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Good morning, as we speak with Andrew Cormo. He was a governor of the Empire State. He's running for mayor here in a contested primary to get to the election November fourth as well.
I'm going to begin with my family. I'm a Kodak.
Brat from western New York, and I remember it was like in Mary Poppins when the weather vane changed their I remember this is years ago, and a guy who was in the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball organization. It was a fractured New York City, a fractured Empire State, and your father in the middle.
Eighties pieced it together again.
I give the clearest memory of Republicans and Democrats and West Junior going, who is this guy?
How are you going to piece together a fractured New York City.
Yeah, it's a very good question. When my father took over at that time, the big fracture was upstate versus downstairs.
Right, you lived it, Yes, we lived it.
And Upstate for non New York is primarily Republican leaning conservative. New York City at that time very very liberal. So that was the big divide. Now it's basically within New York City, and it's really within the Democratic Party. I mean, we have the Democratic Republican schism obviously in New York City, but the Republican Party is relatively small in New York City. But we are working through this. What is the future
of the Democratic Party post Trump? And that is playing out in New York City and cities across the country.
I'm going to give you a vignette. My Bellley was in the garage today. I had to take hoover to come into work. My driver's Dominican republic barely speaks English. He was so pleased to talk to me about you. He said, I'm voting for Andrew Cromo, and this was his exact language. I am a Democrat, concernervative. I want to go back to javits at coach all of them.
How does the Conservative Democratic Party, that Dominican Republican driver, how does it move forward out of this primary where the liberals the progressives have been so dominant in the verbiage.
Well, this is what's interesting.
I was a crazy liberal all my life, right, My father was the father used to tell me that, Yes, yeah, I was the son of a crazy liberal and a crazy liberal. But the progressives have gone so far. First of all, I disagree with the word progressive right, like it's a new phrase that they coined. FDR was a progressive. My father was a progressive right, so it's not a new term. But they are so far to the left
that they have eclipsed what were traditionally progressive. Liberal use your word ideology, and it is unrealistic and it is counterproductive. And that's what people are starting to find out, especially in this environment. You know, post COVID, cities are going through a crisis. Another had I was the former Hut Secretary Housing in Urban Development under Clinton, and cities have gone through transformations over time post COVID.
This is going to be a major.
Transformation for urban America. You don't have to be in a city anymore.
Right, the old days you had to be here.
The old days you had to show up, and cities took advantage of that.
You didn't have an option. You have options. It's called mobility, it's called remote work.
And cities now have to be more competitive economically. They have to be competitive. You can move to a better tax climate, a better weather climate, and cities are just now working through that. Adjustment.
I believe.
If you were to be elected governor a mayor of this great city, what would be job one on day one for you?
Job one problems.
Job one is like three jobs.
It's public safety, because nothing works without public safety. It's getting the homeless mentally all off the streets, which plays into public safety, equality of life. People feel the city is out of control, right, there's a sense of chaos when you walk down the.
Streets, that is correct.
There's a fear.
When you descend into the subway. Now that's relatively new, right, and that has to change. Before you get to the economics and taxes and are we chasing you out?
Et cetera.
The first thing that chases you out is you're just not safe here. You don't feel comfortable here. And I think that's the first crisis.
Well, then to follow on from that talking to Laura Namius or lead on this, Jessica Tish gets high marks. Can you give Jessica Tish high marks in her early months of running NYPD.
Oh, she's done a very good job. She has done a very good job.
Who do you reappoint hers at? Or do you have someone else? We got to make some news here.
We're gonna have to make some news.
The I am not in the I don't believe in saying who you're going to appoint, who you're not going to appoint, this kind of arrogant until you get the job, I can tell you I think, uh Commissioner Tish is doing a very good job this stability. We went through a number of police commissioners. Each one brought their own tumult and their own transformation. Jessica Tish is steady. The
NYPD feel steady. But the NYPD alone really is not going to be enough to restore to people the sense that I feel comfortable in.
New York City.
It's worth my paying the premium to live here. I pay a premium to live in New York City, right, I'm paying high taxes, but I get X y m P.
We just heard that from Charles Cant exactly right.
You mentioned the subway here, the MTA.
I don't know.
I've been riding this subway for thirty five years. Every day I tell people the only thing that's changed in thirty five years the cars are now air conditioned. Everything else is the same, which is a good thing. That's a compliment. It gets millions of people around the city every day. However, as governor, you said the city should pay more for the MTA. As mayor, how would you manage the MTA, because we've got congestion pricing, We've got.
A big, big shortfall there.
How do we keep this subway riding safely efficiently.
The first step on the subways is safety, quality of life. Get the homeless mentally ill off the subways. That's what frightens people, not just homeless people. We've certain urban environments have homeless people. These are homeless mentally ill people that threaten individuals or their presence is threatening, and that has to change. Now, you're right, was it as bad as
it was back in the early nineties. No, but a lot of people weren't here in the early nineties, right, And if you were here, really, Bloomberg mayor Bloomberg post, this city was much safer, much cleaner, felt much different. And this is a dramatic juxtaposition to that.
Andercomo over the source who welcome all of you on Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio accrastination of course out on YouTube Good morning, and of course on the Nation Serious Extent Channel one twenty one, as well, we're trying to get them to say for two hours. He's saying, yeah, maybe I can't, but we're going to have a good conversation here with a former governor. I want to get this out of the way right now, and it's on all the allegations of this, that the other, the COVID stuff,
the sex stuff, and that. Let's just get it out of the way so we can move on. The fact is it's reported you've gone after, not going after in a collegiate way.
I'm going to.
Say, you have your own litigation, your own lawsuits. These are all distractions if you become mayor. In the floating out there is the idea. Okay, now, Mike told me once mayor's a twenty eight hour week job. I don't know if that's sure or not, but let's say it's a full commitment to be mayor. Will you push aside all of the different things you're doing in litigation and lawsuits to focus solely on being mayor. Do you postpone them or just say enough that part is over, that past is over.
Yeah, look in these jobs when I was a governor, saying this for mayor, if you don't get sued five times a day, you're not doing your job, you know.
So you have to be very.
Good at taking compartmentalizing, to use a word, but handing off pieces that are not currently relevant.
And that has to be done no matter what.
We saw some very disturbing images coming out of the city of Los Angeles over the weekend. How do you view kind of I guess, just kind of how we deal with immigrants, how we deal with the policing of our cities vis a vis the federal government sending in troops. When you look at the images this week of Los Angeles, how did you project that upon New York City?
Ha.
This gets into President Trump's strategy, I believe, and look, first of all, on the immigration issue, he's very clear in his campaign he believes it's an issue that works for him. During the campaign, he said he was going to deport criminals, dangerous criminals, dangerous criminals, and everybody support said, yes, support dangerous criminals. Of course, now we're deporting seven year olds and we're disrupting families. And by the way, we're deporting people who shouldn't be deported.
So that's a change.
But this issue works for the president politically. The President is also very good, and I worked with the president in the first Trump administration, worked with euphemism.
We had a lot of.
Controversy, but this is a different tempo for him. Wayne Gretzky skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it was. The Democrats have to adjust. They are skating to where the puck was. This immigration issue, in some ways is a distraction from what Trump is really doing with cities, which is cutting the budget in a way that is so dramatic that you might really cause major difficulties for urban areas.
Kevin Cromo pro tip.
When you're going to talk a hockey you're in a mayoral race, you pick Genre Tell or someone like that with the New York Rangers. You don't go with Gretzky Andrew Cromo with us here as we look at this mayle race. Okay, Robert Kuttner, no friend of yours, writing an American Prospect. He says to Cuomo, peak too soon. You've got the tensions of the primary. If you take the primary, the tensions of a general election with different independent candidates, and that is the present mayor in the
back pocket of the president of the United States. And if we get LA, as Paul mentions, here, can you imagine this? I mean, I'll let you pick the geography, Governor Cromo, but the present mayor of New York, can he protect the citizens of this city given the relationship with the president, after what we've seen in LA.
Short answer, no, And let's remember how extraordinary these issues. What's happening in LA. This is the exact reverse of what normally happens. Normally, it's the local government that makes the decision on how to handle an emergency and calls on the federal government. So a mayor, a governor would call on the federal government say I need help, Please send a National Guard, or please send an additional federal help. I don't believe there's been a time where the president
has sent in federal troops. You'd have to go back to like the sixties and President Johnson and Wallace, Right, that's how far you have to go back. So this is Trump being Trump. This is Trump on this sensue of immigration. I'm muscled, it's law and order. These cities, these democrats, they're filled with illegals, and I'm gonna come in, and I'm gonna come in hot and heavy.
Uh.
He started in LA. It will happen in New York. It will happen.
He knows the formula, right, it happened in New Jersey.
Is this formula to go after you?
I mean this is his formula is to create chaos in the cities, and he is the voice of law and order. And you know cities, all those Democrats, that's where all those illegal immigrants are. And he's going to come in and he's going to clean up. The flip side is okay, create chaos in LA, create chaos in New York, create chaos in Chicago. Pretty soon you create chaos in the nation. And that's bad for the economy.
So what it's the biggest chance n for you in this primary race here and then potentially in the general election.
What do you have to get.
Across in a Democratic primary? And you now have the tension between post Trump, what directions does the Democratic Party go? And some people believe we lost to Trump because we didn't go left enough. So I have a democratic socialist. Really, there's no such thing as a democratic socialist. It's just a socialist. They use democratic as a modifier because socialist. There's a shocking but it's a socialist who says, dismantle the police.
The police state is oppressive.
Everything free, free, transportation, free everything, Tax the rich, so there's class warfare in there. We'll tax the one percent. The one percent should pay because they're rich and fat and they made money on the rest of us, and everything is let's migrate there.
The Financial Times there, that's summary article this week, and Andrew Cromo, where the folks, and we welcome all of you on Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio worldwide and of course here in the Tri State area Bloomberg eleven three to zero across the five boroughs. The ft lined up the halves who are supporting you. You're the guy a choice and he answers. Some of them really are behind Andrew Croomo, and others are betting this guy might win, so we better get behind with him.
How do you say, take.
The landlords and they gave you X number of million. I would say that's like almost normal politics. But then how do you protect tenants and renters in a city of horrific housing economics?
Yeah? Well, first, if you.
Are going to be in elected.
Office, you cannot be influenced by who gives you money, right, that's rule number one. That's I think to a journalist, well, look at who's taking advertising in your newspaper and write favorable things about the advertisers.
Then you're not a journalist.
It's unethical if you and I've been in an elected office many times. I've raised hundreds of millions of dollars. It can't matter who gives you money. Now to the extent people are supporting me who are institutional interests because institutional interests need a city that works, right.
They want a city with the future.
What they're afraid of is you elect a socialist who tries to give everything away free, doubles the taxes on the wealthy, and the wealthy say that's it. I'm gone. By the way, we lost five hundred thousand people since COVID to begin with. You're now going to double taxes, and people will say, I'm going to Florida, I'm going to Texas, etc. It's not worth the premium, especially since the quality of life has deteriorated and I'm afraid to
get on the subways. So why would I pay the premium to live here when I'm not getting the benefit of living here? I'll go to Texas, I'll go to Florida. I'll come back a few times a year.
I'll see you play.
I can hire a private jet with the tax savings.
That's what we have to worry.
About, governor, speaking of Trump's relationship with city mayor's President, Trump's Justice Department is investigating you or allegations you lied to Congress about COVID. You said that that's politically motivated. But how afraid of you are the possibility of getting indicted, perhaps even arrested by the Trump administration. That's got to be on the table.
Yeah, I know this is a joke, but this investigation is a joke. But there's no doubt that Donald Trump uses the Department of Justice and the justice system as one of the tools in the political arsenal. When I was governor, the governor the first When I was governor and dealt with Trump in the first administration, he investigated me twice with the Department of Justice. That sort of like is his left jab. Just keep throwing it out there. I want to go back here. I want to get
back to the primary the election. At Hanne Lauri is saying, Okay, all this big picture stuff is great, you got to win the primary, you got to get onto the election. How about nineteen seventy seven, folks, this is New York City in the five boroughs. Bella Absick took Manhattan, a Beam took Brooklyn, but Dio took the Bronx. A guy named Cuomo took Queens and Staten Island, and Ed Koch won.
That's how nuts New York City is.
Which geography right now is most critical for you in the five boroughs for you to take this primary.
Yeah, it's interesting it.
Back in nineteen seventy seven, the borough were more homogeneous and sort of class oriented. That has changed over time. The basic division is you have younger, more activist, more progressive, if you will, voters who identify as socialists. They will say I am socialist, I say tax the rich, I say everything should be free. Palestine factors in there. And
that's one demographic. And then you have a second demographic, which is a little bit older, more mainstream, if you will, and that's the democrat demographic that I appeal to.
You brought up.
Palestine, Let's go there right now. There's a unique relationship of this city with the Israel.
Everyone knows this.
We see nationwide, a new form, a new debate over anti Semitism.
I think of Earth eleven.
My household happened to worship his father a million years ago.
Explain to me your relationship with Israel as mayor of New York City.
How will that be distinctive given the horror that we see in the levant.
Well, it's a great question, and it is unique to New York. I believe if you grow up in New York the way I have, the Jewish community is such an integral part of New York. Right, New York is not New York without the Jewish community. Jewish community started coming to New York in sixteen fifty, one hundred years before the other immigration groups, and they have been in major institutions, So you grow up with the Jewish community. I have two brothers in law who were Jewish, my
son in law is Jewish. It's that close a connection. And I've been one hundred percent supportive of Israel. My father was before me. I've done numerous trips to Israel. I was very aggressive supporting Israel. This was the first state to go against boycott, discriminate, disinvestment, and sanctions for Israel.
So it is a very pro Israel state.
Paul, get one in here.
Please, Governor No One presumably arguably takes the air out of the room more than President Trump. He just demands the media attention.
In a way we've never seen before. Are you surprised that the Democratic Party no One has stepped up, no voice has emerged to at least counter some of the policies and some of the arguments coming out of the Trump administration.
And would you relish that role at some point?
Well, I'll go back to the Wayne Gretzki quote that I wasn't supposed to use a.
Stranger in New York.
Marks.
First, the Democrats have to get the cadence of the game. They are coming up a day late, right. I don't believe this. I believe this uh immigration, uh and Los Angeles, and it's going to get worse, and it's going to be New York. I believe this works politically for Donald Trump. I also believe it masks the budget debate, which is really the consequential debate for urban America short term. And he's onto a new topic now, and the Democrats wind
up a day late. Because if you're arguing about the budget today, you're missing Los Angeles and New Jersey and the immigration debate.
We're going to wrap up here in a moment here for Bloomberg Television, of Bloomberg Radio.
Andrewcomo with Politico. There was a mayor from Chicago who can be a little spice.
You name Emmanuel He's out this weekend, and Ramas all wound up about the week in the Democratic Party brand, and I would say he was basically, he is mayor of Chicago, and potentially you as mayor of New York. The one's fighting the fight to get the Democratic Party to get some backbone. Does that lead to a presidential effort in twenty twenty eight? I mean, is a Democratic Party going to shift back to that centrist tendency that we talked about in nineteen eighty five?
Centrist?
Forget the trying to define political at the ideology I worked with ram and the Clinton administration. It's sort of practical and common sense.
Right.
The Democrats lost to Trump? Why did we lose to Trump? I don't believe Trump won. I believe the Democrats lost. I believe what happened is the Democrats became disconnected from their people. They became disconnected from the kitchen table issues. Talk to me about my more, talk to me about my job, talk to me about the economy, talk to me about public safety. I don't want to hear about these esoteric issues right now when I'm worried about my life today.
And do something for me. You're the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party fundamentally believes in the functionality of government, and you haven't functioned. Show me something that you did for me that made a difference in my life. Joe Biden, you were president. What did you do that I can see, feel, or touch. That's where the Democrats belove Paul.
This is so important.
I want to get back to some of the basic stuff Paul was talking about. I mean, day one, the congestion text, day one, bike lanes.
Day one, nobody can afford to live in the city.
What's the day Paul as this earlier, what's your day one mandate to those kitchen table Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans.
What they're saying first is make me say I'm afraid to take the subways and I haven't felt that way in fifteen years. Make me safe, and that is public safety, that's mentally homeless, etc. Blending into quality of life. That's job one. And then affordability. I need to be able to pay the rent.
I got forty five seconds because of all the fancy stuff here in the Bloomberg News organization. Your father stopped America with a convention speech.
Are you going to be at a convention running for president in the future. I'm running for mayor and that's enough. Andrew Clmo, thank you so much, greatly appreciate it.