Title: Two Opinions on Andrew Cuomo

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. First thing, it's another Supreme Court decision day, and they released them right after ten o'clock. We'll be watching their feed. We have Supreme Court watcher Emily Bazelon standing by to report on any consequential decisions later in the show. She's going to speed-read the decision. The last one that came out the other day on trans minors, that was 118 pages. Our guests that day read as fast as they could and then came on the air. Emily Bazelon is standing by to do that.

We begin again today with our daily coverage of the ongoing vote in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York. Early in-person voting continues through Sunday. Primary day itself is on Tuesday. As the city chooses its next mayor, we will begin by talking for a few minutes to its last mayor. Bill de Blasio is not endorsing in this race, at least not so far, but has made clear his disdain for former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Give me a minute here before we bring the former mayor on.

On Monday, the New York Times editorial board made clear its disdain for him. That Times editorial also did not endorse anyone, but it said that, "A certain version of progressive city management has failed in New York and elsewhere. This version emerged in the latter stages of Barack Obama's presidency when some Democrats decided that he had been too cautious and adopted a bolder liberalism. At the municipal level, this liberalism was skeptical, if not hostile to law enforcement. It argued that schools needed more money and less evaluation. It blamed greedy landlords for high rents instead of emphasizing the crucial role of housing supply."

Then it says, "Bill de Blasio, whose eight-year tenure as New York's mayor began in 2014, came from this wing of the Democratic Party, and he had some successes, including his expansion of preschool and his curtailment of widespread stop-and-frisk policing. Overall, though, he bears significant responsibility for the city's problems. He did not take disorder seriously enough, and he set back the city's K through 12 school system. His main legacy is to have contributed to the city's recent decline."

All of that from the Times editorial, and they added in denouncing Zohran Mamdani, as they did, as uniquely unqualified. Mr. Mamdani, who was called Mr. Blasio, the best New York mayor of his lifetime, the Times editorial board says, offers an agenda that remains alluring among elite progressives but has proved damaging to city life. There's that from the Times editorial board.

At the same time, former mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to pour millions of dollars into the Andrew Cuomo campaign. Suddenly, in this amped up home stretch of primary season, both of the last two mayors are relevant to the selection of the next. On this show, as we continue to get multiple points of view on the race, we thought, "Wouldn't it be interesting to invite Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor de Blasio for separate short interviews and let them speak directly to voters for a few minutes each?" We reached out to both. Only Mr. De Blasio accepted.

For the record, we also reached out to the Times for someone from the editorial board to represent that explosive piece. They also declined. In the interests of multiple points of view, however, we will speak second in this segment to Cuomo supporter Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the Democratic Party leader of Brooklyn. With us first, though, is the 109th mayor of the city of New York, Bill de Blasio. Mayor de Blasio, thanks for engaging. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor de Blasio: I always love being here, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Brian: Before we talk about the current candidates, what would you like to say to the Times editorial board about what they wrote about you?

Mayor de Blasio: The Times editorial literally felt out of touch with life in New York City, and it doesn't surprise me. The New York Times has been distancing itself from New York City in a variety of ways for years. Their decision not to endorse in a race for mayor is a shocking reminder that they just don't care enough about this city anymore. It was basically a neocon version of reality. How were schools made worse if we created pre-K for All and 3-K for All, and addressed the fundamental challenge of early child education?

How was there a lack of interest in order if I had Bill Bratton as my first police commissioner? We drove down crime for six years in a row before the pandemic, and we ended stop and frisk. This is absolutely out of touch, inaccurate, not fact-based, and it basically presents a new New York Times. I want to say I think a lot of your listeners like me, for a long time, we had a lot of respect for New York Times. I don't have that respect anymore. They do not represent the life of this city, and they don't care to.

Here's what's happening in this election. The New York Times editorial board, representing the view of the elite, the wealthy, the powerful, the folks who want to keep this city the way it is, team up with Michael Bloomberg, who's now put in over $8 million, so he's trying to buy his fourth mayoral election in New York City, and Andrew Cuomo, who the Times says is thoroughly corrupt, but you should vote for him anyway. Just extraordinary hypocrisy. This is that New York Times editorial board doesn't represent, for a lot of us, doesn't represent the New York City we live in anymore.

Brian: Let me press a couple of their points related to you. On education in particular, you followed the Bloomberg years, where they were trying to use standardized tests much more to evaluate teachers and students. In fairness to Bloomberg, I think both Presidents Bush and Obama were for more or less this system. Obama called it Race to the Top. The Times says under you, and this is before the pandemic, the ethic was that schools needed more money and less evaluation, and so performance declined. Do you have a different take on that for your years in office?

Mayor de Blasio: Yes. Let's start with facts. Performance increased. Look, standardized testing is not a panacea, but it gives us some measure. This is where I absolutely differ with the Times and everyone else who thinks standardized testing is the only way to make sense of this world. To the extent you accept it, the numbers went up on my watch. They don't seem to recognize that or remember it. Also, early childhood education is how you change a school system. It's how you help a child learn in their earliest, most important years. It's how you create more equality in education.

We did something no one else ever did during my administration. We added a full new grade with pre-K and started to add yet another whole grade with 3-K successfully, and the Times dismisses that. It's literally circular logic. You cannot say test scores went up, Pre-K and 3K were successes. We did things like advanced placement courses in every school, including schools that had never been given the chance to have them. It was all about trying to improve educational quality and fairness.

As with many things, again, how can they say there was a lack of interest in order? If you look at the police commissioners I had, the records they had, and the fact that crime went down for six years in a row, how is that a lack of interest in order? It is an ideological neocon editorial from a group of people who philosophically do not want to see a progressive vision that addresses the inequalities in the city and the profound affordability crisis. The Times editorial board is not experiencing the affordability crisis. The rest of us are.

Brian: About Cuomo, you said to New York Magazine that he's run a fear-based campaign just like his role model, Donald Trump. Why do you call Trump Andrew Cuomo's role model? Cuomo keeps saying he'll stand up to Trump on behalf of New York.

Mayor de Blasio: Don't believe it. Look, Andrew Cuomo very cynically made a decision to run because he believed Donald Trump had gotten away with his harassment of women, his incredibly disrespectful activity towards women. Andrew Cuomo watched that and believed, and I heard this from people in his orbit, that the MeToo era was over. Andrew Cuomo's documented, according to the United States Department of Justice, 13 women were mistreated, were harassed, many of them his employees. He came to the conclusion that New York voters would not pay attention to that because he saw voters not paying attention, in his view, to that enough with Donald Trump, so he could get away with that.

Equally, the corruption, the missteps during COVID look what they have in common here. Both of them have a long record of corruption that they somehow get away with, and both of them made massive missteps during COVID. They've tried to explain them away and hope that the public doesn't want to revisit the COVID era. In fact, Cuomo has taken inspiration from Trump that he could be a viable candidate in this environment.

Brian: You said in the New York Mag interview that anyone who's worked with Zohran Mamdani or Brad Lander will tell you they are not dangerous radicals, as Cuomo is trying to portray them as. Have you worked with Mr. Mamdani? I think he took office in the assembly as your term was ending.

Mayor de Blasio: Yes, we did, in fact. I had him and other new legislators to Gracie Mansion to meet on the type of agenda items that I cared about to try and address inequalities in New York City, and I found him to be very productive. I've talked to him since. I think he is a smart and reasonable person. Brad Lander is an extraordinarily impressive progressive thinker, nationally recognized. I also think Adrienne Adams is someone who has done tremendous work as speaker of the city council and has protected progressive values.

This gets back to this basic notion. Can and should progressives govern? I would argue this to you. I was a progressive who brought you Pre-K for All, 3-K, lowered crime. We had the record number of jobs in the city on my watch. We managed to address a lot of inequalities. We did paid sick days. We did things that mattered to everyday people. For the pandemic, I think we'd be having a very different discussion because I believe crime would have continued to go down.

When you look around the country, whenever progressives come into power, the immediate message from the status quo is they're not realistic, their bold visions won't work. In fact, the Times in 2013, when they endorsed against me in the primary, said my bold vision for pre-K was unrealistic and people should not vote for me because it would never happen. They didn't try and help. They tried to put down the notion that anything could change. Let's just be clear. Anytime a progressive tries to address the profound inequalities in our society, you will hear that they are unrealistic and it's impossible. You will hear it from the folks who want to keep things the way they are.

Brian: There is backlash in other progressive cities, though, isn't there? Besides the fact that Eric Adams was elected mayor, not some of the more progressive options four years ago. I realize it was the height of the pandemic, but even since San Francisco, maybe Portland, some progressive mayors are seen as having enabled crime, for example.

Mayor de Blasio: I think if you look at the mayors in those cities, I'm not sure they would call themselves progressives in the cities that you're talking about. The last mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, I don't think she considered herself that. I don't think the mayor of Seattle would have said that. I think we have to be a little more careful. The question is, why is there an assumption that only leaders who will stay within the boundaries of the status quo are acceptable? Because, in fact-- I'm sorry, someone's buzzing the door here. Those leaders have put us in the mess we're in in terms of affordability.

Brian: Do you have concerns about Assemblymember Mamdani around any of the main things that give some people doubts? Four years in the assembly as the total of his government experience, and no management experience or defending as recently as this week using the phrase "globalize the intifada," which he says is not about anything violent, but many Jewish people and others hear that phrase that way, or his differences with even Brad Lander on whether to add more police officers.

Mayor de Blasio: Look, first of all, I think that comment about the intifada was a mistake, and I think he should clarify it. I want to see a two-state solution in the Middle East. I want to see peace and respect for Israelis and Palestinians alike. I think the intifada, for a lot of us, is something that says something very different. Now, everything I've seen him say publicly, everything I've heard him say to me, suggests he is someone who will, in a very focused fashion, fight antisemitism in the city and Islamophobia. He does care about security issues. I thought he did a very clear job in the debate, the last debate, making that clear.

Look, at the same time, you say, "What are we looking for in the next mayor?" I want to give a lot of credit to Adrienne Adams for her experience at the neighborhood level and at the city council level, what she's achieved, Brad Lander as a councilman, as a comptroller. Zohran has less experience. It's true. That said, when I came into office, that was thrown at me, too. I was not supposed to have enough experience to achieve Pre-K for All, and yet we did because we're able to create a vision that people could buy into and that created the political momentum to get it done in Albany, where we needed support.

I think Zohran has some of that same ability. I agree, in a perfect world, you want someone coming as mayor who has all sorts of experience and a progressive vision and inspirational quality. Let's face it, every candidate is going to have strengths and weaknesses. What we need in today's day and age is a vision of change and candidates who can actually rally the people around it.

Brian: On Cuomo, his record as governor includes many progressive things. A fracking ban, an assault weapons ban, paid for a lot of your pre-K program with state money and added more to take it statewide, signed a minimum wage increase, responding to the Fight for $15 movement, signed an abortion rights law that went beyond Roe, signed the bail reform law that conservatives love to hate. Do you dismiss all of that for any reason when you characterize him the way you do?

Mayor de Blasio: I don't dismiss it, Brian. Look, I'm the first to say on a separate evaluation, Andrew Cuomo is smart, he's driven, he's certainly capable of getting things done. The problem is, what does he want to get done? Those things were all because he was pushed. He didn't lead on the Fight for $15 minimum wage. He didn't lead on fracking. Come on, just a modicum of history here. Every single time, he was pushed by grassroots movements, by progressive forces to act. He didn't lead on bail reform, and that bail was not so great. It could have been a better bail, and yet he signed it, so that one cuts both ways. He didn't lead on the reforms we needed. He didn't fix the problems in that bail either.

Look, this is a Political guy. He is driven by one thing only, his own political future. He wants to be President of the United States. He gets up in the morning, he goes to bed at night. He wants to be President of the United States. He does not think about everyday people's lives and how to help them. When it gets too hot in the kitchen on a certain issue, he moves, and then he can be very effective. Let's not kid ourselves about motivation.

Anyone in this city who thinks this city is deeply troubled right now and unaffordable, if you vote for Andrew Cuomo, you are voting for the status quo. You are voting to keep things the way they are. Look at who's backing him. The wealthiest and most powerful people in New York City want him to be mayor. That should tell you a lot. Also, what his experience mean, if experience comes with horrible decisions during COVID, that I think led to really bad outcomes, particularly for our seniors, then he lied about it, harassing of women, that's all part of his experience too, that shouldn't be forgotten.

I think this gets back to the Times editorial. They're basically saying, "Yes, he's corrupt, but he'll keep the trains running on time." That never works. Down through history, the minute people say we'll take order and stability, even if it's immoral, you end up paying very badly for that equation. Why don't we elect? We got plenty of good choices. None of them have a corruption problem. All of them are talking about real changes we need in the city. I say don't rank Cuomo. You've got other good choices. Choose a progressive leader who can actually start to get us out of this horrible affordability crisis.

Brian: Last thing before we bring on a prominent Cuomo supporter. I'm curious what you think about Mayor Bloomberg spending $8 million so far to fund the blizzard of attack ads against Mamdani that almost everyone is seeing. The current campaign system with the 8-to-1 matching funds for small donations, I think you'll agree with this take on history, was created specifically as a response to Bloomberg overwhelming his opponents with his personal wealth during his races for mayor. Now here he is again, through the loophole created by the Supreme Court and Citizens United, trying to flood the zone with his money again. Do you agree with that description of what's happening, and what do you think about it ethically?

Mayor de Blasio: Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy this election. He is literally using the loopholes created by Citizens United, by one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever, to buy this election for Andrew Cuomo. You're exactly right. The referendum that I sponsored, in fact, during my mayorality, to go to an 8-to-1 match for our city campaign finance system was explicitly to help everyday New Yorkers run for office, not need big donors and break the stranglehold of big donors on municipal government.

Instead, what's happened is this very, very pernicious, underhanded approach to use independent expenditure campaigns to just absolutely dominate everything. Where is Andrew Cuomo getting his money? Michael Bloomberg, big corporations, wealthy real estate interests. That's who he's going to serve. New York City's had one of the best, most progressive campaign finance systems in America, and it's now, in this election, being absolutely perverted. That's another reason the New York Times should have said, "Stay away from Andrew Cuomo," but instead, they decided to get in bed with him.

Brian: Cuomo would dispute that the real estate interests and big corporations are who he's out to serve, but he still gets the public matching fund.

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, what do we remember from Watergate? Follow the money?

Brian: He still gets the public matching funds from the taxpayers for his smaller donations. I'm curious if there's anything that can be done, in your opinion, to strengthen the campaign finance law even more to make candidates even more dependent on small donors and insulate the system from disproportionate influence by the very wealthy?

Mayor de Blasio: I think if there are independent expenditure campaigns passed, maybe a modest level, a great argument would be to not give that recipient candidate matching funds. This is insane. We're talking Cuomo's got tens of millions of dollars from wealthy and powerful interests, and he still gets matching funds. I think what we're learning in this election is choose what it's going to be-- I wish there were no independent expenditure campaigns. I wish Citizens United didn't exist, but it does. Then it should be an invalidating reality. If you're benefiting in a cynical manner from millions and millions of outside dollars, you have no right to matching funds from the public of New York City.

Brian: All right. Before you go, you said your own rankings will depend somewhat on what the polling tells you, but you will not rank Cuomo. I think the last poll, I think the Marist Poll, may have come out. I'm not sure there will be any more. Do you know who you'll rank now, and if so, will you say?

Mayor de Blasio: I will not say. I've made a decision that sometimes I'll keep to myself. I think there is still the potential that we're going to see some more information from polling and from the back and forth between the candidates. I'm going to wait a few more days before making my own final decisions. I will say one thing. We're seeing really great turnout, which is really encouraging. Early voting, as you said, through Sunday, Election Day, Tuesday. This is an election that's unpredictable. Brian, I think a few months ago, people would have said, "Oh, it's a layup for Cuomo." Now it is a jump ball in the primary, and I think it could be in the general as well. This is one where every vote actually really matters.

Brian: You're not going to make news here and disclose your rankings.

Mayor de Blasio: [unintelligible 00:21:12], Brian.

Brian: Can I assume from everything you said that Mr. Mamdani will be somewhere on your list, and so you think he would make a better mayor than Andrew Cuomo?

Mayor de Blasio: Would he make a better mayor than Andrew Cuomo? Unquestionably. Unquestionably. All of these other candidates would make a better mayor than Andrew Cuomo because they haven't done the harm to people that Andrew Cuomo's done, and they don't lie to people congenitally the way he does.

Brian: Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, thank you so much for joining us.

Mayor de Blasio: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Now, another point of view. Politico had a very interesting article on Wednesday about dozens of New York politicians who called on Andrew Cuomo to resign as governor in 2021 but are now supporting his campaign to become mayor. We just heard from former Mayor de Blasio, who's been very critical of Cuomo's bid for the Democratic nomination, as you heard. We'll hear now from a prominent elected official who's supporting Cuomo and who is among those on Politico's list of the politicians who flipped on wanting him in office.

It's Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the Brooklyn Democratic Party chair and a member of the New York State assembly representing Ditmas Park, Flatbush, East Flatbush, and Midwood. She is also in the assembly leadership as the majority whip and a history maker as the first Haitian American woman elected in New York City. Assemblymember, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Assemblymember: Thank you, Brian. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here today.

Brian: The Politico article quotes you from August 4, 2021, saying, "In hearing the findings of the exhaustive and impartial investigation led by the Office of the Attorney General, it is clear that Governor Cuomo is no longer fit to serve." Would you first take us back to that day and tell us more about why you called on Mr. Cuomo to resign as governor?

Assemblymember: Yes, I can take you back. On that day, first, I would like to tell you that there were a group of 10 to 12 Black women who actually signed a letter saying that we didn't want to jump the gun. We certainly wanted due process to play its role. When our Attorney General came out with the report, many of us being women, understanding that we typically have to listen and believe these potential victims, we were at a point where we felt that it was time that maybe it was the best thing that Governor Cuomo then to step down and more so because it was just a distraction.

I think that over the course of the last few years, Governor Cuomo has really worked hard to show the world that he's been innocent. He has been found innocent of any wrongdoing in the court of law. I can tell you, as a recent law school graduate from Brooklyn Law, it really behooves me to know that the majority of the population, just people in general, typically judge on the court of public opinion. We have to be very careful about that, and everyone must be judged under the court of law.

Cuomo, at that time, he definitely stepped down because he felt that our state would have been run better during those accusations without him being there, but certainly, he and all of us felt that it did require due process. Now we've seen that he came out of it. Again, there was no wrongdoing, nothing was unfounded. There was one case that was recently dropped.

Brian: Let me jump in on that specifically, because you're making the case that basically nothing happened here, nothing to see here, because he was never criminally charged. Would you not agree that a criminal standard is not the only way to judge whether a man's behavior in the workplace has been sexually inappropriate?

Assemblymember: No, I agree. Criminal charge are not. Very often, women like myself have encountered sexual misconduct in the way we are treated in the workplace, and very often is dismissed. Again, you have to have evidence to show in the court of law that there were some findings of sexual misconduct in the workplace.

Brian: Your statement in 2021, that I read from called the panel that produced the report impartial. Do you now renounce that opinion?

Assemblymember: I would say that I think the panel that produced the report was pretty much exposing the testimonies of the alleged victims. I believe that Tish James did not prosecute Cuomo. It was just, "Here's the report, this is the investigation, and this is what we're presenting." It was up to the courts to now determine through due process, through evidence to discovery, whether or not these allegations were founded, and they were.

Brian: At a criminal level.

Assemblymember: At a criminal level.

Brian: Do you think, as an Albany serving woman, that all 11 of your colleagues, 11, who the report found to be credible in their accusations, were all those women making up their stories?

Assemblymember: We don't know. We don't know. I will tell you that me, as a Black woman, I know that there were times where my story was always dismissed, and there were times where I've known people who would make up stories. We have to be really, really very careful. You had some women, I believe, that were untruthful after the fact.

I've gotten a text message from one particular individual who was literally harassing me because I pointed out that in the Black community, we really much favor due process because we've been wrongfully convicted many times, criminalized without any finding. Just as we preach due process, we should allow for the governor to have his day in court. This is a stance that I had with him, even with Mayor de Blasio when he was shortly being indicted, it was his team with Eric Adams. I do believe that people should have their day in court.

Brian: He wasn't indicted, de Blasio, but he was investigated for possibilities.

Assemblymember: He was investigated. Exactly.

Brian: My guest, if you're just joining us, is Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, assemblymember from Brooklyn and chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, supporting Andrew Cuomo for mayor. If you missed the first few minutes of the show, we heard from former mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is decidedly not supporting Andrew Cuomo for mayor. The Attorney General's office investigation was released in August 2021. That's what we've been discussing so far.

In November that year, your own legislative body, the state assembly, released its own report, as you know, corroborating the findings. The New York Times article on it at the time said, "An eight month investigation by the New York State assembly found "overwhelming evidence," quoting the report, "that former Governor Andrew Cuomo engaged in sexual harassment while in office, corroborating a damning investigation by the state Attorney General that Mr. Cuomo had repeatedly tried to discredit," from The Times. Do you, as a leader of the assembly, now renounce your own body's findings that corroborated, you all said at the time, the Attorney General panel's findings?

Assemblymember: As a member of the assembly, I wasn't part of the Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee was leading that charge in terms of looking at all the evidence that were presented. I will have to tell you that there were different viewpoint in terms of what was considered real, admissible evidence and what was considered hearsay and things of that nature.

I think there was a mixed view, but at that particular time, I think, collectively, having very little experience and everyone was, I would say, acting also with emotions because it was at the height of us putting legislation against sexual harassment, against sexual misconduct. I think many of us just felt that it was the right thing to do to move forward, and it was enough evidence.

Brian: Go ahead. You want to finish your thought?

Assemblymember: Right. I think that over the course of time, we have seen a number of situations where people were, I wouldn't say wrongfully convicted, but because of media and press and public opinion, people were just viewed as being guilty. We've had a number of situations with even elected officials, like Brian Benjamin, who was charged to be corrupt and so forth, and he was found innocent or it was unfounded.

Brian: It was later dismissed.

Assemblymember: Yes, it was later dismissed.

Brian: I also want to ask about the assembly report, in that it dealt with other issues, too. Again, reading from The Times article in November of '21, it says, "Investigators hired by the Assembly Judiciary Committee concluded that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, used state workers and other public resources to write, publish and promote his memoir about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a likely violation of state ethics laws." The inquiry also found that Mr. Cuomo "was not fully transparent regarding the number of nursing home residents who died as a result of COVID-19," quoting from the assembly report. Do you, as the assembly majority whip, now renounce those findings, too?

Assemblymember: I would say that again, at that time, it was a different climate. People gathered information, people were scared, especially around Corona, people were dying, people were emotional, and potentially had a different viewpoint then. Looking back in hindsight, Governor Cuomo, as it relates to the nursing home, we felt that these reports were politically motivated under Trump and that, according to the National Department of Health, his reports were in compliance. Cuomo did not kill anyone. He was a leader who was leading the nation in terms of resources and information. Everybody looked to Cuomo as a leader at that particular time.

I think that because there were contrasts between him and the then president, President Trump, this became a politically motivated thing. Again, there wasn't really any findings about what numbers were reported inconsistently. I can tell you that this was happening across all of America, where it was really hard to keep tab of the numbers of death. I know in New Jersey, I had experience with my aunt being at a nursing home. We wanted her to be released. It was very difficult, and I had to blast a nursing home. There were different things that were happening, and there were probably different reasons why people were holding these people for whatever [unintelligible 00:33:51].

Brian: There's a lot to either forgive or revise with respect to Mr. Cuomo. Why do all of that and rank him first, which I presume you're going to do, when there are 10 other options on people's ballots for mayor? 10 other options, for example, Adrienne Adams, the first Black woman speaker of the city council, also an accomplished leader and from a neighborhood more like yours in Brooklyn than the Tony Place in Westchester where Mr. Cuomo has mostly been living in recent years, or the $8,000 a month apartment he's now renting on Manhattan's east side. Why him over all these others, even despite or given what you were just saying about 2021?

Assemblymember: I think it's because we are all scared. I think the city and the nation, the fact that they're facing extraordinary challenges, especially with ICE raids and civil rights being rolled back, jobs reduction, education being dismantled, you have all of these issues that really make us as New Yorkers very vulnerable under this administration. People are looking for someone's tough. Look, the New York Times reported that they did not want Mamdani. However, they had very little to say about Cuomo, because you know what? They don't mind a person who's tough, strong, and who has the relative experience from a national, state, and local level.

I think as much as people may want to despise Cuomo, they got to give him credit that he knows how to get things done. Right now, he has the most support of unions. When I heard Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was talking about progressiveness, I think while Cuomo may have wealthy people supporting him, he also have the poorest of the poor who are supporting him. He has the largest Black community who are coming out for him. He has the largest Latino, Asian, all the minority community, all the lower-income, they are all supporting him.

When we talk about why, is because a lot of these things that Governor Cuomo was accused of, believe it or not, the vast majority of people are either forgiven or probably that doesn't really matter to them, because what matters to them is what's in front of them. Their families being separated, their jobs being canceled, not having Social Security, not having Medicaid. They want to rely on someone with a past record who has been able to develop and bring results. That's what it is.

Brian: One last thing on bringing results and one more New York Times article from 2021, reference headline, "Uprising Grows over Cuomo's Bullying." The article starts at, "A wedding heavily attended by state government workers as well as some lawmakers and their aides. When it was time for the toasts, a guest who worked for the Cuomo administration began with a question, "Who in this room has been yelled at or bullied by Andrew Cuomo?" Then it says, "Hands shot up across the room as laughter rolled through the crowd, according to two people who attended the wedding."

My question is, do you think Mr. Cuomo could really get more of his plans through Albany than Mr. Mamdani could? They both will need the legislature for a lot. I'm sure you agree, as a leading assembly member. One could argue that Mr. Mamdani is one of you. While Mr. Cuomo's relationship with lawmakers over the years was, let's say, complicated, and now, as mayor, not governor, he won't have the power to bully or push them into things, and they may even revel in frustrating him. Give us your take on that, and then we're out of time.

Assemblymember: First of all, bullying is a matter of perspective. There was a once-upon-a-time that I didn't know Cuomo, and from afar, I said, "Okay, he's a bully." Getting to know him, he is certainly far from that. That's the just a perspective that people have when people are in power. People have said that about me. I'm very much not a bully. I'm just a county chair of the largest Democratic Party. As it relates to Mamdani or Cuomo, look, people are not going to be comfortable right now with a young new person who has the potential, who's a rising star to run a very complicated city that's the capital of the world. It's just not going to happen.

Unfortunately, Mamdani's views on the Jewish community as it relates to Israel is very alarming, and people are very uncomfortable with that, which is why New York Times said not to rank him. Legislators who have worked with Cuomo, at least they understand and know what they're getting. They will not know what they're getting with Mamdani, and so the rest of the population of New York City. Again, they're looking for comfort. Cuomo brings comfort to many New Yorkers. They're looking for experience, and they're looking for results. These are the things, despite what people may say, as bully. They may say, "Oh, he's a bully, but guess what, he brings results." I think that's what we want.

Brian: Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, Cuomo supporter for mayor, state assembly member from Brooklyn, and the Brooklyn Democratic Party chair, thank you very much for engaging. We appreciate it a lot.

Assemblymember: Thank you so much, Brian.

Brian: We heard earlier from former Mayor de Blasio with his different point of view.

 

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