Speaker 1: Wait that ans up in the morning Breakfast Club. Morning.
Speaker 1: Everybody is DJ Envy Angela Yee, Charlemagne the guy. We
Speaker 1: are to Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
Speaker 1: the building. He's a candidate for governor of New York
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. We have Lee zeld in here. Good morning, Hey,
Speaker 1: good Morning's great to be with you. How are you feeling.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great. It's great to be the guys. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Yeah. Man, you know Leah interesting because
Speaker 1: it seems like you know how to stir things up
Speaker 1: in a good way, and I guess for some in
Speaker 1: a bad way because you got attacked recently and dash
Speaker 1: Bell got something in common, right, Yeah, well were you?
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna come save me. I was
Speaker 1: up there on the stage all by myself. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on. So it happened over this past weekend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: over in Chautauqua County. You have this author who has
Speaker 1: given a speech and he gets attacked. He ends up
Speaker 1: getting stabs. Yeah. Crazy. So I was given a speech
Speaker 1: on stage and someone came up, and you know, fortunately
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of people there who were able
Speaker 1: to jump in and subdue the guy. Yeah, I'm someone
Speaker 1: who believes that there's no place for political violence. If
Speaker 1: you want to if you want to support any candidate
Speaker 1: you want, you should be able to go to a rally.
Speaker 1: I don't care whether you're the candidate, you're someone in
Speaker 1: stage there. Once you feel safe, bring your ideas, your energy.
Speaker 1: You could disagree. This is America. Um, but I mean
Speaker 1: I was just reminded of it again just a few
Speaker 1: days ago with what happened with someone Rushdi. Do you
Speaker 1: know what it was that set this guy off? Like
Speaker 1: what like, what were you saying? What was the rhetoric?
Speaker 1: So what was wild? Well, for one household that he
Speaker 1: was drinking. So as he's coming up on the stage,
Speaker 1: I see two things at the same time. One is
Speaker 1: I see him wearing a hat that says Operation Iraqi
Speaker 1: Freedom Veteran, which for me means you drop your guard.
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly be less on guard when someone says
Speaker 1: that they're a veteran to me. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that he has this similar to brass knuckles
Speaker 1: in his hand. Uh. There was a couple of sharp
Speaker 1: pointed edges of it, and so he's lifting his arm
Speaker 1: up towards me. At the same time that I'm seeing him,
Speaker 1: he's wearing his hat that says he's a veteran. The
Speaker 1: veteran thing goes out out the window when you see
Speaker 1: brass knuckles, right and now, So when I was when
Speaker 1: I was younger, and I could thank my mother for this,
Speaker 1: and one of my former commanders from the from the
Speaker 1: A second Airborne Division was upset that I wasn't given
Speaker 1: my military training enough credit. But when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I did karate, so I'm a black belt did taekwondo,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that we did in the
Speaker 1: training was that someone come at you with a knife
Speaker 1: towards your face, and you step out of the way,
Speaker 1: you grab the rist. Some folks in self defense, they
Speaker 1: think that if if a sharp object comes at you,
Speaker 1: you should somehow go after that sharp object. If you
Speaker 1: can gain control of their wrists, then you are able
Speaker 1: to gain control of that knife or whatever they have
Speaker 1: in their hands. So just the first thing was just
Speaker 1: grab his wrist real quick, and like a moment later
Speaker 1: seven eight nine people all jumped in. But he's a veteran.
Speaker 1: He I'm told that he has some mental health issues.
Speaker 1: That's most important for me, closest to my heart is
Speaker 1: that there is good there's a great veteran service agency
Speaker 1: in Monroe County. Get this guy some help because he
Speaker 1: clearly is struggling with some stuff. Does that discourage you
Speaker 1: from even one to continue to campaign? Like? Is it
Speaker 1: worth five? Stuff like that, it's gonna happen. You haven't
Speaker 1: even not at all. I was actually behind the stage
Speaker 1: right after this was going on. Some naskm or are
Speaker 1: you gonna go back on stage? Of course, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go back on stage. I had thirteen more rallies in
Speaker 1: thirteen counties scheduled over the next few days, and people
Speaker 1: were saying, well, you're gonna keep doing your rallies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep our rallies. And security increased a little bit,
Speaker 1: so the United States Capitol police, state troopers, local law enforcement,
Speaker 1: they all have been talking a little bit more than
Speaker 1: in the past, and that the security ramped up the
Speaker 1: next morning and we've only actually had one one issue,
Speaker 1: but after that and after that, so I was last weekend,
Speaker 1: I was up in Clinton County and I'm at a bar.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a meet and greet with a
Speaker 1: big group of people. But the public was there, not
Speaker 1: just people who were friendlies. So there was somebody. There
Speaker 1: was a group of four right behind me, and they
Speaker 1: were drinking, and somebody overheard this guy introduced his fifteen
Speaker 1: year old son to me. So this woman starts to
Speaker 1: making comments because I have identical fifteen year old girls,
Speaker 1: says some things that uh were inappropriate, and then she
Speaker 1: starts like grabbing my arm a little bit. I'll push away,
Speaker 1: move over in the conversations. Like five minutes later and
Speaker 1: I am nowhere near her. She like she passes by,
Speaker 1: She's like get out of my way. She's like walking
Speaker 1: or walking outside, and she just had like a crumpled
Speaker 1: up like napkin. She's you know, like like a foot
Speaker 1: away and she throws it and hits the side of
Speaker 1: my face and walks out. And the people I'm talking
Speaker 1: to her like like, what what just happened? Lee? Need security?
Speaker 1: Yeah that's true. Lee. I'm starting to think as you
Speaker 1: impact on, well, you know what's wild. So, like, you know,
Speaker 1: we see the stories of members of Congress who there's
Speaker 1: some type of a threat and then it makes national
Speaker 1: news that that person ended up with some kind of
Speaker 1: a threat. Every time I read one of those worries.
Speaker 1: The thing that strikes me is that the public doesn't
Speaker 1: even realize how many other stories that just never get reported.
Speaker 1: When stuff happens to me, I don't put a press release.
Speaker 1: I've had I've had an intruder in my house. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've had some things. We were not there during his campaign,
Speaker 1: before campaign, but as a member of Congress. So the
Speaker 1: person ended up getting arrested. We have security cameras in
Speaker 1: the house, and he claimed in his defense, and he
Speaker 1: had you know, he had some prior records too, which
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons why law enforcement was able
Speaker 1: to find him, because they recognized his face through their database. Uh.
Speaker 1: He claimed that he was just coming in my house
Speaker 1: to warm up. But um, from some of the things
Speaker 1: that you know, we're moved around inside of the house
Speaker 1: and some of that activity, it's hard to believe that
Speaker 1: he was there just to warm himself up. A look
Speaker 1: of something in particular some documents. Was it like the
Speaker 1: Marlin Donald Trump? Was he? You know, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not sure honestly. You know, he just immediately said I
Speaker 1: was only in there to warm up. As soon as
Speaker 1: the as soon as law enforcement asked the first question,
Speaker 1: he had his story down and that was that. But
Speaker 1: I'll tell you, like, the list goes on of other
Speaker 1: crazy things that have happened through the years. But it
Speaker 1: happens to a lot of members of Congress on both sides. Yeah, Republican, Democrat,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, and we want people that to step up participate.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who serve like they're members
Speaker 1: of Congress and Republicans. They might think that Democrats all
Speaker 1: have you know, like horns coming out their head. Democrats
Speaker 1: might think, you know, vice versa. And and actually, when
Speaker 1: you get to know people in Congress, like we're sitting
Speaker 1: on the floor of the House of Representatives, we have
Speaker 1: conversations where a lot of us get along very well
Speaker 1: with each other. But what happens it was social media.
Speaker 1: People can show like their worst part of human nature
Speaker 1: on social media, could do it anonymously, they don't have
Speaker 1: to put their real name to it, and it's it's
Speaker 1: some evil stuff. My daughters they turned they start eleventh
Speaker 1: grade next month, they're turning sixteen next month. They're not
Speaker 1: yet on social media good and yeah, were so far,
Speaker 1: so good, um, and you know, they haven't put up
Speaker 1: much of a fight on it. But I was. There
Speaker 1: was one time I was at a local high school
Speaker 1: not that long ago, and you were doing some Q
Speaker 1: and A, and I was getting a little bit of engagement,
Speaker 1: not much, And then I asked them a question, and
Speaker 1: I said, my daughters. I think in the time they
Speaker 1: were like thirteen. I said, do you have any advice
Speaker 1: for me as to when my daughters should go on
Speaker 1: social media? All of them like their hands go open
Speaker 1: the air. Never They were all saying, do not allow
Speaker 1: your kids on social media. And actually some of the
Speaker 1: kids in that class who were most engaged in that
Speaker 1: conversation were the kids who might be the ones who
Speaker 1: are getting targeted with bullying inside of that school. So
Speaker 1: I mean I took it to heart. I mean I've
Speaker 1: seen it on social media. So yeah, my daughters will
Speaker 1: not get on it. So safe to say, you know,
Speaker 1: if you become governor in the year, you're gonna loosen
Speaker 1: up those gun laws for protection purposes. Well, listen, there
Speaker 1: are two different kinds of people on the streets right now.
Speaker 1: There's there's the person who is out there you know,
Speaker 1: there's illegal guns. There's there's people coming a crime after
Speaker 1: crime after crime. This system has them still out on
Speaker 1: the streets. It's just not yet working to keep the
Speaker 1: streets safe. And then there are people who are law
Speaker 1: abiding New Yorkers, law abiding Americans who want to safely
Speaker 1: and securely carry a firearm solely for self defense. I
Speaker 1: do not look at these two people the same way.
Speaker 1: So any idea that anybody has to go after any
Speaker 1: type of gun crimes. And we have a lot of
Speaker 1: different crimes that we just saw this story that happened
Speaker 1: with the taxi driver over the weekend, you know, and
Speaker 1: the slashing we're just talking about salmon rushdie. There's so
Speaker 1: many different types of crimes that are being committed. But
Speaker 1: to the extent that we're talking about gun crimes, a
Speaker 1: lot of them are getting committed with illegal guns, and
Speaker 1: a lot of these people are repeat offenders, and the
Speaker 1: system is just not working to go after them. So
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? Because you see a
Speaker 1: lot of I don't want to say innocent people, but
Speaker 1: people trying to defend themselves going jail right because here
Speaker 1: you are, you know, you can walk out the station
Speaker 1: right now, right people are looking to rob you. You
Speaker 1: can't defend yourself, there's no cops around. And then these
Speaker 1: people do get arrested, Like you said, they come out
Speaker 1: the next day. So what do you do to change that?
Speaker 1: How do you make New York safer again? So I
Speaker 1: look at it three different ways. One is the laws,
Speaker 1: the DA's the judges. Okay, So as far as the
Speaker 1: laws go, someone would make an argument for cashule's bail
Speaker 1: saying that if you commit a low level offense, you
Speaker 1: don't have a prior record, you're not dangerous, you're not
Speaker 1: a flight risk, and the only reason why you would
Speaker 1: have to stay behind bars is because you cannot afford
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars in bail. Okay, that's a great example
Speaker 1: as to somebody who should be released. Now, you're two
Speaker 1: Mexican cartel drug smugglers who a month ago got busted
Speaker 1: in Inwood with one point two million dollars worth of
Speaker 1: crystal meth, instantly released on cashless bail. I would offer
Speaker 1: that your argument to create this cashule's bail law is
Speaker 1: not working. If those two Mexican cartel drug smugglers are
Speaker 1: back out on the streets, I don't feel bad for
Speaker 1: them if they can't afford their bail. They're bad drug dealers,
Speaker 1: they're bad businessmen, they're bad criminals. So that's one piece,
Speaker 1: and there's more to it as far as the laws go.
Speaker 1: So you believe in Cash's bill, if it's for a
Speaker 1: low level, judges should have discretion to weigh dangerousness and
Speaker 1: flight risk past criminal record, seriousness of the offense, because
Speaker 1: in the case like we were just talking about, that
Speaker 1: person shouldn't be stuck behind bars solely because they can't
Speaker 1: afford one hundred dollars worth of billy. If they would
Speaker 1: have had the money and been able to get out
Speaker 1: on bail, then they should still be able to be released. Well,
Speaker 1: So there are examples where I don't think that should
Speaker 1: be the determining factors whether or not taking a four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars But I would say that there are all
Speaker 1: sorts of cases, Like there was somebody who's released on arson,
Speaker 1: re arrested on Cashulo's bill, re arrested on a double
Speaker 1: manslaughter up in Yonkers. There was a person released on
Speaker 1: Cashul's bail up in Syracuse who I don't think should
Speaker 1: have been who ended up murdering ninety three year old
Speaker 1: Connie Tory. There are what about the guy who attacked
Speaker 1: too because he got let up. Yeah, it's a great example,
Speaker 1: I see. I believe in that case that the judge
Speaker 1: should have discretion to look at the factors here. Now
Speaker 1: you can actually argue, and I would too, that in
Speaker 1: that particular case, you're doing a disservice to that person
Speaker 1: who had attacked me on stage because one, he was drunk,
Speaker 1: that's what at least that's what I was told and
Speaker 1: interacted with him much more in that couple seconds. And
Speaker 1: also he had mental health issues. So let's just say
Speaker 1: instead of rushing to release him in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, I got an email like two thirty in
Speaker 1: the morning saying he's released. Let's say it's seven thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning next day. Monroe County Veteran Service Agency.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, I've been told that that they're great.
Speaker 1: I've interacted with them a little bit. It's seven thirty.
Speaker 1: You call up the head of the Veteran Service Agency
Speaker 1: and say, hey, on your way into the office, do
Speaker 1: you think you could come to this location. I have
Speaker 1: this veteran who seems like he's in deep trouble. He
Speaker 1: may end up getting released here at some point today
Speaker 1: or tomorrow or the next day, and it would be
Speaker 1: helpful if you can come in here and act with him.
Speaker 1: Tell them about some of the services I have. I'm
Speaker 1: in my twentieth year right now in the army. I've
Speaker 1: lost more friends due to PTSD than I have lost
Speaker 1: friends in combat. And there are veterans who don't realize
Speaker 1: they feel isolated alone. There's somebody who lives around the
Speaker 1: block from them who's willing to drop the stranger, willing
Speaker 1: to drop everything in a moment's notice at two o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning to help that veteran in need. The
Speaker 1: person doesn't realize that. Now you go to places for help.
Speaker 1: Some these medical providers think that the answer is medication,
Speaker 1: Just give medication, but that's not that's not the solution.
Speaker 1: Here a peer to peer support model that works. You
Speaker 1: put veterans with other veterans or someone trained to run
Speaker 1: that that that conversation to get them help, to be
Speaker 1: able to speak anonymously to other people who might be
Speaker 1: fellow veterans going through what they're going through. There's outside
Speaker 1: the box ways to help service animals, fly, fishing, training
Speaker 1: wild horses. I've heard so many sess stories of outside
Speaker 1: the box unconventional way not involving medicine, where veterans are
Speaker 1: able to deal with their with the mental wounds of
Speaker 1: war without getting medicated, and you know, not losing their life,
Speaker 1: not losing their job, not losing their family. So I
Speaker 1: would say, like in that particular example, it's a disservice
Speaker 1: to that veteran that you released him two thirty in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and you don't even know
Speaker 1: where he's going. I agree. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to turn these facilities in the actual correctional facilities.
Speaker 1: You know they're gonna be called correctional facilities. Let's actually
Speaker 1: try to correct some people, give them mental healthcare, you know,
Speaker 1: help them get clean, whatever it is. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: you can't paint everybody with one broad brush. There people
Speaker 1: who are on our streets right now who are making
Speaker 1: a personal decision to be out on our streets. And
Speaker 1: you could say, hey, listen that there's a shelter to
Speaker 1: go to, and they're just choosing not to. Maybe they
Speaker 1: even have a home that they're choosing not to go to.
Speaker 1: People need help with drug addiction, with alcohol addiction. It's
Speaker 1: not all one size fits all. Some people they're in
Speaker 1: ninth or tenth grade, they're deciding whether or not to
Speaker 1: even go to class here, that's starting up in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and the diploma isn't worth enough right now.
Speaker 1: In New York, I believe that a diploma shouldn't just
Speaker 1: be a ticket to a college. A diploma should be
Speaker 1: a ticket to a good paying job waiting for you
Speaker 1: the next day. So that means that in grade school
Speaker 1: and high school, you get your hands on equipment, you
Speaker 1: get experience, you network with local trades unions, and then
Speaker 1: if you're in ninth or tenth grade, you're deciding whether
Speaker 1: or not to go to class. If you're saying yourself,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to college, but you are saying yourself
Speaker 1: that I have a dream. This is what I want
Speaker 1: my life to look like. You will have a good
Speaker 1: paying job waiting for you the next day if you
Speaker 1: graduate now. In New York City, we have a lot
Speaker 1: of poor performing public schools here, but we also have
Speaker 1: some great schools as well. I want all schools to
Speaker 1: get better, and I believe that in New York State
Speaker 1: we should lift a cap on charter schools. We should
Speaker 1: have parents where, especially when your kids stuck in multigenerational poverty,
Speaker 1: you should have access to a better performing school. The
Speaker 1: education component is part of this as well. And you know,
Speaker 1: if we want more people riding public transportation, we just
Speaker 1: we need to make the streets the subways safer. And
Speaker 1: right now, I mean, people are telling me stories that
Speaker 1: they ride the subway and they are holding onto a
Speaker 1: pole or a guardrail because they're afraid of being pushed
Speaker 1: in front of an oncoming subway car. And you hear
Speaker 1: that story from one person, You've heard it from one
Speaker 1: person too many, and right now that's a reality. And
Speaker 1: you know, while some people out there like, hey, I
Speaker 1: feel street safe on the subways, there's no issue. Well,
Speaker 1: in a way, as far as ridership goes, it's subjective.
Speaker 1: And if somebody else does not feel safe and they're
Speaker 1: not riding the subway because they do not feel safe, well,
Speaker 1: then you have an issue to deal with. So why
Speaker 1: should people vote for you? I believe that our states
Speaker 1: head in the wrong direction right now, so we leave
Speaker 1: the entire country in population loss. And you need to
Speaker 1: be able to answer the question if you want to lead,
Speaker 1: if you want to be the governor of the State
Speaker 1: of New York, you have to be able to finish
Speaker 1: the sentence. New York State leads the entire country and
Speaker 1: population loss. Because now I believe that people are hitting
Speaker 1: their breaking point because they look at these other states
Speaker 1: and they feel like their money will go further, they
Speaker 1: will feel safer, they will live life free or elsewhere.
Speaker 1: People are going to Carolinas in Tennessee, in Florida and
Speaker 1: Texas and elsewhere, and they feel like their wallets are
Speaker 1: being attacked, their safety, their freedom. I mean, people are
Speaker 1: being put out of work for a personal decision whether
Speaker 1: or not to get the COVID vaccine. If you want
Speaker 1: to get it, get it. If you don't want to
Speaker 1: get it, don't get it. But don't do it. Because I,
Speaker 1: as governor, call on you to be my apostle. You're
Speaker 1: not there to serve me. Public service is about you
Speaker 1: being there to serve the public. I want people to
Speaker 1: feel like they're back in control of their government again,
Speaker 1: and I think that right now. For too long, it's
Speaker 1: been this churn in cobbany where. We keep electing a
Speaker 1: governor and lieutenant governor for a four year term, and
Speaker 1: then four years later they're not there because they end
Speaker 1: up having to resign and their scandal and there's arrests,
Speaker 1: their indictments, so this crazy thing happens in every other state,
Speaker 1: like all across the entire country. You elect a governor
Speaker 1: and lieutenant governor a four year term and then four
Speaker 1: years later they're still there, and we should try that
Speaker 1: New York for once. I think that people that I
Speaker 1: think it's a factor is that people are losing pride
Speaker 1: and faith in the government here. I believe that we
Speaker 1: should have balance. This isn't about Republican versus Democrat as
Speaker 1: New Yorkers. As New Yorkers, I feel like are states
Speaker 1: heading in the wrong direction and that there are common
Speaker 1: sense ways to be able to survive life in New
Speaker 1: York better. There should be more opportunity, and right now
Speaker 1: it's just that the people are they're just not getting
Speaker 1: the job done. Can I ask you this about because
Speaker 1: you are running as a Republican correct, that's correct? And
Speaker 1: so you were trying to run as an independent at first?
Speaker 1: Is that what happened when you were trying to get enough? Well,
Speaker 1: so I am. I've I've been running on the Republican
Speaker 1: line and the conservative line, and I mean that's where
Speaker 1: it's going to be head to head between myself and
Speaker 1: Governor Hokel. She's running on the Democratic line in the
Speaker 1: Working Families Party line, but there was in New York,
Speaker 1: there used to be all different kinds of third party
Speaker 1: just one on one. That's right. This is like, this
Speaker 1: is the first time in a really long time it's
Speaker 1: a one on one. And there was a petition process
Speaker 1: that took place a few months ago where people recollecting
Speaker 1: petitions for the Green Party and the Libertarian Party and
Speaker 1: this party and in that party. And actually at the
Speaker 1: end of the process, the only four parties that are
Speaker 1: on the ballot for November are the four parties that
Speaker 1: were previously on the ballot. So I believe that this
Speaker 1: threshold that exists right now is of how many signatures
Speaker 1: are needed, clearly is not the right number. And this
Speaker 1: is something that Governor Cuomo had enacted previously when he
Speaker 1: was in office, raising the threshold amount of signatures that
Speaker 1: you need. I think it would be good to be
Speaker 1: able to have more third parties running and allow people
Speaker 1: to have their voices and have them on stage for
Speaker 1: the debates and to bring their ideas. In the perspective, again,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't just be about republican versus democrat. I agree.
Speaker 1: I think most people, the general public agrees to that
Speaker 1: they want another another option other than a Republican Democrat.
Speaker 1: But you know, Governor Hotel accused your campaign is submitting
Speaker 1: a fourteen thousand fake signatures to run on the independent
Speaker 1: party line. Yeah, our campaign didn't do that, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as I was told after the fact that
Speaker 1: that there was somehow somebody outside of our campaign had
Speaker 1: added photocopies. Now, listen, photocopies get made of petitions. I
Speaker 1: mean every time that we've done petitions, for the years
Speaker 1: I've run every two years, photocopies have been made of petitions.
Speaker 1: So photocopies got in with the stack. But what I
Speaker 1: was told from internally is that our campaign did not
Speaker 1: make any photocopies, and we were not aware of photocopies
Speaker 1: being submitted until after the fact. You know, you blasted
Speaker 1: a Governor Hochef was supportant inflation reduction, and you can
Speaker 1: you explain to people, you know what the act is
Speaker 1: and why why you're against. Yeah, so, and listen, I
Speaker 1: was voting against bills when it was I've had four
Speaker 1: terms in Congress. I've had a democratic president, Republican president,
Speaker 1: democratic president. I've seen Republican control, democratic control, a mix
Speaker 1: in four terms, I've had four different alignments as far
Speaker 1: as balance of power, and I have had issues in
Speaker 1: all the different alignments of power, even when it's all Republicans,
Speaker 1: when his appropriations bills are coming up, because you know,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, I have fifteen year olds, they
Speaker 1: have a generation none of them can vote, and they
Speaker 1: end up having to bear the burden of these decisions
Speaker 1: that are being made right now. We are spending money
Speaker 1: that we do not have. And America always done that though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not good, it's bad that that that it
Speaker 1: just it keeps getting worse and worse. So there are
Speaker 1: people who wake up today and they're like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: what's the next trillion dollars bill that we're going to pass.
Speaker 1: We just passed last week hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: What's the next trillion dollar bill? Now, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of money, like, you know, million, billion, trillion for some
Speaker 1: people like the MBT whatever, it's just you know, it's
Speaker 1: the same same, but trillion dollars, it's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And there are people who want to they're in Congress.
Speaker 1: They want to pass you know, trillion dollars bill after
Speaker 1: trillion dollar bill. But what happens is, in many cases,
Speaker 1: sometimes these bills come up and we're voting on them
Speaker 1: and no one's read them. A twenty seven hundred page bill,
Speaker 1: you know, spending a hundred one point five trillion dollars
Speaker 1: and nobody has any idea what's in it. And then
Speaker 1: you know, we're taking heat because whether you're voting yes
Speaker 1: or no, Listen, if you're voting no because you say
Speaker 1: you haven't read it, you don't even know what's in it,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty fair reason. So if we would have
Speaker 1: our government actually work for us, we would have and
Speaker 1: it's an appropriation process that would by the end of
Speaker 1: the fiscal year, which federally that's the end of September,
Speaker 1: we would at the end of September have a budget
Speaker 1: for the entire fiscal year. But that's not what happens.
Speaker 1: We get to the end of the fiscal year and
Speaker 1: they pass something called a continuing resolution a CR short term.
Speaker 1: Then they passed another one, and then they'll pass another one,
Speaker 1: and then finally they'll pass a bill. You know what
Speaker 1: they'll do oftentimes is it's right before Christmas and members
Speaker 1: of Congress want to go back to their families, whatever
Speaker 1: they have plan. So they end up passing a bill
Speaker 1: that they just add everything in it. So you're right
Speaker 1: sitting around a table and Charle Mayne them, God has
Speaker 1: his request, and dj Envy has his request, Nagelie has
Speaker 1: her request. We all have our asks, and someone at
Speaker 1: the table has a bright idea yes, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 1: to everything what everybody asked for, and he just add
Speaker 1: it all to the bill. That's not necessarily responsible just
Speaker 1: to add what everyone asking for. So anyway, the Inflation
Speaker 1: Reduction Act was passed last week. This is hundreds of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars of new spending, new taxes, they're talking
Speaker 1: about a whole lot more, tens of thousands of additional
Speaker 1: IRS agents, And I feel like, right now this is
Speaker 1: something one that is actually it's not going to actually
Speaker 1: reduce inflation. I would argue that it was going to
Speaker 1: have an impact of increasing inflation. I just feel like
Speaker 1: this isn't what the American public really wants once you
Speaker 1: read what's actually in the bill, but what is that
Speaker 1: what is actually in the bill? Because I thought that
Speaker 1: it was going to be taxing these large corporations, but
Speaker 1: not the average American, not the everyday American that makes
Speaker 1: less than four hundred thousand dollars. But then I thought
Speaker 1: it was really about climate change and trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that we actually make the environment better for the future,
Speaker 1: and we should make the environment better for the future.
Speaker 1: As far as low and medium sized businesses, they get
Speaker 1: caught up in the tax increase as well. So the
Speaker 1: the tax increases, the highest profile biggest components of the
Speaker 1: tax increase are catching up employers of all sizes. Now,
Speaker 1: some people just like to vilify employers, but if there
Speaker 1: were no employers, then you know, where would we all
Speaker 1: be able to work. There's a lot of employees that
Speaker 1: want that like their job, but there are some huge
Speaker 1: corporations that should be paying taxes. They get all these
Speaker 1: tax breaks. Yeah, so the but the largest, the largest,
Speaker 1: the highest profile piece of it, the fifteen percent booking tax.
Speaker 1: That that's something that is catching up a lot of
Speaker 1: businesses of all different kinds of stripes. And that's just
Speaker 1: something where you when you play out the consequences of it,
Speaker 1: it ends up getting passed down. So, whether it's the
Speaker 1: decision to be able to hire more people, it's competitiveness
Speaker 1: with other countries, it's the ability to be able to
Speaker 1: price less for goods. Now you come up with great
Speaker 1: examples of some business out there that's making a fortune,
Speaker 1: and you're saying, they know they're they're making all of
Speaker 1: this money any taxes, right, right, So, but the issue
Speaker 1: with the taxes that they had created, our taxes that
Speaker 1: are catching up all all different kinds of businesses in there.
Speaker 1: And I'm not someone who just wants to vilify all
Speaker 1: these businesses, like, for example, I don't remember what Amazon
Speaker 1: was going to come to Queens and there was this
Speaker 1: big fight, and that was twenty five thousand good paying jobs.
Speaker 1: Now I happen to be on the side of that
Speaker 1: particular back and forth where I believe that those good
Speaker 1: paying jobs would have been great for New York. They
Speaker 1: ended up going down to Virginia. And there are other
Speaker 1: businesses that might think about moving to New York and
Speaker 1: they're deciding not to come here because hey, if you're
Speaker 1: treating that company in that way, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you end up treating me. So they end up moving
Speaker 1: to some other to some other state. So I do
Speaker 1: believe that we should be improving the business culture. It's
Speaker 1: not to hold the water of businesses. It's about the
Speaker 1: people like New York right now is they're pushing to
Speaker 1: change the overtime threshold for farms. It's a big, big
Speaker 1: thing for New York. We have a lot of farms.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't realize that now. One might
Speaker 1: think that if you are working long hours in a farm,
Speaker 1: that you should be paid overtime. Right now, the threshold
Speaker 1: sixty hours. What happens if you reduce it to forty hours.
Speaker 1: You might think, oh, this is good. If you're working
Speaker 1: more than forty hours, everyone else is working forty hours
Speaker 1: and it's hard work, that day should get overtime. But
Speaker 1: winds up happening for the New York farm is that
Speaker 1: they have stated that if you go forward and do this,
Speaker 1: then I am I Am going to close down. So
Speaker 1: the farmers who are saying I can't afford that the overtime,
Speaker 1: they are employees too who are saying that they I mean,
Speaker 1: they're chasing hours in work. They want to make money.
Speaker 1: They came here, they're here in our country just to work.
Speaker 1: They're saying that they're going to go chase work in
Speaker 1: other states. So I'm someone who likes to look out
Speaker 1: look at how the impact of a particular policy ends
Speaker 1: up playing out, and if it's something that is going
Speaker 1: to end up hurting at all, so many small and
Speaker 1: medium sized employers who are struggling to survive. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a big leap of faith to start your own company.
Speaker 1: It's not easy. You put your sweat equity in it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you have five employees, maybe have fifty employees, you
Speaker 1: have you have a hundred employees, and you build it up.
Speaker 1: And now a lot of New York businesses end up
Speaker 1: believing they go to other states. But the other piece
Speaker 1: that was in that build out a problem with was
Speaker 1: all this added money to the IRS. And I just
Speaker 1: they don't need no more money they're just getting. They
Speaker 1: don't need to be going after hard working Americans. And
Speaker 1: there was one estimate from one Treasury report that the
Speaker 1: amount of money that was going to go to the
Speaker 1: IRS was going to end up resulting in this massive
Speaker 1: increase in the number of agents. And now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden there's a dispute on just how many new
Speaker 1: IRS agents were getting. You know, one person says twenty thousand,
Speaker 1: someone else's eighty seven thousand. So that's a component of
Speaker 1: the bill too. And I'll tell you something else that's
Speaker 1: interesting is like, you know, you're mentioning our environment, like
Speaker 1: we should be able to deal with these different issues individually.
Speaker 1: The one thing that's crazy about government is that you
Speaker 1: have all different types of priorities and the only way
Speaker 1: to get something over the finish line is to put
Speaker 1: it all into one bill. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: bothers me is when you give the bill a name
Speaker 1: and then people they don't even read the bill and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, this bill is called the reduction
Speaker 1: ex So now if you don't vote for it and
Speaker 1: you're against reducing inflation, yeah, exactly what did you agree
Speaker 1: with this in the bill? Well, you know that's a
Speaker 1: good that's a good question. I Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: would say that it is important to to be able
Speaker 1: to provide that type of help for these environmental issues.
Speaker 1: It's important to be able to provide help to any
Speaker 1: you could point out one struggling American, one person who
Speaker 1: might receive any type of a benefit, and that's good.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you I had to be pretty big
Speaker 1: problem with this one. There are a lot of bills
Speaker 1: that come out you know, um that you know that
Speaker 1: they might be controversial, Um that I have some problems
Speaker 1: with but like maybe I like half of it and
Speaker 1: I dislike half of it. This was a bill I
Speaker 1: was pretty much I was pretty much against this one. Well,
Speaker 1: even the stuff that like would help climate change and
Speaker 1: things like that and use it more solar power. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so I would say I would say, like in New York,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm someone who believes all the above and
Speaker 1: an approach to energy. I represent Brookaven National Lab. We
Speaker 1: have the RPE mission right now. They're investing in research
Speaker 1: for clean and green technology. That's good now part of
Speaker 1: all the above strategy. In my opinion, I support, uh,
Speaker 1: the what New York you know, we sit on the
Speaker 1: Marcellus and Unicha shells not here, but the Southern Tier
Speaker 1: and some other counties, and New York is the only
Speaker 1: state that bands tapping into this energy source. So I
Speaker 1: believe that we should reverse the state's ban on the
Speaker 1: safe extraction natural gas in the Southern Tier and some
Speaker 1: of these other places. Now, some of these other states
Speaker 1: tapping to the same resource, same shell named after two
Speaker 1: New York towns. A lot of what the fear mongoring
Speaker 1: was of why this band should have got put in
Speaker 1: place isn't actually playing out in these other states. I
Speaker 1: believe that we should reverse the band. If you want
Speaker 1: to have natural gas from your home, have natural gas
Speaker 1: from home. If you want to have solar panels on
Speaker 1: your home, put solar panels on your home. Now, as
Speaker 1: far as solar panels go, they're expensive. And but you
Speaker 1: know some people that their house the way it's located,
Speaker 1: you know, the roofs facing the sun, perfect candidate. They
Speaker 1: want to make the investment, they should be able to
Speaker 1: and that investment is important, and get rebates for it too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because some people can't afford it otherwise. And people have
Speaker 1: trouble accessing energy sources in like New York City right now,
Speaker 1: they have banned new gas lookups on new construction across
Speaker 1: the entire city. Now, if you're just the average New
Speaker 1: York City resident, well then you end up bearing the
Speaker 1: brunt of this policy coming from government, whether you agree
Speaker 1: with it or not. But you need energy for your home.
Speaker 1: You're already struggling enough to make ends meet. So people
Speaker 1: shouldn't be blocked from being able to access solar if
Speaker 1: they want to access solar just because they can't afford it.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to go drive an electrical
Speaker 1: vehicle that that's your personal decision. If somebody else wants
Speaker 1: to drive another vehicle that's not electric, that's their personal decision.
Speaker 1: And there are reasons for both. But I'll tell you
Speaker 1: right now, a lot of these electric vehicles that people
Speaker 1: want are far more expensive than some of these other
Speaker 1: guess power vehicles that are that are available. So the
Speaker 1: idea of like, Okay, this would be good if we
Speaker 1: just get everyone into electric, I get the money though, right,
Speaker 1: because I mean, there is a process. But we have
Speaker 1: been seeing a lot of things happening because of climate change,
Speaker 1: so it is something important that has to be addressed. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And New York has been interesting because a lot of
Speaker 1: the rest of the state when you go away from
Speaker 1: New York City is very carbon neutral, carbon free. The
Speaker 1: rest of New York State has been trending very much
Speaker 1: in the right direction, not so much in downstate if
Speaker 1: you're oversimplify upstate versus down state, which is an oversimplification
Speaker 1: because we have sixty two counties, we have a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, we have a bunch of different regions
Speaker 1: around the rest of the state. There they are pretty green,
Speaker 1: and we have an area in and around New York City,
Speaker 1: and I represent a congressional district on Long Island, and
Speaker 1: we have these suburban counties just north of New York City.
Speaker 1: Our area downstate has has a real issue as it
Speaker 1: relates to carbon emissions, and we need to do our
Speaker 1: part absolutely. But the push right now is to statewide
Speaker 1: ban all gas hookups on new construction statewide quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: And I don't personally support that because you already have
Speaker 1: on their own, both residents and businesses all doing their parts,
Speaker 1: and all these other parts of this state coming being
Speaker 1: able to be self sustaining, being environmentally friendly. Now, if
Speaker 1: you push, you say you want more windmills, Hey, there's
Speaker 1: a difference between windmills and Lake Erie and Lake Ontario
Speaker 1: and having windmills and say the middle of Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: one saltwater ones, freshwater ones, an aquifer you rely on
Speaker 1: for your drinking water. Maybe you have questions with regards
Speaker 1: to what happens when that lake freezes, and because that
Speaker 1: lake has has frozen, you have a dicer. How does
Speaker 1: that impact the aquifer? Also, what happens with that windmill
Speaker 1: long term, because apparently you know, you can't just you know,
Speaker 1: recycle it into a whole bunch of different pieces and
Speaker 1: then reuse it for a new windmill. Now what happens
Speaker 1: is with this kind conversation is that people get into
Speaker 1: their corners and they're like, all right, well, I'm pro
Speaker 1: wind and your anti wind, and you just don't even
Speaker 1: talk to each other. I'm pro solo, you're anti soulo.
Speaker 1: I'm for natural gas, you're anti natural guests, I'm for nuclear,
Speaker 1: you're not for nuclear, and and they're just not talking
Speaker 1: to each other. So I'm a member of the Bipartisan
Speaker 1: Climate Solutions Caucus in DC. Republicans and Democrats working together
Speaker 1: try to find common ground. Every year, Georgetown University ranks
Speaker 1: all four hundred and thirty five members of Congress or
Speaker 1: members of the House of Representatives based on how bipartisan
Speaker 1: they are at a four hundred and thirty five. Last
Speaker 1: year that I was ranked, it was nineteen. Year before
Speaker 1: that was twelve, Like, well, how is that possible? You
Speaker 1: stand up for what you believe in. You'll stand up
Speaker 1: for what you believe in. Two. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: if you were a member of Congress that we can't
Speaker 1: find common ground to work together on stuff. And the
Speaker 1: environmentally now being full of white supremacist and fascist. Oh gosh, no,
Speaker 1: no way, don't come on. I'm not gonna say I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say all of them, but it's very heavy.
Speaker 1: I would I would say this if you and I
Speaker 1: were sitting down right now and our job was to
Speaker 1: figure it all out. I'm pretty sure that we could
Speaker 1: shock the world and how quickly we can get a
Speaker 1: lot of this figured out. I'm sure. But you have
Speaker 1: to admit that there's a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: GOP who are like openly, openly championing white supremacy. Listen,
Speaker 1: there's no room for any type of hate in any
Speaker 1: I don't care what party you are, I don't care
Speaker 1: what state you're from. You you can have your opinions,
Speaker 1: you can have your beliefs. In our country, we could debate,
Speaker 1: we could disagree. We're talking about that earlier. Where crosses
Speaker 1: the line is when it ends up being a raw
Speaker 1: and sometimes even violent hate. It ends up being something
Speaker 1: that is tearing down our country. Wouldn't you say that's
Speaker 1: a lot of the people. I'll tell you what I
Speaker 1: am honestly, what most concerns me is that right now
Speaker 1: we have on the streets of New York, I talk
Speaker 1: to people who are Jewish New Yorkers who wear yamkas,
Speaker 1: who are afraid of being hit because they're Jewish. There are,
Speaker 1: I mean the Asian American community. They had one of
Speaker 1: their own, and I have an Asian American wife, and
Speaker 1: you know it's close to home from my family, But
Speaker 1: they had one of their own pushing from an oncoming
Speaker 1: subway car and killed. Somebody else was stabbed to death
Speaker 1: in their apartment in Lower Manhattan. Someone else was beaten
Speaker 1: to death on the street. Seek cab drivers getting hit
Speaker 1: and we saw we're just talking earlier about the taxi driver,
Speaker 1: but we don't know enough about what caused that particular act,
Speaker 1: with that particular violence. To be honest, the hate that
Speaker 1: I am most motivated always to tackle is whenever you
Speaker 1: see it manifest in violence. And I don't care where
Speaker 1: it's coming from. I don't care if it's coming from right, left, center.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's political or non political. Right
Speaker 1: now in Congress, there are people who very much disagree
Speaker 1: on a lot of different issues. You can't cross a line.
Speaker 1: I don't care who you are, I don't care where
Speaker 1: you're from on caro, how important you are, or how
Speaker 1: important you think you are. There's a line that you
Speaker 1: cannot cross when your position ends up promoting hate. That
Speaker 1: is tearing down the country. Now, by the way, sometimes
Speaker 1: just a view on an issue might be viewed as
Speaker 1: tearing down a country. And there's people with good positions
Speaker 1: on both sides of both sides of the issue. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you this though, about my colleagues and Congress, and
Speaker 1: there's four there's FOURTI and thirty five members of the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives. There's this thought that like when we're
Speaker 1: all on the floor of the House of Representatives, that
Speaker 1: like our swords come out and we are we are
Speaker 1: killing each other. Actually we all get along really well.
Speaker 1: There's some people who don't get along well with others.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's Republican on Republicans, sometimes the Democrat on Democrat.
Speaker 1: Sometimes Democrat and a Republican. But what's what's different is
Speaker 1: that when I'm if I'm doing a radio interview on
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club and you ask me about a particular
Speaker 1: person on a particular topic, I might tell you exactly
Speaker 1: what I feel about that person's position on that particular topic,
Speaker 1: but I don't hate that person. And what happens is
Speaker 1: that people are listening to us, and by the way
Speaker 1: you could have you could then maybe you ask that
Speaker 1: Democrat to come on, like, hey, what do you think
Speaker 1: about what do you think about lee Zelden? And then
Speaker 1: this particular issue and he or she is telling you
Speaker 1: something where they disagree with me and they're passionate about it.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that he or she hates me.
Speaker 1: But what happens is out there, especially when it gets
Speaker 1: magnified on social media and people start piling on, and
Speaker 1: especially when elections get closer, is that it ends up
Speaker 1: tearing families apart. Were like they can't go to a
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving meal together, people who are co workers, they can't
Speaker 1: talk to each other because of their political viewpoints. And
Speaker 1: they think that we in Congress are doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: fighting with those around us, just like you're fighting with
Speaker 1: that sis or that brother in your own darn family.
Speaker 1: Like I think you can admit that you know this,
Speaker 1: this iteration of the Republican Party, the trumper is, so
Speaker 1: to speak, this wasn't the Conservatives that we knew eight
Speaker 1: years ago, or maybe it was at night ages are more,
Speaker 1: you know, willing to be open with their blatant white supremacy.
Speaker 1: The Capitol. I can't imagine that people still have to
Speaker 1: go there and work beside people who might have been well.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the violence has no place inside the Capitol.
Speaker 1: I don't care whether it's a day before an election
Speaker 1: or to day after an election. I don't care if
Speaker 1: it's that violence in the Capitol, it's violence at a
Speaker 1: campaign rally. I don't care where you are at any
Speaker 1: point in American history, past, current, future. You elect people
Speaker 1: to represent you in the on the floor of the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives. So January sixth, every four years, the
Speaker 1: House meets to certify results of an election. Every single
Speaker 1: time that a Republican has won the presidency, over the
Speaker 1: course last few decades, Democrats have been on floor of
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives and they have debated their objections
Speaker 1: to the election. That's the way the process should go.
Speaker 1: If somebody has a debate, you do that through your representative.
Speaker 1: You don't crack a window of the Capitol. You know,
Speaker 1: come in start hurting law enforcement, stealing laptops, breaking things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that part of this is disgusting. It has no
Speaker 1: place ever in our country, regardless of your politics. But
Speaker 1: President you know, he stirred that up so I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: there are followers of President Trump who, in many respects
Speaker 1: that day took matters very much into their own hands.
Speaker 1: I mean they went in the capitol, they were violent,
Speaker 1: they were not working through their elected represent enitives, they
Speaker 1: were not peaceful and patriotic. Should have spoke up sooner
Speaker 1: to try to calm the situation down. You know, I
Speaker 1: honestly don't as far as the timeline of how things
Speaker 1: play out behind the scenes, for what I mean, for
Speaker 1: what he said, espionage, I don't getting rid of government records,
Speaker 1: destruction of justice for related to what they did last week.
Speaker 1: So so far there, I mean a riot citing an interaction,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't believe that. I just I don't
Speaker 1: believe he should go Well, first, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: First off, I don't believe that he should go to prison. Really,
Speaker 1: I don't. Uh, Well, I mean, I what on the
Speaker 1: thing is like I was asking what on what charge?
Speaker 1: And I don't believe that he has committed a crime
Speaker 1: that he should go to prison on. Damn. So causing
Speaker 1: an interaction in this country isn't worth time. Well, so
Speaker 1: if we were to go like really start you know,
Speaker 1: legalizing the way that you know, an insurrection is defined
Speaker 1: in my opinion under the United States legal definition of
Speaker 1: an insurrection, that does not meet the elements of of
Speaker 1: an insurrection. Um. But but ye, so yeah, so you
Speaker 1: mentioned last week. Um, it's interesting because the so President Obama,
Speaker 1: for example, he comes out of office and there are
Speaker 1: millions of records that that he takes with him, President Bush,
Speaker 1: President Clinton, President Bush before him, President Reagan, and they
Speaker 1: had their libraries and they, uh, you know, you put
Speaker 1: your information inside of uh, inside of your libraries. Presidents,
Speaker 1: by the way, have the ability to declassify. So the
Speaker 1: most here's the most fundamental question that I need an
Speaker 1: answer to in order to be able to answer what
Speaker 1: you're asking me, is I don't know what they took, right,
Speaker 1: So that's that's first and foremost. Um, the fact that
Speaker 1: that President Trump would have his records from the White
Speaker 1: House that he would take from him. Presidents do that,
Speaker 1: president after president after president. By the way, they continue
Speaker 1: to get security briefings that continue to be protected by
Speaker 1: Secret Service. The fundamental question is what did you take?
Speaker 1: Did they request those documents back though when he just
Speaker 1: didn't return them. So I don't know the details on that.
Speaker 1: I saw that, you know, I know that the request
Speaker 1: was made for the search warrant to be released so
Speaker 1: that the information of the search warrant can get out there.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that there's there's a lot more questions
Speaker 1: than answers right now on it. And I don't like
Speaker 1: the idea that let's say President Biden, you know, he
Speaker 1: leaves office, and then the next president, let's just say
Speaker 1: he's followed by a Republican president, hypothetically. I don't like
Speaker 1: the idea that the next Justice Department will then go
Speaker 1: into President Biden's home and collect all of these documents.
Speaker 1: The fundamental question that we do not have an answer
Speaker 1: to is what documents did they? Did they take? But
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do that if they didn't think they had
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, my understanding, they were asking for
Speaker 1: these documents back and he wasn't trying to give them back,
Speaker 1: and that was a last resort. I'm worried. I'm worried
Speaker 1: that there is a political element to this, but I
Speaker 1: can't because Trump's not running. I mean maybe, but yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: I mean, he may and there's people who strongly dislike him.
Speaker 1: There are people who are involved in this process. Some
Speaker 1: people who who may be supportive of signing off on this,
Speaker 1: who do not like President Trump. But again, I can't
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what. I can't draw conclusions off
Speaker 1: of the documents and why they would get the documents
Speaker 1: without knowing exactly what those documents. Would you support him
Speaker 1: if he ran in twenty twenty four believe that? Well,
Speaker 1: first off, he's got to make a decision. He's going
Speaker 1: to run. If he runs in twenty twenty four, I
Speaker 1: believe that he has a good chance of being the
Speaker 1: Republican nominee. We'll see who else decides to run. To
Speaker 1: be honest with you, my focus has been on twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. I'm running for governor of New York November
Speaker 1: eighth of twenty twenty two. I'm not thinking about twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. That's a decision maybe the President ends up
Speaker 1: making post election. Maybe it's in a decision he makes
Speaker 1: pre election. But you know, if you were to play
Speaker 1: that out, there's a lot of talented Republicans who can run,
Speaker 1: There's a lot of talented Democrats who can run. And
Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty four feels like a lifetime right
Speaker 1: now away because I'm spending all weight, every day, every
Speaker 1: minute of every day focused on on this race. And
Speaker 1: quite honestly, as I travel around the state and I
Speaker 1: ask New Yorkers, what are your most important issues? What
Speaker 1: you want me to be focused on the top two
Speaker 1: issues that I hear about are crime in the economy.
Speaker 1: What do you think what about the black community, the
Speaker 1: minority community, blacks and browns? Right, you talked about the
Speaker 1: Asian community, You talked about Jewish community. What about our community?
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts in our community? Yeah? So, speaking of which,
Speaker 1: I'm glad Angela is not holding it too much against me.
Speaker 1: But my daughter was one of the judges at the
Speaker 1: Jamaican Jerk Fest a couple of weeks ago, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to mention how that ended up playing out.
Speaker 1: I thought that there was a lot of talents on
Speaker 1: your plate that day at the at the celebrity cookoff
Speaker 1: comes to your mind? No, no no, no, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just saying, we were together at the Jamaican jerk
Speaker 1: Fest a couple of weeks ago in Jamaica. Terrible segue.
Speaker 1: No no no, no, that's when I was with I was
Speaker 1: with Angela at the in Jamaica together only be an
Speaker 1: asses because earlier you talked about Asian community and didn't
Speaker 1: know I understand what I feel like, our community always
Speaker 1: gets left. No, That's what I'm saying, Like the most
Speaker 1: important thing is to show up, so you know, for example,
Speaker 1: that's one of the examples is you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, we were together and there was an
Speaker 1: amazing turn. I don't know how many folks were there,
Speaker 1: maybe like fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty thousand people showed up
Speaker 1: in Queens for that event. I was at few days back,
Speaker 1: the National Night Out back in Southeast Queens, sitting down
Speaker 1: with black passers in their first leads and Sunnyside. I
Speaker 1: was in Harlem just a few days ago actually doing
Speaker 1: a press conference. We were We're in that community multiple times.
Speaker 1: I remember I had a debate. It was Juneteenth, and
Speaker 1: they were asking me like, what are you going to
Speaker 1: do to you know, show up and work with the
Speaker 1: black community. I was like, actually, I just came here
Speaker 1: from Harlem that day. I co chair the Congressional Caucus
Speaker 1: on Black Jewish Relations. I created the caucus with John Lewis, W.
Speaker 1: Wasserman Schultz, Deborah Lawrence, and Will Hurd. The relationship between
Speaker 1: and I'm Jewish. I believe that the relationship between a
Speaker 1: Jewish community and black community is historically misunderstood. You have
Speaker 1: had rabbis and other Jewish leaders marching with Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King and other civil rights leaders and liberating concentration camps
Speaker 1: in World War Two, and all Black Battalion was the
Speaker 1: most decorated battalion going the furthest East and liberating Kirchkin.
Speaker 1: So the relationships misunderstood. The most important thing if you
Speaker 1: want to earn someone support is to show up uh
Speaker 1: and to be able to talk to him about the
Speaker 1: issues that matter most. But if you think about what
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, from education, kids stuck in
Speaker 1: multigenerational poverty, stuck in poor performing schools, they should have
Speaker 1: access to that high quality charter school. They should be
Speaker 1: able to get a higher quality education than they're getting
Speaker 1: right now, to stay in school, to be able to
Speaker 1: succeed in life, have a good paying job waiting for
Speaker 1: them after they go. I believe that, you know, as
Speaker 1: far as the system goes, we're talking earlier about one
Speaker 1: veteran who is released too early. There are there are
Speaker 1: people who they end up getting caught on the wrong
Speaker 1: end of the law, and that the system itself kind
Speaker 1: of keeps them trapped in in that and it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's a pipeline to prison inside of our schools.
Speaker 1: That's what you know. It has been spoken to me
Speaker 1: about the concern about some of these schools is already like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard you say what you're going to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason why sis to politicians because we know all
Speaker 1: listen aready. Yes, yes, it's education, it's important. But like,
Speaker 1: you know, how do we fix these problems? You know,
Speaker 1: minorities can't get homes right because we can't get we
Speaker 1: can't get loans. And then if we do get homes
Speaker 1: and we try to sell our homes, we're in the
Speaker 1: lowest interest rate because we're black. You know, our education
Speaker 1: is messed up. We know we can't get books, we
Speaker 1: can't get supplies. You know that. You know they pull
Speaker 1: us over way more than anybody else. You know, to marijuana.
Speaker 1: We've been affected by marijuana and cannabis the most, and
Speaker 1: it's harder for us to get a license for marijuana cannabis.
Speaker 1: So get to the point where how do we help
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, and I get it. You
Speaker 1: you judge angels to make chicken, but that doesn't help.
Speaker 1: So for one, I mean, for one, I do think
Speaker 1: it's important to show up because a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't are not showing up, so people don't feel represented,
Speaker 1: they don't feel heard because elected officials and candidates both
Speaker 1: parties don't even show up. So that is important. Education,
Speaker 1: I think is most important. Show up when it's when
Speaker 1: an election time. Anybody, they definitely do well, that's a problem,
Speaker 1: it is, right. So the second piece is I really
Speaker 1: feel like education is the most important piece of this
Speaker 1: parental involvement to the maximum extent possible, to the maximum
Speaker 1: extent possible, that you have parents involved in their kids education,
Speaker 1: that a family unit can be as strong as possible.
Speaker 1: Sometimes for a kid. The way the life goes, I
Speaker 1: had three divorces in my family growing up, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not easy, you know, looking at the glass half full,
Speaker 1: I had four parents growing up, so I guess, hey,
Speaker 1: that's that's better than maybe having two. The having a
Speaker 1: good paying job waiting for you so you can afford
Speaker 1: to survive and then you can live the dream that
Speaker 1: you can have some streets, affordable housing is important. Right now,
Speaker 1: there are people who want to invest the more affordable
Speaker 1: They want to build more affordable housing. But and they
Speaker 1: have the capital to build a project, they could build
Speaker 1: a project in New York, or they could go build
Speaker 1: a project with that money in some other place, somewhere else.
Speaker 1: And somewhere else, it's going to take them nine months
Speaker 1: or twelve months or fifteen months, and here maybe it's
Speaker 1: going to end up taking them three years or four
Speaker 1: years or five years. So I feel like the red
Speaker 1: tape right now is one of the biggest impediments of
Speaker 1: getting people to invest their capital and to build more
Speaker 1: affordable housing. Number one is education. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that you can't underestimate the power of prayer and faith
Speaker 1: in people's lives. UM. That is that is important as well.
Speaker 1: A lot of people UM are feeling their religious freedom
Speaker 1: under attack. Uh, that's a that's a piece of encouraging
Speaker 1: people to go find find God in their lives. And
Speaker 1: I'm Jewish, you know, whatever your faith is. As far
Speaker 1: as government goes, we need our streets to be safe.
Speaker 1: Support law enforcement speak of that. Let's see speaking of
Speaker 1: that when you talk about crime, give me some ways
Speaker 1: to reduce crime without putting more money into the police. Departments.
Speaker 1: Without putting more police officers on this greet and putting
Speaker 1: more money in police departments, how would you reduce crime
Speaker 1: in these In these areas, we need district attorneys to
Speaker 1: do their jobs, We need judges to do their jobs.
Speaker 1: And the laws that are getting passed right now are
Speaker 1: a disservice not just to law by New Yorkers, but
Speaker 1: also to criminals. He said, you would fire Alvin Bragg
Speaker 1: first thing if you were elected. I believe that he's
Speaker 1: not doing a good job. I believe that he's you know,
Speaker 1: from the first day, he's refusing to enforce laws across
Speaker 1: the board. He was in his day one memo and
Speaker 1: he's continued that since. And by the way, you know
Speaker 1: what I would do is instantly come to the mayor
Speaker 1: of New York City, to the local community leaders. And
Speaker 1: it's not about Hey, send me a name of someone
Speaker 1: who's an ally. I'm on, send me a name of
Speaker 1: someone who's a Republican. We're talking about Manhattan, we're talking
Speaker 1: about New York County. You could send me ten twenty names.
Speaker 1: My only the only requirement is to do your job.
Speaker 1: And Alvin Brad the way that ends up plane out
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, you end up having this
Speaker 1: sixteen year old. He was just committed a violent robbery.
Speaker 1: He gets released, he gets in a fight with the
Speaker 1: officer in the subway. A lot of people saw the video.
Speaker 1: The sixteen year old thought that he had the right
Speaker 1: to jump the turnstile. Now this interesting issue, though, So
Speaker 1: the Manhattan DA says that he's not going to enforce
Speaker 1: that law. Now here's the thing. If you want to
Speaker 1: change the law, you then change you know, you say, Okay,
Speaker 1: there are people who can't afford public transportation. They need
Speaker 1: to be able to get onto the subway to get
Speaker 1: to work or go to school. That person needs to
Speaker 1: have access to public transportation, but not in the situation
Speaker 1: where he's being charged or she's being charged, and they
Speaker 1: feel like the only way to get onto that service
Speaker 1: is to is to jump turnstile. So what happens is
Speaker 1: they get in a fight. Right at the end of
Speaker 1: the fight, the sixteen year old ends up back in
Speaker 1: front of the judge and is asking if he can
Speaker 1: press charges against the officer and was instantly released back
Speaker 1: out on the street. That whole process, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: from that from the sixteen year old committing the violent robbery,
Speaker 1: put right back out on the street, get some to
Speaker 1: fight with the officer, right back out on the street.
Speaker 1: Again that this is a very important age to be
Speaker 1: able to actually help these kids out. So I feel
Speaker 1: like you asked me about Bragg and you'll Brag didn't
Speaker 1: ask for any type of bail when the violent robbery
Speaker 1: was committed. He had the day won memo to turnstyle jumping.
Speaker 1: He gets released right back out on the street. After
Speaker 1: the assault of the cop, Bragg with the Jose albuquees,
Speaker 1: I mean, Jose Alba ends up in Riker's Island, slapped
Speaker 1: with a murder charge. He has an open stab wound.
Speaker 1: And Bragg asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
Speaker 1: of bail on Alba and that was wrong. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I feel like Bragg is not approaching his
Speaker 1: job right. He's refusing to enforce the laws, and I
Speaker 1: would and I want him removed. And the one thing
Speaker 1: I was going to say, as far as the policies
Speaker 1: that are currently on the books, that I believe our
Speaker 1: disservice not just the law abiding citizens, but also to
Speaker 1: people who are on the other end of the law.
Speaker 1: He's like you take Cashlew's bail. For example, if if
Speaker 1: you instantly release somebody back out on the street as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible, as in like you can't even take
Speaker 1: a few more hours to get this done. You're inside
Speaker 1: of the local police precincts, the off is capable of
Speaker 1: doing more than just process your paperwork. If the system
Speaker 1: was working, you'd have a stronger community relationship between law
Speaker 1: enforcement and local community, stronger relationship between law enforcement and
Speaker 1: local help. If the person is a drug addict, then
Speaker 1: then help make a handoff, get them help for the drugs.
Speaker 1: If that person is an alcoholic, that you're able to
Speaker 1: help make the handoff. If they if they are going,
Speaker 1: if you were going to release them and they're going
Speaker 1: back out on the street, then the services have to
Speaker 1: be available to get that person a roof over their head.
Speaker 1: But here's the other thing too. By the way people think,
Speaker 1: people think that this at success for shelters is to
Speaker 1: build a shelter, to put a roof over someone's head,
Speaker 1: and then that's it, like like politicians high five each
Speaker 1: other and like, hey, this is great, we just have
Speaker 1: been a ribbon cutting. There's a new shelter. Success is
Speaker 1: getting somebody out of a shelter. Is that somebody gets
Speaker 1: into the shelter and there you're working with them so
Speaker 1: that they were able to live an independent life and
Speaker 1: they're not eyeing on that shelter. They're not stuck in
Speaker 1: a low income like they people who who are They
Speaker 1: have a plight now in twenty twenty two, because of
Speaker 1: the system that's in place right now, they will be
Speaker 1: stuck in the same exact plight in twenty thirty two
Speaker 1: and twenty forty two. Maybe along the way they will
Speaker 1: have a kid, and the kid will be stuck in
Speaker 1: the same plate that they will. You don't get them
Speaker 1: help with their drug addiction. Well maybe their kid who's like,
Speaker 1: because that woman's pregnant, that kid is being born into
Speaker 1: literally being born into it. I'm glad to say that
Speaker 1: because I wish politicians Democrats and Republicans or as tough
Speaker 1: on poverty as they are on crime. I wish they
Speaker 1: were as tough on lack of opportunity as they are
Speaker 1: on crime, because a lot of times you can prevent
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old from even being a person who
Speaker 1: needs to commit a crime if he has opportunity from
Speaker 1: the time he's born if his schools were better, if
Speaker 1: they would, you know, trade schools to teach them something
Speaker 1: that they can actually go get a job and be
Speaker 1: productive in this society. I think that they're too busy
Speaker 1: punishing the criminals criminals that they're not coming up with
Speaker 1: solutions for the poverty. They'll never have them opportunities because
Speaker 1: they don't care. Like you talked about earlier about Amazon, right,
Speaker 1: and you're saying that you thought it would be a
Speaker 1: great idea if they moved to queens, right now, think
Speaker 1: about it. They moved to Queens. They're creating twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollar jobs. That's a great thing. No, twenty five thousand,
Speaker 1: The average job was like lover one hundred. All right,
Speaker 1: creating jobs, right, But my problem is is where rewarding
Speaker 1: them for being billionaires. That's a billion dollar company, and
Speaker 1: we're saying, hey, billion dollar company, you come here, you
Speaker 1: ain't gonna pay no taxes. Where they're making billions of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. But now you have Joe over here,
Speaker 1: who's a minority who's trying to open up a juice bar,
Speaker 1: who pays more taxes in his juice bar in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: than Amazon does. Then he can't survive. Now Amazon, who's
Speaker 1: a company that's making billions of dollars. You know, got
Speaker 1: Jeff Basos buying yachts and playing to whatever he does.
Speaker 1: I'm happy for him. But he's paying no taxes right
Speaker 1: and not even like he would be paying forty percent
Speaker 1: or fifty percent. He probably paying like twenty percent. So
Speaker 1: this is so, that's all true. What happens in for
Speaker 1: being a billionaire. So in New York, this is what
Speaker 1: we do wrong. Is that they have taxes. They have
Speaker 1: taxes on these businesses in New York, and then what
Speaker 1: they do is they give out these grants and these
Speaker 1: tax breaks and they pick winners and losers and the
Speaker 1: playing field is not level. They have something called regional
Speaker 1: Economic Development councils where if you have a network, if
Speaker 1: you have connections, if you know who to call, you
Speaker 1: can get your hand on grants. And if you have
Speaker 1: a great idea and you don't have the access, then
Speaker 1: you don't get to grant. So if you have a
Speaker 1: level playing field where you just have a lower tax
Speaker 1: base across the board, not picking winners and losers, and
Speaker 1: then instead of taking that money to give it to
Speaker 1: people who you're playing favorites with then you won't even
Speaker 1: be in that situation. What you should be able to
Speaker 1: do is say, this is New York City. You want
Speaker 1: to be in New York City. We have the highest
Speaker 1: quality education, we you know, we have safe streets, we
Speaker 1: you're living close to the you know, for morale of
Speaker 1: your employees. You get to live in the greatest city
Speaker 1: in the history of the world to commute at least
Speaker 1: to the greatest city in history of the world. But
Speaker 1: the problem is is that all the other policies combined,
Speaker 1: you are we're losing out on these other selling points,
Speaker 1: and we're stuck where we feel like you have to
Speaker 1: give out the breaks in order to rope them in.
Speaker 1: So I would say that we're approaching this all backwards,
Speaker 1: but we need to. If you're going to say we
Speaker 1: don't want to give those tax breaks, it's one thing
Speaker 1: to say we want your business, we want you to
Speaker 1: come here, we want to figure this out, we want
Speaker 1: your twenty five thousand good paying jobs, but we don't
Speaker 1: want to give you these tax breaks. Unfortunately, the way
Speaker 1: this ended up playing out was we don't want you,
Speaker 1: and I think that ends up sending I know that
Speaker 1: it's sent a message to other business as well, saying,
Speaker 1: if you know you don't want them, you don't want
Speaker 1: those jobs, then I'm not going to come to your state.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go somewhere else. There was a distributor
Speaker 1: on Long Island. The state of Kentucky offered them to
Speaker 1: move them to Kentucky, to give them property, no taxes.
Speaker 1: They put this whole package together. On top of it,
Speaker 1: they were going to rename the town after the distributor.
Speaker 1: Their complaint was at the time, it's a few years ago,
Speaker 1: that they weren't getting a return phone call back from Albany.
Speaker 1: The culture right now is one where we view these
Speaker 1: employers as the enemy. Now we can have our own
Speaker 1: opinion on policy. You could say, hey, it's not fair
Speaker 1: that this really successful business is getting a ton of
Speaker 1: tax breaks and they're not paying their fair share. I
Speaker 1: understand that argument. But what we need to make sure
Speaker 1: is how we approach what is the right good, the
Speaker 1: right policy, that we don't create a culture where we're
Speaker 1: sending a message to the employers we don't even want them.
Speaker 1: They have the power pretty much. Yeah, I got two
Speaker 1: more questions before we get out of here. One is,
Speaker 1: just like in general, if somebody's not held accountable for
Speaker 1: the attempted cool of this country on January sixth. How
Speaker 1: can we you know and show it that'll never happen again?
Speaker 1: And who do you think should be held accountable? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's been the criminal justice systems come down
Speaker 1: pretty hard on a lot of people who were inside
Speaker 1: of the capitol. There are people who I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the members of Congress who may it may have assisted
Speaker 1: the president, like you got to get the big fish,
Speaker 1: so the so there were members of Congress who had
Speaker 1: they had issues with certain aspects of the way without
Speaker 1: getting you too far sidetracked on it, there were In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, we had a pandemic and in states there
Speaker 1: were people who were not the state legislature who were
Speaker 1: changing how the election was going to get administered. So
Speaker 1: in the United States Constitution it says that the state
Speaker 1: legislature of every state determines how the election is going
Speaker 1: to be administer So in the name of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: these different states had non state legislative actors determining how
Speaker 1: they were going to change the administration law. So you're
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, by the way, however you feel on voter
Speaker 1: id or signature verification. In Wisconsin, there's a law for both.
Speaker 1: So some elections commissioner in Wisconsin was advising his constituents
Speaker 1: in that county how to get around the states voter
Speaker 1: ID and vote and signiory verification law. You can't do
Speaker 1: that in Pennsylvania. The Secretary of State what it entered
Speaker 1: into a friendly lawsuit with the legal women voters just
Speaker 1: before the election to change how the election was administered
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. If you want to do this stuff, you
Speaker 1: have to go through the state legislation for permission of it. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're a member of Congress and you have something
Speaker 1: that you want to debate on the floor of the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives on January sixth of twenty one, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, whatever, that's the place that that is done.
Speaker 1: That it's part of It happened when I first got
Speaker 1: to Congress January sixth of twenty seventeen, where a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of Democrats were objecting to the certification of the
Speaker 1: results with President Trump. It happened with President Bush in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. January sixth of two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: after the two thousand and four election, that's how that
Speaker 1: process plays out. The line that you cannot cross is
Speaker 1: the illegal behavior. The line that you can't cross is
Speaker 1: when you see, instead of utilizing your power as a
Speaker 1: member of the House of Representatives, debating and having a
Speaker 1: vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, that
Speaker 1: instead you are hurting people, you are breaking things, and
Speaker 1: you are stealing things. That's the line you can't cross.
Speaker 1: You can't commit crimes. So they are government officials you
Speaker 1: think should be held accountable for the insurrection. I am
Speaker 1: not aware of any member of the House. I personally
Speaker 1: am not aware of any member of the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives who was working with any of the people who
Speaker 1: were actually taking matters in the row hands and in
Speaker 1: going into in breaking through windows of the Capitol. They
Speaker 1: were hurting people and stealing things. And if there was
Speaker 1: a member of Congress who was involved in that, who
Speaker 1: was working with that, then they committed a crime. If
Speaker 1: the crime is, you know, through the air quotes around
Speaker 1: this one, if the crime is that they were on
Speaker 1: the floor of the House of represent Natives and they
Speaker 1: were one of the people saying, hey, I have a
Speaker 1: problem with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State um entering into
Speaker 1: a friendly lawsuit with the League of Women Voters just
Speaker 1: before the election in the name of the pandemic. That's
Speaker 1: not a crime. That's that's our process. And if she
Speaker 1: was on the other foot, which it's been, you know,
Speaker 1: Democrats can can argue the same objections, and that's absolutely
Speaker 1: their right. But you have to do this through your representatives.
Speaker 1: And you can't take the matter in your hand. You
Speaker 1: can't hurt people, you can't steal things, you can't break things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one more question, but I have and I had a
Speaker 1: question you you. By the way, when I was talking
Speaker 1: about seeing Angela a couple weeks, I was talking about
Speaker 1: how important it is to show up, and my message
Speaker 1: to everybody, whether you're Republican, Democrat, independent, if if you
Speaker 1: want to be able to represent any particular type of community,
Speaker 1: you can't just be either showing up very rarely or never.
Speaker 1: So when I first got to the state Senate, i
Speaker 1: represented Brentwyn Central I slip at North Bellport. My possibly
Speaker 1: that state Senate district might have been the most the
Speaker 1: biggest black and Hispanic community in the entire state. As
Speaker 1: far as suburban state Senate districts. I found that Republicans
Speaker 1: were not going into that district because they knew that
Speaker 1: they would not get their vote. And Democrats were not
Speaker 1: going into that district because they knew that even if
Speaker 1: they didn't show up, that they still would get that vote.
Speaker 1: And I ended up spending a disproportioned amount of my
Speaker 1: time inside of Brentwin Central Islip. And all these political
Speaker 1: experts we're all telling me Lee, you're spending too much
Speaker 1: time inside of Brentwin Central Islip. They're never going to
Speaker 1: vote for you. But that's not why we do it.
Speaker 1: So I really do feel like, on top of all
Speaker 1: of the policy stuff, I believe that it is my job.
Speaker 1: It's very important, it's very important to me to show
Speaker 1: up as much as possible. So when I was talking
Speaker 1: about my daughter, who happens to be here by the way,
Speaker 1: my daughter being one of the judges and the celebrity
Speaker 1: cook off at the Jamaican Festival, you know, I just
Speaker 1: want you to understand that my point there is that
Speaker 1: what I've been doing proudly is finding ways to continue
Speaker 1: to show up in places is where Republican candidates haven't
Speaker 1: shown up in a long time, and I feel like
Speaker 1: Democrats aren't shown up enough to Yeah, I think at
Speaker 1: our point was, you know, people always show up when
Speaker 1: it's election time, right, But when it's not election time,
Speaker 1: or when it's when we need it the most, that's
Speaker 1: when they don't show up. Right. It's cool to show
Speaker 1: up at the jerk fast or wherever you know in Brentwood,
Speaker 1: especially in Long Island, as Long Island's probably one of
Speaker 1: the racist, most racist places I've been growing up as
Speaker 1: a kid. I'm from Queens of course, um. But the
Speaker 1: whole thing is it's always showing up, you know what
Speaker 1: i mean, always showing up when you when the light's
Speaker 1: not on you, when when it's not I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be a candidate when I'm not, you know, running for
Speaker 1: a governor, when it's just a Tuesday afternoon and the
Speaker 1: church needs you, or a young brother needs you because
Speaker 1: they just got arrested for something else, or assistant needs
Speaker 1: you because of that's showing up all the time. That's
Speaker 1: that's yeah, that's that's true. That's important. And also you've
Speaker 1: heard of the you know, the members of Congress that
Speaker 1: allegedly held playing January six restur insurrection. I'm sorry you've
Speaker 1: seen those reports, right, well, like the planning briefings in
Speaker 1: the meetings that happened. I'm not green. I'm not of
Speaker 1: anyone planning for breaking it being part of any planning
Speaker 1: meetings to break inside of the Capitol, to hurt people,
Speaker 1: to steal things, to break things. I am not aware
Speaker 1: of any member of Congress being involved in that. I
Speaker 1: am sure that there were many, many, many meetings about
Speaker 1: what was happening on the floor of the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives and on the floor of the other Yeah, the
Speaker 1: people that day were actually a party to stop steel
Speaker 1: Rallied said they had called with them in briefing meeting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if if there is, if there was any member of
Speaker 1: Congress who was part of any type of a meeting
Speaker 1: involved with the violence that took place inside of the Capitol,
Speaker 1: A member of Congress is as responsible as as at
Speaker 1: anybody else. I listen. I have a title. I am
Speaker 1: a member of Congress. I'm a calm congressman. I'm the
Speaker 1: fourth highest ranking person in my house. You know, like
Speaker 1: my my constituents keep me grounded, My family keeps me grounded.
Speaker 1: I still serve in the reserves. I'm outranked by a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the military. That keeps me grounded.
Speaker 1: You get titled, but we're all. We gotta put that aside.
Speaker 1: You gotta stay ground in My feet are totally on
Speaker 1: plan on the ground. If you are a member of Congress,
Speaker 1: you don't get your impunity to be able to plan
Speaker 1: actually actual violence. I don't care whether it's inside the
Speaker 1: Capitol ro outside of the capital. Yeah, exactly, including present.
Speaker 1: No one is above the law. I'm just telling you
Speaker 1: that I personally am not aware of anybody working with
Speaker 1: others on what on that violence that we saw inside
Speaker 1: of the Capitol, and if and if there were any
Speaker 1: if there was anybody, then no one's above the law. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this about with the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: overturning Row versus Wade, what do you think that means
Speaker 1: in New York for us? So it's interesting because New
Speaker 1: York are codified far more than Row a few years ago.
Speaker 1: So it actually didn't change anything in New York as
Speaker 1: far as what the law is. If New York had
Speaker 1: not codified Row a few years ago, and by the
Speaker 1: way they did, they did a lot more than that
Speaker 1: in preparation. Yeah, if if they didn't, then this would
Speaker 1: be quite a real question of what should the law
Speaker 1: in New York be, because there isn't one. And now
Speaker 1: that the Dabbs issue was decision came out, Now there's
Speaker 1: some type of change in New York. So when we
Speaker 1: woke up the morning before the Dabbs decision, the law
Speaker 1: in New York was exactly the same as when we
Speaker 1: woke up the day after the Dabbs decision. It plays
Speaker 1: out a lot more in other states where they're having
Speaker 1: a debate because they don't have this codified. But you know,
Speaker 1: in New York the law didn't change at all. It's
Speaker 1: my last question because you'd be very generous with your time,
Speaker 1: and you know when it comes to the Inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 1: you know, of course it's been pushed back, right, Um,
Speaker 1: But how come there's never that pushback when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like the national defense spending like it was
Speaker 1: what eight hundred and fifty billion? I think they just passed,
Speaker 1: And it's like, we have any I don't hear any
Speaker 1: where does this money come from? When it comes to
Speaker 1: things like that, we have And I'll tell you even
Speaker 1: from personal experience, Um, there are many ways to save
Speaker 1: money inside of the defense budget. I remember when you
Speaker 1: know we're going out to the range and they're taking
Speaker 1: they're sending our unit out with two thousand rounds of AMMO,
Speaker 1: and then it takes us six hundred rounds of AMMO
Speaker 1: to qualify, and then we just waste, you know, the
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred as in like we just shoot it off
Speaker 1: and we're expending fourteen hundred rounds AMO and every round
Speaker 1: costs money. Why are we doing that well, because the
Speaker 1: next time that we go to the range next year,
Speaker 1: if we only expend six hundred rounds of AMMO, they'll
Speaker 1: only give us six hundred next time. So in order
Speaker 1: to get two thousand, we waste all of that. I've
Speaker 1: seen it in the military wall is deployed. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of money. I'm ales in Iraq and oh six,
Speaker 1: I saw it in person, the way money was getting wasted.
Speaker 1: You know, they build a new dining facility in the
Speaker 1: wrong area, and then we just pay that defense contractor
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars to build a whole new
Speaker 1: dining facility a few hundred feet away. But it's on them,
Speaker 1: It's on them that they did not surface measure the
Speaker 1: ground the right way traveling from point A to point B.
Speaker 1: They end up spending more on it on a four.
Speaker 1: Then if you just go online. You're like, why are
Speaker 1: we spending fifteen hundred dollars more for this ticket that
Speaker 1: only costs US four hundred dollars if I bought it
Speaker 1: myself online. There's a lot that does not make sense.
Speaker 1: As far as the defense budget goes, I believe it
Speaker 1: needs to be operate more efficiently. I want us to
Speaker 1: have a strong military. I want us to be prepared
Speaker 1: to defend ourselves as a country. But in many respects
Speaker 1: there are a whole lot of inefficiencies inside of the
Speaker 1: defense budget. The other thing, too, is we can't be
Speaker 1: going around the world as the world's police. We should
Speaker 1: be leaders, but we in being a leader. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that everyone else's problem. Everyone else is our problem.
Speaker 1: What's most important is when determining whether or not an
Speaker 1: issue that's going on somewhere else abroad affects us, where
Speaker 1: we need to get more involved. We need to say, well,
Speaker 1: how does this impact our own national security, our own safety,
Speaker 1: and that should be the determining factor. There are some
Speaker 1: people who I'm in and almost like they are looking
Speaker 1: for conflict. It's as personal as it gets for me.
Speaker 1: We have men and women who raise their hand and
Speaker 1: willness serve they're willing to die in defense of our country.
Speaker 1: It is imperative that people who are in charge of
Speaker 1: these lives make sure that we never send any of
Speaker 1: our sons and daughters into harm's way one unless they're
Speaker 1: sent to win. They send them a win, and you'll
Speaker 1: send them at all. And too often they get sent
Speaker 1: without a plan to win. And just make sure that
Speaker 1: we don't get caught up in a country and an
Speaker 1: engagement that's just not ours to fight, and all of
Speaker 1: sudden we're spending trillions of dollars elsewhere, so we waste
Speaker 1: money on war. We waste money on war, all right.
Speaker 1: And lastly, I want to ask you, how would you
Speaker 1: rate Governor Hoko right now? Well, I'm running against her,
Speaker 1: right and the reason why that I'm running aginst her.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that she's doing a good job on
Speaker 1: many different fronts. I believe the state's heading in the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. She listen, we can all have our opinions
Speaker 1: on these issues. You might really like Alvin Bragg. For example,
Speaker 1: you ask Alvin Bragg earlier. You know, you didn't say
Speaker 1: one way or the other, how do you feel? But
Speaker 1: you ask me the question when she got asked about Bragg,
Speaker 1: She's saying, you cut him from slack. He just got there.
Speaker 1: He's doing his job. Now. There are people out there
Speaker 1: who might agree with that. I happen to believe that
Speaker 1: Alvin Bragg is not doing a good job and that
Speaker 1: he should be replaced. I was talking earlier about how
Speaker 1: you ways to reduce energy costs in this state and
Speaker 1: reversing the state's ban on the safe extraction of natural gas.
Speaker 1: She's on the opposite side of that issue. I was
Speaker 1: out there fighting for Jose Alba's freedom, and when she
Speaker 1: was asked about the Jose Alba case, Kathy Hoogel says,
Speaker 1: it's a local issue. She's not going to get involved.
Speaker 1: By the way, if anybody out there wants to support me,
Speaker 1: don't do it thinking that I am going to be
Speaker 1: giving you any type of like special favors in return
Speaker 1: for your donation. It doesn't work like that. People can
Speaker 1: support me if they just if they support where I
Speaker 1: stand on particular issues. But if you'll read story after
Speaker 1: story after story, I mean, she just signed over the
Speaker 1: weekend another thirty day extension of her COVID emergency powers.
Speaker 1: She did it on her own, unilaterally, without getting permission
Speaker 1: from the state legislature. With those powers, that's not just
Speaker 1: a piece of paper. With that, she ended up giving
Speaker 1: a no bid contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 1: to a family that donated three hundred thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: her family donates three hundred thousand dollars, and they got
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars back in no big contract.
Speaker 1: We have competitive bidding in New York, So how did
Speaker 1: you possibly get this done without a bid? Well, because
Speaker 1: she signed on the COVID emergency powers. My opinion, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have had two year olds, three year olds, four
Speaker 1: year old still stuck in masks and they're out there
Speaker 1: talking as if like this might even come back. I
Speaker 1: don't believe that our healthcare workers should have been fired
Speaker 1: for a personal decision of whether or not to get
Speaker 1: the COVID vaccine. I believe that everyone who's been fired
Speaker 1: should get their jobs back with back pay, especially when
Speaker 1: considered essential just a couple of years ago, and by
Speaker 1: the way, a couple of weeks before that they were essential,
Speaker 1: held as heroes. Some of them a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: before they were fired tested positive for COVID. So when
Speaker 1: Johns Hopkins University, and these other researchers are saying, hey,
Speaker 1: natural immunity is a thing. And you know, Johns Hopkins said,
Speaker 1: if you have COVID but didn't get the COVID vaccine,
Speaker 1: you have more protection than if you didn't get COVID
Speaker 1: and you get the COVID vaccine. And the healthcare worker
Speaker 1: is saying, I had COVID. I had COVID by the way.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons because you didn't give me enough
Speaker 1: ppe because I was out there exposed on the front
Speaker 1: lines of this and now I'm fired. You know, right now,
Speaker 1: we have people who are teachers who are getting fired.
Speaker 1: We have other people who believe in public service to
Speaker 1: there for all the right reasons, and you know, firefighters
Speaker 1: and others who are getting they're losing their jobs for it. Now,
Speaker 1: these are issues that we're on the I'm on a
Speaker 1: different side of these issues than than Governor Hokell. And
Speaker 1: if anybody's out there and they feel like, listen, our
Speaker 1: streets are safe. The education is great, It's filled with
Speaker 1: great opportunity here life in New York. There's no corruption,
Speaker 1: you know, up with this paid all these paid to
Speaker 1: place scanels. I just named one. By the way, they
Speaker 1: are like a whole bunch of these different pay to
Speaker 1: play scandals. If everything's just, you know, all good right
Speaker 1: now in government, well then I'm not your guy. I
Speaker 1: am running because I feel like our state is heading
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. I'll finish right where I started.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to answer the question or
Speaker 1: finish the sentence. New York leads the entire country and
Speaker 1: population loss because and I believe that the answer to
Speaker 1: that is because of the attacks on freedom, on wallet,
Speaker 1: on safety, and the quality of our kids education. I
Speaker 1: believe that I have ideas that make our streets safer.
Speaker 1: I believe I have ideas that improve the quality of
Speaker 1: education our schools. I believe that it will help create
Speaker 1: jobs and generate more opportunity. And as we're just talking
Speaker 1: about COVID as one of the many examples, I want
Speaker 1: to fight to defend freedom in the state. I want
Speaker 1: this to be a state where all of you can
Speaker 1: contact the person who left and they went down to
Speaker 1: Florida while they thought the getting was good down in Florida,
Speaker 1: and you're able to say, hey, listen, you got out
Speaker 1: too early. It's time to come back. Mayor Adams and
Speaker 1: I we together New York State Senate and we've stayed
Speaker 1: in touch since we get along well. You know, over
Speaker 1: the course of the rest of this campaign between Mayor
Speaker 1: Adams and you know, this governor's race, I'm sure he'll
Speaker 1: be supportive of Governor Hockel. They're in the same party.
Speaker 1: I get that. But I know that the story that
Speaker 1: will get written in twenty twenty three is about how
Speaker 1: well Governor Leezelden's working with Mayor Eric Adams. Why, because
Speaker 1: it's our job too. I know how to be able
Speaker 1: to work with him. I believe he knows how to
Speaker 1: work with me. And whether it's education or it's you
Speaker 1: fighting crime or whatever else, that partnership is important to
Speaker 1: move our city and stay forward. Give him the website
Speaker 1: Zelden for New York dot Com z E L d
Speaker 1: I n f O R. Zelden for New York dot
Speaker 1: Com on a social media as well at lee Zelden
Speaker 1: on a whole bunch of different platforms. And really appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys having me in. It was an honor to
Speaker 1: be with all of you, and I look forward to
Speaker 1: coming back and this was great, So I enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 1: Many that you were striking distance of a of governor.
Speaker 1: Whole cool. So well, the big question have I been
Speaker 1: in yet to? Uh? You know, go on the Breakfast Club?
Speaker 1: And now you know, listen every anybody who's out there
Speaker 1: who has any questions. I am an open door you guys.
Speaker 1: Could you know today as you saw, you asked me
Speaker 1: whatever questions you want with regards anything. There are other
Speaker 1: people say, oh man, they might ask me a question
Speaker 1: about so and so so, then they hide and they
Speaker 1: don't show up. I'm here to answer whatever questions you
Speaker 1: have about anything, and I come back and do it again.
Speaker 1: That's right, end, It's the Breakfast Club