NYC Debate For Mayor | Full NY1 Coverage

NYC Debate For Mayor | Full NY1 Coverage

Good evening. Welcome to the final general election debate in the race for mayor of New York City. I’m Errol Lewis, political anchor here at Spectrum News New York 1, and we’re coming to you live from the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College in Queens. Over the next 90 minutes, you’re going to hear from the leading mayoral candidates about the biggest issues in New York, including the cost of living, the education crisis, and public safety. I’m joined tonight by Katie Honen of the news organization, The City, and Brian Larer of WNYC radio and Gothamist. Tonight’s debate is brought to you by the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the city agency that administers the public matching funds program. It’s also sponsored by Spectrum News New York 1, WNYC Gothamist, and the news site The City, and Spectrum Noticius, and our co-sponsors, the Craig Newark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNI, the Center for New York City and State Law at New York Law School, the Museum of the City of New York, and John J. College of Criminal Justice. You can watch tonight’s debate without a payw wall on NY1.com. It is also being broadcast on NYCTV, WNYC radio, C-SPAN, the Spectrum News YouTube page, and the city.NYC. It’s in Spanish on Spectrum Note TCS and YouTube. The candidates joining us tonight have met a fundraising threshold established by the campaign finance board. The seat is currently held by Eric Adams, who has decided not to run for reelection. in alphabetical order. Andrew Cuomo is a former governor of New York, running on an independent line. Zoran Mdani is the Democratic nominee representing parts of Queens in the state assembly since 2021. And Curtis Leewa is the Republican nominee and the founder of the Guardian Angels. Now, for the rules. The rules you see on your screen right now have been agreed to by all of the candidates. Each candidate will deliver an opening statement of up to 45 seconds and then answers to our questions will generally be limited to 60 seconds with a chance for rebuttals. Candidates will have an opportunity to ask one opponent one question in our cross-examination round. So, let’s begin. This will be the last time all three candidates will be together on stage. The next mayor will be sworn into office 71 days from now on January 1st, 2026. He will inherit a city with an affordability crisis, a tense relationship with the federal government, and millions of New Yorkers who very likely did not support him. Let’s begin our debate with your opening statements to viewers. You have 45 seconds. The order was determined by a random drawing on live television this morning, and we’ll begin with Curtis Leewa. Good evening. Thank you. It’s us versus them. It’s us versus the insiders and the billionaires. It’s us versus Cuomo. It’s us versus Zorhan. This is a campaign not about power. This is a campaign about you, the people. And I know many of you hardworking New Yorkers, you tell me you’ve been pushed aside. You’ve been silenced. These are the people that have all the money, all the connections. They’ve made their backroom deals. But we have something more important. We have you, the people. And we’re not going to be silenced anymore. We’re going to fight tonight. I want you to look at the content of my policies to know that I’ve served this city for more than 50 years, the city that I love, and I’m going to share with you my vision to make New York City safer again, to make New York City more affordable again, and where everybody once again can live the American dream. Thank you. Next is Andrew Cuomo. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening. Uh, New York’s first. Uh, thank you to the moderators. Thank you all for being here. And go Knicks. Go Knicks. Go Knicks. I hope we get an update on the score. New York is the greatest city on the globe. But we are at a piv p pivotal moment. And the voters are going to have to decide in this election what candidate has the plan to save this city and what candidate can get it done, not just talk about it. My main opponent has no new ideas. says he has no new plan. It’s Bill Delasio rehash and we know how that turned out. He’s never run anything, managed anything. He’s never had a real job. I will hire 5,000 new police, build 500,000 new units. I will cut taxes. I will grow jobs. And I will end end this hatemongering and division that is tearing this city apart because that’s not who we are as a New Yorker. As New Yorkers, you know, I can make change. You know, I can make government work. I’ve done it before. I’ll be right here on day one. Okay. Thank you. Next is Aron Mandani. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you to the moderators and thank you to New Yorkers for tuning in. I know you’d rather be watching the Knicks. While there are three candidates on the stage, you will hear only two messages. My opponents, who spend more time trying to convince the other to drop out than actually proposing their own policies, will speak only of the past because that’s all that they know. I am the sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city. Andrew Cuomo will spend much of tonight attacking me. He is a desperate man lashing out because he knows that the one thing he’s always cared about, power, is now slipping away from him. He will amplify right-wing talking points. He will share conspiracy theories. And he will do these things to make you feel that this should keep you up at night. But I’ve been spending the last year listening to New Yorkers, and I know what actually keeps you up. It’s whether or not you can afford to live a safe and dignified life in this city. I have plans for our future. My opponents only have fear. Thank you very much, candidates. Let’s uh start tonight with some breaking news that happened yesterday afternoon when federal agents descended on Canal Street, arresting street vendors who have been selling counterfeit designer merchandise for as long as any of us can remember. This is the first time we’ve seen major federal law enforcement activity uh in the city outside of arrests at immigration court in lower Manhattan. And some critics are now ringing an alarm bell, calling it a dangerous and unprecedented use of federal agents in New York City. Others say that the vendors were a major quality of life problem in the neighborhood that the NYPD had ignored. So the candidate, I’ll ask each of you to respond to this. How should the mayor and the NYPD have handled both the presence of the street vendors and then the federal action? We’ll start with you, Mr. Cuomo. Uh I’ve had a lot of dealings with President Trump. Uh and there’s only one way to deal with him. He puts his finger in your chest and you have to put your finger right back in his chest. I’ve actually had this uh situation with ICE interfering in New York before. It was upstate New York where ICE just showed up and started to take action. And I called the president and I went down to the White House and I said, “That doesn’t work in New York. You don’t send ICE in without coordinating with our police. It’s not smart. It’s duplicative and it’s dangerous. We don’t need ICE to do quality of life crimes. Uh we don’t need them to deal worry about illegal vendors. That’s a basic policing function for new NYPD, consumer affairs, etc. I would have called the president and I would have said, “Look, uh you’re way out of bounds. They’re way out of bounds. call them back or I’m gonna have the NYPD step in and stop them because this is not their jurisdiction. You’re in the city of New York. Okay, Mr. Mani. ICE is a reckless entity that cares little for the law and even less for the people that they’re supposed to serve. What we need to be doing here in our city is to end the chapter of collaboration between city hall and the federal government, which we’ve seen under Mayor Adams. What we need to do is actually pass the street vending reform bills that have been in the city council, some of which that this mayor has actually overridden. That’s an example of how we can both protect street vendors, ensure quality of life, and leave no stone unturned in delivering for the people of the city as opposed to working with a president who is looking to declare war on those same people. Mrs. Leewa, unlike both of my adversaries, I patrolled that area many times. Church and Canal and as you said, Errol, that activity has been going on for a long time, selling the knockoff, sometimes stolen contraband by a series of people. The local fifth precinct, they make arrests when they have obviously caused to do so and they complain that they have to release them because of no cash bail, of which both of my adversaries are in favor of and I’m not. The feds should not have stepped into this situation. There is not communication between the local authorities and the feds. This is a matter that should been left up to the NYPD. But we can’t tolerate citizens attacking our federal law enforcement forces in the street. Uh because then that will just lead to anarchy. Let me ask a related question. President Trump has been commenting on this race and all of you on a regular basis. He’s been less than glowing when talking about each of you, especially you, Mr. Mdani. Um, I’d like you each to describe whatever combination of defiance, diplomacy, and cooperation you will use as mayor if President Trump continues to increase the federal government’s role in the affairs of our city while also threatening to decrease funding. Start with you this time, Mr. Slewood. Both my adversaries have decided to bump chess with President Trump to prove who’s more macho. You can’t beat Trump. He holds most of the cards. He’s already cut federal funding for Medicaid for the SNAP program and has threatened to cut funds for NICHA. So, if you’re all of a sudden going to get adversarial, you’re going to lose. And who gets hurt? The people of New York City. With Trump, it’s always the art of the deal. You have to go, you have to try to negotiate, whether it’s with his minions or himself. He’ll want you to give in order to get a little bit. But if you immediately act like you’re going to take them on, like, you know, it’s going to be a one-on-one fight, we’re going to lose. All the people in New York City are going to lose. You have to be able to show respect. And I think if you show respect, you’ll get respect. And you’ll protect the the New Yorkers who are so desperately in need of federal funds. What’s the good of it? They’ll bump chess with Donald Trump. They won’t get the money and then they’ll blame Donald Trump. I will negotiate with Donald Trump and try to get the best deal possible for our poor and indigent citizens. Okay, Mr. Cuomo. Yeah. Uh the difference on this question is I’ve actually lived it and I’ve done it uh with President Trump over many years through the most difficult situation that this country has gone through uh COVID plus. Uh you’re wrong. Uh you’re going to have to confront President Trump. He is hyperaggressive and he is going to overstep his bounds. Uh and you are going to have to confront him and you can beat him. I confronted him and I have beaten him. He was going to quarantine New York during co uh and I stopped him. He was going to cut aid to federal programs and I stopped him. Uh but you also want to be in a place where you can cooperate on good things because we need federal help if we’re going to save our city and rebuild our city. President Trump has to respect you. He sent the National Guard into 20 cities. City he didn’t send it into New York because I talked to him and I said we don’t need you here. He has said he’ll take over New York if Mandami wins and he will because he has no respect for him. He thinks he’s a kid and he’s going to knock him on his tukus. Uh, so it is a balance, but you’re going to have to be adversarial when you need to, but you want to cooperate to get good things done in this city and you need federal help. We first just heard from the Republican candidate for mayor and then we heard from Donald Trump’s puppet himself, Andrew Cuomo. You could turn on TV any day of the week and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo. And he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor, not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him. Look, Donald Trump ran on three promises. He ran on creating the single largest deportation force in American history. He ran on going after his political enemies. And he ran on lowering the cost of living. If he wants to talk to me about the third piece of that agenda, I will always be ready and willing. But if he wants to talk about how to pursue the first and second piece of that agenda at the expense of New Yorkers, I will fight him every single step of the way. Okay. Short rebuttal from Mr. Cuomo. Uh that’s not what Donald Trump said. Donald Trump does an analysis of the race. Donald Trump, I believe, wants Mandami. That is his dream. Uh because he will use him politically all across the country and he will take over New York City. Make no mistake, it will be President Trump and Mayor Trump and he will come in and take over the city. Uh I have no doubt. All he said was his analysis is after the polls he it’s a tough choice between a Democrat and a communist. And he considers Mandami a communist. He happens to be a socialist, but between a communist and a Democrat, it’s a tough choice for him. Okay. All right. Thank you, candidates. Brian wants to talk to you about uh some important issues on the minds of New Yorkers. Hi candidates, thank you for coming tonight. Uh yeah, and the cost of living is our next topic. You’ve all cited it as a major factor and of course so many New Yorkers are experiencing this, especially when it comes to rising housing costs. And many New Yorkers were shocked this week as a new report from the group Advocates for Children revealed that about 154,000 New York City public school students have been homeless at some point during the last year. 65,000 lived in homeless shelters. Even more were in doubled up situations with no home of their own. It’s never been over 150,000 before, they tell us. and it amounts to one in seven New York City kids. As mayor, how would each of you tackle this problem to help this vulnerable population? And in this round, we’re going to go Mr. Mom Donnie, Mr. Cuomo, Mr. SWA. So, Mr. Mom Donnie, you go first. This is a stain on our city to see this many children in our public school system be homeless and to know that this is the ninth consecutive year that it’s more than 100,000 of those children. What we need to do is ensure that next year is not the same. And we are going to do that by building the housing necessary such that New Yorkers are not priced out of this city or forced to live in shelters. And that’s why my campaign is going to deliver 200,000 new affordable homes across the five burrows, all while freezing the rent for more than 2 million rentstabilized tenants. Now, in the public school system, we also have a program called Every Child and Family is known. It links a child who is living in a homeless shelter with an employee of the public school system. It’s also links that employee with the child’s family. It’s been shown to increase attendance records, self-esteem, a level of belonging in that school system. I am going to increase that pilot program to more than 200 schools. And we’re going to do it because we have to deliver for these children. Yeah. Uh Zoron is a great actor. He missed his calling. Uh freeze the rent sounds great. Yeah, it affects about 25% of the number of housing units in the city of New York. It’s not a new idea. Bill Delasio did it. It turned out to be a debacle. Uh, and it does nothing for 75% of the units. And for the 25, it just postpones the increase and actually uh causes us to lose units because landlords took them off the market. Jump in and ask you to address the homeless children question and we will get to rent freeze. Yeah. Well, the homeless answer to homeless children is you need more affordable housing. Uh, and I’m saying freeze the rent. Uh, was done under Delasio. It doesn’t work. It’s a canard. And just a great three-word slogan uh for Tik Tok. The way to increase uh availability of affordable housing is to build affordable housing. I was the HUD secretary. I did it all across the country. We have 1% vacancy rate. We’re not building enough affordable housing and you need a competent, productive government to do that. And that’s what I’ve done across the country across the state. Make government work. You get the supply up, the rents will come down. Thank you, Mr. Sela. Okay, Mr. Manny, you are you are named, so you get 30 seconds. We are in the ninth consecutive year of more than 100,000 children in the New York City public school system being homeless. That means it began when Andrew Cuomo was the governor. And what did he do? What did he do about it? He did not do anything. He spent more money on a singing water fountain at LaGuardia Airport than he did on the average cost of an affordable housing unit. That is the record that we have in display. And what we need is a change in this city, not more of the same. Yeah. If I may, if I may, uh, the homeless issue, number of homeless since I left has more than doubled during his administration and the state’s administration. Since I left, homeless rate has more than doubled. When I left, the vacancy rate on housing was 4.5%. It’s now 1%. This man never even proposed a bill on housing or education. Never even proposed a bill. Keep going back and forth between the two of you. Mr. Sleer, it’s your turn. Uh Andrew, you didn’t leave. You fled from being impeached by the Democrats in the state legislature. Leave. You fled. But let’s get back on topic because I’m the only candidate up here who’s been into many of the over 300 Department of Homeless Services shelters and the family shelters are unsafe for the families there. We have to make them safer. We have to bring teachers into the shelter. Many times the mothers or the guardian have to get on bus after bus and take them to a school that’s two or two and a half hours away. This is a horror situation that’s taking place and we have to prioritize this because this number of homeless children is going to grow. Takes 5 years to build affordable housing. We need to address it in the shelters itself to be able to handle it so that the the the teachers can come in whether they’re public school teachers, charter school teachers, and I know there are a number of parochial school teachers who love children who would volunteer their efforts to do that. We’re going to give it to Katie Honen now to ask about another aspect of affordable housing. We’re going to switch to the millions of New Yorkers who are renters, specifically those in rent regulated apartments. There are more than a million New Yorkers living in these units, most of them rent stabilized. Mr. Mumdani, you’ve proposed a rent freeze for these tenants. Mr. Cuomo, you don’t support that. And you’ve proposed a new means test for having a rentstabilized apartment. Mr. Mr. Mani, our question, how can you know in advance what the balance between landlord needs and tenant needs will be in future years? We’ve seen a lot of inflation in recent years haven’t small landlords felt that pinch as well. And then we have other questions for the other candidates. You know, we’ve seen time and again mayors use their power with the rent guidelines board to hike the rent on those same more than 2 million New Yorkers. This same rent guidelines board did a study that found that landlords of those units had seen their profits increase by more than 12%. Their response hike the rent on rent rent rent rentstabilized tenants who have a median household income of $60,000. I believe that tenants across our city deserve relief. And I also believe that city government can work to alleviate the pressures for landlords of those units without having to put that burden on those same tenants. It’s possible to keep New Yorkers in this city and to help landlords with rising insurance costs, water bills, conison, and a broken property tax system. Thank you. Mr. SWA, what’s your proposal for helping New Yorkers with the historically high rent burdens and either stabilized or market rate units? Well, the first thing, we have 6,000 empty apartments in Nicha. That is a sin. That’s what the mayor can control right away. We need to move those families with children in for those who uh live in rent stabilized apartments and have their rent uh subsidize. Oron Mandami uh uh we need to make sure that the big realtors that they have to pay a vacancy tax because they’re holding off on those apartments. They’re not putting them out into the marketplace because they want to flip the building. Not for the midsize landlords or the small landlords. They need the help. And there are a number of people in the outer burrows. They own a home. They live on the property. They’re not absentee landlords. Two, three, four apartments. And they’re deciding not to put them in the marketplace when somebody either leaves or dies because they have to deal with tenant landlord court, which is an absolute nightmare for small landlords. We got to make sure it’s a fair playing field so that the tenants are protected, but the landlords are protected so they’re not stuck with squatters for four, five, or six years, which destroys their equity and forces them to leave. Thank you. Mr. Cuomo, you signed a law in 2019 repealing a means test to live in a rentstabilized apartment. What’s your position now and what changed in that? the 2019 law uh was added tenant protections that had never been added uh before uh and uh protections against tenant evictions. But to answer your question, the you cannot uh Zoron said uh the land the the tenant doesn’t have to pay more rent, but we’re going to cover the landlord’s costs. No, you can’t do both. And that’s not what happened. We did freeze around with Debasio. We lost units because the landlords took them off the market because you weren’t covering their cost. The reason the rent guidelines board went up after the freeze was because you had to make up for all the backlog of cost. And this I’m going to freeze the rent. Uh people think it applies to all of them. No, just the 25% of unit rent stabilized. And by the way, it’s all BS because the mayor doesn’t have the power to do it anyway. The rent guidelines board does and he doesn’t control the rent guidelines board. So nothing is going to happen. It’s all this. It’s just more political blather. Mr. Matt, you were invoked. You can respond. You know, if you want a candidate for mayor who tells you everything that he cannot do, then Andrew Cuomo should be your choice. If you want a candidate for mayor who will use every tool at their disposal, including the nine appointees at the rent guidelines board, all of whom are appointed by the mayor, then I am the candidate for you. We have to go to Errol, sir. I’m sure you weren’t you weren’t named. So, I’m sorry. We’re going to go to Arrol. Talk about development. Errol, my name was invoked. Can I get the rebuttal quickly? Okay. Quickly. Uh the mayor doesn’t appoint the rank guidelines board. He’s wrong. They are appointed to a term uh and they’re on hold overs and when the term is over you can appoint but it takes a number of years to get control. Okay. Understood. Candidates. Candidates. Right now we are just blocks away from the site of the Long Island City resoning plan which has been under consideration for a decade at this point and in its latest version would create 15,000 new apartments. That plan, like the recently passed city of yes, five burrow resoning, reflects a reality that hundreds of thousands of units, as many as 1 million new units, will be needed in New York City over the next 10 years. What is your plan to get new units built quickly and the order of this will be Mr. Cuomo, then Mr. Siwa, then Mr. Mdani? Yeah. Uh, SWA said before, it takes 5 years to build affordable housing. No, it doesn’t. No, it shouldn’t. That’s an incompetent government. Uh you can actually get competent government and well-managed government. I built LaGuardia airport even though he doesn’t like it in four years. Okay? So don’t tell me it takes 5 years to build a housing unit. Uh you have to redo HPD. You have to change the entire organization organizational structure. uh you have the zoning but you have to start hundreds if not thousands of sites simultaneously private sector developers partner with not forprofits partner with CDC’s uh use city-owned sites use air rights uh make a deal with the unions but this has to be the number one priority the way I did second avenue subway or the Mario Koal bridge or the kasiasco bridge this this project is thousands of housing developments being accelerated, expedited, facilitated at one time and we need 500,000 units. That’s the way you’re going to make New York City affordable and still allow the talent to come here. Okay, Mrs. Leewa, I’m the only candidate here on the stage who is opposed to the city of Yes, both my adversaries are for it. Make sure on election day when you turn over uh your ballot and you have the initiatives you vote no. And you know how often times I’ve been accused how are you going to work with the Democratic controlled city council? I Adrien Adams and the predominant Democrats including many of them very liberal and progressive believe no to yes. I have a simple plan. It takes a year. We have 25 Empire State buildings that would be empty and just have office space. It’ll never be used because business doesn’t operate the way it used to. Retrofit them to affordable apartments. Molster of Manhattan. The infrastructure is there. You set up a partnership with developers. It’ll put men and women to work and you’ll get your affordable apartments a lot quicker and not be a burden to the outer burrows and the residential communities because you’re in the back pockets, Andrew, of the developers who’ve wedded and pocketlined you. Let let me let me ask you a followup on that, Mr. Sleewa. Do you think each elected city council member should have basically veto power over whether or not uh housing gets built in their district? Absolutely. Local control, community board should have their say. What happened to zoning? We throw it out. Eric Adams, this uh city of yes is on steroids. And he went wild taking care of his developer friends as he knew he would be one and done. I told you he was corrupt. I told you there would be chaos. And I warned you in 2021. You should have elected me mayor then. Okay, Mr. Mdani. We need to build more housing all across New York City. Today, New York City builds about four houses for a thousand people. Jersey City’s at 7, Tokyo is at about 10. We need to do this by streamlining the processes of private sector construction across the city, by ensuring we’re building more around hubs of mass transit. And we also need to ensure that the public sector is building truly affordable housing. And what I mean by truly affordable is housing that is built with the median household income in mind, which is $70,000 for a family of four. And that’s why my administration will do exactly that. Scaling up programs we already had in HPD like senior affordable rental apartments, Sara, like Ella, extremely low-level affordability. These are the kinds of programs that will deliver a city that New Yorkers can actually afford. There was reference to the three housing related charter amendment questions. I know Mr. Cuomo is on the record of saying he favors them. We just heard Mr. Sua say that he’s against them. Where do you stand on those? I’m appreciative that those measures will be on the ballot and that New Yorkers will be able to cast their votes for them. I know that we desperately need to build more housing in this city. And I also know that the jobs we create in the building of that housing should be good jobs as well. No answer. What is your opinion, Zoron? Yes or no? Come on. Yes or no? What is your opinion? Yes or no? Sor, don’t be a politician. I got it. They’re they’re pointing out what I was about to answer the question. No, I think I think on the stage you can see two people appealing for the Republican party’s vote. Answer the question. Answer the question for once. I my my question to you was, do you support the three ballot amendment questions? I have not yet taken a position on those ballot amendment questions. What a shocker. All right. What a shocker. Don’t worry. Once he takes it, he’ll change it anyway. We’re going to move it. We’re going to move on. The the candidates, the rhetoric on the campaign trail has become more heated in recent weeks. We have reached a point where two of the candidates on stage here tonight have armed security. I would like to spend a few minutes to see if we can dial down the rhetoric. Um, Mr. Mdani, some Jewish New Yorkers continue to say that your comments on Israel and the war in Gaza leave them feeling unsafe and concerned about their future in our city. Uh recently several prominent New York rabbis took the unusual step of denouncing your candidacy, including the rabbi of the Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan and Rabbi Michael Miller, the longtime leader of the Jewish Community Relations Council, who is a friend to many of us. Uh do you have any regrets about how you’ve dealt with these issues? And will your long-standing views on the subject get in the way of your ability to be an effective mayor? I look forward to being a mayor for every single person that calls this city home. Not just those who voted for me in the Democratic primary, not just those that vote for me in this general election, but all 8 and a half million New Yorkers. And that includes Jewish New Yorkers who may have concerns or opposition to the positions that I’ve shared about Israel and Palestine. You know, just a few weeks ago, I was on the M57, the slowest bus in New York City. And as I was seated there, there was a speech therapist who was sitting next to me. She told me that she was Jewish. She said that her daughter was a huge fan, but that she was not yet decided on who she was going to vote for. And she shared to me about her fears in this city, about rising anti-semitism. And I told her what I will tell New Yorkers today, which is that I will be the mayor who doesn’t just protect Jewish New Yorkers, but also celebrates and cherishes them, who doesn’t just increase funding to hate crime prevention programs by 800%. who doesn’t just ensure that the NYPD are outside of synagogues and temples on the high holy days, but also actually delivers on the implementation of the hidden voices curriculum in our school system so that children in this city learn about the beauty and the breath of the Jewish experience right here in the five burrows. Okay. Um I’ve got a I’ve got a a different Yeah. But can I just comment on that please? Uh you know the not everything is a Tik Tok video. You’re the savior of the Jewish people. You won’t denounce globalized inif, which means kill Jews. There’s unprecedented fear in New York. It was not several rabbis, Errol. It was 650 rabbis who signed the letter. Not several. Let let me let me ask you a a related question, Mr. Cuomo. Many New Yorkers have serious grievances with Israel and the way the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu has conducted the war in Gaza and expanded settlements in the West Bank. What would you say to and how would you handle New Yorkers who are in the streets if you were mayor protesting the actions of the Netanyahu government? Fine. That’s your right. Protest, demonstrate, disagree. God bless America. God bless New York City. And there is no doubt that there’s two sides on what’s going on. And the passions are very high. That doesn’t that doesn’t justify anti-semitic behavior in New York. It doesn’t justify having a Jewish population that feels unprotected in New York. It doesn’t it doesn’t justify leaders who stoke the flames of hatred against Jewish people, which is what Zoron does in my opinion. I’ll give him a chance to answer and then we’ll go to Mr. You know, I’ve heard from Jewish New Yorkers about their fears about anti-semitism in this city, and what they deserve is a leader who takes it seriously, who roots it out of these five burrows, not one who weaponizes it as a means by which to score political points on a debate stage. Mr. Speaker, the father, excuse me. Excuse me, Mr. Cuomo. It’s my turn. All right. Yeah, it’s like two kids in a schoolyard. Yeah, I heard you on the radio this morning. This is personal for me. I know you are under threat. The mother of my two youngest sons who were raised Jewish, Melinda Catz is prosecuting this person who came up and tried to do you harm. But let me speak on behalf of my two sons. when they’ve heard some of the statements you’ve made like in support of global jihad and I hear some people out there saying the Jews their time is due which means the same thing. They’re frightened. They’re scared. They view you as the arsonist who fan the flames of anti-semitism. They cannot suddenly accept the fact that you’re coming in like a firefighter and you’re going to put out these flames. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, a lot of apologizing to do. My sons are afraid. Their family, their friends, many in the Jewish community are concerned if you become mayor because they don’t think when anti-semitism re its ugly head, which it’s now doing more than ever before, that you will have the ability to come in and put out those flames of hate. Okay. Yeah, you can. I think there is room for disagreement on many positions and many policies, but I also want to correct the record. I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad. That is not something that I have said and that continues to be ascribed to me. And frankly, I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election. Now, I all the same, Curtis, I do still want to be the mayor that will keep your sons safe, that will keep every single New Yorker safe. And it is my job to not only deliver on that commitment, but also to ensure that New Yorkers feel it every single day that they live in this city. Okay, candidates, Brian’s going to take us into the next section. Thank you, Errol. And the next section is some individual political questions, one for each of you. Uh, let me start with you, Mr. Cuomo. Then Katie will ask a question of Mr. SWA and air to Mr. Mandani. Um, Mr. Cuomo, the last time most New Yorkers saw you before this campaign was when you resigned your seat as governor under scandal in 2021. The most recent Quinnipiac University poll in this race shows that 54% of likely voters say you’re unethical. Meanwhile, you also have strained relations with Governor Hokll, State Attorney General Leticia James, and others. What would you say right now to New Yorkers who have questions about your moral compass and concerns that you cannot effectively work with other elected officials? Yeah. Well, first, uh, you someone misdated the facts, but, uh, I resigned because there was, uh, allegations made. I didn’t want to waste the time and distract state government. I knew it was going to take a long time to sort out. I left uh which I thought was respectful to state government. We sorted it out legally. Nothing came from any of the allegations. I was dropped from the cases. You know that we’ve had this discussion four times, but you like to talk about the past rather than yesterday. Uh I chose Governor Kathy Hokll. I would have no problem working with her. Uh the legislature I got 11 budgets passed on time, most in modern political history. They haven’t gotten one done on time since I was there. So don’t tell me who knows to work who knows how to work with the legislature. And a mayor being able to deal with that legislature is key because don’t kid yourself. I’ve watched every governor and mayor uh since Ed Cotch. There is a tension between the city and the state. The city is arguing for its budgets. The state is saying no and the city has been getting screwed by the state and that has to change and the city has to be doing better. Thank you, Katie. To many New Yorkers, you’ve often presented yourself as more of a well-known New York character than a serious policy expert. Your critics have said your candidacy is making it more likely that Zeron Mandani can win the election. What do you say to them and to others who feel that while your name recognition has seen a boost, your candidacy is not helpful to New Yorkers, including those who share your views? Number one, uh I have 13 campaign offices open. I’m throughout the auto burrows. You see the excitement and energy of the workingclass people that I represent. I am the Republican populist candidate representing the working class. And I’m also Katie the candidate on the independent line first ever put together by my wife Nancy who loves animals like so many save the animals no kill shelters animal abusers go to jail so people know that I’m not just running to protect people which has been my life as leader of the guardian angels I’m there to protect our pets and animals because remember Mahatma Gandhi said a society that does not take care of its animals does not take care of its people homeless homeless, emotionally disturbed veterans. I’m out there every day tending to their needs with their guardian angels, doing things that the city and state should have been doing a long time ago, but neglected them and instead spent $7 billion on migrants that we don’t even know. That is a disgrace. We should be there for our own people who are suffering and wallowing in desperation and despair. Okay, Mr. Mandani, you have criticized the politics of the past where leaders either avoid taking a stand on a key issue or try to be all things to all people. But at times during this campaign, you’ve carefully avoided answering tough questions. We saw an instance just a few minutes ago when I asked about how you plan to vote on those ballot initiatives next month. Um, we’ve asked whether you support a major reasonzoning push for part of Queens, some of which is in your district. You’ve been unclear about how you think the city schools should be run, its governance structure. How is that different from politics as usual? When it comes to our schools, I believe that every single child deserves to have an excellent public education. And we have not seen that under the stewardship of those schools with this mayoral administration. We have not seen it because we are not fully funding those schools. We are not on track to comply with the class- size mandates of those schools. We are not even on track to ensure greater literacy levels across those schools despite the strides that have been taken with NYC REITs. When it comes to resoning, I’ve been very clear that I will always celebrate the addition of additional housing units across this city. I also believe that Gantry State Park and Queensbridge Park should be one contiguous park. Those are things that one can believe at the same time. And my critiques of the politics of the past is right here on the stage. You can see in Andrew Cuomo someone who had 10 years to deliver on so much of what he’s spoken about. He says that taking five years to build affordable housing is the sign of an incompetent government. By his own words, that means he must have led an incompetent government. That is what we are seeing because that is the record that is actually on offer. Yeah. Go ahead. I understand uh I understand my friend doesn’t really understand government. The governor doesn’t build housing in New York City. Not if it’s you. No. No. Legally, there are jurisdictions. Uh the the governor doesn’t pick up trash. He doesn’t run the fire department. That’s what the mayor does. The mayor builds housing. The state allocates funding for localities. And I allocated more funding for housing than any governor in the history of the state of New York. All right. I did things. You have never had a job. You’ve never accomplished anything. There’s no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for 8 and a2 million lives. You don’t know how to run a government. You don’t know how to handle an emergency. And you’ve literally never proposed a bill on anything that you’re now talking about in your campaign. You had the worst attendance record in the assembly and you gave yourselves the highest raise in the United States of America. You went from 110,000 to $140,000 and then you never showed up for work and you missed 80% of the votes. Shame on you. Shame on you. It is always a pleasure to hear Andrew Cuomo create his own facts at every debate stage. We just had a former governor say in his own words that the city has been getting screwed by the state. Who was leading the state? It was you, Governor. You were leading the state screwing the city. You cut the legislator. You cut funding for the legislator of these things, my friend. It’s the past four years. It’s the past four years. Okay, guys. I I didn’t want to have to do this, but you understand how this works. You can’t talk over each other. Nothing works if you do that. Uh, I believe we’ve heard your response. I wanted to give you a quick word and then we’re going to move on. I’ve heard the both of them again fighting like kids in the schoolyard. Zoron, your resume could fit on a cocktail uh napkin. And andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City. Okay, go ahead. We’re going to move now to public safety and and there was some breaking news from the New York Times that you, Mr. Mandani, would ask police commissioner Jessica Tish to stay on as police commissioner if you are indeed mayor. I wanted to confirm if that was true. And for Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Sawa, would you ask the current police commissioner to stay on if you were elected? So, Mr. Mandani, we’ll start with you. Yes, I can confirm that reporting. My administration will be relentless in its pursuit of safety and affordability for every New Yorker, and the delivery of that will require us to put together a team of the best and the brightest. Eric Adams stacked the upper echelons of the NYPD with corruption and incompetence. Commissioner Tish took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption, and reducing crime across the five burrows. I have said time and again that my litmus test for that position will be excellence and the alignment will be of that position and I am confident that under a Mandani administration we would continue to deliver on that same mission and do so while creating the department of community safety to ensure that mental health experts were the ones responding to the mental health crisis because safety and justice is at the cornerstone of our pursuit of public safety and in doing so we will also be able to deliver our agenda for affordability. Thank you. And very briefly, quickly, Mr. Sua and Mr. Plumbo, would you ask Commissioner Tish to stay on if you were elected mayor? Yes, I would for stability, but then again, I don’t think she would serve with either Cuomo or Zoron because she has railed against no cash bail. Cuomo, the architect of no cash bail, Zoron, the apprentice of no cash bail. That’s why criminals are running in the street. And Mr. Cuomo, would you ask her to stay on? Uh, I would ask her to stay on. Uh, I don’t believe Zoron when he says he would ask her to stay on. The DSA’s position, his position has been to defund, disband the police. She wouldn’t take that. His current position, uh, today’s position was freeze the budget. That would cause a reduction in police. She has called for more police. I’ve called for more police. Mayor Adams has called for more police. Uh, so uh, their philosophies are totally in Congress. in Congress. Uh DSA calls for eliminating misdemeanors. He wants to decriminalize prostitution. I don’t think she would support any of that. Well, we can’t speak for her. She’s not here, but I will ask the the public safety question. Um and we’ll start with you, Mr. Sua. Uh the issues of crime and disorder on the streets. The NYPD says the crime is going down in all major category, most major major categories, but to New Yorkers, they’re still concerned with disorder and their own unique perception of crime. Do you think addressing quality of life concerns helps pres pre prevent more serious crimes? And how would you deploy the city’s police force to deal with those serious violent crimes and also quality of life offenses like disorderly conduct and retail theft? Mr. First off, I’ve been in all 350 neighborhoods. I’m the only candidate that’s on the subway each and every day. I’ve yet to hear from one New Yorker who said they feel safer either in the subways or the streets. and Eric Adams constantly heckering at us like it’s the perception the perception oh it’s the reality of crime we need 7,000 police officers we are badly underst staffed we need to get police officers in the subways actually patrolling the moving cars where people are most threatened and most frightened and we need to bring back the homeless outreach unit that was disbanded when Delasio took a billion dollars out of the budget these were men and women police officers who already had with them medical nurses and healthc care practitioners, but it was Delasio who abolished it and they’ve been talking about bringing something back ever since, but they never do it because I’m out there in the subways every day and I never see it. And when I’m mayor, it gets done on day one. The homeless outreach unit is put back into the NYPD. Thank you, Mr. Mandani. You know, when I hear from New Yorkers of where they feel least safe, they will often tell me the subway system. And when they explain those moments to me, what they are often explaining is a mental health crisis in our city and a crisis of homelessness that has only continued to grow. And that is why at the heart of our public safety agenda is a groundbreaking proposal to not only reduce crime, but address these very moments of unease for New Yorkers across the five buroughs by creating a department of community safety that will be focused on the mental health crisis, focused on homelessness, and will ensure that police officers can focus on serious crimes. Because in 2020, the response time for those officers was less than 11 minutes. Today, it’s closer to 16 minutes. And that’s because every year they are now responding to 200,000 mental health calls when those are calls that could by and large be taken by experts trained on responding to that very crisis. Thank you, Mr. Cuomo. The you know the answer is always a new government agency. It’s manage the system, manage the public safety system. We know how to do this. Mayor David Dinkens did it when we had a real crop uh crime problem. Hire more police officers. Of course, you have to deal with the mentally ill. Of course, that deal that requires uh mental health specialists with police because the situation can be dangerous. But hire the 5,000 more cops because they’re all quitting because they’re getting worked too hard. You’re going to have to raise the starting salary because nobody wants to be a cop today the way they’re treated. Put 1,500 in the subways. Forget this Zoron idea of not prosecuting misdemeanors. Prosecute misdemeanors. Those are quality of life crimes and that’s very important. Yes, the subways are scary, but it’s scary in their neighborhood, too. Uh so uh those those quality of life crimes also have to be addressed. Mr. Mor, no matter how many times Andrew Cuomo describes it as my idea or my policy, I have never once stated that we were not going to prosecute misdemeanors. And that is what you see from the former governor is someone who spends more time talking about the platforms of other organizations and other individuals than the one that I’ve actually put forward or the one that he is supposed to be running on. Now we’ll hear from Brian for another question. Excuse me one second. Can I just out of Can I just respond to Can I just respond to that accusation? Misdemeanor of felonies. No cash bail re releases them back into the streets and both of you afford no cash bail. Mr. Mr. Well, I want to move on. You’ll get your opportunities, I think, because I want to bring up a particular crime concern, and that is violence among younger New Yorkers, specifically teenagers. My question is, what is your stance on the statewide raise the age law, which increased the age of adult criminal responsibility from 16 years old to 18 for most crimes. Police Commissioner Tish says, quote, “The mentality on the street is that nothing happens to those under 18 who possess a gun.” So, would you support modifying raise the age in any way? And Mr. Mdani, since you just announced that you would uh invite Commissioner Tish to stay on, would you go along with her on this? I would not support changes to the state’s legislation and I would not support them because the major issue with the implementation of that legislation has been the fact that there is hundreds of millions of dollars that was supposed to be delivered alongside that law that is still languishing in Albany. And I am excited to be the next mayor of the city to finally fight for the money that this city is owed to ensure that we deliver it to our young people across the five burrows. Mr. Well, the what I was referring to before is uh Zoron is a member of the DSA, Democratic Socialist of America. They have a charter. He gives them 3% of his salary. He has said multiple times, I am a DSA member. I pledge allegiance. They say abolish jails, defund police, don’t enforce misdemeanors. Go to my website, andrew.com. It’s right on the front page. Now, is he lying to the DSA? Is he lying to New York? Is he lying to everybody? Who knows? On the raise the age, I passed the law. I support the law. It’s uh we were one of only two states that put 16 and 17 year olds in adult prisons. Uh it was inhumane. It was cruel and unusual. And I’m proud of that law. It’s administered by local governments. Some were doing it better than others. If Zoron thought that there was money locked up in Albany, maybe he should have gone to Albany and proposed a bill to release it. Support Mr. once again the architect of raised the age Governor Cuomo, the apprentice to him Zorhan. It’s personal for me. My oldest son Anthony last October was the victim of a vicious gang assault that could have killed him. And what happened to these juveniles? cut free because they went to family court, not criminal court. So, how can both of you look at me? I almost lost my oldest son to gang violence and the perpetrators went to family court and got a little pat on the wrist and was sent home to do it again and again. No, we need to start charging juveniles who commit violent crime in criminal court. and I’ll appoint criminal court judges who follow the law and don’t just release them because of no cash bail. Clear difference between you on that. Miss uh Arrow, you pick it up. Okay. Uh candidates, um I’ve got uh individual questions for you and we’re going to try and pick up the pace a little bit here. I’d like you to really just explain kind of where you’re coming from. Mr. Mani, you’ve called for reorganizing the NYPD to create this Department of Community Safety that among other things would handle calls involving people in mental health distress. Your opponents have disparaged this as sending social workers rather than cops into dangerous situations like domestic violence disputes. Explain really what you have in mind and please include any evidence that this approach would work. Absolutely. What my opponents are clinging to is the past because that’s all that they know. What I am proposing is something that will address the needs of New Yorkers in the present. We speak and hear from New Yorkers across the five burrows who outline how the mental health crisis is one of the major challenges in this city. And yet what we have in our city is asking those same police officers who are being asked to respond to shootings, respond to murders to also respond to these calls. I trust the dispatchers who would be receiving these calls to make the determination as to whether there was any indication of violence. If there is no indication of a threat of violence, then we would set the mental health experts and providers to respond to those same incidents. The reason I believe in the efficacy of this approach is because of the fact that it has been delivered elsewhere in the country. So no matter how often you hear those on this stage tell you that something cannot be done, know that there are others in this same country who have seen it and it is time for that same policy to come to New York City. Okay, Mr. Siwa and Mr. Cuomo, I have a similar question for both of you. The department currently feels about 33,000 officers, down from 37,000 in 2018. Public safety budget approaching 10 billion. Mr. Schle, you want to hire 7,000 more cops. Mr. Cuomo says 5,000 more cops. Each of you make the case for why you think that’s necessary, especially given the fact that for uh crime declines over the last 20 years happened while the size of the force was also declining and not rising. Errol, I have to revisit the last debate for a second when Zoron was basing this policy on what they do in Eugene, Oregon. You’ve never been to Eugene, Oregon. I have. Are you out of your mind? And then Columbus, Ohio. This is New York City, a major metropolitan area with thousands of 911 calls, domestic abuse, emotionally disturbed persons, and you want to have social workers go out there and risk their life. And by the way, they’re not going to get the results that a trained professional police officer can get. That’s why we so desperately need 7,000 new cops. We’ll use the Boston model, which is pay now in lie of taxes. as they do it at Harvard University and the other universities will raise a billion dollars, get them vetted, trained, and out into the streets so they can be seen in all the neighborhoods and most importantly do the job they were sworn to do. And I will make sure that their insurance, the qualified immunity that was stripped from them, the only civil servants who are not protected by the taxpayer is returned so that they can freely go out and do what they were trained to do is to protect all of the people of New York City. Okay, Mr. Cuomo, there is nothing new here. We’ve had mentally ill homeless people. Going back to the Billy Bogs case, right, under the Ed Cotch administration, I ran homeless services, not just for David Dinkens, but also for President Clinton. I’ve worked in every state, all the large cities on all homeless programs. I’ve spent dozens of nights out bringing trying to bring mentally ill people in. uh it can be done with mental health workers and police workers. You cannot tell from a phone call if a person is going to be dangerous. And I have seen personally many times a person who seemed very calm and sedate uh explode into rage. Why? Because this is sometimes a symptom of mental illness. So there’s nothing new here. It just has to be done and managed. Yes, you need more police. You need more police. First of all, Errol, because they’re quitting because there are not enough to staff the force and they’re working overtime and weekends and their family life is destroyed. So, you have the highest attrition rate in modern history. You have to hire 5,000 just to slow down the attrition. Okay. Thank you. 40,000 beds for mental health and the state hospital system. By the time you fled fearing impeachment, you cut the budget down to 4,000 beds. Shame on you for putting those emotionally disturbed persons in the street. You don’t know what you’re there’s one bet I’m going to say for you. But the no one is saying about to go back to Willowbrook. That’s when there were 40,000 people in mental institutions. We left that 40 years ago when we weren’t the community based. We’re going to stay in this century, guys. Yeah. The the next um well, we’re going to do our lightning round where each candidate will answer our questions with a brief response. Usually yes or no. I’m going to do the first couple. U candidates, if you had the power, would you keep, kill, or modify the congestion pricing program? Just say one or those words. Keep, kill, or modify. Mr. One and done. Dead. Mr. Mandani. Keith Keith. Okay. Um, would you expand, decrease, or keep the same number of so-called safe injection sites for drug users in this city? Mr. Mdani, can you say the options again? Expand, decrease, or keep the same? Keep the same. Mr. Cuomo, keep close them down. Okay. The last two mayors proposed allocating 1% of the city budget for parks. Will you make the same pledge here tonight, Mr. SWA? Add another one. 2%. Keep your hands off the park, you greedy developers. 1%. Mr. 1%. Okay. 2%. 2%. Um, another lightning round question. The city recently enacted a 15 mph speed limit for ebikes, and of course, there are the other motorized two-wheelers that also frequently ignore red lights and other traffic laws. If you were mayor, would you direct the NYPD to ramp up speeding tickets and other moving violations on the motorized two-wheelers? Mr. Cuomo, yes, this is a dangerous situation for many people. Mr. Manny, yes or no? I would actually build on the city council’s progress in holding the apps accountable like Door Dash and Grubhub to ensure that there weren’t incentives for breaking those streets after. You would not increase ticketing the riders. I do not think the police should be the ones dealing with the failures of these app companies. Mr. License them, register them, and yes, do enforcement on them. All right. Uh there is a ballot question to align mayoral election years with presidential election years in the future. Do you support this, Mr. SWA? Absolutely not. All the attention would go to the presidential election, not to the mayoral election and all the down ballot elections. All of our city council people. That’s a no. Mr. Monty, I haven’t yet taken a position on any of the ballot referendums. Again, same again and again and again. Yes. Uh, thank you so much. First question. Do you support having a casino in the five burrows? I guess a full casino and do you have a favorite among the three current contenders? Mr. Sua? No, only if the community wants it. Mr. from M Donnie. I’m personally skeptical of casinos, but voters did choose to bring them to New York City. And unlike Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump, I don’t view the law as just a suggestion. Do you have a favorite of the three? No, I don’t have favorites of casinos. Mr. Cuomo, um I do not I have not reviewed the proposals. I was not in f I did not vote. It’s not so hard to say. I did. Let me just just so you understand some facts. I did not vote to bring the casinos to New York City. I did casinos in upstate New York as economic development measures. I had no part of these three casinos, how they were done. I think it’s highly problematic. Uh and I think there’s going to be a lot more to come. If this was a rank technology, you had a great question. If there was a rank choice election, how would you vote? Mr. Mandani, if there was a rank choice election in this, you’d have to rank these myself number one and Curtis number two. Mr. Lewa. Oh, please don’t be glazing me here. All right. Are you kidding? Mr. SL, do you want I support rank choice voting, but I’d only vote for myself. Mr. Cuomo, I love that Zoron and Curtis ticket idea. I don’t know. I’m just enamored with it. I would just rank myself. Uh, would any of you accept Mayor Adams’s endorsement, Mr. Montani? No. Mr. Cuomo. Yes, I would. Mr. Siwa. Absolutely not. Put that crook in jail where he belongs. And final uh a fun one. Be careful. Be careful. What is your favorite live music venue in New York City? Mr. SWA. Oh, Chain Smokers. EDM. Under the K Bridge, I’m presumed. That’s right. The Kazoo Bridge. Uh Mr. Mandani Forest Hill Stadium. Mr. Cuomo. Under the Kushusco Bridge. Have you seen a show under the K Bridge? Okay. Who who did you see? Uh, no. I picked up my daughters at a show. That’s as close as I got. Candidates, it’s time for the cross-examination round. That’s where each candidate gets a chance to ask one question of one rival. The order was selected at random. We’re going to begin with Curtis Lewa. Joron, you talk about free, free, free, but we know that somebody’s got to pay for it, and that’s you, the taxpayers. and that’s going to lead to bankruptcy. The only reason that Zoran is on the stage is because of the failed Governor Cuomo who was rejected by the Democrats in the primary and rejected by 13 women who charged you with sexual harassment. Do you ever know that no means no? You know what no means? Your question is to Mr. Who was your Who was your question? We can bifrocate it, right? No, no. You know, you can’t. Who was your question to Cuomo? Okay. your response, Mr. Cuomo. I’m not sure what the man said, but uh the the situation uh my legal situation, as we discussed before, was fully litigated. I was dropped from the cases. Um if anyone has a legal situation to talk about, I think it’s Mr. Leewa uh who runs the Guardian Angels and apparently as a charitable donation but never filed any tax returns for the Guardian Angels and has been accepting charitable donations which is just a crime and tax fraud. So I think that’s the person who has explained to do. Okay, your your turn to ask a question Mr. Cuomo. Mr. Zoron, I believe, as we’ve stated that you have been a divisive force in New York, and I believe that’s toxic energy for New York. It’s it’s it’s with the Jewish community. It’s with the Italian-American community. When you give the Columbus statue the finger, uh it’s with the Sunni Muslims when you say decriminalize prostitution, which is haram, it’s the Hindus. Uh but then you uh take a picture with Rebecca Kadaga, deputy prime minister of Uganda. You take a picture with your father. You’re smiling. He’s smiling. She’s known as Rebecca gay killer Kadaga. Question. You’re a citizen of Uganda. You took the picture. You said you you didn’t know who she was. It turns out you did. How do you not renounce your citizenship or demand BDS against Uganda for imprisoning people who are gay just by their sexual orientation? Isn’t that a basic violation of human rights? Thank you guys for the question. My politics is consistent and my politics is built on a belief in human rights for all people and that extends to queer and trans New Yorkers and it extends to queer and trans Ugandans. And had I known that the first deputy minister was the architect of that legislation, I would not have taken that photo. And yet I also know that this constant attempt to smear and slander me is an attempt to also distract from the fact that unlike myself, you do not actually have a platform or a set of policies to protect those same New Yorkers here. All you have are the insults that you have lobbed at every single opportunity you have. Okay. No, that’s it. Cross-examination is just a question and answer. Your turn to ask a question. Mr. Cuomo, in 2021, 13 different women who worked in your administration credibly accused you of sexual harassment. Since then, you have spent more than $20 million in taxpayer funds to defend yourself, all while describing these allegations as entirely political. You have even gone so far as to legally go after these women. One of those women, Charlotte Bennett, is here in the audience this evening. You sought to access her private gynecological records. She cannot speak up for herself because you lodged a defamation case against her. I, however, can speak. What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed? If you if you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature. Uh there were allegations of sexual harassment. They were then went to five district attorneys, fully litigated for four years, the cases were dropped, right? You know that as a fact. So everything you just stated, you just said was a misstatement, which we’re accustomed to. stated was a misstatement because the cases the cases were dropped. That’s what happened. And on my question to you, you still didn’t answer. Why won’t you say BDS against Uganda if it’s saying gays should be imprisoned for being gay? Okay. You have no problem with BDS against Israel, but no BDS for Uganda. This is just one question, one answer. We all heard it. Thank you very much, candidates. Right. Our next topic is education. The next mayor will oversee the largest school system in the United States, as you know, with roughly 900,000 students, thousands of schools, and billions of dollars in budget. We have an education question for each of you. Mr. Donnie, you said you would give up mayoral control of schools and share decisionmaking with various stakeholders, but in the last debate, you said you’re still for mayoral accountability for educational outcomes. This has confused some people about how you can give up final authority, but still hold yourself accountable. Can you try to clarify that? I remain opposed to mayoral control and I also believe that the mayor is accountable for that which happens in this city. I will not sherk that accountability even when we are putting together a system that has greater involvement for parents, for educators, for students. Look, one in 300 Americans is a student in the New York City public school system. This is a system where we are failing to deliver excellence to students, to teachers, to parents. And it is time to have a mayor who understands not only the crisis in front of us, but the fact that we have to change our ways if we want to change our results. And that is what we are running on, a plan for the future, not to simply relitigate the past. Mr. Lea, you recently proposed reducing the education budget by $10 billion or about 25% to help pay for tax cuts. But your website includes things like quote, “Hire more therapists, expand services for students with learning differences, build new vocational high schools, restore arts programs, expand athletic programs, and increase teacher pay to attract and retain top talent.” Those are all exact quotes from your website. How do you defund the education department by 25% to cut taxes, add in the Trump administration’s various cuts, and do all those expansions at the same time? Well, let me tell you, you have a bureaucracy at the Tweet Courthouse, perfect place to house the Department of Education because of the corruption in the top ranks. You have 13 deputy chancellors. You have about 50 department heads. Nobody at this school level ever deals with them. $41,000 we pay per student and teachers still have to reach into their pockets to b uh pay for basic supplies. You cut at the top contracts that have been negotiated that have not been overseen. You will save millions and millions of dollars. And yes, you open up the schools as it was when I went to public school. afterchool center, night center, weekend center, not just sports but culture, plays, musicals. People used to be able to take instruments home when they were in band and orchestra that attracted children. Onethird of our children don’t even come to school each day. And we need more vocational training like we had when I was growing up. That’s been depleted. And more charter schools. We need to raise the cap and have more charter schools for the children who have been waiting to get in for years. And Katie has an education question for Mr. Cuomo. Thanks, Brian. Mr. Cuomo, there’s currently a state law to reduce class sizes in the city. You recently described the law as quote reckless and proposed that popular schools be exempted from this law. You also want to start closing low performing schools, one of the most controversial policies of Mayor Bloomberg. Would you defy the class size law? And if you close existing schools rather than work to improve them, what specifically helps the kids learn more and where? Yeah, the common denominator on all these things is the question is uh what is your plan to change things and what is your ability and experience to do it. This these are management challenges and uh I have managed large bureaucracies. the Department of Education, we lost 1 million students. What’s happening is young families have to make a decision where their child has to go to school. They’re deciding to go to the suburbs, go to Jersey. They’re not going to sacrifice their kid. So, it is a uh terrible problem for the entire city. uh the shrinking public school system. I would double the gifted and talented programs, double the number of specialized high schools, keep the SHsAT, uh and keep mayoral control. It is wholly inconsistent to say, I think it’s a top priority, but I want to give up mayoral control, but I want to be a mayor who runs grocery stores. Forget the grocery stores. Run the Department of Education. It was the most single uh uh instrumental reform. Mayor Bloomberg was right. Uh the mayor in Boston and Chicago, don’t give up mayoral control. Would you defy the law? The class size law. The problem with the class size law is a nice idea. The state didn’t send the money. The state has not been doing its fair share for the city. If you have a nice idea, that’s nice. Send the money. And just a fact check, I don’t think we lost a million students. We have just about under a million students in the DOE system. But just a quick show of hands. I’m sorry. Yes. And just a show of hands, no talking. Who is in favor of the cell phone ban in ban in schools? Raise your hands. Everyone has raised their hands. They all are in favor of the cell phone ban. Thank you. Okay. Um candidates, I want to talk about Riker’s Island. Under city law, the jail complex on Riker is supposed to close in 2027. That’s something that the next mayor is going to have to navigate. Uh the population, however, has only gone up. It’s surpassing 7,000 detainees. and a judge this year put Rikers on a path toward federal receiverhip. So here’s the question. As mayor, will you commit to the closure of Riker’s Island as required? And if not, what is your alternative plan? We’ll start with you, Mr. Slewell. Number one, the architect for the closing of Riker’s Island is on this stage. That’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo. He was the first and his apprentice is Orhan Mandabi. No, you keep Riker’s Island open. There are seven functioning buildings, three others that need to be rehabbed. You can move those who have mental health issues and give them the treatment they need as long as they’re detained on Riker’s Island. Some people do a year of time if they’re given that in the courts rather than be shipped upstate. So, there are a variety of inmates. We have allocated $8 billion for four community jails. The price tag is now up to 16 billion and will only house 4,000 of the 7,000. Guess what? We keep the inmates on Riker’s Island and we turn those four units in the neighborhoods into affordable housing that we’ve all been clamoring for. What What about the law that requires the closing? Oh, you go into court, you fight, fight, fight. You fight for the taxpayers and you fight to keep inmates on Rikers Island so that we don’t just have to lock up toothpaste in New York City, but we lock up inmates. Mr. the uh Zuron has said he’d honor the law closing Rikers in 2027. You can’t you can’t unless you intend to release all the people on Riker’s Island, which is the Democratic Socialist policy. The county jails are not going to be built. It was a mistake. The whole plan was a mistake. Uh they are years late, billions over budget. I would say scrap the county jails, build new jails on Riker’s Island, provide uh ferry and bus transportation for people from the other burrows to visit on Riker’s Island and then use the existing four sites for commercial residential. But you cannot close Rikers on 2027 because there’s no place to put the people unless you’re going to release 7,000 people. Well, you’re you’re familiar with the idea that a law is passed. It’s supposed to be followed even if it’s difficult, even if the the the timeline is screwed up, even if the money’s not there. Yeah. So then what is Zoro’s position? Then you’re saying release the 7,000 people. And I’m saying I’m not going to release 7,000 criminals into New York City. Mr. Mont, there is no one on this stage that is saying that. Yet, Andrew Cuomo will repeat it again and again. What I have said time and again, I’ll repeat it again. Is that yes, we have to close Riker’s Island. Riker’s Island is a stain on the history of this city and that this current administration has made it nearly impossible to do so by the stipulated timeline. So, what I will do is everything in my power to try and meet that deadline, knowing that Eric Adams has made it so difficult because he’s had no interest in actually following through on it. And as much as you will hear about experience and running a government, what Andrew Cuomo doesn’t seem to understand is the city has already entered into contracts for these burrow-based jails. And to end those contracts would be to incur massive fiscal penalties. But that’s not something that he seems to care about even as he speaks about the fiscal stewardship of this city. If I may, uh, you want to talk to me about running government or managing projects. I built a Second Avenue subway. I built the Mario Cuomo Bridge, the largest infrastructure project in the United States of America, $5 billion on time, on budget. Uh, Second Avenue subway, Moahan Train Hall. Of course, there’s costs incurred. The question is going to be how much more does it cost to finish the jail and are you better off uh cutting your losses? That’s the question in the discussion and you sit down with the contractor and you negotiate. But your position of I’m going to close it on 2027. The question is is yes or no. Do you close it in 2027? You will you will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience as if the issue is that we don’t know about it. The issue is that we have all experienced your experience. The issue is that we experienced you taking a $5 million book deal while you sent seniors to their deaths in nursing homes. The issue is that we experienced you cutting funding for the MTA to send money to upstate ski resorts. The issue is that we saw you give $959 million in tax breaks to Elon Musk. The issue is your experience. No, the only thing the the the issue is the issue is you have no experience. You’ve accomplished nothing. You haven’t proposed the bill on anything. And you still haven’t said if you record in 2027. I got the answer to the questions I was asking. Thanks very much. Let’s move on. My next question is about another law that’s already on the books. The city has a climate law, local law 97, that will require a large percentage of the buildings in the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 or face financial penalties. As you know, some co-ops, condos, and landlords are afraid of crushing expenses, but buildings account for 70% of the city’s climate pollution emissions. So, reduction would need to include that sector. You all have taken different positions on this. I want our viewers and listeners to hear each of you. Uh, starting with Mr. Cuomo in this case, would you abide by and make others abide by local law 97 as it stands? as it stands uh is uh as it stands, you’re going to have to be flexible in the application. What’s going to happen now is uh many many companies will just pay the fine because it’s cheaper than actually following the rules. And that’s the last thing you want. That accomplishes nothing, right? It’s just another tax in essence on these units. Uh so there’s going to have to be flexibility. It’s the right intent. It’s the right goal. But how you implement it has to deal with reality and the costs. Again, otherwise I can tell you I’ve had this conversation with many of them. They they’re not even going to try. They’re just going to pay the fine. What kind of flexibility? It’s going to be timing. And what do we mean? and can it be phased in? Mr. Mandani, the climate crisis is one of the most pressing crises facing this city and we deserve to take it on with the urgency it requires. It is right now easier to pay the fine than to actually comply with this legislation. We have to ensure that we make it easier for condo and co-op owners to follow these laws. And we do that by eliminating the application fees for J51, by extending that tax credit, by also creating a one-stop shop in New York City government that procures at a large scale heat pumps and the very kind of infrastructure needed to comply. We’ve seen this happen before with clean energy work that’s been done in Woodside houses. It’s time to bring that kind of work right here so that we can ensure full compliance with local law9. I read that you’re proposing the city buy those heat pumps and other tech in bulk and give them to landlords and other buildings for free. Is that accurate? No, it’s to actually ensure that they can afford the cost of these things by purchasing using an economy of scale. Thank you, Mr. Sle. I’m the only one on this stage totally opposed to local 97 100,000 condo and co-op owners. Their maintenance fees will go up 30%. They won’t have enough reserve fees. You’re going to see massive flight from the co-ops and condos. Now, they want to electrify everything. Well, there’s a man on the stage who took Indian Point offline. That was 25% of our electrical output. We haven’t been able to meet the need since. And as a result, they’re now starting to build because of the city of Yes, that I’m opposed these lithium ion battery warehouses where Staten Island 38, Brooklyn 12, eight in Queens, four in the Bronx, and none in Manhattan. Oh no, they’re going to electrify and they don’t have the electrical output. So I say no to local 97. And when I’m mayor, I tell all my commissioners, throw a monkey wrench into the process. We slow it down because we want these condo owners and co-op owners to stay. Mr. Cuomo, you were name checked on Indian Point. Uh I think I was uh Indian Point was a danger. It is the It was the uh nuclear power plant most closely located to the densest population. There was no nuclear plant on the globe that close to a city. There were 20 million people in what was called the kill zone. Before I became attorney general, there had been a number of lawsuits to stop it. What we did is we brought cables down from upstate New York down the Hudson River. We have nuclear upstate uh where in rural areas to bring that nuclear power down the cables and then on that basis substitute for Indian points power. Yes or no? whatever electricity rates are too high to pay because of you. Andrew, yes or no? Do you support new nuclear power plants to help bring down the rising cost of utilities in New York State? Just yes or no. Mr. of state, they are already starting. Yes, Mr. Mandani. I think it’s something worth exploring. Mr. Cuomo, is that a yes? Yeah. Oh. Uh, yes. Katie, we’re going to move on now to the economy. M Donnie, you’re proposing to raise the city’s minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030. How would you get the state legislature to go along with your plan? And do you think it’s realistic to feel that a small business owner would have to pay every employee this amount, especially when the city currently doesn’t mandate that figure for its own public employees? And I have separate questions for Mr. Slew and Mr. Cuomo. So, this would be something where the city would have to start doing so as well because any law that we want New Yorkers to follow, the city should be following it itself. And the reason that we put forward $30 by 2030 is that that’s the minimum that a New Yorker needs to be paid to be able to afford to live in this city. And what we are looking at right now is the possibility of the place that we know and love becoming a museum of where working-class people used to be able to live. Our proposal that we’ve put forward would be phased in over a longer period of time for small business owners to ensure that they could deal with this. And it’s also one that we are confident we would be able to accomplish because of the fact that we are seeing from New Yorkers time and time again the absence of it is pushing them to live in Jersey City, to live in Pennsylvania, to live in Connecticut because they can’t afford to live in New York City. Thank you. And for Mr. Sua and Mr. Cuomo, if you’re not in favor of a $30 minimum wage, what are your plans to raise the salaries of workers in New York City? We’ll start with you, Mr. SL. First off, Zoran Mandami deals with fantasy, not reality. Look at all the Uber drivers. Look at all the taxi drivers, the lift drivers. They will now have driverless cars. That’s what they’re pushing. AI that’s going to be wiping out so many jobs, especially for young men and women who went to school, got their four years of college, two-year degree, and they’re making 155,000, and then they get wiped out. You know what the corporate sector is going to do? They’re going to bring in robotics. Zoron, stop dealing with fantasy and start dealing with reality. You’re pushing businesses out because you want to tax them. I’m the only one here who wants to cut the corporate taxes, the income tax, the property tax we can cut in order to keep business here. But if you raise the minimum wage too high, they’re going to end up going in a different direction and they’re not going to hire workers. It’s going to be robots and driverless cars and AI, and I’m opposed to that. Thank you, Mr. Cuomo. Yeah. Uh I half agree with Curtis. Uh there is uh Zoron does have socialist theory uh colliding with practical reality. I went through this. We raised the minimum wage to the highest in the United States of America. New York set the bar. We set it at $15. Every other state said that’s crazy when we did it. Uh people in the state said that was crazy when we did it. But it was calibrated. It was doable. We phased it in in different parts of the state. We phased it in with small businesses. We gave them assistance because if you raise it too high, and I believe 30 is too high. I would raise it to 20. If you raise it to too high, you do two things. People lose their jobs. You bankrupt businesses. You’re talking about basically doubling payroll. And you can have a negative effect where literally businesses close and people lose their jobs. And overall, again, it’s another uh tax on corporations, another reason to leave New York, another reason to pack up the family and get on I95 and go to South Carolina and Florida and Texas. All right. Um candidates, we are coming down the home stretch. I want to alert our media part partners especially. We’re going to go over by 5 minutes and um we’re going to have Brian lead a conversation about transit. Right. And we’re going to have to do this very briefly uh to each of you because you each have transit things to answer to. Mr. Cuomo, you say the city should take partial control of New York City transit away from the MTA, which is mostly controlled by the state. Would the city then have to put more of the bill? And if this is a good idea, why didn’t you propose it as governor? The uh the capital, first of all, New York City owns the New York City Transit Authority, not the MTA. It leases the trains and subways to the MTA. Uh and then the question is division of responsibility. New York City does the safety along with the MTA. The problem the MTA is having is the capital construction projects. It has been an ongoing problem. I came in I took over Moahan and finished it. I took came in and took over Second Avenue subway the L train tunnel. The capital construction projects are way overdue. Would it fall more on the city to pay? I would say no. There is a budget set. My only point is the MTA which is a labyrinth bureaucracy set up by Rockefeller which is should have never been done in the first place. Uh it’s an overwhelming task for the greatest managers and I hired both of them. Uh but let the city manage the capital construction from the MTA budget. Mr. Mom Donnie, make your case briefly for your proposal for free buses for everybody, even those who can afford to pay. You know, first I’ll just say that one of the most celebrated leaders of New York City Transit was Andy Bifford, who had such a terrible experience working under Andrew Cuomo that he would rather work under Donald Trump. Right now, the proposal that we have put forward addresses the fact that today in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one in five New Yorkers cannot afford the bus fair. It would cost $700 million a year to make the slowest buses in the country fast and free. And by doing so, we would generate more than double in economic revenue for New Yorkers across the city. It would be something that would reduce assaults on bus drivers. It would increase ridership on those buses. And it would actually have environmental impacts as fewer New Yorkers would drive their own car or take a taxi and would instead get on the bus. And I know all of this because I delivered it as a state assembly member who won the first free buses in New York City’s history. And and Mr. Sle, your your website, according to my reading, has a section on transit safety, but nothing on transit service. Do you have any core proposals for improving it? Oh, sure. First off, Zorhan, I get a good belly laugh. Zoran. Oh, all right. I’ll keep practicing. I got you. I get a good belly laugh every time I hear you say free fair in the subways after people don’t pay anyway. How about fair enforcement? I’m the only one who says we have all kinds of fair programs for the indigen and the poor. But if you don’t pay your fair, there needs to be enforcement. And by the way, I’ve taken the subway almost every day of my life since I was five. The worst time was the summer of 2017, the summer of hell, Andrew Cuomo, when you were running the subway system as the head of the MTA. I don’t trust you with anything to do with Why would you How would you make it better? Oh, very simply, everybody pays their fair enforcement, more cops in the subway system. And by the way, we can get more people to voluntarily actually sponsor their subway system stations, clean it up and beautify them and add some life so the community has input into the subway that they have to go through the sleeves and slime all time. All right, candidates, we’ve got just a couple of minutes. Let’s have another quick lightning round where each candidate will answer my questions with a quick response, usually yes or no. Um, name one person you’d like to see run for president in 2028. Mr. Flewa. Wow. In 2028, man, I’m dealing right now with 2025. Mr. Bombdani, my only focus is on November. Mr. Cuomo. Uh, haven’t thought it through. Okay. Uh, we have a city of hundreds of languages and cultures. Can you greet New Yorkers in a language other than your own? Mr. Cuomo. Ciao. Buenos Diaz. Mr. Okay. Okay. Uh, have you decided on a school’s chancellor, Mr. SWA? Uh, yes. I would ask Bob Holden, who’s taught 40 years. He leads Democrats for SWA. Okay. Mr. Montgomeani. No, I haven’t decided on a chancellor. Is it? No. Okay. Uh, should people be arrested for the solicitation of sex, Mr. SWA? No. The the John’s? Yes. the pimps, the madams, and the absentee landlords. Okay. Mr. Mandani, no. Mr. Cuomo, uh, Zoron’s decriminalization for prostitutes, John’s, and pimps would be a disaster on the quality of life in New York. They should be arrested, you say? Should people be arrested for soliciting sex? It is a criminal offense. I would keep it as it is. Okay. Um, last question. Can you name one thing that New York got right during the COVID crisis? Mr. SA New York got right. Oh wow. He didn’t get anything right during the COVID crisis. No, Mr. Maldani. It only took me 15 minutes to get my vaccine shot when I went for that and that was an efficient experience. Mr. Clo, thank you for the compliment. That was a cityrun vacation. All right, gentlemen. Thanks so much, gentlemen. That is going to do it for for this debate. And I would like to thank the candidates and our partners and all of you at home. If you missed any part of this debate, you can watch it in its entirety at ny1.com and the Spectrum News YouTube channel. Early voting is set to begin across the five burrows on Saturday with several other races on the ballot as well, including city controller, public advocate, the five burough presidents, and members of the city council, as well as six ballot initiatives. There’s some district attorney races as well. Election day is November 4th. Thank you all for watching. Have a great evening. Heat. Heat.

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