Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears on AM 710 WOR

May 27, 2016

Joe Bartlett: And later on this weekend – Saturday, as a matter of fact – I’m going to have a conversation with Mayor Bill de Blasio on my Saturday show. And we actually recorded it a few minutes ago. He was talking about the rap thing; and a big argument with de Blasio; and his poll numbers; the corruption investigations. [Inaudible] and I are going to play a little clip for you here. The full interview will be on Saturday morning at 6:30. But the question I put to him was that – is he distracted now because of all of these investigations and just sort of this daily barrage of negative publicity?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: No, I have to tell you – I wish I could tell you that I was the first person to experience this, but I’m sure Bill Clinton could give you a long history, and many other public servants of having been through this exact same reality. I don’t think it’s right, but I’m not shocked by it. Look, allegations flying all over the place, leaks all over the place. But Joe, I’m very convinced – when all the facts come out, it will be very clear everything we’ve done is legal, it’s appropriate, it’s with high standards of integrity. And it’s a distraction, but it doesn’t stop me from doing the work. We’re very – right about to get a City budget done in the next couple of weeks. We’ve been continuing to build our affordable housing effort. And we’re very, very proud of pre-K for all our kids. And right now, parents are signing up for next year. I mean all the work continues. And that’s what people care about. They don’t care about allegations and all of this talk. They care about if you’re getting things done for them. By the way, what’s the number one issue to people? Public safety. Crime continues to go down. NYPD is doing an extraordinary job. That’s what people are going to judge by.

Bartlett: You know it’s interesting. You used to get hammered on crime all the time when you first took office. Now that’s not even an issue.

Mayor: Well, isn’t that interesting, Joe? I mean think about that about for a moment. And all credit goes to Bill Bratton and the men and women of the NYPD. But think about that – biggest city in the country – by far the safest big city in America. Crime continuing to go down – we have amazing numbers this year on reduction of homicides, reduction of shootings. I mean, you know, you know what this city used to be like. And we have 2,000 more cops who will be on the beat by the end of this year. I’m very proud of that. And we did that with the City Council. And we’re giving Bill Bratton the tools he needs to implement a whole new vision of neighborhood policing – really a back to the future vision because it’s going to be mean a lot more cops on the beat, a lot more cops who get to know people in the neighborhood, and the neighborhood gets to know them. So a lot of good stuff happening – Joe, how does it not make the front pages? I’m shocked, shocked, and amazed.

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