Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on Hot 97

November 3, 2017

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I like the way you think.

Peter Rosenberg:  I can’t believe you had the audacity to not shake a man’s hand after he looked you right in the face and called you a criminal.

Mayor: Yes, call me – call me old fashioned.

[Laughter]

Rosenberg: Well done Mayor, well done.

Mayor: Yes.

Rosenberg:  This mayoral race that we are watching, these debates – why does it feel like WWE? Who are these weirdos?

Mayor: They are two Trump supporters. They are two right-wingers who don’t fit New York City and that’s what we are talking about here. But I wish we had seen a more real debate this year about serious issues.

Rosenberg: During the debate, Mayor, when you were asked about maybe if you should have or if you had regrets about not putting these little blockers in so cars can’t get into the bike lines. Obviously what happened this week is a tragedy and not something we would ever – I mean of course we can do the best to protect ourselves, you would never see that coming, but what are your thoughts on that, what precautions are going to take now moving forward now that this has happened?

Mayor: Listen, we, we consistently are trying to learn from what we see all over the world and now what we have seen here in our own city. What we did over the last few years is we added 2,000 more police officers on patrol and within that over 500 were constitute a new critical response command to fight terrorism. That’s why you see so much more anti-terror presence, you see the officers with long guns and the heavy gear. That’s one piece of the equation.

We have blocked off a lot more areas than we used to and we will keep doing that wherever we sense vulnerability – and we are also doing things like we don’t allow vehicles to pass across parades anymore. We used allow at certain intersections when there was a big event or big parade the vehicles go through. We stopped that after the attacks in Berlin and Nice.

So this is – look it’s a new reality we are facing, we have to consistently adjust with it. The good news is NYPD has the strongest anti-terrorism force in the country, the best intelligence gathering anywhere in the country. And they have thwarted 20 plus attacks since 9/11 already. We are just going to have to constantly make adjustments as we learn new information.

Ebro Darden: Mayor de Blasio, I know the hardworking Muslim community there is a lot of you know, Muslim community listening to us that feel under attack right now. Not only because of the president but because when an a-hole does something like what happened on Halloween, people automatically start pointing at that religion and people who have beards. And even in the debate you know, I don’t know the guy’s name but the crazy guy said –

Rosenberg: He looked like a terrorist, he said he looked like a terrorist.

Mayor: Right.

Darden: He looked like a terrorist. I’d love to hear from you Mayor, on how, I mean because you work with this community very close and I’m sure they want to hear from you today when they are under attack like that.

Mayor: Yes Ebro this is, we are talking about a community in this city of hundreds of thousands of people – overwhelmingly law abiding, you know, loyal New Yorkers who go about their business every day just want to live in peace. And there is going to be bad people in every community and it’s horrendous when – you’re right this is a heinous, awful act by an individual. That does not implicate an entire people or entire state.

You know, we have 900 people I like to about, 900 members of the NYPD who are Muslims and who serve all of us and serve with distinction. So we in fact need to, in moments like this, we need to double down on deepening our connection to those hundreds of thousands of good hard working people who can be part of keeping us all safe. And [inaudible] you know every day, the fact we have gotten safer as a city is because all of our communities and more and more communities working with police. So we can’t let a horrible incident like this, you know, take us off that path of deepening the ties with every kind of community.

Darden: Mayor de Blasio, as I’ve you seen you speak on TV, I think two or three times about affordable housing and the amazing rate at which we’re – you’re able to complete new housing and make it available for people who need it. What number, it was like originally you were trying to get to 200,000 units, and now it’s much higher? Is that, my understanding –

Mayor: Yes 200,000 – the original plan was 200,000 apartments that we would either build or we would give people the subsidies to keep them affordable and keep, you know, them and their family in the apartment long term. And when that happens Ebro, people pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent whatever their income in.
We have now said that instead of 200,000 apartments, we are going to go for 300,000. We believe we can do it. That reaches almost 750,000 New Yorkers, you know pushing on towards a tenth of the entire city’s population and we need it. I mean there is an affordable housing crisis. So many people are struggling to make ends meet – find a way to keep them right in the apartment they are in now but make it finically viable for the long term.

And also things like, providing free lawyers to stop people from being evicted. Thousands of people have been saved from eviction because now the city provides them a free lawyer to protect their interest, not just the landlord’s interest. Usually the landlord has a lawyer, the people don’t, now we have even up the score. And it’s keeping thousands of people in their apartment. So a lot is changing that is going to allow us to make sure that every day New Yorkers can stay here.

Darden: Mayor de Blasio, thanks for your hard work man. I know we’ve had so many conversations about people loving to rip you across the pages. The most recent being the allegations that I think you were exonerated for which was the donating allegations and they keep bringing that stuff towards you so – look you’re a better guy then we are on this show because I would have told them to eff off a long time ago.

Rosenberg: That’s right and we don’t recommend that, especially at this stage. You only got a week left, no room for that bro.

Darden: Look man, you’re going to win man you might as well wild out bro.

Mayor: Look, you know Rosenberg, Rosenberg has got my best interest in mind here.

Rosenberg: Yes, I think we wait until next week Ebro, maybe next Wednesday or Thursday.

Mayor: Yes, let’s, let’s schedule that carefully –

Darden: No, right now man, middle finger, let’s go, send it up.

Mayor: But Ebro, I want to say to all of you, thank you – these last four years, the conversations we’ve had here on your show have been literally some of the most important, some of the most thoughtful about this city and its people. So I want to thank you for doing that.

And I just want to remind everyone, Tuesday, November 7th, this coming Tuesday, is your chance to decide, everyone’s chance to decide the future of this city. I have a very simple message – this is your city, to all your listeners, this is your city. You decide where it goes, if you think we are on the right path in terms of things like Pre-K and now Pre-K for three-year-olds and more affordable housing and bringing police and community together, neighborhood policing – I need your help to keep moving forward so I’m asking all of your listeners, please – whether you are voting for me or voting for someone else, get out and vote on Tuesday.

Ebro: Thank you Mayor good luck.

Mayor: Thank you everyone.