Secondary Navigation

Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on the Brian Lehrer Show

May 10, 2019

Brian Lehrer: It’s the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone and we start as we usually do on Fridays with our weekly Ask The Mayor segment, my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio. Our phones are open at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 2-1-2-4-3-3-9-6-9-2. Or you can tweet a question, just use the hashtag #AskTheMayor. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, Brian.

Lehrer: Let me start with your decision to expand the list of crimes on which the City will cooperate with ICE on detaining immigrants despite our sanctuary city status, there were 170, now I gather there are 177. Why did you add seven new crimes to that list?

Mayor: Yeah, these are seven new crimes that the State of New York passed into law since our original bill in 2014. And these involve crimes such as sex trafficking of a child or patronizing a child prostitute. These are serious, serious crimes and what we felt is since this was a change in state law, adding additional serious and violent crimes, that it was appropriate to update the list. Now I want to go to the underlying reality here. City Council worked with my administration back in 2014 to do something very important – to say only if it’s a serious and or violent crime and only if the individual involved is convicted through our court system would there then be cooperation with ICE. We do not believe for minor offenses that anyone should be torn away from their family. But if someone has committed one of these serious and violent crimes and has gone through the full legal process and is convicted, that’s when we all decided together, the Council and my administration, that that would be grounds for cooperation with ICE. That’s what we’ve been doing over the last five years and I think it strikes the right balance. But it really makes clear that we do not cooperate for example on quality of life offenses, minor offensives, we do not cooperate.

Lehrer: You say you and City Council worked this out. City Councilman Carlos Menchaca is accusing you of doing this to help you run for president. He wrote in a statement “the wellbeing of New York City’s immigrant families should not be at a tool to advance anyone’s political agenda, yet that is clearly what’s happening here with the Mayor’s proposal to expand the conditions under which the City will cooperate with ICE in detaining immigrants. The proclaimed public safety benefits of this proposal do not outweigh its harms” he writes, “namely the erosion of trust between our immigrant communities and government”. What’s your reaction to Councilman Menchaca?

Mayor: That’s ridiculous. Again, the original bill was passed with the City Council, 170 offenses. City Council, a very progressive City Council, that believed we were all striking the right balance together. These new seven laws passed by the State of New York, by the State Legislature are being added administratively, I want to make that very clear. It’s being done through and administrative action. But they are new, serious offenses added to state law since our original bill was passed in 2014. And it’s the appropriate thing to do. It has nothing to do with anything political, it’s about the fact that these new laws were passed and look I would challenge anyone anywhere, if you’ve got someone who is you know, found guilty through a full legal process, appeals, etcetera, of sex trafficking of a child –

Lehrer: That’s one of the – is that one of the new crimes?

Mayor: That’s what I said, yeah, a moment ago. Sex trafficking of a child is one of the examples that is a new state law and when our law department looked at that, and said okay, that changes the backdrop we are working with here, does that, is that consistent with the 170 that we already worked with the City Council to establish? I say yes, that’s a very, very serious crime. It and by the way, again, only if someone is convicted in a full process. So that’s where I think everyone needs to be clear. As to the point about how this city approaches immigrants, there. You know, it’s so clear that this is a city that respects and embraces immigrants regardless of documentation status. And we have gone out of our way, not only to stand down the Trump administration – to stare down, I should say, the Trump administration when they threatened our security funding because we wouldn’t ask documentation status because we treated undocumented folks with respect. We took the Trump administration to court, we beat the Trump administration in court, we have never wavered from a policy of not asking documentation status and treating immigrants with respect. Further with the City Council we have funded legal services to help ensure that immigrants threatened with deportation either because they didn’t do any offense, which is unfortunately the case with ICE now a days, someone could have done nothing wrong and still be threatened with deportation or a minor offense. The City of New York is actually helping to protect those immigrants and providing legal support. So our approach is clear, immigrants all over the city know it and know they are supported by their city government and supported by police, schools, all of our institutions really stand by our immigrants.

Lehrer: So you are disputing that this, that even this, adding more crimes to the list where ICE can detain them would erode trust between the immigrant communities and government which is what Councilman Menchaca said?

Mayor: I think again, the trust that has been created specifically over the last five years when we’ve said we will not cooperate, you know ICE is broken. Let’s be clear, ICE is a broken organization. I’ve been one of the people that says abolish ICE, start over, come up with a different entity to protect our borders and do it in a humane, smart fashion.

Lehrer: Then why not just stop cooperating with them all together until there is a functional agency in place for that kind of thing and just put violent criminals in jail in prison in New York?

Mayor: Because the 170 original offenses and I believe 100 percent of these seven new offenses passed into law, into state law, are about violent and serious crimes and if someone is convicted through full due process, then I believe that is different then what happens with the vast, and by the way, Brian we are talking about a very small number of people each year, because as has been shown  many times, the vast majority of undocumented folks are fully law abiding and you know, part of our community and contributing to our community. We said that this was the smart way to do things from the beginning. Very few people have committed serious and violent crimes and gone through the criminal justice system, the court system, found guilty, those are the few people, on the cases of which we will cooperate with ICE. But the vast, vast majority of undocumented people in this city know that their city government is protecting them, respecting them, supporting them. That has been true for five years, I’ve heard it constantly from people in immigrant communities. They know the City – obviously IDNYC and the way we handle schools and hospitals and the way the NYPD never asks documentation status. Folks at the neighborhood level know what this city believes in and feels supported by this city.

Lehrer: Let’s go to the phones. [Inaudible] in Brooklyn, you are on WNYC with the Mayor, hello [Inaudible].

Question: Hello.

Lehrer: Hi.

Question: Hi, good morning Mr. Mayor, my name –

Mayor: Good morning, say your name again? How do you say your name?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Oh okay.

Lehrer: I was close anyway.

Question: I’m a member of Teens Take Charge and as you know we are a student led coalition fighting for educational equity across New York City public high schools which are among the most segregated and unequal in the nation. We have developed an enrollment equity plan to integrate the 480 high schools in New York City. And you have been in office for five years now and respectfully, we have not seen any changes to the admissions process which segregated students by race, class, and academic achievement. As you know we are meeting with top educational officials at City Hall on May 17th at City Hall on May 17th, the 65th anniversary of Brown V. Board of Education. So I have two questions. Will you be able to join us? And are you committed to working with us to implement changes that will help intergrade high schools before the fall admission cycle?

Mayor: I really appreciate your question, but I disagree on one important point. We’ve been making a number of changes in the admissions process, and look at what’s already happening in District 1 in Manhattan, District 3 in Manhattan, District 15 in Brooklyn. There’s another 10 districts that are going through their process of change. We have been working with a school diversity advisory group on a series of changes, and we’ll have more to say once their report comes out. I am meeting with that group on Monday to go over their process. Obviously we have proposed the state legislature changes in how our specialized high school admissions happen, and that decision will be made in the next month or so. I hope you and all your fellow student leaders will join us in pushing for that change. So, I know you have met with Chancellor Carranza, and I know you’re meeting again as you said coming up. And I’m getting briefed on those meetings, and I’m hearing what you’re bringing forward, but I also want you to know, we’ve been very, very clear that we’re making a series of changes to bring diversity to our schools and it’s been a steady effort over the last couple of years and a lot more to come.

Question: Will you be able to join us on May 17th?
Mayor: I only can tell you that since you’ve met with the Chancellor, and he is briefing me on the meeting, that I think that’s what we’ll do for now, and we’ll see from there what we can do going forward.

Lehrer: [Inaudible] thank you so much for your call. I think we have a call on sort of the other side of the same issue. [Inaudible] in Co-op City in the Bronx, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor, hello, [inaudible].

Question: Yeah, good morning, Mr. Mayor. Bronx Science has produced several Nobel Prize winners, and their scientific advances benefit all of our society, and I believe that students need to get that [inaudible] to excel, compete as early as possible, and preparing for the test in middle school helps that move that along. And it should be offered in every middle school. Is it possible to get middle schools to get amped up to better prepare students for the test?

Mayor: Well, so absolutely, the whole Equity and Excellence vision that we put forward for the schools and Chancellor Carranza is pursuing intensely is about improving our schools across the board and not accepting the history in which we’ve lived up to now. Right now, there are 300 middle schools that don’t send a single child to a specialized school out of our 600 total middle schools. That’s about half our middle schools – not a single child. And you saw the recent –

Question: Do they prepare the students for the test?

Mayor: Well, again, this is what I want to tell you why we’re making the change that we – or why we’ve at least proposed and hope Albany will agree – that history here is broken. It is that half the middle schools don’t send a single child. It’s about 21 middle schools in the entire city that dominate the specialized schools admissions process, and that’s a history that’s not acceptable. And you saw the recent admissions data for Stuyvesant, which was shocking I think to New Yorkers across the board, just a handful of African American students, and Latino students getting into Stuyvesant. So this system has to change. What we have proposed is an academically rigorous standard. It is for each middle school the kids who get both the top grades and the top state test scores and it’s composite of both. So there’s two measures, kids take those state tests, every kid takes those state tests, so it’s an objective measure. And we think, and this is based on the University of Texas model which I think is broadly considered a real success, where in Texas they realized that a whole host of high schools weren’t sending any or many kids to the Texas University system. So they said, we’re going to admit the top kids from each high school in the whole state and give them a chance and it’s going to be a rigorous standard, and it’s going to help include everyone.

Lehrer: Let me ask you –

Mayor: That’s what we want to do there. Now the state legislature has to decide. But I’ll tell you, the current system is broken, we are going to try and fix all of our middle schools and make them stronger undoubtedly, but the problem is not just that history, but it’s a single standardized test. I think there’s a lot of people in the city that believe high stakes testing has gone way too far and has become over the years the wrong way to measure kids abilities. I don’t think a single three hour test tells you about the true ability of a young person. So I believe there is a better way to decide admissions to our finest public high schools.

Lehrer: What she’s raising, and that some other people have raised, and it sounds like you’re saying that wouldn’t work well enough, is instead of abolishing the test, and the admissions based on the test, make sure that every student in New York City in middle school gets test prep, that’s what the caller is saying, so that they’re prepared not just for the statewide standardized tests at every grade level which tests minimum proficiency, but this rigorous math, and language arts test that the specialized high schools use – give every child in New York City that education and then keep the test. Why not?

Mayor: Okay, single standardized test, that’s a simple example, Brian – Harvard, Yale, Stanford, you name them, do not determine admissions by a single standardized test. This is one of the last outposts – our specialized high schools, under state law, are the last outposts in the country that are making decisions of this magnitude on a single, three hour, standardized test. To me, it’s absolutely inappropriate on its face, it’s out of touch with what people come to realize about the need to look at multiple measures and look at the full student, and get a real sense of their ability. So, I just reject the notion that we should be doing anything by a single, specialized standard test at this point and I do think we need a holistic effort to fix our middle schools, and we’ve poured a huge amount of money into Equity and Excellence to improve our school system across the board. We’ve changed teacher training, we have changed the curriculum. You go down the list – we’re obviously trying to address things at the root cause by greatly intensifying early childhood education with Pre-K and 3-K – there’s a lot going on that I think will make our middle schools stronger over time. But more test prep just propagates a high-stakes testing system that’s broken to begin with, and why we wouldn’t we go to an admissions system that respects both student grades and the one test everyone takes, which is the state test, and composite that, and then actually have diverse specialized high schools with still very high academic standards, so we are building the leadership cadre of the future of this city and it looks like New York City. Why wouldn’t we just do that?

Lehrer: Robert in Brooklyn you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hi.

Question: Yes, hello. I’m calling in because my bar in Brooklyn was raided by the Fire Department, the Police Department, the State Liquor Authority, the Department of Buildings, Department of Health, and for the cherry on top of this sundae, ICE. They came into my bar on a Saturday night and walked through, looking for violations, and checking for the citizenship status of my employees. This seems like we are cooperating with ICE, quite – you know, fully.

Mayor: Robert, I don’t know the details of what happened and I very much want you to share your information with WNYC, so my team can follow up with you, but no, I want to be really, really clear, because this has now been several years where New Yorkers can see exactly what’s going on. We do not cooperate with ICE on any of their enforcement actions. We—

Question: Well, what do you call coming into the bar with the Fire Department, Police Department, State Liquor Authority, that’s cooperation.

Mayor: Again, I want to know the details. I’m telling you what has been clear time and time again over the last few years. We don’t cooperate with ICE in their enforcement actions. In fact we have stopped ICE from setting up near schools or trying to come into public school. We set very fair standards. They can’t come into New York City public buildings without a warrant that is confirmed by our Law Department. There is a whole host of things that we’ve done to put real ground rules on them and the State of New York I think has done a good thing recently by also saying they cannot walk into court buildings and disrupt the legal process.  So I want to know what happened in your case but I’m trying to help people understand that it is very, very clear we have set a high bar and we do not participate in their enforcement actions. 

Lehrer: Robert, we will take your contact information off the air if you’d like. Another thing jumped out at me from his question, and again I have no way of knowing if his story is true, but would the liquor authority and the fire department do an inspection of a bar on a Saturday night?

Mayor: I don’t know and I’m - that’s why I want to know about this case this case to see what was the underlying cause, you never – you know it could be something urgent, but I need to know the facts before I can speak to it.

Lehrer: Today as you know is the Civilian Complaint Review Board trial of police officer Daniel Pantaleo, accused of the chokehold on Eric Garner in the arrest five years ago that led to his death, I’m assume you have an opinion by now about that incident. What would be justice in this case in your opinion?

Mayor: You know, Brian it’s really important to respect due process here and I’ve been clear about that. The big – the big mistake here, I really believe in my heart is the Justice Department never decided anything and, you know, the City of New York deferred to the Justice Department’s request that they take their investigation forward and determine if there would be charges and they never to this day have and it’s just – I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. I feel – I know the Garner family and they have gone through so much and they’re still waiting for an answer from the Justice Department but we finally got to the point of saying to the Justice Department, the NYPD is going to go ahead with its disciplinary process, but it is due process, it’s a trial, it is due process. It’s not my place to pass judgement. It’s a full trial that needs to take place and once and for all have closure this year on this case. I don’t know if the Justice Department is ever going to act and again I’m astounded and it went over two administrations without any resolution but we owe it to the people of the City and the Garner family to get to whatever resolution a court process brings and that will happen this year.

Lehrer: Let me play a clip of Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, this week who is unhappy with the city for not taking certain further steps it could take as it’s taking with Officer Pantaleo. Listen.

Gwen Carr: There should be the other officers who was involved in my son’s death that day. The ones that pounced on him, the ones that looked the other way, the ones that even filed false reports, nothing is being done about that.

Lehrer: Why not the other officers, Mr. Mayor? If Pantaleo administered the original hold but others were holding him down when he was saying I can’t breathe, why aren’t they on trial too?

Mayor: You know, I’ll just give you the broad point and obviously the police department can explain the rest. There was a thorough investigation to determine which officers should have charges brought. In the end it was two. And you know, that is part of a disciplinary process that is something that functions all the time to make sure that any incident is followed up on and we regularly see the results of that disciplinary process. There are many, many instances where there are very serious consequences for officers depending on what happens. Now, we never are happy in those situations, we would obviously like a situation where there is – you know, everything is handled right every single time. But there is a strong disciplinary process and that process was activated not long after the original tragedy –

Lehrer: You’re satisfied?

Mayor: Look, I think the NYPD process is effective. I’ve watched it in many, many cases, and I’ve seen real consequences in the cases were there was proof that an officer had done something wrong. But I’m not going to get into the details of this one because this is an ongoing trial but there was a full disciplinary review.

Lehrer: One other thing on chokeholds, the Times had a story this week, despite Eric Garner and “I can’t breathe”, chokeholds still used and it says that the review board has substantiated 40 cases since 2015 and the punish meted out has only been remedial training and loss of vacation time, none have been fired. So why should the public think that the police department is serious enough about this issue after Eric Garner’s death?

Mayor: Because there has been a huge amount of change and it all relates, we’ve retrained the entire police force in de-escalation and you’ve seen the results of that. We are doing implicit bias training as we speak for the entire police force, we have body cameras on our officers, you know we obviously got away from the broken and unconstitutional policy of stop and frisk. This is a fundamentally different police department. And I hear from people at the community level all the time, what is different in their relationship with the police. So look, I want to say if anyone believes anything inappropriate has happened, they should come forward, those complaints should be brought forward. We need to hear them, we need to review them and investigate them.

Lehrer: Is that enough punishment for a substantiated choke hold?

Mayor: Again, let me just finish this point. The number of complaints has been going down consistently since the time we’ve gotten here because that retraining of our officers and that de-escalation training is having a big impact. Now an allegation is an allegation and I want to say to all of your listeners, we believe in due process, everyone has rights, you know there has to be a fair and open process to make sure that justice is done and that includes everyone in the city, including our officers and when there are allegations, some prove to be very real and some do not.

Lehrer: Right, but that’s why I cited only the number of substantiated cases.

Mayor: And the substantiated cases means only it goes forward into a process. And then there still has to be a process to determine whether the officer did something wrong or not and why and what kind of punishment or consequence exists. So it’s very clear to me, there is a rigorous process, it’s very clear to me the number of complaints are going down regularly and that’s good thing. But I want to emphasize if anyone feels there’s been an inappropriate situation, we do want them to report it because we want there to be a full investigation.

Lehrer: Mary in Brooklyn you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hi Mary.

Question: Oh, yes good morning Brian. Good morning Mr. Mayor, I have a couple questions about electronic bikes. I noticed that people on electronic bikes often ride on sidewalks, don’t follow the rules of the road, they don’t stop briefly at red lights, riding against traffic on one way streets and menacing pedestrians on street corners by turning quickly and cutting them off. Now this happens I believe when electronic bikes are illegal, and I was wondering what is the plan to stop careless and dangerous actions like this? And also are delivery people forced to use electronic bikes by the company they work for, the restaurant they work for?

Mayor: So Mary, it’s a great question, I appreciate it. I have seen exactly what you’ve seen and I’ve heard from so many New Yorkers at town hall meetings and on the street and their deep concerns about these electronic bikes. You’re exactly right. They’re a strange hybrid in the sense that, and I always try to explain this to some of the advocates who take a different position – if you’re in a truck, a car, a motorcycle, you are following the rules of the road, you’re not going wrong way on a street without real consequence, you’re not going through lights, you’re not going up on the sidewalk. If you’re a bike, you know just a regular human-powered bike, you’re supposed to follow the same rules, but people also have some options differently like bike lanes. But the e-bikes – the problem with e-bikes is we’ve all seen this reckless behavior. We’ve seen them going the wrong way, weaving through traffic, going up on the sidewalks, all the things that many, many New Yorkers find dangerous and unsettling, and they can reach very high speeds. And they’re illegal in New York City. The use of e-bikes is still illegal. We are trying to work with the state legislature that has the jurisdiction on this, to figure out if there is a law that could legalize them appropriately, put limits on how they’re used, lower the speed at which they can go – there is a physical way to modify the speed and if we can figure out how to do that, for existing e-bikes, and help e-bike owners to do that, I’d be very willing to figure out a way to. But the current situation is unacceptable and is dangerous.

And to your point about the owners and the restaurants, and the other companies that employ the delivery people – they are the ones who should be held responsible whenever possible. If there is any way to determine who is employing the delivery person, the fine and the consequence should go on that business, not on the individual. But I want to – just one last common sense point, Brian – you know, there’s other ways to make deliveries, and that’s what I find a little astounding about this, that for many, many years deliveries were made in this city many, many ways that did not involve e-bikes and there still were plenty of deliveries. I think we need to get back to the notion that until this is made legal and until we have real safety rules in place, because safety is the first consideration, why don’t these businesses and these restaurants find another way to make their delivery rather than an e-bike.

Lehrer: And on Vision Zero, more generally, traffic safety, street safety more generally, I see traffic deaths are 15 percent higher now than they were at this time last year. After years of success getting that rate down, have the current policies hit a wall for how far towards zero they can go without more change?

Mayor: No, absolutely not, Brian. We’re – look, all of us are feeling – this last few months have been really tough and we – it’s painful because we have had five years of steady decreases in traffic fatalities. You know, we had 100 fewer, basically, than was the case in 2018 – about 100 fewer than five years earlier. I mean that’s 100 lives, just in one year, saved. That’s extraordinary. Vision Zero is working, but it’s been a tough few months. We see, in terms of pedestrians, that our plans we put in place – we put our Pedestrian Action Plan in place in February – that appears to be working and we have not seen an increase among pedestrians but we’ve got to do a lot more. And one of the great things that happened with this new legislature, and this is why it’s so important there’s a Democratic State Senate, the Republican State Senate would not approve more speed cameras for school zones – the Democratic State Senate not only approved more, they allowed us to have as many as 750, so that’s a huge increase. Those are being implemented. So more school speed cameras are coming, more redesigns of streets and intersections are coming, more NYPD enforcement is coming. I do not believe we’ve hit the hall, I believe there is a lot more that we can achieve.

Lehrer: On the redesigns, there’s a bill in City Council, I understand, that would require a checklist of safety improvements for new street designs, publicize that list, and state why those safety designs aren’t applied in cases where they aren’t. Speaker Corey Johnson, and a Council majority, supports that bill, I gather, but it looks like your administration testified against it. So, two questions, why wouldn’t something like that be standard practice anyway, and what’s your issue with the bill?

Mayor: Well, I would say – look, we always are working with the City Council, and the vast majority of the time we get to a good consensus, and certainly we want New Yorkers to understand why we’re making so many changes to so many streets to make them safer, why we have put in the speed cameras, particularly around schools, why we put in so many more bike lanes, which also are traffic calming. It’s good for there to be a lot of transparency and dialogue around that. I think there’s some concerns about some of the specifics of the bill but we’re going to keep working with the Council on that. Now we have aggressive plan in our budget to keep changing street designs to make them safer. So I think there’s a lot of agreement on the basics, some of the specifics we have to work through.

Lehrer: Do you have any example of a specific you object to?

Mayor: Again I – this is a process we’re going through with the Council, and let’s say more after we’ve had those conversations.

Lehrer: We’re almost out of time. Next week on the show, we’re going to do a series on the main new ideas that various presidential candidates are putting forward. Not their qualifications, or the critiques of Trump, but a significant new policy idea from each one at the national level. You know, Cory Booker has baby bonds, Elizabeth Warren has many including breaking up Big Tech, those kinds of things. Should we save a spot for one your ideas in that series?

Mayor: Wow, that was very smooth there, Brian. As I’ve said, you know, I’m going to make a decision with my family during the month of May, so that’s all I can say to you at this point.

Lehrer: Do you have signature national policy idea, or two, that you’ve already put out there, whether you run or not?

Mayor: Again, I’ve said that whatever I decide I’m going to be speaking on things we need to change in our country and I’m going to be talking about the kinds of things that we have done here in New York. We, just this week, announced the NYC Care Card, which is part of providing guaranteed healthcare to all New Yorkers. We have 600,000 people with no insurance – now every one of them is going to have an opportunity to get healthcare directly in an affordable, high quality way. That’s an example of something that the federal government has never achieved, that state government hasn’t achieved, anywhere in the country – this is the first place in America to guarantee healthcare. That’s an example of something that should be looked at as a model that we can start acting on all over the country.

Lehrer: Thanks, Mr. Mayor, talk to you next week, whether you’re a presidential candidate or not.

Mayor: Always, Brian. Thanks a lot.

Media Contact

pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov
(212) 788-2958