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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, it's starting to look like Governor Kathy Hochul might run away with the Democratic nomination to run for a full term. What was shaping up as a battle among the cast of New York's democratic political heavyweights now looks more like the incredible shrinking June 28th primary. Attorney General Letitia James announced then dropped out. Former Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced yesterday that he will not run when almost everybody expected him to. Maybe the new Siena College poll showing Mayor de Blasio more than 30 points behind Hochul had something to do with it.

For the moment that leaves New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Queens and Long Island Congressman Tom Swasey as the major names challenging Hochul, and they are even further behind Hochul if the Siena poll is right than de Blasio was, and any rumors of Andrew Cuomo trying to win his old job back on a platform of, "I didn't do it. They're just out to get me," seems like a humiliation in the making so is very unlikely to happen. It could actually turn out that the Republican gubernatorial primary is the more competitive race with Andrew Giuliani, Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, and maybe upstate businessman Harry Wilson.

Yesterday's budget address by Hochul is something that could help her even more because, surprise, despite COVID or because of it, the state is flush with cash this year and the Governor announced ways she proposes spreading money around, different from Mayor Eric Adams who felt compelled to ask his agencies to prepare budget cuts during his first days in office. Even this tough-on-crime mayor, to adjust our sights downstate, had to adjust his language between Sunday and yesterday to sound more tough on crime after the awful Time Square murder of pushing a woman named Michelle Go from the platform onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Here's Adams on Sunday after it happened.

Mayor Eric Adams: What our battle is in the subway system is fighting the perception of fear that cases like this could happen.

Brian Lehrer: He changed his tune yesterday from describing merely a perception of fear as he put it on the subway to say even he himself doesn't feel safe.

Mayor Eric Adams: Day one January 1 when I took the train, I saw the homelessness, the yelling, the screaming early in the morning, crimes right outside of the platform. We know we have a job to do, we're going to do both. We're going to drive down crime and we're going to make sure New Yorkers feel safe in our subway system. They don't feel that way now. I don't feel that way when I take the train.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams yesterday. Let's talk Hochul, Adams, and more now with Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor, co-host of the New York City Politics podcast FAQ NYC, and author of the book Black Ethnics. Hi, Christina. Thanks for joining. Welcome back to WNYC.

Christina Greer: Thanks, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Just about all the politics watchers I could think of thought de Blasio was going to throw his hat into the ring. Were you surprised by yesterday's announcement?

Christina Greer: Not really. Shout out to all the diligent journalists who have been [chuckles] preparing for this moment. Brian, my genuine question to a lot of your colleagues was always who would be in de Blasio's base? His approval rating in the five boroughs wasn't that great. Obviously, Long Island is a non-starter, Westchester, you talk to people from Long Island and you would think that he was the worst mayor ever and he wasn't even their mayor. You have someone like Kathy Hochul who understands upstate, but also Jumaane Williams, who four years ago campaigned upstate, built a lot of friendships and coalitions, we saw the success of India Walton initially in the primary.

There is a progressive streak upstate that I think Jumaane Williams will capitalize on in ways that de Blasio just couldn't and wouldn't. My question was always, who would be voting for him, and what donors would be interested in donating to someone who's such a long shot with such a disapproval rating from not just people in the five boroughs but across New York state?

Brian Lehrer: If my quick read of the Siena poll is right, de Blasio actually led the field in polling among Black voters, did you see that?

Christina Greer: I did see that. Black voters are very savvy voters because they understand the complexities not just of their own interests, but the limitations of white voters when they go to the ballot box. We know that the vast majority of Black voters are not progressives say in the wing of a Jumaane Williams-type campaign, so that does make sense. We also know that Black voters aren't necessarily the majority of voters, especially when de Blasio would be trying to cobble together a statewide coalition.

I just didn't see that, especially since Kathy Hochul's definitely been trying to make inroads within the Black community, not just with Brian Benjamin at her side, but picking up endorsements from various NAACP chapters and Black organizations throughout the state. She's made it very clear that she would not leave Black voters just to Jumaane Williams or Bill de Blasio.

Brian Lehrer: If de Blasio's 12% goes basically to Jumaane adding to his 11%, that would be mid-20s. Hochul is over 40% but it starts to get a little closer and maybe Swasey siphons from Hochul's center. Do we have a real race?

Christina Greer: I like competitive races. I like competitive primaries because it forces candidates to talk about real issues as opposed to just platitudes. I think Tom Swasey being in the race does definitely handicap Kathy Hochul in certain ways. There are many New Yorkers who want a more centrist to moderate big D democratic governance. We still have a percentage of New Yorkers who feel that Andrew Cuomo was wrongfully ousted and resigned over allegations that seem minor to them. Tom Swasey in some of his rhetoric initially seemed to be going after that particular type of voter.

It'll be interesting to see in the debates, how Swasey especially but maybe even Jumaane Williams, try to pin Kathy Hochul to the misdeeds of former Governor Cuomo since they weren't partners for over seven years. We also know though that when female candidates are in a race, male opposition candidates have to be a little savvy in how they attack their female opponents so as not to be seen as condescending. We saw this with Joe Biden debating Sarah Palin. We've seen it time and time again with the mayor's race. You need to make sure that your message is coming across clearly so that you don't alienate especially female voters, but even male voters who are attuned to that type of aggression.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners with Christina Greer, we can take your phone calls. How's Governor Hochul doing in your opinion? How's Mayor Adams doing in your opinion? Listeners, have you been riding the subways, and do you feel safe on the subways or anything else for Fordham political science professor and co-host of The New York Politics Podcast FAQ NYC Christina Greer, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Staying on the governor's race for another couple of minutes. Jumaane Williams can stay in the race and raise issues from a progressive standpoint and have nothing really to lose as he remains Public Advocate even if he loses the primary. We'll talk more about his campaign as we go.

Swasey can't run in the gubernatorial primary unless he gives up his seat in Congress. He's polling in the Siena poll at 6%. Do you think he might drop out too?

Christina Greer: I don't know, history has shown us that white male candidates tend not to drop out when they're facing female candidates or candidates of color because there are a certain percentage of voters who need/want to vote for a white male candidate, and he's giving them that option. I don't know if he's looking at his long-term future and saying, well, obviously he can get re-elected to Congress and have a pretty stable occupation in that route. I think maybe the next month will show us. The budget came out, Kathy Hochul's making negotiations and dreaming big and putting some big proposals on the table.

I think also how she deals with Omicron and the COVID variants that will come through New York State, and whether or not primary voters especially feel as though she's leading in a way that makes sense for them to sign up for another four years.

Brian Lehrer: Jumaane Williams, as you referenced before, also ran against Hochul in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor four years ago. Do you see whatever progressive critiques he had of her then when she was Cuomo's running mate as relevant to today?

Christina Greer: Well, it'll be interesting to see how Jumaane Williams presents his campaign against Hochul because the job of the lieutenant governor is very different, I think, from the job of Governor. At the time, Kathy Hochul wasn't necessarily seen as a candidate for Governor, even though Andrew Cuomo's transgressions were pretty widely known. I don't think that New York State is a progressive state at all. I think New York State is a red state that just has a lot of blue cities, and we tend to go blue presidentially, but there are a lot of parts of New York-

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting.

Christina Greer: - that-- I spent a lot of time in New York during COVID, in New York State, and there were a lot of Trump signs, and there are a lot of people who are very, very red.

Brian Lehrer: It's like the rest of the country in a certain respect, if we can digress here, because so many people live in the metropolitan areas who tend to vote Democratic that the statewide vote tends to go democratic, but as I guess you know, if you travel around the state, if you look at the map and you go county by county, there are, what, 63 counties in New York State, something like that. The majority of the counties went for Trump.

Christina Greer: Absolutely. I always tell my students, I'm like, "All states are red states when you look at county by county maps, this country is bright red and you just have your pockets of blue cities scattered in various states. Every four years, we talk about blue states and red states, but actually, they're all red states. It's just do you have enough big blue cities to turn your state blue every four years?" I think Jumaane Williams definitely has an uphill battle because not only are we not a very blue state, we're not a progressive state.

Dare I say no states are. He's going to try and make his case in a primary where a lot of people quite honestly are busy or distracted or just straight up just interested in politics, and especially since the primaries in June. It'll be interesting to see if they can actually garner attention. I think that there's not just voter apathy, but in New York State, when we ask our citizens to vote so frequently, there's a bit of voter fatigue as well. A lot of folks are just like, "Well if it's a Democrat, that's fine," and they may not necessarily turn out on June 28th as you mentioned.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think Jumaane Williams would at least succeed in pushing Hochul to the left on some particular issues, and is it clear to you yet what those issues might be that he's prioritizing?

Christina Greer: Right. Yes, I'm not exactly sure what his, say, top three priorities will be, but he reminds me of Al Sharpton in 2004 when Al Sharpton ran for the presidency. I do think that Jumaane is running to win, don't get me wrong. When Al Sharpton ran in 2004, he was very clear that he was running to force issues on the table, to make John Edwards and John Kerry talk about certain social safety net issues, race and inequality, marriage equity, the environment, the war issues that they were just happy to ignore on the debate stage.

I'm really hoping that Jumaane Williams will push Kathy Hochul on not just the environment and transportation and issues that we need downstate, but how are we dealing with our prison population? How are we dealing with housing equities and inequities throughout the state? I'm pretty sure that he will look at some of the policy points of India Walton and see how that resonated with voters in Buffalo and extrapolate that to a larger narrative for the entire state.

Brian Lehrer: The Democratic socialist India Walton who we've had on the show who won the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo and then the more centrist Democrat who lost ran as an independent and beat her in the general election. Lessons, whatever we want to take from them, from that Buffalo race. All right, a caller about de Blasio dropping out. Larry in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Larry.

Larry: Hi, good morning, lady and gentlemen. Yes, if you listen to de Blasio's statement, he said that he's going to-- I can't quote him verbatim as it's like he said that he's going to fight with everything that he's got [unintelligible 00:14:07] for equality or equity. I think what he's doing, given that he's not polling well and he's on popularity, I think he's sitting it out this four-year period kind of like a Hillary Clinton thing. Remember when she gave up on Secretary of State and sat out for four years and came back? Then, he's going to do that and look at the tea leaves and see his chances next four years time. I do think that other people should just give Governor Kathy a chance for some female governor.

She's never been governor, she's lieutenant governor and all that, and just give her a chance and see how things work. Fact of the matter is Congressman Swasey is going to drop out because if he doesn't, he's going to lose his seat and he runs the risk of a Republican grabbing that seat. Jumaane Williams is not going to get the nomination. Number one, you have a Black male lieutenant governor already, so she's going to prevail. They should just keep their money and their time and support her. I wanted to say something about Neil Adams but you have not discussed it yet. You know who this old [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: I'll give you a chance to do that in a minute. I just want to say that I love when callers are paying attention so much like you, Larry, to the quotes, to the polls, to history. To even know who the lieutenant governor is, which puts you in rarefied air among people who live in New York state.

Larry: Oh, thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Just want to give you those props but also, I'm curious how you yourself thought of Mayor de Blasio's performance in office.

Larry: Truth be told, I liked him because a number of things that he's not getting credit for and he himself is not mentioning is a very important thing [unintelligible 00:16:10] he created NYC Key here, the great program. NYC Key is a great program. It's like an HMO using HHC hospitals. I benefit from it. It's a great, great program that he created in the last year and a half or so. He hasn't mentioned that. They keep talking about the 3-K [unintelligible 00:16:33]. I think there's a misstep but he's a human.

Brian Lehrer: Larry, what did you want to say about Adams before you go?

Larry: His naivety. He's living in denial. He's talking about he takes a train, come on. He has security, he doesn't take the train like myself and other people, central service workers [unintelligible 00:17:03] day and night. His was a whole different story. For him to backtrack and face reality [unintelligible 00:17:11] means that he doesn't know what he was talking about. The fact of the matter is, lady and gentlemen, I'm not surprised that these things happen. We see daily the subway stations and trains are awash with mentally ill people. It is crazy. It is absolutely crazy. There's so many times that I have to intervene on the train protecting women. They're all over.

Brian Lehrer: Be careful out there.

Larry: Yes. I was robbed twice. Sat on the train, just dozed off, and when I woke up, my bag was gone. Goes off again and my wallet was removed from my internal coat breast pocket. I've never reported those two instances, but those contribute to the statistics. When you're saying that-

Brian Lehrer: I understand.

Larry: -robberies and crime and so forth is low, it's more than they're saying.

Brian Lehrer: When he says perception. Larry, thank you so much for that call. Please call us again as we continue with Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor. Great Call, first of all, Christina, and interesting his take on de Blasio reading the tea leaves of the polls and he said maybe waiting four more years, that would assume that his next shot would be to run for governor again. I don't know where an opening would be for him to run for something. I don't see it in the near future, but what do you think his real choices are for keeping his hat in the ring? Larry got the quote right that de Blasio said he's going to stay in public life somehow to fight inequality.

Christina Greer: Right. I think we also just have to remember that so many of our elected officials, I use this term for Cuomo all the time, they're essentially raised in captivity. If they're not running for office or they're not in office, they don't really know what to do with themselves. I don't really see an electoral path for Bill de Blasio. Maybe if something implodes over the next four years on the statewide level but if Kathy Hochul is successful, we don't have term limits for governors in the state, she could ostensibly run again and win again. I think de Blasio will have an uphill battle.

Again, Brian, I just don't know, besides a pocket of New Yorkers, primarily Black New Yorkers who still support de Blasio and they really do appreciate some of his policies, don't forget a lot of Black New Yorkers felt completely ignored and neglected by three terms of Bloomberg and two terms of Giuliani, so de Blasio was definitely a breath of fresh air, but who's going to give him money, especially when he's not sitting in a mayoral team that can trade favors the way politicians do? Who's really going to vote for him besides people in say four of the five boroughs?

I just don't know how deep his roots are throughout the state and if people are interested in his brand of politics, largely because the critique by any opponent would be, well, when you had an important job, you didn't seem interested in said job for three-quarters of the time. Why would we trust you to become governor when it seems as though you're highly distracted whenever you actually get the office that you said you wanted?

Brian Lehrer: When I threw out the caller question and gave a menu of things, people might want to bring up how's Hochul doing, how's Adams doing, do you feel safe on the subway? Guess which topic blew up the phones?

Christina Greer: Which one?

Brian Lehrer: The subways.

Christina Greer: Of course.

Brian Lehrer: Larry touched on it at the end of his call, which was primarily about the governor's race. Jen in Brooklyn. Jen, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jen: Hi, Brian. I first wanted to say that I actually completely agree with the previous caller Larry who voiced both some gratitude for de Blasio, who I think doesn't get enough credit, being thrown into an impossible situation during his mayorship. Also that Eric Adams seems to have some level of naivety, but to go back to the subway. Now, I'm a New York native, I was born and raised here. I've been riding the subway since I was six years old, riding the subway alone since I was 16. I own a dog-walking business which requires both myself and my staff to ride the subway multiple times a day, many times a day in order to get from one appointment to the next.

We've experienced so much more threats of either violence or just feeling uncomfortable, unsafe, since the pandemic, that we've actually had to make adjustments to the services we provide. We no longer really try to come in before 10:00 AM. We don't provide services after 7:00 mainly so that our staff can get on the train home before it's too late. We stopped providing lots of services because we're seeing so much extra conflict on the subways. For example, one of my staff members was a victim in just a random pepper spray and run attack while he was waiting on the train between appointments.

This was in the middle of the afternoon at 14th Street station off the [unintelligible 00:22:50], so in a really wealthy neighborhood, but we've also seen so much more conflict just car-to-car outside of the actual COVID risk of just you get on a train and you hope everyone's wearing a mask, and if someone's not, you go to the other side of the car if you can, but it's to the point where in my daily commute, just getting from my section of Brooklyn into Manhattan, I might have to change trains. I might have to change cars several times-

Brian Lehrer: To get away from something uncomfortable.

Jen: -just to get away from something that is really on the edge of violence. Again, I've been riding the subway since I was six. I understand the difference between someone who is mentally compromised and mentally compromised with a flare of desperation and frustration to the point of-

Brian Lehrer: [inaudible 00:24:01] [crosstalk] in some way.

Jen: -I have no reason-- Yes, not even just they have no reason not to harm someone, but I've gotten onto this train with the motivation of causing harm to someone.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Jen, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you very, very much. Troubling firsthand report from Jen in Brooklyn. Going to go on the same topic to Carlos in Astoria. Carlos, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Carlos: Thank you, Brian. I'm a huge fan. I just want to say, and of course not to minimize anybody's experience, but I have not really seen a change in the subway service. It's a little bit slower. I take it in about five, six times a week from Astoria to Midtown. I don't know if we're taking a few media sensational headlines and overblowing them. Again, not to minimize anybody's run-ins with violence, but I don't see a difference and I still feel very safe. I'm really impressed with New Yorkers because I would say 99%, especially now with Omicron, 99.9% of everybody is wearing masks and being respectful for the most part. I still see us thriving and I see the subways as a really safe and great asset to the city.

Brian Lehrer: Carlos, thank you very much. Listener writes to back that up, since he's from Astoria, takes-- oops, where did that go? Ba, ba, ba, "My end train has not been any different and I take it twice a day," but let's hear what Beth in Astoria has to say. Hi, Beth. You're on WNYC.

Beth: Hi, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good, thank you.

Beth: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for calling. Hi.

Beth: Oh, I'm sorry. Brian, I am also a native New Yorker. I've been riding the train for decades ever since I was about 12 years old and I have never felt as unsafe on the trains as I have been this last year. It is so bad that I never thought I would have to do this, but I'm going to start carrying a weapon with me. I've already ordered it online. I'm just waiting for it to come.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Are you licensed?

Beth: Yes, it's not a gun and I don't want to say anything more than that, but it is a weapon.

Brian Lehrer: Sure. I assumed. You said weapon, I assumed gun, that's wrong. Go ahead.

Beth: No, no, no, no, no, no, not a gun. I take the train seven days a week. I do it for work, shopping, I do volunteer work, meet up friends, and so forth. I have complained about a particular incident to the MTA and to 311 numerous times. There's a very aggressive panhandler at one of my stations. I see him every day. It's a deserted station by the time I take it. A couple of days ago he started screaming at me because I wouldn't give him money. I felt very, very scared. This guy is there every day. Before I go into the station, I have to prepare myself mentally that this man is going to either verbally or possibly physically assault me and he's not mentally ill. He's all there. He's just a panhandler.

There have been [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: You're saying it's not just that, it's other things too, right?

Beth: It's not just that, yes. The number of mentally ill homeless on the trains has just exploded. I have seen mentally ill people get violent or threaten violence and these things are not in the statistics because I don't call the police. It seems pointless. Other people don't, we just get off and we go to the next car. Another example is there was a lady once at 63rd and Lex a few months ago and she was going up to every single person on the platform right in their face and spewing gibberish but she was so aggressive and I saw the line of people move away or walk away as she was coming down.

That I actually did call the police because I did feel like-

Brian Lehrer: They can help her.

Beth: -how close and literally in people's face but then I waited another six or seven minutes for the train to come and the police still hadn't come. I feel like the MTA, the city, NYPD has really abandoned the transit riders. Now I feel like I just have to protect myself.

Brian Lehrer: And, carry a weapon. Beth, thank you very much. We're going to keep going, Billy in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Billy.

Billy: Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me. I just wanted to say, back to Eric Adams' comments, I think it's a bit ridiculous. As a caller earlier said, how often does he ride the train? We all know he drives in from Jersey every day because he doesn't have a New York residence, but also I think people are calling in with very individual experiences, which I understand, but I think it is important to look at this on a macro level as well and to understand that if we have more mentally ill people on the train and we have a housing crisis, these are the things we need to fix. With Eric Adams rhetoric, I'm worried about backsliding into Giuliani or Bloomberg-esque era.

I feel like he's saying these things, he's saying the Subway's so unsafe, no one can ride the subway, and it worries me that we're going to backslide into broken window policies or maybe even a new version of stop and frisk, which I don't want for New Yorkers. I would just also say that sometimes New York gets a bad rap as being a tough place, but I think there's such a wonderful community here, and people on the subways do a lot to keep each other safe and [inaudible 00:30:22] [crosstalk]-

Brian Lehrer: Billy, I'm going to--

Billy: -be more-- Yes?

Brian Lehrer: I hear you, but I'm going to leave it there. I appreciate it. We're going to take one more in this set. Sunny, somewhere in New York City. Hi, Sunny. You're on WNYC.

Tony: Okay.

Brian Lehrer: Am I getting your name right? Is it Sunny or is it Tony?

Tony: Tony.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Tony. Sorry about that, I have a misprint here. Welcome to the show.

Tony: Hi. Okay, yes, no problem. Thank you. , I wanted to react to the gentleman who called a few callers ago who said he didn't notice any difference really in the subway since COVID. I want to say that, I think that if you watch the news, what you realize in a very short time is that it feels like 90% of the violence is toward women. If you look at the last three women pushed off of the subway and killed recently, it's terrible. Most of this violence it seems is toward women and I don't know what to do about that, but my point is that yes, men riding the subway I think seem to be a little safer and not notice as much and maybe we should notice more and do some protection when you see a woman being hassled-

Brian Lehrer: Tony, [cosstalk]--

Tony: -on the subway. My wife takes the subway and I worry about her.

Brian Lehrer: Tony, thank you so much for chiming in as we return now to our very patient guest, Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor. Well, Christina, that was quite an array of callers who we had there, and I guess to the last caller's point, it was more, and of course, this is such a tiny unscientific sample, but it was more the women who were calling in who seemed particularly alarmed by the safety conditions, at least as they see them on the subway.

Christina Greer: Absolutely, Brian. As someone who takes the subway regularly because I have mandatory in-person teaching this semester, there's definitely an increase in mentally unstable individuals on the train. Some of the data that has come out even before COVID, over 90% of women have reported some sort of assault or inappropriate touching or whatever it may be on the subway in their tenure riding it, so we definitely have something that needs to be addressed.

I do think that one of the callers who mentioned the concern about possibly going back to broken windows policing is a real concern for a lot of New Yorkers because, on the one hand, you want to make sure that mentally unstable individuals get the holistic services they need as housing and medical care, whilst also protecting New Yorkers on the subway.

I think the fear is that when the MTA police or the NYPD come on, that compassion element of dealing with people who are in the midst of crises seems to not necessarily be in the forefront of their behavior for a lot of individuals.

Eric Adams is going to have to figure out how to at once make people feel safer in the subway without returning to really draconian Giuliani policies that should never have been and we definitely do not need to return to in the 21st century.

Brian Lehrer: Did you think that even he with his tough-on-crime campaign that he won needed to adjust his rhetoric after the pushing of the woman off the platform at Time Square, Michelle Go, on Sunday. First, he talked about the perception of fear and a fear of crime rather than actual crime as a couple of our callers did. Then, by yesterday, he was saying that thing we played in the clip, "Even I don't feel safe," he put it, "when I ride the subway." Do you feel like he got pushed into an even tougher-on-crime stance than he wanted to take two days ago?

Christina Greer: Yes. I'm trying to be fair to mayor Adams as he gets his sea legs. He's dealing with two crises, one in the short term, one in the long term, and I wrote some pieces for TheGrio outlining some concerns I have about the new mayor, but one of them is behind the words of Eric Adams, I often understand what he means. There are lots of communities who are clutching their pearls and it's like, "Settle down. You have no crime in your community, stop it." It is a perception, but there are communities that are actively dealing with crime and there are some real concerns and some real fears.

I think Eric Adams needs to be a little more deliberate in his speech so that the intent behind his words actually comes out. Oftentimes I understand what he's saying because I know men like Eric Adams, but that's not necessarily what he said. To be a successful Mayor of New York City, especially with a very dedicated press Corps, I think he needs to slow down some of his rhetoric and understand that in the middle of a crisis, he needs to contextualize the short term and the long term issues that New Yorkers are concerned about, and then lay out a larger narrative, which I don't think he's accustomed to doing and he needs to do a much better job at that so that he doesn't spend days backtracking on, "Well, what I said was," in this circular conversation.

We've seen that happen with swagger, we've seen it happen with unskilled workers, now we've seen it happen with crime and violence, and so I think we behoove the mayor to, "I don't read speeches from a paper," but definitely have more succinct talking points to help lay out a problem in the short and long term.

Brian Lehrer: Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham, contributor to TheGrio as she just referenced, co-host of the New York City Politics podcast, FAQ NYC, and author of the book, Black Ethnics. Thanks as always, Christina, talk to you.

Christina Greer: Thanks so much, Brian.

 

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