Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears live on NY1's Mornings on 1

June 8, 2020

Pat Kiernan: We are here to phase one. It was a long time coming as we get into the first phase of reopening business in New York City. Mayor de Blasio is with me now to talk about the city's response to the pandemic. Of course, I also want to spend some time talking about the protest, but Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here. Let's, first of all, talk about the long road to this first phase of reopening.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yeah. Pat, what it is – first of all, it is literally a beautiful day outside, but it's also a beautiful day because this is a triumph for all New Yorkers that we've gotten to this point, we were the epicenter of a national pandemic, and New Yorkers, Pat, did the right thing, fought back, followed those difficult rules, but they did it. And the only reason we're able to reopen today with phase one is because it took a lot of hard work and people went out and did it. And so today is something to celebrate. You know, we don't know the exact number, but somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people will be going back to work at their work sites today in the five boroughs. And it's a beginning. People are going to get their livelihoods back, you know, we're going to really be taking a big step forward. So, it's an exciting day, but I'm going to state the obvious, Pat, we got this far by doing it the right way, by doing the social distancing, the face coverings. We got to keep doing it at those work sites and everywhere if we expect to keep moving forward

Kiernan: And you have seen it in so many ways that New Yorkers are eager to get back outside and eager to interact with each other. It seems to me like there's only one way this could end that there will be more contact and more virus transmission.

Mayor: I don't think it's as simple as that. It's a very fair question, Pat. But I don't think it's as simple as that. I think New Yorkers have done something amazing with their discipline. And look, we go over every single day, publicly the numbers, the data that show us exactly where we stand in terms of health care. It's been amazing for the last few weeks. And it is because of that hard work. I mean, you know, when people are used to – they turn on the TV, they hear someone in the government say, you know, here is something, the law we passed today, or one thing and the other, this is a whole different reality. This is about what the people do, what happens at the grassroots. And people have been really serious and focused, overwhelmingly, on this. So, I have actually a lot of faith, when they go back into those work sites, everyone's going to want to be safe, the employers and the employees. And if we stick to it, you know, we can do a lot to beat back the disease.

And on top of that, Pat, remember we've started this huge test and trace program. Thousands of people that will be out in communities finding anyone who tests positive, and then anyone, they had contact with. Folks who need to be separated, safely separated from their families, given the chance to be in a hotel until they get over the disease. That work is happening right this minute, all over the city. That's another way of containing the spread of the disease. We didn't have that when we started out. Now we have it on a vast scale. So, that's kind of a counter offensive, if you will, to keep pushing back this disease. That gives me a lot of hope.

Kiernan: Well, I know that's the thing with everything on this, right. There is no clear path, you're making a decision about how much risk can we tolerate, how much risk is acceptable here, and every one of those decisions is an agonizing decision. Mayor de Blasio, I talked to Police Commissioner Dermot Shea earlier this morning and I asked him about several reports, some of them on Twitter, that he was either being fired or stepping down. Have you had conversations this weekend about replacing the leadership of the NYPD?

Mayor: No. Pat –

Kiernan: Does the Commissioner have your support?

Mayor: Of course, he does. Pat, I am so amazed how in the age of social media, something really stupid happens. And so, this is an example like that. I've said throughout, the Commissioner and I talk all the time. I think he's doing a very, very good job for this city. I also think we have to make a lot of change in the NYPD and he has shown he is someone who can do that. The discipline process is starting to move a lot more quickly. It has to move even more quickly than that. People have to see accountability. You know, we're going to be shifting money to youth programs from the NYPD budget. The Commissioner came out and said, you know, no one wants to lose money from their budget, but there's no place more important for it to go than to young people. He is, I think, doing some really, really good work, but I expect him also to continue the work of change and reform in the NYPD. He's been a part of it over the last six-and-a-half years in whatever role he played. But, no, he's a very talented, capable guy and we've talked throughout and then we hear these rumors out of nowhere. I don't get where that comes from, but, no, they're just plain false.

Kiernan: So, how do those conversations go about you saying you have too much money in your budget, I want to spend that money elsewhere. The natural instinct of somebody who's the CEO of an organization as he is, would be to say, I can't do this with less.

Mayor: First of all, he's a strong leader and every strong leader knows that when you're asked to do something with less, you find a way. Second of all, he's totally committed, as I am, to young people. Look, if there's one theme that's run through this administration from the beginning, it's young people, obviously pre-K, 3-K, free after school programs. All the things we've done have been focused on young people. My State of the City, before all this pandemic happened, was about more youth centers and more of a focus on young people at the NYPD. That's been Dermot Shea's theme to get the police to work with young people, to actually help avoid problems in their lives before they happen. So, of all things, he was not going to oppose money going to the work of helping young people. He is a capable leader. Any capable leader is going to find a way to work with their resources. And I said, we're going to keep the city safe no matter what.

Kiernan: Mayor de Blasio, much of the confrontation between police and protestors in the evening hours last week was because there was the eight o'clock curfew, a curfew that some people said it wasn't necessary, that some people had said was too early. Do you regret putting that eight o'clock curfew in place?

Mayor: Pat, I don't and I'll tell you why. When I look at the scorecard for the week, I mean, there's things we have to do better, there are investigations underway of how the NYPD handled those protests to see if there's things we need to do better, and obviously some individual officers did not do the right thing and there are already some who are subject to discipline. I think there'll be more. But when you look at the big picture, each day got better in the course of the week and you cannot separate that from the curfew. We never brought in the National Guard, which I thought was essential actually, to keeping people safe because, you know, military forces do not belong on the streets of our city. We were able to stop that property damage that was so horrible on Sunday, Monday night. Never saw that again. The protests got peaceful – each day they got more peaceful, they got bigger and more peaceful. And that's a very good thing. So, no, it was the right thing to do. I wish I never had to do it. I did not anticipate doing it, but when the very unusual sort of perfect storm occurred Sunday going into Monday, it was time for something different and it worked. And now I hope we'll never see it again, is the honest truth.

Kiernan: Mayor de Blasio, thanks for being with us this morning.

Mayor: Thank you, Pat.