Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on 'All in With Chris Hayes'

November 12, 2014

Chris Hayes: As Democrats continue to sift through the wreckage of the midterm election, one particular pattern is starting to emerge – the economy. In exit polls last week, 78 percent of voters said they were very or somewhat worried about the direction of the economy in the next year, and unfortunately for Democratic candidates, people worried about the economy were more likely to vote Republican.

Now, it is not a great mystery why the economy remains top concern for many Americans. Even as unemployment dropped to a six-year low of 5.8 percent, the stock market hit record highs this week – most people just aren't feeling the impact of the economic recovery. Take income, for example, which has been more or less stagnant for over a decade. As the New York Times David Leonhardt points out, median income last year – adjusted for inflation – was actually $3,600 lower than when George W. Bush took office in 2001. And one party seems to be bearing the brunt of voters discontent. The Democratic party's overall favorability has dropped to a record low of 36 percent in a new Gallup poll, and it's even down 7 points among democrats themselves.

One prominent Democratic politician says he has a prescription to turn things around. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was elected on a platform of economic populism, thinks his party needs to recommit itself to core progressive values, writing in a Huffington Post op-ed today, "acknowledging the need to address income inequality wins elections."

And joining me now, the mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio – someone who I think is a test case of that.

So, I read your piece today, and I like it, because it's sort of confirmation bias – like, I have those politics, and all of us who believe in these things want it to be the case that the stuff we believe in – if only if people said what we believe, then they'll vote for it. But what's the evidence?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I think there's evidence all over the country. Look at the Democrats who won, including in some tough places. Al Franken in Minnesota – great example – challenged Wall Street, talked about economic reality, talked about people who were hurting, and how the middle class was falling apart, we have to do something about it – won handily in a state that Republicans have done very well in in recent years. Look around the country – Jerry Brown raises taxes on millionaires for education – wins handily. Dan Malloy in Connecticut was supposed to be a dead man walking – what did he do? He gave people paid sick leave, he raised the minimum wage, he taxed people for – to increase education – taxed the wealthy, increased education. These clear messages of addressing economic reality, and being real Democrats – being proud, progressive Democrats – folks are going to vote for the real thing. But when Democrats veer away from that, democrats stay home, and other folks aren't attracted in the least.

Chris Hayes: But – so, Dan Malloy is a great example, right? Here's a guy – he very – I am an admirer of Dan Malloy's, very progressive record, right? He's – I mean, let's be clear, he squeaked by, and he got pummeled, right? Because – I guess my feeling to your op-ed is that conservatism is a real thing out there, right? And –

Mayor: Well, wait a minute.

Chris Hayes: – and it will fight tooth and nail, and people are often persuaded by those arguments.

Mayor: It's because Dan Malloy was up against such massive resources and prevailed anyway that I make my point, and the same with Al Franken – the folks who were up against huge resources and prevailed anyway, because they had a message that actually meant something to people. Look, what you said before – folks have lost – in this country, have lost faith in Democrats, including democrats losing faith in their own party. That's because Democrats aren't speaking to economic reality. 

Chris Hayes: Okay, but there's a difference between speaking and delivering. This seems to me the [inaudible] issue. You can speak to it, right, but then you get in office, and what do you actually do, right? I mean, the problem of wage stagnation is so deep, so structural – right? Mayor of New York, right? Universal pre-k looks like it's happening, it's being piloted – that was not a sure thing. That's a great thing. I'm pro-universal-pre-k. That doesn't necessarily put money in people's pockets. Some people will not have to pay for pre-k, but – the question is, like, how do you get at that problem? You can promise all you want, but how do you deliver?

Mayor: Okay, first of all – just a New York example. Pre-k does put money in the pockets of folks who don't have to pay for childcare and other options. Afterschool, we're doing that same reality. Building affordable housing addresses the number one expense in people's lives. Giving people paid sick leave who didn't have it means they don't have dislocation of income. Raising minimum wage, creating living wage programs where government subsidizes employers – all these things add up –

Chris Hayes: So you're saying you can attack around the problem.

Mayor: Well, not even around – you attack from enough angles, enough directions – it starts to add up for something. And on top of that, then let's go to Washington, where you can make the real big changes. If you're talking about actually having real regulation of the financial industry, real investment in infrastructure and education – the kinds of things that would be transcendent in this country. Those can be achieved in Washington. Governors – Malloy is a good example – have achieved some of those pieces – or Jerry Brown's a good example – can achieve some of those pieces. We've got the building blocks, but the message of the op-ed is, Democrats who ran from those values got paid back for it. 

Chris Hayes: So, what category is Andrew Cuomo in?

Mayor: Look, I have a message for all Democrats, let's be clear.  I would say it to him for sure. I think this is the wave of the future, because Democrats don't –

Chris Hayes: But he – but he didn't – that's not how he positioned himself, and he went to re-election fairly – fairly smoothly. He put – Andrew Cuomo positioned himself – and I'm not the king of substantive judgment on this, I'm saying, his political position – he even said it – the extremes of the left and right. You know, that's what you have, and here am I, Andrew Cuomo in the center. 

Mayor: Look, he put forward a host of things that mattered a lot to progressives, including marriage equality, including action for women's rights, et cetera. So, he had a progressive platform, but I'm arguing something that I think is transcendent nationally. If you don't talk about economics, if you don't talk about income inequality, and you don't present a platform for actual change, you will not win. And to your point – do you have to marry it with substance and achievement? By definition, yes. The golden age of the Democratic party was when there was both the message and the achievement on the ground. We're going to have to work our way back up to that level again. But I'll tell you something, if we don't learn this lesson now for this next two years – how Democrats should fight in Washington, how people should comport themselves looking forward to the 2016 election – the same thing we saw this time will happen on a greater level. People will stay home. People who actually want to vote Democrat will stay home if Democrats don't start acting like real progressives again.

Chris Hayes: One of the things we saw in the exit polling was an amazing change in opinion on marijuana legalization. It's something that actually cuts across different political coalitions. You've made some news with Commissioner Bratton – I'm using my prop here, which apparently this is 25 grams – this is oregano, just for the record – this was – I'm holding up this prop because you and Commissioner Bratton held it up at your press conference. You've made a decision in New York City – no more criminal arrests for marijuana under that amount. 

Mayor: Correct.

Chris Hayes: What led to that?

Mayor: The idea that, first of all, our cops are putting a lot of time into processing an arrest for something that is clearly a minor offense – that time, that energy, that focus could go into fighting more serious crime. That's point one. Point two – a lot of young people's lives were being deeply and negatively affected by a criminal record that came from a marijuana arrest. Now, with a summons, there'll still be a debt to society to pay – in this case, it'll be a monetary debt to society – but it will not come with a criminal record.

Chris Hayes: What do you say to people that say this doesn't get at the disproportionate enforcement, right? That the problem here is that you have police – you know, whether stopping or frisking, or stopping and policing more heavily black and brown youth than they do white people. And that this is fine, but it doesn't get at this root problem of what zip codes are people going to find themselves busted for weed, or get a summons in to begin with. 

Mayor: Look, I think the whole mission is to have people treated fairly across the city. That is what we're trying to do as a larger process of reform with the NYPD – that's why stops are down intensely compared to last year with the stop and frisk policy being so broken, that's why we're actually retraining the entire NYPD – 35,000 officers are going to be retrained in how to work with community, and how to address things in a more equitable fashion. That's a process of change that takes time, but I can tell you one thing – thousands of people will benefit from the fact that they're not going to have a criminal record, and the amazing part of the policy that we've put in place is it will actually give cops more time to go after more meaningful crime.

Chris Hayes: There's the line of – I think it's New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who said "You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose." So, you're in the prose section. Bill de Blasio of today – Mayor Bill de Blasio – can get in a time machine to six months ago, talk to candidate Bill de Blasio, tell him one thing – what do you tell him?

Mayor: I would say stick to your guns. I would say you've got to –

Chris Hayes: [Laughs]

Mayor: – literally, I mean, this is what I've learned.

Chris Hayes: You were more right than you thought.

Mayor: No, I – it's different than that, and it's pertinent to where we started this conversation. The public rightly yearns for some consistency – meaning, if you come in with a progressive platform, you better damn well stick to it. Don't moderate it, don't water it down, don't try and explain it away – just do it. And that builds a sense of faith and possibility. And that's what I've learned, certainly, in these first ten months.

Chris Hayes: New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio. Always a pleasure.

Mayor: Thank you, Chris.