Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now we'll turn to the New York City mayoral race. Today's segment will include our weekly Wednesday visit from WNYC political reporter Elizabeth Kim. She'll be joined this week by Christina Greer, the Fordham University political science professor, and co-host of the podcast FAQ NYC.

Our coverage will also include today's installment of our 30 Issues in 30 Days election series. Issue number eight, how to maximize racial justice and racial equality in New York, and is that any different of a conversation now that there is no longer a Black candidate in the race? We'll begin that part with the Reverend Al Sharpton in just a minute, but just to remind everyone of how far from equality we still are, just one or two things by way of background.

A report by Comptroller Brad Lander in 2023 found the historic disparities in wealth are as bad as ever. The report looked at figures for New York State and found, "For white New Yorkers, median household net worth is $276,000, which is nearly 15 times greater than the median household net worth of Black New Yorkers, which is only about $19,000." We could go down the list of savage inequalities that you're probably familiar with in education metrics, in life expectancy, in incarceration rates, maternal mortality. Who's best for Black New Yorkers in general? Who has policies that could diminish racial disparities in general on so many basic things?

Our first guest for about 10 minutes is the Reverend Al Sharpton, longtime civil rights leader, host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, weekends at 5:00 PM, and his radio show Keepin' It Real, weekdays at 1:00, founder and president of the National Action Network, and author of books, including Righteous Troublemakers, released in 2022. When Mayor Adams dropped his reelection bid on Sunday, Reverend Sharpton released a statement wishing Adams the best and saying, "We've been friends for nearly 35 years, and he helped us establish the National Action Network in 1991. He's been a friend of NAN year in and year out since, especially over the last almost four years he led City Hall. NAN remains focused on continuing our work of making New York City safe, livable, and prosperous for Black and brown communities."

Reverend Sharpton, with that as prelude, we always appreciate when you come on with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Rev. Al Sharpton: Thank you for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: There are some of your mixed emotions, I guess, on Eric Adams departing the race. Specifically, how do you think he did with racial justice generally, just on policy? Do you think there are areas where he made meaningful progress toward racial equality as mayor of New York?

Rev. Al Sharpton: I think he made very meaningful progress in the area of Black businesses. They had set up an office that Mr. Garner headed up that brought in a lot of city business to minority-owned businesses that had not happened. I think that he dealt in many areas of the educational gap. I think that there was more that could have been done, but I think he did not shame himself in terms of trying to deal with the Black community. I think the fact that he was able to stabilize and bring some of the crime down, which is disproportionate in our community, was to his credit.

I think that overall, he had a positive mayoralty. Now should he had been more aggressive in some things? He and I always would have friendly debates about that. I differed with him on Jerome Neely's case and other cases. The problem he had in the Black community and with me and others is, was there a compromising position he was in with the Trump administration, which then put him adverse to all of us on deportation and any number of things, including DEI, that directly impacted our community, that Trump was championing, that he was trying to get rid of. Once the Trump thing became a factor, it was something, whether it was rightly or wrongly summarized by us, became a bridge too far.

Brian Lehrer: In the intro, I mentioned a few of the stark racial inequality metrics we could easily cite all day. Do you and does National Action Network have any kind of list of top policy priorities for whoever the next mayor is to bring more racial equality to the city?

Rev. Al Sharpton: They have to close the gap. When you look at the fact when you-- I think you announced or you said how Brad Lander, just year before last, the gap in wealth is astounding. You wouldn't expect that in a foreign country. $19,000 compared to $276,000. You need a mayor that will say, "I have a conscious program to close the wealth gap, and these are the things I'm going to do that adds to closing that gap." Not rhetorical. What are institutional things that we're going to do in terms of access to capital, in terms of making sure that employment is at a higher level?

The Racial Equity Act that attorney Jennifer Jones Austin, who happens to be the Vice Chairman of the Board of NAN, she led the whole drive about putting that on the ballot, was basically not dealt with by the administration. Now there must be a commitment by the new mayor that they're going to work in terms of the legislation that the voters voted on to deal with racial inequality.

Brian Lehrer: The ongoing political analysis is that what remained of Mayor Adams' support was largely among older Black voters. Voters described that way have also been a core of Andrew Cuomo's base. I don't have to tell you that when he was fighting scandal charges, and when he launched his mayoral campaign, he made Black churches, where he would get a good reception, high-profile, first stops. If you agree that's part of Cuomo's base, why do you think that's the case?

Rev. Al Sharpton: I think that a lot of Blacks remember Mario, his father – older Blacks – and a lot of Blacks know Andrew. They're familiar with him. They watched him grow up under his father, then become HUD secretary, attorney general, and governor, and now running for mayor, so they're familiar with him. He has been on the right side of some issues. We fought with him on other issues.

I think they did not know Zohran, and they tend to go with who they know. I think that Zohran has now, in the last month or so, begun going to some of those traditional places, like Black churches, like Black organizations. He's been in National Action Network four or five times. People, I think, are beginning to know him, what he stands for, and not know him through the tabloids. I've encouraged-- and though I've not endorsed in this race, I've encouraged him, "You got to go out there and talk to people and let people feel you and know you for themselves."

I think the mistake Andrew made is he didn't campaign in the primary, so you had one that needed to campaign more, and you had the other one that needed to come off the couch. You can't have a Rose Garden strategy when you don't have the Rose Garden.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think those voters need to hear from Mamdani? Is it about certain issues to build that trust?

Rev. Al Sharpton: I think they need to hear, certainly, issues on how he's going to deal with policing, how he's going to deal with education, how he's going to deal with affordable housing, which is part of his campaign, and how you deal with, in the question of affordable housing, gentrification. Because one of the raps that they put on Mamdani, rightfully or wrongly, is a lot of his vote came from gentrified voters. Well, how do we deal with gentrification and affordable housing at the same time? He needs to address that.

I think that he has, as far as I've seen, taken a lot of these issues head on, but I think he's going to have to convince these voters that he is not a gentrified-supported candidate alone. If he's talking about affordability, he's talking about everybody's affordability. He's talking about not removing people from their neighborhoods, but stabilizing those neighborhoods. I think he has the opportunity to do that.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think of Curtis Sliwa these days? You and he have been in your different lanes of activism in the city since the '70s. Maybe he's not the vigilante he used to be. I don't know. Give us some general thoughts on who you think Curtis Sliwa is today, and what kind of mayor he would be for the issues you care most about. Because him winning is not out of the realm of possibility.

Rev. Al Sharpton: Well, I would say this, Curtis Sliwa and I have had our tangles for years on the other side of issues since, I guess, '84 with Bernhard Goetz. I would say, people gave me the opportunity to mature in public and to grow. I would give him the same opportunity, even though he and I disagree on many issues and have disagreed vehemently on politics.

I would not be one to say that he could not grow and could not mature. I would probably disagree with him on the issues, but I think that I would not get personal with him as I would have 20 or 30 years ago. I'm not sure he'd respond the same way to me, but it doesn't matter. I think I ran into him coming out of a studio once. We spoke to each other, but I've not heard him on these issues. Now I did hear that he appeared the other night- night before last, at a Links gathering, which is a Black women's group. My daughter was one of the co-sponsors, and she said he came off very mature and did well, so that's fine.

Brian Lehrer: One thing on the national picture, Reverend, before you go, and its implications for New York. Maybe one way to look at the present moment in America is that we're in a major backlash from the post Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and then George Floyd Black Lives Matter period. Why do you think anything explicitly racial justice or inclusion related is being so successfully reversed?

Rev. Al Sharpton: I think because we did not vote, and we put in and elected and empowered people that were diametrically opposed to that, and convinced many Americans that they were being displaced, and that Make America Great Again is to not be displaced. You're being displaced by Blacks now running the criminal justice system, by Latinos coming across the border. There was so much disunity and disharmony on the other side that we didn't have enough to fight that back.

Let's not forget, Kamala Harris only lost by 1.5%. If you'd had more turnout in Philadelphia and in Pittsburgh, she'd have won Philadelphia. She could have won Ohio. I think that our own cynicism defeated us. It is not that they got so much more of the vote; is that their vote voted as a block, and we were in our own coalition throwing blocks at each other, and therefore, it didn't work. A lot of the groups that made a lot of the noise have disappeared, and a lot of us that have been the "traditional" organizations are the ones that have had to try to pick up the pieces.

We will pick up the pieces because we're committed to this. We cannot live in a country the way it is right now. Ending DEI, trying to take back affordable healthcare, letting the government shut down because you will not, in any way, negotiate around healthcare and Medicaid and other things, we can't live like that. We would try to say that during-- I was involved, as you know, in the front line of Trayvon Martin, all the way to George Floyd, all the way to now. We would try to say to others, "You can be more radical, but let us be radical in terms of getting stuff done. At the end of the day, you're only going to help the opposition," and that's exactly what happened.

Brian Lehrer: Reverend Sharpton, thanks again for your time today. We really appreciate it.

Rev. Al Sharpton: All right. Thank you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now more on the mayoral race with our weekly Wednesday visit from WNYC political reporter Elizabeth Kim. She's joined this week by Christina Greer, the Fordham University political science professor, co-host of the New York politics podcast FAQ NYC, and author of the book, Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration-- Sorry, let me do that again. Author of the books, Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream, and How to Build a Democracy: From Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams.

Happy Wednesday, Liz. Hi, Christina. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Wednesday, Brian. Hi, Christina.

Christina Greer: Hi, Brian. Hi, Liz.

Brian Lehrer: Any thoughts, to start out, from listening to Reverend Sharpton there on anything from that conversation on the legacy of Eric Adams for Black New Yorkers, or what voters have been in whose bases, or Christina, you want to start on anything else that we talked about?

Christina Greer: Yes, I really love hearing Al Sharpton talk about New York City. I think I put him in the top five New Yorkers who know about the city. I'm putting you in there as well, Brian. I do think that his analysis about Black Americans in New York is astute in the sense that obviously, the city has been hemorrhaging Black populations, and Zohran Mamdani didn't campaign going into Black communities primarily in the primary. I don't advise campaigns, especially New York campaigns, but I wouldn't have either.

Black people know Andrew Cuomo, knew Mario Cuomo. Zohran Mamdani at the time was a 33-year-old upstart from Queens with no citywide experience, and so why would he spend this time going into-- Black voters tend to be very partisan and very strategic in getting- even if they're voting for their second choice, preferring to vote for someone in order to get something as opposed to nothing. I have seen the strategy of Mamdani going to Black communities post-June 24th, but I don't necessarily ding him for not doing that in the primary when there was such a limited amount of time.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, any thoughts?

Elizabeth Kim: What I would say is we should point out that he did do well with younger Black voters and new voters, so it wasn't as if his coalition completely didn't have any Black New Yorkers. That's not true. What he did, though, which really kind of upended expectations-- and I remember when I was covering the race and just talking to political experts, there's this conventional wisdom; you cannot win a mayoral race without going through these majority-Black neighborhoods like Southeast Queens, Central Brooklyn. People could point to examples. You look at de Blasio, that was part of his coalition.

It was astounding when he didn't. He did not win Southeast Queens. He did not win a lot of other Black-majority neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn, in the Bronx. I think that that has caused some anxiety too, because what does that mean exactly? Is that some kind of erosion of Black power in New York City? Does that say something about-- Does that speak to the exodus? That's my point there.

The other thing I would say that Sharpton has talked about and a lot of people have talked about is explaining why did Eric Adams wind up losing some of his base, because we saw he was polling in the single digits. A lot of people have pointed to the relationship with Trump. What I would say, in going to the town halls with the mayor, and I did it over-- and I'm talking about over the past several years, and watching him and watching the response, the budget cuts really hurt him, especially in a lot of neighborhoods that he did well in, neighborhoods like Southeast Queens, parts of Brooklyn, Queens, because a lot of these cuts on libraries, on schools, disproportionately hurt people who need these services. I'm talking about middle to lower-income people.

The second issue was migrants. A lot of these neighborhoods were concerned about shelters being-- It became a bit of a NIMBY issue. The question that they put to the mayor again and again is, why are these shelters opening up in our neighborhoods? There were these things that they didn't like about the shelters. They felt like people were- suddenly, they saw a lot of people loitering and panhandling. That became an issue for the mayor too.

Brian Lehrer: Christina, let me ask you, in the context of our 30 Issues topic today, the same question I asked Reverend Sharpton. Are there top policy priorities for you, for whoever the next mayor is, to bring more racial equality to the city?

Christina Greer: Yes. This reminds me a little bit of 2013, Brian, in the sense that we were talking a lot about stop-and-frisk, and we haven't articulated it as such, but I think a lot of communities are wondering, what will the NYPD do? Especially since if Zohran Mamdani is successful, we know that we might have ICE individuals coming in, officials, some sort of National Guard. When I think of policing, I'm thinking of a more holistic conversation of how will the new mayor deal with the federal government and having law enforcement here, and what role will they play, and how will they work with or supersede the NYPD.

Leaving, let's just say, the external forces to the side for a moment, just dealing with the NYPD, I think a lot of the conversation in the campaign thus far has been about past comments Zohran Mamdani has made when he was an early upstart in Albany, and not necessarily really pinning him down on what the future leadership of the NYPD would look like. He's sort of said he's open to working with Jessie Tisch. That's not fait accompli. He's open to a lot of things.

I think, honestly, the biggest issue he will have will be with his die-hard DSA supporters who expect a certain type of progressive leadership that, quite honestly, I don't think is possible in a city as diverse as New York City, especially when it comes to democratically diverse. I would say we're many, many shades of blue. There will be some pivoting he will have to make as mayor when things arise in certain calcified communities where you're trying to get crime down, or if crime begins to spread outside of those communities. We know, obviously, with unemployment, intense economic times, crime tends to go up. There's going to be a relationship he has with the NYPD that I think his die-hard followers might have a problem with.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, Christina mentioned 2013. In 2013, if I remember correctly, Bill de Blasio got elected largely on running explicitly on inequality. He was talking about Tale of Two Cities, and he was going to be the inequality mayor [crosstalk]--

Elizabeth Kim: And he was also talking about ending stop-and-frisk.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's right, and so that's the parallel [crosstalk]--

Christina Greer: And the horse carriages.

Elizabeth Kim: Oh, right.

Brian Lehrer: Now everybody's for ending. [laughter] That's the context that Christina mentioned, really, most primarily, stop-and-frisk. I looked at each of their three websites very carefully for references to inequality, to race, explicitly, to racial disparities, by those words, to references to the word Black, as in Black people, and they're almost entirely absent from all three: Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa. Now they all, of course, are leaning in on policies that I guess, if they were successful, would help lift all boats, affordability, healthcare, education, but they're not putting it in those explicit terms.

Liz, I wonder if anything like that has struck you.

Elizabeth Kim: Well, when you put it like that, and comparing it to Bill de Blasio in 2013, it is a very stark comparison. Because if you think about Bill de Blasio's campaign and what really got it going, he was getting some momentum even before this, but it was the Dante ad. Dante being Dante de Blasio, his biracial son. That was Bill de Blasio leaning into race in that moment, and that was when that became part of the conversation, and I think it galvanized a lot of Black voters behind him.

Fast forward over a decade later, you're absolutely right, Brian. I was thinking about this too. Mamdani, for all of his talk about equity, he hasn't been explicitly talking about race, especially not in terms of Black, in black-and-white terms. This is not to say it's totally absent from his conversations with the press and the public. It does come up. For instance, he's talked about he's been highly critical of the police and racial profiling against Muslims in the wake of 9/11. He's talked about Islamophobia, for example. In terms of Black and white, and those kinds of disparities that you read out before your interview with Reverend Al Sharpton, no, he hasn't.

You're also right in saying that what he's running on would address some of the wealth gaps between Black and white New Yorkers, things like the rent freeze, things like transit access. Making the buses free is about addressing transit access in places where there are transit deserts. Guess who tends to live in those transit deserts? Black and brown people. Groceries. Government-run grocery stores. He's talking about places that don't have sufficient supermarkets. Where are those places?

Yes, I would say that a lot of his ideas are intended to address those racial inequities, but he's not framing it in that way. I think, in a way, it's because he's trying to use a more unifying theme. If there is a theme, I think it's more along the lines of class versus race.

Brian Lehrer: Christina, Cuomo too, to be fair, has a lot of the same points on his issue pages – some of the approaches are different, to be sure – but affordability, education, transit. Sliwa too, about building up working-class people.

Christina Greer: True. With Cuomo, though, I think the biggest issue that you touched on when you were talking to the Rev. is that Cuomo is running a coronation and not necessarily a campaign. He's going under this assumption that New Yorkers know how he feels about certain issues and will assume that he'll do that as mayor. I've said many times on FAQ, I'm not convinced that Andrew Cuomo knows much about New York City. He hasn't lived in New York City for many, many years. I think the articulation of some of these ideas and how they'd come into play needs to be a lot more forthright, especially in a lot of diverse communities who don't really know him. I mean, the role of the governor is still a bit amorphous.

I think Curtis Sliwa will get Republicans who can't vote for Democrats ever, but I can't see him being a leader in these particular issues because that's just not-- We've seen Curtis Sliwa in the public eye for several decades now, and that's just not what he's leaning into. I do think that all three candidates are moving away from an explicit racialized conversation largely because that brings on the backlash of Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Liz Kim and Christina Greer. We're going to go from the issue we've been discussing so far to the politics of the day. Here we are just three days after Mayor Adams dropped out of his reelection campaign. What is different today? Listeners, your calls and texts on any of this, what we've been discussing or what we will. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We'll take this to the end of the hour. Stay with us.

Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we're doing our weekly Wednesday segment on the New York City mayoral race with our political reporter Elizabeth Kim, joined this week by Christina Greer, the Fordham University political science professor, co-host of the New York Politics podcast FAQ NYC, and author of the books, Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream, and How to Build a Democracy: From Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan to Stacey Abrams.

Liz, it's less than three days after Mayor Adams announced that he's withdrawing from the race. Has anything changed?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, are you talking about the race or-

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Elizabeth Kim: -with the mayor? Well, I guess one of the immediate questions right after the mayor put out that video was, is he going to endorse somebody? We hadn't heard anything in the day after, but yesterday, he told The New York Post that he is considering doing an endorsement, and he is leaning toward Andrew Cuomo. That's interesting because it's unclear how much of his coalition he has left. Like I said, he is polling in the single digits. To the extent that he still might have some sway with his base, it could be useful to someone like Cuomo who is polling in second place. On the other hand, it might also hurt Cuomo too because the mayor is very scandal-ridden. As the Reverend Sharpton mentioned, his relationship with Trump has also- it's really brought him down in the eyes of New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer: You hit the streets to talk to voters. I guess you were looking for Adams' voters to see where they go now and get a little relatively unscientific sample. You want to tell us about voter Bill Apple before we play a clip of your conversation with him?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. This was me actually hitting the streets to go to a Curtis Sliwa press conference because this is the day after Adams drops out, a lot of the attention is on Curtis because then he is facing growing pressure for him to drop out. I'm at the presser and as the presser ends, Bill Apple, who is a 76-year-old Upper West Sider, he's running out of the subway and he just kind of happens upon this press conference. Lo and behold, he turns out to be someone who is a Curtis Sliwa supporter. He donated to him twice.

He's watching Sliwa, and then he approaches him, and he says, he's very torn. He doesn't know what to do. He asks Sliwa and his wife, Nancy Sliwa, whether he might be enticed to drop out of the race, let's say, if President Trump offers your wife a position in the federal government where you could ban the use of animals in medical research. The Sliwas are very passionate about animal rescue and banning animal cruelty. Nancy Sliwa says, no, she's not going to sell out her husband.

This is a type of voter that I think could be pivotal to Andrew Cuomo; this voter who has supported Sliwa, and now is rethinking the calculus here. He's saying that the race has been upset now, and what does he do with his vote?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, this clip starts with Liz's question.

Elizabeth Kim: It sounds like you're in a real quandary because [crosstalk]--

Bill Apple: I am in a quandary because I want to vote for a winner who is not Mamdani, and with the exit of Mayor Adams from the race, it shakes up everything. I just wish there were a little wiggle room for Curtis and Nancy. I just don't know what's going to happen. I guess we'll have to look at the polls as we get closer to the election day.

Elizabeth Kim: You would be willing to vote for Andrew Cuomo?

Bill Apple: If that's what the polls are saying. I don't have tea leaves. I don't have a pipeline into it. I detest Andrew Cuomo. I don't like him. He didn't handle COVID properly. He's very handsy with the women who work around him. He doesn't deserve this, and he's not even interested in this. He's interested in this as a stepping stone.

Brian Lehrer: Christina, the voter, Bill, there likes Curtis Sliwa, detests, in his word, Andrew Cuomo, but wants to vote for a winner that can defeat Mamdani. How do you see the shape of the race now that Adams is out?

Christina Greer: Yes, voters are strategic, and I think a lot of them are willing to go with someone who they're not in love with in order to make sure that the person that they really don't like, really, really don't like, gets into office. I think that there's also a few things going on, Brian. One, there's lots of perceptions about Mamdani, both good and bad, in the sense that he feels a little bit like Obama 2008. Because he doesn't have a long record, because he's new, because he kind of came out of nowhere and has this fantastic personality, just like Obama, fantastic campaigner, a lot of people can put their hopes and dreams on him and if they're positive, that's great for him, and we see it's in the polls. Then there are lots of perceptions and misinformation and disinformation that's out there, and because he doesn't have a record, that can also stick as well.

I do think that Adams dropping out does give Cuomo a little bit of a boost because both of them tend to be on the more moderate to conservative side, so clearly, folks who aren't necessarily super progressive, or at least perceived to be super progressive in a Mamdani vein, would naturally go to Cuomo. The difference is thus; I do think that Mamdani is going to a lot of communities who aren't accustomed to, say, a more left-leaning candidate talking to them, and he's having longer conversations and answering questions.

He has a five-borough strategy. It always reminds me of the Jesse Jackson 50-state strategy. A lot of candidates we saw in 2021, they went to the same six neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Upper East Side, Upper West Side. Eric Adams didn't even bother really going to those neighborhoods. He went everywhere else, to the outer boroughs. It seems as though Mamdani is doing a little bit of both strategies. He's going to the Upper East Side, West Side, and five neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and then he's also going to the outer boroughs.

I am curious, as we get closer to November 4th and people start making different calculuses, does it matter that he's trying to put in grocery stores, and affordability, and anti-authoritarianism are like his big cruxes? That might resonate a lot with folks. Or as we get to November 4th, will people start to say, well, I really don't like Andrew Cuomo, and he's got baggage on baggage on baggage, but he has been in elected office for a smooth 30 years. Why not just go with the status quo? We did not see that in the primary, but we also know that a primary voter is somewhat different than a general election voter.

Brian Lehrer: In this race, where it only takes a plurality, not a majority, to win with three candidates on the ballot, Blair in Manhattan has a question. Blair, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Blair: Good morning. First off, I don't have a disdain for Cuomo, but I'm also torn between the two candidates, so I'm in that camp. Anyway, the question I had is as follows. Why did the legislature have ranked voting for the primary, but not for the general election? Because if we had ranked voting here, so many of us who will vote for anyone except Mamdani wouldn't be in this quandary.

Brian Lehrer: Blair, thank you very much. Christina, I'm going to give this to you briefly. Then I want to get in one other question for Liz. Yes, ranked-choice voting, where ultimately a candidate gets over 50% in the primary, but not in the general. Why did they structure it that way?

Christina Greer: Brian, I get this email a lot from a lot of voters. Keep in mind, we just implemented ranked-choice voting in our primary system just last election, so this is still very new. I think that there is a conversation to be had about moving it to the general election as well, so that voters feel as though their vote actually is calculated in a way that's a lot more substantive, but that is not-- Play the cards you have, not the hard cards you want. For this particular election, on November 4th, 2025, we are straight past the post.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, one more thing for you. I see you made a little news, or you asked a question that made a little Mamdani news with his answer at a news conference yesterday. Headline from The New York Post, prompted by your question, "Zohran Mamdani wants to strip power from NYPD commissioner — revoking final say on officer discipline." What was the context? What was your question?

Elizabeth Kim: I asked Mamdani about Win Rozario. If you remember, Brian, this was the Queens teenager. He was fatally shot by two police officers in March 2024 after his mother had called 911 because her son was having a mental health episode. The family held a press conference yesterday in which they were reiterating some of their demands, which included asking the police office to fire the officers.

I was curious how Mamdani would handle the situation. I asked him, "If you are elected, would you ask your police commissioner to fire these officers?" He knows the case well, and he's spoken about it as an example of why police should not be responding to mental health calls. What he said was he is going to support whatever decision the oversight board comes up with, which is the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the CCRB.

Now we know that already, the CCRB has determined that the officers used excessive force. They are expected to file charges in an internal department disciplinary process-- [crosstalk] Yes, he's supporting whatever the CCRB does, which it's a big thing to say because as the mayor, you can argue that he controls the police department, but he's wanting to give this board more teeth.

Brian Lehrer: The ongoing debate about whether the CCRB's recommendations on police discipline should stand, or whether the commissioner or the mayor should have the power to overrule. We leave it there. Thanks for joining us.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

 

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