Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Hear's the thing.
Speaker 1: What follows may make for difficult listening. New York Attorney
Speaker 1: General Eric Schneiderman sat down with me last Thursday, days
Speaker 1: before news broke in the New Yorker magazine that four
Speaker 1: women have accused him of physical violence. Schneiderman came to
Speaker 1: his high office thanks to the left women's groups in particular,
Speaker 1: and in our talk you'll hear him return multiple times
Speaker 1: to his record in support of women's rights. Looking back
Speaker 1: on our preparations with his office, there were signs maybe
Speaker 1: something was amiss. His communications director requested surprisingly to us
Speaker 1: that we not mention the Harvey Weinstein case or hashtag
Speaker 1: me to, or the Attorney General's past relationships. It is
Speaker 1: a complicated thing listening to a man I respect and
Speaker 1: who has in fact done much to support progressive causes
Speaker 1: over his twenty five years in public service. But we
Speaker 1: thought it was important to post this now so the
Speaker 1: public has access to what turns out to be Eric
Speaker 1: Schneiderman's last long form interview as Attorney General. I want
Speaker 1: to just read from among the top elements in your bio,
Speaker 1: we roll marveling on the production staff here. The only
Speaker 1: child grew up in the Upper West Side, father was
Speaker 1: born in tenements. Became big shot corporate defense lawyer, chairman
Speaker 1: of City Opera. You graduated from Trinity and seventy three
Speaker 1: and Amerston seventy seven. Studied abroad in Hong Kong, double
Speaker 1: major in English and Asian studies. Eventually you graduated from
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School in eighty two. When it is here
Speaker 1: that you were the deputy sheriff of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven nineteen seventy nine, is that a fact?
Speaker 1: It is? I was a deputy sheriff in Berkshire County.
Speaker 1: I dropped in and out of school a lot. When
Speaker 1: I was seventeen, I graduated from high school and it
Speaker 1: was a year before Roe V. Wade. Instead of going
Speaker 1: to college, I went I got a job in an
Speaker 1: abortion clinic in Washington, d C. Abortion was legal in DC,
Speaker 1: illegal in the whole Southeast United States. No one thought
Speaker 1: role was coming, and so at seventeen I was going
Speaker 1: out to National Airport meeting women flying in from states
Speaker 1: where they couldn't. What do you think motivated you to
Speaker 1: do that at that age? Why you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I was seventeen. It wasn't really that carefully thought through.
Speaker 1: I you know, I had some sort of office job initially,
Speaker 1: and it was really boring. And what did your parents say,
Speaker 1: you're their only child. I was just gone. I mean
Speaker 1: I left Toma, never went back, and I just had adventures.
Speaker 1: There were people setting up clinics because they believed Washington
Speaker 1: would be the only outpost for decades, that women would
Speaker 1: have to come there from Georgia and South Carolina and Tennessee,
Speaker 1: um because no one thought role was coming, so people
Speaker 1: were setting up clinics. I thought it sounded really interesting
Speaker 1: and the people who were doing it were really amazing people,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, I just had never really occurred
Speaker 1: to me that it was as controversial as I later
Speaker 1: learned it was. And it had a big impact on me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was seeing women essentially fleeing oppression in
Speaker 1: their states, coming in secret, arguing with the doctors that
Speaker 1: had to go home before this medical staff thought they
Speaker 1: were ready because they snuck out on their families, their
Speaker 1: employers a lot of the times, their husbands they don't
Speaker 1: want them to find out. So it's just an amazing
Speaker 1: But when you when you add that, it only puts
Speaker 1: a finer point on what I'm saying, which is you
Speaker 1: have a very eclectic path to running for your first office.
Speaker 1: You you, you when you, when you, when you go,
Speaker 1: you study abroad in Hong Kong. This was under Amherst.
Speaker 1: I took a year outside of Hong Kong while I
Speaker 1: was in college, so abortion clinic, gopher semester, drop out again,
Speaker 1: go back for a semester. Meet Bob Thurman, who was
Speaker 1: my Tibetan Buddhism professor, and he inspired me to study Chinese.
Speaker 1: This gravitation towards Asian studies was that something in your
Speaker 1: home or not really, I mean I just was there
Speaker 1: like a leaf in the wind here it was now
Speaker 1: was it was a time of big ideas. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is the era of the Ana Vietnam War movement,
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement. I was in demonstrations when I
Speaker 1: was fourteen, fifteen years old then in Washington, and there
Speaker 1: was just a sense of tremendous possibility. It's a time
Speaker 1: it's hard to explain to people now and what I
Speaker 1: feel from the young people rising up today, this is
Speaker 1: the first time I felt that level of energy since then,
Speaker 1: that this is this reminds me of the late sixties
Speaker 1: and early seventies what we're seeing now. And look, it
Speaker 1: was also a time of you know, rebellion. We were
Speaker 1: all we grew our hairs along. We were you know,
Speaker 1: we were not really that interested in what our parents thought.
Speaker 1: We thought they were squares and we were going to
Speaker 1: change the world. Your first job in law enforcement is
Speaker 1: as a deputy sheriff in Pittsfield. This is many years
Speaker 1: before you become the Attorney General of the many years
Speaker 1: and what was that experience life was it? Was it
Speaker 1: kind of lighthearted and not that serious or was being
Speaker 1: a sheriff in Pittsfield that have some It was dangers,
Speaker 1: not much. I mean it was really you know, most
Speaker 1: of the folks in the jail were low level offenders,
Speaker 1: it was, but it was a huge lesson for me
Speaker 1: in you know, how the people at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the system function because these were mostly poor, uneducated people
Speaker 1: who were in and out of the system. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and rural poor because back then there was we had
Speaker 1: moonshine runners in the jail from South South Berkshire County
Speaker 1: And was one guy who had been born in jail
Speaker 1: when his mother was doing time, and he and his
Speaker 1: brother were there, and so it was really it was
Speaker 1: a great lesson for me to see how the system
Speaker 1: operates for the poor and the uneducated. And before going
Speaker 1: to a place like Harvard Law School, I think it's
Speaker 1: good to have a little dose to that. You know,
Speaker 1: your father, it was a big lawyer, corporate lawyer, and
Speaker 1: he defended a lot of corporations, whether they do good
Speaker 1: or bad, to influence the you have now. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: then you know, time went on and I got older
Speaker 1: and got you know, I got more appreciation for the
Speaker 1: older generation and what they had done. And he had
Speaker 1: the sense to step out of the shark lawyer scene
Speaker 1: with still a lot of years to live. And the
Speaker 1: last twenty years of his life are really the best
Speaker 1: because he just did the public interests work he wanted
Speaker 1: w n y c. And was on the board of
Speaker 1: Nayral Opera. And so for him to have, having grown
Speaker 1: up the way he did, to live to see his
Speaker 1: son become the Attorney General in New York State, it
Speaker 1: was quite a leap in life. So when you ran
Speaker 1: for the state Senate, uh, that was your first race.
Speaker 1: And I remember you reading or you had described me
Speaker 1: when I first ran into you back in those days, um,
Speaker 1: and you were in office, that it was it was
Speaker 1: a strangely Jerrymander district. Correct, Well, it got stranger after
Speaker 1: I was elected after one term in the Senate. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think I was regarded as such a pain in
Speaker 1: the neck that the leaders of the Senate redrew me
Speaker 1: into a sixty per Latino district anchored in Washington Heights,
Speaker 1: knowing that I had studied Chinese and college not Spanish.
Speaker 1: So I've learned how to speak Spanish and had just
Speaker 1: a tremendously rich experience with the do you do good
Speaker 1: at Bloomber Bloomberg Spanish? I don't have. I don't have.
Speaker 1: He Spanish is not bad. His accent is challenging, but
Speaker 1: Mike does be pretty good Spanish. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: I learned Dominican Spanish, and I bonded with a lot
Speaker 1: of the people in that community. Started going to the
Speaker 1: Dominican Republic. Had all sorts of interesting collateral consequences. I
Speaker 1: discovered this lost Jewish community and found the archives of it.
Speaker 1: We're sitting in some storeroom down in the northern part
Speaker 1: of the Dominican Republic. Because and I learned this history
Speaker 1: that I had never known that. In seven um at
Speaker 1: the Big Avian Conference when they were talking about Jews
Speaker 1: trying to get out of Europe, the one country that
Speaker 1: said we'll take all of the ones, all the Jews
Speaker 1: can get here was the Dominican Republican. That was a
Speaker 1: history that really had been lost. So we raised the
Speaker 1: money to bring send the archives from the Museum of
Speaker 1: Jewish Heritage down there and had a great exhibition. And
Speaker 1: then someone wrote a musical Cults Suo, which is the
Speaker 1: name of the community, with half Jewish kids and half
Speaker 1: Dominican kids performing. So a lot of great experiences in
Speaker 1: my due district and with that community to this day.
Speaker 1: You know, I consider myself at Dominicano Autotivo. You know,
Speaker 1: you're a New Yorker who lived several different places during
Speaker 1: the course of your college years, but you're a New
Speaker 1: Yorker born and bred, and I'm wondering what it was
Speaker 1: like for you to go when you arrived at Albany
Speaker 1: to go to work. Well, I had, I had. After
Speaker 1: I got out of law school, I I clerked, and
Speaker 1: then I went into private practice and was an associate
Speaker 1: and a partner in and a big law firm. So
Speaker 1: I had, you know, I went up there with that experience,
Speaker 1: and Albany was not a place that ran by any
Speaker 1: normal rules of business, and it was always rated by
Speaker 1: the Brennan Center and other uh, others who studied it
Speaker 1: in good government groups. Uh, you know, terrible in terms
Speaker 1: of transparency, terrible letters of democracy. Really, it was a
Speaker 1: fundament issure. It was a fundamentally anti democratic place when
Speaker 1: I first got there. It has, it has improved quite
Speaker 1: a bit, but it's still got a long way to
Speaker 1: go in my my view. But it was what holds
Speaker 1: it back from really growing in the right direction. I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I think that there has been
Speaker 1: a a long term attachment to the status quo. People
Speaker 1: resist change, and I think this year's election presents an
Speaker 1: opportunity for some really fundamental change. We've already had the
Speaker 1: whole series of senior senators, State senators announcing they're going
Speaker 1: to retire. I think you're going to see new leadership
Speaker 1: there in a lot of quite a few new people elected,
Speaker 1: and I think that's going to provide the impetus for change.
Speaker 1: When I got there, it was remarkable because the leaders
Speaker 1: controlled everything. I mean, it was really this the majority
Speaker 1: leader of the State Senate. UH controlled whether you had
Speaker 1: a big suite of offices in the top floor of
Speaker 1: the legislative office building or you were in a basement.
Speaker 1: And what they controlled at dictatorial control over what bills
Speaker 1: come to the floor. So groups would come up and say,
Speaker 1: will you support this bill, will you know, check the
Speaker 1: boxes on our checklist for environmental concerns or healthcare concerns
Speaker 1: or gun control. And it didn't really make that. I
Speaker 1: realized after a while, didn't make any difference. I was
Speaker 1: debating bills, trying to change people's minds, and then I
Speaker 1: realized after a few months, no bill ever comes to
Speaker 1: the floor and loses it was all It was all
Speaker 1: staged in the back room. Yeah, it felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I was in one of those phony governments in the
Speaker 1: Eastern European Block where you pretend you're the parliament, but
Speaker 1: the polit bureau is making the decisions behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: That's what all many was like when I got there.
Speaker 1: The State Senate term is how long is it four years?
Speaker 1: Two years? The State Senate term is two years, and
Speaker 1: the Assembly term as two years too. I thought it
Speaker 1: was too sorry, I thought it was two and four,
Speaker 1: uh not two and six like the federal So it's
Speaker 1: a two year term for the and you served how
Speaker 1: many terms? I was there from night and then I
Speaker 1: ran we got elected ninety so from uh my last term,
Speaker 1: and then I ran for a G. You were you were?
Speaker 1: You were in the state Senate when you're refrag what's
Speaker 1: the political chess board looked like them? When you're going
Speaker 1: to run for a G? Who was a G and
Speaker 1: was leaving? And why Cuomo was the a G? And
Speaker 1: he was leaving because of the bizarre circumstances of Elliot
Speaker 1: Spitzer becoming governor with overwhelming popularity and not lasting very long,
Speaker 1: and then David Patterson lasting a little bit longer. But
Speaker 1: I had certainly not expected the Attorney General's office to
Speaker 1: be open in but it opened up, and uh, well,
Speaker 1: what did you say to yourself? Well, I had I
Speaker 1: had a seat in the Senate. The Democrats were in
Speaker 1: the majority of that term and would end being in
Speaker 1: the Senate, and the majority is a nice secure gig.
Speaker 1: But I at that point I really had. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been through everything in the Senate. I'd run the
Speaker 1: Senate Campaign Committee. I've been the floor leader for the Democrats,
Speaker 1: which was fun. Because we never got the bills till
Speaker 1: like an hour before session, so it was like doing improv.
Speaker 1: Was just you know, debating bills with while I was
Speaker 1: learning about the laws. More so than any other bodies,
Speaker 1: legislative bodies are very much about seniority and about people
Speaker 1: developing relationships. A system. It's a system. It is a
Speaker 1: system and a lot and people get Uh. Most people
Speaker 1: want to fit in in the environment where you know
Speaker 1: they are at work. And people wanted to fit in,
Speaker 1: and you got a lot of I gotta When I was,
Speaker 1: I said, come from you know, the private sector, and
Speaker 1: I it was less patient with the old ways than
Speaker 1: a lot of people. A lot of folks said, no,
Speaker 1: you gotta try and get along. You gotta gotta get
Speaker 1: along and settled down and that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: it just wasn't me. So uh, I was ready to
Speaker 1: try something different and it was given up a very
Speaker 1: nice safe gig to take a shot at something. And
Speaker 1: they were and my first campaign was in retrospect, a
Speaker 1: terrific campaign. And people, how does that process begin? Meaning
Speaker 1: like who do you call on the phone? Who do
Speaker 1: you contact and say I want to run for a
Speaker 1: g Well, how do you launch that process you contact who.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a very strong sense of the state party
Speaker 1: managing things at that point in history. There were a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who stepped up to run open seat, surprise,
Speaker 1: open seat, and it was it was it was really
Speaker 1: a primary and the primary was a good campaign. We
Speaker 1: had smart lawyers. Uh we had lots of debates. So
Speaker 1: not somebody you call because New York State is so
Speaker 1: insular that way. Now there really there really wasn't as
Speaker 1: a boss at that point in time. Well, I would
Speaker 1: talk to people, and you know, I had relationships with
Speaker 1: folks who influence you to make that decision. Well, a
Speaker 1: lot of the different progressive groups that I had worked
Speaker 1: with over the years. UM I had been on the
Speaker 1: board of Citizen Action in New York and Citizen Action
Speaker 1: and there that whole network constituency influence. Sure and I
Speaker 1: had and I had strong relationships with folks in the
Speaker 1: pro choice movement, LGBT equality movement, and uh I talked
Speaker 1: to people about the potential for the Attorney General's office
Speaker 1: and what I could do. I had done a lot
Speaker 1: of legal work. I had when uh I was back
Speaker 1: in private practice. Sometimes like to say, the money making
Speaker 1: face of my career ended when they made me the
Speaker 1: pro bono partner of the law firm and I started.
Speaker 1: I realized how much more I like public interest work.
Speaker 1: So I've been the lawyer for niperg Straphangers campaign I
Speaker 1: had done. Uh, you know, I've been around in this
Speaker 1: sort of network of progressive activists and I had a
Speaker 1: basic support there. Yeah, and and I got a lot
Speaker 1: of encouragement and my colleagues and some of my colleagues
Speaker 1: in the Senate stepped up and really were very supportive,
Speaker 1: and that gave me the ability to make connections in
Speaker 1: other parts of the state. So it's uh. The campaign
Speaker 1: was launched and it was wild. But I must say,
Speaker 1: who was your competitor? Uh, well, Kathleen Rice, who's now
Speaker 1: in Congress with the district attorney in Nasa County at
Speaker 1: the time, Richard Brodsky, an assembly member run ran a
Speaker 1: couple of good lawyers in private practice, And compared to
Speaker 1: every other campaign I've been in, it was certainly the
Speaker 1: most stimulating and challenging. The debates were great. People would
Speaker 1: remember say, you know, and the last time we debated,
Speaker 1: you said this about the Securities Fraud Act. And then
Speaker 1: people would continue the conversations. So it was terrific that
Speaker 1: I won. I won the primary, and then the general
Speaker 1: election reverted to more typical American politics, which we didn't
Speaker 1: have much in the way of debates, and the Republican
Speaker 1: Republican opponent and who was the most Dan Donovan now
Speaker 1: congressman sort of attorney general. Did you want to be
Speaker 1: compared to your predecessors? Yeah, The New York City Train
Speaker 1: General's Office is and has been for years before I
Speaker 1: even got there. You know, one of the most extraordinary
Speaker 1: public law firms in the country, and really going back
Speaker 1: to Louis Leftwitz and Bob Abrams it it really emerged
Speaker 1: as a pre eminent advocate for consumers, for protecting the
Speaker 1: most vulnerable among us, and an impressive tradition up through
Speaker 1: Spitzer and Cuomo and and you know, making law and
Speaker 1: showing leadership. So I took over an office that had
Speaker 1: a good tradition. And but what was someone doing that
Speaker 1: you wanted that you didn't think they should be doing it?
Speaker 1: What were they not doing they should be doing? What
Speaker 1: were the sins of oe and comission? How did you
Speaker 1: want to change the office? Well, I mean, I having
Speaker 1: spent more time than my predecessors in private practice. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to use the lessons I had from the
Speaker 1: private sector. I wanted to have the best public law
Speaker 1: firm in the country. I wanted to make sure that
Speaker 1: we had we improved training, that we tore down the
Speaker 1: silos between different bureaus and established a really productive, aggressive,
Speaker 1: but collegial atmosphere. And it's just been an amazing experience
Speaker 1: building it up because you know, this great funny conversation
Speaker 1: with with Andrew, who's going to become governor, and said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna take everybody from here, because you know,
Speaker 1: I Elliott brought all these prosecutors and thought prosecutors could
Speaker 1: run everything. And then he got to Albany and realized
Speaker 1: there was nobody there and a lot of the agency.
Speaker 1: So he came back and took a lot more people.
Speaker 1: And at first that was a problem because we, you know,
Speaker 1: we had to staff up quickly. It's really remarkable in
Speaker 1: the government the United States. You get elected in November,
Speaker 1: then you have six weeks including Thanksgiving and Christmas, to
Speaker 1: hire all these people you've never met, and then you
Speaker 1: entrust your career to them. Former New York Attorney General
Speaker 1: Eric Schneiderman. Coming up, we talk about hashtag me too
Speaker 1: and New York state politics. With his resignation, new York
Speaker 1: loses a Democratic Party leader. Schneiderman understood before most members
Speaker 1: of his party the importance of state politics and its
Speaker 1: relationship to federal politics. This is Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the thing now. More from my conversation
Speaker 1: last Thursday with former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the friction between Cuomo and do
Speaker 1: Blasio is hurting either the state government or particularly the
Speaker 1: city government. I don't know how much it's it's hurting.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, I try to work with everybody,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think it's more productive to try
Speaker 1: and get along and find common ground, and uh so,
Speaker 1: you know, I encourage I encourage everyone to do that.
Speaker 1: You don't think it's hurt in the city, you know it,
Speaker 1: It maybe in some let's put it. Let's put it
Speaker 1: this way. I think it would probably be better for
Speaker 1: everyone to try and work together and find whatever common
Speaker 1: ground we can, because quite honestly, we're in a moment
Speaker 1: of history where the biggest challenge we face from the
Speaker 1: federal government and so um, you know, it's a good
Speaker 1: time to be putting aside other more parochial issues. And
Speaker 1: there are people banding together remarkably. Uh, some folks who
Speaker 1: might disagree on a lot of things, but understand the
Speaker 1: level of threat we're under to our constitutional structure and
Speaker 1: the rule of law. And we have I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of the work that we've done assembling a coalition to
Speaker 1: really form the core of the legal resistance to bad
Speaker 1: public policies that spew out of Washington. Once the update
Speaker 1: on the estate on the writing off your state income taxes,
Speaker 1: what's the update on Well, we've we've they've passed some
Speaker 1: laws in all many to create some workarounds. They will
Speaker 1: be challenged and we'll we'll see where they will be
Speaker 1: will or they'll be challenged by some you know, taxpayer
Speaker 1: group or something, and I'll defend defending them in court. Uh. Look,
Speaker 1: that's the The tax bill was a dagger in the
Speaker 1: back of New York State and other states, states and
Speaker 1: other states, and we have to deal with it. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's an important thing to understand the context
Speaker 1: we're in. We're in a historical moment where their efforts
Speaker 1: underway to undermine a lot of the basic components in
Speaker 1: my view of our constitutional structure, and this is a
Speaker 1: test of our the federalist constitutional fabric we have. State
Speaker 1: and local governments have tremendous power reserved to them under
Speaker 1: our constitutional system. And this is a time when you're
Speaker 1: seeing it's an ear of what I call progressive federalism,
Speaker 1: where you're seeing states eyes up. And in my view,
Speaker 1: the coalition of state attorneys general that I'm a part
Speaker 1: of is more of more of an effective check on
Speaker 1: access as the administration than the Democrats in Congress. They
Speaker 1: try to do what they can, but they're in the minority.
Speaker 1: I hope they'll be in the majority. But over the
Speaker 1: last year and a half, my office and other attorneys
Speaker 1: general's office is really emerged as a bulwark of our
Speaker 1: constitutional structure against bad public policies that spew out of
Speaker 1: Washington like to breede from some toxic volcano. Is it
Speaker 1: time in your mind having lived in New York and
Speaker 1: you're in New York, but you worked in Albany for
Speaker 1: the state to give back control of the city to
Speaker 1: the city. By and large, the city runs itself. But
Speaker 1: it's important to understand, and this is really important to
Speaker 1: understanding the Trump era for everyone to get the basic
Speaker 1: unit of the United States of America is and has
Speaker 1: always been the state. The states created the federal government,
Speaker 1: States create local governments. Every state in the Union has
Speaker 1: ultimate power over local governments and that is something that
Speaker 1: can of it has figured out a long time ago
Speaker 1: and invested a tremendous amount in taking over state governments.
Speaker 1: As of the election, Republicans control thirty four of the
Speaker 1: fifty governorships, sixty nine and the nine nine state legislative chambers,
Speaker 1: and that gave them a huge advantage, which I think
Speaker 1: was a factor that people do not paid enough attention
Speaker 1: to in the loss in the Trump Clinton election. States
Speaker 1: control who votes. A dozen states passed voter suppression laws
Speaker 1: between fourteen that cost Hillary Clinton many more votes. And
Speaker 1: I think that there were in a period now districting,
Speaker 1: they control reapportionment, they and so, and state legislatures are
Speaker 1: the bench for Congress, so it's there's a tremendous advantage there. Now,
Speaker 1: I feel that there is a transformation going on in
Speaker 1: among the electorate. People are getting more active and people
Speaker 1: are focusing in more on state issues. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had a special election in a swing state Senate seat
Speaker 1: April four in Westchester, and they had thousands of volunteers
Speaker 1: us to run santy campaigns we never had. We didn't
Speaker 1: have hundreds of volunteers, much less thousands of volunteers. So
Speaker 1: I feel that we're in a time where there's a
Speaker 1: political movement rising up. And this is the first time
Speaker 1: since I was a kid. As I said that, I
Speaker 1: felt the level of energy we had in the late
Speaker 1: sixties and early seventies, and I think it's a great
Speaker 1: thing for the country. But the fight is going to
Speaker 1: really be much more at the state level. Um that
Speaker 1: we will fight to control Congress, but the real battle
Speaker 1: is taking back state governments of the governor has given
Speaker 1: this mayor of the autonomy that he wants, not always,
Speaker 1: but but you know, if you look at it, there
Speaker 1: really are not that many major points of contention. I
Speaker 1: think it gets it gets a lot of attention because
Speaker 1: of the press. Sense is the sort of personal animosity,
Speaker 1: But in terms of public policy, people work together as
Speaker 1: day to day people work together a lot more than
Speaker 1: than many things. Yeah, you, in my lifetime, one of
Speaker 1: the things that was always among the headline grabbing activities
Speaker 1: of the States Attorney Attorney General was fighting organized crime,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, is organized crime pretty much dead in
Speaker 1: New York now? Is the mafia gone? Well, no, there's
Speaker 1: still organized crime, and we have an organized crime task
Speaker 1: Force that works with mostly with smaller jurisdictions where they
Speaker 1: don't have the resources to deal with it. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of different It's much more diffuse than it was.
Speaker 1: You don't have the old style five families controlling everything
Speaker 1: going on anymore. But you have a lot of gangs
Speaker 1: and a lot of multi ethnic gangs, different different you know.
Speaker 1: The issues that we deal with now are things like
Speaker 1: drug trafficking and gun trafficking. We have done more work
Speaker 1: on issues related to guns in the office has ever
Speaker 1: done in the past. But yeah, they're still gang activity.
Speaker 1: It's not like the old the old Godfather. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that that I understand. I mean, an obvious subject to
Speaker 1: talk about in a city like New York. But I
Speaker 1: was told there's a kind of kind of an embargo
Speaker 1: on this for you about talking about the me too.
Speaker 1: You've had for enough to talk about that subject, correct.
Speaker 1: We have an investigation into the Weinstein companies that are
Speaker 1: involved with a variety of matters related to that, so
Speaker 1: you can't touch on that. I mean, look, the movement
Speaker 1: is extraordinary. I think it's changing the conversation. It is
Speaker 1: a part of what I see is this moment of
Speaker 1: social transformation and of the emergence of a new political movement.
Speaker 1: But it's, uh, you know, that's a whole other podcast.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the an noown's been by Cynthia
Speaker 1: Nixon that she's going to run? I mean, many many
Speaker 1: people feel that a lot of women are coming to
Speaker 1: the fork because this is at the time that there's
Speaker 1: always been a relatively low percentage of people running for
Speaker 1: office who are women. I mean, comparatively speaking, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's improved over the years, but people really feel that
Speaker 1: now as a uniquely special time. I mean, I know Cynthia,
Speaker 1: I've worked with Cynthia. If you work in this business,
Speaker 1: you worship Cynthia as one of the most talented actress
Speaker 1: is alive. I mean, she really is this phenomen the
Speaker 1: talented woman to such integrity and honesty just as an actress.
Speaker 1: I just have to say that she's just so remarkable.
Speaker 1: But most people agree in the Money Talks realm, he's
Speaker 1: so loaded with money. Uh does that alone? You know,
Speaker 1: this is a very quixotic thing for her. Why do
Speaker 1: you think she would do that? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: do think that we're seeing a lot more new people
Speaker 1: running for office than we have seen before. I think
Speaker 1: that it's on traditional people, nontraditional people who haven't worked
Speaker 1: their way up through the political system. I mean, in
Speaker 1: some places we have some congressional districts where we haven't. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it seems like we have too many candidates Democrats who
Speaker 1: all want to run from some extraordinary backgrounds. But I
Speaker 1: think it's a part of this change. I have look,
Speaker 1: I worked for years to try and get people involved
Speaker 1: in politics. When I was in the State Senate with
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly democratic state Republicans still held the majority, I tried
Speaker 1: to get major national Democratic donors to help us out.
Speaker 1: No one was interested in the state Senate, and that
Speaker 1: has transfer formed since Trump got elected. I feel that
Speaker 1: this was what it took to get people awake off
Speaker 1: the sidelines, energized the proliferation of all these hundreds of
Speaker 1: indivisible groups all over New York State. I meet with
Speaker 1: them and other organizations, and the all of this new
Speaker 1: infrastructure that has risen up in the last year and
Speaker 1: a half is phenomenal, and it is we are starting
Speaker 1: to get to the point where we can actually compete
Speaker 1: with the Conservatives. And there amazing infrastructure they built over
Speaker 1: thirty years. They invest first in infrastructure. They will make
Speaker 1: sure the American political infrastructure that Harry's Foundation, the American
Speaker 1: no political infrastructure, that's right, the American Enterprise Institute, Competitive
Speaker 1: Enterprise Institute. They've created this great infrastructure. We now see
Speaker 1: in a very different way because it's much more decentralized.
Speaker 1: The emergence of a political infrastructure that can counterbalance that.
Speaker 1: And people are interested in running for office, people in
Speaker 1: supporting candidates for office again. State Senate special election April.
Speaker 1: Democrats didn't used to even show up for special elections.
Speaker 1: Thousands of volunteers and and I wipe out victory. So
Speaker 1: I think, who's the head of the state party now, Well,
Speaker 1: the governors are ahead of the state party. There were
Speaker 1: a chairman of there's no persons, yes Byron Brown. The
Speaker 1: micro buffalo is a chair of Judy Hope. I worked
Speaker 1: with Judy Hope and she was running when she was
Speaker 1: when she was the chair to get Chuck elected to
Speaker 1: get Hillo reelected, and and look, it's it's a fascinating time.
Speaker 1: And increasingly, you know, I'm doing work for candidates from
Speaker 1: other states and helping speaking at fundraisers in New York
Speaker 1: for candidates from other states. A lot more interest in
Speaker 1: state races than there ever was. We got terrific people
Speaker 1: running for attorney general and states around the country, and
Speaker 1: special initiative as you just relating to what you just said,
Speaker 1: Um of the Democratic Attorney General's Association to recruit more
Speaker 1: women to run. So I think that there is there's
Speaker 1: a lot of energy out there, a lot of desire
Speaker 1: to have non traditional candidates run for office, and it's
Speaker 1: a good thing. I want to just do a couple
Speaker 1: of quick ones and try to get a quick answer
Speaker 1: to these. Is there anything you think can be done?
Speaker 1: Is is there something you guys are working on now
Speaker 1: that can affect the homeless issue here in the city,
Speaker 1: Because you do well public policy that way, don't you.
Speaker 1: We do because we have a Tenant Protection Task Force
Speaker 1: and one of the things we are working on, and
Speaker 1: this is in conjunction with both the city and state
Speaker 1: agency all working together to try and ensure that housing
Speaker 1: is supposed to be affordable, rent regulated is maintained and
Speaker 1: that there there are not unscrupulous landlords trying to gain
Speaker 1: the system force people out of their homes so they
Speaker 1: can take take apartments out of rent regulated status. So
Speaker 1: preserving affordable housing is an ongoing struggle because the upside
Speaker 1: is so huge, the difference now between a rent regulated
Speaker 1: apartment and if you can get it out into the
Speaker 1: free market. It creates a strong incentive for an unscrupulous
Speaker 1: landlord to do that. But I think you can see
Speaker 1: a lot of different federal and state actors, including our office,
Speaker 1: engaged in the project. One of the challenges we face
Speaker 1: now like is that with the federal government in the
Speaker 1: hands of people who are committed to a very radical
Speaker 1: form of conservatism, you're not going to see big housing
Speaker 1: programs or big transportation programs coming out of the federal government.
Speaker 1: So the challenge again falls to those of us at
Speaker 1: the state level more and more to fill that gap.
Speaker 1: We say in my office often that our three tasks
Speaker 1: in the Trump era are to fill in where the
Speaker 1: federal government falls back if they won't enforce not sitting
Speaker 1: around waiting for Jeff Sessions to start enforcing civil rights laws,
Speaker 1: we enforce civil rights right, we fill in where they
Speaker 1: fall back. We fight back when the federal government is
Speaker 1: attacking the people we represent, whether it's sanctuary cities or
Speaker 1: withdrawing protections from LGBT students, failure to enforce environmental laws,
Speaker 1: and tided efforts by Pruitt and a company to dial
Speaker 1: back environmentalism. We sued them. The Times did the story
Speaker 1: in December, marking my one legal action against the administration,
Speaker 1: and we're way past that by now. And we are
Speaker 1: joined by other attorneys general, lawyers for local governments, public
Speaker 1: interest lawyers, lawyal firms doing pro bona work. Law schools
Speaker 1: are sending us their students. The legal resistance that is
Speaker 1: developed over last year and a half is something I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of. What what with that? The third one
Speaker 1: you were saying and the third the third one fill
Speaker 1: in fight back, and the third one is we have
Speaker 1: to show the way to move ahead. We can't just
Speaker 1: be against something and smart progressive governance is going to
Speaker 1: be modeled at the state level, So models for reforming
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system are going to happen at the
Speaker 1: state Level's mass incarceration an issue for you, It's a
Speaker 1: huge issue. For me, since I worked in the prison
Speaker 1: between college and law school, I've been and I watched. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, let's go from a country with maybe three
Speaker 1: or four hundred thousand people in jails and prisons all
Speaker 1: over the America to have two point five million a
Speaker 1: decade or so ago. And now the tide is turning
Speaker 1: very dramatically, and in New York we are bringing our
Speaker 1: prison population down while the crime rate goes down. That's
Speaker 1: the future. This is a failed act, is a failed
Speaker 1: national experiment in mass incarceration. It doesn't make us safer,
Speaker 1: and I think that people are waking up to that.
Speaker 1: Most Americans think there are too many people in prison. Now.
Speaker 1: Whatever the Conservatives push on this issue, I think they're
Speaker 1: losing that war. Three quick bullet points. One is now
Speaker 1: that I have the Attorney General of the State of
Speaker 1: New York here explained. Does Trump have a pardon power
Speaker 1: over people convicted of state crimes and state courts? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: the president can pardon for federal offenses. Uh. You can't
Speaker 1: pardon for state crimes. But because New York has a
Speaker 1: the most restrictive double jeopardy statute in the country, that
Speaker 1: means that if someone gets to the eve of trial
Speaker 1: and the President pardons them. Under New York's statute, we
Speaker 1: would not be able to go after them for a state.
Speaker 1: We have proposed to uh modify the double jeopardy statute
Speaker 1: has been modified quite a few times in the past
Speaker 1: to enable us to pursue people who we don't want
Speaker 1: to interfere with the regular presidential clemency importance that come
Speaker 1: usually after someone has served a lot of time in prison.
Speaker 1: But were we are concerned that we should change the
Speaker 1: statu you to prevent essentially preemptive partons, partons where someone
Speaker 1: doesn't ever serve a day in jail. So it doesn't
Speaker 1: serve a day in jail, but it gets often because
Speaker 1: of the way that our statute operates. It functionally gives
Speaker 1: Trump the ability to block state prosecutions as well as
Speaker 1: federal prosecutions, and that's something that we're out to change.
Speaker 1: So we've got legislation in the Assembly and the Senate,
Speaker 1: we've got sponsors, and we're moving aggressively to try and
Speaker 1: get that past the session. You've got a myriad of responsibility.
Speaker 1: You've got such a complex job. What are there ever
Speaker 1: time that material comes across your desk, A case and
Speaker 1: issue something that really moves you, that really is important
Speaker 1: to you. And I called it the moment where you
Speaker 1: turn to your office, close the door and you like
Speaker 1: sit there with a file and to start reading and
Speaker 1: reading and just immerse yourself in something is deeply personal
Speaker 1: to you. What would be an example of that, you
Speaker 1: would site, Oh yeah, what issue? There are cases that
Speaker 1: that come our way that where the facts are really devastating.
Speaker 1: And you know, look some of these UH cases that
Speaker 1: we take on and my capacity as a special prosecutor
Speaker 1: when UH un armed civilians die in contact with police officers.
Speaker 1: A lot of these cases are tragedies. Whether the cops
Speaker 1: did anything wrong or not. There are people who didn't
Speaker 1: it didn't deserve to die. And and most of the
Speaker 1: circumstances reflect poverty, often drug and alcohol abuse. Just again
Speaker 1: reminding me of my days back in the jail. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people living in really tragic circumstances.
Speaker 1: Cases that relate to UH children UH move me deeply
Speaker 1: when we get cases where you have UH child abuse,
Speaker 1: we have trafficking cases. I have to say that the
Speaker 1: our our inquiry into what happened at the Weinstein companies
Speaker 1: was like taking a taking a swim in a sewer,
Speaker 1: and we still that's still an ongoing matter. So there
Speaker 1: are cases that get to me personally and affect me.
Speaker 1: I think the the nice thing about this work is
Speaker 1: very often we have a lot of creative lawyers working
Speaker 1: for me and incredibly proud of our team. We can
Speaker 1: think of ways to address issues that sometimes allude to others.
Speaker 1: We try and be as creative as possible. That means
Speaker 1: sometimes like we take on cases that are hard to win.
Speaker 1: But I'm not someone who is a prosecutor looks to
Speaker 1: have a batting average. We're willing to try some things
Speaker 1: that are that are harder in order to do justice.
Speaker 1: But we're the oversight board or whatever it is. The
Speaker 1: oversight group here in New York with the police Department
Speaker 1: announced that they want to try to have more transparency
Speaker 1: and hass been this back and forth with them. Uh,
Speaker 1: what influence does the State Attorney General operation have on
Speaker 1: the Police Department of the City of New York. There's
Speaker 1: is no way you can affect that the city agents
Speaker 1: get in there with everything that in terms of contracts
Speaker 1: and everything has worked out to a fairly well with
Speaker 1: the police in terms of what they're what they're expected
Speaker 1: to do and not do in terms of transparency. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's not really something that's in our wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: We have to leave that to the city. Yeah, we do,
Speaker 1: and we work with the NYPD a lot. We deal
Speaker 1: with them in our Organized Crime Task Force and others.
Speaker 1: We're working with them on gun issues and other things.
Speaker 1: And it's and as as law enforcement agencies go in
Speaker 1: the United States, it's an incredible agency. But you know,
Speaker 1: they're always struggles about, uh, the need for transparency. And
Speaker 1: I think we've made a lot of tremendous progress. I'm
Speaker 1: keeping in mind we cut stops in first by in
Speaker 1: New York City and crime continues to go down. I
Speaker 1: mean this is this is the safest big city in America.
Speaker 1: And that reflects a lot of good work by a
Speaker 1: lot of people for many years. I'm told that there's
Speaker 1: steam coming out of the ears of your staff, your
Speaker 1: chief of staff here. But I'm assuming that in order
Speaker 1: for you to move elsewhere to the next place, to
Speaker 1: have your public service destiny, something has to happen to
Speaker 1: somebody else. There's only three statewide jobs and make sense
Speaker 1: for you, Is it's safe to say that? And no, look,
Speaker 1: I think people happy to stay where you are for
Speaker 1: the time being. Yeah, I mean, I'm running for re
Speaker 1: election now and after that spect to run a great campaign,
Speaker 1: moving around the state and helping down ballot races. And
Speaker 1: then look, I'm I'm very much committed to continuing to
Speaker 1: build and lead the legal resistance to what's going on
Speaker 1: in Washington. I'm very inspired to be a state actor
Speaker 1: in the seri of progressive and for the next couple
Speaker 1: of years and then, uh, we'll see what happens. I'm
Speaker 1: I want to get us through this four years of
Speaker 1: Trump and Pence and then uh, and then at that point,
Speaker 1: I'm really playing with house money. We've got to get
Speaker 1: through this period of national trauma and I can play
Speaker 1: a role. It's beyond anything I ever would have expected,
Speaker 1: and h I'm pleased to be doing it. We will
Speaker 1: never know what kind of impact Eric Schneiderman could have
Speaker 1: had on the elections. His resignation from his post as
Speaker 1: New York Attorney General is effective as of five pm today,
Speaker 1: Tuesday May eight. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening
Speaker 1: to Here's the thing