[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. We'll come right back to the New York City Democratic mayoral primary to start the week, with early in person voting underway, with strong turnout over the weekend, and many people having seen Thursday night's debate. Later this hour, our housing reporter David Brand will join us with his take on their answers in the housing section of the debate, which we'll replay, affordable housing being the number one issue for so many New Yorkers this year.

I don't have to tell you. First, though, we'll replay a few other key clips and keep following the end game politics with Errol Louis, the anchor of Thursday night's debate, and co-moderator with me and Katie Honan, from THE CITY. Errol is the host of Inside City Hall weeknights on Spectrum News, New York 1, also a New York Magazine columnist and host of the podcast You Decide. Errol, thanks for joining. Welcome back to WNYC.

Errol Louis: Absolutely great to be with you. I want your audience to know, Brian, that after that two hour debate, you sat down and went into a work session with your producer, trying to figure out how to do the next morning show. I was extremely impressed, as I went home to have a bowl of cereal.

Brian Lehrer: Well, you went right on the air and broke down the debate in real time without any time to prep, on New York 1, so back at you. I was thinking,-

Errol Louis: [crosstalk] Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: -you could rename your podcast this week, from You Decide to You Decide Right Now. Do you think the debate Thursday night was speaking to many undecided voters this late in the game? Do you think there are many?

Errol Louis: I think it was useful to undecided voters if you were already somewhat engaged but needed to hear more. I think each candidate said a lot, or said something meaningful about their campaign and their point of view. I think they all showcased themselves very well. I think if you hadn't paid any attention at all up until now, you got the broad outline of where everybody's coming from and what they think is important.

Brian Lehrer: Early voting this weekend opened with twice as much turnout, compared to early voting the last time out, 2021. Does that give you any clue to who might be doing well or the general mood of the electorate?

Errol Louis: I don't think we've seen any good data, because early voting is actually relatively new. I think we've had it for less than 10 years, so we haven't had enough cycles to really tell what an early surge might mean. Then, what do you compare it to? Do you compare it to presidential? If you compare it to presidential, it probably looks very skimpy. If you compare it to the last mayoral race, well, that was during COVID. It's just hard to say what all of it means.

I will say that I voted early this morning, with my wife and son. We went promptly at nine o' clock, which is when the site was opening. We were not necessarily the first online, so there's some interest out there.

Brian Lehrer: I pulled some key exchanges from Thursday night to replay. In a way, much of the campaigning of this whole election season came down to this 90-second exchange, I think it's fair to say, between former governor Andrew Cuomo and State Assemblyman from Queens, Zohran Mamdani.

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo: Experience matters, and I think inexperience is dangerous in this case. Mr. Mandami has had a staff of five people. You're now going to run a staff of 300,000 employees. He's never dealt with the city council. He's never dealt with the Congress. He's never dealt with the state legislature. He's never negotiated with the union. He's never built anything. He's never dealt with a natural emergency. He's never dealt with a hurricane, with a flood, et cetera. He's never done any of the essentials.

Now you have Donald Trump on top of all of that, and he's never dealt with what I think is the greatest national threat that we face in this president. To put a person in this seat, at this time, with no experience, is reckless and dangerous. To Mr. Lander and his experience, remember, this was the fiscal watchdog under the Eric Adams administration, which was like the bookkeeper at Tammany Hall.

[applause]

Speaker: Mr. Mamdani.

State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani: To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace. I have never cut Medicaid.

[applause]

I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA. I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records. I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo. Furthermore, the name is Mamdani.

[applause]

M-A-M-D-A-N-I. You should learn how to say it, because we got to get it right.

Brian Lehrer: Errol, a lot of negative campaigning there, both ways, obviously. Do we know all the things that Mamdani raised on that list to be true? Cutting Medicaid, stealing, he used the word stolen, hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA, suing the women, some of the women, or any of the women, who accused him, for their gynecological records?

Errol Louis: Well, look, it was not as accurate as it should have been, but it was mostly true. Stealing is not the right word to use for reallocating funds to the general treasury from the MTA. Raiding the MTA budget has been a practice of past governors as well, but it did happen, and it's worth calling out. Suing for gynecological records is, again, not really the precise way to put it. If you're sued in a defamation case, you have the right to defend yourself.

One of the things you ask for is-- Look, it's boilerplate. You put in boilerplate. Give me all of your medical records from all of the doctors that you've talked to, over the period in question. Yes, for a woman, that would probably include an OB GYN doctor, but you can hype it up in a political debate, which is, I think, what we heard the other night.

Brian Lehrer: The Mamdani lack of experience question is something voters will have to decide if they're ready to take that risk about. He made a case that young politicians have made before, that his vision is what matters, and he'll appoint experienced people to help him implement his vision, so vote on vision. That's the argument, right?

Errol Louis: That's part of it. The other part, Brian, is that he says, "Look, my campaign is now, 25,000, 26,000--" I think he's thrown out 30,000-plus of volunteers, and we're managing them and we're putting them out on the street every day. That's significant management experience. Now, I think that probably speaks more to the experience of his campaign manager than him. I think what made it a good debate, Brian, is that both of those candidates, I think what they said was essentially true.

They heated it up because it's a debate, but you can say that Zohran Mamdani does not have a lot of management experience. No question about it. What Andrew Cuomo was saying is that that is dangerous, to put him in charge of City Hall, and if you disagree with the dangerous part of it, you can accept the premise and still vote for Zohran Mamdani.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we want to open up the phones with Errol Louis, mostly for late deciders. When we opened the phones Friday morning, after we replayed extended excerpts from the debate, most of the people who jumped to your phones were those who had strong feelings for or against particular candidates. Looking now, that the voting has begun,

for late deciders.

If you voted already, early voting in person this weekend, or with the mail in ballot, and you decided only in the last two weeks, how you would rank people, call in and let everybody else know. If you haven't decided yet, call in and express your ambivalence, and say what you're grappling with. 212-433-WNYC, for late deciders, if we can get you on the phones, people who have only maybe really gotten engaged, maybe watched the two televised debates or made up your mind on your first place vote or your rankings.

212-433-WNYC, if you made those decisions, let's say in the last two weeks. 212-433-9692, call or text. Errol, Cuomo had these moments Thursday night, that we could say range somewhere on a scale from embarrassing to bigoted. I think that's a fair way to characterize the spectrum. There was the repeated mispronunciation of Mamdani's name that we just heard. That's been going on for weeks. It wasn't the first time that we've mentioned it on this show.

The question is, was he doing it to otherize Mamdani, make him seem foreign, like Donald Trump did to Kamala Harris with her name? There was this moment that made news, that begins with your question to Cuomo. This is in the section about respecting and protecting the safety of all New Yorkers at a time of heightened tension over the war in Gaza. The initial question went to Mamdani, because he doesn't think Israel should exist as a Jewish state, rather a pluralistic democracy.

Would he protect Jewish New Yorkers? There have been so many antisemitic hate crimes reported in the last year or two. Would he be trusted to protect Jewish New Yorkers? Then there was a Cuomo aspect of that exchange, too. Here we go.

Errol Louis: Mr. Cuomo, according to Muslim American organizations, you never made a public visit to a mosque during your 10-plus years as governor. Why the reluctance?

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes, I believe I have. I would have to check the record. Let me correct the record here, if I might. Mr. Mamdani is dangerously [unintelligible 00:10:19]--

Errol Louis: Oh, wait, wait, wait. Let me ask you about this, because this was an issue in the 2018 campaign, when you were running for reelection, when they said that in seven years, you had never visited a mosque. Did something happen in the several years beyond that?

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo: I believe I have. I know I've participated In many forums with imams. Off the top of my head, I can't tell you where I went, but I'll check the record, and I will.

Errol Louis: Let me just get to the point, then. What would you say to more than 760,000 Muslims here in the city, about whether or not you would reach out to them, make them feel welcome, make them feel protected at a time when--

[applause]

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo: I would say we are a city of immigrants. I welcome them, I love them. I'm not Mr. Mamdani.

Brian Lehrer: Errol, that answer by Cuomo, as you know, made news both for his inability to say he ever visited a mosque in his 10 years as governor, and at the end there, for referring to Muslim New Yorkers as immigrants, which-- Do we even need to say it out loud? Obviously, there are many multi-generation native-born Muslim New Yorkers, that's not an immigration status, for someone running on the judgment that comes from experience, how could he make that mistake?

Errol Louis: Well, yes, I was a little surprised. As you know, we try not to ask questions that we have no idea what the answer will be, but in this case I was really quite surprised, in part because, look, everything else aside, what was going through my head was that when you peel back the layers and you actually explore the Muslim population, the various communities here in New York City, it's really, really interesting.

I happen to live in a part of Brooklyn where there's a whole category of American Muslims who converted from the Nation of Islam. They came here and they were part of the Nation of Islam in the Malcolm X era. Then there was almost a mass conversion. It's a really interesting, little told story. These are people who used to be Baptists. They're four, five, and six generation Americans. It made me wonder. What does he know about this community that he has refused to visit? In fact, of course, it perfectly makes the point.

This is the whole idea, that you're supposed to connect with, engage with, and talk to different communities, so that you do start to understand where they're coming from. If he ever does decide to go, one of the wonderful parts of going to Jummah, to go to the service on Friday, is that you see Yemeni grocers, you see Lebanese businessmen, and you see people, as I mentioned, who were converts from the old Nation of Islam, all sitting together. It's really a wonderful experience.

Brian Lehrer: What did you think of his inability to say whether he ever visited a mosque in 10 years as governor? His answer seemed like a lawyerly "I don't remember," when maybe he never made an explicit visit to a mosque, to touch base with that community, like he's visited synagogues and churches, which I imagine he does remember. Errol, I'll just add, he's been asked that question before, and nevertheless, that was the best he could do.

Errol Louis: Look, right, it was a part of the debate when he was running for reelection in 2018. If the best answer he can come up with years later is the kind of answer you give under oath, I can't quite remember, meaning, I haven't perjured myself, I think we can all understand what the real answer is here, that I don't want to perjure myself on. When you go into that kind of a routine, I think it's fair to say, and I think Muslim leaders are fairly clear this has it never happened, and he doesn't want to say so.

I don't know what else you could conclude from that answer.

Brian Lehrer: As for Mamdani, the centrist candidate Whitney Tilson seemed to be all about bringing Mamdani down on Thursday night. You'll tell me if that was your impression. Here's Tilson and Mamdani in the section where the debaters could ask one other candidate one question.

Whitney Tilson: Zohran, you're a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. You refer to each other as comrade. Right now, on the DSA's website, it calls for the government ownership of all major industries, to decriminalize all misdemeanors, including theft and assault, to empty our prisons and to disarm, dismantle and defund the police. Your words are very reassuring, but this is what I read from your people. I wonder if you will disavow this or implement it as mayor.

[applause]

State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani: Yes, like David Dinkins, I am a member of the organization. The organization's platform is not the platform of this campaign. The platform of this campaign is the one you can find on the website, at zohranfornyc.com. That's a platform that is going to deliver an affordable city for New Yorkers who are currently being priced out of what is instead the most expensive city in the United States. It's one that we're going to deliver public safety to each and every New Yorker.

We're going to do so by recognizing the critical role that police have to play in that and also by creating the Department of Community Safety, so that police do not have to do the work of mental health professionals and that we can follow the example, the evidence based policies we've seen be successful elsewhere in the country, and start to divert those mental health calls to outside of the police department so the police department can focus on the seven major categories of crime.

Brian Lehrer: Errol, there's a challenge for Mamdani, because he didn't deny the DSA platform the way Tilson described it. People would have to trust that he belongs to the group without intending to implement many of the things that Tilson listed, that might have made a lot of New Yorkers gasp.

Errol Louis: Well, that's true. What I find interesting about it is if you applied that same criteria to the Democratic Party, depending on the candidate, you might come up with a similar divergence between where the candidate and their campaign are going, and what the party that they're running under the banner of is trying to do. Almost nobody ever looks at it, but there are some planks in the Democratic Party's national platform that include language, verbiage about charter schools, very much contrary to the idea of the use of charter schools.

We all know that we have right here in New York, though, lots of Democrats who are not opposed to charter schools, and like them, including Whitney Tilson, by the way. It's an open question. There is, I think, a different criteria that's applied to the DSA, because it has that scary word, socialist, in it, where people want to assume the worst, assume that every candidate has total allegiance to all of the worst parts of every word of the platform.

I would say, and I've been saying it for a while now, if you look at what their candidates actually try and do, there are a fair number of DSA candidates that we have who are sitting in Congress right now, who are sitting in Albany right now, and who are sitting in the city Council right now. Have any of them tried to do those things, take over public ownership of corporations and industries, empty the jails, and stuff like that? It's not that. It's definitely not that.

I think, especially because they were his very first endorsement, Zohran Mamdani is going to get tied to a bunch of stuff that-- It's unfortunate, because not only is it not really what he wants to do if elected, not only is it not part of his campaign. It's not really what DSA candidates have been up to for the last five or ten years. He's taking a lot of the downside. I'm not even sure what the upside is at this point.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to get to some Brad Lander and some Adrianne Adams, because I think one of the most important things to watch this week will be whether either of them surges after Thursday night's debate to actually challenge Cuomo or Mamdani for the ability to actually win this primary. We're going to get to that. Let's get a few phone callers on first. Sarah, in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: Hey, Brian, good morning. Hi, Errol. Thank you so much for that wonderful moderation. You are better than ABC.

Brian Lehrer: Well, it was NBC, but I don't want to diss the other moderators. Everybody had a hard job. Go ahead.

Errol Louis: [laughs] We were better than them, too. They didn't even do one.

Sarah: You're better than them. I wanted to quickly say, I was Team Cuomo for the longest. I was waiting for him to announce his nomination, his candidacy. I was going with his experience and all-- what he did for New York State, which I really was supportive of. Then I saw Mandani on the debate stage, and a lot of the things that I've heard about him and seen on his ads kind of clicked. I voted, and I ranked Mandani first and then Cuomo second, because I'll be fine with Cuomo if Mandani doesn't win.

Honestly, I will say this. I voted with my heart, not my head. I'm really, really very impressed with how Mandani talked about his principles, how he is able to speak on Gaza and Israel. He does not disparage one, he doesn't disparage Israel, but he does stand up for what's happening with the Palestinians, and he does stand up for his principles. That's something that really came through for me during the debate, and that's why I decided to rank him number one.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah, thank you very much. Errol, did we just find a unicorn there, a Mamdani one, Cuomo two voter?

Errol Louis: No, I don't think she's a unicorn. In fact, I think that there's probably going to be a sizable number of people who do exactly that, and we'll know for sure. It'll take a while. I think it's going to take at least 10 days beyond the 24th of June, or it very well could, before we really know what the outcome is. People voting with their hearts first and their heads second, that is typical. That is common, I should say.

The idea that you have to choose between, as we said during the debate, either the youngest mayor in 100 years, which Mamdani would be, or the oldest ever to take office, and that would be Andrew Cuomo. There are some pretty clear differences here. If you want all of it, under our new system, you can rank both of them.

Brian Lehrer: Right. I guess so. I guess the the easy thing to assume is that Cuomo voters will not rank Mamdani at all, and Mamdani voters will not rank Cuomo at all. Which is why I wonder if Sarah is a unicorn, or close to it.

Errol Louis: Well, I think most people are-- I consider myself an Errol Louis Democrat. You know what I mean? I've got to make up my own mind. I think that is what many, many people are going to do, is craft their own bespoke ideal candidate. By the way, I looked this up, Brian. The number of permutations that you could get with 10 candidates, it's actually 11, but I looked up the number for 10, where you have to make five ranked choices, the number of permutations is over 30,000.

Brian Lehrer: Wow.

Errol Louis: It's much more complicated than people think.

Brian Lehrer: As we continue to talk, we're going to get to the importance of some cross endorsements that have come out in the last few days, and the importance for people who are trying to vote strategically, to elevate or to block anybody in particular, how the ranked choice voting-- Well, the rankings that people make, maybe it's just intuitive, put them in your order of preference, or maybe it would be more strategic than that for some. We'll get to that. Let's take another caller. Craig in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Craig.

Craig: Hey, good morning, gentlemen. For me, Mamdani wasn't on my radar. My son, who's 16, put him on, and I started paying attention. Cuomo, as much as I liked him during the pandemic, [unintelligible 00:23:05] high vehicle, people would come in from out of state and compliment with the job he done for them during COVID. When he got ousted from office and all the stuff that we found out, the gang of three, that judge that he appointed, that people told him not to appoint.

She was the deciding factor when the Dems tried to gerrymander the seats. We lost those seats because of her, and then she promptly retired. Cuomo is baggage and I wouldn't rank him. I did Adrianne Adams because I'm from Queens. I [unintelligible 00:23:49] first Mamdani, two, Zellnor Myrie, and I forget the other ones. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Stringer?

Craig: No, not Stringer. I like Stringer, but I didn't-- You had him on your show, Brian, and he wouldn't give Cuomo a second chance, because of his allegations. That took him off my list, because I'm like, "You were the same guy that was took down from allegations, and you won a second chance, but you wouldn't give a guy a second chance." That took Stringer out the runner for me. Other than that, if he didn't say that, I would have ranked him higher, but I didn't rank him at all.

I took Kevin Parker for comptroller because I don't like the conversation of the other two. I won't get into it.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Okay, that's in the controller race. Yes.

Craig: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Craig, thank you very much. All right, we're going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to play a clip of the candidate for mayor who Craig just said he's ranking first, and that is City Council Speaker Adrianne Adams, also one of Brad Lander, from the debate, as those two candidates, seen as third and fourth, Lander third, Adams fourth, respectively, in most of the polls, as they try to make a last minute surge, and we continue with Errol Louis from New York 1. Stay with us.

[MUSIC: Marden Hill -"Hijack"]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Errol Louis, the anchor of Thursday night's debate and co-moderator in the debate with me and Katie Honan from the news organization THE CITY. Errol is the host of Inside City Hall weeknights at 7:00, on Spectrum News, New York 1, also a New York Magazine columnist and host of the podcast You Decide. We continue to invite late deciders, if you have decided, in the last two weeks, who are you going to vote for in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Remember, you have to be a registered Democrat in order to vote. There is no Republican primary this year. Curtis Sliwa will be their nominee. If you have a question for Errol, you can also call with that, 212-433-WNYC, or text, 212-433-9692. Another thing that was very clear to me from watching the debate, and one of the most important things to watch this week, as I said earlier, is that the next two in the polls, behind Cuomo and Mamdani, Comptroller Brad Lander and City Council Speaker Adrianne Adams, really came to make their mark, to my eye more than in the first debate.

Which they really need to do for people who may not be thrilled with the Cuomo-Mamdani duality. We'll play Adrianne Adams addressing Mamdani in the candidate to candidate questioning segment, and then we'll get to Lander addressing Cuomo. Adams first.

City Council Speaker Adrianne Adams: I have a question for Assemblymember Mamdani. I know how to pronounce your name.

State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani: Thank you very much, Speaker Adams.

City Council Speaker Adrianne Adams: Assemblymember, I've raised a family in New York. I have over 20 years of experience in the private sector. I have led the City Council through many, many challenges, taken this city through three successful budgets, and billions of dollars in city budgets now, working on our fourth, which will also be successful, and have been continuing this work for a number of years on the City Council.

In a recent New York Times article, you said that you were the most qualified person to be mayor of the city of New York. Given what I've just laid out, do you think you're more qualified than me to lead the city?

State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani: I very much appreciate your work, your leadership, and your track record, Speaker. I think that each one of us on this stage will say that we are the most qualified to lead the city because if we didn't believe that, then we would have no business running for mayor.

Brian Lehrer: There's Adrienne Adams, comparing herself to Zohran Mamdani, and a little of his response. Now, Lander, taking it to Cuomo.

Comptroller Brad Lander: I do want to tell you, though, about some immigrant New Yorkers that Andrew Cuomo screwed when he was governor, and we're defending in my office a couple of hundred immigrant subway cleaners who he made clean the subway cars but cheated out of the prevailing wages and health care that they were due. We're fighting right now to get it back. I stand up to bullies and I'll stand up to Donald Trump.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Mr. Cuomo, you were named, so-- We may not be able to do this every time, all night, but you were named, so you get a brief response.

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes, I don't know what Mr. Lander is talking about. The MTA contracted for cleaning services. I assume that's what he's talking about. The MTA goes through a rigorous contracting process. They should never have hired illegal immigrants, if it is true, but obviously, I had nothing to do with them hiring anyone--

Comptroller Brad Lander: [crosstalk] I'm sorry, is that what you said? What did did you call them?

Former Governor Andrew Cuomo: If anyone was undocumented or they didn't pay the proper wages, I had nothing to do with it.

Brian Lehrer: Errol, first, the thing that stopped people in their tracks, and obviously made Cuomo go back and rephrase how he characterized the workers in that case, he said illegal immigrants, which is something that Democrats don't usually say, and then corrected it to undocumented. Whether listeners think illegal immigrants is acceptable or not, it again jumped out at me as, wait, this is supposed to be the guy with so much experience making what seemed like an error there, in the way he wanted to present.

Errol Louis: Well, yes, certainly, the choice of words is something that-- if you serve three or four decades in politics, you may reach for the verbiage from the wrong decade, which I think is what happened there with Andrew Cuomo. Then, look, substantively, he was, on some level, trying to have it both ways when it came to having the subway scrubbed. We all remember, or some of us remember, that during the pandemic, the trains were never cleaner.

We didn't know what was going on with transmission. What he decided to do, and he took full credit for it, he forced the MTA, which is essentially under the control of the governor, to go out and clean every train every day, and they were just absolutely sparkling. It turns out, if it was done through a process that ended up cheating people out of their proper wages, on some level, he probably should take some responsibility for it, and not just disclaim, as he just did in that section that you played, "Oh, I had nothing to do with it."

Well, you had a lot to do with claiming that-- you ordered it, you conceived of it, you directed it, and you certainly took credit for it. Now, if something went wrong with it, you have nothing to do with it? That's not the right way to do it.

Brian Lehrer: Adrienne Adams, City Council Speaker, we could say she's the second most powerful elected official in New York, even though she's not elected citywide, she's elected from her district, but as City Council Speaker, she and the mayor make so much of city policy together, and yet, she has been struggling to get into the top tier. She was certainly hoping that Thursday night's debate would launch her there.

Errol Louis: Yes, like all of the speakers, many of the speakers who have all run for mayor, I think she's probably a little bit miffed. She controls hundreds, if not thousands of employees, that central staff of the council. She has guided and been a key player in negotiating-- what is it up to now? More than a third of a trillion dollars worth of budgets. This is somebody who is very knowledgeable, very experienced, has a lot of management experience, not to mention the 20 years she spent in the private sector.

For her to have to watch the polling lead of a Zohran Mamdani, who has done none of those things, I think is probably a little bit galling. I thought it was actually a pretty clever way, during the debate, for her to point out, like, "Look, I got a lot of the things that people say you're lacking." I think she needs to make that case every day between now and June 24th.

Brian Lehrer: Is this also where ranked choice voting could really come into play? Is that how Lander, Adams, or longer shot, Scott Stringer, might have a chance to actually win the nomination?

Errol Louis: No question about it. No question about it. Andrew Cuomo, in the best polls that he's had, the very best, I think we're at 40, maybe 42%, meaning he has essentially 100% name recognition, but a majority, if not a super majority of voters are either undecided or want to pick somebody else. For the others, who are not nearly as prominent, to try and stop him from getting to the 50% that equals victory in a ranked choice voting system, they really should be combining their forces.

They have started, the have started to. We're going to find out, because this is the only second time we've done this, citywide. We're going to find out if it's an effective strategy. I thought Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laid out with pretty savvy insight what the rest of those candidates who are not named Andrew Cuomo are facing, that if you want a left leaning, young, progressive, fresh candidate like a Zohran Mamdani, you are also going to have to bring in the solid Black middle class, which is not overall as progressive.

You're going to have to bring in Latino voters, who overall do not favor all of the progressive agenda. You've got to make some compromises, you've got to make some alliances. That's what she was recommending that people do, so that when she ranked for her followers, she suggested Mamdani first, Adrianne Adams second, that's what she was getting at. The two candidates themselves have not managed to make that deal, though, so we'll have to see what happens.

Brian Lehrer: Mary Beth in Manhattan, late decider. Mary Beth, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Mary Beth: Hello, Brian. Great to hear your voice every day. I was a little undecided, leaning definitely towards someone more progressive, but I'm convinced that I want to vote for Zohran Mamdani. I even knew him playing soccer at the Bronx High School of Science, and he was an incredible team player, my son was the captain of the soccer team at the time, so I got a sense of him, even in his youthful days.

I think that we need-- I say this as a senior citizen, the youthfulness, the vigor, the energy, the capacity for the grassroots organizing, as you know I've had some experience with myself, that he brings, and I'm really excited for a change to be voting.

Brian Lehrer: Now I know which Mary Beth you are, who has organized on transportation issues. Thank you for your call. Another late decider with a different conclusion. Dave in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hello, Dave.

Dave: Hi, how are you? Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Dave: Yes, what I wanted to say is, I think this is a profoundly important election in a city that's facing profound problems, and I really didn't start paying attention until a couple of weeks ago. I think it's got to be Cuomo for me, and Adrianne Adams second. We have to face Trump as well. Trump is a huge problem for this city. Mamdami just seems like an opportunistic young politician who is trying to play on cancel culture to cancel out Cuomo.

He's not perfect, but he's experienced, and I think he'd make a great mayor. I don't think Mamdani's time is here yet. I think he's got a future in the city, but I don't think it's time to take chances and play with fire during a time where we have such big problems. Again, Trump is a big problem for New York City. Housing, antisemitism, public safety, tremendous problems. I think we need experienced leadership and not to take a chance with somebody new. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Dave, thank you very much. Though, just to respect, it is pronounced Mamdani. Lauren, in Hell's Kitchen, late decider with yet another candidate she's landing on. Lauren, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Lauren: Hello. I want to say I am a very late decider and had a long period of indecision. I told the person who answers the phone something I'm a little embarrassed to admit, but I'll repeat it. Months ago, I saw Brad Lander on the Upper West Side, campaigning outside a Fairway Food Market. To me, he looked tired, looked weary, he looked lackluster. I thought, "Nah, I'm going to vote-- There's many other good progressives in this race. I'll pick someone else."

Then I really paid attention to the debate and I thought, all in all, he did a wonderful job. Obviously, he's not too weary, he's not lackluster. He's got really good ideas. He's got a solid progressive record. I looked at his website, like Zohran Mamdani, and Mamdani has a great future, clearly, but I think he's too young for this job. Unlike Mamdami, Brad Lander's website was concise, focused. He made some hard decisions. I'm going to include ABCD, obviously, homelessness, addressing homelessness is one of his big things.

I'm not going to spatter my website with a little bit of everything. His website visually shows you, he made decisions. I feel I can trust him to stand up to Trump. He's not a hero, but I think he's a really good candidate. I think Mamdami needs time, time to grow. Cuomo, I am not even going to rate. Forget it. I also told your screener, apart from the way he treats women, he is so arrogant and he has the kind of arrogance that affects his decision making.

It affects his decision making and it compromises it. Those are my thoughts, and very late decider, but I have decided.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you very much. Those are all the calls we're going to take in this segment, Errol. Very interesting. When I invited late deciders, our phones lit up. We've heard from a Mamdani, a Cuomo, a Lander and an Adams supporter. This is not a poll. I'm not claiming that that means that their support is anything approaching equal, but just to say, just to be transparent.

I was looking for people who would be mouthpieces for various of the candidates, just to have the conversation, not to try to say we have equal numbers of ones calling for each candidate, just being transparent to the listeners about how that works. It was not hard to find multiple people on the board, late deciding, for any of those four, so it's interesting.

Errol Louis: Yes, no, for sure. As always, with your show and in general, the why is, in some ways, more interesting than the conclusion. There were a lot of different paths that people took to their final destination. A lot of it has to do with what individuals think is disqualifying. Yes, lots of candidates have different flaws, but some candidates have flaws that some of your listeners are saying they cannot or will not overlook.

Then, of course, there's always the compromise that is allowed through ranked choice voting. Meaning, "Well, I'll rank this one a little bit higher than the other," which is how you get an Adrianne Adams Andrew Cuomo voter or a Mamdani Andrew Cuomo voter.

Brian Lehrer: Errol, before you go, did I understand that you wanted to turn the tables on me a little bit and ask me a few things that you're going to use in your podcast?

Errol Louis: Yes, exactly. We're all desperate for content in this very busy week, and rather than ask you to come on as a guest, I just had a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. If we had another even half hour or even a second debate, what's an area that you would have wanted to explore in greater details with these candidates? We did not pretend to even be comprehensive. I think that's what made it a good debate. We could drill down on a handful of questions, but what's one that you wish we didn't let get past us?

Brian Lehrer: Well, for me, as you know, I had a section with public health and climate questions I was hoping to get to, and I totally understand and was part of why those didn't make the cut, as time ran short. We are plannings, on tomorrow's show, a section for listeners on each comparing the candidates on health and climate. That's one of the areas that I'm perennially very interested in those two things, and they intersect a lot.

I was hoping to get the chance, though, as I say, I understand and even participated in the decision as to what needed to wind up on the cutting room floor, but those are ones that we'll deal with separately on the show.

Errol Louis: Just so your listeners know, we prepared questions in a lot of these areas, but we knew, realistically, if we've timed the thing out, that we're not going to get to a 9th round of questioning, but if something should happen, we've got it in the back pocket. You have been interviewing all, or at least nearly all of these candidates. I think, like me, you never really got a chance to have a one on one with Andrew Cuomo.

Over the months of the campaign that you've been covering these candidates, compared to where they started, would you say the candidates have improved individually or collectively?

Brian Lehrer: It's hard for me to say, actually. They each came on once, so I don't have direct experience comparing their evolution, but the candidates always improve as they get their campaigning legs under them. I think Mamdani and Adams have had the most to learn, campaigning out of their districts for the first time, while Cuomo, Lander and Stringer have all been elected city or statewide, so they knew the drill, but had to apply it to this context.

To a point I made earlier, I'm wondering if Cuomo's campaigning has disimproved, based on some of the embarrassing moments that he probably wishes he could take back. Not policy things, but things that were misstatements, flubs, or unintentionally insulting. Some things he probably wishes he could take back from Thursday night, so maybe his campaigning has disimproved.

Errol Louis: Yes. It's interesting, your last caller mentioned the idea that the arrogance, that she doesn't like, is because it changes or affects his decision making ability. All I could think of, as she was saying that, was him pulling up at our debate, the one that we moderated, along with a lot of other key campaign events, in that muscle car that he drives over from the east side of Manhattan, and for a lot of New Yorkers, that's a real statement.

You could take an Uber, you could take public transportation, you could take the crosstown bus, but to drive through that traffic in that muscle car is like, "Wow, that's--" I don't know what it says, but it's saying something. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting. Yes, and--

Errol Louis: [crosstalk] I don't know if he's aware that some people don't want to hear what that says.

Brian Lehrer: It also has struck me increasingly that Cuomo is campaigning like Trump did, which is to say Trump campaigned last year on, "The country is going to hell. I'm the person who can fix it, and ignore my scandals, they're witch hunts." Cuomo is saying, "The city is going to hell. I'm the person who can fix it, and ignore my scandals, they're witch hunts."

Errol Louis: I think that's exactly right. That is the case he's making. In fact, it's interesting, because he ends up asking us not just to vote for him, but to vote for a view of the world or an assessment of the city. It's possible just to say, "Hey, I could figure out whether I want you to be the mayor, but I don't accept this worldview. I just don't think--"

Brian Lehrer: You mean that characterization of the city as being in such bad shape--

Errol Louis: Exactly right. If I reject the factual premise, do I still have a reason to vote for you? I guess is where he leaves people like me. If the candidate comes up to you and says, "The city's going to hell in a handbasket, please, vote for me," well, before they even get the sentence out, "The city is going to hell in a handbasket," I'm going to say, "Well, let me stop you right there. What exactly are you talking about?" Some people are doing just fine. Some industries are thriving.

Some of us old timers are going to ask, even on the question of crime, well, compared to what? Compared to 2017, compared to 2023. What are we talking about? Anyway, my sense is that there's a lot of ads and a lot of energy, including what we saw at the debate, all aimed at Mamdani. Is that because Andrew Cuomo and other Mamdani opponents see him gaining momentum, is it just substance, or do you think they maybe are seeing some internal polls or other indicators that suggest Mamdani is doing better than we might think?

Brian Lehrer: I think how much it's the latter and how much it's substance depends on which opponent we're talking about. Clearly, it's the case that this is how it always is in politics. Right? Candidates mostly ignore their opponents until they look like serious contenders, and then the knives come out.

Errol Louis: Right, right, right. It looks like they're going to just try and bulldoze him with just-- It seems like every other ad that I can see is trying to make him look scarier and scarier. It's just like with Obama, he's got the kind of smile that can cut right through all of that. I'm not sure they're getting much bang for their buck on that, but it does seem to be a notable trend at this point. Then finally, Brian, this is not necessarily campaign-related, or at least not this campaign.

I'm wondering, as one of the prominent people in public radio nationally, if the Trump administration's attacks on public radio have made their way to your newsroom. Are there any topics, I'm thinking in particular about diversity, equity, and inclusion measures, or programs, or even clean energy programs? Are there any topics that are maybe being nudged to the side, maybe put on the back burner, maybe getting a second look, given the current climate?

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to give you an unequivocal no on whether we're changing our reporting in the news department, or changing anything on this show as a result of that pressure. We just talked about how we're continuing to do a health and climate section weekly on this show. We ask about a lot of things that might be considered authoritarian politics, and are trying to take the temperature on that.

On DEI, which you bring up, we're certainly doing Juneteenth programming on Thursday, Pride Month programming this month, so inclusion is not canceled here. Really, I think they're using whatever tools they have to try to weaken all legit news organizations. I don't have to go down the list of what's been happening with AP, CBS, ABC. I don't think taking a dive on covering the issues of our times would even make a difference.

Errol Louis: Oh, interesting. There are no instances of, not necessarily WNYC, but maybe some of your sister stations around the country, of a snippet or a broadcast maybe being elevated and dragged into a congressional hearing as evidence that the whole enterprise has got to be rethought or defunded?

Brian Lehrer: I'm not aware of anything like that. I'm focusing on what we're doing here, but I'm not aware of anything like that that I could cite.

Errol Louis: Okay. No, that's the best news I've heard so far this week. Well, listen, thank you so much for all the stuff that you're doing. You are continuing to serve as my personal cheat sheet for trying to stay on top of both the local races and some of these national trends as well. Thanks a whole lot.

Brian Lehrer: Back at you. You know I've said here before that you are the single best reason to still have cable. Keep it up, Errol, thanks for coming on today.

Errol Louis: Thank you.

 

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