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Release: Transcript of de Blasio on NY1 on Monday, August 13, 2019.
NYSNYS News


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 12, 2019
CONTACT: pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov, (212) 788-2958

TRANSCRIPT: MAYOR DE BLASIO APPEARS ON NY1

Errol Louis: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. Democratic candidates flocked to Iowa over the weekend including Mayor de Blasio. Among the campaign stops was a presidential right of passage, the Iowa State Fair. The candidates discussed everything from gun control to the economy and Jeffrey Epstein’s sudden death in a Manhattan jail cell. The Mayor just arrived back in the city a few hours ago. He joins us now. Good evening, Mr. Mayor – good to see you.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good evening, Errol.

Louis: The Des Moines Register –

Mayor: We missed you at the fair, Errol.

Louis: Maybe next time.

Mayor: Alright.

Louis: I’ll see in four years. According to the Des Moines Register you ate corn dogs, totchos – I don’t know what those are –

Mayor: Totchos are tater-tots made like nachos.

Louis: Okay –

Mayor: Extraordinary.

Louis: Cheese curds, double dutch sandwich – which is baloney and cheese – pork chops, sugar grilled pork belly on a stick, deep fried Twinkie, deep fried Oreo. I put on two pounds just reading the list.

Mayor: If you’re going to play, play hard, Errol.

[Laughter]

Play hard.

Louis: Okay – a little extra time at the gym this week, maybe.

Mayor: A lot of extra time.

[Laughter]

The fair is amazing.

Louis: This is – I assume that the press is there. They put all the cameras on you to see if you’re going to eat the deep curds and fried Twinkies and all that.

Mayor: But a lot of that was when there was no press around.

[Laughter]

Did you get the corn dog in there? Because that was also important.

Louis: That was the first thing. Corn dog.

Mayor: Okay, corn dog – very important. No, I just like that food –

[Laughter]

Louis: You just decided to pig out –

[Laughter]

Did you do any good? I mean because this is – as you know because you’ve organized Iowa caucuses for other candidates – it’s not enough to just sort of smile and wave and have them get to know you. You’re – you’ve got to try and sign people up on the dotted line, people who are going to go out and argue for you in those caucuses, whatever – six months from now.

Mayor: Six months from now and you just said the operative words. So, one of the things I noticed – that was one of the things I went to. I had a series of other gatherings with Iowa Democrats and then the famous event on Wednesday, which is another right of passage in Clear Lake, Iowa, the Wing Ding, which is based on chicken wings. There’s a lot of different food things going on.

Louis: That I can work with.

Mayor: The Wing Ding – I think it was something like 20 candidates speaking one after another, five minutes each. And the State Fair, you have the soap box, and similar situations. So, look, what I’m hearing from Iowa Democrats is they’re keeping their [inaudible] dry because they know it's six months until they vote, it’s six months until anyone votes. I think a huge number of Democrats in Iowa – the folks who are actually going to caucus – either are not certain at all who they’re going to support or have only a broad lean at this point. They are still very open to other candidates. And the goal is exactly as you said, to build support person by person.

I was very retail. You know I ran for the school board in Brooklyn when we had local school board elections. I ran for City Council in Brooklyn. I have not had an experience since then as reminiscent as running for local office as being in Iowa. Running for Mayor of New York City, you’re talking about 8.6 million people and, of course ,you go and meet people at subways and bus stops and delis, whatever, but there was obviously a sense of a huge number of people are going to be voting. But Iowa is about extreme retail politics –

Louis: But I mean it’s not random retail. I mean, do you have lists that you are working from? Like these people caucus for so and so, so they may be more [inaudible] message, that kind of thing –

Mayor: Yeah, but I want to just put it in perspective. You’re talking about a few hundred thousand people who typically caucus and so if you’re at a Democratic – I’ve done lots and lots of Democratic Party gatherings. There is another event on Saturday called Passport to Victory which is a series of gatherings that have been done – this one was in Central City, Iowa in the first congressional district. You know, 300 people – something like that – every single one of whom is a caucus goer. Everyone you’re talking to there, every time you go to a labor gathering – so you know the settings where you’re talking essentially to 100 percent of the folks who actually will participate.

Louis: And just to be clear for our audience, even if they are already committed to somebody else, you might want to be their second choice, right, because caucusing is multiple rounds of argumentation before they arrive at who is allocating delegates –

Mayor: It’s an extraordinary process and you know people are now thinking about issues like instant runoff voting here. This is not instant, this is people – I mean, as you said Iowa is a precinct [inaudible] at some caucuses in the past – people who go into the room and they have a first choice and let’s say the first choice isn’t working out for them or they’re having doubt, they literally can switch up before the final count. And their friends come over and try and argue them to move. It’s like, I don’t know, capture the flag or what game from our youth.

But it is literally – you’ve got lots of movement. And so if people like you – you know one thing, people come up to you in Iowa, it happened to me all weekend and they say, ‘You’re on my list.’

Louis: Okay.

Mayor: What that means is you may be their first, second, third or fourth, fifth – it doesn’t matter. It means you’re among the people that they are seriously considering. At any point you might move around on the list but on that night for those two or three hours, being on someone’s list means that you can pick up any number of votes in the right circumstances. So, yeah, that’s what we’re doing all of the time but I remind you, half-a-year before anyone votes.

Louis: Yes, plenty of time. You made an appearance on Fox News on the Hannity Show – somewhat controversial, I think. You were the first of the candidates to actually do that. Got any evidence, any feedback that you actually connected with people? Did you seen an uptick for example in donations?

Mayor: Yeah we definitely saw a lot of activity on many levels. A lot of people felt very positively about it. They thought it was important someone challenge Hannity, speak to his audience directly. Don’t give up on that – I say, don’t give on that audience. A lot of those folks are working class folks, middle class folks who have been Democrat, who have voted Democratic at certain points, a lot of them are disappointed with the Democratic Party, we need to get them back. Some of them were the Obama, Obama, Trump voter. A lot of them are labor union members who want to hear Democrats stand up for labor.

So, first of all, engage the audience. Second of all, you know, go in there and take on Hannity, you know, show that we have the guts as Democrats and progressives to challenge him. Got a lot of good feedback. And the most powerful example to me – so, I’m standing in line waiting to do an interview at the fair yesterday and a guy comes over, his name is John, he’s from the Des Moines area, and he goes by and he says, ‘Hey, it was really good that you were Hannity.’ And then he comes back around and he says, ‘I want you to know that I’m a registered Republican,’ he said, ‘But I really appreciated that you went on and that you were willing to make your points and argue your case.’ And he said, ‘That was very important to me.’ He said, ‘I’m a registered Republican but I still really liked that you did that.’

Louis: Okay.

Mayor: So, I think, you know, it’s the kind of thing where this is what Democrats should be doing a hell of a lot more, like, we’re not scared to talk to anybody, anywhere. And it’s also the anti-elitism strategy. A lot of people in Iowa fear the Democratic Party is the party of the two coasts and of the elite. That’s what killed us in 2016. We have to show we’re the party that wants to talk to anyone, anywhere because we value them.

Louis: And eat corn dogs and pork bellies alongside the people.

Mayor: And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Louis: Nothing wrong with that, okay.

Mayor: Nothing wrong with that.

Louis: Let’s take a short break now. I’ll be right back with more from Mayor de Blasio in just a minute. Stay with us.

[...]

Errol Louis: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. Democratic candidates flocked to Iowa over the weekend including Mayor de Blasio. Among the campaign stops was a presidential right of passage, the Iowa State Fair. The candidates discussed everything from gun control to the economy and Jeffrey Epstein’s sudden death in a Manhattan jail cell. The Mayor just arrived back in the city a few hours ago. He joins us now. Good evening, Mr. Mayor – good to see you.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good evening, Errol.

Louis: The Des Moines Register –

Mayor: We missed you at the fair, Errol.

Louis: Maybe next time.

Mayor: Alright.

Louis: I’ll see in four years. According to the Des Moines Register you ate corn dogs, totchos – I don’t know what those are –

Mayor: Totchos are tater-tots made like nachos.

Louis: Okay –

Mayor: Extraordinary.

Louis: Cheese curds, double dutch sandwich – which is baloney and cheese – pork chops, sugar grilled pork belly on a stick, deep fried Twinkie, deep fried Oreo. I put on two pounds just reading the list.

Mayor: If you’re going to play, play hard, Errol.

[Laughter]

Play hard.

Louis: Okay – a little extra time at the gym this week, maybe.

Mayor: A lot of extra time.

[Laughter]

The fair is amazing.

Louis: This is – I assume that the press is there. They put all the cameras on you to see if you’re going to eat the deep curds and fried Twinkies and all that.

Mayor: But a lot of that was when there was no press around.

[Laughter]

Did you get the corn dog in there? Because that was also important.

Louis: That was the first thing. Corn dog.

Mayor: Okay, corn dog – very important. No, I just like that food –

[Laughter]

Louis: You just decided to pig out –

[Laughter]

Did you do any good? I mean because this is – as you know because you’ve organized Iowa caucuses for other candidates – it’s not enough to just sort of smile and wave and have them get to know you. You’re – you’ve got to try and sign people up on the dotted line, people who are going to go out and argue for you in those caucuses, whatever – six months from now.

Mayor: Six months from now and you just said the operative words. So, one of the things I noticed – that was one of the things I went to. I had a series of other gatherings with Iowa Democrats and then the famous event on Wednesday, which is another right of passage in Clear Lake, Iowa, the Wing Ding, which is based on chicken wings. There’s a lot of different food things going on.

Louis: That I can work with.

Mayor: The Wing Ding – I think it was something like 20 candidates speaking one after another, five minutes each. And the State Fair, you have the soap box, and similar situations. So, look, what I’m hearing from Iowa Democrats is they’re keeping their [inaudible] dry because they know it's six months until they vote, it’s six months until anyone votes. I think a huge number of Democrats in Iowa – the folks who are actually going to caucus – either are not certain at all who they’re going to support or have only a broad lean at this point. They are still very open to other candidates. And the goal is exactly as you said, to build support person by person.

I was very retail. You know I ran for the school board in Brooklyn when we had local school board elections. I ran for City Council in Brooklyn. I have not had an experience since then as reminiscent as running for local office as being in Iowa. Running for Mayor of New York City, you’re talking about 8.6 million people and, of course ,you go and meet people at subways and bus stops and delis, whatever, but there was obviously a sense of a huge number of people are going to be voting. But Iowa is about extreme retail politics –

Louis: But I mean it’s not random retail. I mean, do you have lists that you are working from? Like these people caucus for so and so, so they may be more [inaudible] message, that kind of thing –

Mayor: Yeah, but I want to just put it in perspective. You’re talking about a few hundred thousand people who typically caucus and so if you’re at a Democratic – I’ve done lots and lots of Democratic Party gatherings. There is another event on Saturday called Passport to Victory which is a series of gatherings that have been done – this one was in Central City, Iowa in the first congressional district. You know, 300 people – something like that – every single one of whom is a caucus goer. Everyone you’re talking to there, every time you go to a labor gathering – so you know the settings where you’re talking essentially to 100 percent of the folks who actually will participate.

Louis: And just to be clear for our audience, even if they are already committed to somebody else, you might want to be their second choice, right, because caucusing is multiple rounds of argumentation before they arrive at who is allocating delegates –

Mayor: It’s an extraordinary process and you know people are now thinking about issues like instant runoff voting here. This is not instant, this is people – I mean, as you said Iowa is a precinct [inaudible] at some caucuses in the past – people who go into the room and they have a first choice and let’s say the first choice isn’t working out for them or they’re having doubt, they literally can switch up before the final count. And their friends come over and try and argue them to move. It’s like, I don’t know, capture the flag or what game from our youth.

But it is literally – you’ve got lots of movement. And so if people like you – you know one thing, people come up to you in Iowa, it happened to me all weekend and they say, ‘You’re on my list.’

Louis: Okay.

Mayor: What that means is you may be their first, second, third or fourth, fifth – it doesn’t matter. It means you’re among the people that they are seriously considering. At any point you might move around on the list but on that night for those two or three hours, being on someone’s list means that you can pick up any number of votes in the right circumstances. So, yeah, that’s what we’re doing all of the time but I remind you, half-a-year before anyone votes.

Louis: Yes, plenty of time. You made an appearance on Fox News on the Hannity Show – somewhat controversial, I think. You were the first of the candidates to actually do that. Got any evidence, any feedback that you actually connected with people? Did you seen an uptick for example in donations?

Mayor: Yeah we definitely saw a lot of activity on many levels. A lot of people felt very positively about it. They thought it was important someone challenge Hannity, speak to his audience directly. Don’t give up on that – I say, don’t give on that audience. A lot of those folks are working class folks, middle class folks who have been Democrat, who have voted Democratic at certain points, a lot of them are disappointed with the Democratic Party, we need to get them back. Some of them were the Obama, Obama, Trump voter. A lot of them are labor union members who want to hear Democrats stand up for labor.

So, first of all, engage the audience. Second of all, you know, go in there and take on Hannity, you know, show that we have the guts as Democrats and progressives to challenge him. Got a lot of good feedback. And the most powerful example to me – so, I’m standing in line waiting to do an interview at the fair yesterday and a guy comes over, his name is John, he’s from the Des Moines area, and he goes by and he says, ‘Hey, it was really good that you were Hannity.’ And then he comes back around and he says, ‘I want you to know that I’m a registered Republican,’ he said, ‘But I really appreciated that you went on and that you were willing to make your points and argue your case.’ And he said, ‘That was very important to me.’ He said, ‘I’m a registered Republican but I still really liked that you did that.’

Louis: Okay.

Mayor: So, I think, you know, it’s the kind of thing where this is what Democrats should be doing a hell of a lot more, like, we’re not scared to talk to anybody, anywhere. And it’s also the anti-elitism strategy. A lot of people in Iowa fear the Democratic Party is the party of the two coasts and of the elite. That’s what killed us in 2016. We have to show we’re the party that wants to talk to anyone, anywhere because we value them.

Louis: And eat corn dogs and pork bellies alongside the people.

Mayor: And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Louis: Nothing wrong with that, okay.

Mayor: Nothing wrong with that.

Louis: Let’s take a short break now. I’ll be right back with more from Mayor de Blasio in just a minute. Stay with us.

[...]

Louis: We are back, Inside City Hall, and I am talking with Mayor Bill de Blasio. And Mr. Mayor, the question of qualifying for the fall debates, the deadline is approaching, I think it’s coming up in the next couple of weeks. Where do things stand as far as the big number, the 130,000 individual contributions spread across 20-odd states as well as the two percent or more in, what, four polls, four consecutive polls –

Mayor: We’ve got more work to do. There is still time on the clock and, you know, there’s more work to do, that’s the bottom line and debates are only one part of equation, Errol. I mean let’s be clear, debates are a fantastic opportunity to speak to, you know, 20 million or more people but they are also a flawed dynamic by definition. You know, at this point we’ve had 10 people on a stage and a format that only allows so much give and take. There’s a lot of other things you do to reach people and we talked about the example of the Sean Hannity Show, again with all my disagreements with Sean Hannity, that got a lot of attention, I think there’s going to be a lot of other opportunities. So my job is do everything I can to get into that debate, you know there’s debates after that as well, but there’s also lots of other circumstances to get the word out.

Louis: You know, when the Governor of Montana says, how is it that we have a process – we the “Democratic Party” – have a process where somebody from a red state, a governor of a state, can’t make it into the debates. I imagine you have, from a different perspective, the same question. How is it that Andrew Yang is on the debate stage – no disrespect to Andrew Yang, he’s a New Yorker – but how is it that there is a process that has him and not a governor from Montana or the Mayor of New York City?

Mayor: Look on the one hand I think it begs an important question. Absolutely, real respect for Andrew Yang, he’s worked hard to get there, Marianne Williamson has worked hard to get there, they’ve said some important things on that stage, but yeah, a governor from Montana, a red state, is someone we should hear from. I think the Mayor of the nation’s largest city is someone we should here from. So there is something inherently problematic, but on the other hand the good news is that the reforms that the DNC has undertaken at least are moving us in the right direction, which is a focus on grassroots donations rather than who has the most money or only a few people who have the highest poll numbers early on. I think the challenge is, in a social media dynamic, we know that some things break through and get those low dollar donations are not necessarily the same things that make a great president. I would argue, the second toughest job in America as it has often been called, is something that immediately qualifies you as someone for consideration and people should want to hear, you know, what I’ve done in six years as Mayor of this city and what my vision is because I’ve already done something substantial. But I also get – we’ve never had this many candidates and I think it’s almost like there is no perfect formula and part of my answer, and I honestly believe this, look at the debates and the impact on the polls its – I don’t want to say it’s been a wash – but when you really get out of the first days after the debates, the big strokes of this election so far, six months, seven months, have not been based on the debate performances, they just haven’t.

Louis: That’s right, that’s right.

Mayor: So that’s where I’m not going overrate it. I’m going to make my decisions about what I’m going to do based on the whole picture.

Louis: Okay, and so there is a scenario in which, whether or not you’re on the debate stage, you’re going to continue with the campaign?

Mayor: Yeah, I would absolutely say that. I’m going to look at all the pieces and look, again, six months until anyone votes, you know, that’s what we have to keep in mind.

Louis: Okay, next presidential question, the Staten Island Advance reports that some union members from Local 831, the Sanitation Men’s Association, were upset about being asked by their union to donate to your presidential campaign. And while the president says the union is not necessarily endorsing you, you’re in – well the City is – in contract negotiations with the Local. Is there any kind of a conflict there?

Mayor: No, this is the first union to endorse me for reelection when I ran for Mayor, and remember, that was a year and a half ago when I got reelected Mayor. You know, it’s the most normal thing in the world to turn to the labor movement, where I have very, very strong ties, long history, and say I’m asking for your support. The difference this year is we’ve never had a dynamic where that support might take a form other than traditional endorsement. For the first time we’re talking about a debate system based on these very low dollar donations. We’re talking one dollar. And by the way I want to remind your viewers -

Louis: 99 cents –

Mayor: You want to help me – yeah, one dollar will do, if you want help me to get on that debate stage, go to billdeblasio.com, donate one dollar or more because it makes a difference. So the difference here is to say to unions if you believe in my pro-labor message, pro-working person message, you want to make sure it spreads, maybe you’ll endorse someone else eventually, but this is actually a live debate about where our party is going and where our country is going, and who’s on that stage matters in that debate. But that does not mean that every member of a union is going to agree with its leadership’s idea. When sanitation workers endorsed me in 2017, did I have the illusion that very sanitation worker was going to vote for me? No, of course not but the union leadership, on behalf of their members, thought it was the right thing to do for working people who they represented.

Louis: Okay. Let me move on. As you know another cyclist was killed, Jose Alzorriz was involved in a tragic accident.

Mayor: It was horrible.

Louis: But according to CBS the 18-year-old driver of the car that triggered the entire crash was released from police custody, it’s unclear whether he will face any charges. Should he be charged?

Mayor: Of course. Look, first of all I’ve seen the video, a lot of people have seen the video. He just blows right through a red light and you know, kills someone. Of course, there should be numerous charges right now. But the bigger thing I think we have to move to and this is, from my understanding, essentially state law, maybe there are some additional city pieces, but essentially its state law. If you kill someone through your negligence, maybe that’s not murder one, I’m not a lawyer but I’d say it should be a serious, serious charge with many years in prison. Because it’s negligence, it’s not that you know, something unavoidable happened and the driver was put in a horrible situation. He blew through a red light at high speed. And someone’s gone now and a family is grieving, there should be a much higher consequence.

So I don’t know all the charges that have come so far, Errol. But I actually think part of what the Vision Zero approach calls for is changing our whole assumption about what penalties it’d be. I mean one of the things I called for was this horrible situation that happened in my own neighborhood in Park Slope, where a driver with a medical condition, a known medical condition who should not have been driving, was allowed to drive anyway. I called for a law change that required doctors to have to report that to the DMV. It wasn’t acted on in Albany this year. I hope it will be next year. But I think it is time to reassess our whole relationship with the automobile and say if you kill someone and you did something wrong as part of that, there should be a very, very serious penalty.

Louis: Okay. There’s a quote I just saw recently. I guess you spoke with the New York Times today about the death of Jeffrey Epstein. What is your sense of what went on there?

Mayor: It does not add up in a way that’s more troubling than almost any kind of thing I can think of recently. I consider myself a very reasonable person, but when I see one of the most prominent cases on Earth, a guy who was assaulted or tried to commit suicide, whatever it was just days ago, federal facility, everyone knows, one of the people he had a relationship with was Donald Trump, so therefore you’d think everyone involved would say okay we are watching this guy like a hawk. We are using every measure to make sure nothing happens to him or he doesn’t do anything to himself. And then conveniently suddenly all of that is gone and he’s able to kill himself? It just boggles the imagination.

So look, sometimes there is just plain human error, I’m the first to understand that, you know governing over a huge city, sometimes people just make a mistake in one of our agencies and we understand it. But this series of events is way too convenient. Full investigation needed into that and there needs to be an independent element to that investigation. But beyond that, all of his victims still deserve justice and he was not the only person by far. He was one of what could have been many, many dozens of people, including some very rich and powerful people who did horrible things to these young women. And there needs to be a full borne investigation, federal and I think all the local areas, all the local jurisdictions there are prosecutors as well. To honor these victims but also who the hell actually is responsible here. There may be some very important people who are a part of this. So no, this should not be let go. This should be the beginning of something much bigger, doesn’t matter if he’s not here, should be the beginning of something much bigger.

Louis: Okay and in our last minute. There is a controversy over P.S. 9 in Queens as you probably know. Parents are criticizing the Chancellor’s plan to spend what looks like an escalating number – I mean somewhere around $30 million according to what the Post is saying to fix up a 116-year-old building in an industrial area. The costs spiraling out of control – this is a building that seats students with disabilities like autism –

Mayor: When you say spiraling out of control, I’m just going to challenge you there. The School Construction Authority which has done a hell of job. I mean you and I both remember when the School Construction Authority was nothing to write home about. Today in New York City, it’s an extraordinarily effective organization, they do great work. And look, they also know one of the truths in New York City nowadays. It’s not the New York City you and I knew when we were coming up. Finding the space to build a new school is really hard in New York City today. If you’ve got a school facility and you can fix it, in many cases it is a lot cheaper actually than building from scratch. And you don’t always have the option to build from scratch.

So no, there’s a lot of noise being created here and I think the underlying point is valid. That these are kids with special needs, we must serve them better, some of those conditions are not what we want. But there is also a lot of political noise being created for ulterior motive. When the City of New York says we are going to invest to make that school right, people should be applauding that. That’s the right thing to do for kids and parents and that’s what we are going to do.

Louis: Okay. We’ll take a closer look at the numbers and we may continue this conversation another time. For now we will say welcome back, good to see you, thanks for coming by. We will see you next Monday.

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