Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on "The Brian Lehrer Show" on WNYC

June 5, 2015

Brian Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor: Thank you Brian, good morning.

Brian Lehrer: And listeners, we’ll talk mostly about crime and the police, and affordable housing. So, we’ll take calls mostly on crime and the police, and affordable housing: 212-433-WNYC (433-9692).

Brian Lehrer: And Mr. Mayor, let’s talk first about crime and policing. There have been 135 murders in the city so far this year, compared to 110 at this time last year when we recorded a record low by the end of the year. That’s 25 more people killed or about 20 percent, what’s going on?

Mayor: Well Brian, first of all, you know, I everyday go over the crime statistics carefully and I’m in constant contact with leadership to the NYPD. Obviously, I take the situation very, very seriously. We saw last year a similar reality when we got to the end of the spring and the beginning of summer. We saw a real uptick in crime. And we threw different strategies and different resources at it and I’m very proud to say that was a successful effort. If you remember – around again – the same time frame we initiated a whole new strategy and it’s very similar to what we’re doing this year with ‘Summer All Out’ – this starts on Monday. We focused on key precincts. We added additional police resources from other places, and we changed the strategies, particularly, focusing on gangs and crews. Last year when we did that in 10 targeted precincts there was a 25 percent reduction in crime in the course of just five weeks. And so at the end of the year we actually set the record for the lowest number of homicides in the last 50 years. So, I think we’re going to do the same thing this year. Obviously, I take every crime seriously, and we are going to do the things we have to do to turn the situation around, but at the same time it’s important for your listeners to note, overall crime in the city is down 6.6 percent compared to the same point last year – 2,700 fewer crimes compared to the same point last year.

Brian Lehrer: Crimes other than murders and shootings, because those are the ones that getting the news for being – for having an uptick.

Mayor: Correct. There’s an index of major crimes and when you look across that index and it’s – it’s a recognized standard for crime overall. By that index crime is down overall in New York City – 2,700 fewer serious crimes than at the same point last year. So, I think what it adds up to is to say the NYPD is doing the right thing and is effective. While there are some specific areas that we have to target more there’s obviously a specific challenge around gangs – and what’s happening here, and it’s not a good thing obviously. And we have to get – under the skin of it is gang members shooting gang members. That’s where the uptick has been and we’ve got to go at them. And last year we were very successful – I give the NYPD a lot of credit. There were some major gang takedowns. There were some major disruptions of gang activity. I think you’ll be seeing a lot more of that.

Brian Lehrer: The front page headline in the Daily News yesterday was ‘Subway Crimes Soars’. And said the NYPD has been forced to deploy officers underground as felony assaults are up almost 27 percent in the city’s subway through the first five months of the year, according to the Daily News. What’s going on there?

Mayor: Well, the Daily News, with all due respect to them, really was very misleading to the people in this city. Let me give you a couple of key statistics. Again, looking at the major crime areas related to the subway – there’s been a grand total increase over the first full five months of 2015 – there’s been an increase of 10 individual crimes. From 905 crimes in those major index areas and the same point last year is 915 this year. But let me give you some exact specifics there were zero murders by this point last year. There have been zero murders in the subway by this point this year. Very sadly, there were five rapes by this point last year – there have been zero rapes in the subway by this point this year. The one area – that felony assault area is when basically people attack each other, but it does not necessarily mean, obviously, with a gun. It could be with a backpack. It could be a handbag, and literally those are some of the instances that we have seen. That’s the one area where we have seen a particularly meaningful increase, but again, other areas have gone down. Here’s the reality for a New York City subway rider today, now we average about 5.7 million riders per day, and we average about six crimes per day system wide. That – bluntly Brian – that bluntly means a New York City subway rider has about a one-and-a-million chance of being a victim of crime.

Brian Lehrer: On the specific challenge around gangs, that you mentioned, there are increases in violent crime being reported in other cities that have the famous recent incidents followed by big protests including St. Louis and Baltimore. And the theory is taking hold that officers are de-policing. That’s the word for it that I’ve seen – becoming more reluctant to engage out of fear of making a mistake that will be seen as racist or even criminal, and the public videos are only showing police actions after the person resists arrest. They say the further decline of stop-and-frisk this year is evidence of that. So, a two-part question – how much do you think we are experiencing de-policing in New York City, and is it a coincidence that the increases in gun violence are also being seen in Baltimore and St. Louis?

Mayor: I can’t speak to what’s happening specifically in Baltimore and St. Louis. I don’t think they’re similar situations because we have seen an overall decrease in crime. And it’s been part of an ongoing effort. We’re very proud of the fact that 2014 was the best year for crime decrease in recent memory. Again, the lowest year for murder in half-a-century and that obviously took place as we were changing strategies and reforming some of the mistakes of the past. Obviously, decreasing the stops and getting rid of the unconstitutional and unnecessary stops, reducing greatly the low-level marijuana arrests. While all those reforms were happening, we saw steady decreases in crime. And so we are satisfied, obviously by those statistics – and what the police are doing is working, and now again this year a steady decrease in crime overall. And from other indicators we have, a level of police activity and the impact it’s having – we see a lot of energetic policing and a lot of effectiveness. I think what we have here is a very meaningful problem, but a very localized problem. It is a small number of precincts in the scheme of things, and it is specifically about gang and crew activity, shootings, and retaliations. So, this is a major issue. I don’t for a moment want to say it’s not something we have to stop, we do. And that will resolve everything from – in some cases applying specifics to strategies and specific police pressure, but it’s also about a strategy like gang intervention – trying to stop some of the problems before they start or trying to disrupt the pattern of retaliation that we see in some of these gang situations, which the police are – I think getting better and better at doing. So no, I don’t see evidence of a change in approach, and I certainly don’t think our situation parallels the other cities.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that any trade-off is necessary in public safety as it pertains to guns for New York to abide the constitution in its stop-and-frisk policies.

Mayor: I’m sorry, say that again.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that there’s any trade-off necessary in public safety? Do we have to give up something in terms of safety from guns and stop-and frisk was an anti-gun – in order to abide by the constitution?

Mayor: No, look at the facts. No and in fact I remind you, I think Bill Bratton is the finest police leader in this country, and one of the first things he said to the city when I named him is you can’t break the law to enforce the law. The constitution is sacred. And we have to, in everything we do, be both effective at enforcing the law and protecting people while honoring rights that make us Americans. In fact, as we have reduced stops – we have reduced crime. I think the numbers are overwhelmingly clear. And to me this has actually been a great ratification of the fact that we can protect individual liberties while making ourselves safer. I don’t think some of the folks who were critics in 2013, and said that a reduction in stops would be bad for the city, I don’t think they ever would have thought themselves able to defend that theory – if I was able to show them – well, look at the end of 2014 we’re going to have the lowest number of murders in 50 years; we’re going to have a consistent decrease in crime. Going in to 2015 crime continues to decrease. I don’t think anyone would have said at the time that the stops were justifiable. We’ll be able to look those statistics in the face and still make that argument.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you think it keeps getting linked? If that’s true – in the tabloids, front page of the Daily News today, front page of the Post the other day, out of the mouth of the union leader of the police sergeants, the mom of a kid who got shot the other day even said bring back stop-and-frisk. Why do you think it keeps getting linked if it’s not linked?

Mayor: Well, first of all, any mother who’s grieving or any family member who’s grieving, I can understand any feeling they have, and every feeling they have – that they want something to change to protect their child or their children. I get that, who could not get that – I’m a parent myself. But I don’t think the answer is to violate our constitution or go backwards to the place where there were tremendous tensions between police and community. The goal here is to bring police and community together. And – you know, I’ve said this many times, I really believe this is my heart, as we bring police and community together, we will get safer – our communities will get safer, our officers will get safer. We’ll find a much greater ability to share information for officers to work closely with community members. We’ve made incredible progress on reducing crime, but there’s still more to be done. And I think that pathway runs through a deeper, closer relationship between police and community. I think we were stymied when there was a sense of division that got very, very deep in this city – you know, in 2010, ’11, ’12, a division was very sharp. We’ve been able to turn some of that around and there’s a piece of evidence that makes that clear. We have 25 percent fewer complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board than a year ago. So, there are a lot of facts here that prove that we’re moving in the right direction. Look, I don’t think our public discourse is that healthy on some of these issues. I think we need to look at the overall situation, and look at the things we need to do to make ourselves safer and to bring people together. The headline you talked about on the subway crime, it doesn’t surprise me that there would be sensationalist headlines. When I say back to you, average New Yorkers have a one in a million chance of being a victim of crime I hope your listeners here that and are appropriately reassured, this is the safest big city in the country – by many measures getting safer. So, why on earth would we turn back to an unconstitutional strategy that actually divided police and community?

Brian Lehrer: Mayor de Blasio, with us here on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. And Danny in Rockaway Park – you’re on WNYC, good morning, thank you for calling in.

Caller: Good morning – good morning Mr. Mayor. I’m Danny; I’m one of the presidents of a police council here in Rockaway Queens. I have to say, you know, [inaudible] that we really need those thousand officers. If – you really have seen [inaudible] put the money in there because it’s your policing program. We need more police. And as you know, we can’t have single beat cops anymore ever since that hatchet wielding guy that attacked the cops. So, now you can’t have a single beat cop, and they have to go out in patrols – so, I don’t understand that. And just hearing on the radio a couple of weeks ago, they say any one who is between 25 [inaudible]. And we’re talking 1,000 cops; there are 5 boroughs – that’s really not a lot of cops. And we need more gun buyback programs. We took 919 – you weren’t in at the time – but 919 guns of the streets in Queens South – the one gun buyback program. We need them.

Brian Lehrer: Danny, thank you, I’m going to leave it there and get a response from the mayor for you. And for a little background for our listeners, Mr. Mayor, as you know, it’s budget negotiation season between you and City Council, as it is every June with the fiscal year about to end, and council along with Commissioner Bratton wants money for 1,000 more officers, which you’ve continued to resist. How come?

Mayor: Well, first of all, I want to thank Danny for the question and I know it’s coming from the heart. Look, we have 34,500 or so cops at this point who are doing a great job, and my first statement to Danny is I have immense respect for the leadership of the NYPD, and for the men and women of the NYPD. And I think if you take the last 17 months that I’ve had the privilege to be mayor and look at what’s happened, the NYPD has continued to get better and better all along and has achieved more and more with the existing force levels. But what’s changed – many fewer stops forcing officers to have to have negative confrontations with community members and put all the time and energy into things – obviously, we have the facts from police statistics, often, over 90 percent of the time, had nothing to do with violent crime. The energy now going at violent crime – so many fewer low-level marijuana arrests, about 65% fewer, that time and energy freed up to go after serious crime, better technology than ever. We’ve put in place shot spotter, we’ve put in place the effort to give every officer an iPhone and tablets in every car, better training. All of these pieces are going to add up to a more and more effective NYPD with the force levels we have. I agree with Danny on the importance of the gun buyback programs and those are something that have been very effective in the past. But I just want to note – it’s up to Commissioner Bratton to determine the best way to deploy the men and women in the field. I think, depending on the moment, there have been some changes in deployment patterns, but there obviously are situations where cops still can act individually and that’s the commissioner’s call at any given point. But I really want to say, the core of my response is, this police force is doing an extraordinary job and crime continues to go down. We have some specific problems we have to face, and Summer All Out, as I said a major shift of some forces to the key areas – that starts on Monday. It was very effective last year, I’m convinced it will be effective this year.

Brian Lehrer: But you said a few minutes ago that improving police-community relations is a key to ongoing public safety. And the progressive case for more police is that it makes more community policing possible, as opposed to just incident report policing. Why not go with the council and the commissioner on that basis?

Mayor: Well look, I understand that there is that case to be made, but I think the first thing we have to think about is can we get the job done right with the resources we have? If 2014 is any indication, the answer is yes. 2013 – I’m just going to give you a moment of history – 2013, the last year of Michael Bloomberg and Ray Kelly, was an extraordinary year for reducing crime and I give them credit. And, in came Bill Bratton and his team, and in 2014 beat all the records and crime went down even further. This year, again down 6.6 compared to the record-setting year in 2014. This police force is doing the job and doing it well and has more tools, more technology, more training than even a year ago, and I think they’re going to get better and better. I think that’s the core point. And you say, what about the question of our resources and needs, I remind you, Brian, we’ve got a school system that needs real work, that has profound problems that are not resolved. We have the problems at Rikers Island that are not resolved; we have the homelessness problem that has unfortunately grown to unacceptable proportions in recent years. There are so many other challenges, and I have to watch out for the long-term fiscal health of this city, because I’ve said many times, we’re in relatively good times – they’re not going to last much longer, we know that as a matter of economic fact. So I think when you have a force that’s effective in the way that the NYPD is now and getting better, I think that’s a reason to stick with what we’re doing.

Brian Lehrer: All right, let’s talk about affordable housing. And let’s let a caller kick this off – Norma in Queens, you’re on WNYC. Hello Norma.

Caller: I’m very – I’m pleased to be speaking on the phone with the mayor, Mr. Mayor, what an honor. Affordable housing – there’s obviously a link – and I don’t think the crime is that bad, and the police are wonderful. But what I’d like to know is what kind of yard stick – what measurements are going to be used with revising the rent regulations, and what’s going to be done about the corruption, and the division of housing and community renewal because of the former tenant activist [inaudible]. It took a year for us to get one phase of an objection to rent increase. We put a petition through, it’s now taken another year, and we still haven’t heard back.

Brian Lehrer: All right, a couple of things on the table there. What yardsticks are you going to use? And I guess she’s concerned about the rent stabilization annual increases.

Mayor: Well, a couple of things, so on the annual increases, that will be determined by the rent guidelines board, which is a board that I name a number of members of. The fact is last year there was a one percent increase for a one year lease. It was the lowest in the history of the rent guidelines board, which has been around for decades. So, I’m very proud of the fact that the rent guidelines board of my administration really went at the facts and found that tenants should not be charged the increases that they were in the past, and that tenants deserved a much more fair and consistent situation. In terms of the enforcement, I’ve said, and I think Norma and I are on the same page, the state needs to do a much more aggressive job of enforcing our existing rent laws and what I’ve put in place already in this budget we’re working on now is a $36 million investment in legal services for people who are being forced out by bad landlords; by predatory landlords – for people who are seeing the law defied and landlords using their power to force out innocent tenants. That’s something we need to see the state act on much more aggressively. And what I said in my State of the City address – the state needs to step up in terms of enforcement of rent laws. Or if they are not willing to do that they should put money into legal services so tenants have lawyers to fight for themselves. So, that’s the situation on enforcement. In terms of rent regulation itself, we not only need to keep rent regulation in place – it has to be strengthened because we’ve lost literally several hundred thousand units of affordable housing out of rent regulation, out of Mitchell Lama, over the last couple of decades. And if it isn’t strengthened profoundly, we are not going to preserve affordable housing in this city. We need to end and eliminate high rent vacancy control. There are a host of elements in law right now that in effect allow landlords to harass tenants. We need to close those loopholes. We need to make it very tough on any landlord who would attempt to force out a tenant. There’s a whole host of things here that have to be fixed in the existing rent law because the way it is now, it’s actually not serving us sufficiently. It must be much, much stronger.

Brian Lehrer: And the rent stabilization law that exists expires June 15th. I think you’ll reassure people that it’s not going to be allowed to lapse in a way that landlords will just be able to increase people’s rents because they’re no longer regulated, but I saw that your wife was out on the stop yesterday arguing to strengthen the law in the ways that you were just articulating. What are the chances of that strengthening at this point before the legislature adjourns this month?

Mayor: Well, let me start at the first point of your question, Brian. There are some in Albany who are suggesting that they could let rent regulations lapse, and that would be a disaster for the people of New York City. Remember, we have one million rent stabilized and rent-controlled apartments – between two and two-and-a-half million New Yorkers live in them. There are some people playing with fire in Albany right now, and toying with the idea of letting rent regulation lapse all together, which is why it is so important for your listeners to make their voices known to all their representatives in Albany, and do so quickly. But as I said, if the default position in Albany was simply to renew rent regulation the way it is now we would continue to lose ground. I’m trying to move heaven and earth with an affordable housing plan – 200,000 units built and preserved over the next ten years, enough for half-a-million people. But that will not help this city enough if rent regulation is not strengthened because we’ll keep hemorrhaging affordable units. So, I think all your listeners should recognize there are people in Albany who want to tear down rent regulation. They need to be stopped. And we have to change this discussion in Albany that simple status quo on rent regulation is in fact a step backwards. We have to absolutely go right at vacancy de-control. This is the heart of the problem. We cannot keep allowing so many units to come out of rent regulation because of a law that was broken, and I think this is a moment for the voters and the tenants of New York City to assert themselves.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, your wife remarked, I saw NY1 – that she moved to the city when there was a lots of affordable housing, and the good old days of 1977. Was that a gaffe? [inaudible] for 1977 in particular?

Mayor: No, I think – I know exactly what she was saying and I think it’s a really important thing to talk about. My wife talks about coming here from Springfield, Massachusetts in 1977, literally weeks after she got here; it was like her dream to come to New York City, and work in the publishing industry. She got her dream come true. She got her job and a few weeks later she was on a subway in the Bronx going to see a friend and that’s when the blackout hit. So, she was literally on a subway between stops when the blackout hit, and had to be – eventually when help came – you know, led through the tunnel out into the darkened streets of New York City. I think she has no illusions about how tough things were in this city in 1977, but she made a really powerful point. Until recent years, good times and bad in New York City, you could find a place to live, and it was an article of faith. You could be an immigrant; you could be a working class person – there was a place to live you could afford and it was an opportunity to get somewhere economically. What happened over the last 10, 15, 20 years is housing prices shot up upwards, gentrification took hold again – a double-edge sword – good and bad elements, but for a lot of people in neighborhoods around the city they found themselves being priced out, and never happened before on this mass scale in the city. So, what I said in my State of the City address was we’re dealing with a new reality – literally never affected the history of this city before. Gentrification, all these other changes has changed our reality. We have to address it with public policy. I think what my wife was saying is, those were not ideal times, but at least you could find a place you could afford to live.

Brian Lehrer: And I’ll tell you, if I just took call after call after call, in the order in which they came in, more than half of our callers are just railing about lack of affordability and vacancy de-control, and the [inaudible] of housing in New York City, so there’s obviously so much around this out there.

Mayor: There’s a lot of emotion, and I’m going to ask all your listeners, apply that emotion right now to Albany. You know, you’ve got the assembly, you’ve got the senate, you’ve got the governor – let them know we need to eliminate vacancy de-control. Let them know that we have to strengthen rent laws. Right now, look, these rent laws were largely written by the landlords, that’s the reality. It’s time for Albany to listen to what people are going through in this city and there’s a real moment of decision here. The people of this city need to weigh in.

Brian Lehrer: Selena in Manhattan, you’re on WNYC with Mayor de Blasio, hi.

Caller: Hi, thank you for taking my call, and hi, Mr. Mayor. I was wondering what your office is doing in rolling out all these new technologies specifically with the police force, as well [inaudible], and considering what – how to protect the privacy of people. In my opinion, you know, you need to be extremely careful of what information is collected, and how it’s stored – is it stored on something where it can be, you know, hacked? Where there’s an Internet connection?

Brian Lehrer: Are you worried about the police body cameras, because of how they’ll be shooting the public?

Caller: Well, the body cameras, as well as things like iPhones and iPads, they themselves can be stacked – I mean, hacked – and also where you’re storing the data, if you store it in the cloud, you know, these companies claim that, you know, we have these un-hackable systems, and no system is un-hackable.

Brian Lehrer: Selena, thank you. Mr. Mayor, police technology and privacy?

Mayor: Well, Selena is certainly asking a timely question, after what saw happen to our federal government in the news coming out today – the hacking of federal databases. Look, we have some very strong protections in place, and we work on that every single day, literally. But we also have to use technology to improve the things we’re doing, and so I would say, you know, when you look at the things that we’ve put in place – the municipal ID card, which has been an extraordinary success, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers benefitting—we’re obviously very sensitive about the storage of that information. Obviously, police body cameras – very enthusiastic about that initiative, it started as a pilot, I think it’s going to be one of the things that helps improve policing, and improve the relationship between police and community, and improve investigations. But we’re very sensitive of the fact that the data is collected, it has to be handled very carefully, and there have to be clear rules, and there have to be clear protections. So, Selena’s question is right on the money, I think we are trying to strike that balance of continuing to move forward in the use of technology while building up defenses and protecting privacy rights.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you about the bill that’s stuck in Albany right now with respect to 421-a, you struck a compromise with developers for reform of that tax break and tax subsidy so they only get it if they build a percentage of affordable housing that’s larger than in the past. Governor Cuomo says A) it’s too complicated for this late in the session, B) it’s a giveaway to developers, C) there aren’t enough protections for workers to get prevailing wages on the construction sites. Are you in touch with the governor in the last few days to try to resolve your differences on this?

Mayor: Yes, absolutely. I’ve spoken to the governor several times; our teams have talked. Look, I think there’s an important difference here, so I want to set the record since I initiated—my team initiated—this idea. The 421-a law, as we knew it was broken, and is broken. You cannot give subsidies to luxury developers. You can’t give tax subsidies to luxury developers and get nothing back for the people. That’s what’s happening with this very minute – right now, Brian, if you suddenly became a luxury condo developer, you could apply for a tax break to build a luxury condo with no affordable housing. There’s your future, Brian. But listen, the bottom line here is, we said no. From—our proposal is, all buildings that apply for 421-a and want that tax credit have to provide affordable housing. No more condos in the program at all – no such thing any longer as a luxury condo getting a tax break under 421-a, and I’ve called for what we call a mansion tax on homes and apartments over 1.75 million dollars in value. A modest tax, the proceeds of which go to one thing and one thing only: the creation of affordable housing. If you take the total of our proposal, it’s enough to build affordable housing for 160,000 –160,000 New Yorkers who need it. Now, I think people know me by know, and understand that my view is, we’re going to make developers in this town pay their fair share to the people. In anything we do, whether it’s the zoning or anything else, we’re going to demand a lot of developers. I’ve been clear and consistent, we’ve achieved a lot by driving a harder bargain; that’s what we did with this deal. There’s still time to get to a good outcome here. As for the prevailing wage point, it’s also well known, I have a lot of respect for the labor movement and work closely with the labor movement. I think prevailing wage is an important concept when it comes to affordable housing. What I’ve said to my brothers and sisters in labor is, we need a rate that is affordable for the creation of affordable housing on this grand scale. It’s something I believed for years and years; even when I was a councilmember back in brownstone Brooklyn and we were dealing with development issues there. When it comes to affordable housing, we need a different kind of scale that allows us to get it done for the people who desperately need affordable housing. I think a balance can be struck.

Brian Lehrer: Are you going to get to yes, on all that, in this legislative session?

Mayor: I think there’s time to. I think there’s time to, and I think the one thing that is increasingly clear to people, both in the city and Albany, is the current 421-a reality is unacceptable, and change is needed.

Brian Lehrer: Got time for one more call?

Mayor: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: Lauren in Queens, you’re on WNYC. Hi, Lauren.

Caller: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Okay.

Caller: I wanted to ask the mayor—I’m a librarian in New York City—obviously, because I’m calling from here. I’m also a progressive; I’m really excited to see a progressive mayor elected. The libraries do so much to forward the progressive agenda; we help people look for jobs, we start kids off reading, and yet we’re still struggling for operating funding. We’re $65 million in the hole since 2008. And I was wondering, what you’re going to do to help us keep helping our neighbors?

Brian Lehrer: I guess this is a source of discord, also in the budget negotiations with City Council, right?

Mayor: Yes, well first of all, Lauren, thank you for the question and thank you for the work you do, and I spent a lot of time in public libraries when I was coming up, as have my kids. And, I think you’re right, they are crucial to a positive and progressive agenda. We added about $300 million in capital funding for our library systems. We’ve made some moves on the expense funding front, I know the council feels strongly that’s going to be part of our discussion leading up to the budget adoption, and the council’s been very assertive about wanting to put in more for libraries, and that’s a live possibility. But I do want to note, the challenge we face this year, is a lot of areas are crying out for help, understandably. Again, we have a school system that still is not doing right by so many kids and we have to fix it. 94 renewal schools I’ve been focused on are struggling, we have to turn them around, and we have to keep getting it right in terms of creating fairness in the education system. We have to deal with the Rikers Island situation; it is not acceptable; we have to deal with the homelessness problem. So, part of what’s going on, Lauren, is that there are some areas crying need, that require investment as never before to turn them around. But I remain committed to libraries; I think that’s evident particularly in our capital budget, and it’s something we will continue to work on with the Council.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC [inaudible]. As we’re getting ready to wrap it up with Mayor de Blasio, first of all, I appreciate you coming on, as always. I appreciate you taking calls, and talking to listeners. Just before you go, on national politics, you made headlines by withholding an endorsement of Hillary Clinton while waiting to see if she takes inequality seriously, with wage and tax proposals. How will you know when she’s there?

Mayor: Well first, Brian, I want to say that what is amazing, we’ve seen this week, is how strongly people around this country feel and how much concern they have about the problem of income inequality. We saw a poll out of Iowa, saying that for Iowa Democrat caucus-goers it is one of their top concerns; we just saw a major national survey that proved it is not only one of the top concerns of the minds of Americans, it is increasingly bipartisan concern. People recognize that wealth is getting concentrated in very few hands, and political power is increasingly getting concentrated in hands of the wealthy, and it’s unacceptable. So, I believe that people running for president—and for other offices, governor, senator, everything – need to address income inequality. And from my point of view, I’ve been very impressed so far by some of the things that Secretary Clinton has said on areas like immigration reform, criminal justice reform – very promising concepts. I’ll know what I think about her vision on income inequality when she lays out a [inaudible] plan. It has to include progressive taxation, things like the Buffet rule and closing the carried-interest loophole. It has to include ways that we can raise wages and benefits for people all over the country; that would help here in New York City, too. We need to move towards the $15 minimum wage; I can’t get movement in Albany on that, I’ve been trying. Let’s push nationally for the $15 minimum wage to become the norm. Let’s push nationally for things like paid sick leave and paid family leave to be the norm. These are the kinds of things that have to happen to change the country, and I look forward to hearing her vision of how she’ll address these issues.

Brian Lehrer: Did you like her proposal yesterday for automatic voter registration when you turn 18, unless you opt out?

Mayor: Absolutely. I think it was an inspired proposal; I give her a lot of credit. This is the kind of thing that needs to be done in this country to actually reinvigorate democracy. We have to have ways of getting everyone registered, and we have to get much deeper into ideas like early voting and vote by mail. Right now, people are being excluded all over this country from voting, there’s obviously explicit efforts in some states to exclude large swaths of their populations from voting, and I think Secretary Clinton’s vision was very helpful and very forceful. I commend her.

Brian Lehrer: Open mic, for the last 30 seconds or minute. Anything you want to say?

Mayor: Well, I just want to say, I think that this is one of those moments in history where we’ve got to recognize real potential change is within our grasp. It’s very [inaudible], when I ran for mayor, a lot of people said, you know, you’re talking about income inequality. Can you address it just in once city? And I said no – I can do a lot in one city, and I think we have. The full-day pre-k to afterschool, the paid sick leave, affordable housing, municipal ID – all these things help uplift people, but the ultimate, larger answers rest to some extent in Albany, on issues like minimum wage, but much more so in Washington D.C. In Washington D.C., we can get the big answers – the investment in education, mass transit, affordable housing. Washington D.C. is where, ultimately, wages and benefits should be raised for everyone. So, from my point of view, I hope here in New York City we’re providing some examples of what progress looks like, but part of why I’m energized at this moment [inaudible], this poll data this week is amazing. It shows a growing national consensus that these issues must be addressed, and this is one of those moments where you can feel change is in the air. We’ve got to grasp it, though, we’ve got to push hard for the next 18 months or so while these decisions are made about the future of our country.

Brian Lehrer: [inaudible] like Mayor Bill de Blasio wouldn’t mind being President Bill de Blasio himself – you know, the Post had a little piece about you looking for supporters in Texas, just in case you throw your hat in the ring. Do you want to rule that out?

Mayor: Brian, first of all, what I would urge all listeners to understand is, do not believe everything you read in the New York Post. That could not have been more inaccurate, and I’ve said many, many times, I am proud to have this job. I look forward to running for re-election, that’s my focus. But I think a mayor of New York City – for God’s sakes, I am here sitting in my office, Brian, just a few feet away from Fiorello LaGuardia’s desk, which is a treasure here in my office. And I’m reminded what our greatest mayor did – he founded the U.S. Conference of Mayors, he led the way in convincing the Congress to do some of the most important elements of the New Deal. A mayor of New York City is supposed to speak to these bigger issues, because everything that happens in Washington and around the country affects us deeply. So, I will keep pounding away on these questions, because the people of this city need solutions and answer. And we’re doing all we can, but they need a lot of that to come from Washington and Albany, and that’s part of my job too, to help get it done.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor de Blasio, thank you so much.

Mayor: Thank you, Brian.