Transcript: Mayor de Blasio, First Lady Chirlane McCray Appear Live On CNN’s New Day

July 11, 2016

Poppy Harlow: Hundreds of arrests over the weekend in protests across this country over the deaths of two black men at the hands of police, shocking videos of their death igniting a national debate on race and policing in this country – a very important discussion to have and action to be taken. So, let’s talk about it with the Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. He joins us this morning, along with his wife, the First Lady of New York, Chirlane McCray. 

Thank you both for being here. I appreciate it very much. You spent yesterday morning – Sunday morning – at church at St. Patrick’s Cathedral here in New York City, and you said something that struck me – you said, we have no choice but to build something better in our time. I think about that as a new mom for my child. Do think about that for your children? We saw 20 demonstrators, at least, arrested here in New York City last night. What’s your message to them about how we build something better?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I think it’s partly retraining our police, helping our police understand there’s implicit bias in all of us in this country and that we have to work to get that bias out of our systems – and that’s across all backgrounds. It’s about bringing police and community together. We’re instituting neighborhood policing in this city for the first time in a truly comprehensive manner. Police officers will get to know the people they serve. They’ll be in the same community, in the same blocks all the time. 

Harlow: I think people look at cities and say, well, why don’t we always have that? That’s, so people understand, a very expensive thing to do, a very difficult thing to do, but a very necessary thing to do. Chirlane, I’m interested in the conversations that you’ve had – both of you – with your children, with your son, Dante, about this. What do you say?

First Lady Chirlane McCray: We say the same thing that so many parents across the country say to their children, and that is to be respectful, be careful, and to always know where you are and to have some situational awareness about the people around you. That’s so important for our young people to hear, and these are conversations that Bill has had much more than I have. 

Harlow: So, then, on that, what does Dante say to you? Is he scared? I’ve had a number of people on my show last night, and their children have come to them – African-American children – and said, I’m scared right now.

Mayor: I think, in some ways, it’s worse than that. I think it’s so ubiquitous, it’s an assumption, and, you know, this is something we have to come to grips with, and I think all of us in white America have to understand better that young men of color live in fear all the time, and it’s something that we have to heal. It’s something we have to overcome if we’re going to move forward as a country.

When I talk to Dante, it’s come to the point that he assumes that this is a part of life and a part of the reality. It doesn’t mean he’s hopeless. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to be a part of changing the world. But I think it’s a very simple equation – if you have white children, you don’t need to give them that particular warning. You’ve got to prepare them for a lot of other things in life, but you don’t have to give them that particular warning. And it gets back to – you understand, we honor our police, we need our police, but we also have to have a very different relationship between police and communities around the country, and we have to recognize that police have to be trained to understand how to work with communities consistently and how to diffuse potential situations that can go wrong.

Harlow: So, let’s listen to what the New York City Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, said yesterday morning on NBC’s Meet the Press about the Black Lives Matter movement, which has been at the center of the organizing force behind a lot of these protests and also – I should note, it’s so important to say – condemned immediately, the killing of those officers in Dallas. I don’t think that is said enough – that the movement came out and condemned that violence. Here’s what Bill Bratton said –

Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, NYPD: Well, the reality of the Black Lives Matter movement is it is significantly focused, primarily focused on police, and their efforts to portray police, and the police profession, in a very negative way, which is unfortunate. There are no denying within the police profession – 800,000 of us – that we have racists, we have brutal people, we have criminals, cops who shouldn't be here. But they do not represent the vast majority of American police.

Harlow: Do you, Mayor, agree with your Police Commissioner on that statement about the Black Lives Matter movement as it relates to police? 

Mayor: When you hear the whole statement, I appreciate the fact that he’s saying that we have the vast majority of police officers who are doing their job. We have some who don’t belong in the profession, like every profession. I think what the protestors are doing is really about the few who don’t belong.

And Chirlane and I spent a lot of time working as activists and trying to change the world, and so I have a respect for the Black Lives Matter movement. And I think that movement – just the very phrase, Black Lives Matter, has changed the national discussion. Now, as with any movement, there’s some people I don’t agree with, but, I have to tell you, they’ve changed the national discussion for the better. They did stop and have a moment of silence at one of the protests in New York City, had a moment of silence for the officers lost in Dallas. Just like the officers in Dallas, when bullets were raining down on them, their first impulse was to protect the protestors. So, we’ve got to find these examples of hope and possibility here. And that movement has helped move the national discussion forward. 

Harlow: But what Commissioner Bratton said, in part, is, he said, the movement is “primarily focused on police, and their efforts to portray police, and the police profession, in a very negative way.”

Mayor: See, I would –

First Lady McCray: We have a different perspective.

Harlow: And what’s that?

First Lady McCray: Black Lives Matter is a force for good. It’s about peaceful protest. It’s about shining a light on the problems that we have in race relations across this country – we’ve had a history of it, and it has not gone away, but we haven’t had enough positive action taken on making change. And I am very encouraged by the Black Lives Matter movement. I think that this is such, again, a force for good, to have so many young people – and older people too – engaged, and being civically-minded, and participating in the conversation of our country is so important. 

Mayor: And we can’t move forward without it. That conversation is a prerequisite to the progress we have to make in this country. 

Harlow: Before I let you go, I want you to listen to something. Charles Blow, a contributor here to CNN, also a columnist in the New York Times – after he was on CNN last night, he took to Facebook Live and made an eight-minute statement about his thoughts about what’s going on in America. He’s a part that stood out to me – let’s play it. 

Charles Blow: These conversations and debates that you have on television trick people into believing that there is a way to rationalize these dead bodies – that they can make a case that those dead bodies are simply the collateral damage in a justified and honorable attempt to keep society safe […] This is about all of you, and that includes you, white America. At the moment that most Americans say, this is unacceptable to us, these killings will stop. 

Harlow: His argument, Mayor, is that police forces are a reflection of the societies in which they exist, and that white America, or many of – much of America, is not doing enough to say it has to stop. Is he right?

Mayor: He’s right in the sense that white America doesn’t understand the extent of the problem. And, as I said – and we know it from our own son – the most law abiding, hardworking young man you could imagine, but he has to worry. We’ve got to overcome that. How do we make a society whole? We make a society whole by everyone having a common standard. We value all our young people. We don’t care what color they are. They are the future of this country. And it comes down to the safety we need actually revolves around bringing police and community closer, and having a kind of relationship, a kind of dialogue, we just haven’t had. That history of racism in this country hangs over us to this day.

Now, generationally, I think we have a chance in this generation to do things that our predecessors couldn’t do because we have a greater consciousness. The conversation just in the last year or two in this country has moved forward a lot, and I actually think white America will participate in that change. I think people are saying more and more they don’t want to see these things happen anymore. So, what Charles Blow is talking about is accurate, but I do believe the change has begun. 

Harlow: Before I let you go, Chirlane, I do want to ask you about something very close to your heart, and that is treating mental illness and drug addiction – it’s been one of your main focuses throughout. A bill passed in the House on Friday you’re hoping will make it through the Senate and to the President’s desk – what can you tell us about that?

First Lady McCray: Absolutely. I want people to call their Congress members and tell them to get the President to sign this. Let’s pass this bill. We need much more attention paid on mental health. We need more services for everyone and, you know, I can’t say enough about the folks who have gotten us to the place where it is. We need mental health, what can I say?

Harlow: We’ll watch and see what happens. Thank you both for coming in – 

Mayor: Thank you.

Harlow: – an important discussion to have. We appreciate it.