46:37
Speaker 2: better health care plans than they used to have. They
46:40
Speaker 2: don't want to see them wiped away. I say 100%.
46:43
Speaker 2: So let's be clear that any single-payer plan would have
46:47
Speaker 2: to show tangibly that it's better in practice than the
46:52
Speaker 2: plans that labor unions have achieved. When that day comes
46:55
Speaker 2: is the time for a transition. And then the good side,
46:57
Speaker 2: and a lot of folks in labor understand this, is
46:59
Speaker 2: if their members actually could get universal health care through
47:02
Speaker 2: a public system, it would take that issue out of
47:05
Speaker 2: the labor bargaining table and actually strengthen the hand of
47:08
Speaker 2: labor in many ways. But I want to be honest
47:11
Speaker 2: about the fact that this will take stages. But what
47:13
Speaker 2: I'm trying to be really blunt, and this is where
47:17
Speaker 2: I think the debate has to go, is short of
47:19
Speaker 2: a single-payer system, a profit-driven system involving private insurance companies
47:25
Speaker 2: will inherently shortchange people of health care and limit access
47:30
Speaker 2: to health care.
47:31
Speaker 1: So this is where this debate has turned during the primary,
47:36
Speaker 1: and that's important about transition, about the failings of the
47:41
Speaker 1: private system. And I talked about this with Kirsten Gillibrand
47:46
Speaker 1: before she dropped out. A lot of candidates have talked
47:50
Speaker 1: about this transition. And it seems to me what you
47:52
Speaker 1: just described is the private system actually doesn't work really well.
47:57
Speaker 1: We're going to have a public system that does everything
47:59
Speaker 1: the private system does. And I want that. I think
48:01
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. But it elides the actual problem,
48:04
Speaker 1: and it's a political problem. So I understand why this
48:07
Speaker 1: isn't getting the attention it deserves, which is at some point,
48:10
Speaker 1: either your plan tells someone they cannot have their private
48:13
Speaker 1: insurance anymore and they have to switch to a Medicare option,
48:17
Speaker 1: which will ideally have better benefits, right? But it's still
48:24
Speaker 1: rooted in making that case to a person why they
48:27
Speaker 1: should want to switch, as opposed to explaining why it
48:30
Speaker 1: is necessary to switch. Do you understand the distinction there? Yeah.
48:33
Speaker 2: Let me try and answer it and see if I'm
48:35
Speaker 2: hitting the point. So look- We are a country with
48:40
Speaker 2: a strong individualist tradition. And every progressive, every Democrat should
48:47
Speaker 2: be very clear about we believe in freedom. We believe
48:50
Speaker 2: in giving people.
48:50
Speaker 1: A lot of choice.
48:52
Speaker 2: But we also have to be honest when we're looking
48:55
Speaker 2: in the face of failure on a massive scale. And
48:58
Speaker 2: this is health care in America today. There are so
49:04
Speaker 2: many people who are unhealthy and it's all about economics.
49:08
Speaker 2: It's just, that's just the truth. And it is particularly
49:11
Speaker 2: hurting seniors, obviously lower income folks, but it's way into
49:16
Speaker 2: the working class and middle class as well, honestly speaking.
49:19
Speaker 2: And the catastrophic dynamic is absolutely positively unaccounted for.
49:23
Speaker 1: A lot of people who would approve their health care
49:25
Speaker 1: but have no idea that if they were to have
49:26
Speaker 1: a massive emergency, suddenly they would discover they have 100,000
49:30
Speaker 1: bankrupt because of the bills. Bankrupt.
49:34
Speaker 2: That is not consistent with a notion of a government
49:38
Speaker 2: that protects.
49:40
Speaker 1: people.
49:42
Speaker 2: And this is where I think we have to come
49:44
Speaker 2: to grips in this debate. Where are we trying to go?
49:47
Speaker 2: If I said to you, I'm going to talk about
49:48
Speaker 2: public safety, you're going to be safe a lot of
49:51
Speaker 2: the time, John. My pledge to you is most of
49:55
Speaker 2: the time you'll be safe. Sometimes you might be really
49:58
Speaker 2: unsafe and I'll send you flowers then when that happens,
50:01
Speaker 2: but most of the time you're going to be safe.
50:03
Speaker 1: You'd think it was laughable. You'd think it was disgusting.
50:07
Speaker 2: So with public safety, we say Our job is to
50:11
Speaker 2: protect everyone all the time. If I said to you
50:13
Speaker 2: with the military, you know, we're going to protect our
50:15
Speaker 2: nation 80 percent of the time. But that other 20 percent,
50:18
Speaker 2: you know, we'll rebuild afterwards. You would say I was
50:20
Speaker 2: out of my mind. So why is it with health care?
50:23
Speaker 2: We accept the notion. I'm talking tens of millions of families,
50:28
Speaker 2: a huge swath of the country and not just poor people.
50:31
Speaker 2: And bluntly, if we could go back and do the
50:33
Speaker 2: entire discussion over again. what Hillary tried to nobly do
50:37
Speaker 2: in 1993, what Obama did achieve, but obviously with huge costs,
50:43
Speaker 2: political costs and otherwise. It got painted by our opponents as, oh,
50:49
Speaker 2: this is just for poor people, right? This has to
50:52
Speaker 2: be an entirely different discussion. Yeah, we care about folks
50:55
Speaker 2: who are lower income. What I'm talking about is for
50:57
Speaker 2: working class people and middle class people. who right now,
50:59
Speaker 2: their healthcare's not working for them. And I start with
51:02
Speaker 2: mental health. And this is what my wife, Shirlane, has
51:03
Speaker 2: focused her efforts on in New York City and to
51:05
Speaker 2: really help me get educated about this. Do you know
51:08
Speaker 2: an example of Iowa in the last election last year, November,
51:11
Speaker 2: that mental health ranked number one or number two as
51:13
Speaker 2: the issues in the state of Iowa among voters in
51:16
Speaker 2: consistent polls by the Des Moines Register?
51:18
Speaker 1: Why?
51:18
Speaker 2: Because the Republican governors in Iowa had cut back mental
51:21
Speaker 2: health services so much so that rural communities literally had
51:24
Speaker 2: nowhere to turn God forbid someone had a mental health
51:27
Speaker 2: challenge or, you know, depressed, substance misuse problem, there was
51:31
Speaker 2: nowhere to get help. And in all other communities, they
51:35
Speaker 2: were seeing those cutbacks. And particularly in a smaller state
51:38
Speaker 2: and a state with a great sense of community, everybody
51:42
Speaker 2: knew someone who couldn't get mental health care. This is
51:44
Speaker 2: what Iowans have told me, why it became such a
51:46
Speaker 2: huge issue. Because they felt things becoming unstable. It felt
51:51
Speaker 2: like there wasn't a place to turn. So this is
51:53
Speaker 2: the whole country when it comes to our health insurance system.
51:57
Speaker 2: So there's one massive problem. We're dealing with an opioid crisis.
52:01
Speaker 2: We're dealing with a mental health crisis. One in five
52:03
Speaker 2: Americans has a mental health challenge, and yet our health
52:06
Speaker 2: insurance system does not even begin to address those. And
52:09
Speaker 2: then you go on to physical health care, a whole
52:11
Speaker 2: host of things where you can't get the level of
52:13
Speaker 2: care you need, and then that catastrophic danger looming for
52:16
Speaker 2: a vast swath of American families. So we're now talking
52:19
Speaker 2: about a big American majority. And we need to talk
52:21
Speaker 2: about this from the perspective of that big American majority.
52:24
Speaker 2: Where are we trying to go? We should be trying
52:26
Speaker 2: to go to a health care system that keeps people
52:29
Speaker 2: healthy from jump, right? From the moment you have a problem,
52:33
Speaker 2: you know where to go. You do not have to
52:35
Speaker 2: worry about the cost in going there. You get help early,
52:39
Speaker 2: not later. You don't put off. You don't ration. I mean,
52:42
Speaker 2: these stories about seniors choosing how much insulin to take,
52:46
Speaker 2: you know, because they have to pay the rent. That's
52:47
Speaker 2: happened in America all the time. These are not just,
52:49
Speaker 2: and again, I am deeply committed to helping low-income folks,
52:52
Speaker 2: but the folks I'm describing right now, these seniors are
52:55
Speaker 2: folks who solidly came out of the working class and
52:56
Speaker 2: middle class, and they're on fixed incomes, and I'm talking
52:59
Speaker 2: about millions of people. That's not acceptable. So we should
53:03
Speaker 2: not be losing a fight about human decency. We should
53:06
Speaker 2: be honest that it's not going to be a panacea
53:09
Speaker 2: that happens overnight, that it's going to take a lot
53:11
Speaker 2: of work and a lot of transition. And bluntly, we
53:13
Speaker 2: have the cynicism about government And that gets back to
53:16
Speaker 2: those labor union health plans, for example. I don't think
53:19
Speaker 2: it's unfair to show people that we've got something better
53:21
Speaker 2: and it's actually functioning before people.
53:23
Speaker 1: Give up what they have.
53:25
Speaker 2: Like that kind of phasing in and show me, prove
53:28
Speaker 2: it to me, actually could be the thing that gives
53:30
Speaker 2: people the comfort to make the move. And that'll take time.
53:34
Speaker 2: But I hope we come out of this election decided
53:38
Speaker 2: as a nation that this status quo is unacceptable.
53:43
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something, which is that you're
53:44
Speaker 1: a Red Sox fan. That was an abrupt segue. Checking
53:49
Speaker 1: the clock. That speaks to a kind of stubbornness to me. Loyalty?
53:55
Speaker 1: I'm going to call it stubbornness. Honor? Integrity? I believe
54:01
Speaker 1: I said stubbornness. You're the mayor of New York City.
54:04
Speaker 1: You are a fan of the Red Sox. Yes. What
54:09
Speaker 1: the fuck? Thank you for asking such an insightful question, John.
54:16
Speaker 1: It just seems like truly like, but it gets at
54:20
Speaker 1: a serious question, which there does seem to be a
54:23
Speaker 1: kind of daring people to be mad at you.
54:27
Speaker 2: John, daring people to choose me over a bunch of
54:31
Speaker 2: other candidates they could have chosen. And I said from
54:35
Speaker 2: the beginning, hey, my family moved to, Massachusetts, when I
54:39
Speaker 2: was five.
54:39
Speaker 1: I read all this. I don't give a shit. Hold on.
54:41
Speaker 1: I want your vast, vast audience to hear this.
54:42
Speaker 2: You are the mayor of New York City. I grew
54:46
Speaker 2: up with the team. I love the team. I'm a
54:47
Speaker 2: really huge baseball fan. And I said to the people
54:49
Speaker 2: in New York City, this is just who I am.
54:51
Speaker 1: Take it or leave it. And they said they— And
54:53
Speaker 1: they took it. They didn't like it. No, hold on.
54:56
Speaker 2: What is this part of voting that you don't understand?
54:58
Speaker 2: They had a chance to choose a whole bunch of
55:00
Speaker 2: other candidates who are not Red Sox fans.
55:01
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it stopped you from being the mayor.
55:04
Speaker 1: You are a mayor. But in a big way. Yeah. Yeah.
55:07
Speaker 2: I'm saying I won the primary without a runoff. I
55:09
Speaker 2: got 73% of the general election. I won re-election with 67%.
55:12
Speaker 2: Could have been more.
55:14
Speaker 1: Okay. That would have been nice. We don't know what
55:17
Speaker 1: this cost you. But here's the thing. I actually heard
55:19
Speaker 1: this from people.
55:20
Speaker 2: I heard it from a lot of baseball fans who
55:22
Speaker 2: were like, I couldn't change my team anyway.
55:24
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it either.
55:27
Speaker 2: I would have done the same thing you did if
55:28
Speaker 2: you're actually a baseball fan, and I am. But the
55:31
Speaker 2: second thing I heard from some people was, wow. Well,
55:33
Speaker 2: you're not doing that for political advantage.
55:35
Speaker 1: That's certainly true. So maybe there's some integrity there. I
55:38
Speaker 1: have one more. This has just been on my mind.
55:41
Speaker 1: I've wanted to ask you about it. This thing with Cuomo,
55:47
Speaker 1: you guys seem to be, it seems like a very
55:49
Speaker 1: old-fashioned feud in a way that I really like. As
55:51
Speaker 1: a gay Jewish New Yorker, there's a pettiness that I
55:55
Speaker 1: admire about it. And I admire that despite the fact
55:58
Speaker 1: that it might be in both of your interests as
56:01
Speaker 1: leaders to get over it, You seem like you can't,
56:04
Speaker 1: like you truly have a wall between the two of
56:07
Speaker 1: you that seems rooted in genuine pain. What is that pain? Wow.
56:12
Speaker 1: But it's personal. And if it's, you know, they used
56:15
Speaker 1: to say, oh, Obama and McConnell, they should just get
56:17
Speaker 1: a drink. But there were structural reasons, as we have
56:20
Speaker 1: seen in recent years, that would prevent these two people
56:22
Speaker 1: from working together. You're two Democrats who oversee a lot
56:25
Speaker 1: of the same issues together. And yet there's a lot
56:28
Speaker 1: of potshots, a lot of negativity going back and forth.
56:31
Speaker 1: People in New York think it hurts the city. That's
56:33
Speaker 1: a serious question, but it all does seem to be
56:35
Speaker 1: a quite personal thing. Is there any hope for a comedy,
56:40
Speaker 1: for a- Comedy or comity? No, there's been plenty of comedy.
56:44
Speaker 1: There's been plenty of comedy, right? If it wasn't so serious,
56:47
Speaker 1: it is truly- Is there hope for comedy? Well, John-
56:50
Speaker 1: The rivalry is genuinely hilarious. There's hope for more comedy.
56:53
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys don't miss a chance. Little jokes,
56:56
Speaker 1: little digs, real disagreements. What's going on?
56:59
Speaker 2: Well- I honestly believe you're painting a little bit more
57:02
Speaker 2: of a dire picture than reality. I'll tell you why.
57:05
Speaker 2: So you just talked about Amazon. And we talked during
57:08
Speaker 2: that time on the lead up to it. We had
57:10
Speaker 2: to coordinate in a huge way to get to that deal.
57:13
Speaker 2: We were absolutely in agreement on it. And then we
57:15
Speaker 2: went and defended it together. And that was a big,
57:18
Speaker 2: big deal. We just passed a congestion pricing plan. And
57:22
Speaker 2: I want to be honest. I was a congestion pricing
57:25
Speaker 2: doubter for a lot of reasons. To his credit, we
57:27
Speaker 2: worked together. We actually addressed a lot of the things
57:30
Speaker 2: that caused my doubt, which was about fairness, particularly to
57:32
Speaker 2: the outer boroughs in New York City. We got to
57:35
Speaker 2: a plan that I thought made a lot of sense
57:37
Speaker 2: and was going to fund the MTA properly. We promoted
57:40
Speaker 2: it together. That's what broke the back on this issue
57:43
Speaker 2: is when both of us came together and said, this
57:46
Speaker 2: is something we're both going to fight for.
57:47
Speaker 1: And we did, and we won.
57:49
Speaker 2: So there's going to be times when we disagree. The
57:52
Speaker 2: notion that you could both be Democrats and disagree with
57:54
Speaker 2: something is not a shocker. And there's philosophical differences. Look,
57:58
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say he comes out of
58:01
Speaker 2: a more pro-business and more moderate worldview. I come out
58:04
Speaker 2: of a more progressive worldview.
58:06
Speaker 1: That's okay.
58:08
Speaker 2: But we still work together. Our teams work together all
58:11
Speaker 2: the time. And so, yeah, there are human factors. Of course,
58:14
Speaker 2: there's human factors. But here's a very, I think, a
58:16
Speaker 2: sort of heart of the matter thing. You're looking at
58:18
Speaker 2: the digs and everything, right? And yeah, I see them sometimes.
58:21
Speaker 1: You do them sometimes.
58:22
Speaker 2: I do them sometimes, maybe. But I think the fact
58:26
Speaker 2: is that stuff pales in comparison to the work. And
58:30
Speaker 2: so there's almost a perception versus reality.
58:33
Speaker 1: So you and Governor Cuomo work really well together.
58:35
Speaker 2: No, we work well when we agree on a vision
58:38
Speaker 2: because then we get it done. And look, congestion pricing
58:42
Speaker 2: was not an easy thing to get done, but we
58:44
Speaker 2: got it done. And we both worked real hard at it.
58:46
Speaker 2: But here's the thing I disagree with. It's like, okay,
58:49
Speaker 2: we're human beings. We have some disagreements. Sometimes it breaks
58:52
Speaker 2: out in the open. Where is the thing that is
58:56
Speaker 2: not getting done that we could do together? Well, sometimes
59:00
Speaker 2: there are things we don't agree on. So it's not about,
59:02
Speaker 2: what if we were the most incredibly polite people in
59:04
Speaker 2: the world, but we just still didn't agree on a
59:07
Speaker 2: policy vision?
59:08
Speaker 1: That ain't changing the reality. One thing people would point to, right,
59:11
Speaker 1: is that the MTA has a unique role being funded
59:16
Speaker 1: by both the city and the state, being kind of
59:18
Speaker 1: a jury-rigged process that requires both your leadership and the
59:23
Speaker 1: governor's leadership. And that maybe if you guys saw eye
59:26
Speaker 1: to eye more, had a better texting dynamic... Things might
59:31
Speaker 1: be working better.
59:32
Speaker 2: No, let's be let's break it down a little further.
59:35
Speaker 2: We had to. And this this is how change happens.
59:38
Speaker 2: This is literally I hope someday they will study this.
59:41
Speaker 2: The MTA was created to leave no one accountable.
59:44
Speaker 1: This is a fact.
59:46
Speaker 2: It was created so that they could get fair increases
59:49
Speaker 2: through and things done without anyone knowing. Does the city
59:52
Speaker 2: run it? Does the state run it? Who runs it?
59:54
Speaker 1: Right.
59:55
Speaker 2: So I used to have town hall meetings at the
59:56
Speaker 2: beginning of my administration. I would ask people, you know,
59:58
Speaker 2: show of hands, 200, 300 people who runs the MTA,
1:00:01
Speaker 2: about a third would say the governor, about a third
1:00:03
Speaker 2: would say the mayor, and a third would say, we
1:00:05
Speaker 2: don't know.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: And they were right. And they were right about no one.
1:00:08
Speaker 2: Knew because it was not, you know, you could see
1:00:11
Speaker 2: the reality, but it was not portrayed publicly in a
1:00:13
Speaker 2: real way. So I pushed very hard. For the truth,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: and it is the truth to come out, the state
1:00:20
Speaker 2: of New York runs the MTA, dominates the MTA, chooses
1:00:23
Speaker 2: the head of the MTA, chooses the budget for the MTA.
1:00:26
Speaker 2: It's just, it's a fait accompli. And I push this very,
1:00:28
Speaker 2: very hard. And I think this was actually historically necessary.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: So the last town hall meetings I have, I would
1:00:34
Speaker 2: still ask the question, and 90% of hands would go
1:00:36
Speaker 2: up and say state of New York. That change happened
1:00:39
Speaker 2: over the course of a couple of years. Now we
1:00:41
Speaker 2: actually have accountability. And I'm someone who has, I have
1:00:44
Speaker 2: accountability for the entire New York City school system, for example. 1.1
1:00:48
Speaker 2: million kids, mayoral accountability for education, obviously policing and sanitation,
1:00:55
Speaker 2: and you go down the list. I always say, if
1:00:57
Speaker 2: you don't know who you are supposed to hold accountable,
1:00:59
Speaker 2: good luck getting any change. So the good news is, yeah,
1:01:03
Speaker 2: there was a fight. There was tension. But not, you know,
1:01:06
Speaker 2: there's this almost in your question, respectfully, there's some notion
1:01:09
Speaker 2: that Comedy is a goal unto itself regardless of outcome.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: I would argue outcomes for people come first, and you
1:01:16
Speaker 2: sure as hell would like comedy, and you would like respect,
1:01:19
Speaker 2: and you'd like people to have a good open diplomatic discourse, whatever.
1:01:24
Speaker 1: But guess what?
1:01:25
Speaker 2: There's going to be conflicts sometimes over disagreements, and if
1:01:27
Speaker 2: it ends up in a productive place for people, that's fine.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: And for God's sakes, I'm a New Yorker. I'm not
1:01:31
Speaker 2: scared of conflict.
1:01:32
Speaker 1: No.
1:01:33
Speaker 2: And I'm going to say again, if folks believe.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: I knew it was coming.
1:01:37
Speaker 2: If they believe that we need progressive voices in this race,
1:01:39
Speaker 2: please go to BillDeBlasio.com and help me out.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Mayor DeBlasio, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, John.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: It was a great conversation. Enjoyed it. Pod Save America
1:01:56
Speaker 1: is a product of Crooked Media. The show is produced
1:01:59
Speaker 1: by Michael Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Caroline Reston,
1:02:05
Speaker 1: Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support, and to
1:02:08
Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nara Melkonian, and Milo Kim,
1:02:12
Speaker 1: who film and upload these bad boys every week.