Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. We digress here to
Speaker 1: a really important interview, and I would suggest an important
Speaker 1: national interview. If we assume that we have fractured politics,
Speaker 1: is at worse in France or Japan? Hello man, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe New York City's a template for us. Joining is
Speaker 1: someone who has the attention of all within New York City?
Speaker 1: Curtis Lee? What joins us now? Candidate for mayor, always, always,
Speaker 1: forever affiliated with the GOP and the Republican candidate. First
Speaker 1: of all, I look at any kind of polling and
Speaker 1: I'm sort of surprised that you're just sub twenty percent.
Speaker 1: Have you ever polled this high? Is this a normal polling?
Speaker 2: I think at this point.
Speaker 3: I think at this point of the election cycle, yes,
Speaker 3: because they're just polling Republicans who are only ten percent
Speaker 3: of the electorate.
Speaker 2: So fucking independence that they don't pull.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they do, and I do incredibly well with them,
Speaker 3: some moderate Democrats. And then remember I have an independent
Speaker 3: line that nobody has factored in. Protect animals, no kill, shelters,
Speaker 3: animal abuses in jail, very popular with women who rescue animals,
Speaker 3: and naturally they're not heard from in the polls.
Speaker 1: I look at the New York Times. They got fancy
Speaker 1: buttons I can press. I'm not as sophisticated this curtis
Speaker 1: like Paul Sweeney is. But if I X Adams, they
Speaker 1: have a tab where I can take them out. Yet
Speaker 1: and I do the math courtiously, what plus Andrew Cuomo?
Speaker 2: Guess what?
Speaker 1: It doesn't equal Zeron Mandami, but it comes pretty close.
Speaker 1: What's the tension you see now of the summation of
Speaker 1: the governor and you with the upstart candidate of the left.
Speaker 3: We all know the Poles have been wrong every step
Speaker 3: of the way, been totally wrong.
Speaker 2: Remember two months go back to Iowa.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, that's just two months into the Democratic primary.
Speaker 3: They were preparing the coronation of andrewmo is Our next
Speaker 3: mayor forty points ahead is Zorhan Mondami. He lost by
Speaker 3: thirteen points. I look at my mentor in this rate,
Speaker 3: George Bataki on November two of nineteen ninety four against
Speaker 3: the better Cuomo Mario. They had him down by twelve points.
Speaker 3: He won by three points. The day before the election
Speaker 3: was no early voting back then. It was either a
Speaker 3: vote November fourth orraps seeing the team valor or that's it.
Speaker 3: Look at the Trump election over Harris, it was supposed
Speaker 3: to be neck and neck. He not only won the.
Speaker 2: Popular vote, he won the seven battleground states.
Speaker 3: I don't put any any trust in these polls.
Speaker 2: I know what I feel in the streets. I'm in
Speaker 2: the outer boroughs.
Speaker 3: You look, I have ten headquarters, I have signage everywhere.
Speaker 3: I don't see signage at all for Cuomo. So CMO's
Speaker 3: whole vote is based on fear. Nobody likes this guy.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows he was the author and no cash bail
Speaker 3: raised the age who wants to close rikers. He and
Speaker 3: Zoron Mondami when it comes to law and order are
Speaker 3: two peas in a pot. And then he told about prostitution.
Speaker 3: Zoron is in favor of legalized prostitution, but the governor
Speaker 3: at the time, Cuomo signed the legislation to enable people
Speaker 3: to go out into the streets and sell their bodies.
Speaker 2: So I don't see any.
Speaker 3: Differentiation at all between Cuomo and Johan Mondami.
Speaker 4: What is your message New York City residents these last
Speaker 4: days of the campaign.
Speaker 3: I am the only candidate GOP candidate that wants to
Speaker 3: slash taxes, corporate tax, income tax, especially the property tax,
Speaker 3: which a mayor does hold sway over and the Citizens
Speaker 3: Budget Commission said, I'm the only one who's talking about
Speaker 3: fiscal constraint one hundred and eighteen dollars billion budget for
Speaker 3: the city and there are no cuts.
Speaker 2: Cuomo and Zoron would actually increase it.
Speaker 3: I would take ten billion dollars right out of the
Speaker 3: Department of Education, which is all being spent on the bureaucracy,
Speaker 3: start cutting the Department of Buildings, and get fiscally reliant
Speaker 3: on people like Larry Kutler, who's my advisor, George Spattacki,
Speaker 3: who did that as governor, and then Rudy Giuliani, who
Speaker 3: is the best law and or a mayor we've ever
Speaker 3: had in the City of New York. Now those are
Speaker 3: three titans.
Speaker 1: This came up this weekend. I said, I got sleeve
Speaker 1: on Monday. They said, you got to ask him this question,
Speaker 1: Mayor Sliwa with the city council. Can you get along
Speaker 1: with the city council to get things done?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: The benefit of my life is that I spent thirteen
Speaker 3: years raising two boys with Melinda Katz, who was a
Speaker 3: city council person for twelve years, Head of Land use.
Speaker 3: She's now the Queen's Democratic DA. She taught me how
Speaker 3: you get along with city. Can't you do that? It's
Speaker 3: called discretionary funds. You go into the district, they beat
Speaker 3: you up. You meet with the staff, because the staff
Speaker 3: does all the work, remember the elected officials, because the
Speaker 3: electeds are always dialing for dollars, shaking people down for
Speaker 3: political contributions. And then you say, I just want one
Speaker 3: vote from you, and I get you your discretionary funds.
Speaker 3: You're looking for a new park, you're looking for a
Speaker 3: new playground, you're looking the.
Speaker 2: Capital list politics a trade.
Speaker 3: I get one vote that I desperately need to show
Speaker 3: that there is dialogue even with those who are considered liberal,
Speaker 3: progressive democratic socialists of America. If you don't do that,
Speaker 3: no matter who the mayor is, you're not going to
Speaker 3: be able to get the City Council in a majority
Speaker 3: way to back any of your initiatives. You'll be impotent,
Speaker 3: as Eric Adams say, is now because Adrian Adams, the
Speaker 3: Speaker of the Council, is the real mayor of the
Speaker 3: City of New York.
Speaker 4: What's your policy for which is an issue that's very
Speaker 4: closely intertwined homelessness and crime in New York City.
Speaker 2: What's your policy?
Speaker 3: Well, homelessness, I deal with emotionally disturbed in the subways
Speaker 3: because I'm the only candidate that actually rides the subways, campaigns,
Speaker 3: takes the buses, the express buses. That's six million New
Speaker 3: Yorkers and others who at one point of the day
Speaker 3: or night are using mass Trandsit I've been dubbed by
Speaker 3: the Staten Island Advance the mayor of mass Transportation. We
Speaker 3: need to get the homeless into the shelters, but we
Speaker 3: have to make the shelti shafe.
Speaker 2: Now they're not. It's like Darwinian survival of the finish.
Speaker 3: And we need to get the emotionally disturbed in state
Speaker 3: mental hospitals, the very hospitals that aew Coomo creid from
Speaker 3: forty thousand beds down to four thousand before he fled
Speaker 3: fearing impeachment to the Hamptage.
Speaker 1: And for you, Curtis Sliwa, for all of you across America,
Speaker 1: good morning. He is a Republican candidate in a fractured
Speaker 1: New York City mayoral contests. Let me quote exactly from
Speaker 1: AI because that's the way we rolled Curtis in the
Speaker 1: twoy twenty one New York City mayoral election, Kurtis Sliwa
Speaker 1: received twenty one percent of the vote in the Bronx.
Speaker 1: I would suggest President Trump stunned the nation with his
Speaker 1: minority success in the last election. Do you need that
Speaker 1: to win? How are you going to get the minority vote?
Speaker 1: And everybody thinks they don't go near you come out?
Speaker 1: You got twenty one percent in the Bronx. How do
Speaker 1: you improve that?
Speaker 3: Everybody knows that Curtis Leewa is Republican who can go
Speaker 3: into three hundred and fifteen neighborhoods in some of which
Speaker 3: the only Republican they've ever seen is Abraham Lincoln on
Speaker 3: a five dollar bill. I've led a group of Guardian
Speaker 3: Angels that are predominantly black and Hispanic. I'm polling now
Speaker 3: at about thirty percent in the Bronx. Remember, Eric Adams
Speaker 3: was supposed to be the new face of the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party that I ran again.
Speaker 1: Is mom Donnie the new face of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Well, let's face it.
Speaker 3: The Democrats allowed the fox into the chicken coop, first
Speaker 3: with Bernie Sanders and AOC and now Johan Mandami.
Speaker 2: I blame Adams. I blame Cuomo.
Speaker 3: I blame the Democratic establishment because they have surrendered their
Speaker 3: party to socialism, and I am the only one who
Speaker 3: is advocating capitalistic policies, cutting taxes, cutting the budget.
Speaker 2: Law and order.
Speaker 3: We live in a city where we're best known around
Speaker 3: the world for locking up toothpaste and not locking up criminals.
Speaker 2: Now, who does that? That's the Democrats.
Speaker 1: You got to run like fifteen times to get a
Speaker 1: line like that.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's great, locking up to do this immigration?
Speaker 4: What's your views on immigration here? This is a city
Speaker 4: that's got a history of supportive of immigration.
Speaker 2: We've got a.
Speaker 4: Statue out there in the bay there.
Speaker 2: What's your view.
Speaker 3: Well, many of the migrants now are essential workers in
Speaker 3: the restaurant industry and the hospitality industry. If you start
Speaker 3: snatching them up because they're not wanted for crimes committee
Speaker 3: either the country or origin, nor here, then you're going
Speaker 3: to be depleting that workforce. I have three sons. None
Speaker 3: of my three sons would do that kind of work. Now,
Speaker 3: you go after, as Trump called them, the bad Ombrage,
Speaker 3: the drug dealers, the sex track case, the cartel runners. Yes,
Speaker 3: and Ice was being appointed when they first did that.
Speaker 2: But your card here.
Speaker 1: Maybe Adams could say the same thing. I don't buy it,
Speaker 1: but your card is you've got a special relationship with
Speaker 1: President Trump with what we see in Chicago, Portland, LA.
Speaker 1: Give me some other towns, Paul.
Speaker 2: They're out of Portland, multiple Memphis.
Speaker 1: In New York, I know from personal experience, are scared
Speaker 1: if they're migrants, immigrants, Green card holders to go out
Speaker 1: in the street. What's your relationship with President Trump that
Speaker 1: will make New York City, not Chicago, not La.
Speaker 3: First of all, I'm leader of the Guardian Angels with
Speaker 3: groups in every one of those cities you mentioned, and
Speaker 3: they need the National guard We don't. Kathy Hockel, the
Speaker 3: governor sent a thousand National guardsmen into the subway last
Speaker 3: year when we had a crime crisis. We're okay in
Speaker 3: that regards focus on the really crime ridden cities. I
Speaker 3: would have dialogue when not only President and Trump respectfully,
Speaker 3: but the members of his cabinet. Preemptively, when you see
Speaker 3: something is coming in your direction, you've got to meet.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna win, You're gonna.
Speaker 3: Try to sort of, as we would say in Italian Medzica,
Speaker 3: megic poco poco half and half. The Trump administration will
Speaker 3: get some of what they want. Hopefully the city will
Speaker 3: get some of what they want. But when you have
Speaker 3: Zora Mandami and Andrew com saying I'm gonna fight Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: guess what You're gonna lose if you fight the President
Speaker 3: of the United States because he holds the purse strings.
Speaker 4: What do you make of the rise ofs for Mamdani here?
Speaker 3: It is simply because the Democrats were asleep, like Rumphel
Speaker 3: still skin.
Speaker 2: I saw zor On Mandami.
Speaker 3: He was out organizing votes for Democratic Socialist candidates.
Speaker 2: They know how to get their vote out.
Speaker 3: The moderate Democrats are now dependent on Republicans, Conservatives, and independents.
Speaker 3: It's over for the moderate Democrats. They've sacrificed. They've waved
Speaker 3: the white fleck. They don't even primary the liberals, Progressives,
Speaker 3: and the Democratic Socialists of America. They're afraid of them.
Speaker 3: I'm not afraid of them. I stand up to them.
Speaker 1: If we assume that mister Mumdami is getting out an
Speaker 1: original vote, I mean he's getting out people. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a stereotype of never voted before. How do you
Speaker 1: get out the sleeve of vote of Democrats? You can't
Speaker 1: do just understanding how do you get out that vote
Speaker 1: like Mamdami's getting out these.
Speaker 3: Voters because I'm out in the streets. You see the
Speaker 3: headquarters in ten neighborhoods. You see the plackets everywhere. I'm
Speaker 3: the law and order candidate. A lot of the out
Speaker 3: of Democrats for law and order, they're not fan angeel Coomo.
Speaker 2: I was in.
Speaker 1: I want you to do this. One zero zero two nine,
Speaker 1: one hundred and tenth Street, Spanish Harlem. That post office
Speaker 1: between Third and Les. You walk in that post office,
Speaker 1: everybody in there is some form of first or second
Speaker 1: generation immigrant. What do you say to those people to
Speaker 1: get them to vote for Lincoln's party?
Speaker 3: Wow? Law in Order right. They're against no cash bail.
Speaker 3: They want the raise the age lower back to sixteen
Speaker 3: because now we have all these juveniles doing drive by shootings.
Speaker 2: And they want Rikers Island kept open.
Speaker 3: Why is Cuomo and Zorahan Mandami wanting to close Rikers Island?
Speaker 2: Where are they going to put inmates.
Speaker 3: They're going to be cut loose and they're going to
Speaker 3: just terrorize people in the streets. And remember the number
Speaker 3: one number of workers in New York City of women.
Speaker 3: Talk to the women They're going the subway, being sexually harassed,
Speaker 3: they're being perved on, They're afraid to go out at night,
Speaker 3: they can't afford taking yellow cabs, ubers and lyfts, and
Speaker 3: nobody is talking about what women have to go through
Speaker 3: in New York City. I know because my wife, who's
Speaker 3: an e attorney, has explained it and has done my
Speaker 3: very first commercial about the plight of women being victims
Speaker 3: of random attacks. What random attacks? This is being directed
Speaker 3: at women and they're not being protected.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talk about financial support. What financial
Speaker 1: support do you have for the next twenty day dash
Speaker 1: to the election.
Speaker 3: I have collected actually in the three the last three
Speaker 3: quarters average donation one hundred and nineteen dollars more matching
Speaker 3: funds than Johann Mandami, Cuomo and Eric Adams combined. We're
Speaker 3: talking about donations from New York City residents. The others
Speaker 3: are getting their money from out of state. I would
Speaker 3: take the money of the local New Yorker who obviously
Speaker 3: is putting their reputation on the line when I'm getting
Speaker 3: an eight to one match and I'm on TV, and
Speaker 3: I'm in the neighborhoods, and to have the money.
Speaker 2: To run a campaign people want.
Speaker 1: Our news reporters want to know. Are you even considering
Speaker 1: dropping out the shift this campaign?
Speaker 3: You know what, talk to the dropout King who dropped
Speaker 3: out against Carma Coll running for governor, Andrew Cuomo, who
Speaker 3: dropped out and fled to the Hamptons because he feared
Speaker 3: impeachment Andrew Cuomo. Did Donald Trump flee to mar A
Speaker 3: Lago because he feed impeachment? Did Donald Trump flee to
Speaker 3: mar A Lago because he was a victim of law
Speaker 3: fair by Alvin Bragg and Tiss James. No, he showed
Speaker 3: up in court each and every day. Calmo is a coward.
Speaker 3: He's the only one who's ever dropped out.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining Bloomberg this morning, Curtis Lee. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, may Oral Kennedy here. We hope to get
Speaker 1: all of the candidates in here. As we dashed the
Speaker 1: first Tuesday of November,