Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Whitney Tilson joins us
Speaker 1: and now and if you just need to know one
Speaker 1: attribute to Whitney Tilson, I'm sorry. It is the most
Speaker 1: coveted MBA distinction out there. It is a Baker scholar,
Speaker 1: which is a real deal diversity years ago, were you
Speaker 1: surprised when you were a Baker scholar? Like, were you
Speaker 1: sitting in your dorm room staring at the ceiling and
Speaker 1: they said, Whitney, good news, you're a Baker scholar. Is
Speaker 1: that how it works?
Speaker 2: Well, it's just based you know, based on your grades
Speaker 2: over two years. It's top five percent of the class.
Speaker 2: And I'd been getting mostly ones is what they call
Speaker 2: a's there, and so it wasn't completely unexpected, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it was, it was, It was. It was a real honor.
Speaker 1: The race to me is original, and that for example
Speaker 1: with Scott Stringer, with this huge liberal progressive Jewish support
Speaker 1: from Bella Absick and Jacob javits back, it seems like
Speaker 1: the Fabrican character of our political system is breaking. Who
Speaker 1: do you represent in this race?
Speaker 2: I've fed up New Yorkers. That's I got into the
Speaker 2: race because I saw a bunch of career politicians. This
Speaker 2: is back after the elections, to be fair, absolutely thirty
Speaker 2: plus years and I think the New York City is
Speaker 2: being poorly managed. It's headed in the wrong direction. And
Speaker 2: I didn't see any real change candidates in the race.
Speaker 2: And I saw how well this city was run and
Speaker 2: how well it did under Mike Bloomberg. Sort of funny
Speaker 2: here sitting on a Bloomberg show in fact, and in
Speaker 2: the eleven years since he left office, under two career politicians,
Speaker 2: and looking at a field of more career politicians. I
Speaker 2: think New Yorkers are looking for a change agent. And
Speaker 2: I'm the only one in the race. And of course
Speaker 2: Mike Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and this
Speaker 2: radio ice ratus. Here, Whitney, what's your platform? What do
Speaker 2: you want to do here? Mostly get the city's economy
Speaker 2: growing again, and we are an economic powerhouse. You mentioned
Speaker 2: how important New York is to the country. It's five
Speaker 2: percent of US GDP just in the five boroughs of
Speaker 2: New York. And when I go to all the mayoral
Speaker 2: forums and talk with all the career politicians and debate
Speaker 2: the issues, all we're debating is how to spend the
Speaker 2: tax dollars and which city program they would fund and
Speaker 2: create more spending programs. And I'm a business person and
Speaker 2: I understand our tax base comes from our economic base,
Speaker 2: from wealthy individuals, people investing, growing businesses. Everybody wants rising wages.
Speaker 2: The way to get there is growing businesses, hiring more people.
Speaker 2: So I think we can grow this economy by fifty
Speaker 2: percent in the next ten years. That's about four point
Speaker 2: one percent compounded.
Speaker 1: How does someone like Mayor till Sin speak to the
Speaker 1: constituency of someone we've had in many times, and that
Speaker 1: would be Greg Meeks of Queens. He's the leading Democrat
Speaker 1: of Queens. There's all sorts of constituencies under Congressman Queens
Speaker 1: as Congressman Meeks within Queens, how do you speak to
Speaker 1: the machine if you're an outsider.
Speaker 2: Right, I'm going directly to the voters. There is no
Speaker 2: path for a first time candidate outsider like me to
Speaker 2: win a traditional race. But keep in mind, only twenty
Speaker 2: six percent of eligible Democrats voted in the primary last time.
Speaker 2: I think the other seventy four percent a lot of
Speaker 2: them didn't vote because they didn't they just saw different
Speaker 2: flavors of career politicians. So I've got to go around
Speaker 2: the machine directly to the voters with a message of change.
Speaker 2: And if you look at voters, seventy five percent of
Speaker 2: New York City voters think the city's head in the
Speaker 2: wrong direction and clearly want change. And so I've got
Speaker 2: a position myself as the change candidate and go directly
Speaker 2: to them. You see, you need to change the tax
Speaker 2: situation in the city of New York. Well, I'm the
Speaker 2: only candidate to my knowledge who said I will not
Speaker 2: be raising taxes. The number two candidate in the polls
Speaker 2: after Governor Cuomo, is a thirty three year old socialist
Speaker 2: named Zorn Mamdani, and he just came out yesterday with
Speaker 2: an enormous tax plan to raise corporate taxes, to raise
Speaker 2: taxes on the wealthy in New York. And we already
Speaker 2: have the highest tax rate in the city, excuse me,
Speaker 2: in the country. And I think the traditional tax and
Speaker 2: spend far left plan will would be devastating and cause
Speaker 2: further flight of our wealthiest citizens who pay the bulk
Speaker 2: of our taxes, as well as our business base.
Speaker 1: What investment can we grow? People don't even know that
Speaker 1: there's a whole manufacturing heritage of the boroughs Brooklyn In all,
Speaker 1: there's the romance to one hundred years back or so.
Speaker 1: If there is business investment here, what kind of business
Speaker 1: investment is it?
Speaker 2: Well, right off the top of real estate, we have
Speaker 2: a cute housing crisis in this city, a one point
Speaker 2: four percent vacancy rate, the highest rents in the country.
Speaker 2: We're losing our working class who literally can't pay their rent.
Speaker 2: But we've erected zoning codes, environmental rules, just a stifling
Speaker 2: process to get anything built, residential and business construction as well.
Speaker 2: So that would be a huge areas.
Speaker 1: Do you find evidence of support among Democrat traditional politicians
Speaker 1: for this idea we got to fix the housing crisis
Speaker 1: in America? Or do you feel like a lone voice.
Speaker 2: Actually every candidate in the race is talking about this,
Speaker 2: but most of the traditional career politicians are falling back
Speaker 2: on their traditional nostrums of government spending, using federal dollars
Speaker 2: to build subsidized housing, and they generally speak disparagingly about
Speaker 2: those evil landlords exploiting tenants and evicting them and so forth.
Speaker 2: And my view is the opposite. With federal governments cuts
Speaker 2: likely on the way, we're gonna have to tighten our belts,
Speaker 2: and the only way, the only big pool of money
Speaker 2: to do this kind of investment's got to come from
Speaker 2: the private sector. And we need to make New York
Speaker 2: an attractive place to invest.
Speaker 1: So I'm a kid. I'm over in Switzerland. It's forced
Speaker 1: with Franks to a dollar. It's just Franks appreciated a
Speaker 1: little bit. And I'm sitting over there across the valley
Speaker 1: Velderee Veldora, and I can see Whitney tills and climbing
Speaker 1: the matter Horn. I can see him in the binaculars,
Speaker 1: just like the Disney movie that we all grew up with.
Speaker 2: What's it like?
Speaker 1: Not in the Disney movie, but Whitney Tilson. What's it
Speaker 1: actually like to climb the matter Horn?
Speaker 2: It was magnificent. I've climbed the mont Blanc, the Matterhorn,
Speaker 2: the Eiger, and then here in the United States. You know,
Speaker 2: really one of the iconic climbs of all time was
Speaker 2: the nose of El Capitan, which was featured in the
Speaker 2: movie Free Solo. But I did I did it with
Speaker 2: ropes and a guide. Uh so, you know, if I
Speaker 2: slipped and fell, I wasn't gonna I wasn't going to die.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't like the Disney movie. Yes, so you know,
Speaker 2: in some ways what I'm doing here running for mayor
Speaker 2: is a seven month extended version of some of the
Speaker 2: extreme climbing and other events I've done.
Speaker 1: What's been the biggest surprise in this effort so far.
Speaker 2: To the upside just what an incredible city this is
Speaker 2: and getting out into every corner, how how incredibly diverse
Speaker 2: this is. Our immigrants are communities are such a strength
Speaker 2: and an asset, and I think it's terrible that they're
Speaker 2: feeling terrorized right now. It's been heartbreak out and getting
Speaker 2: my name out there.
Speaker 1: Do we need more police officers? Scott Stringer was adamant
Speaker 1: we need more police officers, do we?
Speaker 2: Yes? He's right. Interestingly, also in the area of housing,
Speaker 2: but also in the area of police. A lot of
Speaker 2: the lefties are now tacking toward the center because New
Speaker 2: York voters are pretty upset.
Speaker 1: I've always spoken the last election that's the big thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But we're at a thirty four year low in
Speaker 2: the number of police officers right now in New York City.
Speaker 2: Not surprisingly, you know, crimes up thirty plus percent, the
Speaker 2: major felonies since pre pandemic, and so we need to
Speaker 2: get more officers. And thank goodness, we've now got a
Speaker 2: police commissioner, Jessica Tissue's managing them well next month.
Speaker 1: And you climb, You got to take Lisa Mateo with you,
Speaker 1: all right, And Whitney Tilson, thank you so much. In
Speaker 1: the mayor race. What many other mayor candidates in with
Speaker 1: us here