The Wolf Of All Streets - Saving New York City with Zach Iscol, Candidate for Mayor of NYC

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

Zach Iscol grew up in a home with loving parents, yet chose to join the Marines as an officer. He served two tours leading an infantry unit in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. He later founded a successful nonprofit organization called Headstrong, caring for our nation's veterans with a focus on mental health. Zach has now thrown his hat into the ring to become NYC mayor, aiming to defeat incumbent Bill de Blasio and turn the city around. Scott Melker and Zach Iscol further discuss running for NYC mayor, the inspiration to join the Marines, a lineage of military service, saving veterans from poor mental health and suicide, volunteering at the Javits Center during the COVID-19 pandemic, government shutdowns, ranked-choice voting, saving small business, donating thousands of masks, throwing a slot machine overboard, getting your hands dirty as a leader, crypto regulation in NYC and more. --- EQUOS Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurrency exchange to be listed in the US. That exchange, EQUOS, has been built to institutional standards, but is available to everyone. You can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum spot, as well as Bitcoin perpetuals, and get a 5% discount on all fees, by signing up using equos.com/wolf. --- CELSIUS With the Celsius app you can earn up to 15% APY rewards on over 30 cryptocurrencies. Have crypto but want cash? Celsius also offers the lowest cost loans against your crypto with interest rates starting at just 1% APR. Enter promo code WOLF when you sign up and get $20 in BTC! Users must transfer and hold at least $200 of any coin for 30 days to be eligible for the reward. --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

I'd like to thank my sponsors, Celsius and Equus, for making this episode possible. Stay tuned later in the episode for more info. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, and this is the Wolf of All Streets podcast. Today's guest is running for mayor of New York City. Taking on the ultimate political challenge of public service, Zach plans to represent one of the most contentious and scrutinized cities in the country. On this episode, I plan to find out what changes he hopes to make in New York City,

what inspires someone to run for mayor, and to better understand the current state of the Big Apple. Zach Iskall, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and share your story. Yeah, thank you for having me, Scott. It's great to be here. And yeah, thanks for having me. So before we get into the questions, once again, you're listening to the Wolf of All Streets podcast where twice a week I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, and politics. The show is powered by Blockworks Group, a media company with over 20 podcasts in their network, and you can check them out at blockworksgroup.io. If you like the podcast, follow me on Twitter and check out my website and my newsletter, thewolfofallstreets.io. So, Zach, you live with your wife, Meredith, who I've actually known for now, I realize, over 20 years, which is making me feel kind of old. Yeah, nobody knows how I ended up with her.

Everybody thinks she's out of my league. I've heard it all before and they're all right. You're also going to hear during the course of this podcast, screaming babies, yelling kids, barking dogs, possibly some doorbells, hopefully nothing worse, maybe some sirens. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Four kids, three dogs. So I guess it's safe to say your apartment is pretty full. Yes, we have a full apartment to say the least. We live in a circus. Yeah. Well, and to do all of that in New York City is a unique challenge that almost nobody else who's never done the like two people in a studio apartment. Not if you marry outside your pay grade. If you marry outside your pay grade, your wife makes it very easy. And that's

what I did. So. Well, that's absolutely amazing. So let's just dive right in. I mean, you decided to run for mayor of New York City, not a small challenge. And obviously, you're a big thinker. I mean, what compelled you to make that decision? Yeah, look, if you'd asked me a year ago, if I would be running for mayor of New York City at this point in time, as we mentioned, four kids, three dogs, a wife, I had a thriving business. We had just scaled a nonprofit I run called the Headstrong Project. That's one of the leading and largest providers of mental health care in this country. I had my hands full already. I didn't foresee myself doing this, but I did always have an itch to jump into politics. I've been in public service for two decades, even though I am new to politics. And really, you know,

I saw the state of the city. Back in April, March and April and May, at the height of COVID, I had an opportunity to serve as a deputy director at Javits Medical Center. So, I showed up there as a volunteer. We had close to 30 federal, state, and city agencies working there. And it looked like it was going to be a disaster. We didn't have any real capabilities to take care of COVID patients. We weren't even allowed to take care of COVID patients at that time. And, you know, what I saw there was, you know, sort of the bigger issue that the city was facing, bigger than COVID. You look at sort of all the challenges that the city is facing. But specifically at Javits, it was like we had to build a COVID hospital in four days.

That was hard. We had to figure out how to get oxygen into the Javits Center without turning into the Hindenburg. That was hard. Treating COVID patients was hard, but we had amazing doctors and nurses who were doing that. So it wasn't that hard. The hardest part about what we did at Javits was dealing with the politics outside the building, dealing with politicians who would rather see other politicians fail, have something to blame each other for, then God forbid, they should share in its success. And you see the way that that is costing the greatest city on earth.

And I think fundamentally, if you look at any of the challenges facing this city, whether it's the fact that we've lost half a million jobs, a third of our small businesses, increasing rates of homelessness, people don't feel safe on the streets. Fundamentally, the issue underlying all of those is leadership. And we need a new type of leadership in this city. And that ultimately was why I decided to throw my hat in the ring. You're very humble because I actually, because I, obviously I know your family, your brother-in-law is one of my oldest friends.

Well, my brother-in-law never has anything nice to say about me. So he says nice things to me. If you know, Chris, like the problem with Chris is he's, he's so smart. He's so witty. He's, I hope he doesn't listen to the podcast. I hope he doesn't hear that. He's so smart. So he's like, it's like being married to Vince Vaughn's sister. Like, that's true. I think that's accurate. He is, he just like, I can never win with him. And so I'm glad to hear maybe behind my back, he's saying some nice things. Well, I like it. Somehow I've referenced him probably five times on this podcast in the past because there's always reality TV stars here and stuff. He loves it too. He was on Road Rule.

That is true. But what I was going to say was, so I happen to know that you guys were all isolated happily on a farm, you know, elsewhere outside the city at the beginning of covid and as you said you were a volunteer i mean you left everyone and everything and decided you were going to show up at the javits center yes i left my context like this was march like this was yeah i mean this is my wife alone in in a house with no internet, Zoom schooling, four kids with three dogs, three cousins. While she runs a successful business herself. Right. She's also running a business by herself. But what inspired you to leave the comfort and safety of that situation and run off into the

middle, I mean, the epicenter of a global pandemic at that time? You know, I've always had a, I've never been able to sit still when something's happened. I volunteered for my second deployment. I met Meredith, actually, my wife, volunteering in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. You know, I went out to the Rockaways, started helping lead volunteer efforts out there to an organization called Team Rubicon. But in terms of getting to Javits, it really, it started with an N95 mask. I had started working with a group of business leaders, completely pro bono, helping arrange donations to hospitals, to the state and to the city of, you know,

medical equipment, ventilators, all donations, all pro bono. And we got, I think it was like 3,000 or 5,000 N95 masks donated to Brooklyn Hospital, which was one of the hospitals in the city that had been hit hardest. And one of the doctors called me to thank me for the mask donation. She works in the ER there. And this was probably around March, maybe March 24th, 25th. So it was, things were, you know, the hospitals were starting to get overwhelmed. And I asked her how things were going. And you could just hear in her voice the amount of stress that she was under and how difficult it was. And she told me she's a single mom.

She treated her first COVID patient on March 8th. Her parents helped take care of her daughter. So she had to call her parents who are older because they're in a higher risk group and said, I need to go pick up my daughter. If I see her now that I've been exposed, I'm not going to be able to have you taking care of her and I need to work. And that just broke my heart. And look, I've done deployments. I've been deployed with friends who have missed the birth of children. I know people who, you know, deployed for a year and a half

long periods away from their families. I have friends who are still deployed, you know, 20 years later, 16 years later, you know, on subsequent deployments. But this, for some reason, just thinking about her daughter, you know, saying goodbye to her mom before she went to the hospital that day, thinking she's going to see her at the end of the day. Um, it wrecked me. And I had a really good friend, uh, who was also in the Marine Corps who's helping run state operations, um, uh, for New York. Uh, and so I called him, his name's Pete Karen. And I said, Pete, like, I need to

get in the fight. What can I do? Like, can I'll intern for you? I'll get you coffee. Like, I just want to help. I mean, I was broken by that conversation. And he made some phone calls, the governor's office had an executive volunteer program, they were getting sort of executives with different skill sets to help and lend a hand where they could. I got involved in that. They sent me to Javits Medical Center as a volunteer. And that's how I wound up there. So you have a long history of service. Obviously, you touched on the fact that you're a Marine. You didn't come from a deprived background. You didn't need to join the Marines

so that obviously like to pay for college or anything like that. Right. I mean, right. Yeah. What inspired you? You could have literally done anything probably at that time of your life to enlist. Yeah. I, I, growing up, I'd always wanted to join the military. You know, most of my dad came from a gold star family. His uncle was killed in World War II. His father served, his stepfather served. I, you know, I'm Jewish. So, I grew up going to high holiday, you know, gatherings and there was always, you know, a survivor there who would tell stories from their side of the war. And so, I think I sort of just grew up around those stories. And I remember when I was a kid, my parents had this dresser drawer, this dresser in their bedroom. And there was one drawer that I wasn't allowed to go into.

And that drawer was filled with family heirlooms. And one of the heirlooms was a set of dog tags. It was multiple set of dog tags. It was all the family members who had served. And I remember thinking from a young age that I wanted to add my dog tag to that chain. And I think that's sort of where it started. I then ended up playing lightweight football at Cornell, which my brother-in-law, Chris, loves to make fun of me for. It is a varsity sport. We just, it's for smaller guys. You weigh in two days before game time. Again, it is a varsity

sport. Just make fun of Chris's bad knees. Yeah, I know. He does have terrible knees. He has terrible knees. And he's going to love that we're talking about him this much. Absolutely. And my football coach at Cornell was a guy named Terry Cullen, and he was a highly decorated Marine from Vietnam, had been badly wounded, earned the Silver Star. And he really encouraged me to join the Marine Corps as opposed to the other branches of service. And so that's how I found my way there. And so after the Marines, is that when you founded Headstrong?

Yeah. So I did some consulting work after the Marine Corps and made a film, did some other work. And then in 2011, you know, started to see that I was in one of the hardest hit battalions of the Iraq war. We lost 33 Marines in the site. So I found the second battle of Fallujah, which was exactly 16 years ago. And we started to lose more Marines to suicide than we did in combat around 2010, 2011. And nobody was doing anything about it. You know, there was huge barriers for people to get care. There was a huge stigma around people getting help if they needed it. Most people didn't even know that they needed help. They couldn't identify that what the symptoms that they were struggling with were PTSD, or that it was something that was treatable. And my battalion commander, a guy named Colonel Willie Buell,

was in the city for about seven months doing a tour at the Council on Foreign Relations. We went out for beer one night, and we had just had a really bad suicide in the battalion. A young former sergeant came home, kissed his wife and kids at the dinner table, went upstairs, and shot himself, killed himself. And, you know, Colonel Buell just looked at me and he said, we need to do something. And I didn't know the first thing about mental health care, but, you know, I worked for a, you know, sort of, I came from a legacy and it's, it really is a, or a lineage. It's really is a lineage. It really is a lineage of Marine officers. And you can trace the lineage. It's guys like, you know, Colonel Buell, you know, all the way up to, you know,

General Tulin, General Mattis, General Dunford. And these are Marines who really believe that, like, your job as a Marine officer, more than anything else, is to take care of your Marines. And that doesn't end when you take the uniform off. It doesn't end when you turn over command. And Colonel Buell, in particular, to this day, he'll call me and he'll ask me how my Marines are doing. And I better know how they're doing. Because even though I'm now running for mayor of New York City, I've been out of the Marine Corps for, I think, over a dozen years, My ass is on the line if I don't know how my Marines are doing. And so Colonel Buell said, we need to do something. And I said, aye, aye, sir, let's do something. And we ended up founding a program initially through a partnership with

Cornell Medical Center here in New York City called the Headstrong Project. We, you know, brought together some remarkable doctors and clinicians here in the city and basically gave them a mission. We said we need to figure out how to address suicidality. We want to provide treatment to veterans. It's got to be completely free for them. We're going to raise all the money to pay for their treatment. There's got to be zero bureaucracy, no paperwork. It's got to be confidential.

And most important, it had to be effective. But basically, the initial idea was let's remove every single barrier to care so that people can get the help they need. And now we're in almost 30 cities around the U.S. We have 800, 900 veterans a week getting treated through Headstrong. And we've had remarkable success in it. I think that's a good pivot to New York City, obviously, because, I mean, New York sort of notoriously has a homeless issue, which is largely arguably a mental health issue, I guess, depending on who you ask.

And it's had a long history of dealing with that in different ways. So, I mean, having come from this background, starting headstrong, seeing the impact of mental health, certainly on soldiers, How does that play into your plans for New York City homeless problem, mental health issues? Yeah. So I think there's a bigger question to start with, which is that, you know, the number one takeaway that I learned, you know, I've had strong, I mean, I learned this in the Marine Corps as well. I've learned this in business, right? It's, you know, a good business, a good nonprofit, a good military unit, good government. It all starts with accountability and transparency and really understanding what the outcomes are that you're trying to achieve. And I think in particular, good government starts

with transparency and accountability and an understanding of what type of outcomes you're driving to. And I think one of the problems that we have with government, especially in a town like New York City, is there's no, you know, we have political leadership that cares more about political outcomes than real outcomes. So, how does that apply to homelessness? New York City, we spend over $3 billion a year on homelessness. To put that in perspective, that's twice the budget of the city of Phoenix a year. That's a population of 1.6 million. We have about 77, 78,000 long-term homeless people living in this city. And so, when you think about that, you know, $3 billion, you know, if you are tying that to specific outcomes of really helping people who need our help, right? If you're tying that and

you know how you're spending every single one of those dollars, there's transparency around that and accountability around that. You should be able to get results. And so when you look at the numbers, you know, for example, a homeless person on the streets of New York is not only, in my mind, criminal that there are people in one of the wealthiest cities in the world who can't get the help and the care that they need. I mean, nobody should be homeless. You know, and then when you think about it from, you know, from a government perspective, it costs the city $65,000 a year, a homeless person on the street on average, because they're going in and out of jails, they're going in and out of emergency rooms, they're causing property

damage. There was a mentally ill homeless man who derailed a, I think it was one train or the A train about a month ago, right? I mean, this is, this is, there are real consequences to not taking care of homeless people. Right. It's $65,000 a year to provide something like supportive housing. You know, it would cost the city 25, 30, maybe 35 K a year. So like, it's not only the right thing to do, it also makes financial sense to do this. But the problem is that $3 billion, it's not going to help homeless people. It's going into waste, fraud, abuse,

corruption. I mean, there's an investigation going on in the Bronx right now, into the Bronx County clerk, where, you know, a quarter of a billion dollars went to people who should have been disbarred from ever receiving a government contract. So I think there is like a real need for, you know, I think it starts with like, if you have a leader who cares about real outcomes, who cares about transparency and accountability, we have the resources in this town to start addressing these problems in a meaningful way. I mean, has it always been that way in New York? I mean, has it just been sort of an old boys club that's handed down power from,

you know, from person to person, and they sort of take care of their own and ignore the problems of the real people in the city. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. Look, I mean, Tammany Hall is still alive and well in a town like New York city, right? Like this is, this is, this goes back, you know, hundreds of years. At the same time, I think we are in a moment where that can change, right? You have this crisis, like, I think is a incredible opportunity, where one, people are paying attention to, I'm sorry, if you hear that crying baby in the

background. No, it's par for the course. It is, it is, you know, this crisis provides a real opportunity. You know, where people are paying attention to what they expect of our political leadership. People are paying attention to the problems around the city. I think people realize that it's indefensible now that a city that spends, I mean, New York City's budget is 90, $95 billion a year. It's more than 48 out of 50 states. It's almost as much as the next 12, 15, I think maybe even 20 largest US cities combined. And I think people are now starting to ask that question. And at the end of the day, like, you know, yes, there are special interests. Yes, there are people who, you know, are part of an establishment or machine. I would argue that establishment isn I mean, you still need to raise money and advertise and your face has to be out there. So how do you navigate the challenges of actually putting together a

successful campaign within the context of what it takes, I guess, to win? Yeah. Great question. So first off, I think that the establishment doesn't really exist in New York City anymore. I mean, I think if you look at, you know, right now there's 37 open city council seats out of 51 next year. We will probably have 41 new city council members out of 51. You know, there's no establishment that those city council members are going, those candidates are going to get, you know, to compete for support from in order to get a leg up. I mean, there's some from the DSA, the Democratic Socialist America, that's probably the best organized political entity that candidates

can go to to get support. There's really nothing else out there for them. So I think it's, I think that there's a vacuum there that needs to get filled. And I think it's important that, you know, it gets filled by people who care about real outcomes, not political outcomes. I think at the same time, you know, for us, when we think about this race, what we're seeing is there's also a couple sort of variables. Number one is this is the first year that New York City has ranked choice voting. So, voters get to vote for up to five candidates. You literally rank your candidates one through five. And what that means is, is that this year, in the past, you could win by having a, you know, by getting 20, 25, or 30% of the vote, and then it goes to a runoff.

This year, you have to get 50% of people or more to pull a lever for you. Maybe you're not their first choice, but you better be their second, third, fourth or fifth choice. That changes a lot of demand, a lot of sort of variables in the race, because you have to have broader appeal. And it's very hard just to be focused on specific interest groups or special group or special interests. And for us, so for, you know, when we think about this race, there's sort of different stages. You know, this first stage is really about fundraising. It's a crowded field, but I think the field will become less crowded in January once financial disclosures are made on January 11th. And then we're also, you know, planning on talking about things that a lot of other folks aren't talking about. You know, I mean, we're talking about how do we bring back a million

jobs? How do we bring back a third or, you know, double the number of small business? We left third of our small business. How do we bring back two times that amount? There's a lot of things that, for whatever reason, I think a lot of the field isn't talking about that we plan on talking about, and we believe this year in particular, that's going to resonate. And the last thing I'd add is, you know, I think what the data is showing from the June primary, from the November election, is New Yorkers are hungry for generational change. They're hungry for somebody who is a proven crisis leader, but who also has a vision for where we can take New York City. And, you know, I think I best represent that in the race. And,

you know, we just got to keep beating that drum and, you know, getting that word out there. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard about the DeFi craze in crypto. By far the safest and simplest way to passively earn in the space is to hold your coins on Celsius. You can earn your rewards in the same crypto you're holding, or you can earn even more in their sell token. Right now, I choose to earn 5% on Ethereum in Ethereum and 15% on my stable coins in sell token. It's a little bit better than the sub 1% interest rates you can earn in a legacy bank account. Celsius was founded with the belief that crypto is the opportunity to really shake up the financial system. They're changing the standards for all financial services. They share 80% of their revenue in the form of weekly reward payments. That's how their users

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in the space is to hold your coins on Celsius. You can earn your rewards in the same crypto you're holding, or you can earn even more in their sell token. Right now, I choose to earn 5% on Ethereum in Ethereum and 15% on my stable coins in sell token. It's a little bit better than the sub 1% interest rates you can earn in a legacy bank account. Celsius was founded with the belief that crypto is the opportunity to really shake up the financial system. They're changing the standards for all financial services. They share 80% of their revenue in the form of weekly reward payments. That's how their users are earning up to 15% APY with compounding rewards. They also commit to providing the lowest cost loans on the market. Their loans start at

just 1% APR. For just 1% interest, you can borrow cash against your crypto and avoid selling, which also eliminates the taxable event. It's absolutely huge. High rewards on your holdings and low interest on your loans on a platform whose mission you can believe in. Celsius is giving away $20 to every new user who joins with the promo code WOLF. Just enter the promo code in the app during registration. $20 is awarded after 30 days of maintaining a wallet balance of $200 or more. Visit celsius.network, that's C-E-L-S-I-U-S.network, and use promo code WOLF, W-O-L-F. Let's talk more about COVID because obviously New York City was in the spotlight. And it was interesting because there's been this sort of varying opinion, I guess, of how spectacular it was and how awful it was and how spectacular. And then you have this hindsight lens of they were doing great, but maybe it was actually a disaster.

And I think nobody actually knows outside of New York whether the politicians actually did a good job. I think everybody unanimously thinks de Blasio kind of sucks. That's the one thing I get from everyone I've ever talked to about it. So you're in the right race, I would say. I mean, it's definitely, there's one thing, like no matter who you talk to in the city, every New York, and that head shake that you just did,

I call it the de Blasio head shake. Literally, no matter where you are, you're in the South Bronx, North Shore of Staten Island, you know, all over Manhattan, East New York, you know, Williamsburg, Forest Hills, Jackson Heights, everybody, they look down and just shake their head. It's the Blasio head shake. And I think there's one thing that all New Yorkers agree upon is that we cannot elect a new mayor soon enough. I think one of the things that really is most upsetting to me about what's happening with COVID right now, and we're on the verge of a second wave here in New York City.

You can look around the world and you can see what works and what doesn't work. You can see what some countries are doing well and others that aren't. I mean, there's even a de Blasio quote where right before we got hit hard, somebody asked him at a press conference if they thought what happened in Italy could happen here. And he said, with all due respect to my Italian ancestors, we have things figured out here better than they do. Right? Like, and it's like, okay, so what have we figured out? And here we are nine months into this. We still haven't figured it out. We still haven't figured it out. And there are just like, there's little things, you know,

when you look at what the city's policies are for the pandemic, it's, we need to socially distance and wear a mask. I agree. Right. It's that we need to be responsible. And if things get worse, you know, then it goes from that to, we need to shut everything down. What are the things that the city could be doing or the state or the federal government to prevent us from getting that to that point short of just telling everybody to wear a mask and socially distance? You know, one thing that you see is happening in a lot of other countries that are successfully fighting this is that they are actively testing people. So right now in New York City, there are three, five, seven hour waits to get tested. You know, if you look at, you know, Wuhan, for example, you know, they have not had a second

wave. One of the things that they did, they've done this in Seoul, they've done this in Taiwan, they are actively testing people. In Wuhan, they tested 6.5 million people in 10 days. Can you imagine if like when we have a neighborhood that goes to, you know, orange, you know, goes to 2% and is approaching 3%. If you had teams of government workers, volunteers, who are out there actively testing people, you know, that were getting their coffee, actively testing people that were getting on and off the subway that were actively going out there to identify who were, you know, who were carrying it, but, you know, weren't displaying symptoms, you know, and then if you actually had a system to actually help those people quarantine safely

and effectively. It's not, you know, does it require effort? Does it require choices about appropriating resources to that? Yeah, but those are choices that we can make. I mean, we live in a country where we used to build bombers, you know, in two to four minutes. Like, I think we could prioritize figuring out how to do this to keep us safe. And the consequences now of us having a second wave, of us having to shut down schools, restaurants, like, it is going to be catastrophic. And so I think the city's priorities are totally messed up. Because now it's getting to a point where there are no good choices. The long-term effects are going to be massive. And all of this was preventable

if we prioritize things differently. Right. And you talk about, I know one of the major facets of your platform, obviously, as you touched on, is bringing back small business. But I have to imagine also, you know, there's preventative measures of stopping more small businesses from closing. I can't imagine being a $30,000 a month restaurant in the village, you know, rent trying to maintain on takeout orders in the middle of the winter. So, I mean, that's not sustainable. And then obviously, you know, we have this new stay at work, I mean, stay at home to work culture. So, you know, a lot of these offices are going to close and the businesses around them will then lose their business. And I mean,

how do you stop the bleed? You know, it seems like you can't just throw a tourniquet on it and hope for the best. It seems like there needs to be fundamental change if you see what's inevitably coming. Yeah, I think I think it fundamentally comes down to that type of leadership. So, you know, near term, yes, we need to stop the bleeding. So like the city needs to start proactively fighting the virus. It's not telling us to wear masks and socially distance is not proactively fighting the virus. Telling us that the only response, the only sort of next tactic that we can use is shutting everything down is not fighting the virus, right? We can prioritize taking care of our most vulnerable.

We can actively go out there finding people who are asymptomatic spreaders or carriers to make sure that they're getting quarantined and putting them in a place where they can get treatment or just quarantine safely for a couple of weeks. I think when it comes to businesses, I mean, when you talk to business owners around the city, especially restaurants, and restaurants are one of the most vital, I mean, it taps into that other point that you're making about offices. You know, restaurants are the lifeblood of this town. 100%. So many of us live here, right?

It represents, I think, over $10.4, $10.8 billion in wages, $27 billion in taxable income. It employs three, 400,000 New Yorkers work in the industry. And so if we lose our restaurants, like, you know, what happens next? And I think when you talk to a lot of restaurant owners, you realize that you learn one of the hardest things they have had to deal with through this pandemic has been the city itself. Right? I'll give you an example. I have a friend named Pete. Pete is a former Marine, started building his businesses here in the city, a bunch of bars 30 years ago. He's got 600 employees. He was doing $100,000 a week before the pandemic. He's now doing five. And I said, Pete, how are you making it? And he said, well, my lenders came through and they said, I don't have to make payments for six months.

We're just going to extend your loan for six months. He said, my suppliers took me from 30-day payables to 120. And his landlord gave him half a month's rent and just amortized it across future rent payments. So he was bailed out by the private sector. In June, when city taxes were due, we all know what the city said. The city said, pay me. Yeah. Right. He had to lay off employees because of that. Right. And so like, you know, and if the city is

like, I get the city needs the revenues. I understand that. Right. I understand the city has bills that it needs to pay, but who's going to pay those bills a year from now, if those restaurants go under or two years from now or three years from now. Right. It's so short-sighted. It's so from now, right? It's so short-sighted. It's so short-sighted. It's so short-sighted. And so I think that there are things that, you know, there's other restaurants that, you know, if you install a new HVAC system, you know, to keep your employees and your,

your, you know, the people that you are, your guests, you know, safe, you have to pay a $500 filing fee to the city. You have inspectors that are coming in and finding businesses. It's like, you know, we need to keep that money in restaurant owners pockets. We need to, you know, and then in the future, we need to make it easier to open up restaurants and businesses. We got to remove the red tape. It shouldn't cost longer to get a permit to open a restaurant than it does to

actually build the restaurant, right? Like it shouldn't be that hard to build a business in this town, especially because so many New Yorkers, you know, worked in those industries and they provide for their families through that work. So, it's all very short-sighted. I think in the long term, you know, when you talk about, you know, move to office spaces, I'm actually a little bit more bullish than others on a return to offices i think people at this stage are craving human contact we're sick of zoom calls like we're and i think that this city has the potential to war back to life like

i think there is huge demand for new york i think there's huge demand for art culture being social um you know i think it's just a question of how much damage is going to occur over this winter and how long does it get back to us? I mean, nobody wants to live in the suburbs, right? People like, you know, maybe some people do, but most people want to have the vibrancy that New York City provides. And if only two-thirds or half of people go back to offices, offices aren't the only reason people live in New York City. Of course. You know, and so I think it's also how do we make this the place again, that everybody wants to live,

they need to feel safe. You know, they need to know that they can work from it from here. They need to afford, be able to afford to live here. I think it's just sort of like thinking about those blocking and tackling things to make that, you know, to increase the demand again for this city is how we bring things back. You have a great quote on your site, which says we're two decades into the 21st century, but our city is stuck in the 1950s. Is that kind of what you're talking about here? Is that we're just dealing with outdated policies?

It moves too slowly. Nothing can possibly move into this. I mean, if it just seems like these are sensible changes that can be made on the fly, why aren't they? The things you're talking about. I think we have to, I think, you know, it starts with choosing to elect people who have common sense, who care more about real outcomes and political outcomes. I can't emphasize that enough. I mean, for me, you know, the most important thing in the world to me is waking up next to my wife. And, you know, and that's what matters to me. That matters more than winning or losing an election. And like in this race, my job is to be saying these things

that I think in a normal year would make you unelectable because of all the things we talked about. I think in this year in particular, there's demand for it. Yeah, that totally makes sense. So what are the other, I guess, key points of your platform that we haven't touched on, things that you're really passionate about and think need immediate change in New York City? I think one of the biggest things that I'm worried about that nobody is really talking about is the next pandemic. And not just in terms of another COVID, but I think the next pandemic will be one of mental health. We've lost now in this city, to put things in perspective, New York has lost a greater percentage of New Yorkers in the last nine months

than we lost a percentage of troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 19 years. Oh, that's insane. Yeah. And when you think about the trauma this city has faced, you know, people who are suffering from grief over lost loved ones, you know, what our doctors, nurses, paramedics have been through over the last nine months. I mean, they were on the front lines in the grief and trauma and decisions they had to make. We have kids now, especially that schools are closed, are quarantining in the most dangerous place for them to be. You know, we're seeing skyrocketing rates of domestic violence,

child abuse. Number one driver of suicide amongst veterans is actually adverse childhood experiences. You know, we have schools closed, a lot of kids are missing school, we're not even talking about how we're going to start catching them up next year, right? Summer school, after school programs, weekends, volunteer tutoring programs. I'm worried that like, we're so busy just responding to the day to day crises that the city's facing. Now, we're not even thinking about the next ones that are totally predictable. And I think there's a lot of things that the city and New Yorkers need to be doing now. There's a lot of lessons we've learned from treating suicidality amongst veterans, right? Like, number one is we have to

educate people as to what the signs are and symptoms are of mental illness. You know, we have to start educating people in ways that they can prevent themselves from getting to a catastrophic place in their mental illness, right? You know, exercise, healthy diets, meditation, outdoor space, access to parks. And then also, you know, removing the stigma with people getting help should they need it, right? Going in, seeing a therapist, going to a doctor, getting the help that you need. I think there's so many things that the city could be doing right now and we as a community need to be doing to address this next mental health pandemic before it happens. You talked about a lot of aspects of it, but what if you're just too poor or you don't have access? How does someone who's struggling in New York City gain access to good mental health care?

So the city spends a billion dollars a year on mental health care. We don't know where that money's going. Literally, we don't. They're saying they spend it, but that's not what it is. It's not. It's it's not. You know, I think that, you know, the resources are available here to provide that type of care. There's also a whole host of ways of providing lower level care through groups, body systems, education, again, exercise and healthy diets. So like food deserts is our huge issue that needs to be addressed.

I mean, it's job loss, bankruptcy, you know, inability to pay rent or bills. These are all drivers of mental illness that people are facing. And so it's, I think, yes, we need to make it, you know, easy for people to get care should they need it. There's also all these other things that lead to mental health issues that we need to start addressing. And unfortunately, you know, our mayor is not. So you become mayor and you walked in your first day and everybody's pushing back because they're used to the way that it used to be. Right. I mean, you talk about all these issues, clearly, if there's a billion dollars being spent on this, that billion dollars is going into someone who's very happily taking its pockets, who probably wants a mayor who's

going to continue to allow that money to flow into their pockets, right? So it seems like you're going to have a pretty epic challenge at every turn to start to change things. Yeah. So first off, it starts with who you put in place, right? Like everything I've done in my life that I've been successful at, it's always been because of the people I had around me, right? When I landed in Iraq, I was trained as an infantry officer in conventional warfare. I found myself in the middle of a complex insurgency, wasn't trained for it. I read a couple books, but I found a remarkable translator. I built relationships with two amazing tribal sheikhs and a couple city council members in the town that we are in. And they were the ones that brought peace to Nasser al-Salam more than us, right? It was really sort of empowering them and listening to them and understanding what their needs were and their concerns were. Headstrong is another great example. I didn't know the first thing about mental health, but I knew how to find the right clinicians and doctors, and I gave them a very clear mission, very clear outcomes, and I supported them in doing that.

You know, Javits. I didn't know the first thing about building a hospital, but when I landed in that environment, we had 28 federal, state, and city agencies. I found the smartest doctors and nurses in that room and people from those agencies in that room. And we came up with, you know, and I said, like, this is our mission. Our mission is to help the doctors and nurses on the front lines to help as many New Yorkers suffering from this disease as possible. What do we need to do that? And then you just make sure those people are resourced and that they have what they need. And so I think what you do is like, you focus on a specific outcome. I think one of the things is that we need to bring technologies to have complete transparency around government

spending, so people know where it goes that you can go to a website, and you can see where that billion dollars is going, that's not going to mental health care, or, you know, we spend $28,000 per student, you know, we have about 28 students per classroom. That's like, it's 28 times 28. It's less than $900,000. Let's call it. Yeah, I'm not going to do the math right now. I'm sure a lot of the folks that you're listening to can do the math very quickly. But like, where is all that money going?

You know, we should know, we should be able to track where every single one of those dollars is going. And when you have that level of transparency, that leads to accountability. And I think there's also things that a mayor can do symbolically that might seem like symbolic, but they have huge impact. You know, Mayor LaGuardia famously would go around and bust up slot machines and gambling houses. He famously, like there's all these photos of him on a barge, throwing them off the barge into the Hudson River. Like, you know, one of the biggest problems, you know, if you look at sort of with, you know, not one of the biggest problems, but a problem in the culture of the municipal government is placard abuse, right? You have, you know, a lot of city employees who use

their placard to park illegally, to get a cup of coffee, go to a restaurant, you know, a lot of city employees who use their placard to park illegally to get a cup of coffee, go to a restaurant. You know, they're parking on the sidewalk at a fire hydrant. Imagine the symbolism of a mayor who shows up with a tow truck. Imagine what message that sends to people in the city that they are accountable as public servants. They can't abuse their public office. And so I think that's where it starts. And it starts with a mayor who's willing to say the buck stops with me because they care more about the actual outcome than the political outcome. So a willingness to get your hands dirty with the people and not sit on Mount Olympus and taking care of the other gods and demigods and nobody below.

So I really it really sounds like I didn't even know about the ranked voting. That's so interesting. I wish we had that nationally. It would be. We have more than two choices, you know, and it seems like a really, that seems like a really major innovation in the voting system. It's huge. They've done it in Maine. I think they have it in Massachusetts. And it works really well, right? Like maybe not everybody's, maybe you end up with everybody's second choice, but it's better than ending up with 20% of the population's first choice and everybody else's last choice. Right, which seems kind of inevitable.

It's funny, in my community, a lot of my listeners, obviously, it's kind of a Bitcoin, blockchain, maximalist sort of community. And New York State, not city in particular, is known as like the most difficult place on the planet as a result of regulation to operate anything in this space or anything financial for that matter. But getting any sort of license, any sort of thing, and it seems like Big Brother is watching or at least

really trying to prevent people from, you know, sort of seeing through their dreams is I know that that doesn't really start in the mayor's office. But it is something I know that a lot of listeners here would love to see change. I hear it every single day. Well, I'm in New York, I can't use it. Yeah. So I would say to your listeners, they can text me directly. My phone number is 917-634-3997. I would love to hear their ideas about how blockchain can be used to solve some of these problems around government spending, accountability. I think there's so much utility and opportunities there. I'd love to hear ideas. And that's part of what we're doing on this campaign, right? Like I am literally giving

out my phone number to hear from people. Because, you know, I also know that like I definitely don't have all the answers. I think that, you know, when you look at the resources that this city has available, you know, as I've mentioned, the city spends 90 billion plus dollars a year, more than 48 out of 50 states. That's a tremendous amount of resources that could be applied to these problems. It doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the other resources available in this town, right. To, to help address issues. And I think the biggest sort of asset that city has is New Yorkers and like New Yorkers, like, you know, you go out to most communities here, you go out to communities most affected by gun violence.

You talk to people out there, they have any answers. They know what the problems are. They know what the solutions are. You're going to get a much better answer from them than you are through some PowerPoint presentation at City Hall or elsewhere. So I would love to hear people's ideas about how we solve some of these issues using blockchain. What's so interesting is, I asked you before the public perception of people how New York dealt with COVID. Right. But I was speaking specifically about the politicians and it harkens me back to 9-11 and, you know, other tragedies that have happened in New York City. And I think the entire world has this sort of you don't know how the politicians did, but everybody respects the people of New York and the way that they come together in a tragedy. Right. And I can tell you, I live in Florida and nobody wears a mask or socially distances and we have COVID because people just don't care. But New Yorkers actually do it.

Right. Florida. Yeah. Right. Welcome. Come on down anytime. Yeah. New Yorkers ultimately like we care about each other.

You know, it is it is a town that really pulls together. And I think that's one of the biggest shames of the type of politics we have in the city right now. It's, it's a politics where the politics of small is all about, you know, blaming others about avoiding accountability. And I think, you know, the only way that we're going to bring this city back, the only way that we're going to get through this, I've learned this in every, I've been through a lot of crises in my life. I've led through the war in Iraq, which is a crisis, a suicide crisis, the COVID crisis, you know, hurricane crisis. And then I've learned through all of this, the only way you get through it is together. And I think that we need a type of leadership that pulls this city together. I'm bullish on that because of ranked choice voting.

But I think it's also requires somebody that it's like, it's not, it's not who's to blame. It's not who's to fault. It's about like, how do we solve a specific problem together? Because when you think about like those problems, like most of us agree on what needs to get done, or at least on the fundamental diagnosis, we may disagree a little bit on the prescription, but if we can start there, that's where real partnership and movement can take place. I know that we're up against it here on time. So definitely, if there's any more parting

thoughts you have, anything that we haven't touched on that you're dying to mention, and then after that, I'll give you a chance to tell us where we can all donate to the campaign. Yeah. No, I've got nothing else other than I am. I am really regret how much we've spoken about my brother-in-law on this podcast. We just did it again. We just did it again. You know, so, but thank you for having me on. This has been great. And you can find out more about the campaign at ZachIskold.com. That's Z-A-C-H-I-S-C-O-L.com.

And again, you can text me at 917-634-3997. And I look forward to hearing from all of you and definitely appreciate the contributions. One of the things that we need to do in this race is New York City has this very generous public matching program. It matches donations eight to one from city residents in particular to qualify. We need to raise $250,000 in 10 to $250 increments. So basically we need to get a thousand New Yorkers to give us $250 or 2000 to give us 125. That is the biggest focus right now. So any help from your audience to get there would be hugely appreciated. We also take money from all over the US, but donations from New York City residents are matched eight to one. And I have to say that off camera, I've already discussed Zach taking

Bitcoin donations, and it's not possible in the mayor's race, actually. They looked into it, they dug pretty deep. And so that's another change that we can talk about down the road in the campaign finance. It is unfortunately not possible in a New York City race. Crazy. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I will let you go deal with the zoo, the circus, I think, as you called it, and probably the 97 more calls that you have today. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you so much for having me on today. Do this again soon. Thanks again. Talk to you soon.