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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and let's keep going, but we're going to do it a little differently. Now, we're going to hold a mid-show call in for those of you who we've never heard from before. It's open phones for firs-time callers, 212-433-WNYC. If you're a first-time caller to this segment, you may not know the number, so I'm going to give it again. 212-433-9692. If you've never called the show before or never gotten on the air, you are invited to end this week with your Brian Lehrer Show debut.

The topic is anything that's on your mind from the news or anything from your personal life that you think is relevant to or just interesting for a wider audience. 212-433-WNYC. For first-time callers, 212-433-9692. Again, if you've never called the show before or never gotten on the air, you are invited to end this week with your Brian Lehrer Show debut, and it's true open phones for first-time callers. The topic is anything that's on your mind from the news or anything from your personal life, because we do these personal life call-ins, too, usually more at the end of the show, but on things that are relevant to trends in our world, trends in our local area, trends in our country.

Anything from your personal life that you think is relevant to or just interesting for a wider audience, or anything that's on your mind from the news of this week or just generally, recent times, 212-433-WNYC. You know the phrase that often comes up, right? Longtime listener, first-time caller. We don't know how or when our listeners started introducing themselves to us with that phrase. I think it might have migrated over to us from the sports talk universe. Not sure, but we always love the fresh perspectives we hear from those of you who were finally compelled for one reason or another to give us a ring.

Now we honor you, our never-before callers, with a segment just for you as first-time callers. Don't get me wrong, we have some great regular callers who contribute a lot to the show. You know who you are, and we thank you. I'll also acknowledge that there are some of you who call too much, and that's why you sit on hold a lot when we don't take the same people over and over again. Basically, we exist to give voice to the many among us, not the few. For today, for this segment, it's open phones for first-time callers, 212-433-9692.

Be a longtime listener, first-time caller, or a recent short-time listener, first-time caller. You are invited, too. On some of the news of this week, we've been talking about some of the topics with Christina Greer. I don't have to go over those again, I don't think. On the personal side, what about what you're doing? June typically marks the beginning of the wedding season. Are you about to get married or attend a marriage of someone important in your life? Maybe you just graduated after a long journey of trying to get your degree, and there's a lesson in that for other people.

What's the big news in your life, or talk about things from the week, from the segment we just had, or from other things that have been on the show during the week. We talked about the elections in India and Mexico and elsewhere. Such a big thing around the world this year of so many, so many, billions of people voting, more than in most years. Hello, more callers with ties to Mexico, more callers with ties to India. Cricket fans attending the World Cup here in New York, on Long Island for the first time, or anyone else. First-time callers, this call-in is for you. You can also text, 212-433-WNYC. We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Okay, first-time callers, let's see what you got. Melissa in Red Hook, you're on WNYC. Hi, Melissa.

Melissa: Hi, Brian. First-time caller, long-time listener, as you said. I just wanted to share that I, with two other friends, we make a voter guide for New York City elections called Soft Power Vote. We did a AMA, ask me anything, about congestion pricing yesterday on our Instagram account. Most people that submitted questions were mainly in support of congestion pricing, because I know you said earlier that most of your callers yesterday were against congestion pricing, but the general sense in that was that people just don't trust the MTA or they don't trust the mayor, they don't trust the governor with a long track record of saying things and doing another.

I think it just is reminding me, I'm reading the Robert Moses book, The Power Broker right now, and it just sounds very like the story tale of New York City politics of lack of transparency. I actually wrote my college thesis on the London congestion pricing program. The main thing that I took away from that was transparency and also better public transit. When the program was implemented, there was already better transit options available, but most people that were against congestion pricing yesterday, we had one driver who lives in Brooklyn and drove to the Bronx every day.

I just don't think people really understand the general program or the fact that when the MTA did their public comment a couple months ago, 26,000 comments, that 60% of those people were in support of it. Within a year or two of implementation, and hopefully better transit as a result of that, usually, naysayers come around, but generally, I just wanted to plug the voter guide also.

Brian Lehrer: Good. Soft Power Vote is your group, right?

Melissa: Yes, mainly on Instagram, and we provide a super detailed research spreadsheet, also a built for speed Instagram version. We're just keeping our community focused on the mayor's race next year, since a lot of people are not happy with the mayor, and then also the governor's race in 2026, as you mentioned earlier. Keeping our eyes on that.

Brian Lehrer: One follow-up to what you were talking about. We got a couple of texts during the previous segment that I didn't get to that were saying some versions of Governor Hochul and Governor Murphy should get together and design an improved regional mass transit system first, and then the support for congestion pricing to fund it will follow. What do you think about that idea?

Melissa: Yes, I think there's a general sentiment that parts of Jersey should just be annexed into New York. I have a lot of friends that live over there or colleagues that live over there. I grew up in the Bay Area, and [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: You just made the blood pressure go up all over the Garden State. They're like, "No. We're independent."

Melissa: Sorry. Ultimately, it was commuters that we're worried about the traffic problems, and I wasn't hearing a lot of New Yorkers being represented or people that live in the region, or for me, I don't own a car, so I have no skin in the game in this, but I definitely take the subway and I live in a neighborhood that is kind of a public transit desert, so I would really love improved transit. The subway is like the holy grail of New York City, so it seems like a no-brainer to invest in it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Melissa. Appreciate your call. Cecilio in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Cecilio.

Cecilio: Yes. How are you doing, Mr. Brian? This is the first time that I called you and my pleasure, but 93.9 is my favorite whole day.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Cecilio. I'm glad you listen to it.

Cecilio: My short phone call to you is because us here, us Spanish here in Washington Heights do not like this man. He talked too bad against us.

Brian Lehrer: Trump. You're talking about Trump, right?

Cecilio: Yes. I don't want to mention his name, we don't like that, but the United States cannot put this guy to represent 350 million people. One guy with felony. Come on.

Brian Lehrer: Cecilio, I'm curious how you see these polls that show a lot more Latinos leaning toward Trump than in his previous two elections. I'm wondering if you hear it from any of your neighbors in Dominican Washington Heights as you describe it.

Cecilio: Yes. Here in Washington Heights, nobody wanted nothing with Trump. Nobody. Nobody wanted nothing with this guy, because this guy hate the Spanish people. He hates the foreign people. This guy is not supposed to be-- Never try and be a president with 24 felonies right now. It's a shame for this country.

Brian Lehrer: What, for you, Cecilio, are your top two issues in this election?

Cecilio: My top issue is Mr. Brian how to continue the way because he's doing the thing and keeping the democracy for us and for everybody around the world.

Brian Lehrer: Cecilio, you're-

Cecilio: This makes me say you want to be a dictator.

Brian Lehrer: You want to throw in one more? I invited you to give us two issues. That's a big one. That's such an overarching one, I know. Any other one you want to throw on the fire?

Cecilio: The other one is that he got a bunch of people around him that they keep going and telling that he's the one, he's the one. He's not the one. We don't want to. Hispanic people don't like him at all. You see the same people going behind him telling the same thing. The same people that he got around, nobody else. You want to see, if he come up here to Washington Heights, nobody going to be there behind him. That's why he don't come here.

Brian Lehrer: He did do that rally in the South Bronx the other week?

Cecilio: White people coming from North and South Carolina and some places, those people do not come from New York. The New Yorker is blue state. He brought a rapper, but the people went to see the rapper, not to him.

Brian Lehrer: Cecilio, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Don't be a stranger. Be a second-time caller sometime. Here's a first-time texter. Listener writes, "Hi, I'm Lucy. First time texter. Happy pride. I just moved to New York City from a small town in the Midwest, and I can't begin to express how much safer and prouder I am this month more than any other pride month." Lucy, welcome to our audience and welcome to New York. Glory in Portland, Oregon. You're on WNYC. Do I have your name right? Is it Glory?

Glory: Yes, it is. Glory. That is right. I'm a little nervous. First-time caller, long-time listener, very long-time listener.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on. We'll take care of you. No reason to be nervous.

Glory: [chuckles] I'm calling today. As I told when I called in, I'm a born and raised New Yorker. Me and my brother were actually born on Canal Street on a futon. My mom still lives in the same apartment. It used to be rent-stabilized. I think now it's-- no, it was rent control, now it's stabilized, and who knows what's going to go on with the rent laws there. I just wanted to say that listening to your show really connects me back home, and my mom is going through being diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, God.

Glory: It's hard to be away, and how important it is to connect through all the changes we're all going through to connect to family, friends, community, and roots. I thank you for this show every morning.

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask you, since you talked about being born at home on a futon, was there an in-home midwife helping to facilitate the delivery?

Glory: Yes, there was. I actually have my birth certificate, which is really hard to read. I have her name on it. I've always fantasized about trying to find her to be like, "Hey, you brought me into the world." I haven't done it yet.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know her name? Do you want to shout her out? You can. You don't have to-

Glory: Oh, my God.

Brian Lehrer: -but you can.

Glory: I don't have my birth certificate with me, but I will shout her out without knowing her name. Thank you. If you remember and you're listening and you delivered two children on 336 Canal Street. Thank you very much. You inspired me to try to find her. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Glory, thank you so much for calling in. Karina on Staten Island. You're on WNYC. Hello, Karina.

Karina: Hi. I wanted to just share what I'm thinking about at the end of this week about democracy and the importance of maybe nuanced dialog. I have family in Mexico, my husband's family, and they share the challenges of the recent elections. Really on the ground, it was so difficult while from here, from a distance, it is exciting that it's a leftist woman president. I live on Staten Island, so as we have the US upcoming election, it probably does look like Trump may win.

Just really trying to understand our point of view and the nuances, the things that just aren't so black and white. It's just something that I'm thinking about and probably really important for the democratic process. Probably we need to be reminded of that there's alwalys much more shade of gray and the nuance, these polarizing times.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and we try to bring shades of gray and nuance out on this show where we think it's appropriate, as I guess you know. How about the Mexico elections? First woman President, first Jewish President, a time when there were a lot of assassinations of political candidates along the way in the election season. What's your husband telling you from there?

Karina: The feel on the ground is that people did not have a good choice. Most people I know are really upset with the outcome. My in-laws who are both involved in being workers in their local booths just said it was really messy, it's a really terrible process, and they're pretty disillusioned with democracy and just the outcome in general. It's very interesting. I'm Jewish, and my friends are Jewish. They say she doesn't identify as Jewish. They don't support her.

There's this really big difference with what I see in the news and the underground reality. Obviously, Mexico is a big country, and my friends don't necessarily represent all of Mexico, but there are real voices underground that's in contrast with the easy picture to paint, like first Jewish woman, President. It's a really messy, and it's exactly like you said, Brian, one of the most dangerous elections where so many local candidates have been assassinated.

Brian Lehrer: Do you hear anything from there about the asylum seekers headed to the United States from mostly Central America, and how much of an issue that is in Mexico. Of course, one of Trump's policies was the remain-in-Mexico policy. They have to stay in Mexico, and there's an echo of that in Biden's new border policy. A lot of Americans ask, the United States isn't the only country that people fleeing problems in Honduras or Guatemala or wherever could wind up in. Maybe Mexico is a very good place for many of them as well, but everybody seems to want to come to the United States. Is there a version of that conversation taking place in Mexico that you're aware of?

Karina: Really since COVID, when the policy that people had to stay in Mexico before their papers could be processed since then, I would say the sentiment from the people I know has been that it's a little bit unjust for Mexico with much fewer resources to have to bear such a large burden of the crisis. It has certainly increased the rise of the human trafficking connected to drug violence, et cetera. There's a little bit of US is pushing off to Mexico its own responsibility of what it should be doing.

Brian Lehrer: Karina, thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate it.

Karina: Thank you so much. We love WNYC. Really grateful. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Karina: Bye

Brian Lehrer: Call us again. We're in a call in for first-time callers, and we'll take a few more before we wrap it up. Andrew in New Rochelle, you're on WNYC. Hi, Andrew.

Andrew: Good morning. I was very saddened to realize that I started listening to WNYC more than I listened to WBGO, but that's a whole nother story. The main reason why--

Brian Lehrer: The jazz station out of Newark.

Andrew: Yes, the jazz station.

Brian Lehrer: I love that one, too. Go ahead.

Andrew: Exactly. My challenge is the Democratic Party hasn't done enough to convince many people to vote for Biden again, only because he's not Trump. There's so many challenges in terms of the Biden candidacy. I don't know. This might be the first time that I might write in another name, but I just don't get a sense that the Biden's party, it's almost just like saying, "Listen, he's not Trump. Whether he's capable or competent or not, just vote for him just because he's not Trump." I don't think that's enough.

Brian Lehrer: A lot of listeners right now are thinking, "Andrew, no, don't do it because the prospect of Trump is so horrifying for democracy and everything else that it's just not worth casting the protest vote this time." What would you say to them?

Andrew: I've literally been wrangling with that very thing, but I just don't see enough. I just don't. I'll give you an example. Just this last week, the new immigration policy that Biden has come out with, wow, it sounds a whole lot like what Trump was doing, Biden campaign against, and now it's folding right to the fold. We look at what's going on with Ukraine in terms of the billions of dollars. Look what's going on in Israel, billions of dollars of support when there's so many needs here. In some respects, there's really not a lot of programmatic difference between what either one of them do once they're in the office, because a lot of what Biden is doing is exactly what Trump would have done.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew, thank you very much. I know a lot of Democratic callers will disagree, but we hear you, and we know there are others that agree with you as well. Call us again. Here's a text message that has come in on something completely different. Listener writes, Sophia on the Upper West Side. "Short-time listener. I moved here in September, first-time caller. I am a musician in the New York Philharmonic and would recommend coming to one of the free park concerts this week. We play a concert in every borough. Yay."

Yay indeed, and Sophia, welcome to New York and to the New York Philharmonic. Everybody who goes to a Philharmonic program, if you look into a Philharmonic concert, I should say, look in the program under the list of musicians and see if you see somebody whose first name is Sophia, and maybe that's the person who's new to New York and the Philharmonic, and just text it in.

Go Philharmonic, go Sophia, and yay that they're going to be in a park in every borough in New York City in the coming days. Joe in Bangkok, Thailand, and that's a first, not only are you a first-time caller, Joe, I think you are our first-ever caller from Thailand. You're on the air. Hello.

Joe: Brian. Hi. It's amazing. I was telling your screener I'm 69 years old. I've listened to WNYC since I've been a teenager, and literally every day I-- It's nighttime here, so I look forward to getting home from work and turning on your show, and all things considered. Honestly, the main thing that I wanted to express was that I've been working here since January of '22 on a project.

I lived in Brooklyn. I lived in Greenpoint. I've grown up in the New York area. That's been my whole world, and obviously, being here and transplanted into this country, it's interesting to just to see how irrelevant what's going on back home, and for me, there's a sense of being in a bit of a bubble here, and I have to say, it's really been quite interesting to not be so deeply involved in everything that's going on. Not that I don't stay across it.

My wife is still back home in Brooklyn, and we talk all the time, but it's very interesting to be in a culture like here in Thailand. It's a monoculture for the most part, but Buddhist, and very spiritual, very respectful, and the true sense of the word zen, and for me, it's been a bit transportive. Honestly, I just wanted to share that and let you know that there's a guy in Bangkok who's listening every day.

Brian Lehrer: That is totally cool, Joe. Thank you very much for sharing that. Good luck over there. It's really interesting when you talk about US news not being so relevant there. So much of the show yesterday and the news coverage generally was how leaders and the populations in Europe are largely freaking out at the prospect of another Trump presidency, and they feel like it's so relevant to them, I guess not so much in Thailand and how different it must be to go from Brooklyn to a place where US politics don't seem all that relevant, so thank you for sharing that. All right, one more, how about Jude in Newark? Hi, Jude. You're on WNYC. First-time caller?

Jude: First-time caller, long-time listener.

Brian Lehrer: So glad you were on. What you got?

Jude: Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you for all you do for us. I want to say, Brian, is there any way the news media in the United States can be independent instead of being linear to the left or to the right, so the independent voters can make their decision so they won't be influenced by the rights such as Fox News or the CNN. If they can be independent people, see the both party view and they can see what area they can align on. I think it'll help the United States of America.

Instead of one particular broadcast of feeding us news about how bad Trump is, or the other one giving us how bad Biden is. If they can put both together, then people can make their decisions. We don't want your situation where they say because you're Black, you have to vote for Democrats. You are white, you have to vote for Republican. We all in the United States, we struggling. Everybody, we working hard, paying our taxes. We should be giving a fair listening here.

Brian Lehrer: We try to play some of that role here. I think another thing to say about that is that even with an attempt to be independent, that various news media make the attempt at there's no perfectly neutral person. We are all human beings. Sometimes it's good to just be transparent about where you're coming from which is sometimes what I try to do, and then just be open to people who may have a different opinion or who may have a different take and have a conversation in good faith, which no matter what somebody's opinion is, it's good to at least try to have a conversation in good faith.

The other thing that I'll say about it is people should sample from many different points of view, so watch a TV station that goes this way. Watch a TV station that goes that way. Read different things, and it puts a lot of the onus on the individual, I realize, but it's a good thing to try to do and take in all those opinions and synthesize them to what you think is right. Jude, do you try to do that? I'm just curious.

Jude: Yes, I always try to do that, and that was the reason why I always listen to your station, especially when you are on air.

Brian Lehrer: Well, that's very nice of you to say. Jude, thank you very much. I wasn't fishing for a compliment, but that's how this call-in for first-time callers happens to end. Thanks to all of you who chimed in. There are first-time callers who we didn't get to. Thank you for trying. Keep calling us. You know we don't only take calls from regulars, so thank you everybody for listening all the time, and we will continue to be open to first-time callers, longtime listeners, short-time listeners, longtime callers, short-time callers. Thank you all.

 

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