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Brian: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We have a little breaking news; Mayor de Blasio is just announcing right now that New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza is stepping down. In a statement that they are just now releasing, the mayor says Carranza will be replaced by Meisha Porter. Porter is a Queen's native who has worked in the school system for decades as a teacher, principal, and superintendent. She'll be the first Black woman to serve in that role. De Blasio says she'll also be the first person appointed from within the Department of Education Leadership in recent history.

Carranza, of course, led the nation's largest school system here in New York City for three years. He oversaw the pandemic response, which is ongoing. I have a question about why he's leaving in the middle of this school year given all the pandemic management that has taken place, and he's attempted to lead major changes designed to address racial inequities in the school system. Mayor de Blasio will join us next hour in our weekly Ask the Mayor Segment. Of course, we will talk about the departure of Richard Carranza, the appointment of Meisha Porter, and much more. That's coming up at 11:30 this morning.

Otherwise, we'll begin today with a take on the sexual harassment allegations against Governor Cuomo by Lindsey Boylan, the former Chief of Staff of the agency known as Empire State Development, former Special Adviser to the governor, Deputy Secretary for Economic Development, and a current Manhattan Borough President candidate. Boylan left the governor's office in 2018.

On Wednesday, Boylan went public with things she says only a few close friends, family members, and her therapist have known for years her allegation that Cuomo sexually harassed her repeatedly, including an unwanted and surprise kiss on the lips in his office, and a joke during an airplane ride that they should play strip poker. The governor denies these things, but they come in the context of widespread discussion since last week of how Cuomo behaves as a boss.

As you probably know, Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim, touched this off on this show and elsewhere when he said Cuomo threatened his career this month if he didn't help the governor downplay the undercount of nursing home deaths from COVID. Here is Assemblyman Kim on this program last Thursday.

Ron Kim: I call it a threat. It wasn't just the bullying. He threatened my political career, my livelihood in front of my family. My wife was shaken for two hours that night, she couldn't go to sleep. I was in the middle of trying to bed my kids. It was intimidating and it was scary.

Brian: Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim here last week. Since then, many other people have come forward to accuse Cuomo of a bullying style. On Wednesday, Lindsey Boylan published an essay on Medium that details her own story and put it in the context of Ron Kim's. She wrote in part, "Governor Andrew Cuomo has created a culture within his administration, where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned, but expected. His inappropriate behavior toward women was an affirmation that he liked you, that you must be doing something right. He used intimidation to silence his critics, and if you dare to speak up, you would face consequences."

Now, the New York Times says it spoke to three people who worked in the governor's office during Miss Boylan's time there and that the people who spoke on condition of anonymity said that while they could not corroborate her allegations, they concurred that the governor would sometimes make inappropriate remarks during work and comment on people's appearances. The Times also did confirm the airplane rides that-- Forgive me, confirmed that airplane rides and a meeting in the governor's office at least took place.

We'll get a take on this and what should happen next from New York political consultant Alexis Grenell who founded the company Pythia Politics and is a frequent contributor to The Daily News as well as a Columnist for the Nation. When Cuomo was New York State Attorney General, she was his deputy director of Intergovernmental Affairs, that was back before 2010. Back in November, as the current storm was only beginning to gather around the governor, Alexis wrote a column very critical of his governing style in The Nation called The Collapse of the Cuomosexual. Hi, Alexis, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Alexis: Thank you, Brian. It's great to be here.

Brian: Even back in November, your lead paragraph referred to "The Andrew Cuomo New Yorkers mostly know and tolerate, the snarling attack dog who gaslights fellow Democrats, deploys staff to call his female critics effing idiots," and you went on from there. What was the context for starting an article that way in November?

Alexis: Well, I wrote the column at the time when the governor lashed out at Jimmy Vielkind of The Wall Street Journal for asking a question about school closures. It was a kind of--

Brian: Wait, I'm going to jump right in because you call that out, and we have that clip. So let's play that for even a little bit more context. Jimmy Vielkind at one of Cuomo's press briefings, was asking about how parents are confused by the opening and closing and the different zones and that there seem to be mixed messages about what levels of schools would be opened or closed when.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: What are you talking about? What are you talking about? You're now going to override, we did it already. That's the law, an orange zone, and a red zone. Follow the facts.

Jimmy: I'm just still confused.

Governor Cuomo: : Well, then you're confused.

Jimmy: I'm confused. Parents are still confused as well. The schools [crosstalk] tomorrow.

Governor Cuomo: They're not confused, you're confused.

Jimmy: No, I think the parents are really confused as well.

Governor Cuomo: Read the law and you won't be confused.

Brian: All right, so that was just for some context there. Sorry to interrupt, Alexis. Go ahead since you referenced that.

Alexis: Not at all, Brian. I was responding to that event because it was so typical, I think of what Albany reporters who cover Cuomo experienced more regularly versus Cuomo, the TV character who's won an Emmy Award for the series of daily briefings around COVID during the height of the crisis. The kind of combative, antagonistic, insulting, and obnoxious behavior is actually pretty par for the course for people who cover the governor on a regular basis. It's just not on display, I guess, for your average New Yorker during COVID. That was an important return to normal that I thought was worth highlighting.

Brian: I'm going to read for our audience a little bit more of Lindsey Boylan's article on Medium. "At this point in the piece, she had already detailed some very uncomfortable moments with the governor based on things he said, and ways he was behaving toward her." Then she wrote, "I tried to excuse his behavior, I told myself, 'it's only words,' but that changed after a one-on-one briefing with the governor to update him on economic and infrastructure projects.

We were in his New York City Office on Third Avenue, as I got up to leave and walk toward an open door, he stepped in front of me and kissed me on the lips. I was in shock, but I kept walking. I left past the desk of Stephanie Benton. I was scared she had seen the kiss. The idea that someone might think I held my high-ranking position because of the governor's 'crush on me,' was more demeaning than the kiss itself.'" Alexis, you could talk about any of that, of course, but would you turn it on the last part for people who think the unwanted kiss is the only horrible thing here?

Alexis: Brian, I'm so glad you brought that up because that's exactly what I want to focus on as well. It's reflected in Lindsey's words where she herself minimized the abuse against her not thinking that it would be taken seriously unless it were physical, but what Lindsey Boylan's essay details is a much more insidious structure of harassment and abuse.

I'm going to pull out for readers who perhaps haven't combed through it fully, but she details how she was told right away upon taking the job that the governor had a crush on her. She was told this by a colleague, which means that the governor deputized an intermediary to relay that message. It's a fairly terrible thing to hear.

This intermediary mediator also told her that the governor said she looked like an ex-girlfriend of his except the better-looking sister of said girlfriend and encouraged her to look up that person to compare herself to her, and then started calling her by her name, "Lisa." Instead of calling her Lindsey, he created a kind of ownership to minimize her own autonomy by constantly referencing her within the framework of his own romantic relationships, calling her literally by a different name, an ex-girlfriend's name. She also details how she received red roses on Valentine's Day as well as a signed photo of the governor in her office. She's described how other female staff received flowers on Valentine's Day.

I'd say that is wholly unacceptable, and strange and really dovetails nicely with what Karen Hinton wrote in the Daily News, Karen Hinton, who was the governor's spokesperson when he was at HUD, also worked for Bill de Blasio wrote a incredibly detailed essay in the daily news the same day as Lindsey's medium post posted, talking about how it was like being in a 1950s marriage and that dynamic, which of course, getting red roses from your boss feels very 1950s. That's something we can picture in Mad Men.

The secretary getting flowers, that's so incredibly inappropriate and would make you just feel like you're in a-- it defies the professionalism of the relationship between Lindsey Boylan, who was the chief of staff at ESDC, and the governor. I also want to surface the fact that when Lindsey first tweeted alluding to this in November, there was a news report shortly thereafter which contained confidential employment records that had presumably been leaked to The Outlook by the governor's office because how else would anyone else have confidential employment records, which is potentially actionable because it's a form of retaliation.

That's what is another element of this, which is that not only has she now pens something that really details insidious abuse, but we've also seen in action the way in which she's been retaliated against. Of course, the governor's office denies everything and has responded to very narrowly to one set of claims with flight documents and a manifest meant to somehow debunk that the story that Lindsey tells about having the governor casually joke, "that they should play strip poker" and instead of undermining her story, it actually confirms that she was on the flight.

I don't really think that that typical strategy we're seeing, which is called DARVO, it was coined by Dr. Jennifer frayed which stands for deny, attack, reverse victim-offender. It's very classic. It's what Brett Kavanaugh has used, it's what Harvey Weinstein used, it's pretty transparent.

Brian: Listeners, we can take your reactions to the sexual harassment allegations against Governor Cuomo in and of themselves, or in the context of his phone call to Ron Kim or his management style generally, or even a larger pattern of male boss behavior. Questions for Alexis Grenell, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Alexis many are calling for a full investigation in your opinion, what would that involve?

Alexis: Sure. The sexual harassment working group, which is, I think the leading voice and authority on this question, has laid out a proposal that independent defined as one in which the governor has no supervisory authority or appointment power is the necessary and correct response here, and of course, that makes total sense. We do not have such a mechanism in New York state and so figuring out how to actually do that, whether that's deputizing an assistant attorney general with special powers, a special prosecutor, or whether it's taking this as far away from the governor's control as possible.

That's really a structural question that needs to get worked out, but the working group has specifically defined independent as being apart from the governor. That's a critical element of this, but Brian, I also want to address something you mentioned, which is we hear in language bullying style or management style to describe what is really a cycle of abuse. I want to pick that apart a little bit and highlight something. I think we are so actually-- Patriarchy is so normalized that sometimes we fail to hear these things, but the way the governor's office has framed his "style" is as competence.

It has co-mingled the idea of confidence with abuse as a necessary ingredient for leadership while eliding the actual outcomes or productivity of that approach. When we see validators for the governor getting up and saying, "He demands excellence, and that's not for everyone," it's a way of saying that essentially, anyone who rejects harassment or abuse is somehow not excellent. It's a mistake to imagine that abuse is necessary for good management, competence, or productivity and it's also one inherently coded as male.

When we look at the literature on how the public perceives leadership, it is defined the way that Cuomo has defined it. That's part of patriarchy, it also explains why women are perceived as weak or not competent to be in executive positions of authority and are more frequently elected to legislative bodies that are coded as female, meaning more collaborative, more sharing, more communicative, but the underlying thesis that abuse is necessary for competence is absolutely wrong.

Brian: Let me ask you in that context, Alexis to reflect on one more passage from Lindsey Boylan's article, she writes, "There is a part of me that will never forgive myself for being a victim for so long, for trying to ignore behavior that I knew was wrong. The governor exploited my weaknesses, my desire to do good work, and to be respected. I was made to believe this was the world I needed to survive in. It was all so normalized, particularly by Melissa DeRosa and other top women around him that only now do I realize how insidious his abuse was?" Can you on that feeling or that as a pattern?

Alexis: Absolutely. I think shame, which is really what Lindsey is describing is something that we all want to avoid. We'll almost do anything to escape it and certainly, for somebody who is so excited and enthusiastic about public service, you don't want to feel that your work is somehow devalued. What I hear in that passage is her fighting to defend her work and her value, but I think, and this is something I also see in the defense of the governor, particularly from men and male consultants because, of course, this harassment and abuse, and Ron Kim has detailed this is not actually exclusive to women.

It's unique in certain ways to women, the way in which it's deployed, but it's also deployed against men. When we see men weaponize gender against each other to harass or abuse each other, I also see them normalizing it to cover for their shame. Men primarily benefit from this system and certainly, women as well. I would think Lindsey explaining the way in which close circle of women help uphold this brutal system is absolutely accurate. Women are part of patriarchy as well.

This is not exclusive to men. Patriarchy refers to a system of abuse and structure. It does not exclude women, but essentially the efforts to explain the governor's abuse as somehow leadership or competence is that normalizing of one's own shame as well, because if you've been abused or harassed, it can be very, very difficult to try to feel good about your work.

Brian: If you're just joining us, listeners, we're getting a take on the allegations of sexual harassment that surfaced against Governor Cuomo in a more explicit way on Wednesday from former top advisor, Lindsey Boylan, we're getting this take from Alexis Grenell who founded the political consulting firm, Pythia Politics was herself, a top aid to the governor or to Andrew Cuomo when he was New York state attorney general.

She's a columnist for The Nation and a Daily News opinion contributor. Alexis, when we continue in a minute we'll start to take some listener reaction on the phones and on Twitter and including some pushback from people. Stay with us for that Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to talk about the gathering storm around Andrew Cuomo for the way he conducts himself. Lee, on the Upper Eastside, you're on WNYC with Alexis Grenell. Hi, Lee.

Lee: Hi. I want to be very careful about how I choose my words because this really seems to be an age maybe more than ever where one has to be excruciating really careful with choosing words. Let me just say that the section that I was listening to when your guest was talking about giving roses on Valentine's day. I wish I had a copy of what she said exactly word for word because it was remarkably articulate and intellectual and well-spoken, but it was filled with things that just made me call you.

Culminating in the dropping of the name of Kavanaugh and Weinstein, just thrown in there at the very end. This is a world where you drop in names, drop in things, people associate, and off we go. That appalled me and the very idea that I understand about intimidation and the person in power having control, but are we saying that the gesture of giving red roses, "Oh my gosh that means love and romance and whatever," to a secretary, makes you think of Mad Men. Mad Men also was an intimidating immediately accusatory wine to throw into your diatribe.

Brian: Lee, I’m going to jump in. You put a lot on the table. I want to get a response and there are other people, most of whom, Alexis, are calling to push back in one way or another. What would you say in response to any of what Lee brought up?

Alexis: Absolutely. I appreciate Lee's curiosity and willingness to call in to discuss it. Lee, what I was talking about in the comparison to Kavanaugh and Weinstein is the response system to allegations known as DARVO, which is a term, an acronym coined by Dr. Jennifer Freyd, who is a psychologist and sociologist. It stands for deny, attack, reverse, victim-offender. I was not equating the alleged abuse of Andrew Cuomo to the abuse of Kavanaugh and to Weinstein. I'm not comparing apples and oranges.

What I am comparing is the response to allegations, which is called DARVO and it's very useful that Dr. Freyd has coined this term because it gives us a mechanism to understand what's going on when a person is accused of something that they deny it immediately, then they attack the person who is accusing them. They then reversed the victim and offender so that the person who is accusing them of being harassed is now the offender is the person who's really the problem and they themselves, the abuser or the victim.

I really encourage anyone to look up Dr. Freyd's work to understand better what DARVO is. To your second point about red roses. Yes, it is inappropriate to send red roses, which it's not my invention that red roses are a symbol of romantic love to a person in a professional setting. Absolutely and I think that that's just something we have to accept as a society that you don't send a woman you work with or man, you work with red roses on Valentine's day. That's a symbol of romantic love. That's not something that I invented. That's something that's basically, I think I have to credit Hallmark with but I think that's just a fright line.

Brian: I think we should probably clarify about that because a few people are calling to say, "What's wrong with sending roses?" That according to what I read, and I don't remember whether it was in Lindsey Boylan's post or an article about the context of it that said that that sending of roses was only to select female employees of Cuomo, which I think puts it in a different light.

Alexis: Thank you for that clarification, Brian. That is key. You cannot send your female employees select or what have you, red roses on Valentine's day.

Brian: Marie, in Pine Bush, New York. You're on WNYC. Hi, Marie.

Marie: Hi, I just want to say this may sound politically incorrect, but these are allegations, he's innocent until proven guilty. I feel a deep sense of debt and gratitude to Andrew Cuomo for his competent management of the COVID crisis when no one else was competent and kept me faith and sane, even though I got COVID, but I am still supporting him until I hear for sure that it's proven otherwise. [crosstalk]

Brian: Marie, thank you very much. Go ahead.

Alexis: I really understand Marie's position and feelings. I think that it can be really hard to hold two competing ideas in your head for all of us, the idea that somebody we felt assured by and who made us safe and absolutely, I also wrote about this in November, Andrew Cuomo was a symbol of humane competence and we absolutely needed that as a society.

It doesn't however, change the fact that Lindsey Boylan and what others have described is his system of abuse. It's complicated and tearing these things apart is complicated and I don't expect anyone to reflexively have an answer or know how they feel, but I also understand that feeling of anger and feeling confused and inclined to defend someone who [inaudible 00:24:37] safe. That's very normal.

The thing is when you have to spend the time to tease this apart and get into it and understand why it matters. Of course, yes, compared to Trump and compared to the hellacious experience in March and April, that we all barely lived through, not all of us lived through, Andrew Cuomo was a steady, competent, humane voice. Someone who took this seriously and thank God.

The question of competence now and I think you had state Senator Alessandra Biaggi earlier this week to discuss it is being reviewed appropriately. The governor sees very expanded executive powers and he also used that crisis to shoehorn in a very insidious corporate immunity clause into the budget. That all is important on pack as well. I'm not suggesting it's easy or that we're all going to do it right now, but it's critical to the understanding exactly the total picture we're looking at and that's hard work I appreciate.

Brian: Marie, let me follow-up and ask you while certainly innocent until proven guilty of any specific charge, how this lands with you as part of the pattern that's now being discussed more after the Ron Kim incident and other things and other people coming out of the woodwork and saying, "Oh yes, have you been abused by Andrew Cuomo?" Meaning verbally abused and this being part of a pattern, not just an isolated incident that has to do with inappropriate sexual behavior toward a woman.

Marie: I don't know if everybody's just jumping on him at once, getting on the bandwagon. I just feel loyalty to him. I appreciate what he did for us. I'm not going to just turn on him on a dime and I just don't know. I don't know what to say.

Brian: Marie, thank you.

Alexis: I think no one would ask for that. I don't think that when survivors come forward to explain their experience they want to be heard. I think that the listening process that we have to go through to understand what's happening is key and right now we're in a listening phase. It's important, I think, to do that listening before shutting down or rushing to a position. That's key. I'll tell you though this, I absolutely believe her and I'm aware of other reported and unreported cases like it. I think that that is something we'll probably read more about as people feel emboldened and feel supported by a high level of public trust in that process.

Brian: Is one important point here the relationship between alleged sexual behavior toward an employee and the non-sexual bullying that Ron Kim in many others describes.

Alexis: I'm sorry, Brian. I am confused by the question. Can you repeat that?

Brian: I'm curious to get you to reflect on the relationship between alleged sexual behavior toward an employee and the non-sexual bullying that Ron Kim and many others have pretty well-documented by now.

Alexis: Sure again, I don't call it bullying so much because I think the lens that encompasses both of them is abusive tactic. It's different. The lens I would say here that applies is it's a gendered lens in either case. The way in which you harass women may be different than the way in which you harass men. Both are very gendered. What struck me so much about the experience which Ron Kim counted was how the phone call opened with the governor asking him if he is an honorable man.

To me, that has so many connotations to it that are so very, very gendered and very interesting and certainly not the focus of the discussion we've been having, but when you look at it within a lens of control and abuse, and also the idea of unchecked [inaudible 00:28:53] that's the problem here. When you're comfortable violating norms or treating people as part of a machine that upholds your own interest and your own very particular process, that's what they have in common.

Brian: I'm going to take another call of pushback because it is what we've got on eight of our 10 lines. Susan, in Brooklyn you're on WNYC. Hi, Susan.

Susan: Hi. I just wanted to ask two questions. If you could please address why 30 governors are under attack nationwide, but you who I love and I listen to all the time are gleefully piling on Governor Cuomo? It's disturbing to me and many, many others. It's obvious how happy people are to come out against him now. Where were they during the pandemic when he kept us all sane, he calmed us all down? Since he's become so popular worldwide, everyone came out of the woods to attack him.

They are all afraid of how he might run for president and win. Could you also address why his side is not offered on the program? Why is it always people who are against him and how convenient that she's coming out now that she's running for Manhattan Borough President to get press. That's all I have to say. I'm so annoyed with this.

Brian: Thank you very much. As far as the program, we are following the news on this. We are not making this up, and I just say we are not leaving this. This is what's happening in New York state right now. There is a gathering storm around our governor, which is why we're talking about our governor, and on this local show, and maybe not in an equivalent way talking about Gavin Newsom in California who's also under a lot of pressure for other reasons right now and is another one of those Democratic governor, who the Republicans are only too gleeful to see taken down or criticized in any way.

As for the governor's side, we had another state senator, in addition to Alessandra Biaggi who was critical of the governor this week. We had Liz Krueger earlier in the week, who was very reluctant to pass judgment on the governor after the Ron Kim incident. There aren't a lot of people right now saying the governor isn't a bully, and that they don't take these charges seriously, so that as context. Alexis, for your part, anything you want to add to Susan.

Alexis: Absolutely. Susan, I wanted to correct this idea that people are gleefully piling on. The abuse, actually, Lindsey Boylan details took place several years ago. This question comes up often whenever anyone speaks out about sexual harassment or workplace harassment of any kind is, "Why didn't you report it at the time? What's the motivation now?" That's a very common response.

I want to just contest the idea that there's anything gleeful in it. It actually comes with great personal costs. I think I referenced before that Lindsey Boylan had her confidential employment records leaked to a news outlet. I'm sure that emotionally and psychologically, she is dealing with a lot right now having put this story in the world. It is never a gleeful act for anyone to actually recount their abuse, especially not against somebody who is extremely powerful and can mobilize the full force of the state.

Again, I would just say that that is a misnomer. The costs to speaking up, far outweigh the benefits every time and I have never known or worked with a survivor whoever felt joyous, often there's relief, often there's a sense of release, but usually, it's wrapped in fear, anxiety, and oftentimes a lot of physical problems as well because of the toll that takes. I don't think anyone is gleeful.

Brian: This is another level though, even though it fits allegedly into a pattern of behavior that you've been describing, that we've been discussing. One thing to be a jerk in your management style, it's another thing to be accused of unwanted physical touching, which he hasn't publicly in the past for his whole long career, as far as I know.

Alexis: Sure.

Brian: It does take it to another level. Certainly, when somebody's running for office at the time, that when makes an allegation like this, it needs to be asked about in that context, of course, not to say that it makes it easier for her to win the race as opposed to harder, but of course, we have to ask all the skeptical questions.

Alexis: I think that's absolutely a question that many people will have. You know what? Since she is running for office, I would expect her to get that on the campaign trail from potential voters, and that will be normal. She's running for public office, it's a different level of accountability. So it is a question I'm sure she will get.

Brian: Now that I've subjected you to three in a row pushback callers, I'm going to take one on the other side before we run out of time. Lisa, in Forest Hills, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Susan: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. Actually, because I've been avoiding the news for the past several weeks, but I tuned in to you because I love you so much. I had to Google MeToo timeline because what's unforgivable about this to me is that he did some of these things after the MeToo movement started. He couldn't say, "Oh, I didn't know that that would be looked at as being--" you know what I'm saying?

Brian: Right, and allegedly we say again, but yes. The timeline is interesting and I understand.

[crosstalk]

Susan: I don't like the-- Is she guilty till proven innocent? I'm already taken aback by some of these pushback callers and actually thought I must have heard wrong when they're dialing in on that. That's the main thing I wanted to say though is that if allegedly he did this-- It says he did some things in 2018 which was a full year after some people have lost their careers over similar actions. It just really makes me question his judgment and it's unforgettable to me if it is correct.

Brian: Thank you, Lisa. We are almost out of time. Alexis, what will happen next for you as a political consultant? How do you see this going, and how should it go? Some people are saying he should resign or be impeached already because of the Nursing Home scandal. This adds to what the-- Ron Kim piece adds to it, mostly Republicans. Others are saying that he should lose his emergency powers in COVID, which may or may not be relevant as a punishment. What do you see?

Alexis: I don't think this is a question for me as a "political consultant" here, this is really an apolitical question, and we should think of it in that way. I defer again to the Sexual Harassment Working Group, which is really the leading voice and authority on this question. Their answer to it is that the governor must be, there must be an investigation that's independent, defined as apart from the governor supervisory and appointment powers.

I think all the callers who called him before about wanting to hear more information see the innocent and proven guilty, all this stuff is very nebulous, honestly. The idea that an independent investigation is important, not just for the public, but frankly, for the people who come forward is key, and that's for our larger system of Democratic governance, which is when someone is accused of something serious, we have a mechanism by which to hold them accountable, especially somebody who is in a position of such broad authority. That we have to have one system of accountability for everyone and that nobody is above it. I think that's just a key tenet of democracy and democratic governance.

Brian: Alexis Grenell, founder of the political consulting firm, Pythia Public, a Nation columnist, and Daily News contributor. Alexis, thanks a lot.

Alexis: Thank you, Brian.

 

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