Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 2: Everybody is the j en Vy Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy.
Speaker 2: We are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest
Speaker 2: in the building. He's running for mayor of New York City.
Speaker 2: We have Zoran Kwame. Mam Donny nailed it.
Speaker 3: That's that.
Speaker 1: You gave him a great victoria right before we started.
Speaker 3: As I was gonna say, it was off the top
Speaker 3: of the dome.
Speaker 2: But I did see a video before we get into politics.
Speaker 2: I did see a video.
Speaker 1: You were a rapper, you got a buyt.
Speaker 3: I was an aspiring rap. Aspiring rap.
Speaker 4: Nobody will vote for you based off what I heard.
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm not a rapper. Nobody you see
Speaker 3: to be to be the mayor, you have to know
Speaker 3: what you know and know what you don't know. And
Speaker 3: I learned quickly what I didn't know.
Speaker 1: You really wanted to like pursue a rapper.
Speaker 3: At one point, there was a point. There was a point,
Speaker 3: I mean it was it was at the level. So
Speaker 3: I was born in Kampala, Uganda, okast Africa, and there
Speaker 3: was a point where there's a guy grow up with
Speaker 3: he's like my brother. The two of us were rapping together,
Speaker 3: and I was trying to sell mixtapes on a public
Speaker 3: bus which doesn't leave until it fills every single one
Speaker 3: of the fourteen seats. That's how much we were trying.
Speaker 3: Wow and here I am. Because it didn't really work
Speaker 3: out all that well.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like yin Twins.
Speaker 1: Was the inspiration for you and Yan Whisper.
Speaker 3: I have to say that was an inspiration for the
Speaker 3: song I made called Nannie, but I think you know,
Speaker 3: for me it was It was also a way of
Speaker 3: just telling the different stories of what I grew up with,
Speaker 3: gotcha and and especially in Kompala. You know, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: Uganda and of Indian origin. The guy that I grew
Speaker 3: up with, his name is Abdul. He is Ugandan by
Speaker 3: way of South Suddan. It's all these different cultures coming together.
Speaker 3: We were trying to mix it all in and then
Speaker 3: when I was here in New York City just trying
Speaker 3: to kind of this. The song that I made was
Speaker 3: the testament to my grandmother. Now she's a real badass.
Speaker 3: And how so often when we talk about our elders,
Speaker 3: we put them in a box of a nice, gentle
Speaker 3: person who you know, is very much constrained and how
Speaker 3: we imagine them. And I wanted to just be a
Speaker 3: little more absurd in the celebration of a woman who
Speaker 3: gave me a sense of the world and was a
Speaker 3: social worker and should be a little more celebrated.
Speaker 2: And discipline. You have discipline, you know.
Speaker 3: A few Slash Jason video discipline, Yeah, in that video,
Speaker 3: not by my Grandmother's.
Speaker 4: A question in real life when you do make the
Speaker 4: pivot to, you know, do what it is you're doing now,
Speaker 4: do you say to yourself, I scrub all that shit
Speaker 4: off the internet.
Speaker 1: We got to get rid of that.
Speaker 3: No, because I think that it's it's about being a
Speaker 3: real person, you know, like I I enjoyed that time
Speaker 3: in my life, and ultimately I actually see it through
Speaker 3: line between that work and this work and that you're
Speaker 3: trying to tell a story, and you know, when you're
Speaker 3: trying to sell a mixtape or you're trying to get
Speaker 3: somebody's signature to get on the ballot. At six point
Speaker 3: thirty in the morning, you know, at the Broadway stop
Speaker 3: of the NW in Astoria, it's the same thing where
Speaker 3: you're asking someone can I have a moment of your
Speaker 3: time to tell you about my story or our story.
Speaker 3: And it also means learning how to deal with a
Speaker 3: rejection very quickly, because once you've once you've tried to
Speaker 3: be an artist, once you try to be a rapper,
Speaker 3: you know what it means to be humbled. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was on a regular basis, right, Like you know what
Speaker 3: it means to be the opener to the opener, to
Speaker 3: the opener to the opener to the opener. And I
Speaker 3: think too often in politics there's a real sense of self,
Speaker 3: as if people should be excited to see you, when
Speaker 3: in fact, you should be excited to see them. Right.
Speaker 3: We shouldn't be lecturing people as much as we should
Speaker 3: actually be listening to them. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: struggling through being an artist, it was very helpful in
Speaker 3: learning that.
Speaker 4: I thank god nobody told you to do you use
Speaker 4: any of that hip hop stuff for your campaign.
Speaker 1: That's what they do, just how you reach certain demographics.
Speaker 1: They're complete. Oh, I thank god didn't tell you to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: Don't worry, it's not coming now.
Speaker 2: How did you get into politics? What got you into politics?
Speaker 2: Because some of your policies that you want to we'll discuss,
Speaker 2: I don't see happening but I love it. So let's
Speaker 2: start how you got into politics at first.
Speaker 3: So the first time I knocked on doors was in
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight for Obama. The first time I
Speaker 3: knocked on doors in New York City was when I
Speaker 3: picked up a copy of the Village Voice and I
Speaker 3: saw that one of my favorite rappers, Hemes, had endorsed
Speaker 3: his childhood friend for city council. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy would be the first South Asian elected official
Speaker 3: in New York City's name was Elli. Nudge me, and
Speaker 3: so I got on the F train, I went to
Speaker 3: one sixty ninth and I knocked on doors for Ali.
Speaker 3: And that was the moment where I started to get
Speaker 3: involved in local politics. So I joined a club called
Speaker 3: the Muslim Democratic Club in New York. And then in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, I worked on my first race. That was
Speaker 3: for a Palestinian Lutheran minister in bay Rich called Color
Speaker 3: Eliot Team. And that just changed my life because you know,
Speaker 3: I moved to the city when I was seven. This
Speaker 3: is the city I fell in love with, the city
Speaker 3: where I got my citizenship, where I got married. And
Speaker 3: yet there was also a point where I knew I
Speaker 3: was a New Yorker. I didn't know if I had
Speaker 3: a place in New York City politics. I thought those
Speaker 3: two things were separate. And then there was this campaign
Speaker 3: which showed me that there was room for all of
Speaker 3: us and you didn't actually have to give up any
Speaker 3: of yourself to be a part of it. And that
Speaker 3: inspired me to understand that politics isn't just something that
Speaker 3: you believe in, it's also something that you do as
Speaker 3: an active thing. And from there I kept working on
Speaker 3: campaigns and then in twenty twenty I ran for the
Speaker 3: State Assembly and I represent a story in Long Island City.
Speaker 1: Wow THEA.
Speaker 4: They asked a question, and the question is simple, can
Speaker 4: an AOC back socialist upset Andrew Cuomo in the New
Speaker 4: York Cities may or race.
Speaker 1: I want you, I want you to answer that question.
Speaker 3: There's a short answer, which is yes, okay, and there's
Speaker 3: a longer answer, which is the fact that New Yorkers
Speaker 3: are hungry for a different kind of politics. We have
Speaker 3: seen the same politicians with the same ideas lead us
Speaker 3: to the same results for decades and this is in
Speaker 3: many ways a question of whether we want to go
Speaker 3: back to the past or whether we want to go
Speaker 3: to the future, and our campaign is one that sees
Speaker 3: this city under attack in two ways. An affordability crisis
Speaker 3: on the inside, where the most expensive city in the
Speaker 3: United States of America one in for New Yorkers are
Speaker 3: living in poverty, the rest are living in a permanent
Speaker 3: state of anxiety about whether they can keep affording the city.
Speaker 3: And then we're under attack from the outside from a
Speaker 3: Trump administration that is hell bent on going after not
Speaker 3: only New Yorkers, but frankly democratic cities across the country
Speaker 3: like we're seeing in Los Angeles right now. And I
Speaker 3: am going head to head with Andrew Cuomo, a former
Speaker 3: governor who's the son of a former governor, whose super
Speaker 3: pack is funded in large part by the same billionaires
Speaker 3: who put Donald Trump back in the White House. That's
Speaker 3: not the kind of person who can stand up to
Speaker 3: authoritarianism without seeing a reflection of themselves. We need someone
Speaker 3: who will actually fight both of these crises at the
Speaker 3: same time. And that's why I believe that that I
Speaker 3: can win. And I'm so excited to have Congressman Ocosio
Speaker 3: Cortez's endorsement and doing.
Speaker 2: That, I wanted to ask, you know, some of the
Speaker 2: policies that you stand on is a free bus service
Speaker 2: in New York City? Yes, sir, could that actually work?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? You know? So, I grew up in Morningside Heights.
Speaker 3: I would take the one train. We set the nine
Speaker 3: train back then, but I would take the one train
Speaker 3: to two thirty first get on the BX ten to
Speaker 3: go to Wrong Science. And I remember when I get
Speaker 3: off the one train, if I could still see the bus,
Speaker 3: even if it was two stops away, even if I
Speaker 3: had missed it, I knew I could catch up to
Speaker 3: it because that's how slow that bus was. I'd be
Speaker 3: slapping the back of the bus and I could get
Speaker 3: there in time. It was good for me, it's bad
Speaker 3: for New York City. You should not be able to
Speaker 3: catch that bus if you missed that bus, but the
Speaker 3: buses are so slow. So as a status Semmember, I
Speaker 3: won the first of its kind fair free bus pilot.
Speaker 3: We made one bus route free in every borough of
Speaker 3: New York City, and we secured fifteen million dollars to
Speaker 3: do so. And it showed that ridership went up by
Speaker 3: up to thirty eight percent, assaults on bus drivers went
Speaker 3: down by thirty eight point nine percent, and of the
Speaker 3: largest increase of riders came from New Yorkers making twenty
Speaker 3: eight thousand dollars a year or less. And this is
Speaker 3: critical because it's not just about economic access, it's also
Speaker 3: about public safety. It's also even about environmentalism because we're
Speaker 3: seeing that eleven percent of the new riders they were
Speaker 3: previously driving a car, taking a taxi. Now they're off
Speaker 3: the road, they're on public transit. And the cost of
Speaker 3: doing all of this is about seven hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: a year. Now that sounds significant, which it is, but
Speaker 3: just want to put it into context. We're talking about
Speaker 3: that in the context of a city budget that's about
Speaker 3: a one hundred and thirteen billion dollars a year, state
Speaker 3: budget about two hundred and fifty two billion dollars a year.
Speaker 3: There is money, The question is what we spend it on.
Speaker 3: And what I've proposed is that we raise ten billion
Speaker 3: dollars to pay for our entire year economic agenda and
Speaker 3: start to Trump proof our city because we know he'll
Speaker 3: use federal funding as leverage over this city, and we
Speaker 3: will do so in two key ways. The first is
Speaker 3: to match the state's top corporate tax rate to that
Speaker 3: of New Jersey. We are at seven point twenty five percent,
Speaker 3: they're at eleven point five percent. Corporations can pay it
Speaker 3: over there, they can pay it over here. And the
Speaker 3: beauty of it is that it doesn't just apply to
Speaker 3: corporations headquartered in New York City, because when you say this,
Speaker 3: people will say, well, they're going to go to Florida.
Speaker 3: Wherever you are headquartered, as long as you do business
Speaker 3: in the state of New York, you are taxable for
Speaker 3: that corporate tax. We're talking about corporations that are making
Speaker 3: millions of dollars, not in revenue but in profit. And
Speaker 3: the second is taxing the top one percent of New Yorkers.
Speaker 3: We're talking about people who make a million dollars a
Speaker 3: year more, taxing them just by flat two percent tax increase.
Speaker 3: And I know if fifty cent is listening, he's not
Speaker 3: going to be happy about this. Intense to not like
Speaker 3: this tax policy, but I want to be very clear,
Speaker 3: this is about twenty thousand dollars a year. It's a
Speaker 3: rounding era, and all of these things together they make
Speaker 3: every New Yorker's life better, including those who are actually
Speaker 3: getting taxed.
Speaker 2: Now, you also want to cut the police budget, and
Speaker 2: people are upset about that. Right, feel that crime is
Speaker 2: all over the place. I think a couple of days ago,
Speaker 2: two people got shot in Times Square. The other day
Speaker 2: I think another girl got shot in the face in
Speaker 2: the Bronx. So people are very scared. It seems like
Speaker 2: New York is getting worse than getting better. So what
Speaker 2: do you say that you know at a time like this,
Speaker 2: cutting the police budgets that seems like that is taking
Speaker 2: more police officers off the street.
Speaker 3: I want to be very clear, we are not defunding
Speaker 3: the police. What we are talking about is sustaining the
Speaker 3: number of police that we have within the police department.
Speaker 3: And when I talk to those police officers themselves, they
Speaker 3: tell me they signed up to join the police force
Speaker 3: to tackle serious crimes, and yet what they're being asked
Speaker 3: to do today is serve as mental health professionals and
Speaker 3: social workers. The same officers who thought they'd be responding
Speaker 3: to shootings are picking up the two hundred thousand phone
Speaker 3: calls a year of mental health calls. And what we've
Speaker 3: seen elsewhere in the country is you can actually move
Speaker 3: mental health calls out of the police department. That can
Speaker 3: reduce the calls that police have to deal with by
Speaker 3: twenty percent. And in doing so, you can increase police
Speaker 3: response time to those major categories of crime. I think
Speaker 3: that's important because police have a critical role to play
Speaker 3: in public safety, and we also need to ask them
Speaker 3: to just focus on their job and not ask them
Speaker 3: to do every job. Because what we're seeing right now
Speaker 3: is these same politicians who have given us this lack
Speaker 3: of public safety over so many years, telling us that
Speaker 3: their only answer, no matter the question, is to ask
Speaker 3: police to do more. I want them to do the
Speaker 3: thing that they signed up for and to have a
Speaker 3: Department of Community Safety with teams of dedicated mental health
Speaker 3: outreach workers at the top one hundred stations with the
Speaker 3: highest levels of mental health crisis and homelessness. We have
Speaker 3: to deliver public safety.
Speaker 4: And when those calls come in, you know, and people
Speaker 4: are saying, hey, somebody's over here having an episode, the police,
Speaker 4: I think, should be going out there with the mental
Speaker 4: health professional. Let the mental health professional be the person
Speaker 4: who tried to defuse that.
Speaker 1: They're backing them up.
Speaker 4: And you know, even if even if you want I
Speaker 4: think a better I don't want.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how to say things.
Speaker 4: But no police, if the NYPD got a budget a
Speaker 4: ten point eight billion dollars. Does all of that really
Speaker 4: need to go to the police. They're already super under page.
Speaker 4: Where's that money going anyway? So why not take someone
Speaker 4: that money and invested into other alternatives to respond to
Speaker 4: things like mental health crisis?
Speaker 3: And that's what I've said, which is that we have
Speaker 3: to work backwards from does every dollar we spend go
Speaker 3: towards public safety? The critiques that I've said of the
Speaker 3: NYPD have been that they don't need an eighty person
Speaker 3: communications department that doesn't actually deliver public safety, that delivers
Speaker 3: us drone footage. We can actually rapidly downsize that, and
Speaker 3: I've I've been heartened to see the current commissioner took
Speaker 3: that eighty and made it forty. And I've also said
Speaker 3: that we don't need to have a more than billion
Speaker 3: dollar police overtime budget. And usually when you say that,
Speaker 3: people frame it as if you are going after the police.
Speaker 3: But when you ask the police, there are two hundred
Speaker 3: officers leaving the department every month, and one of the
Speaker 3: leading causes is forced overtime because of quality of life.
Speaker 3: They don't know when they're going home, They're working doubles
Speaker 3: and triples. This is actually something that can make it
Speaker 3: easier to do that job and ensure that we're actually
Speaker 3: responding to this because what we have right now is
Speaker 3: not working. You know, I sat with the family of
Speaker 3: a New Yorker named Win Rosario, who's a young New
Speaker 3: Yorker who was going through a mental health crisis. He
Speaker 3: called nine one one himself asking for help. Two police
Speaker 3: officers who were trained in mental health assistants were dispatched
Speaker 3: to his home and they killed him within three minutes
Speaker 3: on camera, in front of his mother and his brother.
Speaker 1: So the tined he they were trained.
Speaker 3: And my point here is that that serves no one.
Speaker 3: That family grieves him every single day, and we all
Speaker 3: know that that was not the way to respond to this.
Speaker 3: So why don't we actually look at what works elsewhere
Speaker 3: in the country and bring it here. And that's what
Speaker 3: we're talking about, evidence based policy solutions that will deliver
Speaker 3: real public safe.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe we step on our own point.
Speaker 4: If they were trained, they were trained when you say
Speaker 4: trained in mental health, would they've trained and did not
Speaker 4: know how to respond to people dealing with.
Speaker 3: These police officers were given the training that right now
Speaker 3: we're being told is sufficient. And my point here is
Speaker 3: that we should not be training police officers for mental
Speaker 3: health response. We should have mental health responders be the
Speaker 3: ones who are actually the ones there. And this this
Speaker 3: this addiction to asking them to do everything, it's one
Speaker 3: that leaves them unable to do many things. Because right now,
Speaker 3: as you were saying, New Yorkers, when they're worried about safety,
Speaker 3: they want to know what's your plan. Sixty five percent
Speaker 3: of crimes from the first quarter of this year are
Speaker 3: currently unresolved. That's partially because we're asking the police to
Speaker 3: do everything.
Speaker 1: So you know, they should do they should.
Speaker 4: Police officers should be having their own mental health evaluations
Speaker 4: like that should be part of them.
Speaker 3: It's important and I think that's also part of why
Speaker 3: when you when you ask an officer to work triples, right,
Speaker 3: the longer you are on your shift, the harder it
Speaker 3: is to make the same level of decisions throughout the
Speaker 3: entirety of it. We need to ensure that we are
Speaker 3: creating the conditions where we can actually deliver that public safety.
Speaker 2: I want to ask about congestion pricing as well. You know,
Speaker 2: you talk about free free busses, which is which sounds great,
Speaker 2: but now you got free buses but then when you
Speaker 2: drive to the city, you charge me thirty dollars to
Speaker 2: get to the city. So what's your your thoughts on
Speaker 2: congestion price and how it's affecting businesses in New York.
Speaker 3: So I believe that the one thing New Yorkers hate
Speaker 3: more than a politician they disagree with is one they
Speaker 3: can't trust. So I'm going to tell you the answer
Speaker 3: I say in every room. I am somebody who has
Speaker 3: supported congestion pricing, and now I wanted to tell you
Speaker 3: the truth. I want to say to your face though
Speaker 3: I've supported it for a few reasons, because I believed
Speaker 3: it would reduce congestion, it would increase bus speeds, it
Speaker 3: would raise revenue for the MTA, and it would improve
Speaker 3: air quality, and that's what we've seen it be able
Speaker 3: to do. At the same time, I have always believed
Speaker 3: it needs to be paired with immediate public transit improvements.
Speaker 3: I launched a campaign called Get Congestion Pricing Right with
Speaker 3: the Deputy Majority Leader of the State Senate, Mike Gennares.
Speaker 3: The two of us won about twelve million dollars a
Speaker 3: new bus service. I'm proud of it, but it's not enough.
Speaker 3: And the reason I fought for. That is when you
Speaker 3: look at the implementation of congestion pricing in places like Stockholm, London.
Speaker 3: The first day they had it, they had increased public transit.
Speaker 3: Because I think it's important to tell New Yorkers that
Speaker 3: it's not just about raising revenue for public transit, it's
Speaker 3: also about giving them a better option. Right there, there
Speaker 3: are some people who need to drive. There are also
Speaker 3: others for whom that's the most convenient option. We need
Speaker 3: to make public transit the most convenient one. It's hard
Speaker 3: when you look at your app and you're told the
Speaker 3: bus is coming in ten minutes, and then you wait
Speaker 3: ten minutes, and then that bus doesn't actually show up,
Speaker 3: and so we need to earn that trust. That's that's
Speaker 3: from my position.
Speaker 2: How is it affecting businesses in New York City though?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know a lot of restaurants are charging
Speaker 2: a congestion fee tax, and you know, prices at everything
Speaker 2: is expensive. I mean the other day I went to McDonald's.
Speaker 2: I got my kids one meal, and that one meal
Speaker 2: is usually two ninety nine when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: is now twelve dollars.
Speaker 4: You know, in all your kids one meal times that
Speaker 4: are absolutely, they got to split it split.
Speaker 2: That's an expensive about that, right.
Speaker 1: You let me sell.
Speaker 2: But so you know, so how is it affecting business?
Speaker 2: You know, especially small businesses? You know, the main businesses, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know they can get over, but you know, you
Speaker 2: got that mom and pop store that just can't do it.
Speaker 3: You know. What we've actually seen is that since it's
Speaker 3: been implemented, foot traffic has increased in the in the
Speaker 3: Central Business District. And I think that's a big part
Speaker 3: of it, is that actually, when you make it easier
Speaker 3: to get around that same neighborhood, you actually can facilitate
Speaker 3: more business. And an interesting thing that I've also seen
Speaker 3: is that noise complaints are down by a significant amount
Speaker 3: because you have reduced congestion, and that's a difference also
Speaker 3: in quality of life. But I think to your point,
Speaker 3: small businesses, small businesses are struggling in New York City.
Speaker 3: They employ a majority of all New Yorkers who are
Speaker 3: working in the private sector. We put forward a small
Speaker 3: business proposal where we would cut fines and fees for
Speaker 3: those businesses by fifty percent across the board. And we
Speaker 3: would do that because the city has one hundred and
Speaker 3: thirteen billion dollar budget. It is not funded through these
Speaker 3: fines and fees. It doesn't mean that much to the
Speaker 3: city if it gets one hundred dollars from a restaurant
Speaker 3: because they have a refrigerator every year. But for that restaurant,
Speaker 3: those are the kinds of things that can add up,
Speaker 3: and so we're going to cut that in half. And
Speaker 3: we're also going to make it easier to open them
Speaker 3: because right now, I'll tell you want to open a
Speaker 3: barbershop in New York City, you got to go to
Speaker 3: seven different agencies, fill out twenty four forms, and then
Speaker 3: attend twelve activities. That does not make it easy to
Speaker 3: open a barbershop. We need to actually follow the example
Speaker 3: of Pennsylvania where they took an eight week permitting process
Speaker 3: and made it just a couple days. And that's why
Speaker 3: we said we're going to have a mom and pop zar.
Speaker 3: We're going to increase fun for one to one small
Speaker 3: business services because we have to make it easier to
Speaker 3: survive in the city, and city government has to understand
Speaker 3: its role and responsibility in that because I'm tired of
Speaker 3: politicians pretending like we're just bystanders to all these crises.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm texting out thoughts and prayers to the
Speaker 3: small business just closed. But actually my policies are helping
Speaker 3: it to close. We need to make sure that that's
Speaker 3: not the case any longer.
Speaker 4: You know, I want to ask you, I want you.
Speaker 4: I'm asking you to define something. But when you answer it,
Speaker 4: I want you to, you know, think about how you
Speaker 4: would define it to somebody if you was writing a rap.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't want you to wrap up it.
Speaker 3: Look, I know you don't like the reps.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying that the way you would approach your
Speaker 4: wrap you know the audience you're trying to talk to,
Speaker 4: and you would probably keep things on the ground.
Speaker 3: This is where I lose the election right here.
Speaker 4: How would you define being a democratic socialist to just
Speaker 4: to just somebody.
Speaker 3: So you know, some of my favorite songs that they
Speaker 3: start with with an old quote, that's how that's how
Speaker 3: a song might begin, and so for me, one of
Speaker 3: them is from doctor King. Call it democracy or call
Speaker 3: it democratic socialism. There must be a be distribution of
Speaker 3: wealth for all people in this country, for all of
Speaker 3: God's children, and ultimately to me, it's about dignity for
Speaker 3: each person. You know, the person who gave me this
Speaker 3: language of calling myself a democratic socialist is Bernie Sanders
Speaker 3: when he ran in twenty sixteen and his relentless focus
Speaker 3: on income inequality. It taught me that things could be
Speaker 3: better than they were. So often, when you're voting, it
Speaker 3: feels like you're voting between somebody who wants to wipe
Speaker 3: you off the face of the earth and someone else
Speaker 3: who wants to tell you to celebrate the crumbs that
Speaker 3: can't feed your neighbors, and to know that it could
Speaker 3: be more, that you could be voting for something that
Speaker 3: has inspired me. And I think that you know, as
Speaker 3: a Muslim democratic socialist, I am used to bad pr
Speaker 3: and having to explain what all of these things mean.
Speaker 3: And what I've found, though, is when you actually get
Speaker 3: into a conversation, a lot of this is common sense.
Speaker 3: Right If I believe that every New Yorker should be
Speaker 3: able to live a dignified life, and that it's city
Speaker 3: government's job to ensure that New Yorkers will agree with
Speaker 3: me when I bring up example of public education free so.
Speaker 1: Free education, free healthcare, what else I mean?
Speaker 3: Anything that's necessary rights. It's like when people whatever you
Speaker 3: need to live in this city that should not be
Speaker 3: something you can be priced out of. And we agree
Speaker 3: with that when it comes to school, we agree with
Speaker 3: that with libraries, with sanitation, with the fire department. But
Speaker 3: there are certain things we've picked and chosen and said,
Speaker 3: you know what, you don't need that for housing. You
Speaker 3: know what, you don't need that for food, And I
Speaker 3: think that we can't let the market determine who gets
Speaker 3: to live that dignified life. This is not to say
Speaker 3: that it's city government's job to deal with everything, but
Speaker 3: for that which is necessary, we have to ensure that
Speaker 3: we are doing our part. And that's why I have
Speaker 3: said I'm going to freeze the rent for more than
Speaker 3: two million rent stabilized tenants, because that's the mayor's power.
Speaker 3: The last mayor did that three times. This mayor raised
Speaker 3: the rent nine percent. He wants to raise it again
Speaker 3: up to eight percent. We have these tools. It's just
Speaker 3: a question of do we want to do this, And
Speaker 3: I know why politicians don't because there's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm the candidate wanting to freeze the rent.
Speaker 3: Cuomo was the can did it run to raise the rent.
Speaker 3: That's why the landlords of those same units just gave
Speaker 3: Cuomo two and a half million dollars the same landlords
Speaker 3: to say they don't have enough money to be able
Speaker 3: to freeze the rent. Just found two and a half
Speaker 3: million to give it to him, the single largest check
Speaker 3: in this entire race. But it helps let people know
Speaker 3: that's what's on the ballot. It's straightforward. It's do you
Speaker 3: want your rent to be the same or do you wanted.
Speaker 1: To raise I saw your rent was twenty three hundred
Speaker 1: a month.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, twenty three hundred for one bedroom in a
Speaker 3: storia Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was five hundred square feet.
Speaker 3: It's not too much more than that. Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: You know it's interesting, right because Democrats have created all
Speaker 4: his new politically correct language for everything, jender, sexuality, pregnant women.
Speaker 4: How come y'all haven't found a better way to discuss socialism?
Speaker 4: Why is socialism a dirty word when essentially all you
Speaker 4: want to do is take care of people?
Speaker 3: I don't think it should be. I think it's actually
Speaker 3: a word that when you break down its meaning like
Speaker 3: you just have done. Is one that many Americans agree with,
Speaker 3: and we've seen that that despite all the attempts, Bernie
Speaker 3: Sanders continues to be one of the most popular politicians
Speaker 3: in America, Congressman Ocostio Cortes similarly, and they have both
Speaker 3: defined themselves in that same language. And I think it's that, But.
Speaker 4: I think it's because they tell more so nowadays, instead
Speaker 4: of just leaning on the word socialism, they just tell
Speaker 4: people you should have free healthcare, you should have a
Speaker 4: free education, you should be able to make a livable wage.
Speaker 4: You know, they should increase the minimum wage. Like those
Speaker 4: are just simple concepts that are all so socialism. Well,
Speaker 4: for some reason, y'all still find yourselves tripping up over
Speaker 4: that word or letting the other side use to that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I think it's it's because there
Speaker 3: are a lot of people making a lot of money
Speaker 3: in this moment who would want Americans to think that
Speaker 3: that's the only way life can be. And I don't
Speaker 3: hide this, you know, it's it's it's how I see
Speaker 3: the world. It's the world that I want is one
Speaker 3: of dignity. And it's funny. There's this one guy who
Speaker 3: comments under almost every one of my tweets and he's like,
Speaker 3: he's a socialist. I'm like, yeah, it's in my bio,
Speaker 3: you know, this is this is who I am, And
Speaker 3: I think it's it's about being honest with New Yorkers
Speaker 3: because I've found, you know, Mayor Koch said this that
Speaker 3: if you agree with me on nine out of twelve issues,
Speaker 3: vote for me twelve out of twelve ce a psychiatrist,
Speaker 3: And I found that in New Yorker's an ability to say, look,
Speaker 3: maybe I wouldn't call myself the same word, but I
Speaker 3: want the same things. And ultimately, you have to have
Speaker 3: a coalition that asks people of just one thing. We
Speaker 3: need to make the city affordable. We can have disagreement,
Speaker 3: we can have tension, but we have to have agreement
Speaker 3: on that one thing so that we can build a
Speaker 3: coalition that looks like the City of New York.
Speaker 4: Now, sorry, but you want to please Why I'm in
Speaker 4: the polls like you just came out of nowhere, right.
Speaker 1: Why do you.
Speaker 4: Think the young people are rying with you?
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's it's because people are hungry.
Speaker 2: Forget they didn't throw your name in the hat at first.
Speaker 3: It was just look, let me tell you I was.
Speaker 3: I was sitting in a coffee shop in a Storia.
Speaker 3: This is right before we launched the campaign. If somebody
Speaker 3: in politics showed me a poll. I was looking at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the poll and they were like, no, no,
Speaker 3: keep looking, keep looking. And then I was there at
Speaker 3: one percent.
Speaker 1: They were like, that's what you said, right, How did
Speaker 1: you make the pool where?
Speaker 2: Pause?
Speaker 3: You know? I think, I think. I think. I think
Speaker 3: just by being consistent. You know, from the beginning of
Speaker 3: the race, from October twenty third, the first day, I
Speaker 3: said this was a campaign about affordability. I said, this
Speaker 3: was a campaign about New Yorkers who have built this city,
Speaker 3: who are being pushed out of this city. And I
Speaker 3: said that I was going to do three things. I
Speaker 3: was going to freeze the rent. I was going to
Speaker 3: make the slowest busses in America fast and free. I
Speaker 3: was going to deliver universal childcare. And it got to
Speaker 3: the point where I can go to a rally and
Speaker 3: I can say I'm going to freeze the and the
Speaker 3: crowd will say rent buses, fast and free, universal childcare.
Speaker 3: People know, and I think for too long politics has
Speaker 3: become about a person as opposed to a platform, and
Speaker 3: New Yorkers see themselves in that. And you know, growing
Speaker 3: up in this city, so many of the people that
Speaker 3: have helped to raise me that I've grown up with.
Speaker 3: They haven't always seen themselves in our politics. You know,
Speaker 3: they haven't voted in a lot of these elections. The
Speaker 3: last mayoral primary, twenty six percent of Democrats voted, and
Speaker 3: most New Yorkers and you ask them when's the election,
Speaker 3: they'll tell you it's in November, not in June. Most
Speaker 3: people don't know about the importance of the primary. But
Speaker 3: I've been getting text messages from people that I've known
Speaker 3: for years and people that I've just met, just screenshots
Speaker 3: of voter registration that I'm going to vote for the
Speaker 3: first time. And that's meant the world to me. Because
Speaker 3: if we really want to protect our democracy, one of
Speaker 3: the best ways of doing so is that people see
Speaker 3: themselves in it. People see themselves as participants. You can't
Speaker 3: protect it at an intellectual level. You have to protect
Speaker 3: it an everyday level. And ultimately, going back to your
Speaker 3: question about democratic socialism, it's about extending that democracy from
Speaker 3: the ballot box to the rest of our lives. If
Speaker 3: you get to choose your own leaders, why shouldn't you
Speaker 3: be able to choose the economic conditions that you're living.
Speaker 3: Why shouldn't you be able to ensure you have that dignity.
Speaker 3: And I think that what's so exciting is, as you said,
Speaker 3: a lot of this is powered by young people. You know,
Speaker 3: young people who so often political analysts will say, don't
Speaker 3: worry about them, they don't vote at the same rates,
Speaker 3: they don't come out, And it's been so exciting to
Speaker 3: see those same young people be part of the thirty
Speaker 3: four thousand volunteers we have. You know, it took us
Speaker 3: months to knock one hundred and fifty thousand doors in
Speaker 3: this city. Last week we knocked that in seven days alone.
Speaker 3: That's the level of momentum we're at, where people are
Speaker 3: just going all across the city. And my mother is
Speaker 3: one of these canvassers. She has her weekly canvassing shift
Speaker 3: on Sunday. She's paired up with a twenty five year
Speaker 3: old who she complains, walks too fast. They go up
Speaker 3: six floor walk up, and she goes through ten consecutive knotdoors,
Speaker 3: not homes, And then when she finally meets a voter
Speaker 3: and they say they're going to vote for me, she says,
Speaker 3: that's my son. And it's that sense of everyone is
Speaker 3: a part of she don't She's like, you know, I
Speaker 3: have my concerns as well.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, you know, if you were the
Speaker 2: mayor and you see what's going on in LA, how
Speaker 2: would you handle that problem? If there was protesters, they
Speaker 2: were you know, breaking stuff, looting, smashing police cars, vandalizing things.
Speaker 2: Of course Trump sending the troops, how would you handle
Speaker 2: that if you were mayor of New York City and
Speaker 2: that actually happened here.
Speaker 3: I think, first and foremost you call it what it is.
Speaker 3: It's authoritarianism. This is is the Trump administration looking to
Speaker 3: arrest enough migrants that they can say they've fulfilled their
Speaker 3: campaign promise of building the single largest deportation force in
Speaker 3: American history. And too often we think about it as
Speaker 3: just an attack on immigrants. It's an attack on the
Speaker 3: fabric of this country. And it's not just in LA.
Speaker 3: I mean, we have New Yorkers who have been arrested
Speaker 3: and detained today. You know, a few days ago marked
Speaker 3: three months since sa Palestinian New York named Mahamud Khalil
Speaker 3: was arrested in his apartment building lobby, taken away from
Speaker 3: his pregnant wife nor and has since been in an
Speaker 3: ice attention facility in Louisiana. It wasn't able to even
Speaker 3: witness the birth of his first child, Dean. And we
Speaker 3: have another New York City public high school student named Dylan,
Speaker 3: who was snatched at a regular check in at Federal Plaza.
Speaker 3: Is now hundreds of miles away from his mother and
Speaker 3: his two siblings. And this is personal for me because
Speaker 3: I got my citizenship just blocks from where those arrests
Speaker 3: are happening. Those blocks used to be my favorite part
Speaker 3: of New York Cities, where I got my citizenhip, where
Speaker 3: I got married, and those are now the same blocks
Speaker 3: where when I took my father for his immigration interview
Speaker 3: this year, I hugged him so tight because I didn't
Speaker 3: know if I was going to see him in the afternoon.
Speaker 3: There are too many New Yorkers who are feeling that,
Speaker 3: and so I think you call this what it is.
Speaker 3: You also make clear that Trump is reversing historical precedent
Speaker 3: in that calling the National Guard is typically something a
Speaker 3: governor requests of the president. It's not something a president
Speaker 3: puts on a governor. And Kathy Hochel is someone who,
Speaker 3: as the governor of our state, has been able to
Speaker 3: fight Donald Trump and defend a lot of his potential
Speaker 3: attacks on this state. One of The first things I
Speaker 3: would do is work with her to make it clear
Speaker 3: that this this has no room in our city and
Speaker 3: our police force should not be assisting ICE in what
Speaker 3: they are conducting. You know, we recently saw arrests where
Speaker 3: the NYPD was then arresting a pastor and other New
Speaker 3: Yorkers who were observing ICE arresting migrants coming in for
Speaker 3: their check ins. We don't need to be a complices
Speaker 3: to authoritarianism. We need to show that there's another way
Speaker 3: of running this city, in this country. And that's who
Speaker 3: I'm excited to be.
Speaker 1: Could you explain to people why federal overreaches dangerous?
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's so funny to see Republicans, for
Speaker 3: whom so long their rallying cry has been states' rights,
Speaker 3: and now here they are they don't have a concern
Speaker 3: for that at all. It's the same way that they
Speaker 3: used to care about free speech. That's gone as well. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: these are principles they only hold when are convenient to them.
Speaker 3: And what's so dangerous about this is that we have
Speaker 3: a clear delineation of what is a federal responsibility what
Speaker 3: is a state responsibility. But Donald Trump wants to make
Speaker 3: every responsibility his He wants to run a country in
Speaker 3: a manner that is more befitting of an authoritarian state.
Speaker 3: And I think what's so concerning is he's looking at
Speaker 3: the example of someone like Naib Bukele and saying that
Speaker 3: this style of leadership, of having mass prisons where we
Speaker 3: send so many people who we allege our criminals no
Speaker 3: matter whether we can find it or not, that's what
Speaker 3: he wants to bring to this country. And I think
Speaker 3: what we need are Democrats who are willing to stand
Speaker 3: up and fight that. You know, we have a mayor
Speaker 3: right now who has wanted to fear monger around sanctuary
Speaker 3: city policy. This is a policy we've had in this
Speaker 3: city for decades. It's a policy that's been defended by
Speaker 3: Republicans and Democrats alike. It allows for the city to
Speaker 3: work with the federal government if someone is convicted on
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy serious crimes. What it says, however,
Speaker 3: is outside of those there should not be that collaboration.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm sure you know you've heard of Kilmar,
Speaker 3: the man in Maryland who was taken to El Salvador.
Speaker 3: If the city he was arrested in by ice had
Speaker 3: sanctuary city laws, he would not have been able to
Speaker 3: be picked up. That's what we're preventing from happening. And
Speaker 3: still with what we have in place, because we have
Speaker 3: a mayor who doesn't want to enforce it, because we
Speaker 3: have a mayor who wants to collaborate, still we see
Speaker 3: New Yorkers being picked up.
Speaker 4: That's a question, right, Why is Donald Trump the Democrats boogeyman?
Speaker 4: Because none of you' all are running against Trump. And
Speaker 4: to me, the biggest hurdle to the Democratic Party is
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: An action of the Democrat Ccratic.
Speaker 4: Party over all of these years is the biggest hurdle
Speaker 4: for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Now, I don't disagree with you. That's part of my
Speaker 3: critique of Andrew Cuomo is that he's the very kind
Speaker 3: of leadership that helped give rise to Donald Trump. You know,
Speaker 3: before Donald Trump was the president of this country, before
Speaker 3: he was a reality TV show host, he was a
Speaker 3: real estate developer in New York City, and he was
Speaker 3: someone who both parties had room for and time for.
Speaker 3: And I think that our ability to accommodate the very
Speaker 3: kind of real estate developers that have broken law after
Speaker 3: law after law is also part of what has given
Speaker 3: rise to an era of politics with no accountability. I mean,
Speaker 3: Andrew Cuomo had a video of Donald Trump playing at
Speaker 3: his own bachelor party. Like, that's the level in which
Speaker 3: all of this is a mesh together. And I'm trying
Speaker 3: to chart a new course with this campaign, alongside thousands
Speaker 3: of New Yorkers for a politics that is clearly distinct
Speaker 3: from that of Donald Trump. And I think when New
Speaker 3: Yorkers are shocked at Donald Trump's record of cutting medicaid,
Speaker 3: of trying to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from
Speaker 3: the MTA, of giving tax breaks to billionaires, of hounding
Speaker 3: the many women who have credibly come forward to accuse him,
Speaker 3: those are the same things you could say about Andrew Cuomo.
Speaker 3: We don't need a reflection of that in New York City.
Speaker 3: We need someone who is the opposite of that, and
Speaker 3: as a progressive Muslim immigrant who's willing to fight for
Speaker 3: the things I believe in. That's what That's what makes
Speaker 3: me donald Trump's worst night Mayor.
Speaker 4: But I saw you say that in the debate. You
Speaker 4: know you would be Trump's worst nightmare. Well, once again,
Speaker 4: why should that matter to anybody voting for you?
Speaker 1: Now? Cut running against Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: No, you, but but you are running against the authoritarianism
Speaker 3: that he's bringing to this city.
Speaker 1: Authoritarian.
Speaker 3: No. I think that there's too many commonalities between him
Speaker 3: and Donald Trump's record. And my point is that you
Speaker 3: don't want to have a mayor who has to pick
Speaker 3: up a phone call from someone who cut a two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars check to both him and
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. You want to have a mayor who's willing
Speaker 3: to fight for the city and have that that be
Speaker 3: the thing that he's ultimately responsible for. And I think
Speaker 3: to your point, we also have to be honest about
Speaker 3: how we lost this presidential election. You know, New York
Speaker 3: is the state that had the largest swing in the
Speaker 3: country towards Donald Trump eleven and a half points. And
Speaker 3: it happened far from the caricature of Trump voters. It
Speaker 3: happened in the hearts of immigrant New York City. I
Speaker 3: went to Fordham Road in the Bronx, I went to
Speaker 3: Hillside Avenue in Queens and when I asked New Yorkers there,
Speaker 3: almost all of whom were Democrats. Who did you vote
Speaker 3: for and why? Many told me they didn't vote. Many
Speaker 3: told me they voted for Trump, and they told me
Speaker 3: they voted for him because they remembered having more money
Speaker 3: in their pocket four years ago for their rent, for
Speaker 3: their childcare, for their groceries, even for their metroplogan. And
Speaker 3: as insincere and ridiculous and horrific as we know Trump's
Speaker 3: policies to be, that is how people felt. Those are
Speaker 3: the decisions that they made. And when I asked these
Speaker 3: same New Yorkers what would it take to bring you
Speaker 3: back to the Democratic Party, they said, a relentless focus
Speaker 3: on an economic agenda. I said, what would you say
Speaker 3: to a candidate running to freeze the rent, make buses
Speaker 3: fast and free deliver universal child care, that I vote
Speaker 3: for him. And that's when I introduced myself. And that's
Speaker 3: my point here, is that there are some Democrats like
Speaker 3: Andrew Cuomo, who think that we we went too far
Speaker 3: left in how we ran a campaign. And my point
Speaker 3: is that we actually betrayed working class voters a long
Speaker 3: time ago, and it's time to own up to that
Speaker 3: and finally fulfill the promises that were made decades ago.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, that's interesting, right, because you know, you say,
Speaker 4: Cuomo and Trump have so many similarities, But Cuomo has
Speaker 4: been a career Democrat, and that's why I feel like
Speaker 4: anybody who is going to be the future of the
Speaker 4: Democratic Party, you do have to throw that old regime
Speaker 4: under the bus, because.
Speaker 3: It's not just that bus is going to be free.
Speaker 1: Sure, but it's not just Cuomo in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of old leadership.
Speaker 4: List, the Chuck Schumers, it's the Bidens. You gotta throw
Speaker 4: all of that under the bus and run it over.
Speaker 4: And people have to hear you say that because I
Speaker 4: keep hearing y'all. You know, you keep talking about Trump, Trump, Trump,
Speaker 4: h Trump, but your party has been just as ineffective
Speaker 4: and just as corrupt in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Trust me, I have I hear you because I've been
Speaker 3: critical about the style of leadership that gave rise to
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. He is also a style of leadership within
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party. And I think for too long it's
Speaker 3: been a party that has valued insider politics, pay your dues,
Speaker 3: the words and advice of consultants, over the people that
Speaker 3: are Democrats themselves. And I do think it's time for
Speaker 3: a new generation of leadership. You know, Cuomo would be
Speaker 3: the oldest mayor elected in New York City. I would
Speaker 3: represent a completely new generation. And I think it's important
Speaker 3: for that because it's not just about age, it's not
Speaker 3: just about vision. It's also about what has your record
Speaker 3: been and who have you been fighting for? And is
Speaker 3: that distinct enough from what got us here?
Speaker 1: Got a couple more questions.
Speaker 4: You said, as the Blasio was the best mayor in
Speaker 4: your lifetime for New York, and you gave three reasons.
Speaker 4: You said, because he ended stopping for risks. Quote, yeah,
Speaker 4: he ran on endian, stopping for risk, taxing the rich,
Speaker 4: and funding universal pre k. You said he got a
Speaker 4: lot of that done. How much of it did he
Speaker 4: get done?
Speaker 3: Universal pre k? I think is one of the most
Speaker 3: shining examples of what city government can do right. This
Speaker 3: is something that took tens of thousands of dollars off
Speaker 3: New York family's backs and made it easier to raise
Speaker 3: a family here. You know, I'm tired of hearing New
Speaker 3: Yorkers tell me that they're going to settle down, and
Speaker 3: I know that the next sentence is going to include
Speaker 3: the words long Island of the suburbs, because they just
Speaker 3: can't make it work in the five boroughs. Part of
Speaker 3: making it work is making it easier to have childcare.
Speaker 3: You know today the average cost of childcare is twenty
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars a year. That's more money than it
Speaker 3: costs to send that same kid to Cune eighteen years later. Those,
Speaker 3: I think are accomplishments.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: It's not to say that there is no critique of
Speaker 3: that time in office. I mean, I'm somebody who was
Speaker 3: on a fifteen day hunger strike alongside thousands of working
Speaker 3: class taxi drivers fighting that same administration for debt relief,
Speaker 3: and we were able to come to an agreement where
Speaker 3: we won four hundred and fifty million dollars in debt
Speaker 3: relief for those taxi drivers. And ultimately, I say this though,
Speaker 3: because we have seen what's possible if we have someone
Speaker 3: focused on delivering it. And to me that the greatest
Speaker 3: mayor in New York City history is Firell LaGuardia, because
Speaker 3: he was someone who transformed our sense of the possible,
Speaker 3: and he put working people at the heart of his politics,
Speaker 3: and he did so while also confronting this rise in
Speaker 3: anti immigrant hate all at the same time. And I
Speaker 3: think we need a mayor who has that ability to
Speaker 3: fight multiple crises at the same time and show what
Speaker 3: it means to be a New Yorker.
Speaker 4: You said, as your elected mayor, Israel wouldn't let you in,
Speaker 4: and you mentioned some legislation, but would that legislation apply
Speaker 4: to you if you're actually met.
Speaker 3: We've seen elected officials, even congress people of this country
Speaker 3: not be allowed into the state of Israel. And my
Speaker 3: point was, I've been asked this question many times, and
Speaker 3: I've said directly that I believe one need not visit
Speaker 3: Israel to stand up for Jewish new Yorkers. What I
Speaker 3: need to do is to meet Jewish New Yorkers at
Speaker 3: their synagogues, at their temples, at their homes, subway platforms, parks,
Speaker 3: wherever they may be, to hear their concerns, and actually
Speaker 3: deliver on those concerns. And then, when I have been
Speaker 3: asked about this, what I've also said is that even
Speaker 3: if I was going to make that trip, there is
Speaker 3: legislation that does not allow anyone who supports a nonviolent
Speaker 3: movement calling for the compliance of the Israeli government with
Speaker 3: international law to be allowed into that state. And I
Speaker 3: say that to say that there has to be a
Speaker 3: greater recognition of what is going on. And the fact is,
Speaker 3: for me, my politics come back from the politics of
Speaker 3: the universal. I believe that freedom and justice and safety, liberty,
Speaker 3: these things have to apply to everyone for them to
Speaker 3: be meaningful, and that also includes Palestinians.
Speaker 4: Why does it also seem like elected officials care about
Speaker 4: what's going on in other countries more than they care
Speaker 4: about what's happening here in America? Because you know, you, you
Speaker 4: realize it's hard to think about starving kids somewhere else
Speaker 4: when your kids is starving.
Speaker 3: Right, My focus is right here in New York City.
Speaker 3: This is a question that's been asked of me time
Speaker 3: and time again, and ultimately, I think it's actually a
Speaker 3: question that, as you're saying, is not actually in line
Speaker 3: with the top concerns of New Yorkers, not even in
Speaker 3: line with the top concerns of Jewish New Yorkers. You know,
Speaker 3: when you see in a poll, what are those top concerns?
Speaker 3: The number one is affordable. After that, it's childcare, it's
Speaker 3: elder carets, discrimination. These are all New York City issues,
Speaker 3: and I think that we need to have a mayor
Speaker 3: who is focused on New York City. And that's why
Speaker 3: when I was asked in the debate, where is your
Speaker 3: first trip abroad going to be I said, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be here in New York City. And then I
Speaker 3: was asked, followed up, are you going to go to Israel?
Speaker 3: And I said, one need not go to Israel to
Speaker 3: stand up for Jewish New Yorkers. And then I was asked,
Speaker 3: you know, it just continues to continues to continues. But
Speaker 3: for me, the focus has to be the Five Boroughs.
Speaker 3: I mean, you are running to be the mayor of
Speaker 3: this city. This is a city that is losing hundreds
Speaker 3: of thousands of people in the last few years alone
Speaker 3: because they can't afford it. They're going to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Speaker 3: anywhere their dollar can go a little further. And we
Speaker 3: know that. You know, as the saying goes, when white
Speaker 3: America catches a cold, Black America catches pneumonia, that inequality
Speaker 3: is compounded. For Black New Yorkers. We lost two hundred
Speaker 3: thousand Black New Yorkers in two decades, about nine percent
Speaker 3: of the city's population of Black New Yorkers. From twenty
Speaker 3: ten to twenty nineteen, nearly twenty percent of black children
Speaker 3: and teenagers had to leave this city. And that is
Speaker 3: a crisis that has to be focused on that would
Speaker 3: be that would be at the heart of what my
Speaker 3: administration would do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't understand why conversations about affordability, free healthcare,
Speaker 4: making buses, free freezing the rent on rent, stabilized apartments.
Speaker 1: Why is that considered far left?
Speaker 3: Come on, I'm just saying why it's common.
Speaker 4: See, I can't y'all message that better. Like I think
Speaker 4: you got to get rid of that word socialism. You know,
Speaker 4: my man killer Mike used to tell Bernie Sanders to
Speaker 4: use the term compassionate capitalism, or maybe just talk about
Speaker 4: what it is you want to do constantly instead of
Speaker 4: getting caught up in those labels.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's both important to tell people
Speaker 3: where this belief comes from. But what I always foreground
Speaker 3: is what this belief will mean for someone. You know,
Speaker 3: it's it's people want to know, how are you going
Speaker 3: to help them in their life, in their struggle. The
Speaker 3: reason we focus this entire campaign on affordability is that's
Speaker 3: what New Yorker's told us. When you ask them what
Speaker 3: are you struggling with, They'll tell you rent, they'll tell
Speaker 3: you childcare, They'll even tell you public transit. Because I
Speaker 3: know to many people two ninety doesn't feel like a lot.
Speaker 3: One in five New Yorkers cannot afford a Metro card.
Speaker 3: That's the state of inequality in this city. While income
Speaker 3: inequality has declined in the country, it's in increased in
Speaker 3: New York City. This is the wealthiest city in the
Speaker 3: wealthiest country in the history of the world. And so
Speaker 3: to what you're saying, these are common sense policies. And
Speaker 3: also when they're polled, they even sometimes have supportive majority
Speaker 3: of Republicans because they speak to what people are actually
Speaker 3: going through.
Speaker 4: It's it all people wanted some more money in their
Speaker 4: pocket and they want to feel safe.
Speaker 1: Look, that's it.
Speaker 2: Well, if they want to support you, how can they
Speaker 2: go out and support you?
Speaker 3: Well, what I would tell them has come to Zoran
Speaker 3: for NYC dot com. Don't donate to us. We've already
Speaker 3: raised the maximum we can spend in this campaign. But
Speaker 3: do give us something more valuable, which is your time.
Speaker 3: We're building a team of thirty four thousand people New
Speaker 3: Yorkers from all walks of life, knocking on doors, talking
Speaker 3: to their neighbors. Come on out canvas. It would be
Speaker 3: a joy to have you. And I would also say
Speaker 3: that the three of you want to come Canvas. We'd
Speaker 3: love to have you as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Early residents in New Jersey, oh come.
Speaker 3: So look, you know, just bring that corporate tax rate.
Speaker 3: Bring that corporate tax right over from New Jersey June
Speaker 3: twenty fourth. Early voting starts June fourteenth, and we're confident
Speaker 3: we go in this, but only with the help of
Speaker 3: New Yorkers.
Speaker 1: Well, good luck.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Joe, ron Kwalm and Mama Donny.
Speaker 2: I appreciate. We're all right, Zoran Kwame, Mam Donnie.
Speaker 1: There we go.
Speaker 3: Goodness, get the polls up.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, Wake that ass up
Speaker 2: in the morning.
Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club.