NYC Mayoral Candidate Whitney Tilson Talks Policy
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Whitney Tilson joins us now. And if you just need to know one attribute of Whitney Tilson, I'm sorry, it is the most coveted MBA distinction out there. It is a Baker Scholar, which is the real deal at Harvard University. I studied too hard. I just studied. Years ago. Were you surprised when you were a Baker Scholar? Like, were you sitting in your dorm room staring at the ceiling and they said, Whitney, good news, you're a Baker Scholar? Yeah.

Is that how it works? Well, it's just based on your grades over two years. It's top 5% of the class, and I'd been getting mostly ones is what they call A's there. And so it wasn't completely unexpected, but yeah, it was a real honor. The race to me is original in that, for example, with Scott Stringer with his huge

liberal progressive Jewish support from Bella Abzug and Jacob Javits back. It seems like the fabric and character of our political system is breaking. Who do you represent in this race? I'm fed up New Yorkers. That's, I got into the race because I saw a bunch of career politicians. This was back after the election in November. Including Scott, to be fair. Absolutely. 30 plus years. And I think the

New York City is being poorly managed. It's headed in the wrong direction. And I didn't see any real change candidates in the race. And I saw how well this city was run and how well it did under Mike Bloomberg. Sort of funny here sitting on a Bloomberg show, in fact. And in the 11 years since he left office under two career politicians and looking at a field of more career politicians, I think New Yorkers are looking for a change agent. And I'm the only one in the race.

And of course, Mike Bloomberg is the founder of Bloomberg LP and this radio apparatus here. Whitney, what's your platform? What do you want to do here? Mostly get the city's economy growing again. We are an economic powerhouse. You mentioned how important New York is to the country. It's 5% of U.S. GDP just in the five boroughs of New York. And when

and I go to all the mayoral forums and talk with all the career politicians and debate the issues, all we're debating is how to spend the tax dollars and which city program they would fund and create more spending programs.

And I'm a business person, and I understand our tax base comes from our economic base, from wealthy individuals, people investing, growing businesses. Everybody wants rising wages. The way to get there is growing businesses, hiring more people. So I think we can grow this economy by 50% in the next 10 years. That's about 4.1% compounded.

How does someone like Mayor Tilson speak to the constituency of someone we've had on many times, and that would be Greg Meeks of Queens? He's the leading Democrat of Queens. There's all sorts of constituencies under Congressman Meeks within Queens.

How do you speak to the machine if you're an outsider? - Right, I'm going directly to the voters. There is no path for a first time candidate, outsider like me, to win a traditional race. But keep in mind only 26% of eligible Democrats voted in the primary last time. I think the other 74%, a lot of them didn't vote because they just saw different flavors of career politicians.

So I've got to go around the machine directly to the voters with a message of change. And if you look at voters, 75 percent of New York City voters think the city's headed in the wrong direction and clearly want change. And so I've got to position myself as the change candidate and go directly to them. You see a need to change the tax situation in the city of New York.

Well, I'm the only candidate to my knowledge who said I will not be raising taxes. The number two candidate in the polls after Governor Cuomo is a 33-year-old socialist named Zoran Mamdani. And he just came out yesterday with an enormous tax plan to raise corporate taxes, to raise taxes on the wealthy in New York. And we already have the highest tax rate in the city, excuse me, in the country.

And I think the traditional tax and spend far left plan would be devastating and cause further flight of our wealthiest citizens who pay the bulk of our taxes as well as our business base. What investment can we grow? People don't even know that there's a whole manufacturing heritage of the boroughs, Brooklyn and all. There's the romance back to 100 years back or so.

If there is business investment here, what kind of business investment is it? Well, right off the top, real estate. We have an acute housing crisis in this city, a 1.4% vacancy rate, the highest rents in the country. We're losing our working class who literally can't pay their rent.

So, but we've erected zoning codes, environmental rules, just a stifling process to get anything built, residential and business construction as well. So that would be a huge area. - Do you find evidence of support among Democrat traditional politicians for this idea we gotta fix the housing crisis in America? Or do you feel like a lone voice?

Actually, every candidate in the race is talking about this, but most of the traditional career politicians are falling back on their traditional nostrums of government spending, using federal dollars to build subsidized housing. And they generally speak disparagingly about those evil landlords exploiting tenants and evicting them and so forth. And my view is the opposite.

with federal government cuts likely on the way.

we're going to have to tighten our belts. And the only way, the only big pool of money to do this kind of investment has got to come from the private sector, and we need to make New York an attractive place to invest. So I'm a kid. I'm over in Switzerland. It's four Swiss francs to a dollar. Swiss francs appreciate it a little bit. And I'm sitting over there across the valley, Val-de-Rive, Val-de-Rive, and I can see Whitney Tilson climbing the Matterhorn.

I can see him in the binoculars. Just like the Disney movie that we all grew up with. What's it like, not in the Disney movie, but Whitney Tilson, what's it actually like to climb the Matterhorn?

It was magnificent. I've climbed the Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, the Eiger, and then here in the United States, really one of the iconic climbs of all time was the Nose of El Capitan, which was featured in the movie Free Solo. But I did it with ropes and a guide, so if I slipped and fell, I wasn't going to die. It wasn't like the Disney movie. Yes.

So, you know, in some ways what I'm doing here running for mayor is a seven month extended version of some of the extreme climbing and other events I've done. What's been the biggest surprise in this effort so far?

To the upside, just what an incredible city this is and getting out into every corner, how incredibly diverse this is. Our immigrants, our communities are such a strength and an asset. And I think it's terrible that they're feeling terrorized right now.

It's been hard breaking out and getting my name out there. - Right. Do we need more police officers? Scott Stringer was adamant we need more police officers, do we? - Yes, he's right. Interestingly, also in the area of housing, but also in the area of police, a lot of the lefties are now tacking toward the center because New York voters are

are pretty upset. I've always been-- - And they spoke in the last election. That's the big thing. - Absolutely, but we're at a 34 year low in the number of police officers right now in New York City. Not surprisingly, crime's up 30 plus percent, the major felonies since pre-pandemic.

And so we need to get more officers. And thank goodness we've now got a police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who's managing them well. Next mountain you climb, you've got to take Lisa Mateo with you. All right. Whitney Tilson, thank you so much. In the mayoral race, we'll have many other mayoral candidates in with us here. You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself?

Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start? Talkspace. Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule, wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship,

or if you want some counseling for you and your partner, or just need a little extra one-on-one support, Talkspace is here for you. Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers, and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance? No problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code SPACE80 when you go to Talkspace.com. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com.