Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears on Inside City Hall

November 21, 2016

Errol Louis: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. Mayor de Blasio sought to reassure New Yorkers concerned about a Trump presidency in a speech at Cooper Union this morning. Over the weekend, the Mayor received endorsements for his re-election bid from former Mayor David Dinkins and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. And Mayor Bill de Blasio joins us now in our studio for our weekly chat.

Welcome, Mr. Mayor. It’s always nice to see you.

Mayor: Thank you, Errol.

Louis: Let me ask you about today’s speech. A number of people have said – and this speech I think lends weight to this theory – that you’re now in a position to run against Donald Trump, and that essentially becomes to 2017 re-election campaign.

Mayor: Anyone who’s saying that is missing the whole meaning of the speech, and why it was necessary to give it. There’s a tremendous amount of concern in this town – eight-and-a-half million people trying to understand what this federal election means for us. And I said at the beginning of the speech, this is about the people who worried that they may be deported, their family members may be deported. This is about people who wonder if they’re going to have to sign a religious registry, people wondering if the Affordable Care Act is going to repealed and they’re not going to have health insurance, if Dodd-Frank is going to be repealed and there’s going to be another stock market crash.

I mean this is what we’re talking about. I think people should really weigh the fact that we had a seismic event on November 8th. It has immense meaning for the people of the city, and I tell you a lot of people are worried. A lot of people are frustrated. A lot of people are fearful. I thought it was really important to say – okay, we’re New York City. We have very clear values. We’re not changing our values. We’re not changing the way we do things. Our police force does not have to do what Donald Trump wants them to do. The people of New York City get to decide what kind of policing we have. Our schools don’t do what anybody in Washington says to do. We do what we think is right, etcetera.

We are going to set rules that make sense for our people, and remind folks that our Constitution gives a lot of power to localities. We’re going to exercise that power, and we are not going to participate in the things that we think violate the values and the needs of this city. So that needed to be said in a bigger frame. I said it in various interviews and press conferences. It’s really important to lay out the whole picture. That’s what I tried to do today.

Louis: Okay, I guess – one issue that we reported on earlier tonight as a matter of fact is taht there’s some question about what this Muslim registry would look like. He’s made a lot of conflicting –

Mayor: Correct.

Louis: – and you know we’ve tried to chase down some of it. He’s made a lot of – over the last year – conflicting statements about maybe this, maybe that –

Mayor: And it was on the website, then it was off the website.

Louis: Maybe it’s just – right, right – maybe it’s Syrian refugees. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s some of this. Maybe it’s some of that.

I wonder if – you know, I understand your first meeting was essentially a courtesy call on some level – but wouldn’t that be something that the Mayor of the city should do? Get some clarity on these issues so that it doesn’t become a source of fear and anxiety?

Mayor: Well, the meeting was much more than a courtesy call. It was a very substantive meeting, and you know it was a 62 minute meeting where we covered a whole host of topics that I laid out publicly immediately after, and one of them was this registry. And I tried to help him understand the people of New York City were deeply concerned.

I told him – and this is why I keep repeating – the 900 members of the NYPD who are Muslim-American. I wanted him to understand that if you have a blanket approach to people of a certain faith including a registry, how discordant that is going to be – how problematic, how troubling, how un-American that’s going to be, and how that would hurt New York City. I wanted him to hear that straightforward.

I didn’t hear – and as I said I’m not divulging the specific responses – but I can say broadly I didn’t hear a definitional answer, and I think we have seen so much movement on this issue including from his spokespeople, right? Reince Priebus this weekend – also I didn’t understand what he was saying, and many sentences he said about the Muslim registry did not add up. So I think this is one where people have to be very clear with Trump and all the people around him that anything like a religious registry is unconstitutional and goes against our values.

Louis: Would you acknowledge that there’s, sort of, tensions in a lot of different directions? We saw the arrest today of Mohammed Rafik Naji, who is accused of, you know – being a New Yorker, being an American naturalized citizen, and plotting some fairly scary stuff – attacks right here in –

Mayor: Well, his – look, I want to give credit to the FBI and the NYPD and the Joint Terrorism Task Force for the great work they did in getting him – his primary focus had been overseas, but the bottom line is our law enforcement personnel were well aware of him and acted at the right time. I think there’s a real concern about terrorism. We’re exceedingly vigilant in this city about terrorism. There’s no city that has experience it more than New York, and there’s no city more prepared to deal with it. That doesn’t mean we would ever accept a registry of people based on their religion which is fundamentally un-American.

Louis: Okay, let me move on and ask you about this. I guess in sort of a broad political sense, there’s an argument out there that progressives by doing some of what you did today – sort of name checking different groups – hey, Latinos we’re with you; Muslims, we’re going to watch out for you, and so on down the line. It’s a kind of very New York kind of political discussion that it makes others who are not in those groups feel a little excluded and that part of the lesson of this election is that if you’re not focused like a laser on putting out the broadest possible message that makes everyone feel included some people, including working-class white males will go off and say, you know what? We’re going to be our own group. We’re going to fight for our own interests. And then you get the outcome we saw on November 8th.

Mayor: Well, I’ll say a couple of things. I think it’s a perfectly valuable discussion to have, but I’d like to remind you that the outcome we had on November 8th was Hillary Clinton won the election by 1.5 million votes as of the latest counts –

Louis: Got the most votes.

Mayor: Right, and – but this is what’s problematic. It’s a very valid discussion, but let’s begin at the beginning. How did the American people vote separate from the question of the Electoral College? Clearly Hillary won a majority of the votes. So – and the country is changing as you know in so many ways, and we saw in states that used to be considered beyond the reach of Democrats are now either Democratic or trending that way. We saw the Senate – the Democrats picked up two votes, two seats in the Senate, a couple of seats in the House.

So, it was not a definitive election in terms of this country as a whole. I think it’s fair to say if you “name check” as you said, and you don’t talk about the issues that are pertinent to the entire population including working people of all backgrounds including white, working-class people, of course some people are going to feel left out which is why my singular focus – my number one focus always has been income inequality cause that addresses everyone. Trying to get to the fact that we have an economy that is not fair to working people, and it concentrates wealth and power in the hands of the one percent. That hurts white working-class people, black working-class people, Latino working-class people, Asian working-class people. At the same time that when we have a presidential candidate, now president-elect, who singled out Muslims, who denigrated Latinos, who thought about accepting support from the Klan, then it’s important to speak to what it means for each of those communities.

Louis: But aren’t you concerned that while playing defense of these communities, and understandable why especially in New York City, it kind of gives Trump – if he’s doing politically what you say – it kind of gives him what he wants. It sort of enables him to sort of hold onto this group and say you – white working-class – who feel a little bit aggrieved, a little bit excluded, a little bit left out of the last eight years in particular – you’re with me, I’m with you. I’m your voice as he said at the convention, and we happen to be a majority in enough states that we can pull this off.

Mayor: If Democrats don’t provide a vision for addressing the needs of working-class people, you’re absolutely right. But when Democrats do – and well obviously now in retrospect we can say that Bernie Sanders very effectively spoke to the needs of working-class people of all races while simultaneously talking about civil rights, human rights, issues of identity as well – there’s no dichotomy. The dichotomy occurs when there’s an absence of any discussion of the economic needs of people, and sadly that’s what happened in the general election.  And I’ve said this, on your show, that the economic platform got put in the back pocket and the identity issues were the center of the discussion. Now, again, some of that was forced by Trump’s extreme proposals, but I think with a unifying thread – and I feel this as one of my most fundamental, progressive philosophical beliefs is the unifying thread is that if you have a vision of a fairer economy, that helps unite people across all demographics.

Louis: Fair enough. Let me ask you one last Trump-related question. As the administration takes shape are there any New Yorkers – the only name we keep hearing is Rudy Giuliani – but are there other New Yorkers perhaps people in your administration who are putting in resumes, maybe thinking about it –

[Laughter]

Mayor: I don’t know anyone in my administration who is putting in a resume for a Trump administration.

Louis: Not the worst thing. I’m thinking of like Sean Donovan our housing commissioner who became the HUD secretary.

Mayor: From a past administration. Look, I think this administration – what Donald Trump has laid out is so opposed to the values of any Democrat I know and any progressive I know, I don’t know how you can possibly work for someone who has that platform. Because guess what? We don’t know exactly what he’s going to do, but imagine, Errol, if you took that big job in the White House or in a cabinet post and he called one day and said okay, now go ahead and implement the Muslim ban I talked about. You know anyone who’s sitting around saying oh, I’ll go work for him, and I’ll change him, I’ll moderate him – it’s like relationship advice, right? Oh, he’s flawed but I’ll change him. No –

[Laughter]

Louis: No, but you work for the public though, I mean you work for the –

Mayor: No, in the case of a president – with all due respect to the president-elect – a president-elect who has put forward such an extreme platform, you have to be ready to take him at his word. And I certainly don’t as a Democrat and as a progressive don’t know how anyone could work for someone who has laid out that vision. Some may. Some may, but I don’t know of anyone.

Louis: I don’t want it to sound like a naïve fantasy, but you and I were on the same panel when the U.S. Conference of Mayors tried to figure out what’s the urban policy of the next president going to be. The Trump campaign did not produce anybody, although we asked for weeks for them to come up with somebody. There’s nothing on the website that really give a clear indication. But isn’t that an opportunity? I mean – you know – Bill de Blasio the organizer, Bill de Blasio the Councilman knows a policy gap when he sees one, and again, without wanting to sound naïve, isn’t that a place where people can step in and, sort of, fill in the blanks for this?

Mayor: Oh, there’s going to be a great opportunity to fight out these issues, and, you know, again I’ll borrow from what Bernie Sanders has said. I think it’s right on the money. I think on some of the economic issues we may find some common ground that we can work on productively like infrastructure. And where there isn’t anything – and you’re right there is no coherent urban vision from the president-elect, perhaps we can push and organize and mobilize people to help create one. I agree. But that’s a different question than to go in the doors and be a part of it. If you walk in the doors of that administration, you’re buying into the whole thing, and you broke it, you own it.

Louis: Okay, fair enough. Let me ask you about some local stuff. There’s a report in Politico that somewhere along the line you let staffers know that you personally would have to approve the opening of any new homeless shelters as far as the siting. Is that true, and if so, why do you want that on your plate?

Mayor: I have not read that article, so I do not know what they’re specifically putting forward. There was a point, you know, many months ago where I started having regular meeting on our strategy to address homelessness, and one of the topics in those meetings was the latest of potential shelter opportunities. And look, I think it is my responsibility to make decisions on behalf of the people of this city including the tough decisions.

One of things we have to do better, and I’m the first to say this self critically, is we’ve got to give people a clear understanding of how all the pieces of our vision on homeless are coming together because some things worked and some things have not been working well enough or quickly enough, and we have to put those pieces together.

What worked – we did find ways to stop a lot of people from going into shelters – anti-eviction legal services. We’ve seen evictions go down 24 percent because folks have a lawyer who otherwise might end up in shelter. We’ve seen the subsidies to keep people in their apartment working. We’ve gotten tens of thousands of people out of shelter and to housing. What we’ve got to do better is stop that flow into shelter, and we’ve got new tools we’re going to be talking about shortly on that front.

And on the street situation – we got to do a better job of explaining to people the difference between someone who is panhandling but has a home versus someone who really is street homeless 24-7. Our new HOME-STAT initiative is starting to have an affect getting people off the street. We have some early, initial, positive results. We have to show people a bigger vision of how we’ll turn the corner on street homelessness which as you know has been around for decades. On the shelter population which has grown maybe not as fast as it once did but still has grown and we have to reverse it. So, my job is to show people how we turn the tide.

Louis: Well, I guess the question is are you concerned about creating a bottleneck at City Hall where, you know, according to your own past statements shelters are preferable to say hotels?

Mayor: Absolutely.

Louis: But more are going into hotels –

Mayor: Yeah.

Louis: And the shelter pace has slowed down and it’s on your desk.

Mayor: No, it’s not because of that. It’s not – if there’s any – again, I haven’t read the article. If there’s any inference of things are slowed down because of that – I think it’s quite the opposite. That – but when something can quickly get to my desk it means it can actually move.

You’re right, we want to get out of hotels. We certainly want to get out of clusters which are those examples of housing where the quality just isn’t good enough and we have bad landlords that have not taken care of the housing. Those are things we have to get out of.

The only way we’re going to do that is to, at least for the short-term, increase the supply of shelters so we can get out of those things and then start to contract the shelter system. My job is to give people a clear vision of how that will proceed but part of why I get involved in the decisions is I think it’s my job to take responsibility for them.

Louis: Okay. Last question – the taxpayers apparently are on the hook for about $10 million for legal defense for members of the administration around various different investigations including the US Attorney’s investigation. Is that, sort of, a permanent ongoing expense? Or is there some way to sort of take that off –

Mayor: Look, I think it’s a short term expense and I think what’s been projected is not necessarily what the final expense will be. It well may be different or less. But look, the investigations are out there. We’ve said from the beginning we’re going to cooperate in every way – provide any information they need, any interviews with people they need. That obviously takes legal representation. That’s appropriate.

But from my point of view, we have fully cooperated and my hope would be if we’ve provided all the information and all the documents, all the interviews, at some point the various investigators come to a conclusion and then we can move forward.

Louis: I guess from the viewer’s point of view – why would a lawyer even need to be involved? Right? I mean, the investigators come to you they say hey, show us the books. Why not just show them the books as opposed to calling a lawyer?

Mayor: Look, everybody in the situation where they’re going to be asked questions that could have an effect on them and many other people – legal representation is an American right and concept. I don’t think you would say it about any other situation where people are investigating. Oh, just, no problem, don’t have a lawyer – I think we assume rightfully that legal representation is an important part of how we do things in this country. And that’s true for government employees. The folks who are being represented, I think, to a one, are great public servants who were doing their job but it’s important that they have that support in providing the information they know.

Louis: Okay, we’re going to leave it there for now. You got an endorsement over the weekend from David Dinkins –

Mayor: Yes.

Louis: A guy you used to work for. What lessons do you take from him? He was unusual. He was a progressive who, sort of, tried to do different things and got a lot of things started. In the end the voters came back and did not give him a second term. What lesson do you learn from that?

Mayor: Well, I’d say a few things – and I was so honored to get Mayor Dinkins’ endorsement and Borough President Adams’ endorsement. And you know I said in my remarks that – and this was at Convent Avenue Baptist Church which is, you know, a wonderful institution in this city. It was a great place to sort of think a little – big picture about the impact David Dinkins made. He started Safe Streets, Safe City. He’s the one who got the increase in the size of our police force. That’s what started to turn the tide on crime. He’s the one who got afterschool programs built all over the city – Beacon programs. There’s a lot of things, including a whole generation of leaders he brought who are still playing a positive role in the city. That’s many, many –

Louis: Don’t forget the curb cuts.

Mayor: There you go. That’s among the many positives. I think the negative is what I experienced as a member of his campaign team and, obviously, no one experienced more than him that even though he done a lot of good, you know, in his case against the backdrop of a very tough economy much tougher than what we have now. In his case, it was against the backdrop of years of tough crime dynamics. This was the time of 2000 murders a year. You know, right now, this moment in New York City, we still not have hit 300 murders – it’s almost Thanksgiving – we haven’t hit 300 murders for the year in New York City which is an amazing statement on how far the people and the NYPD have taken this city.

So, I think he had a very tough time that he was working against. And despite his accomplishments, it was hard to motivate people to come out and vote. I think he had some of the same experiences that unfortunately Hillary Clinton just had. It was hard to get people who actually agreed with him to turn out and vote.

I learned from that experience how important it is to just do everything you can to keep producing the things people care about and then going out to communities and making sure they know about it, and how much they need to participate.

Louis: Okay, very good. We’ve got more to talk about but we’ll have to leave that for next Monday –

Mayor: There’ll always be another Monday, Errol.

Louis: Thanks a whole lot. There’ll always be another Monday. That’s the great thing about this system.

[Laughter]

Well, have a Happy Thanksgiving. Where will we find you on Thanksgiving?

Mayor: Happy Thanksgiving. I will be in Connecticut with family. We have a nice family tradition including a very, very intense wiffle ball game.

[Laughter]

You’ve never – it’s like contact wiffle ball. It’s a new form of wiffle ball.

Louis: Alright, thanks a whole lot. Good luck with that.

Mayor: Thank you.

Louis: And remember folks if you have topics or questions for the Mayor that you want us to keep in mind, you can submit them to us at ny1.com/mayormondays or on Twitter @ErrolLouis or @InsideCityHall.