Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. We digress here to a really important interview, and I would suggest an important national interview. If we assume that we have fractured politics, is at worse in France or Japan? Hello man, Okay, maybe New York City's a template for us. Joining is someone who has the attention of all within New York City? Curtis Lee? What joins us now? Candidate for mayor, always, always,
forever affiliated with the GOP and the Republican candidate. First of all, I look at any kind of polling and I'm sort of surprised that you're just sub twenty percent. Have you ever polled this high? Is this a normal polling?
I think at this point.
I think at this point of the election cycle, yes, because they're just polling Republicans who are only ten percent of the electorate.
So fucking independence that they don't pull.
Sometimes they do, and I do incredibly well with them, some moderate Democrats. And then remember I have an independent line that nobody has factored in. Protect animals, no kill, shelters, animal abuses in jail, very popular with women who rescue animals, and naturally they're not heard from in the polls.
I look at the New York Times. They got fancy buttons I can press. I'm not as sophisticated this curtis like Paul Sweeney is. But if I X Adams, they have a tab where I can take them out. Yet and I do the math courtiously, what plus Andrew Cuomo?
Guess what?
It doesn't equal Zeron Mandami, but it comes pretty close. What's the tension you see now of the summation of the governor and you with the upstart candidate of the left.
We all know the Poles have been wrong every step of the way, been totally wrong.
Remember two months go back to Iowa.
Oh no, no, that's just two months into the Democratic primary. They were preparing the coronation of andrewmo is Our next mayor forty points ahead is Zorhan Mondami. He lost by thirteen points. I look at my mentor in this rate, George Bataki on November two of nineteen ninety four against the better Cuomo Mario. They had him down by twelve points. He won by three points. The day before the election
was no early voting back then. It was either a vote November fourth orraps seeing the team valor or that's it. Look at the Trump election over Harris, it was supposed to be neck and neck. He not only won the.
Popular vote, he won the seven battleground states.
I don't put any any trust in these polls.
I know what I feel in the streets. I'm in the outer boroughs.
You look, I have ten headquarters, I have signage everywhere. I don't see signage at all for Cuomo. So CMO's whole vote is based on fear. Nobody likes this guy. Everybody knows he was the author and no cash bail raised the age who wants to close rikers. He and Zoron Mondami when it comes to law and order are two peas in a pot. And then he told about prostitution.
Zoron is in favor of legalized prostitution, but the governor at the time, Cuomo signed the legislation to enable people to go out into the streets and sell their bodies.
So I don't see any.
Differentiation at all between Cuomo and Johan Mondami.
What is your message New York City residents these last days of the campaign.
I am the only candidate GOP candidate that wants to slash taxes, corporate tax, income tax, especially the property tax, which a mayor does hold sway over and the Citizens Budget Commission said, I'm the only one who's talking about fiscal constraint one hundred and eighteen dollars billion budget for the city and there are no cuts.
Cuomo and Zoron would actually increase it.
I would take ten billion dollars right out of the Department of Education, which is all being spent on the bureaucracy, start cutting the Department of Buildings, and get fiscally reliant on people like Larry Kutler, who's my advisor, George Spattacki, who did that as governor, and then Rudy Giuliani, who is the best law and or a mayor we've ever had in the City of New York. Now those are three titans.
This came up this weekend. I said, I got sleeve on Monday. They said, you got to ask him this question, Mayor Sliwa with the city council. Can you get along with the city council to get things done?
Well?
The benefit of my life is that I spent thirteen years raising two boys with Melinda Katz, who was a city council person for twelve years, Head of Land use. She's now the Queen's Democratic DA. She taught me how you get along with city. Can't you do that? It's called discretionary funds. You go into the district, they beat
you up. You meet with the staff, because the staff does all the work, remember the elected officials, because the electeds are always dialing for dollars, shaking people down for political contributions. And then you say, I just want one vote from you, and I get you your discretionary funds. You're looking for a new park, you're looking for a new playground, you're looking the.
Capital list politics a trade.
I get one vote that I desperately need to show that there is dialogue even with those who are considered liberal, progressive democratic socialists of America. If you don't do that, no matter who the mayor is, you're not going to be able to get the City Council in a majority way to back any of your initiatives. You'll be impotent, as Eric Adams say, is now because Adrian Adams, the Speaker of the Council, is the real mayor of the City of New York.
What's your policy for which is an issue that's very closely intertwined homelessness and crime in New York City.
What's your policy?
Well, homelessness, I deal with emotionally disturbed in the subways because I'm the only candidate that actually rides the subways, campaigns, takes the buses, the express buses. That's six million New Yorkers and others who at one point of the day or night are using mass Trandsit I've been dubbed by the Staten Island Advance the mayor of mass Transportation. We need to get the homeless into the shelters, but we have to make the shelti shafe.
Now they're not. It's like Darwinian survival of the finish.
And we need to get the emotionally disturbed in state mental hospitals, the very hospitals that aew Coomo creid from forty thousand beds down to four thousand before he fled fearing impeachment to the Hamptage.
And for you, Curtis Sliwa, for all of you across America, good morning. He is a Republican candidate in a fractured New York City mayoral contests. Let me quote exactly from AI because that's the way we rolled Curtis in the twoy twenty one New York City mayoral election, Kurtis Sliwa received twenty one percent of the vote in the Bronx. I would suggest President Trump stunned the nation with his minority success in the last election. Do you need that
to win? How are you going to get the minority vote? And everybody thinks they don't go near you come out? You got twenty one percent in the Bronx. How do you improve that?
Everybody knows that Curtis Leewa is Republican who can go into three hundred and fifteen neighborhoods in some of which the only Republican they've ever seen is Abraham Lincoln on a five dollar bill. I've led a group of Guardian Angels that are predominantly black and Hispanic. I'm polling now at about thirty percent in the Bronx. Remember, Eric Adams was supposed to be the new face of the Democratic Party that I ran again.
Is mom Donnie the new face of the Democratic Party.
Well, let's face it.
The Democrats allowed the fox into the chicken coop, first with Bernie Sanders and AOC and now Johan Mandami.
I blame Adams. I blame Cuomo.
I blame the Democratic establishment because they have surrendered their party to socialism, and I am the only one who is advocating capitalistic policies, cutting taxes, cutting the budget.
Law and order.
We live in a city where we're best known around the world for locking up toothpaste and not locking up criminals.
Now, who does that? That's the Democrats.
You got to run like fifteen times to get a line like that.
I mean, that's great, locking up to do this immigration?
What's your views on immigration here? This is a city that's got a history of supportive of immigration.
We've got a.
Statue out there in the bay there.
What's your view.
Well, many of the migrants now are essential workers in the restaurant industry and the hospitality industry. If you start snatching them up because they're not wanted for crimes committee either the country or origin, nor here, then you're going to be depleting that workforce. I have three sons. None of my three sons would do that kind of work. Now, you go after, as Trump called them, the bad Ombrage,
the drug dealers, the sex track case, the cartel runners. Yes, and Ice was being appointed when they first did that.
But your card here.
Maybe Adams could say the same thing. I don't buy it, but your card is you've got a special relationship with President Trump with what we see in Chicago, Portland, LA. Give me some other towns, Paul.
They're out of Portland, multiple Memphis.
In New York, I know from personal experience, are scared if they're migrants, immigrants, Green card holders to go out in the street. What's your relationship with President Trump that will make New York City, not Chicago, not La.
First of all, I'm leader of the Guardian Angels with groups in every one of those cities you mentioned, and they need the National guard We don't. Kathy Hockel, the governor sent a thousand National guardsmen into the subway last year when we had a crime crisis. We're okay in that regards focus on the really crime ridden cities. I would have dialogue when not only President and Trump respectfully,
but the members of his cabinet. Preemptively, when you see something is coming in your direction, you've got to meet.
You're not gonna win, You're gonna.
Try to sort of, as we would say in Italian Medzica, megic poco poco half and half. The Trump administration will get some of what they want. Hopefully the city will get some of what they want. But when you have Zora Mandami and Andrew com saying I'm gonna fight Donald Trump, guess what You're gonna lose if you fight the President of the United States because he holds the purse strings.
What do you make of the rise ofs for Mamdani here?
It is simply because the Democrats were asleep, like Rumphel still skin.
I saw zor On Mandami.
He was out organizing votes for Democratic Socialist candidates.
They know how to get their vote out.
The moderate Democrats are now dependent on Republicans, Conservatives, and independents. It's over for the moderate Democrats. They've sacrificed. They've waved the white fleck. They don't even primary the liberals, Progressives, and the Democratic Socialists of America. They're afraid of them. I'm not afraid of them. I stand up to them.
If we assume that mister Mumdami is getting out an original vote, I mean he's getting out people. You know, there's a stereotype of never voted before. How do you get out the sleeve of vote of Democrats? You can't do just understanding how do you get out that vote like Mamdami's getting out these.
Voters because I'm out in the streets. You see the headquarters in ten neighborhoods. You see the plackets everywhere. I'm the law and order candidate. A lot of the out of Democrats for law and order, they're not fan angeel Coomo.
I was in.
I want you to do this. One zero zero two nine, one hundred and tenth Street, Spanish Harlem. That post office between Third and Les. You walk in that post office, everybody in there is some form of first or second generation immigrant. What do you say to those people to get them to vote for Lincoln's party?
Wow? Law in Order right. They're against no cash bail. They want the raise the age lower back to sixteen because now we have all these juveniles doing drive by shootings.
And they want Rikers Island kept open.
Why is Cuomo and Zorahan Mandami wanting to close Rikers Island?
Where are they going to put inmates.
They're going to be cut loose and they're going to just terrorize people in the streets. And remember the number one number of workers in New York City of women. Talk to the women They're going the subway, being sexually harassed, they're being perved on, They're afraid to go out at night, they can't afford taking yellow cabs, ubers and lyfts, and nobody is talking about what women have to go through
in New York City. I know because my wife, who's an e attorney, has explained it and has done my very first commercial about the plight of women being victims of random attacks. What random attacks? This is being directed at women and they're not being protected.
There's a lot of talk about financial support. What financial support do you have for the next twenty day dash to the election.
I have collected actually in the three the last three quarters average donation one hundred and nineteen dollars more matching funds than Johann Mandami, Cuomo and Eric Adams combined. We're talking about donations from New York City residents. The others
are getting their money from out of state. I would take the money of the local New Yorker who obviously is putting their reputation on the line when I'm getting an eight to one match and I'm on TV, and I'm in the neighborhoods, and to have the money.
To run a campaign people want.
Our news reporters want to know. Are you even considering dropping out the shift this campaign?
You know what, talk to the dropout King who dropped out against Carma Coll running for governor, Andrew Cuomo, who dropped out and fled to the Hamptons because he feared impeachment Andrew Cuomo. Did Donald Trump flee to mar A Lago because he feed impeachment? Did Donald Trump flee to mar A Lago because he was a victim of law fair by Alvin Bragg and Tiss James. No, he showed up in court each and every day. Calmo is a coward. He's the only one who's ever dropped out.
Thank you for joining Bloomberg this morning, Curtis Lee. Well, of course, may Oral Kennedy here. We hope to get all of the candidates in here. As we dashed the first Tuesday of November,