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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer at WNYC. Here's one finding from last week's election in New York City. Asian-American voters who have been trending very much toward the Democratic Party in recent years nationwide voted more for Republicans than many people might have predicted.

Democratic Congresswoman Grace Meng of Queens tweeted last week that pending the final absentee ballot count, it looked like Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa came in first in five different assembly districts with large Asian-American populations, including the district in Flushing and thereabouts, represented by Democratic Assemblyman Ron Kim, who'll join us in a second.

One very positive result for Democrats and Asian-Americans, a record five Asian-American city council candidates were elected last week, all of them Democrats, and Asian-American turnout last week, as in 2020 nationally, was very high compared to other voters. Assemblyman Ron Kim does join us now. His 40th assembly district includes parts of Flushing, Whitestone, College Point, and Murray Hill. Assemblyman, always good to have you on the show. Welcome back to WNYC.

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Thanks for having me back on Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You're not just a Democrat, you're a leading progressive within the party and your district obviously voted for you, but apparently, they voted Sliwa over Eric Adams for mayor. Can you confirm those stats from Grace Meng? Why do you think the vote came out that way [unintelligible 00:01:33]?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: I absolutely think it's alarming. Congress member is right to point this out and we've been pointing this out for several years now. I think the Asian-American, mostly immigrant voters, they weren't voting against Eric Adams, I think they were voting against the current mayor. Curtis Sliwa wasn't campaigning against Adams, he was out there campaigning against the current administration.

The Asian-American voters have been very upset about the lack of engagement by this current administration going back many years around education policy, around small business, they felt like they did not have a seat at the table. This is a lesson learned for the entire Democratic establishment. I think it's easy, Brian, to just see the surface level of his and just reduce it as a Asians being more conservative, et cetera, and with how maybe we should embrace more conservative policies.

I really think you got to go beyond the surface here. This isn't about being conservative, progressive, or even liberal. I think it's really about rewarding the hard work with the group of voters, not just Asians, Latino voters as well, who suffer from the worst economic divide than any other racial groups. That is a fact and a data point that has not been talked about often among the Democrat circles in the city of New York.

Brian Lehrer: When you talk about the two issues that you identified; education and small business, those are generally thought of in relative terms as conservative issues. When we're talking about eliminating G&T programs or not, or the single test admission for the elite specialized high schools. Also, small business, it's usually about Democrats want too much regulation, too many burdens on the small businesses, and Republicans want less. Why aren't those conservative issues?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: I think for us to continue to just portray that as conservative issues, we're not meeting the moments of real working family struggles in the city in New York. These are immigrant workers who suffer from again, the worst economic divide. We have the widest gap between the rich and the poor. We're also the fastest growing minority group with the worst poverty rate than any other racial groups.

One unique thing I think, culturally of Asian-Americans-- working class Americans, so we've been told to come here and be conditioned to follow the rules and work hard. When we do that, we are viewed and perceived by the establishment as having conservative values. I don't think it's fair to just reduce our culture and our ability to work hard as being conservative. We need to sit down and figure out, "What is the missing gap here?"

It boils down to how do we reward hard work. The working class struggles, I think, are reduced by all political establishments. Where they find comfort either treating our community like a giant ATM machine to raise money from which the current mayor has done many times coming into my district. Expect us to be a model minority, or just be at the bottom of the racial and gender political order. No political group is taking the time and effort to address a working class needs.

Brian Lehrer: When you talk about the highest poverty rates, that might surprise a lot of people. Certainly, at least, non Asian-American people and maybe even some Asian-American people, because the thinking out there certainly outside the community would be, "But wait, Asian-Americans are getting into Stuyvesant and Bronx Science and Harvard and Yale, et cetera, at faster rates than a lot of other groups, more in professional class jobs than Blacks or Latinos," a lot of people would guess. That's not true?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: That's not true. The data shows that we have the fastest growing poverty rate than any other racial group and that is a direct result from our previous data, which is the worst economic divide. We have the worst concentrated wealth, and the worst concentrated poverty than other groups. Instead of understanding why we are suffering from this, we often become victims of pop culture.

When we turn on TV on Netflix, we often see movies like Crazy Rich Asians and we have these biases and stereotypes that all Asians are going to Harvard and living on Fifth Avenue, but that's not the case. We have a number of Asian-American groups that are left behind, that are struggling, and the city and the state are not talking to them and their needs. People like my parents who moved here in the 1980s, they believe in the so called American dream.

My mother died thinking no matter how hard she worked, she couldn't beat that person born on third base. When a whole generation, Brian, of immigrants share that same sentiment, our city, our country are literally hanging on by thread, because without these immigrant workers and the ability to be productive and be part of our ecosystem, there is no economy.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, Asian-American listeners of any background, you'll get first priority on the phones in this segment with Assemblyman Ron Kim. 212-433-WNYC. If you voted for Curtis Sliwa or any other Republican, tell Ron Kim why, especially if you voted for Biden over Trump, let's say. Then for Republican this year for mayor or city council or judge, why the switch.

Maybe if you're from the particular Queens neighborhoods that our guest, Assemblyman Kim, represents; Flushing, Whitestone, Murray Hill, College point, and you voted for him but then for a Republican this year, why was that? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Other people may call as well and you can also all tweet your question or comment @BrianLehrer.

Assemblyman, Congresswoman Meng's tweet about all this said the Democratic Party better start giving more of an sh about Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. If you agree with that, what would giving more of an sh look like for the incoming Adams administration and the incoming new city council?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: I think the new mayor has already done a good job of creating space for Asian-American leaders. I know that he's already included folks that I know in the transition team. Around education, policy is particularly important to us. The outcome I do not believe in a test centric, top down approach to education.

For Asian-American parents who have spent everything they had-- these are working class families to get their kids into the G&T, the Stuyvesant sacrifice, everything, their blood, sweat, and tears for the next generation to have a shot, to not even have a voice, to not even have a seat to determine what the future of public school education can look like is not right.

I think the next mayor has indicated that that is not the direction he'll be taking. There'll be an inclusive approach to education. Secondly, there's two other things. I already mentioned small business, but public safety is another big issue. As you know, every time we turn on social media, the last several months, we're seeing Asian-Americans get violently attacked and beat up on the street, especially our older adults.

At a point, the society has become desensitized to the violence, but we're living through this nightmare every single year where young people, old people are even afraid to leave their homes and go on subways because we feel like we're being targeted. This is a trend, Brian, that goes back many decades. Every time we have a social health, economic downturn, Asian-Americans have been always targeted in this country, and we need to have an honest conversation why. What is going on at the very local level where we are always turning on Asians as the primary targets and the city needs to do a lot more to protect our constituents.

Brian Lehrer: One big upset was in the city council race in Northeast Queens; Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston, just east of your district after the Nassau County line, where Republican Vickie Paladino apparently defeated a well known Democrat, Tony Avella, who's gotten voted in in that district before, pending the absentee ballot count. I'm not sure that it's final-final yet, but it's looking that way. Any analysis of what happened to cause that city council seat to flip to the GOP right there in Eastern Queens?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Yes. I've knocked on those doors from Bayside to Whitestone to Fresh Meadows for years now. I've said this to our Democratic leaders going back four, five years. Many of my Democratic voters, when I knocked on these doors, they weren't upset at Donald Trump, they were complaining about Bill de Blasio in this part of Queens. I think the way that this current mayor has approached this part of Queens has been a big factor.

I'm hoping the new mayor has a whole different way of approaching local issues, and local working-class issues because that's who we are out here. We're not into intergenerational wealth, we're first-time homeowners or renters. We have a family and we're trying to get by and our needs are not being met. I hope the new mayor can understand that and work with us to real solutions.

Brian Lehrer: Another race had former Democratic City Council member, Paul Vallone, also well known. The Vallone family, his father was speaker of city council. He was previously elected. Paul Vallone apparently lost for a judgeship to Republican Joseph Kasper pending the absentee ballot account as well. The New York Post says that would be the first time a Republican was ever elected judge in Queens, and that the lack of Asian support for Vallone contributed to the upset. Same analysis? They were really upset with Bill de Blasio?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: I think the backlash is real. It was top-down, bottom-up, we saw it on every single race. For my friend, Paul Vallone, who I've known for many years and his family, with his last name to lose that race, it is unheard of, especially to a perennial candidate who have run for every single seat imaginable for the last 20 years. No one took him even seriously, the Republican candidate. For him to walk away with the win, it's indicative of the backlash that the Democratic establishment is suffering from.

Brian Lehrer: James in Queens, you're on WNYC with Assemblyman Ron Kim. Hi, James.

James: Hi, I would like to talk about when you were asking about why Asian-Americans may be voting more Republican. I will just to talk about how my parents feel alienated by the current Democratic movements. As you were talking about how Asian-Americans feel about this SHSAT, which is the Specialized High School Administration Test, and about how we are, as you mentioned, how we're juxtaposed with how Black and Latino students getting in and Asian-American student getting in.

There's often this divide that Asian-Americans have become portrayed in some instances by both sides as complicit in the marginalization of Black and Latino people in some ways. That we stand by, and we just watch. That's not really fair because Asian-Americans have also been taking the burden of hate crimes, [unintelligible 00:14:02] the Asian hate. Even when Asian-Americans first got here in 1871, that was the largest national lynching in American history.

I think a lot of Asian-Americans are feeling alienated because we're being treated that we are just watching and not doing anything. What are we supposed to do?

Brian Lehrer: Assemblyman Ron Kim, want to talk to James?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Yes, James, I think you bring up a very interesting but complex issue around the SHSAT and our failing public school program of elite high schools as well as the G&T program. This is a classic, for me, case of how easy it is for people in power to manage inequality.

Instead of expanding the pie, so if you're a good test taker, like you have a path to a good school, but if you're good at other things like chess or outside activities, and you have a different path to a different type of quality school, we should also build those pipelines as well. Instead of focusing on expanding quality high schools, we're fueling a rat race, pitting communities against each other without getting to the core problem of fixing segregation and racism in our public schools.

Asian-Americans are in a unique place, where we can actually play a powerful role to end the vicious cycle of violence and state-backed violence against Black and brown communities. As much as we have poverty, we also have-- as Brian alluded, economic and cultural power more so than ever that we've had in many decades.

We're in positions where we can actually help influence policy outcomes that speak to the improvement of social conditions for our Black and brown communities, instead of individualizing everything where we are invalidating other communities.

I think as long as we occupy that space in an intelligent way, there can be a win-win outcome for all of us, and we can all overcome inequality collectively, instead of being pitted against each other.

Brian Lehrer: James, thank you very much for your call. Nationally, to take an even broader geographical and longer-term time view, there's been a long-term swing toward the Democrats among Asian-American voters, but back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected, he only got less than a third of the Asian-American vote. It's gone gradually more democratic since then, and way more since Donald Trump burst upon the scene with anti-immigrant xenophobia on his sleeve.

Why do you think the parties were more competitive then, and could that be starting to swing back the other way now if the Democrats don't do certain things?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Yes. I think we're at the cusp of suffering from identitarian politics. For me, it all boils down to economic disparities and injustice. Asian-Americans are no different than other groups who suffer from poverty and who suffer from extreme economic divides. If progressives and liberal establishments do not recognize our plights in our poverties, we have no place to land. That's what we're seeing.

We're frustrated, we're working 12-hour shifts without getting our wages collected as workers in restaurants, and we're not seeing anyone stick up for us. Unless we address that core economic injustice, it is natural for any group to lean toward identitarian politics and get picked up by conservative rhetoric because that's the only thing left. When we're angry and we are frustrated, it's easier to look at other groups and hate them.

Then it leaves opportunities for people like Donald Trump to come in and play their rhetoric. "It's not you Asian-Americans, it's the other groups that are not working as hard. You should hate on them." That's how we create race wars. I'm hoping to God that we don't reach that point, and Asian-Americans can overcome this together with our progressive liberal and Democratic allies to get this right.

Brian Lehrer: Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens with us for another few minutes. Assemblyman, some of our listeners may remember you were last on the show last winter after Governor Cuomo had called you on the phone and you said threatened to destroy your career unless you helped him cover up the cover-up of the real number of nursing home deaths during the early days of COVID.

He didn't want you to reveal what you were told in a meeting by his chief of staff, Melissa DeRosa, that they didn't release the numbers to you in the legislature because of a federal investigation into Cuomo and the nursing home deaths. As you heard it, he then called you to bully you into shutting up. Since then, of course, the governor resigned after the Attorney General's report on the multiple sexual harassment charges against him, and he has now been indicted criminally on one of those allegations.

Quite a sequence of events. Looking back, how do you see the relationship between you coming out publicly with your bullying charge and everything else that has gone down since?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Yes, the throw line here is his pattern of behaviors, his pattern of abuse of power and abusive behavior, whether it's toward older adults, to lawmakers, to the press, and to the 10 women who have bravely come out to tell the truth about the sexual assault and harassment. He is clearly a man who thinks he's above the law at a time when this country has enough of people like that. My advice for any families with power and wealth and money who are raising young boys out there, look at Andrew Cuomo and make sure that your children don't grow up to be that way because that would be a disservice to all.

Brian Lehrer: The news yesterday was that the Attorney General Letitia James released hundreds of pages of transcripts of testimony by the governor and by his accusers to the investigation. Let me read a little bit of Politico's take on that from this morning and play one relevant clip of audio.

Politico says, "Cuomo is defiant," meaning in these transcripts when he was deposed, "blasting his questioners even as he acknowledged that he made many of the comments that got him in hot water, but said they were misconstrued or overblown. Yes, he did invoke the fictional character Daisy Duke in commenting on a female staffers appearance, but Cuomo said he meant it as a subtle reprimand because she was wearing shorts he considered inappropriate for the office.

Yes, he did kiss staffers, but "on the cheek as a rule" though, "there may be an occasion where a staff member kissed me on the lips." Yes, he did tell his first accuser Lindsey Boylan she resembled a former girlfriend of his, an admission that required a torturous back and forth on the definition of the word girlfriend, but it was "just small talk" according to Cuomo."

A few accusations he denied outright, particularly the charge that he groped an aide's breast at the governor's mansion, which has him facing criminal charges. "It would be an act of insanity," he said. Another outright denial, and here we're going to play the audio, another outright denial under oath that he even knows the song, Do You Love Me? That appears to be false, at least circa 29 When he was recorded singing portions of that song to former aide Charlotte Bennett, one of the accusers during this phone call.

Governor Cuomo: Hello.

Charlotte Bennett: Hi, Governor. This is Charlotte.

Governor Cuomo: Okay. [singing]

Charlotte Bennett: I am ready.

Governor Cuomo: You don't know that song.

Charlotte Bennett: No.

Governor Cuomo: Before your time.

Charlotte Bennett: It's before my time, but I appreciated the singing.

Governor Cuomo: [singing].

Charlotte Bennett: I'll have to listen now.

Governor Cuomo: Yes. It's like [unintelligible 00:22:44] '50s. It's before even my time.

Charlotte Bennett: Oh, there you go. Now, I've less of an excuse.

Governor Cuomo: You're ready?

Charlotte Bennett: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Whoa, so that was from 2019. Obviously, the governor appeared to be lying to the investigators when he said he doesn't even know that song because he sang it and then identified the title to Charlotte Bennett in that phone call. He would argue the context is still they were just chit chatting while they were getting ready to do whatever piece of business she called him to do. Any comment on any of that sequence of events?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Yes, Brian, first of all, I just lost my appetite for the rest of the day. That was such a creepy Cuomo moment. He has so many lies that he can't even keep track of. From the circuitous arguments that we see in the transcripts, the public has enough. This is going way too far. He's already resigned, and he needs to be held accountable.

I still believe the assembly has more work to be done because we still have investigations into the nursing homes as well as $5.1 million book deal and it's about time that we hold him accountable to make sure that we don't repeat the same type of mistakes moving forward.

Brian Lehrer: Are you supporting anyone yet in the Democratic primary for governor? How will you evaluate them if not?

Assemblyman Ron Kim: I've been very steadfast on holding everyone accountable around nursing homes and justice for older adults. I will not be supporting any candidate who are accepting money from hospital and nursing home lobbyists and the industry. That is one of my main standards of who I will be endorsing in the governor's race next year.

Brian Lehrer: Democratic Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens District 40, that includes parts of Flushing, Whitestone, Murray Hill, and College Point. We always appreciate when you come on. Thank you very much.

Assemblyman Ron Kim: Thank you, Brian.

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