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Brad Lead are great to see you and definitely want to talk about your campaign and your platform. But I have to start with the news of the day, and that is this memo that came to light. I think the Times first reported last night from the Justice Department to the US Attorney's Office in New York instructing that office to drop the charges against the current mayor, Eric Adams.
I wonder what you make of that directive.
Obviously you have an acting US Attorney now he's in a very difficult position whether to take that advice and alienate probably the entire staff within that office, or go along with it. I guess under the expectation that whoever succeeds her, be that Jay Clayton or someone else, is likely to put a rubber stamp on it. What do you make of the news? What does it tell you about the case that this office is built against the mayor?
Then?
What an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
The Southern District has a tremendous history for doing corruption prosecution and this says, no, we want you to do corruption instead. They had a strong case. They're not even saying the evidence and the case isn't strong. You know, they know he took illegal campaign contributions, corrupted the building's department, but they just want to wreck the justice system, and unfortunately New Yorkers are going to pay the consequences.
Do you think that the mayor should resign? There's this swirl now about should he be partnered he and not have these charges part against him. Should he step down given what's happened here, Yes, he should resign.
He's effectively being extorted by the Justice Department. He's only looking out for the interests of one New Yorker and that's himself, not even speaking up when they come to take our lunch money.
There are many layers to this. It's a two two page memo. I should say the acting Deputy Attorney General is an alumnus of this office of the sd and I which may STNY, which makes us even more astonishing. But there's a line, a footnote buried in it, which I flagged on Twitter and all the other platforms last night, and it's just find it to be like an astonishing footnote.
Quote your office correctly noted in a February third, twenty twenty five memborandum quote, as mister bouve Amil Bouv, the acting Deputy Turny General, clearly stated to Defense Council during our meeting on Jail thirty first, twenty twenty five, the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adams's assistance on immigration enforcement. A lot of absurdity baked in there and just the way that that's constructed. But this is something that you've you've homed in on
in recent days. That is, was there some sort of deal broker between the mayor and the president in mar Lago or elsewhere?
It sure looks like it elsewhere in the memo it says we're doing this so that the mayor can get back to the business of fighting quote unquote illegal immigration. His job is to protect New Yorkers, not to do the president's bidding.
Do you agree?
Is David Gurrows more up to speed on this than I am and a Christmaster Landers? So are you that the way the language is formed, there's a threat to the mayor if you don't guess what we say.
We're gonna bring those charges.
Back dismissed without prejudice, means we will be watching every step of the way, and if we're dissatisfied with your fealty to the Trump White House, see we'll bring the charge.
The difference is Landers studied this Chicago. I got it from Perry Mason, and that's the difference.
I can't help but draw a line to what now former President Biden did in the final days of his administration, making these preemptive pardons to his son and others. Look, President Trump could have done the same thing. But there is a flex a power move here.
In doing this.
You talked about the long standing independence and proud independence of the SDN Y. He's testing them effectively by doing this, I mean move fast and break things. He's breaking the Justice Department and the tradition of independent prosecution that the Southern District of New York has long had, and that'll mean more corruption. You say he should resign. There is
another means of recourse here. If he doesn't do that, you other Democrats could go to the governor of the State of New York or to Cathy Hokland say, look, you have the power to get him to step aside, perhaps force and to step aside. Is that something that you and your fellow Democrats are thinking about and indeed would consider it this moment because of all of this.
I mean, the form of removal I'm focused on right now is the ballot box New York can get rid of Eric Adams and restore integrity and effective government to city Hall. I mean people are fed up not just with his corruption, but with his failure to deliver. People are fed up with democratic mayors of big blue cities who can't govern.
And that's what we can elect this year. I want to get to your platform.
One last question on this, based on what you just said there in that memo, is this criticism of this case being brought close to an election. I guess nine months out now from an election is too close for comfort for this Justice Department. As you look at this campaign, how do you see this story being a through line? Perhaps the through line is you campaign and your fellow Democrats campaign against him.
I mean, New Yorkers know that Eric Adams has run a corrupt administration. I think it's twenty six members of his administration have either been indicted or under investigation, including him. But he also has been failing to deliver on affordable housing, on public safety, on childcare, on just making the government run well, so those will go together. What New Yorkers want is a safer, more affordable, and better run city, and.
That I think will be the through line of this campaign. That's why I'm running.
For all your nationwide.
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He counts the beans in New York.
He's a controller, but far far more of that is David goes to your campaign. I want to frame this, I said to a family member. Finally, whether you're a Republican or Democrat. The former mayor of Chicago Ram wrote an essay in the Washington Post. Democrats have become the party of permissiveness. That's ballot box poison. You have a history of progressivism. How does the left in the Democratic Party migrate to the center to compete?
Yeah, I mean I want to give you some straight talk.
I think progressives, including myself, we're slow to respond to rising disorder and crime coming out of the pandemic, and we need to be real clear about it. So the number one commitment of my campaign is to end street homelessness for people with serious mental illness in New York City who are on the streets and subways. That is something a mayor could do. I've laid out a really detailed,
ready on day one plan. Some of that is involuntary hospitalization, a lot of that is connecting people to housing and services so they're not on the subways or on our stoops a danger to themselves and to others.
You know, Tom and I travel, we go to Washington, go elsewhere, and I think a lot of people like to rag on New York, like to bring up the fact that they think that the subways are unsafe, that there is a sense of a lack of good public safety in the city right now.
And you can bring up.
Statistics to push against that, But how do you deal with that feeling? What's in the zeitgeist here that if you're riding the subway there is a danger that something could.
Happen to you. And both things are true.
I mean, we have more private sector jobs, more office using jobs than ever in the city's history. People do want to be here. But if you're on the subway and you just heard the story that an unwell person a mentally ill person push someone onto the tracks, and then you see a homeless person who's mentally ill in your car. Of course you're anxious. I have a friend whose eight year old daughter was pushed to the ground last week. So it's a real issue and a perception issue.
But what we do is get those people connected to housing and services so they're not riding the subways where it's not good for them and it's not good for writers in New York City. That ends street homelessness for people with serious mental illness will be a proud New York and one that could show all those critics look at how well we're doing. But that takes a new mayor, and that's what I'm running Fortant.
How do you look at the relationship when it comes to transportation between New York City and the state government, and of course the governor has weighed in on what needs to happen on subways to make them more safe.
How important is that relationship?
What would you do to improve that to sort of harness that effective way to make things safer for them?
I mean the city state relationship to make the subways around well as critical. This is why I was a big proponent of congestion pricing, and when the governor put it on pause, I help bring the lawsuits that sued to get it implemented. But of course now we're working closely together to make sure it's implemented well. The numbers are great so far. Travel times are down, traffic is down,
money is more people are on the subway. Now the city and state have to work together to deliver platform barriers, new station gates, new subway elevators, modern signal system, all the things that we have to work together to make sure it works.
I'm going to cut to the chase. It's real simple. I live in a fancy part in New York where I enjoyed a cigar in the street and one day there's seven police officers around me all of a sudden. And again it's crime that you mentioned. It's the issue. It's almost like Nixon sixty eight to seventy whatever. Brad Lander, how are you going to have a relationship with the NYPD? How do you form that is mayor versus being counter going after contracts.
I mean, this is an important moment. I have to say.
Jesse Tish, who's now and there as police commissioner, is doing a great jobs so far, both doing reform, holding people accountable, and providing support and that.
Look survivor of this administration.
I mean honestly, the fact that the mayor's corruption has opened up an.
Opportunity for reform is great.
But I would love to keep Jesse Tish as commissioner. I think she's got the right tone of accountability and rebuilding and reform.
And I need you to go out to Stanton Island, next to where Mandolin Brothers was years ago. I need you to go to Staten Island and bond with people that look at progressives and go, you gotta be kidnaped.
So how do you do.
That when I go?
So this is a connection from being being counter. I work with the Police Pension Fund to manage their pension. So there was an officer, Officer Fayaz, who the mayor wouldn't allow to get line of benefit due to line of duty benefits, and my office did. I worked with the Police Pension Fund to make sure those officers who had long COVID could actually get their disability benefits. So I've got a track record of working with the union reps.
I hope you know I'll bring them out with me to Staten Island and when I go to have that meeting, and I hope to do it, you know, in a way that shows, of course, we want.
To support our officers.
Everyone wants accountability from people who do the wrong thing, from cops and from elected officials.
I've got three kids in public school in this city.
As much as there's been a rotating cast of police commissioners, you've had a rotating cast of chancellors as well.
What are your top.
Line plans for the hugest school system in the country here to stabilize it? You know, one of the reasons, candidly why we moved to New York was the prospect of having universal pre K funding has been an issue here in recent years. Your perspective, your platform when it comes to the schools.
Yeah, my kids also went from pre K to twelfth grade in the New York City public schools, and they were lucky to have good schools.
But boy, not everybody does.
So Look, you need a schools chancellor who recruits principles and superintendents who support their teachers but also hold them accountable. The state has increased the money we're getting. That's an opportunity to reduce class size, which is something that promised to do but really hasn't done yet. It's going to be on the next mayor to reduce class size with the money the state is giving us and.
For our audience.
Afterthought, when she was in elementary school here on the Island of Manhattan, there were eleven languages.
In her first grade class.
I think you have to, as David says, did you say three offspring?
I have no idea. I mean, that's what's remarkable about this city. What other place has that?
Well, we're working at it. Okay, Kmox. She grew up with the Cardinals. It's just like I used to listen from Western New York bouncing off the imsphere. If somebody said to me my ten great moments. One of them was a guy named Mario Cuomo talking to the former governor, and we said good morning to him and his family about his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It was magical.
Dear Mario Cuomo talk about the Pittsburgh Pirates. One of his offspring may enter the race or is in it. I'm not sure the details. Is it crowded a field? I mean, how away from Mayor Adams upset how do you frame September in October to be I mean, how do you frame into.
It elections in June?
So Juankuner, I don't think New Yorkers will want to replace one corrupt chaos agent with another. This is someone who resigned in disgrace just ahead of impeachment after a dozen women who worked for him accused him of sexual harassment. Who sent thousands of seniors to their deaths and nursing homes and then lied to their families about it to
protect his five million dollar book deal. Who cut the subways, who cut a thousand in patient psychiatric beds, who doesn't care about New York City, where he hasn't lived in twenty five years. We're getting rid of one corrupt chaos agent. Let's not bring another in.
When you look at this field of challengers to the mayor, Democratic challengers, what are we going to sort out here? This is going to be a robust debate, I imagine, about the future of the Democratic Party here here in New York. It's to be part of this broader conversation about it here in the US. How important is it, how vital is it to have that conversation right now? What are we going to learn from from this, this this primary campaign. Yeah, it's critical.
Part of the reason in New York people shifted to voting for Trump is they haven't seen government working for them and there is doubt about whether Democrats can govern big blue cities. Well, folks like Michelle Woo are doing it in Boston. We have to do it in New York City. Get the cost of living under control, confront and build affordable housing, deliver on that childcare and universal pre K and three K and make the city safer.
Are we going to have a Gilded age campaign?
Miche Wu in Boston's running against the craft offspring.
You know, you know there's the fair amount of money rolling around here. How do you frame out this path to June?
And you know, I assume how many people are in the race yet right now? Yeah, eight or SOE about SloMo getting in.
What do you perceive may to be Like, I mean, it's going to be busy for me.
It's going to be a question about who people think can actually run the city well, and that's the track record have as the city's chief financial officer, with a history of actually delivering. We managed two hundred and eighty five billion dollar pension fund. Our audits have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. I can make government work, and I think that's what New Yorkers want.
I mean, come full circle. Brought that memo at the top.
I read that footnote which had that innuendo about immigration policy, and let's end there. And you know, a few weeks back, I was out at Floyd Bennett Field and saw the shelter that had been built there. I gather it's being emptied out or has been emptied out of migrants moved to New York City. How do you approach this issue, which is one that I think is flum mixing a lot of people.
Here.
We are in a city that has historically welcomed so many. Now we have a federal administration that is wanting to constrict that. What is the duty of the mayor of this city here at this moment where we've had this influx of people here and a lot of people who are have left their home countries in great pain. Yes, many without documents have come here to New York. What's the mayor to do?
I mean, New York City obviously doesn't control border policy. That's you know, federal What New York City can do is help those folks get to work. I mean, we need people working in construction, in our restaurants, in a home care, in healthcare. So helping folks who have work authorization get to work. Helping folks get work authorization critical, and then we can't allow ice to come into our schools,
into our public hospitals. The Brooklyn District Attorney told this amazing story about how when his brother was murdered, which is why he became a prosecutor, it was somebody undocumented who was a witness, and the defense got that guy deported and there was no justice. And you know, that's what we need is a city that's keeping at the place where your daughter has eleven languages in her preschool class, but we also make it work for a thriving economy in a safe, successful city.
It was unbelievable the first time I walked into that classroom. Five twenty nine eleven languages is just just yeah.
It was.
You know, forget about Ellis Island and all the emotion of a city. You know, you think of Italy and the Jewish community decades ago, to witness in real time eleven languages in a perfect five twenty nine school up on the East Side. It was absolutely unbelievable. One of the great moments. Two kids from Bangladesh not a word of English, and those teachers went into it every day.
Would you say goodbye to mister Landers.
Coptro for New York City candidate from mayor here and you're great to see you. Jack Buck is smiling on us.
Okay, oh there you got.
Jack Buck is smiling at us. Bred.
There's a pothole.
How many times a week do you get a lot?
A lot?
Yeah, thank you so much.