Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Whitney Tilson joins us and now and if you just need to know one attribute to Whitney Tilson, I'm sorry. It is the most coveted MBA distinction out there. It is a Baker scholar, which is a real deal diversity years ago, were you surprised when you were a Baker scholar? Like, were you sitting in your dorm room staring at the ceiling and they said, Whitney, good news, you're a Baker scholar. Is that how it works?
Well, it's just based you know, based on your grades over two years. It's top five percent of the class. And I'd been getting mostly ones is what they call a's there, and so it wasn't completely unexpected, but yeah, it was, it was, It was. It was a real honor.
The race to me is original, and that for example with Scott Stringer, with this huge liberal progressive Jewish support from Bella Absick and Jacob javits back, it seems like the Fabrican character of our political system is breaking. Who do you represent in this race?
I've fed up New Yorkers. That's I got into the race because I saw a bunch of career politicians. This is back after the elections, to be fair, absolutely thirty plus years and I think the New York City is being poorly managed. It's headed in the wrong direction. And I didn't see any real change candidates in the race. And I saw how well this city was run and
how well it did under Mike Bloomberg. Sort of funny here sitting on a Bloomberg show in fact, and in the eleven years since he left office, under two career politicians, and looking at a field of more career politicians. I think New Yorkers are looking for a change agent. And I'm the only one in the race. And of course Mike Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and this radio ice ratus. Here, Whitney, what's your platform? What do you want to do here? Mostly get the city's economy
growing again, and we are an economic powerhouse. You mentioned how important New York is to the country. It's five percent of US GDP just in the five boroughs of New York. And when I go to all the mayoral forums and talk with all the career politicians and debate the issues, all we're debating is how to spend the tax dollars and which city program they would fund and create more spending programs. And I'm a business person and I understand our tax base comes from our economic base,
from wealthy individuals, people investing, growing businesses. Everybody wants rising wages. The way to get there is growing businesses, hiring more people. So I think we can grow this economy by fifty percent in the next ten years. That's about four point one percent compounded.
How does someone like Mayor till Sin speak to the constituency of someone we've had in many times, and that would be Greg Meeks of Queens. He's the leading Democrat of Queens. There's all sorts of constituencies under Congressman Queens as Congressman Meeks within Queens, how do you speak to the machine if you're an outsider.
Right, I'm going directly to the voters. There is no path for a first time candidate outsider like me to win a traditional race. But keep in mind, only twenty six percent of eligible Democrats voted in the primary last time. I think the other seventy four percent a lot of them didn't vote because they didn't they just saw different flavors of career politicians. So I've got to go around the machine directly to the voters with a message of change.
And if you look at voters, seventy five percent of New York City voters think the city's head in the wrong direction and clearly want change. And so I've got a position myself as the change candidate and go directly to them. You see, you need to change the tax situation in the city of New York. Well, I'm the only candidate to my knowledge who said I will not
be raising taxes. The number two candidate in the polls after Governor Cuomo, is a thirty three year old socialist named Zorn Mamdani, and he just came out yesterday with an enormous tax plan to raise corporate taxes, to raise taxes on the wealthy in New York. And we already have the highest tax rate in the city, excuse me,
in the country. And I think the traditional tax and spend far left plan will would be devastating and cause further flight of our wealthiest citizens who pay the bulk of our taxes, as well as our business base.
What investment can we grow? People don't even know that there's a whole manufacturing heritage of the boroughs Brooklyn In all, there's the romance to one hundred years back or so. If there is business investment here, what kind of business investment is it?
Well, right off the top of real estate, we have a cute housing crisis in this city, a one point four percent vacancy rate, the highest rents in the country. We're losing our working class who literally can't pay their rent. But we've erected zoning codes, environmental rules, just a stifling process to get anything built, residential and business construction as well. So that would be a huge areas.
Do you find evidence of support among Democrat traditional politicians for this idea we got to fix the housing crisis in America? Or do you feel like a lone voice.
Actually every candidate in the race is talking about this, but most of the traditional career politicians are falling back on their traditional nostrums of government spending, using federal dollars to build subsidized housing, and they generally speak disparagingly about those evil landlords exploiting tenants and evicting them and so forth.
And my view is the opposite. With federal governments cuts likely on the way, we're gonna have to tighten our belts, and the only way, the only big pool of money to do this kind of investment's got to come from the private sector. And we need to make New York an attractive place to invest.
So I'm a kid. I'm over in Switzerland. It's forced with Franks to a dollar. It's just Franks appreciated a little bit. And I'm sitting over there across the valley Velderee Veldora, and I can see Whitney tills and climbing the matter Horn. I can see him in the binaculars, just like the Disney movie that we all grew up with.
What's it like?
Not in the Disney movie, but Whitney Tilson. What's it actually like to climb the matter Horn?
It was magnificent. I've climbed the mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, the Eiger, and then here in the United States. You know, really one of the iconic climbs of all time was the nose of El Capitan, which was featured in the movie Free Solo. But I did I did it with ropes and a guide. Uh so, you know, if I slipped and fell, I wasn't gonna I wasn't going to die.
But it wasn't like the Disney movie. Yes, so you know, in some ways what I'm doing here running for mayor is a seven month extended version of some of the extreme climbing and other events I've done.
What's been the biggest surprise in this effort so far.
To the upside just what an incredible city this is and getting out into every corner, how how incredibly diverse this is. Our immigrants are communities are such a strength and an asset, and I think it's terrible that they're feeling terrorized right now. It's been heartbreak out and getting my name out there.
Do we need more police officers? Scott Stringer was adamant we need more police officers, do we?
Yes? He's right. Interestingly, also in the area of housing, but also in the area of police. A lot of the lefties are now tacking toward the center because New York voters are pretty upset.
I've always spoken the last election that's the big thing.
Absolutely, But we're at a thirty four year low in the number of police officers right now in New York City. Not surprisingly, you know, crimes up thirty plus percent, the major felonies since pre pandemic, and so we need to get more officers. And thank goodness, we've now got a police commissioner, Jessica Tissue's managing them well next month.
And you climb, You got to take Lisa Mateo with you, all right, And Whitney Tilson, thank you so much. In the mayor race. What many other mayor candidates in with us here