Transcript: Mayor Bill de Blasio Appears Live on MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes

January 22, 2016

Chris Hayes: Joining me now, by phone, is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Mayor, I know you’re preparing for the storm. Thank you for making a little time for us. How do you deal, as a mayor, with the wide band of estimates that come in these forecasts in terms of how much you prepare, how many resources you marshal?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yes, Chris, we have to prepare for the worst, that’s the governing assumption. So, you know, when we started out in the last few days, it sounded like it would be less than a foot of snow, right now we’re working from the latest weather service report which would say a foot to a foot-and-a-half in New York City. But we always assume a storm could show up even sooner and certainly, could be bigger, so, you know, we’re preparing as if it could be as much as two feet because we have to. So, we’re have – we have, for example, 1,800 snow plows that will be out and ready early in the morning tomorrow – and we have over 300,000 tons of salt on hand, so, we’re ready for anything.

Hayes: One of the most – probably the most destruct part of Sandy, of course, was the storm surge and it coincided with the high tide and the full moon – and I saw some very worrisome estimates for Cape May in New Jersey. Are you concerned about any of that downtown around the Battery or in the city?

Mayor: Well, we’re going with the Weather Service’s estimates now and thank God they have not suggested the kind of flooding that would really be devastating. Now, certainly there’ll be some coastal flooding, it’ll certainly be inconvenient and something that people have to take very seriously, but at this moment it doesn’t look like the kind of flooding that would cause a real risk to human life – and that being said, we have a lot of assets out. We’re going to have the Fire Department, Police Department out there with swift boats – rescue boats ready to go if needed. We’re going to have high-axel vehicles so police and fire can get into flooded areas. We’ve been reinforcing our beaches and adding to our sand dunes for, you know, preventative measures. So, we don’t take the flooding issue lightly but so far, it seems to be staying within parameters that we can handle.

Hayes: You seem to call out Governor Chris Christie for attempting to essentially manage the storm by phone from New Hampshire while he runs for President. He’s now come back. Is that out of your lane?

Mayor: No, look, I got asked a question – I didn’t do it proactively but I spoke from my heart. I mean, at this point, by this morning it was quite clear this was going to be a very serious storm and anyone in executive office – a mayor, a governor – has to lead from the front. It’s our obligation to be home when something like this happens. Look, again, this is more important than politics. I understand it’s the political season but I think it’s a very common sense point. It’s time to get home.

Hayes: You just mentioned political season. I know you’re preparing for the storm. I rarely get a chance to talk to you so, I do want to ask you – I’m sure you’ve been following this primary campaign, you’ve endorsed Hillary Clinton. You have a long record with Hillary Clinton. You’ve also been someone who really championed the cause of inequality in your campaign here and throughout your mayoralty. What do you think of the tenor of this primary so far? Do you think it’s gotten nasty? Do you think this is about what you expected?

Mayor: Look, compared to many presidential races, this has been pretty high road and, look, the debate the other night – that debate and some of the other debates, I have to say, I was very impressed that in the course of the last year, the issues of income inequality have come to the floor intensely. I think it is a tremendous moment for potential change in this country. So, the fact that the leading democratic candidates were competing to show who had the more aggressive approach to Wall Street, who was going to do more to tax the wealthy, and raise wages and benefits – I mean, this is something that I think is very, very promising – and in the scheme of things, the candidates have been pretty respectful towards each other. So this [inaudible] for the future of the country – and I have to say, the juxtaposition with the Republican debates is breathtaking because not only have there been a massive amount of divisiveness, certainly coming from Donald Trump in particular, but the Republican debates have been – had a very exclusionary tone on issues like immigration and national security. Democratic debates have – much more focused on income inequality and how to rise up working class and middle class people. If that keeps playing out in this fashion, it’s a very uneven match-up in favor of democrats and progressives in the fall.

Hayes: You know, in your third year – as you’re starting your third year of your mayoralty, I wonder does Mayor Bill de Blasio have more sympathy than candidate Bill de Blasio might have for just how hard it is to get things and how hard it is, the obstacles one might face transferring campaign pledges to a governing agenda.

Mayor: You have to. I mean, you know, if you’re a human being with a pulse and you do this work you have to recognize, especially after a couple of years, that it’s a lot easier to talk about things than to actually do them. I’m proud – we did some things like full-day pre-k for all our kids that was supposed to be, in some people’s eyes, impossible. We got it done. We’re making huge progress on affordable housing and clearly, one of the things I’m very proud of – we proved that you can have a different and better relationship between police and community. We greatly reduced the stop-and-frisk strategy and at the same time made the city safer. So, I can say from experience, progressives can get a lot done but anyone who thinks it’s easy obviously hasn’t spent time in one of these jobs.

Hayes: Mayor Bill de Blasio, good luck tonight. Thank you for joining us – appreciate it.

Mayor: Thank you, Chris.