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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. My next guest is someone who took some really big risks in this recent primary election. City Comptroller Brad Lander could have just run for reelection. As someone who has routinely been at odds with Mayor Adams over the administration's handling of the migrant crisis, its on-again, off-again cuts to critical city services like libraries and a federal corruption pro that it's tied Adams closer to the Trump administration. Lander opted for a chance to overhaul City Hall, and he may well be responsible for that happening. He just won't be taking residence at Gracie Mansion.

Notably, he cross-endorsed with Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and remained a stridently positive force in support of the candidates endorsed by the Working Families Party and against former Governor Andrew Cuomo. We're going to spend some time unpacking his campaign, his reaction to the results, and look ahead to the race in November.

Plus, we'll talk about the city budget deal reached last week. Today marks the end of the city's fiscal year. On July 1st, a new balanced budget must be in place. The mayor and speaker held a budget handshake on Friday. We'll ask Lander to weigh in on the pros and cons of that agreement. Comptroller Lander, welcome back to WNYC. Thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Comptroller Brad Lander: Thank you, Brigid. Really nice to be here.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you have a question for City Comptroller Brad Lander about his campaign, his support for Mamdani, suggestions for his next steps? Lander will be out of elected office next year, or questions about the city budget? You can call 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692 with your questions for City Comptroller Brad Lander. Call or text that number. Listeners, if you check out Brad Lander's Instagram feed this morning, there is a post from yesterday's pride parade here in the city. Comptroller, how was it out there yesterday? What kind of reaction were you hearing from people?

Comptroller Lander: Well, first, I'll say, my family's number one instructions to me are no dancing in public and no hats.

Brigid Bergin: [laughs] You broke them both.

Comptroller Lander: I aggressively violated both of their advice. Both my son and my daughter and my wife were texting throughout, "Get the hat off. Less with the dancing." I'm very happy with the video that's up. This is a through line from the campaign. It's just a dark timeline with Trump and the pandemic and all the corruption at City Hall on October 7th, and the dark inevitability people felt around Andrew Cuomo. The election opened up some hopefulness about the future of our beloved city. You could really feel that out there on the streets of pride yesterday.

Brigid Bergin: I want to take a step back to where you started your campaign. You were actually here on The Brian Lehrer Show about a year ago, when you signaled you were very seriously thinking about the race for mayor. What ultimately made you decide to jump in the race instead of, as I said, just running for reelection?

Comptroller Lander: Yes, you have it just right. It seemed clear to me that Eric Adams did not deserve to be reelected, that the combination of corruption, this was before he really sold us out to Trump, and just not addressing the issues that matter to people made it that he should not be reelected. We knew even a year ago that Andrew Cuomo might get in the race if Eric Adams faltered. It was even clearer to me that he's unfit to serve, so I thought, don't want to see either of them as mayor. I felt I was the best qualified for the job and that I had a good chance to beat whichever one of them wound up running. That's why I decided to throw my hat in.

Brigid Bergin: Jumping ahead, way ahead, your campaign had a particularly strong finish. You picked up that endorsement from The New York Times editorial panel. You hit that final debate stage as what I viewed as a more emboldened candidate. You landed some pretty tough hits on the former governor. Here's about a minute of one of the standout moments.

Comptroller Lander: Andrew, you admitted at the time that you called a 25-year-old staffer into your office and asked her questions about whether she'd had older partners and whether she was available and intimated that you were looking for a partner. Everybody here knows that you sexually harassed women, that you created a toxic work environment.

[applause]

Comptroller Lander: We're here with all these CUNY students. Many of them young women. I went to the City College commencement. The valedictorian is going to come work at the Department of Homeless Services. I don't want to have to tell her, "Don't go work at City Hall because the mayor is a sexual harasser."

[applause]

Andrew Cuomo: Those are just bold-faced lies, and you know it.

Comptroller Lander: You admitted it at the time.

Andrew Cuomo: It's frightening that you can look at a camera and lie that easily.

Comptroller Lander: Right now, I'm looking at you. You admitted it at that time.

Andrew Cuomo: I never said that.

Brigid Bergin: Comptroller, that was not the candidate we saw in the first mayoral debate. What changed between debate one and debate two? I know you told my friend, Jessy Edwards, over at Hell Gate that your son played a role in it.

Comptroller Lander: He did, actually. I was on the way into the second debate. I do some conscious breathing to get ready in a moment like that and try to be centered. He's like, "Dad, no, no, no, this is not the time to be Zen. This is the time to throw some punches." He pumped me up. I had a great team, and we had prepared after the first debate to be more focused in the second. Obviously, there were fewer candidates on stage, and fewer of them really focused on Cuomo.

On the sexual harassment, in particular, the polling had suggested, and the conventional wisdom was that that wasn't where to hit him. I don't know. That was just like people were brushing it off. Between the first and the second debate, I just really said, "That is not right. It is not the right thing to do." I really did meet this amazing young woman, Eilyn Marquez, who's the valedictorian at City College, where I got to give the commencement address.

She arrived here from El Salvador six years ago, not speaking much English. Now, she's the valedictorian of one of the best public colleges in the country. I thought it's amazing she's coming to work in city government. We talked. We hit on a lot of other issues on immigration, on the COVID nursing home deaths, on failure to take responsibility, but I really did want to make sure that people remember why that's so wrong and would be corrupting of City Hall if we let it happen.

Brigid Bergin: Did you have any conversation with Cuomo on stage after that debate? We know we skipped the spin room.

Comptroller Lander: No.

Brigid Bergin: Well, let's talk a little bit to some of our listeners who have questions and comments for you. Let's start with Nick in Brooklyn. Nick, thanks for calling WNYC.

Nick: Hey, thank you so much for taking the call. Mr. Lander, I wanted to say, your work in the comptroller's office has been a huge help to me and my job as a New York City public school teacher. I teach at a transfer high school on the Lower East Side, focusing on immigration. The report that your office put out, Facts, Not Fear, in which Eric Adams had said and claimed that the migrant surge was going to destroy New York City, I think, provided a really, really strong argumentative support to my students, many of whom coming from immigrant families, seeing the immigrants in the city, and feeling as if they were being attacked by their city government.

I think you really gave them a lot of support and something to argue with. I really appreciate that. I am really curious about your future plans. I was a Mamdani supporter and a Mamdani volunteer over the campaign, but always felt like I could make the argument for you at the doors that I was knocking as well. I'm curious. What do you hope for the future politically? I think a lot of folks that I talk to are really interested in seeing you run for New York District 10. I think we're really excited to see you continue on in government. I think someone of your character and your honesty and just really your focus is what the Democratic Party needs, what the city needs, and what the country needs overall.

Comptroller Lander: Well, thank you, Nick. That is very flattering. I'm so glad that report was useful. I'm proud. We lead this team of 700 people doing great work every day, and especially on that issue. I think there's been focus on the Eric Adams corruption and on the bending the knee to Trump. The scapegoating of immigrants in the greatest immigrant city the world has ever known is especially enraging to me. I was really proud or humbled.

It was not what I intended, but the fact that the moment I captured the most attention down the stretch was standing up for asylum seekers in the immigration court. I hope more people will go bear witness to the horror that is happening there. It really is a lawless process. We'll see what the future holds for me. I'm certainly going to put a lot of energy into making sure that Zohran is elected in November and help out on his campaign. I'll be comptroller till the end of the year, so I have a little time to breathe and figure out what's next.

He's got a big mandate for change. It's going to take a lot of hands to help make that happen. I'd be happy to help there however I could. I'm flattered by the different things that people are suggesting. Look, I want to push forward. I've been saying a lot on the trail these days that I don't think the line in the Democratic Party is between progressives and moderates. I think it's between fighters and folders. I'm ready to get out and fight the next fight.

Brigid Bergin: Comptroller, you mentioned that scene that was widely captured of you at immigration court. You had advised on your public schedule that you had planned to be there to "highlight the need for more legal funding and resources to protect immigrants from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's unlawful detainments." You yourself were handcuffed. We see you being brought into an elevator and the doors closing. Can you tell us anything about what happened that we didn't see?

Comptroller Lander: They take me downstairs first into a hallway to wait, and then into an interview room. Think about a Law & Order interview room. I was in detention for about four hours. They did not really interview me or ask me anything about what was happening. I really mostly just sat. I will say I asked some questions of the two folks who detained me. One of them, after he took his mask off, was a Pakistani Muslim immigrant who lives in Brighton Beach. The second guy, an Indo-Guyanese immigrant, who lives in South Ozone Park. I'm thinking, "Welcome to New York City, where even the ICE agents are immigrants," and how important it is to get better leaders, because what turns people into brown shirts is when we allow government to be corrupted.

Brigid Bergin: We have a full board of callers for you, Comptroller. I want to go to Rebecca on the Upper West Side. Rebecca, thanks for calling WNYC.

Rebecca: Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. Brad, I rank you first for the primary. I'm pretty bummed you're not going to be the candidate. I did not rank Mamdani because I'm not yet convinced of what a Mamdani administration would look like. I think he's really talented, but I'm just curious if in your conversations with him leading up to the [unintelligible 00:12:28], you got a sense of whether he'd be drawing upon longtime city bureaucrats towards his administration, or if we're going to see a totally green administration coming in if he is to win.

Comptroller Lander: Yes, he named some people on the debate stage that I think are more in that former category. He named Steve Banks, who's someone that I have a lot of respect for. Actually, I'll give another fun detail here. Steve, he named on the debate stage, and then Steve was one of the people he invited to Colbert. I only invited my family, so that signals something. He named Maria Torres-Springer and some other folks who really have a long history in government.

He was asked somewhere about sewer socialism, which is a great term for the work that this Milwaukee socialist mayor did a century ago, which speaks to paying attention. In that case, the idea is like the sewers and picking up the garbage that you have to get those things done if you're also going to be able to do the big, bold things that he's promised. Yes, those things matter to me a lot.

Look, I really appreciate your first-rank vote, Rebecca. Obviously, I was running on "make government work effectively" in order to deliver, so that matters a lot to me. I would not have cross-endorsed him, and I wouldn't be supporting him in the general if I didn't believe that he is committed to both achieving the bold things he's promised and putting a great team together that can get the day-to-day work done well.

Brigid Bergin: City Comptroller, in the lead-up to the primary day, we were seeing huge energy during early voting, particularly among young and first-time primary voters. We first reported that a quarter of early voters were first-time primary voters. Given that Cuomo had been outpolling the field for so long, what did you make of some of those early turnout numbers?

Comptroller Lander: Well, the nice thing for me was I could see them. I was out there on the trail outside the polling sites talking to these young voters. A few of them like Rebecca, who ranked me first, and many like Nick, who ranked me second, were enthusiastic about it. They loved the cross-endorsement. Yes, it felt very hopeful. This has been a dark and hard couple of years, and to have so many young people come out clearly frustrated, and they want something different.

They're angry with what the Democratic establishment has offered. They want something different from government. They love the city but can't imagine affording to stay here. The fact that that got channeled into this campaign, where the hippest thing to do for Gen Z young people in New York City was to go knock doors for Zohran. Was I a little jealous? Sure, but that's great for the future of our city that people channel their frustration into getting out there and voting and engaging in democracy.

That really is what we need more of. I really do hope Democrats nationally take note and figure out-- Again, I think you can bring that fight, bring that energy with different kinds of politics. It's got to be a party that has more progressive and more moderate Democrats across the country, but everybody can get out there and fight the fights that matter and try to inspire people and bring them out to the polls.

Brigid Bergin: If you're just joining us, you're listening to The Brian Lehrer Show in WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian today. My guest is City Comptroller Brad Lander. We are talking primary night. What comes next? Comptroller, on primary night, I'm wondering, when did it become clear to you that Cuomo was not going to be successful? I want to play a little bit of your rather salty reaction to that fact.

Comptroller Lander: Andrew Cuomo is in the past. He is not the present or future of New York City.

[crowd cheering]

Comptroller Lander: Good [bleep] riddance.

[laughter]

Brigid Bergin: Of course, we added that beep for public radio. City Comptroller, when we--

Comptroller Lander: If you go online, I think you can find the full quotes if you're curious about what got bleeped out. I was at my home in Park Slope, just a few minutes away from our campaign party in Gowanus. We were watching the results come in. We knew that the early-vote numbers would lean heavily towards Zohran. It was as the same-day results came in and the numbers weren't changing.

I think it went up with about 40% of the vote. We expected that was the early vote. When those numbers were holding at 50% and 60% that I was ready to say, because I had said in my speech, even before Cuomo conceded, that we had succeeded in sending Andrew Cuomo back to the suburbs, and that Zohran was going to be the Democratic nominee. Then while I was on stage giving my speech, my staff came up. My campaign manager came up and whispered that he had conceded right before that line that you just played.

Brigid Bergin: You are now given your cross-endorsement with Assemblymember Mamdani, I think, fielding a lot of questions about his position, the future of his campaign. I want to talk a little bit about that, but I wonder if, just for a moment, you could tell us. How did you reach the place where you decided that the cross-endorsement made sense just coming out of that debate? Did you know it before that debate? Had you talked about it ahead of that last debate, or was that something in the wake of the debate you decided? Given that you were running for the top job yourself, how hard was it to accept that?

Comptroller Lander: Yes, thank you. The timeline was pretty intense. It was not an easy decision to come to, but it was clear to me. First, I'll say that for the better part of the year, I had been saying something like, "Look, four years ago, if Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia had cross-endorsed, one of them probably would have won. We wouldn't have had Eric Adams selling out our city to Donald Trump."

I had made clear to a lot of people that I was committed to a more effective, a more disciplined ranked-choice strategy. Of course, I hoped it would elect me, but if you're going to have two candidates or three candidates, they're not all going to win. I had said that enough times and even asked people to hold me accountable to it when the time came. I felt clear that that was what was called for. I will say, the timeline is we sat down on Wednesday to talk about it and had a tentative handshake, but then said, "Let's talk tomorrow."

Thursday was the day The Times opinion panel came out. All those folks said I'd be the best choice for mayor. It was the night of the debate. It was on that same day that we said, "Yes, let's do it," and then did the cross-endorsement Friday. I approached it more like ranked-choice mathematics. We need to add our voters up if we're going to defeat Cuomo. It's like in ranked-choice, if Candidates 2 and 3 agree Candidate 1 is unacceptable, it makes sense for them to cross-endorse. That's just the ranked-choice math of it.

As soon as we made that video in front of the food cart, and as people started responding to it, something much more hopeful happened. It wasn't just, "Okay, let's add up our votes to defeat Cuomo." It was people responded with, "Huh, politics doesn't always have to be a sour, selfish, ego-driven thing. It could be more like a team sport on behalf of the city we love." It really had a very lovely energy in those closing days.

Brigid Bergin: I will say as an observer and as a reporter, you certainly projected optimism that seemed like it was a shift. Not that your campaign wasn't optimistic, but there was something different about the way you were carrying yourself in those final days after that cross-endorsement took place. I want to ask you this. Assemblymember Mamdani is now getting questions from national media. This phrase, "globalize the intifada," continues to be a source of questions.

It's language that he says he doesn't use, but his unwillingness to condemn it outright seems to have led to some confusion at best and really misinformation at worst about his positions. Even on this show last week, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand seemed to either misunderstand or misspeak about his position on these issues. Then on NBC's Meet the Press this weekend, he was pressed by Kristen Welker to condemn the language. Here's a bit of their exchange.

Kristen Welker: For the people who care about the language and who feel really concerned by that phrase, why not just condemn it?

Zohran Mamdani: My concern is to start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible takes me into a place similar to that of the President, who is looking to do those very kinds of things. Putting people in jail for writing an op-ed, putting them in jail for protesting. Ultimately, it's not language that I use. It's language I understand there are concerns about. What I will do is showcase my vision for the city through my words and my actions.

Brigid Bergin: Comptroller, as the city's highest-ranking Jewish New Yorker, is there anything that you would advise or counsel Mamdani on this particular issue? Are you concerned that it could remain a vulnerability in the general election?

Comptroller Lander: Look, I feel this very personally. Jewish New Yorker is not a political identity for me. That's like who I am, how I raise my kids, what really matters most to me. I want this to continue to be a city where Jews thrive and everybody else thrives. To me, the days since October 7th have been really hard ones. I keep trying to build bridges. I believe that he is working to build bridges as well, from a different place than mine, to be sure.

I appreciate that he's clarified, those aren't words he uses. I don't like that phrase. I know there may be people, when they say it, who mean advocate for the human rights of Palestinians. In the wake of the murders in DC and the firebombing in Boulder, it sounds to me like open season on Jews. I would prefer people not say it. It's not against the law. You shouldn't use the force of government to arrest people for it, but I would prefer people not say it.

I appreciate that he's clarified that he doesn't say it like people should be held accountable for their words, but they shouldn't be held accountable for other people's words. I have respect for Senator Gillibrand, but I thought what she said on your airwaves last week was awful, and that she should apologize to him for it. I think all Democrats now should come out and support the Democratic nominee for mayor.

I really liked what he said on election night, where he said, "I make a commitment to reach out and understand and listen to New Yorkers." No mayor is responsible for what happens in the Middle East, but a mayor is responsible for listening to people who voted for him and didn't vote for him, to trying to understand and for bringing people together. I guess what I hope, I think if the whole campaign is every reporter asking him about those words over and over, again, I understand why Jews feel uncomfortable with the phrase.

What I hope is, instead, there's an opportunity here to shift a little that the days since October 7th have been excruciating. If he goes out and really listens to people, build some understanding, brings people together, I think that could be a great model. I will just say, one of the things that felt powerful about the cross-endorsement was people really responded to seeing a Jewish New Yorker and a Muslim New Yorker campaigning together.

Not agreeing 100% on everything, but deeply believing in a vision of New York City where everybody, Jews and Muslims and Christians and Sikhs and Buddhists and Hindus and everybody else, believe they could have a home they could afford in a neighborhood where they feel safe, with a great school for their kids. We love the diversity of this city. That's not always easy. This is an important moment to move it forward. I'm optimistic that he will provide that leadership. I just invite all of us to take a deep breath and try to think about how we could contribute to doing that as well.

Brigid Bergin: In our last couple of minutes with City Comptroller Brad Lander, I want to try to sneak in at least one, maybe another caller. We have a full board, Comptroller Lander, with a lot of people who are, I think, echoing some of what you said there. I want to shout out Amanda in Brooklyn, who wanted to say what you were getting there at the end that she appreciated as a Jewish New Yorker, the way that you really came together, showing that Muslims and Jews can get along, getting rid of an idea that there needs to be divisions within these politics. I want to go to Scott in Brooklyn, who I think has a little bit of pushback, is open for some persuasion. Scott, thanks for calling WNYC.

Scott: Hi. I think that you guys have probably addressed a lot of what I'm going to ask already. Let me just give you the rundown. Brad, I had you first on my list. Then after that, Adrienne Adams. I won't go down the rest of the list, but it ended up the night before-- Mamdani was not on my ranked-choice. Then the night before, I was like, "I got to go Cuomo because I really, really didn't want Zohran to win the primary." I'm not totally contrite, but I'm willing to listen and hear why we should push forward.

I'm probably going to vote for him. I'm definitely not voting for Cuomo again. It's not really I was for him. It was more of a vote against. Like I said, you were first on my list. I'm just wondering. Yes, I'm willing to have an ear out for why we should move forward. I didn't get a chance to put this into the screener, but since you've answered a lot of things already, do you anticipate having any role in the administration, which I've given-- No, that's not done yet, but just in case.

Brigid Bergin: Scott, thanks so much for your questions. I want to make sure you have some time to answer that, Comptroller Lander. He did ask something that, of course, I was going to get to, which is what you would hope, potentially, role you might play in a Mamdani administration. To his first question, what role are you going to be playing to try and persuade voters between now and November to support Assemblymember Mamdani?

Comptroller Lander: Yes, I might just play Scott's clip to people because I feel really great about it. Believe me. Out in the streets over the last couple of weeks, I heard it all. I heard, "Thank you for the cross-endorsement. It gives me hope." I heard, "You used to be first on my ballot. Now, you're nowhere on my ballot because, how could you do that?" Jews have been having a lot of the same arguments for a couple of thousand years. New Yorkers are famously disputatious.

Jewish New Yorkers let you know how they feel. I like that. I like the argument and the debate when I agree and when I disagree. I hope people will just be open in the way that Scott is. You heard him election night. Zohran say he's going to work hard to listen and understand. He's going to be clear about who he is, but that he cares about the safety of all New Yorkers very much, including Jewish New Yorkers, and including Jewish New Yorkers who believe in the vision of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state.

I hope that the general election campaign will be following his leadership, one of that kind of dialogue and listening, maybe even we can bring some people together. He's got to lead that. He's campaigning through to November. That's what a general election campaign is. You do one thing in the primary, and you try to speak to a broader coalition in the general. I believe he's going to do that.

I just invite people like Scott, who may have ranked Andrew Cuomo first on their ballot, to listen with open ears and think about how we can build a future of the city together. We'll see. He's got a big mandate for change that will take a lot of people's work. For the general, I'm going to be out there talking to everybody, but certainly especially talking to Jewish New Yorkers about why I'm optimistic. We'll see where it goes after that.

Brigid Bergin: We promised listeners we would talk briefly about the city's budget deal. There was a handshake on a $116 billion budget deal last week. Councils voting today. You issued a rather cautious statement about it. Can you just tell us any of your concerns that you have?

Comptroller Lander: Yes, I am concerned that this budget does not get the city ready for the crisis that Trump presents. They're debating that bill right now, and it will blow big holes in our budget. They've already cut nearly 8,000 housing vouchers. We know Medicaid's going to get cut. NYC Health + Hospitals relies heavily on Medicaid funding. I was advocating for them to add $1 billion to our rainy day fund and $1 billion to our general reserve to get ready for the cuts that are coming.

Unfortunately, nothing was added to the budget to prepare. There were good additions, $50 million for immigrant legal services, which we were talking about before, and that, plus the $50 million the governor's providing, makes it possible for New York to step up there. I love seven-day library service at 10 additional branches, some money for childcare, but there is not-- I think it's a mistake to have failed to add to the reserves, given what we know is coming from Washington.

Brigid Bergin: New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Really appreciate it.

Comptroller Lander: Great to be on with you, Brigid. Thank you.

 

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