Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on MSNBC's Velshi and Ruhle

January 3, 2020

Ali Velshi: Welcome back to Velshi & Ruhle. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned today that in the wake of the death of Iran's Qasem Soleimani, New York City is the top terror target in the United States. The NYPD has deployed additional resources to ensure people are safe. Police departments in Boston and Los Angeles have also said they're monitoring the situation in Iran as major us cities prepare for potential retaliation.

Stephanie Ruhle: Joining us now, former presidential candidate and Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio. Mayor, thank you for joining us. There are no specific threats at this time, but what kind of threats are you preparing for?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Stephanie, that's right ­– no credible and specific threats directed in New York City at this moment, but the problem is that Iranian proxies have previously – we know this, it's public information – they've scouted out in New York City targets – Hezbollah, in particular. This goes back years and we know that Iran and its many agents have long since had plans to prepare to attack American locations. Look, this is what I'm trying to get across overall. This is – as of last night, we are effectively in a state of war with Iran and that should have been done with Congressional approval, but it wasn't. And now, we're not just dealing with another country, we're dealing with a very sophisticated modern country with a huge military and an internationally organized terrorist network. Look, this is New York City, we dealt with 9/11, we dealt with lone wolf attacks, all sorts of things. This is a whole other reality now that we're facing, a much more organized threat, and we have to be you prepared, and that's why the NYPD is on high alert to protect New Yorkers and to protect those symbols of America that are the places most likely you might see an attack by an Iranian proxy.

Velshi: Mayor, there's a few things you have to think about. You've got to think of hardening sites, which we've done over the last several years in New York, you've got to think about deployment, you've got to think about eyes and ears on things. But there's also a reference you made earlier today to Hezbollah, which is an Iranian-funded organization that operates in Southern Lebanon and against Israel in many cases – about them trying to set up sleeper cells in the United States. What do you know about that?

Mayor: There's evidence before of Iranian agents and Hezbollah agents, again, acting in this country. Now, some of them were in the diplomatic corps, but that gives us still every reason to believe it could go well beyond that. Look, we in New York City have a very extensive intelligence-gathering capability in the NYPD. We learned the hard way after 9/11 that we needed to have our own capacity. And what we've learned over years and years of intelligence gathering is that even the stateless actors had the ability to develop those sleeper cells. Now we're talking about something much more challenging, and I want to make this clear – more challenging than the United States has ever confronted previously. And I think the Iranian regime is a horrible, a negative force in the world and the state sponsor of terror, and I'm personally very glad that Soleimani is dead, but we have to be realistic about what we're dealing with – a state sponsor of terror with international reach such as we have never confronted before militarily. And what it means here in the homeland is, in America we're facing a different kind of vulnerability. We know they've made plans previously. We don't know the extent of those plans, obviously. We don't know what they are able to activate. But if this turns into a full-scale shooting war and, right now, that's the direction that's going in, we would be fools to assume that this doesn't end up with multiple acts of terror here in the United States, eventually – not in the first round of activity. I very much believe the first things you'll see will not be here, but this is not something that we resolve in weeks. I want to absolutely part company with the President when he said if there was a war, it would be a short war. I think it's the exact opposite way around. If there's a war with Iran, it's going to be a very long war and not a conventional war, but a war in which Iranian proxy forces all over the world attack American assets, American personnel, and the American homeland, and this is why we should stop this march to war and there should be actual Congressional deliberations to decide if this is going to make us safer or less safe.

Ruhle: Then let's talk about the threat of cyber war. Cyber-attacks could be on the horizon. Is New York prepared for that possibility? We don't even know what could be to come.

Mayor: Stephanie, we have a very advanced cyber command here in New York City. And again, because we've experienced terrorism in a way no other American city has we took it upon ourselves over the last 20 years to really arm up and prepare ourselves. We have a huge intelligence-gathering apparatus, a huge counter-terrorism armed police apparatus, but also a strong cyber command. And what we've learned is the Iranians are very, very effective. We saw the attack on the most important corporation in Saudi Arabia that paralyzed their oil supply. We know Iran has attacked American corporations, sometimes effectively. This is not to be taken lightly. So, we feel confident that we have a lot of capacity here, but that's when there wasn't a state of war. I think, again, the American people have been really clear over many elections, they want to stop these endless wars, they want to stop seeing American intervention all over the world. This is going to make all of that look like child's play. So, the problem here is, if we end up in a shooting war, then you can expect things like cyber-attacks on a level we've never seen before. And unfortunately, Iran is a serious, serious adversary when it comes to cyber.

Velshi: Mayor Bill de Blasio, good to talk to you, thank you for joining us. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York –

Mayor: Thank you.