Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Musk Says "People Will Die" Over NYC's New Fire Commissioner

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Musk Says "People Will Die" Over NYC's New Fire Commissioner · Elon Musk Podcast

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  now would help the show tremendously.
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  Thank you so much. Elon Musk posted a warning on
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  Friday about New York City's incoming Fire Commissioner.
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  His words were very blunt. He said.
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  People will die because of this. Proven experience matters when
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  lives are at stake. Now the target of his criticism
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  is Lillian Monsignor, a 31 year Fire Department of New York
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  veteran who led the city's emergency medical services
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  during the COVID-19 pandemic. She's had to become the second
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  woman and the first openly gay person to run the nation largest
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  fire department. Now the person who appointed her
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  is Zoran Mamdani, New York City's incoming mayor, a 34 year
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  old democratic socialist who takes office January 1st.
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  Musk's complaint is that Bazinor has never been a firefighter.
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  She came up through EMS, not the fireside of the department.
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  Mamdani fired back on Saturday with a pointed response.
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  He said experience does matter. Which is why I appointed the
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  person who spent more than 30 years at EMS, you know, the
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  workforce that addresses at least 70% of all calls coming
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  into FDNY. So who is right here?
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  The argument over qualifications for Fire Commissioner is playing
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  out against a much larger political backdrop.
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  Musk and Mamdani are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
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  Musk served in President Trump's administration as part of Doge.
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  Mamdani is a democratic socialist endorsed by Bernie
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  Sanders and AOC. Now, Trump called Mamdani 100%
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  communist lunatic after he won the Democratic primary in June.
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  Trump also just said that he might try to arrest and deport
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  Mamdani if he won the mayoral electorate.
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  Now, Mamdani was born in Uganda, raised in New York City and
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  became AUS citizen in 2018. He's the first Muslim and 1st
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  South Asian mayor of New York City.
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  Now we're going to walk through the qualifications of this
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  person. Maz, ignore why this appointment
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  is controversial in whether this criticism holds up.
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  We'll go right into that after this very short break.
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  Now Lillian Vance Noor joined the FDNY as an Emergency Medical
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  Technician in 1991. She was among the first
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  responders to the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.
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  By 2002 she had risen to Lieutenant.
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  She became a captain in 2005 and a deputy chief in 2009.
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  In 2016, she was named Chief of the EMS Academy at Fort Totten.
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  In 2019, she became Chief of EMS Operations, a role she held
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  through the early and most brutal brutal phase of COVID-19
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  pandemic and during that period, she oversaw more than 4300 EMS
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  providers responding to approximately 1.5 million calls
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  per year. She became the first woman to
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  achieve a four-star rank in FDNY history, and she retired in 2022
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  and came out of retirement to accept this appointment.
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  Now, Bond Signora's supporters point out that the FDNY is not
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  just a fire department. The majority of calls handled by
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  FDNY personnel are medical emergencies, not fires.
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  Mehmdani emphasized this in his response to Musk, noting that
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  EMS handles at least 70% of all FDNY calls.
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  Laura Kavanaugh, the first woman to serve as FDNY commissioner
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  and the person who held the role before resigning in 2024,
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  praised this appointment. She called her one of the
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  strongest leaders I have ever worked alongside.
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  Congressman Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, also
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  pushed back on Elon Musk's criticism.
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  He wrote then. Bazinora is a 31 year veteran in
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  a 9/11 1st responder and accused the far right of ignoring facts
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  to fit their narrative. Now, critics argue that running
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  a fire department requires operational firefighting
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  experience. The FDNY battles high rise
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  fires, structural collapses and complex industrial incidents
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  that require technical expertise developed on the fireside, A
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  commissioner said strategy allocates resources and makes
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  decisions during major emergencies.
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  Now, Musk's argument is that someone without first hand
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  experience fighting fires cannot effectively lead an organization
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  whose core mission is firefighting.
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  Now the appointment has drawn mockery from conservative
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  commentators, some of whom have focused on von Zignora's sexual
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  orientation rather than her qualifications.
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  Run Writer. One writer at The Federalist
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  wrote sarcastically that at least trapped occupants would
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  know the commissioner was a lesbian, even if she never
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  served as a firefighter. Now that kind of commentary is
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  sick, and it tends to undercut legitimate questions about
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  experience by making the criticism appear to be about
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  identity rather than competence. If that person is stupid,
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  they're an idiot, by the way. And the appointment also needs
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  context around what happened the same week.
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  Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who's still in office until December
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  31st, made his own FDNY commissioner appointment on the
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  same day. Adam Name Mark Werra, a 37 year
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  FDNY veteran who had been serving as interim commissioner.
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  Adams described Werra as principled and qualified, saying
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  that keeping New Yorkers safe has always been his
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  administration's North Star. Now, Mamdani brushed aside the
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  dueling appointment, noting that Adams is free to be mayor until
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  the end of the year. Lillian's light is one that
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  can't be dimmed by anything else that takes place.
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  Mamdani said the question of which appointment will actually
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  stick is straightforward. MIM Donnie takes office January
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  1st, his appointee will be commissioner, and Adam's
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  appointment is essentially A placeholder for the final days
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  of his administration. Now, the broader political
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  context matters here, too. Elon Musk and Trump had both
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  been hostile to Mamdani since before the election.
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  Musk urged New Yorkers to vote for Andrew Cuomo instead of
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  Mamdani in November, even though Cuomo was running as an
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  independent. After losing the Democratic
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  primary, Trump repeatedly called Mamdani A communist and
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  suggested he might not be a legal citizen, a false claim
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  given that Mamdani was naturalized in 2018.
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  Now Mamdani, for his part, called Trump a fascist and a
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  death spot during the campaign. Yet after Mamdani won, the two
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  met at the White House in November and emerged smiling.
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  They had a good time. Trump said he would be looking
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  to hurt or would not be looking to hurt New York City, but
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  rather to help it. Mamdani said his views about
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  Trump remain unchanged, but that he is willing to work with the
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  federal government now. The FDNY commissioner
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  controversy fits into this larger pattern of friction
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  between Musk, Trump and New York City's incoming progressive
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  leadership. And retired NYPD Lieutenant John
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  Macrae, who Co hosts a podcast about New York policing, offered
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  a counterpoint to Musk's criticism.
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  Now, he pointed out, the last two FDNY commissioners appointed
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  by Eric Adams also had zero operational firefighting
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  experience. He also noted that the Curry
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  NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has no law enforcement
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  experience. Makari argued that Bond
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  Signora's 30 years on the EMS side of FDNY gives her deep
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  institutional knowledge and that the overwhelming majority of
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  calls handled by firefighters are EMS runs.
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  Now, whether this is a persuasive defense depends on
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  what you think the commissioner role requires.
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  If the commissioner is primarily an administrator who sets policy
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  and manages budgets, then EMS experience may be sufficient.
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  If the commissioner is expected to have tactical expertise in
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  firefighting operations, then the lack of fire experience is a
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  huge gap now bouncing. Nora addressed her
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  qualifications directly at her appointment news conference.
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  She said I know the job, I know what the firefighters need, and
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  I can translate that to this administration who's willing to
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  listen now. She also noted that she can do
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  things most fire commissioners cannot.
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  And she said, and now you have a commissioner that could start an
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  IVA reference to her hands on medical training.
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  Now, whether that skill matters for leaving a fire department is
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  debatable, but her point was that she brings practical
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  experience just in a little bit of a different domain than
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  critics expected. Mamdani's appointment of Boznor
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  is also being interpreted interpreted as a commitment to
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  raising wages for EMT's. We've long lobbied for P
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  increases to match other first responders.
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  That political dimension may be as important to the incoming
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  mayor as any question of operational expertise.
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  Now, Elon Musk's criticism drew attention because of his
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  platform and his connection to Elon to Donald Trump.
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  But the underlying question about qualifications for public
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  safety leadership is not new. Cities have appointed police
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  commissioners without law enforcement experience for
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  decades. Fire departments have been led
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  by administrators from the EMS side before, also for decades.
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  And the debate about whether leadership experiences one part
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  of an agency transfers to another is genuine and
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  reasonable well made. This particular controversy,
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  louder than most, is the political context.
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  And I want you to think about this for a second.
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  Did Elon Musk have any experience building cars before
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  he joined Tesla? Did Elon Musk have any
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  experience building rockets before he started SpaceX?
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  Just to put that in a context there.
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  Now the controversy is pretty loud.
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  So think about this. A billionaire who served in a
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  Republican administration attacking a democratic socialist
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  mayor over an appointment that also happens to be historic for
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  LGBTQ representation created a combustible mix.
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  Now, the facts about Bozing Nora's career got somewhat lost
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  in the noise. She spent 3 decades in the FDNY.
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  She led the agency's medical response during a pandemic that
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  killed 10s of thousands of New Yorkers.
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  She's the 9/11 1st responder who was at the World Trade Center on
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  that day. Whether that is enough to lead
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  the department's firefighting operations is a fair question.
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  Whether people will die because of it is a prediction that
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  sounds more like political rhetoric than measured analysis.
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  Now, the timing also matters here.
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  Mamdani takes office in just a few days.
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  His administration will face immediate scrutiny from Musk,
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  from Trump, and from a media environment that is deeply
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  polarized now. And the right wing of our
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  government now owns most of the mainstream media.
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  Every appointment, every policy decision, every budget request
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  will be filtered through the lens of whether the country's
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  most prominent democratic socialists can effectively
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  govern its largest and most important city.
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  Monsignor is the first Test case.
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  Her performance as commissioner will be watched very closely,
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  because if she messes up, everybody will know about it.
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  And if she does mess up, right wing people will freak out.
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  Every podcast, every single weird Newsmax host will have
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  something to say about this, and they're not going to say
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  anything about her skills. I'm sure they're going to add
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  some other stuff in there too. Now.
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  If the department runs smoothly and responds effectively to
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  emergencies, the criticism will fade.
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  Something goes wrong. Elon Musk's prediction will be
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  cited as evidence that he is a truth Sayer and he knows the
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  future, that the appointment was a mistake.
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  That's the reality of governing in a hostile political
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  environment. But you know what?
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  Every FDNY leader has had problems.
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  This one's going to be magnified because Elon stuck his nose in
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  it. He has no business doing that.
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  He has no, he has no connection to New York.
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  So think about it. Logistically, Elon doesn't
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  really have anything to do with New York City, and he's just
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  doing some political rhetoric here.
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  Now, every decision here carries both policy consequences and
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  political risk. But you know what?
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  New York City doesn't care. They don't care.
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  They're just going to keep doing the thing.
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  They're going to keep doing FDNY stuff and New Yorkers are going
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  to support them. Hey, thank you so much for
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  listening today. I really do appreciate your
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  support. If you could take a second and
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