Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on Fox News’ Bill Hemmer Reports

April 16, 2020

Bill Hemmer: Here locally in New York, meanwhile, the Mayor at the epicenter of the country, pleading for more help as well. He’s asking for billions of dollars from the federal government. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is back with me today. And Mr. Mayor thank you for your time. I heard you earlier say today you need a bailout. How big Mayor?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Bill, right now I have accounted for and I am very sorry to say this, $7.5 billion in lost revenue that we now know is going to hit this city. And you know what that means, Bill? We cannot provide the basic services. This is the city with the best police department in the country, the best fire department. We are one of the capitals of this country in terms of economic power and economic impact. And you know all that we do to help the American economy be strong. But we are not going to be able to provide basic services in this city because we got nowhere else to turn to get that kind of money. And look, the federal government has done all sorts of things to help which I appreciate. I want to see that help for American working people for sure. But to give $58 billion to the airline industry and here’s the nation’s largest city just trying to get by, the epicenter of the crisis, and I think this stimulus that’s being discussed right now by Congressman McCarthy, Stimulus 3.5, I think it’s absolutely right to put the money in for localities and states that are suffering and don’t have another place to turn. Why wouldn’t our federal government bailout our cities and our states?

Hemmer: Just so I’ve got the number right, you are looking for $7.4 billion from Washington?

Mayor: Yeah, because that is exactly the amount of revenue that we are losing in this crisis. We have half a million unemployed people and we cannot provide basic services unless we have the budget to do it. It’s as simple as that.

Hemmer: A bit earlier today the Governor said the New York PAUSE extends for another month. What’s the logic for 30 more days? I think about 30 days prior and how little we knew about this and now we are forecasting for another month. How come, as opposed to trying to understand how we start to reopen things step by step Mayor?

Mayor: Look Bill, I spoke to President Trump yesterday on this very topic. And I said to the President I want to reopen as much as you do, but we have to make sure we do it the right way. If God forbid, we take our foot off the gas the wrong way, we’ll have the same problem as some parts of Asia had where suddenly the disease had a resurgence, and you're set back, and your economic recovery doesn’t happen. It takes much longer. So, here we are in the epicenter, Bill, we have got to make sure that the number of cases actually goes down for a sustained period of time, that the number of people in ICU, we see fewer and fewer. Right now, bluntly our numbers are not changing that much for the better. We’ve seen some improvement but nowhere near what we would want.

Hemmer: I heard some good news from the Governor today. He talked about net change in hospitalizations down, talked about ICU intubations down. He also said we can control the virus, and we can control the spread. I take all that as real good news. The 600 deaths in one day is not good news. But earlier today you talked about keeping the swimming pools closed for the summer, keeping the beaches in New York closed for the summer. At what point do you arrive at the point where you can talk about opening things and giving people a little bit of hope Mayor?

Mayor: No, the hope, Bill, is getting it right. Listen, New Yorkers have done an amazing job. They have been doing the social distancing, they have been doing the shelter in place. But here’s what I said to President Trump and Vice President Pence, I said look, we need to get it right. You got one chance to get it right. And my message to the President was, one chance to restart the economy the right way. But if we rush when we are still in the throes of this crisis, if we let people come back together and start gathering again, and there are lessons, again from around the world and from our own past, that show us when you take the foot off the gas too early, you could have a spread again. So my point would be, show consistent progress reducing this disease, start to drive it down to the point that we can contain it. We have a small enough number of cases to actually know where we are quarantining people again, the right way. We are testing widespread, so we can drive it back once and for all. And if we don’t, you don’t want to see a boomerang affect Bill. You do not want to see this thing reassert.

Hemmer: I entirely agree with you. When you wake up in the morning, where do you see the silver lining? Where do you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Mayor: I do see it. First of all, because I have seen that the social distancing and the shelter in place is working. That’s why we’ve seen any progress at all. And I think if we are tough about it, strong about it, disciplined about it, and I think Americans are ready to do this, we can drive it back in the course of months. I’ve said I want school opening in September as normal, I want everything up and running. I don’t want a false start. So my point would be, prove it, prove it with a tough disciplined approach, get people’s expectations lowered a little bit. Because I think some people think, you know we are going to have, you know, all of our teams back right away. And we are all going to be able to go to the stadium with 50,000 people right away. That’s a false hope, that’s not fair to people. But the light at the end of the tunnel is later on in the summer, as we go into the fall, we can get it right. But a lot of discipline, and I’ll tell you one thing. If cities like New York City, do not get enough help to get back on our feet and have basic ability to function, you will not have a national recovery, you can’t do it without the economic leaders of this country.

Hemmer: I’m hearing July in that answer.  Is that what I hear?

Mayor: July, August are the months where we have to begin to get back to normal. But I am telling you why I said September for schools. I said close down schools now, it’s not safe. Get ready to come back in September. Between now and then we have to drive the disease down to the point it is truly contained and we have very few cases anymore. That’s what I think is going to tell us that we are truly back to normal.

Hemmer: Mayor, thank you for coming back today. I appreciate your time. Bill de Blasio, thank you sir, for your time today.

Mayor: Thank you.