Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: We're going to get out to a conversation now with
Speaker 2: former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on the state of
Speaker 2: New York City's mayoral race, and he is speaking to
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's David.
Speaker 3: Gera him up twenty five points to you. Of course,
Speaker 3: it's a four candidate race. How do you see the
Speaker 3: path forward here given the polling and sort of where
Speaker 3: things stand. I should note that the polling hasn't changed
Speaker 3: a tremendous amount in recent weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it will change dramatically. What you see in the
Speaker 1: polls is, Mam Damie is always about forty percent. That
Speaker 1: leaves sixty percent. As you accurately pointed out, you have
Speaker 1: a multi candidate field, so four people or three people
Speaker 1: who are breaking up that sixty percent. I don't think
Speaker 1: you're going to wind up ultimately with that larger field.
Speaker 1: I think the field is going to collapse. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to come down to me versus mister Maumbani.
Speaker 1: And as I said, Mam Donnie has forty percent. His
Speaker 1: very radical ideas which are exciting to one group of
Speaker 1: the population, especially young people, but are polarizing to many
Speaker 1: other people. Uh, And I think it's going to come
Speaker 1: down to a one on one and then it is
Speaker 1: a totally different race.
Speaker 3: Curtisily with the Republican candidate says he's not dropping out.
Speaker 3: The incumbent mayor Eric Adam says he's not dropping out.
Speaker 3: We've passed the ballot deadline. If we were to have
Speaker 3: a race where it's you against Ormundani, poles still show
Speaker 3: him leading you by a substantial amount. What do you
Speaker 3: see in the electorate that the data aren't shown when
Speaker 3: it comes to that particular configuration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Poles are historically wrong, especially this year, especially
Speaker 1: in New York. On your first point, you can stay
Speaker 1: in the race. First of all, technically nobody can get
Speaker 1: off the ballot, right. The question is are you viable
Speaker 1: in the race, And you can a people who are
Speaker 1: in the race, but the voters just think they're not
Speaker 1: really competitive, they can't win. I'm not going to waste
Speaker 1: my vote, and I think that's what happens here. I
Speaker 1: think it comes down to me and Mamdani. I think
Speaker 1: when people understand what Mamdani stands for, besides what he
Speaker 1: has said on TikTok, you know he's anti police, this
Speaker 1: band the police, legalized prostitution, legalize the drug trade, abolish jails.
Speaker 1: You know, this would be anarchy in New York. Socialism
Speaker 1: does not work in New York City. It's antithetical. We're
Speaker 1: the business capital, right, We're pro business. Business is the
Speaker 1: engine that drives the train. So none of that has
Speaker 1: been communicated yet, and when it does, I can tell
Speaker 1: you the minds will change.
Speaker 3: Is there an effort by you and your campaign to
Speaker 3: try to convince Eric Adams curritously would have dropped out
Speaker 3: of this race, or their conversations that are happening behind
Speaker 3: the scenes to make what I imagine you see as
Speaker 3: a compelling case for them to step aside, to make
Speaker 3: this more of a one on one race.
Speaker 1: No, I'm sure they're making their own decisions. I've been
Speaker 1: in elections that where I have dropped out because I
Speaker 1: thought it was the right thing to do. They have
Speaker 1: a decision to make. There is no apparent path to
Speaker 1: victory for them. They in essence would act as a spoiler,
Speaker 1: and that's a decision they have to make. They have
Speaker 1: to make it personally, and that's their business. But again,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to come down to a two
Speaker 1: person race no matter what, because that's what the polls
Speaker 1: are going to say, and that is the choice. I
Speaker 1: am a Democrat. My father was a Democrat. I worked
Speaker 1: for Bill Clinton. Zoran is a socialist for the Democratic Socialists. Right,
Speaker 1: didn't support Democrats. Barack Obama was a liar and evil
Speaker 1: and didn't support Kamala Harris against Trump. Right, So this
Speaker 1: is a very different This is apples and oranges between
Speaker 1: the two of us.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you about some comments that Curtis
Speaker 3: Sliva made yesterday. I'm sure you heard them. He was
Speaker 3: campaigning and suggested that your affiliates of your campaign had
Speaker 3: reached out to him and offered him money to the
Speaker 3: tune of ten million dollars to drop out of this race.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to quote from what he said during
Speaker 3: that campaign event. He called these classic Andrew Cuomo tactics.
Speaker 3: Why don't you strap up Cuomo to a lie detection
Speaker 3: machine and ask him and we'll all be blown to
Speaker 3: Kingdom come because.
Speaker 1: He's behind it.
Speaker 3: I don't have a polygraphic machine with me here, But
Speaker 3: how do you respond to what he's alleging in those comments?
Speaker 1: Look, you can't. You have to take Sliva with a
Speaker 1: grain of salt. Right. He is a known con man.
Speaker 1: He's lied about being victims of crime before. But it's
Speaker 1: very simple, David. When he said that someone should have
Speaker 1: said who, who or fored you the money? Let him
Speaker 1: answer the question, because it would happen to be a crime, right,
Speaker 1: who or forered you money? He never said who wh
Speaker 1: sort of tells you right that it's all malarkey. There
Speaker 1: was no person who did it.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you last we've talked about the
Speaker 3: state of the race, where you hope that it's headed,
Speaker 3: and if we can't, I'd like to look back to
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven. So a ways you were nineteen, You
Speaker 3: were a student at Fordham University. Your dad was making
Speaker 3: a run for mayor, and you were helping out on
Speaker 3: the campaign. He didn't win the Democratic primary and decided
Speaker 3: to run on an independent line for mayor. He ended
Speaker 3: up losing that race by nine points. They say that
Speaker 3: history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, and I know
Speaker 3: that you don't want history to repeat itself here. You'd
Speaker 3: like to win this race in the way that he
Speaker 3: wasn't able to back then fifty years ago. I'm not
Speaker 3: the first to point out this historical parallel. But I
Speaker 3: imagine you've thought about it, and I wonder how that
Speaker 3: experience has informed your outlook on this race. There was
Speaker 3: introspection after the primaries. You didn't do as well as
Speaker 3: you wanted to do. You decided to make this run.
Speaker 3: What can you learn about that race that your dad
Speaker 3: waged and how does that inform the way that you're
Speaker 3: running this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my father was an extraordinary individual on many levels,
Speaker 1: highly principled, frankly a typical for a politician, and he
Speaker 1: did quote unquote the right thing, whatever he thought the
Speaker 1: right thing was for me. I believe in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: I believe in what my father stood for, what John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy stood for, and Robert F. Kennedy stood for, and
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, and what Mandami represents. And this Democratic Socialists
Speaker 1: of America DSA socialists call them whatever you want. Is
Speaker 1: repugnant to the Democratic Party, I know. And that's what's
Speaker 1: really going on here. This is a civil war within
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party right where the extreme left is pulling
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and the moderates are afraid of the
Speaker 1: extreme left. It's the inverse of the Republican Party when
Speaker 1: they had the Tea Party and the Tea Party was
Speaker 1: pulling the Republican Moderates too far to the right because
Speaker 1: they were afraid of them in a primary. That's what's
Speaker 1: happening here. It's a battle for the soul of the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party is not anti business,
Speaker 1: it's not anti police. That's not who we are. We're
Speaker 1: not about redistributing income as a policy. Right, you tax
Speaker 1: to provide a service. You don't tax to take money
Speaker 1: from the rich to give it to the poor.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's why Donald Trump cosim a communist. So this is
Speaker 1: not the Democratic Party that I believe I represent and
Speaker 1: traditionally has served this nation well. He is zero experience
Speaker 1: in the position, never managed anything five employees, never had
Speaker 1: a real job, and when you're willing to consider chief
Speaker 1: executive New York City, no management experience, ran five people.
Speaker 1: Now he's going to run three hundred thousand employees one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen billion dollar budget. You wake up any morning,
Speaker 1: you could have a terrorist attack, you could have another COVID.
Speaker 1: It just the means government and the means of public
Speaker 1: service in a way that I just find abhorrent. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to do everything I can to stop govern quollo.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you