Andrew Cuomo: A Conversation with the Former NY Governor
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If this government spending in defense goes towards things like R&D that have dual use civilian purposes, you could get spillovers that actually end up enhancing productivity in Europe and so have a more long-lasting impact on growth.

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Good morning, as we speak with Andrew Cuomo, he's a governor of the Empire State. He's running for mayor here in a contested primary to get to the election November 4th as well. I wanna begin with my family. I'm a Kodak brat from Western New York. Yeah. And I remember it was like in Mary Poppins when the weather vane changed there.

I remember, this is years ago, and a guy who was in the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball organization. It was a fractured New York City, a fractured Empire State. And your father in the middle 80s pieced it together again. I give the clearest memory of Republicans and Democrats in Western New York going,

Who is this guy? How are you gonna piece together a fractured New York City? Yeah, it's a very good question. When my father took over at that time, the big fracture was upstate versus downstate, right? Yes, I lived it, you lived it. Yes, we lived it. And upstate for non New Yorkers, primarily Republican, leaning conservative, New York City at that time, very, very liberal. So that was the big divide.

Now, it's basically within New York City and it's really within the Democratic Party. I mean, we have the Democratic-Republican schism, obviously, in New York City. But the Republican Party is relatively small in New York City. But we are working through this, what is the future of the Democratic Party post-Trump?

And that is playing out in New York City and cities across the country. I'm gonna give you a vignette. My Bentley was in the garage today. I had to take Uber to come into work. My driver's Dominican Republic barely speaks English. He was so pleased to talk to me about you. He said, I'm voting for Andrew Cuomo. And this was his exact language. I am a Democrat conservative. I wanna go back to Javits.

Ed Koch, all of them. How does the conservative Democratic Party, that Dominican Republican driver, how does it move forward out of this primary where the liberals, the progressives have been so dominant in the verbiage? Well, this is what's interesting. I was a crazy liberal all my life, right? My father was the son- My father used to tell me that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was the son of a crazy liberal.

and a crazy liberal. But the progressives have gone so far. First of all, I disagree with the word progressive, right? Like it's a new phrase that they coined. FDR was a progressive. My father was a progressive, right? So it's not a new term. But they are so far to the left that they have eclipsed

What were traditionally progressive liberal use your word ideology. And it is unrealistic and it is counterproductive. And that's what people are starting to find out, especially in this environment. Post COVID, cities are going through a crisis. Another hat, I was the former HUD Secretary Housing and Urban Development under Clinton.

And cities have gone through transformations over time. Post COVID, this is gonna be a major transformation for urban America. You don't have to be in a city anymore, right? The old days you had to be here, the old days you had to show up. And cities took advantage of that. You didn't have an option. You have options. It's called mobility, it's called remote work.

And cities now have to be more competitive. Economically, they have to be competitive. You can move to a better tax climate, a better weather climate. And cities are just now working through that adjustment, I believe. Paul? Governor, if you were to be elected governor and mayor of this great city, what would be job one on day one for you? Job one, problem is job one is like three jobs. Okay.

It's public safety, because nothing works without public safety. It's getting the homeless mentally off the streets, which plays into public safety. Quality of life, people feel the city is out of control, right? There's a sense of chaos when you walk down the street. That is correct. There's a fear when you descend into the subway now.

That's relatively new, right? And that has to change before you get to the economics and taxes and are we chasing you out, etc. The first thing that chases you out is you're just not safe here. You don't feel comfortable here.

And I think that's the first crisis. Well, then to follow on from that and talking to Laura Namias, our lead on this, Jessica Tisch gets high marks. Can you give Jessica Tisch high marks in her early months of running NYPD? Oh, she's done a very good job. She's done a very good job. Do you reappoint her as that or do you have someone else in mind? We got to make some news here. We have to make some news. I am not in the...

I don't believe in saying who you're going to appoint, who you're not going to appoint, it's kind of arrogant until you get the job. I can tell you, I think Commissioner Tisch is doing a very good job, this stability. We went through a number of police commissioners, each one brought their own tumult and their own transformation. Jessica Tisch is steady, the NYPD feels steady, but the NYPD alone

really is not going to be enough

to restore to people the sense that I feel comfortable in New York City. It's worth my paying the premium to live here. I pay a premium to live in New York City. Right. I'm paying high taxes, but I get X, Y, and Z. And Paul, we just heard that from Charles Cantor. Exactly right. You mentioned the subway here, the MTA. I don't know. I've been riding this subway for 35 years every day.

I tell people the only thing that's changed in 35 years, the cars are now air-conditioned. Everything else is the same, which is a good thing. That's a compliment. It gets millions of people around the city every day. However, as governor...

You said the city should pay more for the MTA. As mayor, how would you manage the MTA? Because we've got congestion pricing, we've got a big, big shortfall there. How do we keep this subway riding safely, efficiently? The first step on the subways is safety, quality of life, getting the homeless mentally ill off the subways. That's what frightens people.

Not just homeless people. We've, urban environments have homeless people. These are homeless, mentally ill people that threaten individuals or their presence is threatening.

And that has to change. Now, you're right. Right. Was it as bad as it was back in the early 90s? No, but a lot of people weren't here in the early 90s, right? And if you were here really, Bloomberg, Mayor Bloomberg,

post, the city was much safer, much cleaner, felt much different. And this is a dramatic juxtaposition to that. Andrew Cuomo, we're supposed to welcome all of you on Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio across the nation, of course, out on YouTube. Good morning. And of course, on the nation's Sirius XM channel 121 as well. We're trying to get him to stay for two, three hours. He's saying, yeah,

Maybe I can't, but we're going to have a good conversation here with the former governor. I want to get this out of the way right now. And it's on all the allegations of this, that, the other, the COVID stuff, the sex stuff and that. Let's just get it out of the way so we can move on. The fact is it's reported you've gone after, not going after in a collegial way, I'm going to say, you have your own litigation, your own lawsuits. These are all distractions if you become mayor.

And the floating out there is the idea, okay, now Mike told me once mayor's a 28-hour-a-week job. I don't know if that's true or not, but let's say it's a full commitment to be mayor. Will you push aside...

All of the different things you're doing in litigation and lawsuits to focus solely on being mayor. Do you postpone them or just say enough? That part is over. That past is over. Yeah, look, in these jobs, when I was governor, same as for mayor, if you don't get sued

five times a day, you're not doing your job. So you have to be very good at taking compartmentalizing to use a word but handing off pieces that are not currently relevant. And that has to be done no matter what. We saw some very disturbing images coming out of city of Los Angeles over the weekend.

How do you view kind of, I guess just kind of how we deal with immigrants, how we deal with the policing of our cities vis-a-vis the federal government sending in troops? When you looked at the images this weekend of Los Angeles, how did you project that upon New York City? This gets into President Trump's strategy, I believe. And look, first of all, on the immigration issue, he's very clear in his campaign.

He believes it's an issue that works for him. During the campaign, he said he was going to deport criminals, dangerous criminals, dangerous criminals. And everybody said yes, support dangerous criminals, of course. Now we're deporting seven-year-olds and we're disrupting families. And by the way, we're deporting people who shouldn't be deported. So that's a change, but this issue works for the president politically.

The president is also very good, and I worked with the president in the first Trump administration, worked with euphemism. We had a lot of controversy, but this is a different tempo for him. Wayne Gretzky, skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it was. The Democrats have to adjust. They are skating to where the puck was.

This immigration issue in some ways is a distraction from what Trump is really doing with cities, which is cutting the budget in a way that is so dramatic.

That you could really cause major difficulties for urban areas. Governor Cuomo, pro tip, when you're gonna talk a hockey, you're in a mayoral race. You pick Jean Rattel or someone like that with the New York Rangers, you don't go with Gretzky. Andrew Cuomo with us here as we look at this mayoral race. Okay, Robert Kuttner, no friend of yours, writing an American prospect. He says, did Cuomo peak too soon?

You've got the tensions of the primary. If you take the primary, the tensions of a general election with different independent candidates and that. It's the present mayor in the back pocket of the president of the United States. And if we get L.A., as Paul mentions, here, can you imagine this? I mean, I'll let you pick the geography, Governor Cuomo. But

The present mayor of New York, can he protect the citizens of this city given the relationship with the president after what we've seen in LA? Short answer, no. And let's remember how extraordinary these issues, what's happening in LA.

This is the exact reverse of what normally happens. Normally, it's the local government that makes the decision on how to handle an emergency and calls on the federal government. So a mayor or governor would call on the federal government and say, I need help, please send the National Guard, or please send in additional federal help.

I don't believe there's been a time where the president has sent in federal troops. You'd have to go back to like the 60s and President Johnson and Wallace, right? That's how far you have to go back.

So this is Trump being Trump. This is Trump on this issue of immigration. I'm muscled, it's law and order. These cities, these Democrats, they're filled with illegals. And I'm gonna come in and I'm gonna come in hot and heavy.

He started in LA. It will happen in New York. It will happen. He knows the formula, right? It happened in New Jersey. Is his formula to go after you? I mean, this is anticipated, isn't it? His formula is to create chaos in the cities.

And he is the voice of law and order. And, you know, cities, all those Democrats, that's where all those illegal immigrants are. And he's going to come in and he's going to clean up. The flip side is, OK, create chaos in L.A., create chaos in New York, create chaos in Chicago. Pretty soon you create chaos in the nation. And that's better. This is an I Heart podcast.

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So what is the biggest challenge for you in this primary race here and then potentially in the general election? What do you have to get across? In a Democratic primary, you now have the tension between post Trump, what directions does the Democratic Party go? And some people believe we lost to Trump because we didn't go left enough. So I have a Democratic socialist

Really, there's no such thing as a democratic socialist. It's just the socialists that use democratic as a modifier because socialist is a little shocking. But it's a socialist who says, dismantle the police. The police state is oppressive. Everything free, free transportation, free everything.

tax the rich, so there's class warfare in there. We'll tax the 1%. The 1% should pay because they're rich and fat and they made money on the rest of us and everything is great. Let's migrate to the Financial Times. They had that summary article this week. And Andrew Cuomo with us, folks. We welcome all of you.

on Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio worldwide. And of course, here in the Tri-State area, Bloomberg 1130 across the five boroughs. The FT lined up the haves who are supporting you. You're the guy of choice. And the answer is some of them really are behind Andrew Cuomo. And others are betting this guy might win, so we better get behind with him. How do you say take the landlords?

and they gave you X number of million. I would say that's like almost normal politics. But then how do you protect tenants and renters in a city of horrific housing economics? Yeah, well, first, if you are going to be in elected office,

You cannot be influenced by who gives you money, right? That's rule number one. That's like saying to a journalist, well, look at who's taking advertising in your newspaper and write favorable things about the advertisers. Then you're not a journalist, it's unethical. And I've been in elected office many times, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

It can't matter who gives you money. Now, to the extent people are supporting me who are institutional interests, because institutional interests need a city that works, right? They want a city with a future. What they're afraid of is you elect a socialist-

tries to give everything away free, doubles the taxes on the wealthy. And the wealthy say, that's it, I'm gone. By the way, we lost 500,000 people since COVID to begin with. You're now going to double taxes? Yep.

And people will say, I'm going to Florida, I'm going to Texas, etc. It's not worth the premium, especially since the quality of life has deteriorated. And I'm afraid to get on the subways, so why would I pay the premium to live here when I'm not getting the benefit of living here? I'll go to Texas, I'll go to Florida, I'll come back a few times a year, I'll see a play.

I can hire a private jet with the tax savings. That's what we have to worry about. Governor, speaking of Trump's relationship with city mayors, President Trump's Justice Department is investigating you over allegations you lied to Congress about COVID. You said that that's politically motivated, but how afraid are you of the possibility of

getting indicted, perhaps even arrested by the Trump administration. That's gotta be on the table. Yeah, no, this is a joke, but this investigation is a joke. But there's no doubt that Donald Trump uses the Department of Justice and the justice system as one of the tools in the political arsenal.

When I was governor and dealt with Trump in the first administration, he investigated me twice with the Department of Justice. That's sort of like his left jab, just keep throwing it out there.

I want to go back and I want to get back to the primary, the election at hand. Laura's saying, okay, all this big picture stuff is great. You got to win a primary. You got to get on to the election. How about 1977? Folks, this is New York City in the five boroughs. Bella Abcic took Manhattan.

Abe Beam took Brooklyn, Padilla took the Bronx, a guy named Cuomo took Queens and Staten Island, and Ed Koch won. That's how nuts New York City is. Which geography right now is most critical for you in the five boroughs for you to take this primary? Yeah, it's interesting.

Back in 1977, the boroughs were more homogenous and sort of class-oriented. That has changed over time. The basic division is you have younger, more activist, more progressive, if you will, voters.

who identify as socialists. They will say, I am socialist. I say tax the rich, I say everything should be free. Palestine factors in there. Right. And that's one demographic. And then you have a second demographic which is a little bit older.

more mainstream, if you will. And that's the demographic that I appeal to. You brought up Palestine. Let's go there right now. There's a unique relationship of this city with Israel. Everyone knows this. We see nationwide increase

a new form, a new debate over anti-Semitism. I think of Arthur Levitt, my household happened to worship his father a million years ago. Explain to me your relationship with Israel as mayor of New York City. How would that be distinctive given the horror that we see in the Levant? Well, it's a great question and it is unique to New York, I believe.

If you grow up in New York the way I have, the Jewish community is such an integral part of New York, right? New York is not New York without the Jewish community. Jewish community started coming to New York in 1650.

100 years before the other immigration groups and they have been in major institutions. So you grow up with the Jewish community. I have two brothers in law who were Jewish, my son in law's Jewish.

It's that close a connection. And I've been 100% supportive of Israel. My father was before me. I've done numerous trips to Israel. I was very aggressive supporting Israel. This was the first state to go against.

boycott, discriminate, disinvestment and sanctions for Israel. So it is a very pro-Israel state. Paul, get one in here, please. Governor, no one presumably, arguably takes the air out of the room more than President Trump. He just demands the media attention in a way we've never seen before. Are you surprised that the Democratic Party

No one has stepped up, no voice has emerged to at least counter some of the policies and some of the arguments coming out of the Trump administration. And would you relish that role at some point? Well, I'll go back to the Wayne Gretzky quote that I wasn't supposed to use. The quote of Ranger. You're in New York. He's a Ranger. Mark Messier, please. First, the Democrats have to get the cadence of the game.

They are coming up a day late, right? I don't believe this. I believe this immigration and Los Angeles and it's going to get worse and it's going to be New York. I believe this works politically for Donald Trump. I also believe it masks the budget debate, which is really the consequential debate for urban America short term.

And he's onto a new topic now. And the Democrats wind up a day late, cuz if you're arguing about the budget today, you're missing Los Angeles and New Jersey and the whole immigration debate. We're gonna wrap up here in a moment here for Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio. Andrew Cuomo with Politico. There was a mayor from Chicago who can be a little spicy named Emmanuel. He's out this weekend.

And Rahm has all wound up about the weak in the woke Democratic Party brand. And I would say he was basically, he is mayor of Chicago and potentially you as mayor of New York are the ones fighting the fight

to get the Democratic Party to get some backbone. Does that lead to a presidential effort in 2028? I mean, is the Democratic Party gonna shift back to that centrist tendency that we talked about in 1985? Centrist, forget trying to define political ideology. I worked with Rahm in the Clinton administration. It's sort of practical and common sense, right?

The Democrats lost to Trump. Why did we lose to Trump?

I don't believe Trump won. I believe the Democrats lost. I believe what happened is the Democrats became disconnected from their people. They became disconnected from the kitchen table issues. Talk to me about my mortgage. Talk to me about my job. Talk to me about the economy. Talk to me about public safety. I don't wanna hear about these esoteric issues right now when I'm worried about my life today.

And do something for me. You're the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party fundamentally believes in the functionality of government. And you haven't functioned. Show me something that you did for me that made a difference in my life. Joe Biden, you were president. What did you do that I can see, feel, or touch? That's where the Democrats blew. Paul, this is so important. I want to get back to some of the basic stuff Paul was talking about. I mean, day one,

The congestion tax, day one bike lanes, day one nobody can afford to live in the city. What's the day, Paul asked us earlier, what's your day one mandate to those kitchen table Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans? What they're saying first is make me safe. I'm afraid to take the subways and I haven't felt that way in 15 years. Make me safe.

And that is public safety, that's mentally homeless, etc. Blending into quality of life. That's job one. And then affordability, I need to be able to pay the rent. I got 45 seconds cuz of all the fancy stuff here in the Bloomberg News organization. Your father stopped America with a convention speech. Are you gonna be at a convention running for president in the future?

I'm running for mayor and that's enough. Andrew Cuomo, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. Thrivent can help you plan your finances for the people, causes, and community you love. What makes Thrivent different? Financial services and generosity programs are combined to help you build a financial roadmap for the future while also creating opportunities to give back along the way. Visit Thrivent.com to learn more. Thrivent, where money means more.

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