[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Before we really get going on specifics today, as a little preamble to our main segments, a restatement of where we are here on April 9th, 80 days now into the Trump administration. Around the world in 80 days. We're evaluating and hearing your voices on not just policies and politics as usual, but also on the question, is this what democracy looks like? Where are we on the spectrum every day from democracy to autocracy? Here's a clip of Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy with David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour, a week before last as Murphy posed a tough question from his point of view for his Democratic Party.

Senator Chris Murphy: Is this a normal moment where you can just keep on punching Donald Trump and pushing down his approval ratings and eventually win the 2026 election and set up a potential win in 2028 or is there a pretty good chance that we're not going to have a free election in 2026?

David Remnick: You believe that's a possibility?

Senator Chris Murphy: 100%. Oh, every single day, I think the chances are growing that we will not have a free and fair election in 2026.

Brian Lehrer: Senator Chris Murphy. We'll play a longer version of that clip and talk more about where we are on that scale and how much the Supreme Court is starting to play a role with law professor Kate Shaw later in the show. What about this year's election? We'll begin today with our usual Wednesday visit from WNYC and Gothamist city hall reporter Elizabeth Kim.

We have been calling her our lead Eric Adams reporter during the heart of Mayor Adams' term as Liz has been coming on with us each week after the mayor's Tuesday news conferences. The only time all week, as we always remind you, that he takes reporters' questions on topics that the free press chooses, not him. From this point on, we're changing the frame of this segment from covering the mayor to covering the mayor and the mayoral campaign.

That, of course, will include Eric Adams and his actions since he is still running the city. There are some very relevant things about that this week. Now, it's really campaign season. We need to broaden our lens to serve the public in the right way, as we think we are, to not just inspect the mayor's actions but to give other competitors a lot of airtime too to help you evaluate them. You know we're inviting all the primary candidates for mayor of New York and governor of New Jersey on the show.

We're also going to be talking about them more on the New York City side in these segments with Liz. Give me a minute before Liz comes on to lay out the very unusual set of choices about to face Democrats in particular in the city if you haven't gotten your heads around this yet, okay? There's the June 24th mayoral primary, of course, with a long list of candidates. There will be the general election in November, which is now shaping up to be potentially very unusual.

Here's the scenario that's beginning to emerge. Someone will win the primary and be the Democratic nominee. Curtis Sliwa, facing no primary, will be the Republican nominee. Mayor Adams has now left the Democratic Party and will be on the November ballot as an independent. The Progressive Working Families Party, this is the emerging part if you haven't heard it yet. Working Families Party says if the Democratic nominee is Andrew Cuomo, they will put up their own candidate.

That presumably would be one of the four they've already given their blessing to in the primary. Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, Scott Stringer or Adrienne Adams. Is your head exploding yet? There's also another independent named Jim Walden. Even without him, we could very well have a November election with Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, Curtis Sliwa, and one of the progressives who loses the primary to Cuomo.

Remember this, not too early to think about this. Very important. The November election is not a ranked choice vote like the primary. You'll only be allowed to choose one candidate in November. Many of you are already strategizing your tickets, how you're going to rank candidates in the June primary. I know, but you don't get to do that in November. There's no crafting list designed to keep someone out. The challenge for Democrats there is if you split your votes too much between Cuomo and the progressive, Curtis Sliwa might win and be a Republican mayor.

Something to start thinking about even now, but let's not get too ahead of ourselves. We will have many months to come back to that scenario and evaluate your choices. There is a primary coming first and with all those Democratic names I mentioned, plus a few others. Liz has an article now about the possibly important role that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might play in helping to lift one of the progressives over Cuomo so that a progressive gets the nomination. The article is called In New York City Mayoral Race, Will AOC Help Progressives Beat Andrew Cuomo? Liz Kim joins us now. Hi, Liz. Happy Wednesday.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go right to your article first. Then later, we'll get to the mayor's deepening bromance with Trump and Kash Patel and MAGA world in general and its immediate implications for the city. Why'd you write an article about AOC and the Democratic Party? She's not in the race.

Elizabeth Kim: Well, in 2021, there was a lot of speculation about whether AOC would weigh in on the mayor's race. In the beginning, it was a lot of, "Will she? Won't she?" There were some people who said that she probably will. Then some people said, "No, I think she wants to stay out of this one," but she ultimately did weigh in on the election. She endorsed Maya Wiley one week before early voting.

Maya Wiley did not win the election as we know, but she did finish a close third to Kathryn Garcia. Many political experts credit AOC's endorsement with lifting what was a struggling candidacy for Maya Wiley and helping her get very close. There was a lot of questions about what would have happened had AOC endorsed earlier, had she used her influence in the race earlier. I remember early on when there was talk of whether AOC would endorse. I went to one of AOC's rallies.

She had come out and endorsed Brad Lander for city comptroller. There was a lot of anticipation. Will she come into the mayor's race? I remember speaking to people at that rally. A lot of people said to me that they felt that a sign from her, a word from her would really help clarify what was a very crowded race at the time. I've been speaking to a lot of people. There's a lot of backroom discussions about when she might do it.

I think everybody is of the belief that this would be something that's important to her. Given that progressives are so bent on defeating Andrew Cuomo, they do need someone like her, someone with her star power, both on the public stage but also on social media to help coalesce progressives around one candidate. As we know, there are several left-leaning candidates.

Brian Lehrer: You wrote that two of those hold the most potential appeal for Ocasio-Cortez. Which two and why?

Elizabeth Kim: Right, so it would be City Comptroller Brad Lander, who, as I noted in 2021, she had endorsed him for that role when he ran for city comptroller. He's very well-established, a political fixture, a fixture in New York City politics. He has wide name recognition. At the time, when she endorsed him in 2021, she pointed to his progressive track record. There's him and they have a relationship.

There's also Zohran Mamdani, that he's, as we know, the Democratic Socialist who's Queens assemblyman. He has been ascending in the polls and he really has become the breakout candidate of the left. There's a lot that could appeal to her about him. It's not just his ideological positions, but they are very similar. He has been compared to her in how charismatic he is in his messaging on affordability. Very much resembles what she's doing across the country as she travels with Bernie Sanders.

Those are the two people currently who are being talked about as possible recipients of her endorsement, but a lot could change, right? They are being talked about because there are two reasons. They both look like they're going to raise the maximum allowed under the city's campaign finance rules, which is around $8 million, and also polling too. Like I said, Mamdani is doing really well in polling. Although we should note, Cuomo is still leading the pack by double digits.

When I say "doing well," it's really relative. There's still time too. Given the fact that Brad Lander has the money, there's still time for him to pull up his numbers. We do know that she likes to pick a winner. She likes to see how well the campaigns will perform. She's not going to do an endorsement for just an endorsement's sake. She wants to pick someone who is viable. That is often why she waits very much to the end, closer to the end, to endorse someone.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play a couple of clips then of Mamdani and Lander on one major issue on which they now have begun to somewhat disagree. They're both progressives. Mamdani's reputation is really growing in that respect. People may remember Brad Lander helped to found the Progressive Caucus of the New York City Council some years ago, but they disagree now, it looks like, on the size of the police force.

Lander wants to add more police, around 1,500. Mamdani has not answered a question about that directly when you asked him or when I asked him following up on you. Let's talk about each. Here's Lander, a quote I'm going to read from a February 25th news conference suggesting an increase in the force to its previous high of 35,000 cops. He said, "Instead of having 35,000 officers out on the street, we've got fewer than 33,500, and the problem is about to get much worse."

Now, he also acknowledged that progressive Democrats didn't do a good-enough job in addressing some of the public safety issues that became prevalent during the pandemic, including spikes and shootings. According to a Daily News article on Lander, he said, "Adding more police is a strategy to confront the issues that I hear from New Yorkers in all five boroughs every single day." He said all those things. That's a change for Lander from his past positions, right?

Elizabeth Kim: That's absolutely true. He has been asked about that several times whether he's basically flip-flopped on this issue of Defund the Police. He has basically framed it as he felt as if the Defund the Police movement didn't really adequately hold the police accountable, I guess I would say. He's regretted that position. He's trying to walk a line here by saying-- I mean, he is saying that he would add more police officers.

He's trying to frame it as, "Well, I'm actually bringing police up to the numbers that they should be at because, as we all know, after the pandemic, there was a mass wave of retirements and attrition in police officers. That number has fallen to around 33,500." He says he wants to bring it back to the full level, but a lot of people will still see that as, basically, he's reversing himself rather than lower the NYPD budget at $6 billion, which was the call during the George Floyd protests. He's basically saying that we're going to expand the number of cops on the street.

Brian Lehrer: By contrast, here's Mamdani, who also has the endorsement of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, on this show in January.

Zohran Mamdani: I cannot think of another policy in recent history from this mayor or others that dropped a single category of crime that much that fast. Yet, all we hear from the executives that we have across the city and the state is we need more National Guard, we need more police, we need more changes to bail laws, and we get that every year. Still, New Yorkers do not feel safer when they are going around their city as is their right.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have any intelligence on how that specific difference might play into AOC's thinking about who to endorse?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, the argument that Mamdani makes, which is that additional police are not directly linked to a drop in crime, is an argument that she has made too, and also that criminal justice experts have also made by looking at the data, right? That's very much in line with who AOC is as an elected official. She's very much about, "Let's look at the data to make policy decisions."

I guess I would say that what's interesting, and you brought it up too, is that when you ask Mamdani, "Are you in support of reducing the police budget," he doesn't answer that question. I think that that points to what a lightning rod of a question or issue that is for even a candidate like himself who is the most left-leaning candidate in the race that even he would not give a yes or no answer to that question.

If we remember back in 2020 where there were these national calls to reduce police budgets and hold police accountable for brutality and discrimination that, in this moment, there is not that kind of talk. There is a lot of talk about, "Well, there's wasteful spending on overtime," for example. That's where the candidates will pivot, but no candidate will come out and say to the public that they want to reduce funding for the NYPD.

Brian Lehrer: We should say if Lander and Mamdani disagree on the number of cops, here's a clip of each mostly agreeing on what they want the city to do about crime and homelessness and mentally-ill people in the streets in addition to policing. Lander first on our show in January.

Brad Lander: We've laid out a clear, ready-on-day-one plan that involves better city hall management, a housing-first approach that connects people to stable housing with services, and that includes secure detention when it's necessary. I'm good with more officers in the subways overnight. I think New Yorkers want to see them, but I think New Yorkers also know we won't solve this problem unless we actually connect people to housing with the services that they need.

Brian Lehrer: That's Lander on the show in January and here is Mamdani on the show in January.

Zohran Mamdani: I am going to transform our current reality, which is New York City having a patchwork of programs dealing with issues from gun violence to homelessness to victim services to mental health crises, all without any coordination of sufficient level or funding as it should be or any kind of prioritization, and instead develop a massive expansion of peer-based street and subway outreach teams who develop relationships and trust with individuals and are able to identify deteriorating mental health crises as well as direct people to services.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting comparisons of how they would approach but fairly similarly approach. Of course, it'll be up to them to suss out differences between them on this better pre-crime, if we can call them that, services to people who might be seen as at higher risk of committing crimes. Last thing on this in your article about AOC considering endorsing somebody.

In the ranked-choice system, as you know, Liz, she can endorse both like the Working Families Party has endorsed both of them plus Stringer and Adrienne Adams to rank them and not rank Cuomo in their strategy to keep Cuomo out. Might AOC just stop there and say rank Mamdani first and Lander second or Lander first and Mamdani second or just make sure you rank these two?

Elizabeth Kim: Yes, and I think that is an expectation that she would do something like that. The Working Families Party is expected to come out with their ranking. They have endorsed four candidates so far as part of a slate, but they have not ranked them. They have said that they would do so as we get closer to the primary. They're not going to wait until a week before early voting, but they told me sometime maybe later this month or early next month.

I think that will provide a runway for AOC to come in because she and the Working Families Party are very closely aligned. Sources told me that you would expect her to be having conversations with the leaders of that party as to what they do and then she could come in and then amplify their choice. Yes, it would still be very significant though for her to come out with a first choice and a second choice. The question is, is who would that first choice be?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your calls, questions or comments, or your own emerging voting preferences in the Democratic primary if you're a registered Democrat or even for the general election in that unique multi-candidate decision you might have to make at that time that we laid out in the intro with no ranked-choice voting in November or anything on Mayor Adams while he's still running the city and leans into his alliance with Trump. We're going to get to that after the break. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Yes, we will talk explicitly about the city for the rest of this Adams term, plus Trump running things at the same time this year, and where those two things intersect when we continue with Liz Kim in a minute.

[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with our city hall reporter, Elizabeth Kim, talking about the mayor's Tuesday news conference yesterday, which we're going to get to in a minute with him talking about tariffs and DEI and how these Trump policies and he's now, of course, becoming more and more involved in a political bromance with Trump, you might call it. How about tariffs and DEI restrictions as they affect New York City? We're going to get to that, but I want to take a few phone calls first and texts that are coming in on our part. One conversation with Liz on AOC and the Democratic primary. Let's start with Shana in AOC's district, I believe, in Astoria. You're on WNYC. Hello, Shana.

Shawna Morlock: Hi. How are you? This is Shawna Morlock.

Brian Lehrer: I apologize.

Shawna Morlock: Yes, totally fine. Thank you so much for giving me a moment. I'm a constituent of AOC's. I was one of her early volunteers in 2018. I've been incredibly supportive of the way that she's been as a representative. Also, incredibly proud of the rallies that she's leading around the country to try and organize folks against fascism. It's incredibly important.

I think that what I would love to see is for her to take that same energy and bring it back home. I think that organizing against a Cuomo mayoralship is very, very important. I think that the austerity budgets that he would try to impose on us and all of his scandals with the corruption and the harassment and the bullying, I think that if we're fighting Trump on a national level, we also need to look out for the people here at home.

Brian Lehrer: Shawna, your point is you want to see AOC endorse sooner rather than later, not wait till so close to when the voting starts like she did in 2021 with Maya Wiley?

Shawna Morlock: Exactly, and just to make sure that we're-- She has such a huge voice and I think that I have faith that she'll endorse. I'm a big Zohran Mamdani supporter. He used to be my assembly member. He's amazing. There's other folks that I think would be perfectly acceptable as well. I think that doing it early and having her voice to tell folks about how ranked-choice voting works and to organize folks to really use their ballots effectively is my hope for what she chooses to do in the near future.

Brian Lehrer: Shawna, thank you very much for your call. Appreciate it. Sheila in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Sheila.

Sheila: Hi there. I'm confused. There's one candidate for mayor that I want and I don't want any of the others. I'm trying to figure out using ranked-choice voting. Obviously, the candidate I want will be number one. Would that vote be stronger if I left the other four spaces blank or should I put in the number two spot the weakest candidate and the third spot the second weakest? I just don't understand how ranked-choices working votes and how I can make my vote be more important.

Brian Lehrer: Sheila, thank you very much. Liz, do you have an answer for her on that? You heard her specific scenario. There's only really one candidate, whoever that is, who she wants to advantage.

Elizabeth Kim: Yes, this is a very important question, Sheila. The answer to that is you putting down your one candidate, it would not help that candidate if you left the four remaining slots blank. What it does is it would dilute the power of your ballot though. For example, what you should do if you want to maximize the power of your ballot, I understand, you only want that one candidate and that your first-choice vote that will be counted toward that candidate.

If that candidate doesn't make it onto the successive rounds of counting, the question then becomes who is the second candidate that you could live with? I understand you said there's only one candidate you want. The question you should ask yourself is, "If that candidate does not advance, if that candidate does not achieve a majority of votes, who is the second candidate that I would want to be mayor?" Then after that, ask yourself, "Who is the third? Who is the fourth?" I understand. It gets successively harder. If you want to maximize the power of your vote, try thinking about the second and third and fourth and possibly fifth spots.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, thank you for that. I hope that's helpful, Sheila. Listeners, of course, we'll come back to continually explaining the admittedly confusing process of ranked-choice voting as the voting period actually comes closer as we approach June. One more in the set. Travis in Washington Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Travis.

Travis: Hi. Thanks so much. There are so many Influential people that listen to your show. I hope there's members of the Charter Review Commission listening because they're holding meetings now. It's too late to change the system this year. The Democratic Party has long favored, I gather, these partisan-closed primaries, but this may be the year where they really get bit in the rear. We've got so many problems. We got a million independent voters that can't vote. We could end up with a candidate elected in November, which is perhaps the most extreme candidate that most people favor the least.

Lastly, I would suggest in the coming weeks. If you had election experts on from other cities, we have a primary that people can bypass entirely if they choose. My understanding is that many other cities, the primary is the dress rehearsal. All the candidates have to be in it and all the voters participate to winnow the field down to a manageable size that then moved on to the general election. That's my thought.

Brian Lehrer: Travis, thank you very much. It's true some other places have that. That's a general primary, right? It's not a party primary with the other parties also having the opportunity to have primaries. Mayor Bloomberg advocated that and wanted there to be a change in the system so that there was just an open primary. It was like the caller says, a dress rehearsal or round one.

Then they go on to the general election rather than the closed party primaries, which Travis there says could wind up coming back to bite the Democrats in this case with Adams running as an independent. A listener asks, Liz, in a text, "Do you know why they're not doing ranked-choice voting in November?" Again, as we said at the top of the segment, yes, ranked-choice voting with all its confusions in the primaries, but not in November with that likely or possible multi-candidate scenario. Why is it in the primaries but not in the general if you know?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, it had to go through a ballot referendum and the ballot referendum specified primaries. I'm not sure at the time what the conversation was around, why it should just be the primary and not the general election.

Brian Lehrer: All right. On to Mayor Adams and the present moment of governance by this mayor at the time of this particular president as Adams appeared at his news conference yesterday and not dressed in a suit as usual but in a T-shirt with an American flag and the words, "In God We Trust," and he explained why.

Mayor Eric Adams: This outfit is not campaigning. This outfit is my life, "In God We Trust." I went through hell for 15 months and all I had was God. God in my family and those who understood that I did nothing wrong regardless of the incoming that I received. I want to be very clear so people who misunderstand, my faith is real. Go back in the days when that indictment came out and I stood in front of you guys in a rotunda. I stated, "My faith is real in God." As a matter of fact, the quote I stated was that I had more faith in God at the time I was in it than I ever did. As much as I can say and not until you were in that type of circumstance do you understand the impact and importance of your faith.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, probably not worth too much time, but want to talk a little about the shirt and any significance it may have?

Elizabeth Kim: Well, the mayor likes to make an entrance. I was talking about it before I came on with my colleague, Brigid Bergin, as to whether, in some ways, it was a distraction. We came into that presser with a lot of concerning news about how the Trump administration's policies were potentially or were already affecting New York City.

We came into that press conference on the news that the Trump administration had canceled nearly $200 million in grants that were meant to provide care for migrants. Instead, we get the mayor coming in wearing a T-shirt like that that, in many ways, seemed to clash with the mood of the day, which is, what is the city going to do to respond to these impending tariffs, to the threat of losing funding for city schools? That's what the T-shirt kind of-- it just seemed a little bit almost-

Brian Lehrer: Tone-deaf? [chuckles]

Elizabeth Kim: -tone-deaf to the moment, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Let's play a clip of the mayor on one of those issues that you just cited, the possibility that the Education Department public schools are going to lose federal funding because they may be resisting an anti-DEI order from Trump. Here's Adams on that.

Mayor Eric Adams: This is an opportunity for all of us that believe in diversity to go to all of these entities and say, "Don't just put three letters up and say what you're doing. Let's see your results. How well are you doing?" Then you can get equality like I did because we broke records because of the diversity and equality, but you can also improve you have the diversity within your administration. I joined my mayors in saying we need to make sure we have diversity in all of our administrations. We're on the same page with that.

Elizabeth Kim: If you're at risk of losing federal funding, what do you do?

Mayor Eric Adams: While we're at risk. If the federal government lays down rules as any administration could do, let's be clear on that. If we think they're unfair, we're going to do what we have been doing. We have a corporation council just for that. We're going to do if something we believe is unfair-- This is a country where there are systems of fighting against something you believe is unfair. We're going to utilize those systems to do so. That's the system that we're under. That's the system that I respect. That's why this is the greatest country on the globe.

Brian Lehrer: If democracy persists. Liz, that was the question that you asked the mayor. People may have recognized your voice asking the follow-up question in there. What is at stake? What's the issue here?

Elizabeth Kim: The mayor is repeatedly asked about, how is he going to respond to Trump's threat to take away funding from the city? The real question I think that reporters are trying to get at is, when are we going to see some real outrage by the mayor of the largest city in the country against what is happening and what could happen? It's a rhetorical tightrope. He will criticize the action but not the person who ordered the action.

That answer that he gave to the DEI issue, it was very, very long-winded. It was a way for him to basically tout how great his administration has been at achieving diversity. It didn't really answer the question about, "What are you going to do to hit back at the federal government if they do, in fact, start stripping New York City schools of funding?" My colleague, Jessica Gould, wrote a story on-- this is Title I funding that goes to schools that are in the poorest districts.

It affects a wide gamut of programs from art, music, athletics, but the mayor's not really going there if you hear him. The end of his answer was basically, "There are processes in place that we will take advantage of." I guess he's basically saying that the city could sue, which is what the city has done with some of the migrant funding that has been taken away.

Brian Lehrer: Similarly, not a very clear answer when he was asked what he would do or what he think the implications were for New York City about the new Trump tariffs. Here's the mayor on that.

Mayor Eric Adams: I must have spent a great part of the weekend reading up on tariffs and I still don't understand them. This is a very complex conversation. People spend their lives understanding the balance of our economy. Just one thing I know. Whatever we were doing, it was not working. Affordability is an issue for everyday New Yorkers. Wealth has been accumulated in the highest level of people in the country. I'm seeing low-income, working-class people are struggling every day. Whatever we were doing, we need to think differently.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, how do you hear that clip?

Elizabeth Kim: The last part of what he says struck me as tacit approval for what Trump is doing, which some people would argue as he's trying to disrupt the status quo. Trump has said he's trying to revive manufacturing in America again. That part where he makes that turn where he says, "What I do know is that it's not working," seems to support that argument. Prior to that, him saying that he's done a lot of reading, he doesn't understand it, that to me seems like a cop-out. If he does not understand it, he has many, many experts at his disposal.

Brian Lehrer: Right.

Elizabeth Kim: There are many high-ranking elected officials like Chuck Schumer, who have warned that it could result in the loss of as many as 260,000 jobs in New York. He knows the city is a financial center. It's a mecca for tourism. The city would be hit very hard by these tariffs.

Brian Lehrer: Let me play one more clip that you pulled from yesterday's news conference. This is 30 seconds of a testy exchange the mayor had with New York Times city hall reporter Emma Fitzsimmons. You want to set this up?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure, so Emma basically pointed out to him that during the Biden administration, the mayor notoriously came out against Biden and criticized him by name for not giving the city enough support to take care of the over 200,000 migrants that came into the city. She asked him about it. She says, "There's a real difference here in how you're talking about Trump who is taking away funding and how you spoke about Biden for not giving us funding."

Brian Lehrer: Here we go.

Mayor Eric Adams: You guys have been trying this for a long time, particularly your outlet. You want to see me fighting because of those who are just angry right now. I'm just not in that crew.

Emma Fitzsimmons: You criticized Biden by name. You haven't criticized Trump by name.

Mayor Eric Adams: Again, I'm going to criticize anything that takes away our money. I know you would like to see me in a fight. I know you look forward to that.

[crosstalk]

Mayor Eric Adams: Okay. Okay. Okay, I'm glad you're the rhetoric judge. Go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Well, maybe that's where we should leave it since where, I guess, colleagues even in a different news organization with Emma Fitzsimmons from The New York Times, who the mayor called the rhetoric judge. Last thought, Liz?

Elizabeth Kim: No, I thought that moment really boiled down where the mayor stands on his relationship to Trump. I think there were questions about whether, after the charges were dropped, would he feel liberated in some way to start speaking out against Trump. I think we got our answer right there in that exchange.

Brian Lehrer: I'm so grateful that we have the luxury of time on this show as we were able to spend the last 40 minutes with Liz, both breaking down some of the choices for the primary and endorsement issues for the primary and the new Eric Adams-Donald Trump era of governance in the city and really stretch out a little bit. Just grateful that we have the format that we do on this show. Liz, always grateful for you as I know you'll keep coming on and covering the mayor and the mayoral race. Thank you so much.

Elizabeth Kim: Likewise.

 

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.