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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. One thing we still don't know about the New York City mayoral race, will Zohran Mamdani be running against only Eric Adams or more than Eric Adams. Conservative activist and podcast host Charlie Kirk is the latest prominent person on the right to call on Curtis Sliwa to drop his Republican nomination to give Mayor Adams that line and a better chance of winning because it would be one-on-one. It's still uncertain whether Andrew Cuomo will campaign on his independent line.

The main event as far as we know, is Mamdani versus Adams, Adams versus Mamdani. We'll still see if Cuomo is in it or if Sliwa is in it. Even as we speak, I see that a news conference is underway led by former Democratic Governor David Patterson aimed at making it a one-on-one race between Mamdani and someone will bring you details when they come in. I don't know if he's going to call on Cuomo to drop out or Sliwa to drop out or both. Adams as the incumbent mayor certainly does not seem to be heading to the exits himself. That much we can say.

Adams is running on his record making the case that through all the noise about all kinds of things in the press, he has been a very successful mayor on the merits. That's his case for reelection. Here is the mayor last week after he and city council came to pass a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1st. It is definitely an election-year budget for the mayor and for council members who are also up for reelection if they're not term-limited out. Council passed it unanimously, that doesn't happen often, including some marquee programs that they could announce as the mayor in this clip does.

Mayor Adams: We told you this year we will deliver the Best Budget Ever. We were clear on that for working class people in this city. That includes investing in cultural organizations and libraries, but it also includes historic investments in universal after-school, universal after-school.

[applause]

Many people tried, and we did it, we did it, 3K and pre-K, affordable housing, and what we really love. Jacques Jiha is not here, but to do our Axe the Tax, no income tax for low-income New Yorkers,.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams last week. The fine print though does include caveats on that sound bite like is the after-school program really universal? There's also a child care program that is only a pilot for certain neighborhoods for now, much less than what Zohran Mamdani is running on with respect to child care. Though we don't know for sure that he could pull it off. We'll get into some details now. The budget does have its critics, including fiscal watchdogs who say it fails to account for the big cuts coming from the other marquee budget that passed last week.

President Trump's so-called One, Big, Beautiful Bill, which includes one big ugly health care cut and other things that New York will have to financially deal with. For example, the fiscal watchdog group, the Citizens Budget Commission notes that the Trump administration is cutting $2.4 billion in federal funding just for New York City schools. The city budget so far fills only part of that gap.

In campaign terms, the battle is clearly between Adams and Mamdani over who's got the better plan to make the city more affordable for working-class New Yorkers. Joining us now on the budget and maybe more, first Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. Deputy Mayor, thanks for coming on again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Randy Mastro: Pleasure to be with you, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with some of the things in the budget that the mayor and you want to tout. Would you like to start with this childcare pilot program for kids under two years old?

Randy Mastro: Happy to start with that. I think you had an excellent summary of why this was the best budget ever, why it passed unanimously in the City Council, the first time that has happened in decades. It's because we have invested in our city's future with universal after-school program for the first time in city history. That's one, Brian, that when you go out into the out years of the budget, you see us increasing by tens of thousands of seats. That program it is now embedded in our budget. On the 2K program for child care, that is a pilot program--

Brian Lehrer: We'll get to 2K in some detail. On what you just said-- let me jump in. You said tens of thousands of seats in the out years. There are almost a million kids in the system. How universal will after-school be when?

Randy Mastro: Well, you already have a substantial after-school program. In this first year of universal after-school, we will not only improve that program for the kids who are already enrolled, but we will add thousands of additional kids. Then in each of the out years in the budget, we are adding tens of thousands of more kids. Not every kid wants to take advantage of universal after-school.

We will phase in the program based on demand and need, but it will be universal. That is a great thing for our system because we have pre-K, we have improving math and reading scores just announced last week. Now we have the opportunity for those kids and those families that want to take advantage of after-school to make it universal. I think that's a great advance--

Brian Lehrer: Can you put a date on when it will actually be universal for those families who request it?

Randy Mastro: Yes, it's going to be phased in over the next three to five-year period based on demand. Whatever the demand is, we will be prepared to meet it. That's why it's universal. Brian, I want to say how important this is because you also brought up child care. An essential element of what we do as a city is provide child care to those who qualify for it. The state budget blew a $300 million hole in that state-founded program and now we had to cover that.

Our administration has filled that gap and we are paying that 300 plus million that the state is now requiring that it never did before. Even more than that, we're starting with an experiment, a pilot for 2K even younger kids to see how that program goes. As we are that committed to child care and for families in need of child care, with working parents, two parents working or otherwise qualifying for child care. We have preserved that system despite state and federal cuts and we are actually expanding it with this pilot program.

Brian Lehrer: For the pilot program, how many neighborhoods exactly, and how will you decide on which ones? I read they weren't selected yet.

Randy Mastro: Haven't been selected yet, but working with both the Department of Education and Social Services here, we will identify neighborhoods where we think there are compelling needs for the pilot. That will all be implemented by the fall.

Brian Lehrer: The New York Times wrote the other day, "More than half of New York City families with children under age four cannot afford child care," citing a survey by the Robin Hood Foundation. How many or what percentage of that majority of New York families will this cover?

Randy Mastro: Well, this is a pilot program, so we're going to cover as many as we can within the pilot. It will start to establish a program that works in particular neighborhoods in need. Then I expect if the program is successful and the city has the resources to vote to it, to devote to it, we will expand it. This is a positive step. In the first instance, will be a pilot in a select number of neighborhoods to try to establish a model that works best for parents and their youngest children.

Brian Lehrer: I know you're here as a government official, not a campaign official, and respecting where the legal line in terms of what you can say is on that. As a point of comparison to the policy that you and I were just discussing, The Times article says, Mr. Mamdani says the city should implement free child care for every New Yorker aged six weeks to five years. It says. He has offered few details on how to execute this vision, but his aides estimate its cost at between $5 billion and $8 billion, referring to Mamdani. Why wouldn't Mayor Adams want to aim higher for closer to universal childcare like that and see how much you can get?

Randy Mastro: Well, Brian, again, I'm speaking about city government, how it works, and how it's working well. Some politicians will promise you anything even though they have no real program and no ability to fund it. Eric Adams is running on his record of delivering on his promises. Some people have no record and therefore make all sorts of promises. Eric Adams has a concrete record of delivering for New Yorkers. We have expanded child care to historic levels.

When the state blew a $300 million-plus hole in that childcare budget when the state had been funding it previously, we stepped up to the plate and we're now funding that and we're even expanding the program with this 2K pilot. We're delivering on the promise of child care in New York City. We're delivering on the promise of universal after-school. We are delivering on the promise of improving early childhood development and education with improved math and reading scores.

We are delivering on a safer city with double-digit reductions in major crime and historic reductions to their lowest level in decades, if ever, in shootings and murders in our city. We are delivering on the promise of improving quality of life with more money devoted to our culturals, our libraries, cleaner parks and streets. Now, a 1500 cop unit devoted to cracking down on quality-of-life crimes. Now we are implementing e-bike restrictions to address that quality of life issue and 3,400 more cops to be hired in this latest budget.

We're delivering on the promise of affordability. We're not just talking the talk, we are walking the walk with historic gains in affordable housing in our city. The rezonings we have done in this administration and just in the period Atlantic Avenue since I've been here are opening up the opportunity to create more than 130,000 units of affordable housing. during this administration, we have closed deals and are closing deals this month that will create 100,000 units of affordable housing. That is historic. There's no precedent in this city for that affordable housing creation.

What about the local economy and the opportunity for New Yorkers to enjoy a better life? We have of coming out of COVID where New York City lost a million jobs in the period since the Adams administration has seen the highest job rate in New York City history. 4.86 million New Yorkers employed, and the highest number of small businesses in city history, about 185,000, over 20% of which opened during the Adams administration. Over half a million New Yorkers, working-class families, lower-wage income-earning families, relieved almost entirely of their city income tax burden in this administration.

It's quite an extraordinary record of achievement. At the same time we see historic public works projects like the Fifth Avenue of the future, Hudson Yards expansion, the Arches Park under the Brooklyn Bridge in Lower Manhattan, and next the Brooklyn Marine Terminal project. These are transformative projects in our city. This mayor, finally, he said we have to do better by our immigrants and our indigent New Yorkers.

We have invested more money in providing legal services for our immigrant community and our indigent New Yorkers and created a Mayor's Office of Pro Bono Assistance to help match those who need services with lawyers. We formed a mayor's office to combat anti Semitism at a time when that is raging in our city, our nation, and our world. This-

Brian Lehrer: I want to get to that--

Randy Mastro: -has delivered.

Brian Lehrer: I said you weren't a campaign official, but obviously you're making his case. Here's a text, Deputy Mayor, on the after-school. Listener writes, "We cannot talk about universal after-school without raising the rates-- I think they mean the rates of pay-- of after-school providers." Says, "We are overloading a system whose providers have not had their wages or rates updated since 2015. The budget did not include higher rates for after-school providers, which is a huge loss for families and providers."

I have read that there's a shortage of those providers. The argument for raising their rates of pay is not just to treat them fairly, but also to attract enough people into the field for the expansion that you're trying to implement. Your thoughts on that?

Randy Mastro: Well, actually it's not an accurate description of the implementation of universal after-school. Its first year, as I think I mentioned before, there is going to be some expansion of the program, but it is also a reset. There will be a task force of expert advisors on how to improve and restructure the program in this first year. How to determine who should be the providers, and what the appropriate range of services and amount of money devoted to those services and service providers should be.

This coming year, while there will also be an expansion of the program, it's going to be principally in this first year, how do we structure the program, make sure we are providing the right array of services? Make sure we are providing the right level of support and expense for service providers and selecting the right providers.

That's actually going to happen during this first year. It will see improvements in those regards. Then the program will expand from there so that those who are getting after-school now get a better product. Those who are providing it are appropriately covered. The full panoply of services is provided in a universal after-school program that best serves our kids.

Brian Lehrer: Before we move on from the after-school and the child care program politically on this. An article on Politico quotes the City Council finance chair, Justin Brannan, who was obviously very involved in these negotiations. It says that Brannan believes that Mamdani's win in the primary influenced the mayor to align with the council on things like universal child care. The council which governs to his left, as the article points out.

Echoing this, we have a text from a listener who writes, "Sounds like a very progressive budget. I guess elections and progressive candidates have ramifications. We should have elections every year so we could have more progressive programs." This is a political analysis by Politico and by that listener that this is a more progressive program on things like universal child or child care pilot program because of Mamdani's win and that Adams needs to compete with him. Fair?

Randy Mastro: Completely off mark. Well, I have great respect for Justin Brannan and appreciate your listeners' observation. The reality is that before Mamdani was a blip on the radar screen, we were planning for universal after-school programs. I don't like these political labels, I don't use them. I think by any measure Mayor Adams has been a progressive mayor. People forget that he inherited twin crises when he came into office.

The twin crises of COVID and then the migrant crisis of more than 325,000 migrants descending on our city made it very difficult to handle the nearly $8 billion in our city budget that was created by that crisis and to launch new programs like this one. I can tell you this, this mayor has a head and a heart and we're doing the things that exemplify his progressive agenda and he's delivering on that agenda.

Whatever anyone else was thinking of doing who may want to become a mayor but has no actual record of delivering for New Yorkers, this mayor is delivering on his promise of a better New York, a more affordable New York. One where working-class families can not only survive, but thrive.

Brian Lehrer: I want to acknowledge that we're getting callers on both sides of the Elizabeth Street Garden issue. I think you were involved in withdrawing the government's plan to build senior housing on that site and saying it can remain a garden. I will acknowledge a caller named Lucy is calling to thank you for helping them with the Elizabeth Street Garden. I will take for the sake of dialogue, Bobby, who's calling with I think disappointment on this. Bobby, you're on WNYC with First Deputy Mayor Mastro. Hello.

Bobby: Oh, hi, Deputy Mayor.

Randy Mastro: Hello, Bobby. How are you?

Bobby: I'm doing my best. Thank you. The coalition of the privileged, as I call them, have been delayed housing at the Elizabeth Street Garden for upwards of a decade. A study done by LiveOnNY based here in New York City reports 300,000, lot of zeros, older adults on waiting lists for affordable housing. 20% poverty rate among older adults in this city. Adams likes to say he won the Social Security vote, which is a very disparaging term, but he hasn't been serving older adults that well.

There was an RFP put out, Habitat for Humanity, SAGE serving older gays and lesbians, and RiseBoro. All top organizations won that RFP, but they can't put a shovel in the ground. Public space was made part of it in an answer to the concerns of the community. You just got into office, I think you barely turned the lights on and you stopped it when it was about to finally begin.

Brian Lehrer: Bobby, I'm going to leave it there. Deputy Mayor, your response?

Randy Mastro: [chuckles] Okay. Bobby, with all due respect, this wasn't my first rodeo. I've been in this job before. I did it 30 years ago. I hit the ground running when I came here. We listened to communities and try to be responsive to their concerns. What we were able to achieve, leveraging a desire of a local counseling and so many in that local community to save a beloved community garden site was more than five times the affordable housing than could have been created otherwise without the support of the local councilman.

Bobby, within a block, within a block of Elizabeth Street Garden, there will be the same number now of senior affordable housing units. 123 units as were planned for the Elizabeth Street Garden site, but couldn't have been built on that other site without the cooperation of the local council member to support a rezoning there. A developer who had the right to just build on that site as of right, but has agreed to save the garden to add those 123 senior adult units to his housing project.

There are three separate units that will now be rezoned, creating over 620 affordable housing units, not just 123 at Elizabeth Street. The seniors will still get the housing that they need in that neighborhood and have a beautiful park a block away to enjoy as well. At least three sites. One of them can go forward in six months. Bobby, with all due respect, there was no coalition of the privileged. That's actually a working-class neighborhood, too. All right? It's not among the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. No one contacted me except the local councilman.

That's the person I spoke to, a councilman who had been opposed to development in his district, but now he has supported these rezonings. I just want to say one last thing to you. Mayor Adams uses his heart and his head. We did something that used both our hearts and our heads, creating more than five times the affordable housing that's good for New York. That's a win-win to preserve a local garden, which, by the way, will only be preserved if all of that additional housing gets built. That's the deal. That local council has to support all of that. In any fair assessment of this, this is a win-win for everyone. Five times the affordable housing and community open space preserved as a result.

Brian Lehrer: We could take calls all day on Elizabeth Street Garden pro and con, but we will leave that topic there as we head toward the end of this segment with First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. I want to get to one more thing from the budget that the mayor and City Council just passed, and that is the $12 million pro bono immigration legal services fund, which I see is going to be all or mostly for unaccompanied minors.

For people who haven't been following this story, that's one of the things that the Trump administration cut. They used to help fund legal services for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum or other forms of legal status. You're opening an office for that. In particular, will the city be hiring a certain number of lawyers for that or funding outside organizations?

Randy Mastro: The amount of funding, actually, Brian, is much greater than that. That's 12 million for legal services for unaccompanied minors. The total amount added to this budget is more like 70 million because it's also to help immigrants seeking asylum, to get the legal defense, immigrants posing deportation to get the legal services they need. It's not that the city will hire additional city lawyer staff. The city will match individuals with lawyers who can provide these services, just as it was doing out of its asylum seeker center previously.

There's a whole database that we've established already, and we'll be working with that legal community to match lawyers with asylum seekers, people opposing deportation. Unaccompanied minors being separated from their families, to help them get the legal services and representation they need and stand up to the Trump administration in this regard. Let me say one last thing about this mayor. There's times when he said, "Look, I'm going to try and find a path to do the best I can for New York in dealing with Washington."

He's also stood up to the Trump administration as much or more than any other mayor in this country, including on immigrants' rights, where those high school kids and others being snatched off the courthouse steps by ICE. We have, as a city, done something that no mayor in history has done. We have intervened in those cases. We have filed amicus briefs as friends of the court to say we support those kids and those other asylum seekers.

They should not be snatched off the steps of the courthouse as they're seeking to be able to stay here. That's wrong. We oppose it, and we've gone to court over it. Mayor Adams stands up for New York when the Trump administration is wrong, and he's doing it when it comes to immigrants' rights.

Brian Lehrer: Again, in political context, though, the Politico article on the budget says, "Funding immigrant legal services could serve as a defense against the political vulnerability for Adams in the general election. The mayor has sought to increase cooperation with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement against non-citizens and move to reopen a federal office on Rikers Island, a move that's been temporarily blocked following a legal challenge joined by the City Council." A Times article on that. Well, sorry, I thought I had that in front of me. Oh, yes.

Randy Mastro: It's okay.

Brian Lehrer: It says, "Immigration activists and top Democratic officials, including those who control City Council, argued that allowing ICE back in to Rikers, even under narrow circumstances, would open the door for federal agents to deport immigrants detained there." It says the court in this case, said the plaintiff, "Showed a likelihood of success because of the argument about the appearance of a quid pro quo between the Trump administration and Mr. Adams after the Justice Department dropped corruption charges against him." Are you trying to distract is the Politico question from ICE at Rikers and other cooperation with Trump with this program?

Randy Mastro: Yes. Sometimes, Brian, doing the right thing is simply doing the right thing. Everything that you mentioned there about Rikers and cooperation with ICE has to do with the limited category of cooperating in the context of criminal investigations and bringing criminal charges against violent transnational gangs whose members are here in our city and preying largely on the immigrant community.

Brian Lehrer: One quick follow-up on that--

Randy Mastro: The only access to Rikers-

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Randy Mastro: -was going to be to help with federal criminal investigations. No civil enforcement. It's a bogus argument. It's not true. We have not cooperated in civil enforcement at all. In fact, we've gone to court to support those immigrants seeking to stay here in their proceedings, their civil proceedings to try to stay here. The truth is that we do believe in a safe city and protecting our city from violent transnational gangs.

In that regard, in criminal investigations, we have cooperated and we should, to protect all New Yorkers. We have never cooperated in civil matters, and we are not. In fact, we've gone to court on behalf of those seeking to stay here who've been taken by ICE in civil matters, and we supported those individuals who stay here.

Brian Lehrer: One follow-up and then we're out of time. The Times article quoted the plaintiffs who pointed to the thousands of immigrants who ICE deported from Rikers when they were there in the past. Many with no criminal convictions, this says, or only minor violations when the agency had an office there. What's your response to this? Especially given that Rikers is primarily a jail for people accused of crimes, innocent until proven guilty.

Randy Mastro: No one has been taken out of Rikers on a civil detainer by the feds or anyone else during this administration. It's never happened. It never would happen, it never will happen. I think most New Yorkers, when asked the question, would you like to see violent transnational criminal gang members apprehended, criminally prosecuted, and taken out of our city? They would say, absolutely. That's all we're doing, making New York City safer.

Brian Lehrer: Only after the convictions.

Randy Mastro: Those individuals who are being detained in criminal cases, they're doing their time and they're going to do all their time. This program, this attempt to improve public safety by going after, in criminal cases, transnational gang members. That's only in criminal matters, hasn't been anything else. Let's make sure we all have our facts straight. On the civil detention side, this administration has not cooperated with ICE in those matters. In fact has gone to court to support high school kids who've been snatched off courthouse steps by ICE and said, "That's wrong. We support the kid."

Brian Lehrer: Randy Mastro, first Deputy Mayor of the city of New York. We always appreciate when you come on. Thank you very much.

Randy Mastro: Thank you, Brian. Bye-bye.

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