NYC NOW - July 24, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

New York City Mayor Eric Adams questions Clinton Hill residents on where else migrant shelters should go after a Tuesday protest called for shelter removals from the neighborhood. Meanwhile, New York City is nixing plans to set up more free public health vending machines across the five boroughs. Plus, as leading Democrats continue to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive nominee for a presidential run, WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with WNYC’s Editor In Chief Audrey Cooper, who covered Harris extensively while working at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, July 24th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Mayor Eric Adams is daring those who complain about migrant shelter locations to tell him where they would like to see those shelters. Critics rallied last night near the Hall Street Shelter Complex to protest what they're calling public safety concerns the city has brought into. their backyard. Adam says certain neighborhoods have long been saturated with shelters. He invoked one council member, South Bronx District, and a neighborhood in Southeast Queens as

examples. Where? Which neighborhood? Should we move it to Salamonka's neighborhood that has double-digit shelters? Should we move it to South Jamaica, Queens? In the comparatively whiter, wealthier Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, the Hall Street Shelter Complex has drawn months of backlash. Two shootings happened near the shelter over the weekend. New York City is nixing plans to set up more free public health vending machines across the five boroughs. There are four right now dispensing the overdose reversal medication, naloxone, safer sex products, and other goods. But the news outlet, the city reports the health department is no longer planning to fund any more of these machines, even though the original plan was set to take at least 10 of them on the streets.

Some New Yorkers say they have come to rely on the existing machines for health and hygiene products. A spokesperson for the health department told the city, they are not enough non-profits willing to maintain those machines. 77 with clouds now, afternoon showers and thunderstorms likely, mostly clouding 82 for a high. Then tomorrow, a 50-50 chance of afternoon showers and storms and mid-80s. Stay close. There's more after the break. NYC. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries are the latest leading Democrats lining up behind the party's presumptive nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris's entrance into the race has sparked a wave of fundraising in the 48 hours since President Biden ended his campaign. So what do we know about Kamala Harris? Well, she started her political career in California, where she served first as San Francisco's district attorney. then the state's attorney general and eventually a U.S. Senator. Luckily, WNIC's editor-in-chief, Audrey Cooper, has some unique insight into the candidate. She covered Harris extensively during her 15 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, and she joined us now to give us some of that insight. So, Audrey, what have you been thinking since you saw what happened over the weekend? It's been really amazing. I've told people it's kind of like you know somebody in high school

and then all of a sudden they become like a TV star. That's kind of what it feels like because it was so long ago that Kamala was starting her career and I was starting my journalism career. So in a lot of ways, I feel like we kind of grew up together, if that makes sense. What do you mean by that? Well, you know, I think it's interesting

to now see the national story that's being told about her politics now that she's, you know, the presumptive Democratic nominee and this very strange process that has played out. of the last couple of weeks. Because if you ask anyone in San Francisco, the idea of Kamala Harris as this radical far-left progressive does not square with the woman we knew in San Francisco, who actually often ran

to the right of her challengers and even to the right sometimes of some Republican challengers that she had. Yeah, political observers have said that Harris is kind of hard to pin down on policy. So talk more about her tendency to play the middle, as it was. I mean, if you were to ask me before she became the nominee, like, what do you remember of Kamala Harris? I would say it is exactly that. Trying to pin her down on issues was very difficult. And for a couple of reasons. Like, look, journalists, we always love to know exactly where a candidate stands, because we want to explain it to the voters so they know what they're voting on. That was always

very difficult to do with Kamala Harris when she was district attorney in San Francisco, when she she was agey of the state of California. What she would often do is maybe she would take a little piece of a policy issue and kind of give you a hint of what she thought. But more often than not, she would come to meetings in San Francisco at The Chronicle and refuse to give her policy position saying that as a prosecutor and as attorney general, she had to remain neutral. What are you expecting from candidate, Harris? You know, I think certainly since she was in San Francisco, she has obviously so much more national experience and hard campaign experience. But I think one thing I've been very thoughtful about is she had a couple of hard campaigns in California, but more often than not, she ran unopposed or she had not very serious challengers.

So as a candidate, I don't know that, and we saw this in the presidential primary, where she dropped out before the Iowa caucuses, trying to get a really clear picture of where she stands and where to put her on the political spectrum is going to be difficult. What's interesting, I think, about this race she's now running is she doesn't have to fight that Democratic primary. She doesn't have to lay out that vision anymore.

And what I anticipate is this is going to be a campaign more about vibes. She's going to stick to the things that we're, work for her. She's never gone out hard on any severe policy crusades. And she sure as heck is not going to do it right now. So I think that's what everybody can expect. You know, Audrey, you talk about her leaning into the vibes and the things that work for her. What does work for her? I think speaking about her position as a woman, as the first woman of color to be this far along in the presidential campaign is definitely going to work for her. You know, another thing that I think people maybe underestimate is she has always been a very good fundraiser.

She was very smart in San Francisco. She connected herself to San Francisco Society, which, you know, maybe not as much as New York, but has a lot of old money. And she was able to finance these campaigns from a very nascent part of her career. So I think she'll be a huge fundraiser. And I think she'll talk about the issues that Democratic voters really wanted Biden to talk about. And I would put like choice and the fact that she's a prosecutor and Trump is a convicted felon, like those are, that's going to be hit home a lot. Hmm. This is no shade to San Francisco, but it's a smaller city.

No, it's a small city. You can say that. That's a fact. So it's a small city. But it has a pretty big influence in terms of the amount of names that we see coming out of it in terms of folks who are influential in politics. What's that about? Yeah. Well, San Francisco is very.

clubby for its politics for sure. What I think is interesting is the national politicians that come out of San Francisco, they're all very different. Now, you'll hear a lot of San Franciscans comparing Kamala Harris to Governor Gavin Newsom. And those of us who've covered both of them for a long time find this a little bit absurd because Gavin Newsom has never seen a policy that he didn't want to take a position on. Kamala Harris is the exact opposite. But they both rose up through this this political system that is pretty nasty. It's pretty bare-bones fighting. But it also produced politicians like Nancy Pelosi. It also produced Diane Feinstein. We have a lot of people coming from San Francisco in part because you come out of that crucible and you're pretty well tested.

But one thing I don't know most listeners know is that Kamala Harris actually has a connection to somebody deep in the Trump campaign. And that is Donald Trump Jr.'s fianc. say Kimberly Gilfoyle. They were both prosecutors in the Bay Area at the same time. There's no love loss between these women. So I would anticipate that if the Trump campaign trusts Guilfoyle enough, she's going to be the surrogate out there really attacking Kamala Harris as a person. And for those of us who remember them when, it will be a flashback to old times. That's W&Mysine Gothamist editor-in-Chief, Audrey Cooper, who spent 15 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, where she covered the presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Audrey, thanks so much for sharing her insight. And coming on the air, not every day we hear your voice with us. Anytime, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.

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