Pod Save America - 2020: Bill de Blasio on taxing the rich and rooting for the Red Sox

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joins Jon L. to talk about staying in the race, running a city, achieving universal pre-K, beefing with Cuomo, and why he's still a Red Sox fan.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Lovett. On Friday, I sat down with New York Mayor and presidential candidate Bill de Blasio for the latest installment of our series interviewing all the Democratic presidential candidates. We talked about why he's staying in the race, the work he's done in New York City, the ill-fated Amazon deal, his progressive record, and why, as the mayor of New York, he's still a Red Sox fan. We had a, it was a fascinating conversation. He's very tall. Check it out. He's a Democratic candidate for president and the mayor of New York City. Bill de Blasio, welcome back to the pod. Thank you, John.

You were a guest when we were in Brooklyn. That was, I believe, our very first live show. It was very cool. We had no idea what we were doing. We didn't know that we needed to have chairs in advance, that there wasn't someone to be in charge of chairs. The chairperson is very important. We've professionalized. Now you're in our studio. Thank you.

You've seen us from the very beginning. Now you're here. You're running the biggest city in the country. You can start every day with an edible bagel. You're the first Democratic mayor. You're the first Democratic mayor to be reelected in New York City since Ed Koch more than 30 years ago. And a little over a year into your second term, you decide to run for president. Yep. Why?

Because the country is just not working for a lot of people. I mean, look, it became clearer and clearer to me, even though we've been able to make big changes in New York, that we can't make the changes we need for people all over this country without a very, very different approach in Washington. America is not working for working people. That's just the bottom line. The government at this point is captive to the 1%. And to change it is not just a matter of having good ideas. Good ideas are crucial. Good policy positions are crucial. But understanding how to actually make big changes and fight the opposition that comes with that. That's what I've been doing for six years

in what I think we would all agree is one of the toughest environments in the country. And it works. The approach I've taken is progressive, bold, sharp, not half measures. I said we're going to get pre-K for all our kids. We did that. I said we were going to give people paid sick leave who didn't have it. We did it. I said that folks who don't have health insurance should have a guarantee of health care. We're doing that right now in New York. Anyone who doesn't have health insurance will have access to a primary care doctor at our public hospitals and clinics. These are not easy things to do, especially on the scale of a city of 8.6 million people.

But I've been doing it. And look, I look at other candidates with great appreciation and admiration, but they just have not done that. They have not had to take the ideas and put them into action. So I'm running because I believe I can actually bring these changes to people. So is that, you know, you share a lot ideologically with Elizabeth Warren, I think with Bernie Sanders, they have mounted a campaign based around taking on structural economic challenges on recentering power in the working class, very similar to the message you're arguing. Are you, is this an implicit critique of those

candidates that while you share a lot of the same ideas, they don't know how to do what you know how to do? Do you not? I mean, that seems to be the difference. Yeah, look, I can honestly admire my colleagues and Bernie and Elizabeth are two people I profoundly admire, but also say that I bring a different set of skills, a different history, a different approach. And the issue always is, you're talking, I mean, you know something about the presidency. This is a job that on one level, no one could be prepared for, right? But on the other level, you could say that it really helps to walk through the fire. It really helps to have run something, to have gone through the challenges,

to have taken ideas, put them into practice, dealt with the opposition. I mean, one of the key things you learn as a leader is you are guaranteed a lot of folks are going to try and stop you, especially if you're trying to make big changes, especially if you're calling for higher taxes on the wealthy or a real redistribution in this country. A lot of folks, very powerful folks, will try and stop you. You got to know how to deal with that, and not just theoretically, but from real life. So I argue that, hey, there's no greater crucible, there's no greater approving ground than New York City. The job is called the second toughest job in America, being mayor in New York City. And as a progressive, and I was one of the folks who, I'm very proud of this, you know, in the wave of folks who came out of the post-Occupy movement era, I was one of the first to run on a bold platform that said we have to go at income inequality just right at the heart of it.

We cannot accept a country with this kind of stratification, nor a city like New York. And I was not supposed to be able to win. I was an underdog's underdog. But I was really blunt with people about we had ended up in a situation that was unacceptable and change was needed. And I was able to motivate a lot of people to believe that change could happen. And lo and behold, create that momentum, that constituency, that energy for actual change. Knowing how to do that, living that, is a very different reality than being a legislator. And God bless the legislators, but I bring something different to the equation. Why do you think right now, you know, you did not make the third debate?

I think you had a great debate performance, a little aggro, but you made your case. You've been campaigning in Iowa. There are a bunch of candidates who did not make the next round of debates who said, you know what, this is my moment to step aside. You're not doing that. It seems to me that if you're going to continue in the race, you have to do something different to make that message reach people. Are you thinking about that? Oh, yeah. John, I think one part of it is, and it's very interesting, the opportunities I've had in the month of August to speak to the American people directly are far superior to the opportunities I had before that. This shows a great example. On the other, very, very- So many people.

Well, you should be proud of it. You're going to reach so many people. So many people. You've come a long way since that humble first appearance in Brooklyn. You bet. So, but the, the, I mean, I, you know, I went on Hannity as a very explicit act to go and confront him and challenge him. I thought you did a good job on Hannity. Thank you. And a lot of people appreciate the notion of going into the lion's den and actually speaking to the Fox listeners and viewers who are not necessarily lost to Democrats and progressives on many levels. And we should never separate, we should be able to separate the network from the people who watch it, a lot of whom are working

people who want change. So what I'm saying to you is I'm seeing more and more opportunity to get message across. Clearly, I got to keep updating the strategy and I need to get from where I've been in the polls, which bluntly has been 1% to 2% to be able to get in those debates. So it's a, it's a manageable distance. But I keep reminding folks, this thing is so unpredictable. I mean, look, I think, you know, in the time that you were involved with the Obama world, you know, that may have been the last time we saw something that was, I don't want to use a word like normal, but predictable, let's say, where the rules of politics had something we could make sense of. We're in the great unknown now. I always say there is no one who understands

American politics at this point. And that means there's also tremendous opportunity if someone has a different idea, a different approach, different history to break through at any given moment. And that breakthrough can happen in a matter of days. So, you know, I was actually listening to some of your Ask the Mayor segments. Yeah. And they were fascinating. They're fascinating because as the mayor of New York, you get questions about sweeping economic changes confronting the country and about trees putting too much waste on sidewalks.

Potholes. Potholes. So New York faces very serious issues right now. There's a public housing crisis. There's a federal monitor that's been put in charge. The homeless population. Not in charge, a monitor. A monitor.

Right. The homeless population remains stubbornly high. You're dealing with a rise in homelessness on the subways. You've just been handed a report about gifted and talented programs. That's created a whole new controversy. You passed a measure to basically put a Green New Deal in place that's going to have, that's a massive undertaking. Yes. New York City is one of the largest economies in the world. The last sitting New York City mayor to run for president was John Lindsay half a century ago.

Didn't work out well, in part because of blowback you faced from the city for not doing the job. a century ago, didn't work out well, in part because of blowback you faced from the city for not doing the job. You were in Iowa when there was a blackout in New York. What do you say to New Yorkers who say, we just gave you a second term? You want to run on your record, great, but do it when you're done because this job, as you said, is the second hardest job in the country, and you're running for the first while still trying to do the second. So I would say, first of all, think about the other way of interpreting that.

And I'll answer it. But I just want to say there's a flip of that that's pretty profound. Right now, New York City has the most jobs it's ever had in its history. We've added half a million jobs since I became mayor. We have the highest graduation rate we've ever had. We just got test scores that came back highest we've ever had and proved the impact of our pre-K program. First time we've been able to show the real numerical proof of that. We are the safest big city in America. Crime continues to go down. We've healed a lot of the social fabric and a lot of the tensions that existed just a few

years ago, particularly between police and community. There are many, many big changes that have happened. And I think the point is I've been able to do all that and continue to do all that while running this campaign and raising important issues of the kinds of changes we need. I think that shows capacity. I don't want people to miss the fact that if you are really able to run something, you choose really good people to do the job, you put strong policies in place, and all the things I just mentioned continue to grow even over the months as I've been in this campaign. Now, the things that you mentioned that are real problems, what unites most of the things you've talked about is decades and decades that those problems had built and have bedeviled New York and other cities. Public housing and homelessness are bedeviling American cities

everywhere in this country. That's not a cop-out. It's just not. It's truth. And why? Because the federal government stepped away from its commitment to public housing decades ago, starting with Reagan, stepped away from its commitment to affordable housing that would have been part of how we would have stopped homelessness, things like Section 8 vouchers. This has been going on for a long time. We at the local level have to pick it up and deal with it. Now, the truth is We've actually started to drive down the number of folks in shelter and the number of people on the street We have real issues on the subway, but we're confronting them with a whole lot of people and a lot of energy to address that

Um, we're actually turning around public housing even though it was left in a horrible situation for decades We're actually starting to turn around we have real visible evidence of improving the quality of life for people in public housing. We're putting a huge, huge investment into it. So I just want to be clear that every day I wake up and think about the things I got to do to make the city better. But that can't be true. No, it can't be true. Well, you have to be now spending time, you're thinking about New York, but you're thinking about Iowa, you're thinking about South Carolina, right? Isn't it just definitionally true? If you decide to run for president while you're the sitting mayor of New York, you are not devoting all of your attention to the city of New York. There's no question that if you're running a campaign,

you have to put energy into it and attention into it. But I, again, I don't mean this to be pretentious, but it is true. Yes, I do wake up every morning. In fact, start with a whole slew of emails with a whole bunch of updates and give instructions from the very beginning of the day to the very end of the day, because you actually run something big and complex. That's what you do. It doesn't matter where I am. I will be on the phone with people giving instructions all the time every day and also out there expressing what I think needs to change in this country and why I think I can do it. So the fact is it takes a whole lot of energy.

It takes a whole lot of focus on both. But by the way, President of the United States is more challenging than what I just described and more challenging than what any of my colleagues have gone through. So you better have been able to play at a high level and dealt with a lot of challenges and crises and then find a way to move forward nonetheless. I get when people say we want to see change on a host of issues in our city. But for everything you just mentioned, there is a very specific plan being worked on right now. We, right this minute, have a plan to entirely revamp public housing.

We announced it last year. It's well underway. We have a plan to reduce homelessness further. You go down the list and they're being acted on, each and every one of them. So I get what someone might say, hey, we want to see the progress right this minute. I get that. But what really matters in your leader is do you put the right plan in place? Do you put the right resources on it? Do you put the right people on it? Can you show actual results on a regular basis? The answer is yes on those things. And you do have a record to run on, right?

Talked about universal pre-K, Green New Deal, ending stop and frisk, raising the minimum wage. There is a record of progressive achievement in New York City that a lot of people say, you know, I'll just be honest, a lot of people say Bill de Blasio doesn't get his due because people don't like him and we don't totally understand why.

That's a common refrain you see. You know, right now, 75% of New Yorkers said you shouldn't run for president. Your approval rating right now is underwater in New York, not with everybody in New York, but with a lot of people in New York. What is that disconnect, do you think, between the record that I think that you can be proud of and the sense that people in New York have that they don't approve of the job that you're doing? What is the space between what you're describing as your accomplishments and reaching people with that message? So, John, look, first of all, I appreciate what you just said. And that's literally why we come here, right? To make changes. And again, why we come here, right? To make changes. And again, there's a contradiction we have to get to the heart of here. If people just want, and I'm not saying it's about any individual, I'm saying

about the political process. If they just want someone who gives a great speech or puts forward a great position paper and has not proven that they can make huge changes consistently, there are plenty of other folks to choose from, right? But there's something strange about the fact there's almost a preference against the folks who have done the work. This job, the presidency, has gotten more complex with every passing year. The challenges facing this world, starting with global warming, are going to require tremendous executive capacity, ability to move an agenda, to move a whole government, to get people to believe something can happen differently.

I've had to do that in unquestionably one of the toughest environments in the country, the most diverse city on earth, a place with the toughest press corps anywhere, and a huge press corps. But the interesting question is, what happened? Like, what actually happened? Not what are the poll numbers show at any given moment, or what do people talk about the cocktail parties, or what do commentators talk about, but what actually happened? Were we able to get that agenda done? Thank you. You just delineated to many good people out there listening that massive changes have happened in New York in a way that's happened almost nowhere else. So I argue to you, first, the getting things done part is what people yearn for. They actually don't want the noise and the punditry and the what does the poll say today

versus three weeks from now. They want to know, can you actually do something for them? And I'll tell you, in the early states, particularly Iowa, New Hampshire, where you know people are like professional interviewers, like everyday citizens are amazingly good at vetting candidates, they value proof. But then the other side of the equation is, everything you said, I understand why you say it. But you opened with something very important. First Democratic mayor reelected in New York since the 1980s. The initial election I won was 73%. After four years of being asked all the tough questions and put through all the challenges, I won re-election with 67%, which any elected official in America would be very happy to have those numbers.

So the polls, I don't get lost in the polls because I, boy, have I been down in polls before, especially 2013 election. Anyone with any common sense would have looked at where I was in the spring of 2013 and said, this guy has no chance in hell of being mayor of New York City until the message got through and the world changed. And so I just don't get lost in the noise. I'm like, when I talk to people in neighborhoods around the city, and I have done 65 town hall meetings in New York City, and I always say I represent 8.6 million highly opinionated people. So if you spend hours out there, like, let it fly, everybody, you're going to hear a lot of stuff. In the end,

I think New Yorkers very consistently understand what these changes are and appreciate them. It doesn't mean they don't have a gripe. It doesn't mean they don't want to see something be different. But talk to people about, like, talk to parents who got pre-K for free and how it changed their lives. Talk to folks who got paid sick days who now can actually go to the doctor and not lose a day's pay. Talk to folks now who are getting a primary care doctor for whatever they can afford, who used to not have any option because they didn't have health insurance. I mean, you talk to people who are being left out or couldn't take care of their kids the way they wanted to and give them the start they wanted to, and now they're getting it. It actually starts to

do that much bigger thing that every progressive should have on their mind, which is restoring faith that government can be a force for good. Because I got to say, the right wing's done a hell of a good job trying to undermine faith that government can be positive and productive and effective and connected to people. But if you talk to someone who their life changed because their child got something they never would have gotten otherwise, that person starts to believe that we can actually move forward. And that's what I'm proud of. So let's talk about government as a force for good and how you kind of balance the practical concerns of governing with the desire to show people a different way of running a city, of running a country.

I want to talk about the Eric Garner case. The officer involved was fired this month. I want to put aside the debate about whether the city had to wait on the Justice Department before moving ahead. I know that that's what you say is the case. How do you navigate the politics of law enforcement when there's so much distrust on all sides? And what do you use as your guidepost in these kinds of situations? There have been issues where you've weighed in and stepped into the fray. There's issues where you've where you've waited and held back. This was one of those five years later. And it does seem at this moment that with the firing of that officer, there is now acrimony and dissatisfaction on both

sides, which was maybe inevitable. But is there is there a lesson you learned here about what the mayor's role is in these kinds of public crises? So I'm going to start with, is the agenda actually working, which is where I start everything. So, you know, it's interesting. The public debate, the discourse, to some extent is inherently disconnected from everyday people on the ground. When I ran, I said we had to get rid of stop and frisk, which was a horrible, unconstitutional approach that was being used. There was a massive disconnect between the NYPD and families all over communities of color in this city. And I want to make it real visceral here, John. I talked to parents, I talked to grandparents, and they would just tell me how angry they were that they did everything in, you know, everything they knew how to do to bring up

children, to give them self-confidence, to love them, to give them self-esteem, and then for doing absolutely nothing, their young men of color were being stopped by police regularly, regularly. Kids who were doing everything right. And it was ultimately a horrible blow to a lot of these kids and their sense of security and self-esteem and hope. And I said from the beginning, we were going to change that. And a lot of the kind of commentary class and a lot of the old guard said, if you change a policy like that, there would be a return to the bad old days. There would be chaos. There would be more crime, et cetera. We managed to

show, and this is crucial for the whole national discussion, six years crime has gone down in New York City because we got rid of those very invasive, aggressive, unnecessary strategies. aggressive, unnecessary strategies. Last year in New York City, 150,000 fewer arrests than five years earlier, and we got safer, which is not only about the right way to police, but I'm sure we all care about mass incarceration too. You want to end mass incarceration, stop arresting people who don't need to be arrested to begin with. Now, I'm not talking theory, and I'm not talking like we did this in some small university town, right? We did this in the biggest city in the country and proved that you could do something very, very different. So when I look at the, it's a great question you're asking, like how do you move the levers and when do you weigh in intensely and when do

you hang back? My mission from the beginning, based on hearing people, hearing their anguish over what had been and their hope for a very different society, was that we could actually construct a world with a vision of neighborhood policing, which is all about building personal relationships between officers and community members and keeping police officers in the same community and just disrupting the entire model before, which was like outsiders come into your community to protect you and then move on and don't have a connection and don't feel they're part of the community and the community doesn't feel part of them. We reworked that entire approach. We retrained our entire police force in neighborhood policing, in de-escalation of conflict, in implicit

bias, all of the things that have made it possible to not have another tragedy like what happened with Eric Garner. It's an entirely different police force today. So when you ask the question, what was I thinking all along? I was thinking about how we get to that place where there would not be another tragedy because the whole structure had changed, the whole idea had changed, and where we could keep the city safe. Because, look, I say this as a progressive, and progressives have to be very humble about some of the times in the past where we had really good intentions and missed reality. My job was to keep people safe and to prove there was a progressive way to do it and a just way to do it, and that safety and

fairness could walk hand in hand. For six years, we've done it. There are specific things where you say, hey, it's so important to weigh in and speak up and make a change. And yes, except the opposition. I'm never surprised by the opposition. And there's other times when you say, we have a reality here that we have to honor. And that's what I felt with the Justice Department. And that's what I felt with the Justice Department. And that's what I felt about the trial that just happened in NYPD, where if I had spoken up the wrong way at the wrong time, it actually would have undermined that trial and that result and made it potentially something that could be challenged and overturned in court. But I'll tell you something. Here's the kicker that's being missed entirely. The Justice Department, under two administrations, literally didn't act.

They waited until the very last day, then they said they were not going to act. They did nothing. The DA in the case found there was no reason for even a trial, which was impossible for people to understand how there wasn't at least going to be an airing of the facts. When was the only time that there was actually a public trial and an airing was when the NYPD did its own internal trial. And then an NYPD judge said guilty, followed by the first deputy commissioner, followed by the commissioner. That was not something you would have conceived of happening not so long ago in New York City

or a lot of other American cities. And it took a lot of painstaking change to get to the point where there's a just process. And now I think people can see is, you know, our job is to make sure there's never, ever another tragedy. I mean it. I literally believe it's possible that we would never have another tragedy because of the kinds of changes we're making. But if there ever were one, for the first time people have been shown they can have faith that even the internal process of NYPD is just that that changes society when people can feel that, you know, it's not a police department that's other than us or different or separated.

It's actually part of us now. That's what I sought to do. I want to move into what you would do as president, but I think it's helpful to understand what you've been doing as mayor. I want to talk about Amazon. And I want to ask a question just sort of as a layman who just was observing it from the outside. And I'm curious if you think that what I'm describing is right. It seemed to me that there was a deal to get Amazon to come to New York. It was a deal that would have been good for the New York economy. There were some downsides. There were activists raising very legitimate concerns and that nobody really knew that Amazon was at risk of leaving. And so everyone just sort of said, take your shots, make your points. Let's see if we can get some changes. We'll hang back. As mayor, you don't want to get in that fray. You want to you want to kind of have the deal go through while not pissing off the activists.

And then all of a sudden, Amazon says we're out. And then you and the governor realize this was far more dire than we than we realized. You publish an op ed criticizing Amazon, reframing the debate. But really what happened was nobody understood that a deal that was really important to the growth of the New York economy was this much at risk. And if it was, you might have done more. You might have stepped in earlier. You might have said something. Is that right? I think you're very much in the ballpark. Look, I think the and I like to always say when I think I missed something and what I missed was the very beginning,

meaning we accepted the terms of this national competition. And I think that was a mistake. Because now, having lived through it and seen the injustice of it. I mean, you know, every city in America, every state will tell you how unjust it is that there's this constant race to the bottom. Fight with each other for jobs. Give tax breaks. Not appropriate. It is wrong.

So, I had no illusion about that. not appropriate it is wrong so i had no illusion about that um but i i think that this is something i look back on with frustration you know i thought this was a company that if they made a commitment would keep their commitment i thought the very fact that it was such a big competition would give them even more reason to keep their commitment right right? And so I felt from the beginning New York had an extraordinarily strong hand to play and like, okay, we'll compete with other folks and we think we'll win and we think in the end they'll keep their commitment. There's not even a thought to the core of your question. No one for a second thought, hey, wait a minute,

these guys may make a big public announcement sitting next to us and then pull out X number of weeks later, right? That was inconceivable. announcements sitting next to us and then pull out X number of weeks later, right? That was inconceivable. But what I should have seen is, you know, we in New York had something very, very particular to offer. And we could have had just a really clear message to them. If you want to negotiate with us, come negotiate with us. But we're not going to sort of be part of this bigger circus. So that's point one. But then to your other points, I would say, you know, I spent a lot of time making the case. I respected the activists. Some of them are people I feel very close to, but I really thought they were missing

the core point, which was it was the ultimate package was over $20 billion in public revenue for city and state, which for everything we as progressives want to do, you know, public education, mass transit, affordable housing, like you need money for that. It was a huge amount of money to help us move our progressive agenda. And it was a ridiculous number of jobs. I mean, it would have been the single biggest economic development deal ever. It was 25,000 jobs minimum, as high as 40,000. So it didn't surprise me. It never surprised me in New York where the folks in the immediate area don't want change okay that's legitimate they want to they have concerns they want to argue

for what they need to mitigate the impact that's fair but it became this bigger thing where no matter how many times and I said it a bunch of times guys this is a huge amount of money we need for stuff we need and jobs and jobs for working people and jobs for folks who live in public housing. Biggest public housing development in North America was down the street from this. And we were going to bond that development to Amazon and create a stream of jobs directly. Folks, young people coming out of our city university system really would have benefited from those jobs. So I thought by constantly reiterating the value, and the public polling showed, by the way, the clear majority of New Yorkers, particularly working class New Yorkers and people of color, wanted it. So I thought, and this is the part

of your analysis I think is spot on, there would be noise, there would be drama, welcome to New York City, you know, it would keep going. But in the end, you know, when you have me and the governor agree, which is not always an everyday occurrence, and the entire framework was all set up and everyone had explained that to Amazon and they made a public announcement, like, I could not believe my ears when I got the call saying they're pulling out no discussion, no negotiation, just pulling out. And so, no, I wish we had engineered the entire discussion differently from the beginning. And I think there were some things, I mean, I obviously wish I had been even more explicit about the benefits, but I don't think the folks who were against it, some of it's

very, very local. I don't think if I, you know, tried to explain a hundred times over, it wouldn't necessarily change that. And some of it was very very ideological folks who don't like amazon as a company which i understand and folks who don't want to see the government funded by private sector investment and needing that tax revenue which i totally emotionally get but i'm like folks this is we got to be real as progressives who want to change the world until we have a very different federal government, if you don't have revenue coming out of these kind of economic development actions, how the hell are we going to create economic justice? How the hell are we going to reach the people who want to reach it? And let's be blunt. Why are the working class people and people of color overwhelmingly want Amazon? Because they understood it could improve their

lives. A lot of folks who opposed it didn't have to deal with some of those same struggles. And it was a more abstract discussion for them. But I live in the real world. I mean, the people elected me, you know, the working class in New York City elected me. And they expected me to do things that would actually reach them, not just, you know, pretty pictures, like things that would actually reach them. And I think it was a huge lost opportunity. but no, Amazon stunned us all and it was highly irresponsible. And by the way, if you talk about why people are pissed off at corporate America, here's your poster child. So that walking away was entirely unfair to the city. So you wish that there had been a different process from the start, one that wasn't part

of this trend of corporations sort of pitting cities against each other, getting incredible dispensations for the privilege of having them come to the city. But that aside, you still wanted the deal that was made to go through. Oh, yeah. Do you wish you had been as forceful as you are now in defending the deal? Oh, I was. No, I can get you the many, many, you know, broadcasts. That's the criticism, right? The criticism, but again, this perception reality game of everything in public life, but particularly in my dear city, I can show you so many instances where I made the exact arguments that I just shared with you about why we needed this.

And look, I agree. If you had called me up in the middle of it and said, hey, in two weeks, they're going to pull out, I would have gone on a barnstorming tour to be even more intense and overt about it. But I made the case constantly. And the polling showed that people got it. And so I you know, maybe there is a conventionality problem of, you know, we all think we're living in the world that we came from and the world is changing intensely. We all think we're living in the world that we came from, and the world is changing intensely. Here was a deal that was done, announced, had public support, had a very narrow pocket of opposition in the scheme of things. And by any normal measure, it was clear what the benefits were.

And yeah, if you don't like Amazon, you don't like Amazon. But that didn't stop the benefits from being real. Even a lot of folks in labor who didn't like Amazon agreed with something else I said publicly, which is if Amazon was in the New York environment, they were going to have to deal with the New York reality, a pro-labor city, a progressive city, a city with a government that demanded a lot of accountability and social responsibility. So yeah, you know, this one is just perverse to me, honestly. Like, I don't think anyone could have. It's like the election of Donald Trump and then some. Like, literally no one had even the idea that they might walk away. And now, is New York City going to fall into the Hudson River because Amazon walked away?

No. We have over 4.5 million jobs right now in New York. We're very, very strong economically. We're going to be fine. In fact, the rest of the tech community is growing constantly. So we're going to be fine. But it is an interesting lesson in how we disrupt this race to the bottom. So what I came out of this feeling was, one, no more national competitions. Two, there needs to be legislation in Washington to limit, literally put a legal limit on how much a company can ask of a state or locality in terms of any subsidies, tax breaks, whatever. We have to set the rules. There's progressive governance in this country, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the great exemplar of this, changed the entire, you know, all the rules of the game about how the private sector had to relate to unions and working people and what they could and could not do in the Glass-Steagall Act.

We have to remember that actually these rules are really movable. And so there should be a rule that bans this practice of sort of forcing communities to do untenable things because you can't blame a community that wants the jobs you can't blame a community that wants the tax revenue it's part of like actually running something it gets back to the point from before if you're running something you know every day i'm thinking about how can i do more and where am i gonna get the money to pay for it this is like literally a constant conversation like one of the things we're doing next we're what we did with pre-K, we're going to do the same for three year olds. We're going to be the place that on the biggest scale in the history of this country is going to provide every three year old with early childhood education for free. It's going to

revolutionize education in New York. It's going to change the whole discussion in this country. When we show how much can be done with early childhood education, it costs a lot of money. So when we were thinking Amazon, we were thinking of things like that. And every city and town in America is thinking of things like that when they're trying to deal with a company. But the rules of the game must change. So let's talk about that. Being president about setting priorities. What what are what would be your number one priority? What would what could you do as president to help that There's a president right now who is on your side. I mean, in my time as mayor, I put $6 billion into public housing in a city that used to put nothing into public housing in terms of

having to pay out of our own budget. So I'm doing that because we have to help the 400,000 people who live in public housing and the federal government has walked away. I'm putting huge amount, the biggest capital budget the city's ever had because we have to fix our roads and bridges. You know, the things that used to be a federal priority, this is happening in every city, every town, every state. And we can't keep up with it. One of the things that I actually, I mean, I've been curious about, you know, we see this trend. It's not a New York trend. It's a national trend that building infrastructure, roads, subway projects, tunnel projects, they're incredibly expensive.

They're more expensive here than anywhere else in the world. Chris Christie cancels the arc tunnel, blames costs. One of the great derelictions of duty of any leader in a long time at the state level. And yet, we have this problem of the rising cost of infrastructure. What have you learned in managing these projects to explain why it costs two times, three times as much to build a mile of tunnel in, say, the US or a mile of bridge in the US versus Europe, where they have labor standards, where they have environmental standards? Okay. First, I would say what we're also learning is there are a lot of ways to start saving money, and we've been doing that and having some success at that. And so I

don't think it's sort of a fixed reality, right? Bluntly, some of those higher costs in this country have been just really, really bad approaches and public authorities that weren't particularly efficient, weren't particularly accountable. And until recently, that was certainly true of the MTA in New York City, where the accountability, literally no one knew, no one was sure until recently who was actually in charge of the subways and buses in New York City. And one good thing that's happened in the last few years is it's been made very clear the state of New York has that responsibility. And then lo and behold, once responsibility was finally assigned, a bunch of stuff started to happen, and that's good.

But we have found that we've been changing a lot of the approach, saving a lot of money, speeding up the process. I would say there's three things. Yes, and I believe in labor. I believe in organized labor. But, yeah, there is cost when you work with labor. I think the environmental dynamics here, I can't compare them to Europe, but I can say they're very, very intensive and time consuming. And I think just the legal dynamics across the board, there are so many areas where we could go faster and do things

better if we could clean up some of the laws that stand in the way of it that are not about safety and health, that are just arcane. Some of that's starting to happen in New York. That's a good thing. But no, I'm not hopeless about the ability to build big things and do it faster going forward. I think the problem is we're out of practice. I mean, the second Avenue subway finally got built in New York after decades, decades, decades, right? And it was like a pretty short, it's yeah, it's not, it doesn't go that far. It's a few stops. So, so, you know, we need to get into a place for our survival, literally first and foremost, surviving global warming and having resiliency vision, a strategic vision from the federal government to literally

non-existent. There's no policy to stop global warming. There's no resiliency policy. But there's also no national infrastructure policy. When you start to invest on a really huge level, which is what we need, you exercise the muscle and you have an imperative. One of the things I learned with all the big things we've done is we put really rigorous timelines out. For example, this is infrastructure, affordable housing. We put together the biggest affordable housing initiative in the history of New York City. It was going to be 200,000 apartments. People said it was crazy.

It was overambitious. We got it moving so well that it was literally ahead of schedule and on budget. We added 100,000 more apartments. The ambition actually drives action and effectiveness and efficiency. But one of the things I found I'm proud of is that we would purposely put ourselves on a limb. We would purposely put a target on our back. We'd say, here's a big bold goal. We were going to do pre-K for all in two years. We were going to do 200,000 apartments in 10 years. And all of these things forced action and forced change, forced innovation. So what bluntly a lot of politicians do is the opposite. They try and do really amorphous goals and try and avoid accountability.

And bureaucracies respond accordingly, right? So I think the exciting idea, and this is what this election should be all about, is like really bold ideas that force action on a level we haven't seen before. So to your other point, I mean, look, to me, global warming is an existential crisis. We know from implementing the Green New Deal already in New York City, we literally passed a law, the toughest standards for buildings anywhere on the earth, on the earth. And there was a human cry for the real estate industry, but you know what? We passed it. It's moving. It's going to force a whole host of changes in how people build

buildings and run their buildings and save a huge amount of energy and stop a whole lot of emissions, right? We're putting up electric vehicle charging stations all over New York City. We're not waiting for the federal government. We're not asking the private sector to do it because they weren't going to do it. We're doing it ourselves to make it easier for people to get electric cars. All of our city government energy is going to be, all electricity will be renewable in the next five years. We're doing things right now, and this is, to me, why Job 1, of course, addressed global warming with the aggressiveness that the Green New Deal calls for. New Deal calls for. And then I think, to me, the second, the sort of core economic mission, which typifies everything I've been trying to do in New York, but this is what I want to do for working people in the country, just rewrite the rules of the game for working people. So it's $15

minimum wage. It's benefits like paid sick leave and paid family leave. It's going to the heart of the matter on taxation, which is, you know, literally I have a plan. I'm going to say to all your listeners, go to BillDeBlasio.com and look it up. It is the most aggressive. He got one in. There's one. Just mark it. It's the most aggressive tax plan of any of the candidates. So I want to talk about that because it is the most aggressive tax plan of the candidates. But

when I saw the plan, what struck me is that it looks like Elizabeth Warren's plan, but you just move the numbers down. Elizabeth Warren rolls out a wealth tax that kicks in at 1%, 2%, 3%. And it seems like your plan is just very similar. It just is a little bit more aggressive when those numbers kick in. Well, I think the world of Elizabeth, and I'm very happy she put forward her plan, but I would argue to you that the question is who's willing to go the farthest. I know, but there's like you're suggesting. Is it who's willing to go the farthest? Because a wealth tax is already a massive transformative new policy.

And to say, okay, Elizabeth Warren proposes a wealth tax. Well, I have wealth tax, my 1.5 wealth tax. I get what you're saying, but I want to make the argument clearly. My tax plan, so let's just go to the pure income tax element of it, 70% level when you get above 2 million, and that includes, I very much envision, as I think all Democrats do, repealing the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations and putting back deductibility for state and local taxes, which is something I think was fair and needs to be restored. Well, you have to be for that. No, I believe in that.

I really believe in that. I believe in it for the whole country. So that tax level was the tax level during the Eisenhower administration. The tax level was the tax level during the Eisenhower administration. So one, no, I believe I actually marked my plan to what I thought historically worked and was proven. And what did you see then? A huge amount of investment in the country, infrastructure, education, higher education, science, research. That was the heyday, 50s into 60s. You saw a much greater sharing of prosperity. You saw CEO pay not as crazily out of whack,

which also I try to address in my plan. So no, I'm arguing that we actually know the kind of tax level that works. And we should be willing to defend it to people in this country. And most Americans would like to see, across the ideological spectrum, would like to see much higher taxes on the wealthy. On healthcare, you're for Medicare for All. There are a few plans. There's Bernie's plan. Kamala Harris put out a plan that involved the ability to choose amongst several public-private options. What is your healthcare policy? Support Medicare for all, but I don't believe you've put out... The final plan's coming out soon. And one of the things I want to address, which needs to be

bluntly discussed at this point, is sort of the sequencing of it, the phasing in of it, because it's not going to happen overnight. Again, I run a huge operation. And anyone who says, oh, we're going to have Medicare for all, we're going to have single payer in four years or something, I don't buy that in any way, shape, or form. These are massive changes in re-engineering. I mean, look what- So you don't think the Bernie plan can work? No, not in that time frame. No, no, no. And I think the world of Bernie, but that's not, again, this is a difference of, God bless legislators, but if you run big things, you know the amount of time that things take. It's going to take a longer period of time to be able to go through the phases.

I mean, look, the fight over Obamacare reminds us of how contentious this stuff can be. And thank God Obamacare was passed, and it's made a huge difference. But I always say we should start the discussion from an aspirational place. I mean, this is being missed in the discussion. What is the state of healthcare in America and what should it be? So I represent 8.6 million people. A lot of them happen to have health insurance and are unionized. I got 600,000 people who don't have any health insurance. So most of the people I talk to have health insurance. Are they telling me how wonderful their lives are? No, they're telling me all the things they can't get and all the frustrations they face. Mental health care, which is finally being given the respect it

deserves in our public debate, is very, very hard to access with the vast majority of insurance plans. Dental care is like the great American white whale, right? Like trying to get affordable dental care in America is like this mythology. Why is it not a matter of public policy to crack that code, right? A huge number of people have health care plans that hit them like over a head with a two-by-four with the deductibles that really, really stress people and cause people to not get health care they need because they can't handle the deductibles. There's always the danger of a serious disease that can bankrupt a family. I mean, this is not, you know, this is not greatest nation on earth kind of stuff. This is not what we should be aspiring to. So the question, and I'm going to do this in my plan, is say, okay, what is the end of the rainbow where you actually could have truly universal health care? It's a

single payer system. It has been proven in countries around the world. That's where you have to get to. Are we getting there in four years? No. Are we getting there in one jump? No. We're going to have to go through a series of steps. And I'm going to try and delineate that in the coming weeks, including respect. And this is something my brothers and sisters in labor have raised, and I hear it very loud and clear. Folks fought, fought, fought for these better health care plans than they used to have.

They don't want to see them wiped away. I say 100%. So let's be clear that any single payer plan would have to show tangibly that it's better in practice than the plans that labor unions have achieved. When that day comes is the time for a transition. And then the good side, and a lot of folks in labor understand this, is if their members actually could get universal health care through a public system, it would take that issue out of the labor bargaining table and actually strengthen the hand of labor in many ways. But I want to be honest about the fact that this will take stages, but what I'm trying to be really blunt, and this is where I think the debate has to go, is short of a single-payer system, a profit-driven system involving private insurance companies will inherently shortchange people of healthcare and limit access to healthcare.

So this is where this debate has turned during the primary, and that's important about the transition, about the failings of the private system. And I talked about this with Kirsten Gillibrand before she dropped out. A lot of candidates have talked about this transition. And it seems to me what you just described is the private system actually doesn't work really well. We're going to have a public system that does everything the private system does. And I want that. I think that's a good thing. But it elides the actual problem, which is, and it's a political problem. So I understand why this isn't getting the attention it deserves,

which is at some point, either your plan tells someone they cannot have their private insurance anymore and they have to switch to a Medicare option, which will ideally have better benefits, right? But it's still rooted in making that case to a person why they should want to switch as opposed to explaining why it is necessary to switch. The distinction there. Yeah. Let me try and answer and see if I'm hitting the point. So look, we are a country with a strong individualist tradition. And every progressive, every Democrat should be very clear about we believe in freedom. We believe in giving people a lot of choice. But we also have to be honest when we're looking in the face of failure on a massive scale. And this is health care in America today. There are so many people who are unhealthy and it's all about economics. It's just, that's

just the truth. And it is particularly hurting seniors, obviously lower income folks, but it's way into the working class and middle class as well, honestly speaking. And the catastrophic dynamic is absolutely positively unaccounted for. Um, a lot of people would approve their health care, but have no idea that if they were to have a massive emergency, suddenly they would discover they have a hundred thousand bankrupt because of the bills. Bankrupt. That is not consistent with a notion of a government that protects people. And this is where I think we have to come to grips in this debate. Where are we trying to go? If I said to you, I'm going to talk about public safety, you're going to be safe a lot of the time, John. You know, my pledge to you is most of the time

you'll be safe. You know, sometimes you might be really unsafe and, you know, I'll send you flowers then when that happens. But most of the time you're going to be safe. You'd think it was laughable. You'd think it was disgusting. So with public safety, we say our job is to protect everyone all the time. If I said to you with the military, we're going to protect our nation 80% of the time, but that other 20% we'll rebuild afterwards, you would say I was out of my mind. So why is it with health care? We accept the notion,

I'm talking tens of millions of families, a huge swath of the country, and not just poor people. And bluntly, if we could go back and do the entire discussion over again, what Hillary tried to nobly do in 1993, what Obama did achieve, but obviously with huge costs in the political costs and otherwise. It got painted by our opponents as, oh, this is just for poor people, right? This has to be an entirely different discussion. Yeah, we care about folks who are lower income. What I'm talking about is for working class people and middle class people who right now their health care is not working for them. And I start with mental health. And this is what my wife, Shirlane, has focused her efforts on in New York City and to really help me get educated about this.

Do you know an example of Iowa in the last election last year, November, that mental health ranked number one or number two as the issues in the state of Iowa among voters in consistent polls by the Des Moines Register? Why? Because the Republican governors in Iowa had cut back mental health services so much so that rural communities literally had nowhere to turn. God forbid someone had a mental health challenge or, you know, depressed, substance misuse problem, there was nowhere to get help. And in all other communities, they were seeing those cutbacks. And particularly in a smaller state and a state with a great sense of community, everybody knew someone who couldn't get mental health care. This is what Iowans have told me, why it became such a huge issue. Because they felt things becoming unstable. They felt like there wasn't a place to turn. So this is the whole country when it comes to our health insurance

system. So there's one massive problem. We're dealing with an opioid crisis. We're dealing with a mental health crisis. One in five Americans has a mental health challenge, and yet our health insurance system does not even begin to address those. And then you go on to physical health care, a whole host of things where you can't get the level of care you need, and then that catastrophic danger looming for a vast swath of American families. So we're now talking about a big American majority, and we need to talk about this from the perspective of that big American majority. Where are we trying to go? We should be trying to go to a healthcare system that keeps people healthy from jump, right? From the moment you have a problem, you know where to go. You do not have to worry about the cost in going there. You get help early, not later. You

don't put off, you don't ration. I mean, these stories about seniors choosing how much insulin to take, you know, because they have to pay the rent. That's happened in America all the time. These are not just, and again, I am deeply committed to helping low-income folks. But the folks I'm describing right now, these seniors are folks who solidly came out of the working class and middle class. And they're on fixed incomes. And I'm talking about millions of people. That's not acceptable.

So we should not be losing a fight about human decency. We should be honest that it's not going to be a panacea that happens overnight, that it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of transition. And bluntly, we have the cynicism about government, and that gets back to those labor union health plans, for example. I don't think it's unfair to show people that we've got something better and it's actually functioning before people give up what they have. Like that kind of phasing in and show me, prove it to me actually could be the thing that gives people the comfort to make the move. And that'll take time. But I hope we come out of this election decided as a nation that this status quo is unacceptable. I want to talk about something, which is that you're a Red Sox fan.

Yes. Oh, that was an abrupt segue. Well, I was just checking the clock. That speaks to a kind of stubbornness to me, which is that you are- Loyalty? I'm going to call it stubbornness. You're the mayor of New York City. Integrity?

I believe I said stubbornness. You're the mayor of New York City. You are a fan of the Red Sox. Yes. What the fuck? Thank you for asking such an insightful question, John. It just seems like, truly, but it gets at a serious question,

which there does seem to be a kind of daring people to be mad at you. John, daring people to choose me over a bunch of other candidates they could have chosen. And I said from the beginning, hey, my family moved to Massachusetts when I was five. I read all this. I don't give a shit. Hold on. I want your vast, vast audience to hear this. I grew up with a shit. Hold on. I want your vast, vast audience to hear this. You are the mayor of New York City. I grew up with the team. I love the team.

I'm a really huge baseball fan, and I said to the people in New York City, this is just who I am. Take it or leave it. And they took it. They didn't like it. No, hold on. What is this part of voting that you don't understand? They had a chance to choose a whole bunch of other candidates who are not Red Sox fans. I'm not saying it stopped you from being the mayor. But you are a mayor. But in a big way.

But in a big way. Yeah. I'm saying I won the primary without a runoff. I got 73% of the general election. I won re-election with 67%. Could have been more. Okay. That would have been nice.

We don't know what this cost you. But here's the thing. I actually heard this from people. I heard it from a lot of baseball fans who were like, I couldn't change my team anyway. I couldn't do it either. I would have done the same thing you did if you're actually a baseball fan. And I am. But the second thing I heard from some people is, was, wow, well, you're not doing that for political advantage. So that's certainly true. So maybe there's some integrity there. I have one more. This has just been on my mind. I've wanted to

ask you about it. This thing with Cuomo, you guys seem to be, it seems like a very old-fashioned feud in a way that I really like. As a gay Jewish New Yorker, there's a pettiness that I admire about it. And I admire that despite the fact that it might be in both of your interests as leaders to get over it, you seem like you can't, like you truly have a wall between the two of you that seems rooted in genuine pain. What is that pain? Wow. But it's personal. And if it's, you know, they used to say, oh, Obama and McConnell, they should just get a drink. But there were structural reasons, as we have seen in recent years, that would prevent these two people from working together. You're two Democrats who oversee a lot of the same issues together. And yet there's a lot of potshots,

a lot of negativity going back and forth. People in New York think it hurts the city. That's a serious question. But but it all does seem to be a quite personal thing. When is there any hope for a for a for a for a comedy, for a for a for a comedy? No, there's been plenty of comedy. There's been plenty of comedy, right? Honestly, if it wasn't so serious, it is truly... Is there hope for comedy? Well, John...

The rivalry is genuinely hilarious. There's hope for more comedy. I mean, you guys don't miss a chance. Little jokes, little digs, real disagreements. What's going on? Well, I honestly believe you're painting a little bit more of a dire picture than reality. I'll tell you why.

So you just talked about Amazon. And we talked during that time on the lead up to it. We had to coordinate in a huge way to get to that deal. We were absolutely in agreement on it. And then we went and defended it together. And that was a big, big deal. We just passed a congestion pricing plan. And I want to be honest.

I was a congestion pricing doubter for a lot of reasons. To his credit, we worked together. We actually addressed a lot of the things that caused my doubt, which was about fairness, particularly to the outer boroughs in New York City. We got to a plan that I thought made a lot of sense and was going to fund the MTA properly. We promoted it together. That's what broke the back on this issue is when, you know, both of us came together and said, this is something we're both going to fight for. And we did and we won.

So there's going to be times we disagree. The notion that you could both be Democrats and disagree with something is not a shocker. And there's philosophical differences. Look, I think it's fair to say he comes out of a more pro-business and more moderate worldview. I come out of a more progressive worldview. That's okay. But we still work together. Our teams work together all the time. And so, yeah, there are human factors. Of course there's human factors.

But here's a very, I think, a sort of heart of the matter thing. You're looking at the digs and everything, right? And, yeah, I see them sometimes. You do them sometimes. I do them sometimes, maybe. But I think the fact is that stuff pales in comparison to the work. And so there's almost a perception versus reality. So you and Governor Cuomo work really well together?

No, we work well when we agree on a vision. Because then we get it done. And look, congestion pricing was not an easy thing to get done. But we got it done. And we both worked real hard at it. But here's the thing I disagree with. It's like, okay, we're human beings. We have some disagreements. Sometimes it breaks out in the open. Where is the thing that is not getting done that we could do together? Well, sometimes there are things we don't agree on.

So it's not about what if we were the most incredibly polite people in the world, but we just still didn't agree on a policy vision. They ain't changing the reality. One thing people would point to, right, is that the MTA has a unique role being funded by both the city and the state being kind of a jury rigged process that requires both your leadership and the governor's leadership. And that maybe if you guys saw eye to eye more, had a better texting dynamic, things might be working better. No, let's break it down a little further.

We had to, and this is how change happens. This is literally, I hope someday they will study this. The MTA was created to leave no one accountable. This is a fact. It was created so that they could get fair increases through and things done without anyone knowing, does the city run it? Does the state run it? Who runs it, right? So I used to have town hall meetings at the beginning of my administration. I would ask people, you know, show of hands, 200, 300 people, who runs the MTA? About a third would say the governor, about a third would say the mayor, and a third

would say, we don't know. And they were right. And they were right about no one knew because it was not, you know, you could see the reality, but it was not portrayed publicly in a real way. So I push very hard for the truth. And it is the truth to come out. The state of New York runs the MTA, dominates the MTA, chooses the head of the MTA, chooses the budget for the MTA. It's a fait accompli. And I pushed this very, very hard. And I think this was actually historically necessary. So the last town hall meetings I have, I would still ask the question, and 90% of hands would go up and say state of New York. That change happened over the course of a couple of years. Now we actually have accountability. And I'm someone who has, I have accountability for

the entire New York City school system, for example, 1.1 million kids, mayoral accountability for education, obviously policing and sanitation, and you go down the list. I always say, if you don't know who you are supposed to hold accountable, good luck getting any change. So the good news is, yeah, there was a fight. There was tension. But not, you know, there's this almost in your question, respectfully, there's this notion that comedy is a goal unto itself regardless of outcome. I would argue outcomes for people come first. And you sure as hell would like comedy. And you would like respect.

And you'd like people to have a good open diplomatic discourse, whatever. But guess what? There's going to be conflict sometimes over disagreements. And if it ends up in a productive open diplomatic discourse, whatever. But guess what? There's going to be conflicts sometimes over disagreements. And if it ends up in a productive place for people, that's fine. And for God's sakes, I'm a New Yorker. I'm not scared of conflict. No. And I'm going to say again, if folks believe, if they believe that we need progressive voices in this race, please go to BillDeBlasio.com and help me out.

Mayor DeBlasio, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, John. It was a great conversation. Enjoyed it. Pod Save America is a product of Crooked Media. The show is produced by Michael Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer.

Thanks to Caroline Reston, Tanya Somanator, and Katie Long for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and Milo Kim, who film and upload these bad boys every week.