Title: City Politics: Cuomo Talks Trump in the Hamptons

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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We'll begin today with our weekly Wednesday visit about the New York City mayoral race from WNYC and Gothamist political reporter Elizabeth Kim. Today, Liz is being joined by a second guest, Jeff Coltin, reporter for Politico and co-author of their morning newsletter called New York Playbook. Here's why Jeff is joining. Politico has obtained an audio recording of Andrew Cuomo at a Hamptons fundraiser.

This was just last weekend, on Saturday, where he basically predicts that President Trump and other top Republicans will help him get elected mayor. Republicans will help him get elected mayor, including Trump personally. Cuomo says he feels good about that. Jeff has brought that audio clip, and we will play it for you in a minute. What it plays into is the narrative from the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, that Cuomo would be a representative of Trump as mayor, like Eric Adams has been seen, and that would be bad for the city.

Now, Cuomo contends that being able to work with Trump on some things would protect the city. Listeners will open up the phones on that for you. In fact, we can get that going right now, even before we play the clips. Do you think a Cuomo-Trump relationship would be better for New York City after Trump presumably, according to this, helps Cuomo get elected, or would a Mamdani-Trump relationship, maybe more contentious, protect the city more? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. We'll play the tape and talk about the implications, and also some other news relevant to the campaign. Happy Wednesday, Liz. Hiya.

Liz: Hi. Happy Wednesday.

Brian: Jeff Coltin from Politico, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jeff: Thank you so much for having me. Happy to talk about this great race once again.

Brian: Jeff, let's get right to your story and your audio clips. The setting, your story says, is at a fundraiser at the Southampton home of media mogul Jimmy Finkelstein on Saturday. Briefly, who's Jimmy Finkelstein, and who else was at that fundraiser, if you know, to give our listeners a profile of Cuomo donors, at least in that context?

Jeff: Sure. Jimmy is the former owner of The Hill, the political website covering Congress. He sold that. He started then The Messenger, which was an attempt at a political news site that sadly has gone under. He's a media mogul, and he inherited The Hill from his father. His co-host is Andrew Stein. They have different last names, but they're brothers. Andrew Stein, of course, is the former New York City council president. He was a really big New York City political player back in the '70s and the '80s. He hasn't been in politics, but he's still been very active. Those were two of the co-hosts.

Jimmy Finkelstein's wife is Pamela Gross. She's a former journalist with CNN. She's also a good close friend of Melania Trump. I should note, Andrew Stein, also historically longtime friend and ally of Donald Trump. Setting the stage here, we are at a Southampton's beautiful home, and the hosts are very wealthy people. They're Democrats, but they're very Trump-friendly Democrats. Another person at the party, I should say, is John Paulson, billionaire hedge fund manager and also somebody that fits in that area, the maybe Trump-curious, Trump-friendly billionaires.

Brian: Trump-friendly Democrats. That's an interesting category in and of itself. Here's the key part of the audio to me, folks. Cuomo predicts here that President Trump and other top Republicans will tell Republican voters, "Don't vote for the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, but rather to vote for Cuomo. Here we go.

Cuomo: Sliwa could stay in, Sliwa could stay in, but Sliwa, I think, is minimized because I think the top Republicans will say, "Don't vote for Sliwa," and I think we'll minimize him to go down to single digits. He runs every year, Curtis Sliwa. Trump says he's the jerk with the red beret. I think we can minimize his vote because he'll never be a serious candidate, and Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani, and you'll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. I feel good about that.

Brian: Somebody's cell phone went off right at that moment. Andrew Cuomo at a Saturday Hamptons fundraiser in a recording obtained by Politico. Jeff Coltin from Politico is with us, along with our political reporter, Elizabeth Kim. We'll play another excerpt from that audio as we go. Because it was a little bit off mic, I'm actually going to read the transcript of what we just heard, just to make sure you all have it clearly before we discuss it, folks.

Cuomo said, "Sliwa could stay in, Sliwa could stay in, but Sliwa, I think, is minimized because I think the top Republicans will say, 'Don't vote for Sliwa,' and I think we'll minimize him to go down to single digits. He runs every year, Curtis Sliwa. Trump says he's the jerk with the red beret. I think we can minimize his vote because he'll never be a serious candidate, and Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani, and you'll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. I feel good about that."

Jeff, that's quite a prediction that Trump himself will say the goal is to stop Mamdani and telling Republicans you'll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. Do you have any sense of how the donors reacted to that prediction by Cuomo? If they were comfortable with the idea of Cuomo coordinating with Trump or not to any degree?

Jeff: No, actually. I only have the audio recording. I was not in the room. There was not any obvious reaction to that. In fact, he just moved on and took another question from the attendees. I think it shows that Cuomo is in a real conundrum here. If Cuomo wants to win the mayoralty, then one path, or maybe his only path, is to clear the field of the other candidates who are not Mamdani.

He wants to minimize Sliwa, minimize Adams, minimize Jim Walden, and anybody else in the race and make it a one-on-one race to defeat Mamdani. That's the only path to victory. However, to do so, you would need Republican votes, and any association of Cuomo with Trump, with Republicans, is toxic for him in this heavily Democratic city. He's in a real Cuomo conundrum now.

Brian: Liz, in the last line of that soundbite, Cuomo, after predicting Trump will help him, says, "I feel good about that." I guess that could raise at least the question for many New York voters in the way that Jeff was just suggesting, New York voters who generally don't think Trump is good for the city or good for democracy or good for the world. What does it say about Andrew Cuomo if he feels good about getting Donald Trump's help in the election?

Liz: The way I read that is the context. The context in which he's giving those statements are at a fundraiser. He's looking for people to give to his campaign, and he has to make the argument that he's viable, that there is a path, as Jeff argued. I think his immediate problem is I need to raise money, and I think he's tackling that now first and maybe thinking that it's not going to be so much of a problem.

As long as he has the war chest and he can stay competitive, he can convince donors that this is what is going to happen. That's how I'm reading it is I thought that that was one possibility. Of course, yes, it runs the risk of Mamdani seizing this argument, which he already has, that, like Adams, Cuomo is going to be Trump-friendly, and he's even gone further to say that it looks like Cuomo is colluding with Trump.

Brian: It does raise an Eric Adams question in that respect. That's an interesting observation because Adams is seen as doing some of Trump's bidding in New York because he owed Trump after Trump's Justice Department dropped the corruption case against Adams and said explicitly it was so Adams could help with mass deportation. Any idea, Liz, I'll stay with you on this. What kind of debt Trump might try to call in if he helps Cuomo get elected, or that Cuomo might feel obligated to pay if he is seen as having been elected mayor because Trump leaned on Republicans to vote for him, or is it too different from the Eric Adams situation because Trump can't relaunch something like a prosecution of Cuomo like he could at will against Adams?

Liz: I think he could because he has been trying to weaponize the Justice Department, and Republicans are looking into an investigation of the former governor's handling of the COVID crisis. I think all those risks are there for Cuomo. I think for him, it's a question of how do I survive in this race? That's why he's tackling it this way. He's making that other argument, as you posed at the top, Brian, of what kind of mayor would be best for New York City? Would it, in fact, be a mayor like myself who knows Donald Trump, who has worked with Donald Trump, and could probably facilitate some kind of working relationship with him? That's a fair question for voters.

Brian: Another section of the tape is a question and comment from another donor related to that. The donor says, "When you win, you're going to have to deal with the president." I only have a transcript from that section. I'll read it to you, listeners, and we'll get Jeff Coltin from Politico's take on it. He obtained this audio from Cuomo Hampton's fundraiser on Saturday. The donor asks, "Are you and your team in conversation into the White House or the president about how he might influence the election in your favor? Because when you win," there's that line, "when you win, you're going to have to deal with the president."

Cuomo says, "Let's put it this way. I knew the president very well. I was governor for the first term. We know each other 100 years, Queens boys. We go back to that with John Paulson," the billionaire hedge fund manager who Jeff mentioned earlier, "with John Paulson, with all of us back to Queens. I dealt with him, with Trump as president, when I was governor. We know each other very well. I know him. He knows me. We had tremendous fights."

Here comes a key section. "We are also capable of cooperating on projects that are good for New York. I believe there's a big piece of him that actually wants redemption in New York. He feels that he was rejected by New York. We voted for Hillary Clinton. Bill de Blasio took his name off things. I believe there will be opportunities to actually cooperate with him. I also believe that he's not going to want to fight with me in New York if he can avoid it," from Cuomo.

Jeff, that's an interesting answer, partly because Cuomo suggests that Trump just doesn't want to punish New York or doesn't want to just punish New York, as we generally think he has a record of punishing New York and other blue states in various financial ways after they don't vote for him. Cuomo says there's a big piece of him that wants redemption in New York that will present opportunities for cooperation on things that are good for the city. That's actually a key talking point for Cuomo. Trump will just try to hurt the city more to hurt Mamdani if Mamdani is elected. Trump will go easier on New York and maybe even be supportive in some ways if it's Cuomo. You think he was making that argument explicitly?

Jeff: Yes, that's been one of Cuomo's main arguments from the primary and now into the general. He says Trump will go through Mamdani like a hot knife through butter, one of his very practiced lines at the debates that I think has really stuck. The argument there is that, yes, we already saw a President Trump and a Executive Cuomo. They had four years together during Trump's first term, and a lot of Democrats don't exactly think fondly back upon Trump's first term. There is definitely a sense that New York was not ruined by Trump, whereas Cuomo is looking forward and arguing that Trump would totally dominate New York if we had a new mayor, if we had a Mamdani.

It's one of his strongest arguments. I think he's going a little softer on Trump at this fundraiser, again, because it's to a more Trump-friendly audience than maybe if he were giving a sermon at a church on a Sunday. In this case, it's generally the same argument, that basically it's better to know Trump and to deal with him than to have a young Democratic socialist come in who has never dealt with Trump directly before.

Brian: We're going to play a clip from this show of what Mamdani has to say about exactly that question. Here's a question, Jeff, from a listener in a text. It says, "Why are suburban billionaires sponsoring fundraisers for Cuomo?"

Jeff: That's where the money is. The money is in the Hamptons, and this past weekend, Andrew Cuomo had a couple of fundraisers in the Hamptons. Mayor Eric Adams had a couple of fundraisers in the Hamptons and went to a birthday party of a hospitality executive. Governor Kathy Hochul was in the Hamptons this weekend, also fundraising, speaking at the Hampton Synagogue.

I heard secondhand Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was also in the Hamptons fundraising this past weekend. That is just how it is. Frankly, Zohran Mamdani is cut from a different cloth than some of our past politicians because he doesn't fundraise in the Hamptons because he has a different way of fundraising. It's all grassroots and online. Frankly, it's not out of the ordinary that he would be there.

Brian: If both Democrats and Republicans are showing up at billionaires' homes or multi-multi-multi-multi-millionaires' homes in the Hamptons for fundraiser, it just is more evidence of how much big money influenced politics and on both sides of the aisle. I actually put that kind of question that we were talking about a minute ago, who would be more effective in dealing with Trump in the interest of New York City? I put that question to Mamdani when he was here earlier this month. Here's how that went. It starts with my question. How would you respond to the concerns that some people have that Trump might want to hurt the city in order to hurt you if you're elected, even more than hurt the city to hurt Cuomo if he's elected?

Mamdani: We've seen what collaboration brings us through the example of Eric Adams. Even amidst that kind of collaboration, even amidst the bending of the knee in the most abjectingly humiliating ways, we still have a federal administration that stole $80 million from New York City's bank account. We still have a federal administration that passed legislation that will steal food from hungry New Yorkers, throw more than $1 million off of their health care. We still have a federal administration that is quite literally dragging and disappearing and detaining New Yorkers, whether it be from their apartment building lobbies or at a routine check-in at 26 Federal Plaza. That is what collaboration has given us.

Brian: Mamdani here on August 7th. Listeners, again, that's a question for you. You heard both the Cuomo and Mamdani arguments here in the last few minutes. Do you have an opinion on which candidate would produce better or less damaging results from the White House? Maybe you think it won't matter, and that's not a voting issue for you, but you tell us. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Jeff, in Long Island City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jeff.

Jeff: Hi. Good morning, Brian. Hello to your guests. I think what I have to say ties in very well with the clip you just played from Mamdani, which is that Cuomo, his comment about Trump going through Mamdani like a knife through hot butter, he's already doing that. He's already capitulating. He's already basically privately saying he will make deals with Trump. Hasn't anyone learned that you don't make deals with Trump? He's not someone you can trust. He's only in it for himself. He's going to renege on the deals. He is going to hurt you no matter what. Mamdani seems to be one of the few people that is recognizing that.

The other comment I will say is that I don't know what you want to call Trump and his followers. I guess you could call them MAGA, MAGA fascists. Then you have old-school Democrats like Cuomo, like Schumer. They're really Republicans. They're really okay with saddling up to rich people who are "socially liberal," but really just want their tax cuts and will sell out anyone and everything, provided they get their tax cuts. [crosstalk] Republicans.

Brian: Maybe it's another segment, a different conversation to argue whether that's a fair characterization of people like Schumer. All they want is their tax cuts. Let me ask you a follow-up question about your first point.

Jeff: Sure.

Brian: Cuomo would argue, and you heard him argue it in the clip or the transcript of the clip that I read, that Trump might want some amount of redemption in New York, that he doesn't want his legacy to be that he only hurt and was rejected by the city where he grew up, and might want to strike some kind of deal with Cuomo that maybe is in Trump's interest in that respect, burdenishing his reputation in New York, but that also, in order to get there, helps the city. How would you respond to that?

Jeff: Why would I want to do anything that helps Donald J Trump? The man is a convicted felon, he is an abomination, he is a fascist with dictatorial intentions. Why would I want to make-- I have morals and I have principles, and I would rather go down swinging and fighting than give in to that man.

Brian: Don't help him in any way because of the bigger question of the kind of fascist or authoritarian that he is. Jeff, thank you. I'm going to leave it there. Got your points. Dominic, in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Dominic, thank you very much for calling.

Dominic: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I agree with the previous caller, and I was going to say some of those points, but I don't think we need to focus just on the mayor, whether it's Cuomo or Mamdani, and I'm a Mamdani supporter. As I told the screener, I actually contributed for the first time to a campaign, and that was Mamdani's.

I think New Yorkers need to take up the cause and do everything in their power to make sure that if they want Cuomo, if they want a Vichy government like we had in France leading up to World War II, then vote for Cuomo, who will appease a fascist dictator. If we want someone who will take a little bit of a stand, to the best of his ability, because he will be compromised once he becomes mayor, that it just happens, then we vote for Mamdani.

Brian: Let me jump in because you're very much echoing the previous caller, which I'm going to be candid with the listeners and with you, is not exactly what I thought you were going to do. What I got from my screener, and let me just ask you this as a follow-up question to see if you want to go there at all: is that even though you're a Mamdani supporter, the idea that Mamdani will protect us more is misplaced. Is that something you believe to any degree, or did I get that wrong?

Dominic: Oh, no, I do agree. We're looking for a leader, and I think the problem I have is with the concept of a leader. A city is a society. It's a collective of people with a lot of differing opinions. I don't see Trump as bringing people together, and Cuomo certainly doesn't bring people together. He's divisive.

Brian: Can Mamdani, by being presumably more contentious toward Trump, outwardly or in any other way, protect the city from the worst punishment that Trump can inflict on us through that style, in your opinion?

Dominic: I think the way this administration is going, I hate to say this, but I don't think there is any protection from one person. He will do what he has to do. He will say what he has to to resist Trump and his extortion, and that's what he is. He extorts people and other administrations. I think my vote goes with Mamdani. Of course, I think Cuomo is toxic, and he just needs to retire to the Hamptons, and everybody in the Hamptons who's supporting him, they will have their comeuppance.

Brian: Dominic, I got it.

Dominic: I'm sorry.

Brian: I'm going to leave it there. Keep calling us. The Hamptons, or maybe he prefers Westchester. Interesting, a Mamdani supporter who says, it's not going to matter that much whether Mamdani or Cuomo is the mayor in terms of what Trump will do to the city. One more perspective, a different one, I think, in this set, from Jose in Woodside, an Eric Adams supporter, I believe. Jose, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Jose: I believe when you first started, you started on contentiousness, and I don't really feel that that's the way to deal with Trump. When you're dealing with three individuals, you're dealing with Cuomo, you're dealing with Mamdani, and you're dealing with Adams, you have three different styles. Cuomo is a politician. Mamdani is a progressive. Then you have Adams, who's a wild card. People say he's this and he's that, but it's not been proven. It could easily have been character assassination, and it seems to have worked, if you look at it from that perspective.

If you look at the pressure that was applied on the man by going after everyone that he knows, and they could have continued. They would have gone after anybody and everybody that they could feel that was close to him, that they could get some leverage on. He had to cave in, and he did, but because he had to protect those people. He is a good person that you can depend on.

Brian: Who are you saying Adams has successfully protected by caving, as you put it, to Trump?

Jose: New York City.

Brian: In what way, for example? You have an example?

Jose: In New York City, because basically, if you look at the other cities, you look at California and what's happened there. You look at Washington, DC, and you look at the threats he's been making about Chicago and New York being outlaw cities, and we need to put the troops in there, whatever. He's already stated his basic position, which is takeover. How do you prevent that? You prevent that by either caving in, like what I believe Cuomo would do, cave in completely. He would give him everything. Cuomo was just a politician, and he lives in the Hamptons. The man is nothing but another Hampton's wannabe, or already is.

Brian: You think that Trump is not going as hard after New York as he is after California and DC at this moment, partly because he sees Adams as somewhat of an ally. Interesting. Jose, thank you very much for your call. Here's one final clip from the Cuomo-Hamptons fundraiser recording obtained by Politico from last Saturday. In this stretch, we'll hear a donor ask how Cuomo will deal with the other candidates, and he focuses this time on Mayor Adams, as you'll hear.

Donor: Do you have any short-term or immediate plans to deal with the smorgasbord of other candidates that are drawing attention and votes away from your candidacy, namely Adams and Sliwa?

Cuomo: It's really going to be Adams. Let me address both. Adams is more of a threat than Sliwa. I believe what Andy says is right. Right now, he's running [inaudible 00:27:18], and I think that's what's great. It doesn't look like it's serious until September. I've known Adams a long time. Nobody, neither he nor I, could ever be a spoiler and wind up electing Mamdani. There's no way Adams gets anywhere besides with being a spoiler. 7 points, 8 points, 10 points, 12 points, somewhere in that range.

All he can do is detract from me and help Mamdani, and he won't allow himself to be in that position at the end of the day. It has to be the end of the day. Right now, he's running, he's campaigning, and I'm running and campaigning. Governor Paterson came up with this--

Brian: All right. We're going to fade this part out here because the audio is actually pretty bad, and I don't know how many of you are actually getting the words. I'm going to reread part of what we just heard as a transcript and a few more sentences that come right after. He says, "I've known Adams a long time. Nobody, neither he nor I, could ever be a spoiler and wind up electing Mamdani. There's no way Adams gets anywhere besides with being a spoiler. 7 points, 8 points, 10 points, 12 points, somewhere in that range.

Right now, he's running, he's campaigning, and I'm running and campaigning. Governor Paterson came up with this agreement, September 15th, whatever candidate leads and goes forward." He says Adams has not agreed to that, but de facto, he cannot stay as the spoiler. If that happened, he would have to move to Florida afterwards, ha, ha, ha, meaning people would hate him so much. He believes Mamdani would be horrendous for the city, and we've had that conversation, but we have to let it play out. Here's the kicker, "I have no doubt that he will not stay in as a spoiler."

Liz, there's another prediction from Cuomo. We heard before when he predicted that Trump would help marginalize Curtis Sliwa with Republican voters. Here, he predicts that Eric Adams will actually withdraw from the race around September 15th, rather than risk being a spoiler who contributes to a Mamdani victory. We know Adams repeatedly rejects that scenario publicly. We've talked about this before. Do you have any reporting, though, besides this tape, that indicates he might actually be considering it privately?

Liz: It's interesting, this idea that he says when the time comes, and we're just simply not there yet. No, all my sources tell me that the mayor is very determined to stay in the race. No matter what, his name is going to be on the ballot. He could fold his campaign and decide to back Cuomo. What I think is interesting is when Paterson came out and endorsed Adams. This is former governor David Paterson.

Brian: Democrat.

Liz: Democrat, high profile.

Brian: Leading politician in Harlem, as was his father.

Liz: Yes. It's the highest-profile Democrat to endorse the mayor. He said when he was asked, "Why would you expect Cuomo to drop out of the race?" He said, "Because I think that anyone who drops out of the race to do this kind of coalescing strategy would be a 'national hero.'" I suppose as we get closer to November, that is going to be the choice for the anti-Mamdani crowd. Will one of these people sacrifice themselves or just read the writing on the wall? The mayor is polling in the single digits, take himself out of the race. If the goal is to not elect Mamdani, then help another rival do that.

Brian: Jeff, anything to add to that, or anything else from the clip we just played that was leaked to Politico and you brought it?

Jeff: Yes. Eric Adams' campaign responded and just was basically furious. They called Cuomo an embarrassing double-digit loser who couldn't beat a socialist, and his failure created this entire scenario, and basically said there's no way he's dropping out. In fact, Eric Adams, in 30 minutes, is going to be in Harlem opening a Harlem campaign office with David Paterson. Just last week, he sued the campaign finance board to release public funds. At this point, he really is all out running. There is no sign that he's winding down his campaign, or he's just in it to mess around.

Adams is running, and it seems like maybe some wishful thinking from Cuomo that Adams would simply drop out and work with him. Of course, I should note, there's also a personal aspect to this. Adams was furious that Andrew Cuomo was even considering running in the first place because he sees himself as ideologically aligned with Cuomo, and he sees Cuomo as coming in and basically blocking him from a second term. I don't know. It could happen, but there's no signs of that happening of Eric Adams leaving the race.

Brian: Jeff, before we turn the page and talk about another couple of issues pertaining to the race, I know you want to protect your source as would I, but to the extent that you can, why did someone at the Hamptons fundraiser share this tape with Politico? Were they there only pretending to be a supporter? Was the recording made secretly? Did they think it would actually show Cuomo in a good light? Can you share anything like that?

Jeff: I'll be limited on how I got this. I don't want to put my source-- I don't want to reveal them. The way I see it simply is that sometimes you get invited to a fancy party in the Hamptons, and you want to go whether or not you support the candidate for mayor. That could be the situation here.

Brian: I won't make you go further than that so that sources continue to give you things off the record. More in a minute with our Liz Kim and Jeff Coltin from Politico on the mayoral race and your calls and texts, 212-433-WNYC.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. A few more minutes with WNYC and Gothamist political reporter Elizabeth Kim, who joins us every Wednesday through the mayoral election. Obviously, we have other guests joining us on the New Jersey gubernatorial election, which we did a segment on yesterday, but Liz here every Wednesday through election day on the mayoral race, and today joined by Jeff Coltin from Politico and by you on the phones and on texts. Liz, we know that you also have new reporting that I gather you're going to break here for the first time right now on how failures of the Adams administration may have contributed to the Legionnaires' disease outbreak in the city. Do I have that right? Because I haven't seen this yet.

Liz: This is not new reporting. It's reporting that has been done by my colleagues, specifically Joe Hong did a crunch of the city data and looked at inspections by city health officials and saw that they sank to a record low under Adams since the pandemic. Let me just wind it back a bit. This is the second-worst Legionnaires' outbreak in history. This is an outbreak that started in Harlem last month. 108 people have gotten sick, 5 people have died.

Now, it's gotten some robust attention both by our newsroom and some other reporting, but it's gotten scant political attention, meaning that the mayor hasn't really been asked about it a lot. I think there is this perception that Legionnaires is just a naturally occurring public health crisis, but it's a lot more than that. We learned a lot about Legionnaires in 2015 under Bill de Blasio. What we learned is that when there is a large outbreak of this kind, it is almost always tied to a cooling tower.

Just to sum it up, these are machines or systems that basically suck hot air out of buildings during the summer. What can happen is they become breeding grounds for this type of bacteria that causes Legionnaires' disease. Now, knowing that the cooling towers are almost always the source of these outbreaks, what the city did after 2015 was they instituted much tighter regulations, weekly and quarterly testing. The fact that my colleague, Joe Hong, has been reporting that city inspections fell to a record low post-pandemic under Adams, I think, is astonishing and hasn't been paid attention enough. This is, I think, or it could become a real political problem for Adams.

There's more to it than just that. There is also the city's initial response. The city didn't initially disclose the location of the cooling towers that tested positive. All they did was they released ZIP codes. That became a real issue on this show last week, Brian, when the acting commissioner of the Health Department, Michelle Morse, was on. We got a lot of callers asking why the Health Department was not releasing those addresses.

Now, Morse said that the Health Department didn't want to create what she thought would be false panic, meaning that you don't just have to walk in front of the building that has that cooling tower and inhale the air to get sick. The droplets can travel. She was saying by noting a broader location, she wanted more people to be aware and question their symptoms. At the same time, though, Brian, that was not the protocol in 2014.

The other thing that happened was two days after she said that on the show, the city eventually did release the addresses of the cooling towers, and guess what? 4 of the 11 buildings that tested positive with these cooling towers were city-owned buildings. One of them was Harlem Hospital. The other was the Central Harlem Sexual Health Clinic. I think there are a lot of questions here, and I think it's going to intensify. The City Council plans to hold an oversight hearing on this issue next month.

Brian: We have about seven or eight minutes left in the segment. I want to turn to one more issue that's been in the news and get both your takes, and I'm going to open up the phones on this, too, for our listeners. That is what's each of take on how the rent stabilization issue is playing now, more than a week since Cuomo tried to have Mamdani's rent stabilized department work against him. You remember it's $2,300 a month when Mamdani makes $142,000 a year as a member of the State Assembly.

Listeners of any political stripe, how did this land with you so far? 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692. I did some math, and I see that that would still be only about a quarter of Mamdani's take-home pay, which is what financial advisors say you want to be spending on your rent or mortgage, not more than about 25% to not be housing cost burdened. Listeners, did that seem unreasonable to you? Beyond that, should there be a means test when it comes to rent-stabilized apartments of any kind, whether Mamdani's current rent should fall within it or not? 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692.

I'll note there used to be a limit of $200,000 income a year for two straight years for a rent-stabilized tenant to keep that rent, but when Cuomo was governor, he signed a bill that removed any income cap. My question for you, Jeff Coltin, is did Cuomo say different things about the same standard when he was governor than he is saying today?

Jeff: Yes. Certainly. I guess to his credit, somewhat, he was really dragged along with these tenant-friendly reforms by the new, revived left-leaning state Senate and Assembly. He was pretty much openly reluctant to engage with these and was like, "All right, whatever. I'll sign whatever you give me." It's not a huge pivot for him politically to now be trying to crack down on this. That said, arguably, he helped create this problem that he is now trying to solve by signing the law.

Frankly, it's not even clear that this is a problem. I see Cuomo's whole play here as more of a cultural, like are you with us or against us kind of thing, and he's appealing to people that feel like gentrifiers are getting one in on them and are getting a better deal than them. He's making this policy in response to it. To me, it's more of an inherently kind of a cultural argument than rather like a serious policy argument he's making.

Brian: Liz, $142,000 as a household income is not rich in New York City. I mentioned that math, $2,300 a month, would be about a quarter of his take-home pay by my calculation, which is the target that financial advisors say you want to be spending on your rent or your mortgage. Cuomo, I think in order to sweep Mamdani into the bucket of illegitimacy on this, says, "Oh, you should be having to spend a third of your income on rent before you qualify for rent stabilization." My question to you is political. From what you can tell, how much is this landing, how much is this backfiring, this line of attack by Cuomo?

Liz: I think the initial attack, it started out as a bit of a gimmick, but I think what happened, though, is it actually did strike a nerve with New Yorkers because it gets at this issue of equity and what's fair and who deserves to get rent-stabilized or rent-controlled, rent-subsidized housing. We know that there are actually many different standards. For instance, NYCHA, there are income standards, and they recertify those tenants annually. The city has its affordable housing lottery. How do you get into that lottery? You have to qualify within certain bands of income. That is one initial means testing that is instituted in the beginning, but then later never again.

For this particular type of rent-stabilized unit that Mamdani rented, there was no means test. He has himself said that he found that apartment on StreetEasy. I think he also went on to say that he wasn't even aware that it was rent-stabilized. I think it does get at a valid policy question, and it's a policy question that housing experts have debated on and off for years is should there be a means test? The answer that has always been it is too much of a burden to implement.

Brian: Another few listeners write a version of this. "Please add Zohran Mamdani's wife's salary to his, as they live together." They just recently got married. Maybe they lived together before that, too. I don't know. Liz, is it known what she makes? I think Cuomo is only singling out Mamdani's $142,000, but it is fair if we're going to have this conversation, if the public is going to have this conversation, to cite the whole household income.

Liz: Jeff can check me on this, but I believe in the initial tweet, he did bring in Mamdani's wife, too. I think he said, and his wife's family has money somehow, although we don't know that. His wife is an illustrator. I do not know how much money she makes.

Brian: Do you have that stat, Jeff? Just curious.

Jeff: No, Cuomo just speculated. I think Cuomo just threw out $60,000 as a guess basically. No, we do not have any number, and it's never been reported his wife's salary.

Brian: Let's get one call in on this before we run out of time. Mike, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hi. I'd like to know why Cuomo is attacking Mamdani. Cuomo doesn't have a solution. He's criticizing someone for being rent-stabilized. I'm rent-stabilized. I was a schoolteacher in New York City for 30 years. I made $130,000. That's not a lot of money today. That's a losing argument that Cuomo has. Everybody should be rent-stabilized, no matter what your income is, because landlords are cleaning--

Brian: Cleaning up. I think your last word got cut off there. Mike, let me ask you a hypothetical, given your own salary history as you presented it, and the fact that rent-stabilized apartments are a finite resource in New York City. Let's take an extreme example.

Mike: Go ahead.

Brian: Let's say you found that somebody making $1 million a year was getting a rent-stabilized apartment while you were looking for one, would you resent that? Would you think the rules needed to change to prevent that?

Mike: No, because you're picking on a person making good money [inaudible 00:46:57] band-aid. You have to have a housing [inaudible 00:47:03]--

Brian: You're breaking up so badly. I've got to go. I think your point is clear to everybody. There should be a systemic solution so that the rent is reasonable for everybody. Jeff, I'll ask you one closing question on this. Cuomo cited Mamdani's parents' income. Is there any law here or anywhere, or was there ever, where the income of your parents affects what your means-tested eligibility for any program would be, as far as you know?

Jeff: No, because it's much harder to measure family wealth. That doesn't go on a tax return. Again, that's not really part of the policy proposal. Again, Cuomo is trying to make more of a hypocrisy argument or a cultural argument, saying he's got rich parents. For the record, I asked Cuomo, I said, "Hey, since we're talking about this, by the way, do you pitch in at all on your daughter's rent?" He said, "No." He said he does not pitch in on the rent.

Of course, there's the other question of whether he guaranteed their leases. There's many ways that you can hand down generational wealth. I don't know. Again, I think this is more about Cuomo tweaking Mamdani for being a champagne socialist than a real serious policy proposal. I don't think he would even pursue it as mayor, frankly. I'd be surprised if he did.

Brian: Jeff Coltin from Politico. He writes their morning newsletter called the New York Playbook. Jeff, thanks for sharing that audio with us that you got of Cuomo and donors at the Hamptons fundraiser this weekend. We really appreciate you coming on the radio on the audio medium to do that. We really, really thank you a lot. Our Liz Kim will continue to join us every Wednesday between now and election day on the race. Liz, thank you for today.

Liz: Thank you, Brian.

Jeff: Thanks for having me on.

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. More to come.

 

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