Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on Inside City Hall

September 24, 2019

Bobby Cuza: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. Mayor de Blasio is kicking off his first full week after ending his presidential campaign by pushing a City-run retirement savings program for employees at companies that don’t offer their own plan. Joining me now to talk about this, the end of his campaign, and much more is Mayor de Blasio. He joins us now from the Blue Room at City Hall. Good evening, Mayor de Blasio.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good evening, Bobby.

Cuza: So, let me ask you first about this proposal you were talking about at this rally down at City Hall today. Basically, folks would pay their own money into a retirement savings plan that is basically run by the City. Explain how this works.

Mayor: Yeah, Bobby, right now this is a shocking figure that over a million New Yorkers do not have any kind of meaningful retirement plan. And over half of workers are at places where they are not offered a retirement plan. And we’ve got a crisis. We’ve got a generation of New York City residents who are not going to have the security that the previous generation had, that are going to be working and working and not at all know if they are going to be able to afford to retire. And I think the human dynamic here is really, really intense that you’re going to have a lot of folks who work a lot longer than they want to if we don’t do something about this, you’re going to have a lot of folks who feel a lot of anxiety and stress before they retire, and then right now what we see is a lot of people who retire and just barely can make ends meet and are making really tough choices between rent, medicine, food. We don’t want that for New Yorkers. We want working people who have worked hard all their lives to actually be able to enjoy their retirement.

So, this plan is really straightforward. It mandates – and we need this to be passed by the City Council – it mandates that every New York City employer, with a company of any size to speak of, not the very smallest but any smallest to speak of, would offer a plan automatically, enroll their employees automatically, unless the company had its own plan this would be something that would be obligatory. They’d have to offer this as an alternative to their workers. Now, the workers, Bobby, do not have to buy into it if they don’t want to. So, no one is forced to do anything. Or if the company has their own plan, that’s fine. That’s a perfectly acceptable alternative. But we cannot continue to have so many people who have no option at all and end up getting to retirement with just so little to work with.

Cuza: So, if I’m understanding this right, though, the employers themselves are not kicking in any of their money. This is all the employees’ own funds. So, how is this different from somebody just going out and taking their savings and putting it into some kind of money management fund?

Mayor: Well, Bobby, it’s a great question but the reality is really clear. So, we got over a million people who are working right now, didn’t do that, don’t have that security, and so the idea of just leaving it to chance is clearly not working. We want something where people automatically know that that right is there for them. Yeah, you’re right, it is the employee’s own money but what’s been proven already around the country with these kind of approaches is even if an employee puts a little bit of money in each month, it makes a real difference. It adds up to a lot later on. And what the City would do is structure this plan so it’s available to all employers that don’t have their own.

There are some costs the City would bear in terms of the startup but then it would be sustained by the employee contributions. But the world of difference it would make, Bobby, is that folks would not have to go hunting, they wouldn’t have to go shopping and comparing, they wouldn’t be worried that they might be the wrong choice and their money wouldn’t be taken care of well. It would be available to them automatically. If they didn’t want it, they could say no.

But we just got to do a lot more to give people a better life, and it really fits. You know, we’ve had a series of things we’ve done to try and improve the lives of working people in New York. Obviously, $15 minimum wage, paid sick days, guaranteed health care, fair scheduling, or things for working families like Pre-K for All. We’ve got to keep building on this. Obviously, I want to pass legislation to mandate two-week paid vacation for every working New Yorker just like is true in countries all over the industrialized world. But we also have to make sure that retirement plans are available to everyone.

I want to see retirement plans get better and better. I want us to remember, in the past, many more people had pensions that they could actually depend on. And for a lot of people that seems like the distant past. But at least let’s start by making sure that everyone automatically has the right to get to some kind of retirement plan.

Cuza: Alright, Mr. Mayor you have now concluded your presidential campaign. We now have you back full-time, at least certainly physically, and I wonder, you know, it was remarked that you seemed on – out on the campaign trail, and I witnessed this myself in Iowa and South Carolina, sort of more comfortable and looser. I wonder if you had fun when you were out there campaigning and I wonder whether, you know, what you’re bringing back to New York from your experience, whether you will now be a different kind of Mayor in these last couple years?

Mayor: Well, Bobby, I’ll tell you something, I have fun when – I literally have fun wherever I’m out with people. And for anyone who has watched me in my 65 town hall meetings here in New York City, I actually enjoy them quite a bit. A lot of people will tell you that is not something a lot of people in public life enjoy, I do. I’ve enjoyed our City Hall in Your Borough weeks, when we go out into communities all over the five boroughs. I like being out with the people. You know, I think sometimes when you’re just hanging around at City Hall. You don’t get to experience the great life of this city so you’ll be seeing me out in communities a whole lot over these next two years and three months. But that was part of the joy of being in the presidential campaign.

It was a very, very positive experience. I don’t like the way it ended, obviously I would have loved a different result, but I knew it was a tough fight, I knew I was an underdog. But, Bobby, you did see me really having an extraordinary experience connecting with people in this country. I think this is a better country than what we’re often told it is. I think people are more hopeful, they’re more unified. They think change can actually happen. They’re ready to get engaged and involved in the 2020 election. I came away from it feeling very good about America and I had amazing experiences, and I’m going to take that energy right back here, to the work I’m doing here, and take it out to communities and that’s what I think makes all the difference.

Cuza: You may have seen the DNC today announce a new threshold for their next debate, which includes 165,000 unique donors, there is new polling threshold, I know you have said that the bar was too high for some of the previous debates and that it was hard to make sense of these debates with ten people on stage. I wonder if you think there should be a different format, what that might look like?

Mayor: Well, Bobby, I would say to begin with, the ten person debates don’t make sense. There is a tremendous level of interest. You know the first debate I participated in between the TV and the online audience I believe it was 24 million people. There’s tons of interest out there and that was back in June, the election is not until next year obviously. So I think you can have more debates and smaller debates that would allow for a much better conversation. I also said about the standards, I don’t think the standards per se are wrong, I wonder if they were applied too early because it really made it hard for folks who didn’t have a lot of money to keep making their case. But remember, the candidate who has the most money is not always the candidate who wins or the candidate who is necessarily best for the job, so I do think the DNC has to rethink when these standards are applied.

I think some of the underlying idea was very good, I love the fact that it was based on grassroots donations, not high dollar donations, not how much money you had, but from how many people. I love that it was one dollar qualified a pertinent donation, but I think there’s a big question about whether the timing needed to be pushed back to allow for more chance for candidacies to develop, you know, before the field was winnowed a little more artificially. So, in any event, that’s all for the future. I still come back to I’m very glad I had a chance to present ideas, and one of the things I talked about, Bobby, was automation. And that idea got a lot of positive response. I have a very different solution than what Andrew Yang, for example, has talked about. I’m talking about stopping tax breaks for companies that are kicking American workers out of jobs and a robot tax that would actually force these companies to compensate folks who are displaced, get them new training and new employment. I’m going to keep putting that idea out there because I think that’s something that our country needs, and certainly New York City will feel the effect of automation. We need to be protected from it too. So, you know, I’m going to keep talking about these issues, but again, it was a very positive experience even if it didn’t work out the way I would have liked. 

Cuza: You said that falling short of the criteria for the September and October debates was part of your reason for ending your campaign. The threshold was 130,000 unique donors to qualify for the debate, how much – how many donors did you have?

Mayor: I will get the final count, but it was not close enough at all. And it was quite clear – you know, to get to that level it’s not – I don’t think the number per se is unfair, I think what’s true though is to get to that kind of number, it unfortunately takes a lot of initial investment. And that’s something I learned that I honestly didn’t know before I ran that the candidates who did that most effectively had a lot of money in their war chest to begin and were, you know, were able to purchase a lot [inaudible]. So, I think that’s another area that needs to be looked, how do we make it simpler for folks who, you know, have a message, as in my case, real pertinent to everyday people and working people, to get that message out in a way that than folks can vote with their and give those small donations, but again that’s something that has to worked on for the next cycle.

Cuza: Alright, Mr. Mayor, we are going to take a short break. Don’t move, we will have much more with Mayor de Blasio straight ahead.

[…]

Cuza: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. I’m once again joined by Mayor de Blasio who is joining us from the Blue Room at City Hall. So, Mr. Mayor, the big climate march was on Friday, climate change is a focus at the UN today. I wonder if given all this new sense of urgency whether you think the City could be taking even bigger, bolder steps beyond what has already been proposed up to this point?

Mayor: We have to keep going farther Bobby, there’s no question. We are doing things now that we could not have imagined even just a few years ago. You know, when I started out as Mayor, I said we were going to get to 80 percent emissions by 2050. We are now very clear, we are going to be carbon neutral by then. We initially you know, thought we could achieve a lot in terms of getting buildings to reduce their emissions. We’ve gone farther than I think anyone thought was possible. We have the toughest law on Earth, literally on Earth for making sure that buildings have to retrofit, big buildings that actually do a lot of the pollution, a lot of the emissions. We now have the most stringent laws in the world, with real teeth, real major fines attached if the companies involved don’t abide by the law. You know we are going to have our entire city run on renewable electricity in the next five years – all of our city government electricity needs. We are going to have an all-electric car fleet for the City soon and electric charging stations for every day New Yorkers for their electric vehicles. There’s a lot going on.

But to your question, we have to keep aiming higher, literally every single year because this threat is bearing down on us. I believe the U.N. when they say 2030 is the target year by which, if we haven’t made profound changes, we could be in even greater danger than we realize so no, New York City every single year is going to go farther.

Cuza: Mr. Mayor let me ask you about a court ruling today from a judge in Manhattan that said the NYPD has to release data, including racial breakdowns on fare evaders, those who have been issued tickets or arrested. The City had argued that this could somehow give information to would-be fare beaters and they could evade police. I wonder why the City decided to fight this lawsuit.

Mayor: Yeah Bobby, I haven’t seen the new ruling but I can tell you the underlying thought was anytime that you divulge where your enforcement actions are going to be, obviously it gives a map to folks who may be trying to evade that enforcement. So that was part of the concern. Look, we are transparent in so many ways about policing. We want to be transparent about policing in the city. That’s been true since CompStat and has gotten more and more transparent with every passing year. But we also have to be mindful that certain forms of information indicate you know, where enforcement is going to be and where there is less. And that’s supposed to be and I think is based on where the need is. But we just have to be really smart about it. So, we will look at this ruling and we will decide how to proceed from there.

Cuza: Governor Cuomo lately has been talking about fare evasion and other what he called quality of life issues on the subway, including homelessness and the tax on transit officers. The MTA is actually going to be hiring 500 new MTA police officers to go down into the system to address some of these issues. I wonder if you think that’s a good idea? This seems like something that is the purview of the NYPD.

Mayor: Well, I’ll tell you let’s begin at the beginning. You know in the course of the last few years a lot has become clearer and I think it’s very healthy. New Yorkers now know and I can tell you from being at those town hall meetings it’s changed a lot in the last few years. They know the MTA is run by the State and the Governor and that’s where the responsibility is. And that is very healthy because once that was clear Bobby, you started to see a whole lot change. We finally got to the legislation in April that got us congestion pricing, a plan to fund the MTA. You’ve seen a lot more action in terms of a vision for how to address the needs of the MTA. So that’s good and I think you know the Governor being focused on the issues within the subways is directly related to the fact that now people understand that he’s responsible.

In terms of hiring more officers, that’s a very good thing. It has to be carefully coordinated with the NYPD – there’s no question. The leading force in the subways for safety is the NYPD. If the MTA police which covers of course, Metro North and a lot of other things, LIRR, if they are going to be involved more in the subway system, there has to be smart training, smart coordination. But I think that’s something that can be done.

Cuza: You talk about interagency cooperation – homelessness in particular is a really tough issue to deal with in the subways. The City has talked about one approach – we don’t know what the MTA police is going to do. It doesn’t seem like certainly a problem you can arrest your way out of. So, seems like you have to take a lot of care on how the State is going to come in and approach homelessness?

Mayor: Well, Bobby, you are right, you cannot arrest your way out of it. It doesn’t work, the laws don’t allow that. If someone is a threat to themselves or others, they can be involuntarily removed. But there is other situations you can’t unless a crime has been committed. What you got to do is a whole lot of careful outreach work. And it has evolved, in our case the NYPD and our Department of Social Services and outreach workers who are highly trained and more and more they are getting folks to come out of the subways and off the streets, into shelter and stay in shelter. And that’s really starting to have an impact in reducing some of our street homeless population. Also, the NYPD started a great new initiative that is for someone who did commit a minor violation, they are told, hey you can either be responsible for that, you violated the law and there’s going to be a penalty. Or you can come into shelter and an alternative. And we are seeing actually hundreds of folks who are homeless accepting shelter as that alternative. That’s a very good thing. That’s only just begun. I’m very hopeful about it.

But to the bigger point, reducing homelessness – we are seeing a reduction on the street. We are seeing a reduction in shelter population. We have more to do underground. It will take careful coordination. So, as the MTA increases the number of officers, it has to be smartly done with the PD and with Social Services. But you know more is more. If it’s done the right way, having more people on the job is going to help us and I am encouraged – I think we are going to be able to get a lot of folks ultimately to come in and out of the streets and out of the subways.

Cuza: There’s been a lot of debate as of late on whether there could be a ban, a lifetime ban on serial sex offenders for instance in the subway. Have you taken a position on that?

Mayor: I am sympathetic to the idea that if someone has repeatedly committed a crime, and we are talking about a subway system that has its own rules, if someone is a threat to others, so long as it’s done while respecting constitutional rights, I think it’s a real proposal that needs to be looked it. The folks who ride the subway every day, many people are anxious about knowing there are folks around who might mean them harm. You know if we can help ensure that it’s done constitutionally, I think that’s an idea that has some real merit.

Cuza: Alright Mr. Mayor I want to ask you about another cyclist death this past weekend on Saturday. A 14-year-old boy [inaudible] killed in Long Island City. I know you were asked about this today. This brings the death toll to 21 for the year. The city has announced a plan to try to deal with this but is it enough and I wonder whether you feel like every type of incident like this can be prevented by, you know, by city action given the conflicts that we have on city streets between the cars and cyclists and pedestrians.

Mayor: Bobby, our goal is to get it to zero. It really is. Now look, we are all New Yorkers, we are all human beings. We know that sometimes you know even with everything that is done right there still could be tragedy, there could be a freak accident. Sometimes you know there is human error involved. We understand that. But the goal is to get it to zero. And there’s a lot more that we can do and we continue every year – Vision Zero started in 2014, we never had anything like it in New York City, it consistently proved to reduce the number of fatalities and injuries, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists. We are going to go a lot farther with it. We are also going to be doing some things we have never done before like having you know, 700 school zones with speed cameras. That’s something we couldn’t have even dreamed of before this year. So, a lot is going to change in this city. Vision Zero has to get bigger, stronger, every single year. But no, these tragedies are horrible, horrible moments for this city and for these families and we have to do better. But I want people to understand, you know, from my heart we are throwing a lot at this to try and address and it is literally a sky’s-the-limit situation and that includes more and more NYPD enforcement. We are fixing more intersections and streets. It’s not going to end. This is something we are going to be doing for years and years to make this safer city. And you are right, there is not enough space and there’s too many people competing for that space. And every single New Yorker needs to take responsibility for driving safely, being careful, realizing that we all have to share this space. But the city is just going to go farther and farther every single month, every single year to make the city safer.

Cuza: Alright Mayor de Blasio we are out of time. Thank you so much for joining us. We will see you next week and we will be seeing more of you around town.

Mayor: Alright, Bobby. Thank you.