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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. With us now, we're very happy to have the incoming first deputy mayor of New York City, Dean Fuleihan, who Mayor-elect Mamdani named this week to be in that second-in-command leadership role.

Interestingly, Fuleihan is not new to the position. He held the same job first deputy mayor for former Mayor de Blasio from 2018 to 2021, but maybe even more relevant to Mayor-elect Mamdani's potential success is Fuleihan's experience earlier in the de Blasio administration and in the New York State assembly. He was de Blasio's first budget director and helped make de Blasio's top campaign promise a reality back in 2014, that was free universal pre-k for the New York City public schools, funded largely by the state and without the tax hike to pay for it that de Blasio had originally sought.

Now Mamdani, as many of you know, is aiming to build on that with his own signature proposal, free universal childcare for kids aged six months to five years and once again, a tax hike on the wealthiest New Yorkers to pay for it, is part of at least the initial proposal. By the way, Dean Fuleihan was just appointed last year by Governor Hochul to the New York State Financial Control Board, again, very relevant to managing both the city and the state's finances under the law while trying to achieve some policy goals. Let's talk. Mr. Fuleihan, I'll call you Deputy Mayor Fuleihan. Thanks for some time just as you're getting ready for the big job ahead. Welcome to WNYC.

Dean Fuleihan: Thank you, Brian, very much. It's really a pleasure to be with you and I look forward to this conversation and hopefully many more.

Brian Lehrer: Indeed. Can you start by telling everyone why you accepted this job? You're 74 years old. You've been through decades of city and state politics. You don't need this. Why were you drawn to helping Mayor Zohran Mamdani succeed?

Dean Fuleihan: I said it at the announcement, really, and I've repeated it since then. I was inspired, like so many New Yorkers, by this campaign. Late winter, we started a conversation about his campaign, policy ideas, and the running of city government, and that only reinforced my impression of Zohran Mamdani and what he could deliver and his recognition of the crisis that are facing New York City, the affordability crisis.

You've been having show after show on this that emphasizes that very problem and that that needed to be addressed. We continued that conversation, and I had said to him, I would help in any way, whether that was outside or inside. It was a mission that's worth doing, and if I could be helpful to it, I was going to do it. I'm honored. You know Brian, these are privilege. All these jobs are always a privilege, and I take it that way.

Brian Lehrer: Does this tap in to anything primal for you? If I could put it that way. We were just talking to Jelani Cobb about the arc of his life in the times that he grew up in. What got you into politics and government management in the first place? Anything about your upbringing or anything formative that this appointment even taps into that deeply?

Dean Fuleihan: My father was an immigrant from Lebanon. My mother's parents were immigrants from Lebanon, but her first language was Arabic when she walked into school. Like so many New Yorkers, it's an immigrant experience. They struggled, they succeeded, but they instilled in my brothers and I- I have two brothers, they instilled in us from the very beginning that we needed to contribute back so that others had the very same opportunity that we had.

That started it, but also it was a family that read that was constantly debating politics and it was extended Middle Eastern families, so there were people of all different political perspectives, and you had to fight to get your thoughts in. That actually did help develop it. It really is an upbringing. It's giving back. It's also understanding that you can have a variety of different political perspectives, but there's a way to respect each other and in the end, come together. Sometimes that's over food, often the case. Any of those kinds of ways of bringing people together, that's what captured it.

Brian Lehrer: You hooked up professionally to be a right hand to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for many years. I mentioned that history of you and Mayor de Blasio working together to get his universal pre-k funded by the state and without the tax hike on the wealthiest New Yorkers that he first proposed. Would you remind us of some of how that came to be, just a little oral history here in the dance between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, as well as the legislature and your role in it?

Dean Fuleihan: Sure. Thank you. It's a great historical perspective of what happened on UPK because it was-- everyone, when the de Blasio administration began, and he clearly had run on the commitment to universal pre-k, was saying, "No, can't happen." The Department of Education was telling us five years max, easiest, the soonest they could do it was five years. The governor at the time, Andrew Cuomo, and was a very contentious relationship really from the beginning, said, "Can't be done. Do a little pilot. It's never going to happen." That's not what happened.

We had broad community support, and we're going to see the parallels here to that. Mayor de Blasio, at that point, had strong support for this. He was addressing a serious problem of the time. We worked very hard in the legislature and we had strong legislative support. Even though Andrew Cuomo posed it, we were able to accomplish it. Did we accomplish it exactly as Bill de Blasio had laid out? No, but did we accomplish it? Yes. Then we were able to implement in two years.

The parallel is there right there. I keep hearing constantly that the mayor-elect has an agenda that's not achievable, and I honestly don't understand. You're right. I have extensive budget experience in addition to being the first deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio in the second term, but I have extensive budget experience, both state and New York City budget, and that's not the answer. The answer is how can we achieve these things? We will achieve these things. There's broad support and we have an affordability crisis. This is not something made up. It's out there. It was so demonstrated by the incredible turnout in both the primary and the election.

Brian Lehrer: My understanding of how that ended in success is that Governor Cuomo decided that it would be to his advantage and in his interest to take the de Blasio proposal for New York City and make it statewide so he could be the hero of universal pre-k. With that, he found the money without the tax hike that de Blasio had said was needed to implement it. Is that your understanding of history? Do you think Governor Hochul and the legislature could find the money for universal childcare without a tax hike?

Dean Fuleihan: My recollection of history is slightly different. I agree that the rhetoric of Andrew Cuomo was that he was doing it statewide. It never happened statewide. It happened in New York City, and that's actually a problem for the rest of the state, unfortunately. There were literally pilots and some modest programs in the rest of the state. Governor Hochul actually, to her credit, has been expanding those and has actually made one of her priorities child care. In last year's budget, she did a child care credit. We don't talk about that very much, but she did it and that's really significant.

What else has she done? She has been very public that universal child care is something she wants to address. In this case, unlike what we confronted in 2014, we actually have a governor saying the same goal. How we get there, there may be different approaches, but we have the same goal from the mayor-elect and the governor. We certainly have support in the Senate majority leader and the assembly speaker. If we then can't all figure out a way to get there, then it's-- I apologize. We're going to get there. With that kind of support, how do you not get there?

Brian Lehrer: Can you get there without a tax hike?

Dean Fuleihan: I believe personally, but I'm not going to-- that we need revenues to do this, and that has to be part of the conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Through the lens of the history that we were just talking about and the reality as you just framed it, how is the city most different from when you were first deputy mayor or budget director for Mayor de Blasio, either based on the city's finances then versus now, or Mamdani's electoral coalition, or Trump as president rather than Obama as it affects New York? Any kinds of changes in this 12-year period that you think you have to adjust to to be successful in these particular times that you can easily put into words?

Dean Fuleihan: It's a different city. It went through Covid. This Trump administration is clearly different from what we confronted. The affordability crisis, while it was a part of the 2013 campaign, it is front and center on everyone's mind now. Yes, it's a different time, it's a different place. The agenda is very aggressive and we have to take lessons from that past, which I think is part of the reason that I'm part of this team. Part of the reason I'm really delighted to be part of this team is to bring that, but at the same time, there's all the energy that came from this campaign that's going to be part of that administration.

We're doing both. We're learning from the past, but we're also moving forward and we're going to have new ways to do things and accomplish things.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, as we run out of time. Is there anything besides universal child care, which I focused most of my questions on, that you want to name at the same time as other top priorities that you're going to be working with the mayor on, especially with respect to Albany?

Dean Fuleihan: Brian, I think it's all the top priorities. The mayor-elect, as I had said, we're going to make sure the city's operating and address day-to-day problems of the city and we're going to do it better. We have to do that. We have our all the policy goals, whether it's fast and free buses, whether it's rent, whether it's the "Freeze the rent," it's more emphasis on housing.

All those affordability questions have to be policy agendas that we work with with Albany. That's a huge change. You know what, that's an enormous change from what happened during the de Blasio period. We see a positive relationship with the governor that will allow us to work forward instead of a combative relationship. All of the things that we've identified and there's an agenda as well as the day-to-day operations of the city, those are all things that we're going to be pursuing.

Brian Lehrer: The incoming first deputy mayor of New York City, Dean Fuleihan, good luck. We look forward to talking to you again once you're officially in office. Thank you very much for coming on today.

Dean Fuleihan: Thank you very much, Brian, for having us and I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Now let's get some analysis of what we just heard from the first deputy mayor from Laura Nahmias, senior reporter covering New York City and state politics at Bloomberg News. She's been reporting on Albany and New York City politics through the Dean Fuleihan, de Blasio period to the present. Hi, Laura. Welcome back to WNYC.

Laura Nahmias: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Dean Fuleihan, who's not a big public name, like de Blasio was, like Andrew Cuomo was at that time, was he on your radar during those negotiations for universal pre-k in 2014?

Laura Nahmias: He was. That was a really interesting and heady time in Albany. It was a sprint from the time that de Blasio was elected through the budget being finalized in April of 2014. Dean Fuleihan is right that de Blasio had this incredible obstacle just in the character of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who saw a rival in Bill de Blasio and wanted to deny him the win. I think that is a fundamentally different relationship from the one that future Mayor-elect Mamdani is going to have with Governor Kathy Hochul.

Ultimately, de Blasio did prevail in this short four-month period through a combination of lobbying and advocacy and bringing together stakeholders to outmaneuver Cuomo ultimately, and get what was about $340 million in the state budget to start this first year of universal prekindergarten.

Fuleihan was involved, as were a bunch of other de Blasio administration alums, with what happened after that, which was ultimately more interesting, in my opinion, and instructive, I think, for the Mamdani administration in the logistics of getting the universal prekindergarten program up and running. Once you have the money, that's one thing, but finding the space, the teachers, dealing with the licensing, the registration, standing up this massive program in a short period of time.

Actually, as reporters, we all got a really interesting, and maybe only time ever we're ever going to get to see this, window into that process when we received FOIL request responses for all of the emails surrounding it as part of that infamous Agents of the City episode in the de Blasio administration.

We have this window into how they set it up and it's just a massive, massive undertaking, but de Blasio was able to do it. He was able to overcome the politics and overcome the logistics, and that was done with the help of Dean Fuleihan.

Brian Lehrer: Boy, Agents of the City. I haven't thought of that in a long time, where, I guess, some of his outside consultants, he didn't want their communications to be made public to you and others in the press, and so he said, "Well, they may be outside consultants, but they're really like employees where we don't have to reveal this," so they're agents of the city. That was it in a nutshell, wasn't it?

Laura Nahmias: Yes, the agents were really useful in helping set up UPK, among many other outside things that de Blasio was doing over the course of his first term.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think the appointment of Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor again, signals to Albany or anyone else?

Laura Nahmias: I think that it's intended to send a message in one sense to people who are concerned. As Elizabeth Kim has reported, as many people have reported, Mamdani is not just an inexperienced legislator, in a sense, he's inexperienced in living. He's 34 years old. Having someone like Dean Fuleihan, who has this incredibly long tenure in government, shows that you have someone with experience dealing with emergencies, all kinds of emergencies, Ebola, the pandemic, Donald Trump.

I remember the first briefing that Dean Fuleihan did for all of the reporters after Donald Trump was inaugurated, going through all of the potential changes that were going to come down the pike from the tax cuts and Jobs Act. This is a steady hand at government. I think it provides some measure of reassurance to some of the older people who were maybe less warm to the Mamdani administration and to Mamdani himself. It signals a certain level of competence and experience.

Brian Lehrer: They still, however, will have to find the money. I did see that there was a Bloomberg News article, some of your colleagues there wrote that about, I think this was the headline, Mamdani's Promises on a Collision Course with Fiscal Reality, that came out just after the election. I'm curious how you see that collision course, if it really is one, manifesting in the state legislature next year as somebody who watches Albany, because the incoming first deputy mayor said in our interview just now that he thinks there is enough money.

Laura Nahmias: A couple of things have happened even in just the last few days. One report came out about the state budget that revenue on the back of Wall Street income tax better-than-expected receipts is a little better than anticipated. The state has a little bit more money to play with. Also in Puerto Rico this past weekend, at the SOMOS conference, where all of the lawmakers usually go the first weekend after the election, Governor Hochul talked a little bit about what she intends to do with Mayor-elect Mamdani when he is the mayor.

She and other people have been talking about putting together or implementing parts of his agenda, maybe not in the way that he described them exactly, but standing up maybe one year of a universal child care program in his first year, which would obviously cost a fraction of what the total price tag of that program would be, or finding different ways to address his promise of fast and free buses by making targeted bus routes that are free instead of making the whole system free, or finding other ways to tackle need and get transit service to people who need it the most.

I don't think that it's impossible. Governor Hochul has promised not to raise taxes, though, and that is a promise that she's made multiple times, a pledge she's made multiple times. She's up for reelection this coming year, too, so that's a hurdle for her.

As was the case with Bill de Blasio, we're talking about, at the state level, a $220 billion budget. This is a huge amount of money. If revenue comes in a little bit better than expected, then you, all of a sudden, have hundreds of millions, sometimes billions of dollars more to use than you anticipated, and that could be to Mamdani's benefit, especially if he's willing to break up some of his signature proposals that cost money into smaller chunks and implement them in a piecemeal way.

Brian Lehrer: While Governor Hochul's election year may be a hurdle, as you just called it, maybe it runs both ways because she's going to have a challenge coming from the left in a primary first and she's got to survive that before she goes on to run against Elise Stefanik or whoever it is.

Laura Nahmias: That's possible. What we've been hearing is that there's some conversation happening with elected officials and business leaders around the topic of universal childcare. They think it's good for business, not just as a social program that would benefit families in New York and address affordability. Corporations like the concept of having universal childcare. There's been some talks around the fact that they might be willing to pay for it in some way, maybe not with the really massive corporate tax hike that Mamdani has proposed, a four-point state corporate tax increase, but maybe with a smaller one.

I think we're looking at, potentially, degrees of change here, maybe not on the scale that Mamdani has proposed, but there might be a compromise. Possible.

Brian Lehrer: Laura, in our last minute, you pulled a dirty trick and dropped a brand new intriguing article during our show this morning that I haven't had the chance to read yet. The headline is so intriguing, Lina Khan Wants to Amplify Mamdani’s Power With Little-Used Laws. Lina Khan, a member of his transition team, who's very famous in certain circles for being a populist antitrust hawk in the Biden administration. Some people on the right who are really populist also like her. What are these little-used laws that she wants to empower Mamdani to use?

Laura Nahmias: She actually said this in an interview at Crooked Con, I think late last week, with the producers of the podcast Pod Save America and all of its associated podcasts. She was talking about her role on the transition and how that involves vetting personnel and all of the other normal transition duties, but also bringing to the city some of the experience that she had at the FTC, where what she was doing was doing a wide review of the agency and its powers and looking to see what authority it had that it had hadn't used in a long time, in one case-

Brian Lehrer: 10 seconds.

Laura Nahmias: -using a law from the 1930s to help regulate antitrust and to go after tech monopolies, things like that. She's going to do, she said-

Brian Lehrer: At the city level.

Laura Nahmias: -the same thing at the city level.

Brian Lehrer: Fascinating.

Laura Nahmias: That's fascinating.

Brian Lehrer: Very fascinating. We'll dig into that more in the future. Laura Nahmias from Bloomberg. Thanks so much for the time today.

Laura Nahmias: Thank you.

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