Transcript: Mayor Bill de Blasio Appears Live on MSNBC's Morning Joe

March 31, 2016

Joe Scarborough: With us now Democratic Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, who's also supporting Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. Of course I also claim Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida –

Mayor Bill de Blasio: You are ecumenical.

Scarborough: – Upstate New York.

Mayor: You’re bringing all the states together, Joe. It’s beautiful.

Scarborough: You know I’m a uniter, not a divider.

[Laughter]

Scarborough: Right? Isn’t that what I always say on the streets?

Mayor: I’ve always said that. Yes, always said that.

Scarborough: Okay let’s talk about, for one second – let’s take it out of politics, and let’s just talk about Hillary Clinton’s ad, right there. I think it's a celebration of what New York City is, especially when I think all of us have recognized New York City as post 9/11.

Mayor: Right. We're very proud of what we've done since 9/11 to come back. We’re proud of the fact that people came together on 9/11 in the middle of an extraordinarily difficult moment. But we're also a beacon, we believe, to this country, to this world, of what a multicultural, multi-faith society looks like. And that ad was wonderful at saying this is the way of the future, and what a powerful juxtaposition – against Trump not just wanting to build the wall but excluding the Muslim population from coming to our country – what a powerful juxtaposition against Cruz saying let's patrol Muslim neighborhoods. I think Hillary’s hit a very powerful note, especially in the last few weeks, about what kind of country we're going to be and this is going to be one of the things I think uplifts her campaign.

Scarborough: You saw Ted Cruz's comments, though, aimed at you.

Mayor: Yes.

Scarborough: He suggested that you were shocked that he wanted to empower police. Why would he not be empowering police if his proposal became –

Mayor: Ted Cruz doesn't even understand the security issues here. It’s abundantly clear. When this first came up, I happened to be standing next to Commissioner Bill Bratton who I think is the finest police leader in America. We were in Times Square in the aftermath of the Brussels attack talking about the security actions we were taking to keep New York safe. By the way, we have a 500 member-plus Critical Response Command, the largest anti-terror force of any police department in the country. And we were talking about the combination of strength but also the connection to the community –

Scarborough: We're also talking about Muslims – talking about the Muslims in the police force.

Mayor: Exactly. 900 Muslim Americans in the NYPD who protect us every day and as Commissioner Bratton said, many of whom previously had done service in the American military. So Commissioner Bratton, you could see the anger he felt at Ted Cruz impugning Muslim Americans, including 900 members of his own police force, and the fact that it was actually going to take us backwards on security. What we're doing in this city is bonding with our large Muslim community.

Scarborough: Right.

Mayor: We want a strong relationship. We want a flow of information. We want young Muslim Americans to know they belong.

Scarborough: You know you got to have – Mike Barnicle, whether you're talking about a great coach, whether you're talking about a great church, whether you're talking about a great country, it requires that you have your football players or your congregates or your citizens to buy in. Those are the two where they have got to buy in. If a football player buys into the team he or she will sacrifice for the team and it's the same thing here. We have to have Muslim Americans buy into the American dream and they are and they have.

Mike Barnicle: They have and they are. They do it every day, but they don't get noticed for it every day and instead people like Ted Cruz suggesting, and Donald Trump suggesting, you know, cutting off Muslims entering the United States.

Mayor: And, you know what. Mike this bothers me so much. You know the concept if you work hard, you play by the rules? We’ve heard a thousand times—

Barnicle: Right?

Mayor: Here's a community working hard and playing by the rules.

Barnicle: Yes.

Mayor: And then to have folks who actually might become president of the United States, say you don't belong effectively, you don’t belong, you should not be let in – we're going to send patrols through your neighborhoods on this general suspicion. That is corrosive to any sense of belonging. I agree with Joe’s construct. A good cohesive society is where everyone thinks they belong and has opportunity.

Barnicle: With regard to Bill Bratton and the New York City Police Department – you're the mayor of a city that is the number one target for terrorists around the world. Could you talk a bit about what Commissioner Bratton and John Miller have done in terms of the intelligence units within the New York Police Department that are not just located in New York, and actually gave the Dutch the tip on the bombers that the FBI didn't give the Dutch?

Mayor: We pride ourselves, after 9/11 we learned a valuable lesson that we have to protect ourselves. We have NYPD detectives around the world working with law enforcement – national law enforcement at key locations around the world that have been terror targets. We want to learn from everything they know and bring it back here to help protect ourselves. But sometimes, it goes the other way, we gain information – and we did pass on information about the brothers who ultimately were involved in the Brussels attack.

Barnicle: How did you pick it up?

Mayor: I don't want to go into details. I'll simply say this is part of what our very extensive intelligence gathering operation here in this city does. NYPD protects us. There have been 20 plots directed at New York or originating in New York other the last 15 years. Every single one was thwarted because the NYPD has an extraordinary intelligence-gathering capacity and preventative capacity. But I think where this all comes together is the notion if we're going to be secure going forward, it is a combination of that strength, having the personnel we need, having the intelligence capacity we need, but also having the relationships at the community level and the trust at the community level to get information.

You want parents and clergy members and community leaders to come forward when they know something, and believe that they are being trusted and respected in the process. That's actually how you get the information you need to keep people safe.

Willie Geist: As you know better than anyone at this table, Mr. Mayor, the concern of law enforcement right now in terms of terrorism is not somebody hijacking a plane and flying into a building but somebody coming from within a city and being inspired by ISIS, whether it's San Bernardino or Brussels or anywhere – Paris. Is that the concern right now in New York City as you all look at terrorism? That there could be two, three, four, ten people who are just inspired by what they've seen around the world and if so, how do you approach that kind of a cell?

Mayor: I would say the concern of an organized attack – not just an individual being inspired, or a lone wolf, a more organized attack is always the first concern. And, there, I feel very, very good about the kind of intelligence-gathering capacity we have, and the track record, and the growing cooperation between the NYPD and Homeland Security, the FBI, etcetera. But the second piece of the equation, the individual we may not have the traditional warning signals about, that's where the relationship with the community becomes important. 900-plus Muslim-American officers also are out in their communities engendering trust and good will, offering people an opportunity to talk to them. Parents – as we've seen in many cases in Europe – parents came forward and tried to inform the authorities of a problem they're having with their own child. We want to keep those lines of communication very, very open to maximize the chance of seeing if someone is drifting that we can get there ahead of it. But it's an imperfect dynamic but it really comes down to a a very human equation – if there's trust and communication you have the best chance of seeing the signal in time.

Scarborough: Mr. Mayor, all politics is local so a couple quick questions – first of all, the homeless issue, what progress are you making on the homeless issue?

Mayor: We've started a powerful effort called HOME-STAT. We're going to have a strong presence on the streets of this city – one part very specially trained NYPD officers who are working with the homeless, another part homeless outreach workers so we can focus wherever there's a –

Scarborough: Can I ask you this question really quickly? When it's really cold outside, how do you get homeless people off the streets and into shelters? We’ve been blessed by a mild winter, actually. But in a really cold situation, and you see homeless people out on the streets, what can you do legally?

Mayor: Two things – we have a very vigorous outreach and what we saw during the blizzard we had a few weeks back and throughout the winter is hundreds of people come in on some nights when it was really cold. So you make it easy to come in. But we also had some folks we brought in involuntarily. We have the legal right if someone is in danger to say, "You're coming with us." We'll bring them to a hospital. We've done that repeatedly. We've had success with that. But I think the important thing to realize is there's between 3,000 and 4,000 homeless folks on the streets of the city, it's obviously not acceptable. But they have to be engaged, literally, one by one. Each one had a path to the streets. Each one needs to find a path back from the streets. We have to help them get there. What we're doing with this HOME-STAT program is person by person, what’s going to get them in? What support do they need? What connection back to their family do they need to get off the streets permanently? We’re going to stay on it until we reach each person.

Scarborough: I have another question I can't ask you because Alex is yelling in my ear.

Mayor: Is he interfering with discourse?

Scarborough: Yes, he is!

Mayor: We're trying to have a democracy here!

Scarborough: We're trying to bring America together. Alex is tearing us apart.

Barnicle:  Making it great again, too.

Mayor: Alex is building walls.

Scarborough: He is.

Scarborough: Alright, Mayor de Blasio, thank you so much.