Transcript: General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean M. O’Brien Interviews Governor Andrew M. Cuomo on NYC Mayor Race
Government has to be competent. You want to be a mayor, you want to be a governor, you want to be a chief executive. You have to know how to get things done. It's one thing if you're a legislator or an advocate or something, do a bill argue about the bill. But if you want to be an executive, that is a specific skill set. And at the end of the day, they measure you by what you actually accomplish and they should.
- Andrew Cuomo
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, candidate for New York City Mayor, recently sat down for an interview with General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean M. O’Brien for his podcast, Better Bad Ideas. During the hour-long conversation, the Governor spoke about how the Democratic Party can resurrect its brand and reconnect with its political base, and the many challenges facing New York City.
A transcript of the interview appears below.
Sean O'Brien: We are here with Governor Cuomo, a lifelong political animal l worked under the Clinton administration at HUD, became the attorney general, became the governor, and now you're running for mayor of the city of New York. After such a long, lengthy career growing up in politics, most people would say, at this time of your life, maybe it's time to relax. Is this a better bad idea?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Maybe a better bad idea. It was not my life plan. You're right. I started even before that, my father was governor In 1982 to 1994, Mario Cuomo, God rest his soul. So I started as his campaign manager and then as you said, eight years with Bill Clinton, attorney, general governor. And my plan was to do something else and I was in private practice and I was living life. I got reacquainted with my kids. I found out there was something called a vacation where you can actually take off travel. But I was watching New York City and I'm worried about New York City. Like many of the cities around the country, frankly, we're seeing urban areas decline all around the nation. Post covid, right? People can now move. They're more mobile. Quality of life in cities has deteriorated and it's a bad combination. So I was worried about New York City. I had spent my whole life in public service. I'm a New Yorker through and through. So I thought it needed help and I thought I could help.
Sean O'Brien: Now through your whole career, I mean every job that you've performed, you've always excelled at it. But it seems whether you were at the Housing Authority, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, then as Attorney General, then as governor, no matter what you did, people always found a way to find faults. Like 10 years after you left HUD, they accuse you of being part of the 2009, 2010 mortgage crisis that you had nothing to do with. And then as you become the attorney general, you did a lot of good work, but then you get scrutinized for your work there. And then we all know that the political venom when you were governor, I mean you were called, people that loved you during Covid because you've masterly handled that at the beginning and through the whole process, which I think you've articulated pretty well that no one knew what Covid was. No one knew how to handle it. You had the best professionals working yet you got scrutinized. But at first, your followers, that huge supporters were calling you, they were called Cuomosexuals because of all your good work. And even five years later now, people were trying to paint you with a brush that's not accurate as far as you are responsible, you withheld information, all this other stuff. Why get back into politics after all the good you've done? And it seems like people attack you. Why do you want to do this?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, well look, first of all, that is the nature of the beast, I think. And that's politics. Today. There's more venom in politics. It's a toxic situation. So they attack you just to attack you, right? You can always find something to attack someone. You can always play Monday morning quarterback. If you play Monday morning quarterback, you'd never lose a game if you get to play it on Monday morning. So that is the cycle, right? They want to attack you, your political opponents. You're running against someone. Someone wants your job. It could be a primary, it could be a general. It's even worse now with the weaponization of the justice system. It's one thing they call you bad names, it's another thing they indict you, right? Right. And that's where politics has gotten to. But that is to be expected, I think especially if you do big things, Sean, if you just coast by in a position and you don't make any waves and you really don't get anything done that disturbs anyone, then there'd probably be less retaliation. But in my book, then you shouldn't be in the job if you're not there to get something done, if you're not there to make big change, then why are you there?
Sean O'Brien: So the weaponization of politics, I think has been more prevalent probably the last eight years. We have our current president, President Trump that made the same accusations when he left office, all the indictments that came his way. And you, through your career as the governor, some people that should have been viewed as your ally, like the Attorney General, she made some accusations that were unfounded, allegations that are unfounded. And conversely now, and she went after the sitting president of the United States, President Trump. And conversely, now she's getting scrutinized for some real estate deals and some potential fraudulent interest rates. What do you make of all this? Is both sides guilty of this and where is it coming from?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, this is what's most frightening to me, Sean. I mean, if you want to play politics, you want to play Monday morning quarterback, fine. It's lousy. It's cheap, but it's politics. But when you start playing politics with the justice system, that's frightening.
Sean O’Brien: It's dangerous.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: It is dangerous. And look, government can do a lot of things and who cares? The justice system was the one function in government that you're supposed to trust. We don't put political enemies in jail. We don't do that. And you're seeing it more and more. They're not going to jail. Just the harassment by the justice system. President Trump says it was done to him. Joe Biden said it was done to his family. And now you're in this vicious cycle that one side is retaliating against the other. But it is probably the most disturbing single fact that is going on now in politics because when you go to that place, your question about why would I get back into this?
I'm doing it because I think I can make a difference. I've spent my life doing it. I know how to do it, and I think I can make a difference. Well, you're going to pay a price. They're going to criticize you. Well, yeah, I get it. You develop a thick skin and you take it all with a grain of salt because you realize that's the role people play. That's the role media plays. But when they say you're going to be investigated just because you're involved in politics and you're of the other party, that's a totally different situation. You just made a -
Sean O'Brien: Point you said Biden said the government went after to him and his family over politics. President Trump said the government went out to him because politics Biden sent him on him. And now there could be accusations that President Trump is sending the DOJ who every president has criticized the last two presidents. Do you think that's accurate, or do you think it's just just part of the process now? It's part of the process that is accepted practice. If you're going to run for a big office, your political opponents are going to attack you and they're going to vote the DOJ to use that as a weapon. Do you think that's just the nature of the business? Or do you think someone's actually saying, go after President Trump, go after Governor Cuomo, go after Hunter Biden.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: No Sean, this is different. It was, you could be in a political debate, I'm running against you, you make an accusation about me and say this should be investigated. That was the old school play. Now you have the Department of Justice or a US attorney or a district attorney actually getting involved and starting investigations that many of which could be seen as politically motivated. And -
Sean O’Brien: How do you prove that though?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, sometimes they will say before the race begins, I think Sean O'Brien shouldn't win. Right?
Sean O'Brien: Well, your opponents are going to say that.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, but I'm a justice official and I say, Sean O'Brien is a bad guy and he should not run. And I'm a district attorney and now you run.
Sean O'Brien: You sound like the former US attorney in Massachusetts in Boston, because I think that was said about me
Governor Andrew Cuomo: So sometimes they actually say it before the fact and then they start an investigation and I think that looks really.
Sean O'Brien: Like they provoked it.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Sean O'Brien: So your situation right now, you've got two opponents potentially, right? You've got a left socialist, DSA ,card carrying member, and then you have a governor. I mean a mayor right now who changes party affiliation, I would assume to avoid a primary maybe or avoid further scrutiny. And he's got some controversy aligned with him. What separates you as a candidate for mayor of the New York, of New York City, what's different about you and what are you going to do different than what Adams is doing currently? And what's different from your platform? Because both you and your primary opponent are Democrats. What's the difference? What are you going to do different?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Well, mayor Adams is going to be in the general election, right? In the primary, there's a market difference. I'm termed the moderate and the opponents would be DSA socialist and gradations of DSA socialist members. And that is a very big difference, Sean.
Sean O'Brien: So, so much you're both Democrats, it's your moderate, and this person is DSA. In your opinion, what did DSA stand for? What does the Democratic socialist stand for?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, we used to have as Democrats, a range, a spectrum of ideology. And you could be a moderate, you could be conservative Democrat, you could be a liberal. And then there was always a far left. The far left has now become the Democratic Socialists of America, and they basically preach a socialist economic theory, free transportation, free education, free housing tax, the rich, right? They are very liberal, let's say on criminal justice. They are defund the police, close the jails, close the prisons. So they really are markedly different than what I would call a moderate Democrat. Certainly. And my point of view, my politics are, look, we just went through a national election and we lost part of the base of the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party was about working families. It was about hardworking men and women who just needed help making ends meet. And we spoke to them and we acted for them. That was the Democratic party. We were aligned in values with our people when we spoke, we represented them and we delivered for them. Government did something for you. I made your life better as a government official. And that was a relationship. We were aligned. But you –
Sean O'Brien: Didn't back then or the way you were brought up, you did that because that was your job. You had to represent those constituents, right? Right. Now what it seems to be is, and I'm a lifelong Democrat, it seems to be the Democratic Party wants to tell you what you should do, how you should do it, when you should do it, instead of actually collaborating with the constituents and listening. That's missing right now in the Democratic Party. There seems to be this do as I say, not as I do attitude. Do you agree with that?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, I agree with your premise, and that's why I think we're losing a part of the base of our party. We have our own opinion, especially our own social opinion or social values. And we're saying, these should be your social values. And you are saying, don't tell me what my social values are. Right? That's not what my job is.
Sean O'Brien: Don't you think they, after this election, because the election's been over for four or five months, the platform from the Harris Waltz campaign was a social justice platform. Now, I represent one of the biggest unions in the entire world, and we polled our members significantly. We've never done this type of polling. And 65% of our members were Trump supporters. They're Republicans. And the polling proved that. And they weren't so much buying into all the policies, procedures, or the platform of President Trump. What my members are more concerned about, they're not concerned about the social issues and the social issues are extremely important. But being in a union for four generations, I love the team because everything I've had my entire life is because of the union. Those social issues have been dealing, we've dealt with them. We've dealt with discrimination in collective bargaining. We've dealt with pay equality in collective bargaining. So unions, the teamsters, which I can speak for, we've been fighting for those issues all along, even before there were issues. But it seemed that the Democrats lost sight of what working people needed. They were concerned about inflation, they're concerned about their paychecks, they're concerned about the cost of goods and services in this country. And that proved to be true. So I guess my point is, if we lost, right? If we lost because of the social justice issues, because of missing a platform of working people, why are we still holding onto that
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Look, I like to say Trump didn't win. We lost, alright, New York, 500,000 fewer Democrats came out to vote. Just think about that. Trump is on the ballot. Harris is on the ballot, 500,000 fewer with Democrats from out the vote because I think we lost our connection. We became disassociated. The social justice issues, they would probably agree with the Democratic party on the social issues. But talk to my issues first. Alright, let's talk about what's important to me and let's talk about public safety and let's talk about the economy and let's talk about my ability to afford my life and my child's education and my mortgage. Speak to me and my issues. Also, I'll talk to you about your social justice issues and I'll probably agree with you, but not if you're not talking to me and Sean, we did not talk to them. And second, and I believe this is just as important, even if we're talking to them, talk is cheap. What did you actually do for me? What did you perform? People –
Sean O'Brien: Want to see results. They don't want excuses.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes.
Sean O'Brien: And it seems like what is not being executed. There's an excuse or a finger to point to blame someone else for that.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes. It stopped executing.
Sean O'Brien: When did that stop to happen, though? I mean you saw, and I'll say this, clearly, AOC is not a fan of Sean O'Brien and the Teamsters; she's publicly stated that the Teamsters deserve a better leader because we didn't endorse Harris Waltz. Now I have a lot of my members, 65% of my members nationwide. I would assume that that number is relevant to New York City and her district. Did she help push people away from the Democratic party because she was so socially indebted to the cause? I don't know.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, she represents her segment, which is the Democratic socialist of America's segment. But I think your point is well taken. We stopped delivering, right? And I think that is a fatal flaw. What did the Biden Harris administration produce for you? And without reading a piece of literature from the administration, you should be able to say, you know what Biden and Harris did for me. X, Y, Z. Not the CHIPS act, the inflation reduction.
Sean O'Brien: No, I mean for us, I can tell you what Joe Biden did. He fixed pensions for pension funds all over this country. And they were very clear and pointing their finger in my face saying, we fixed your pensions. Chuck Schumer who two weeks before I spoke at the RNC, I give a check for $550,000. I said, ‘Hey, the RNC invited me to be the keynote speaker there.’ And he's like, 'you should do that. That's great.' Takes a check for a Democratic Super PAC. I give the speech, which was a speech about working people. I attacked corporate elitists. I attacked billionaires. I attacked a lot of issues that normally they wouldn't allow you to speak at the RNC and say this stuff. And I was allowed to freely speak, well received by everybody in the country, my members. And right after that speech, I get attacked. I fixed your pensions.
Okay, you did Joe Biden fixed the pensions. You did. We appreciate that. That's great. That's what you're supposed to do. But you broke those pensions in 1980 and we were just talking about Ted Kennedy and they introduced deregulation. The Teamsters Union lost 400,000 jobs over that span because of deregulation, 400,000. So what does that do? Companies go into bankruptcy. Union pension funds are the last line of creditors to receive those funds. And what happens? Those funds take a beating. They're underfunded. So I always use this analogy when I was fighting with them, you fixed the problem that you created. It's just like me playing, like me playing street hockey in my neighborhood. I break my mother's back taillight with a hockey puck in 1980, 2020. I say, I'm going to fix that. I break a window now I'm going to fix your window. You should thank me.
I should thank you for a problem that you created. Very grateful pensioners, but that's one of the things. But there's other things that they did that hurt us as well. Just like every administration, there's going to be things that happen. And I think it's just we've got to get back to basics and figure out two things. One in my opinion is we've got to be in our districts. We've got to be in our areas talking to the most important people. That's your constituents and find out what their issues are. Not making assumptions or making decisions on what you think is the best interest for them. And secondly, I think we've got to find a way whether we agree or disagree on issues not to draw our line in the sand and find out how we can work together and collaborate to actually effectuate real change in this country and in the city.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Look, I think both are true. I think on the democratic side, that reconnection with who the base of the party is is very important because they do feel disconnected. And in this campaign in New York, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm trying to reconnect on their values. Second, and I'm very big on producing results that they see and feel in their lives. Right? Raise the minimum wage. We did that here in New York, but you did.
Sean O'Brien: As the governor of New York?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, it was $9, it's now $15. You put more money in my pocket, free college tuition for middle class students so you don't have to worry about how you're going to pay for your child's tuition. I did something for you. Right? Anti-discrimination laws, et cetera. And then a big part of what government is supposed to do is improve the condition, right? New roads, new bridges, new Second Avenue subway, new Tappen Zee bridge, actually improvements that people can see and feel and make their life better. New LaGuardia Airport, which was the worst in the nation, now is the best. People go through a new airport and they say, government worked. It actually did something for me. And that's the connection that we have to make.
Sean O'Brien: There's no doubt. I mean, there's all those accomplishments that you had a hand in. Building infrastructure, most importantly puts people to work. And when people are working, that's a good thing. And raising the minimum wage, that's a good thing. All this stuff is good, but if you don't talk to the people that you represent and get their input, no matter what you do or have done, you're only as good as your last at bat. How are you going to fix the housing crisis in New York City? Because you have a couple of boroughs. I think it's the Bronx that has a medium household income of about $47,000. You've got somewhere in Queens, I believe I have it written down here. The medium income is $36,000. There's no way. There's no way people can afford to buy a home and or live in a nice area with such a discrepancy in wages and the cost of living in New York. How do you fix that?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, a hundred percent. You go out there on that corner today and you say to someone, tell me what are the top issues affecting your life? Let's say public safety. I'm afraid to get on the subways, homeless mentally ill, random assaults. I'm afraid to walk down the street at night and they'll say affordability. And number one, our affordability is affordable housing. Now, affordable housing, this gets back to the competence of government. We know how to build affordable housing, right? 1940s, we were building public housing all throughout the country, and public housing was no income housing, right? Section eight was basically no income housing. It wasn't this new affordable, everybody thinks about affordable housing.
Sean O'Brien: Yeah, affordable housing is – you know in a high rise, they're charging $5,000 for one bedroom apartment, and they give 10% of those units for 60% of it. Well, that's affordable housing for someone that makes pretty decent money. It's not affordable housing for my part-timer who works at United Parcel Service on 43rd Street and is trying to live close to work, it's not going to happen.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: A hundred percent. We have city workers who are living in homeless shelters.
Sean O'Brien: That's embarrassing, isn't it? No. I was negotiating the UPS National Agreement myself and Fred Zuckerman, our general secretary Treasurer, UPS was a Fortune 500 company, right? Printed money because of the hard work. And I utilized New York City because in 43rd Street specifically, I said, you have people that work for a billion dollar corporation, multi-billion dollar, a hundred billion. You have people that work for you that make you the profits you are. And isn't it embarrassing where the people that work for you is living in homeless shelters, some are homeless, some are on subsidized food stamps. It's embarrassing. So we actually utilize New York City to drive that starting part-time rate $21 an hour, goes to 23 soon. But the reason was because we highlighted the cost of living in New York and the embarrassment of a company like that, I mean, shouldn't the same hold true for such a robust state and city.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Oh, 100%. And look at what the private companies were really doing. They're paying a wage so low that the person qualifies for government assistance, which winds up subsidizing the private company, right? They pay a low wage. They're not paying.
Sean O'Brien: Health insurance again through the state.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's right. But the state has to pay health insurance. The state has to pay for the housing. The state is paying food with the SNAP program. So that was a total injustice. But getting back to affordable housing, how can you as a competent government now say that we can't build affordable housing when you could 60 years ago and affordable housing, I was the HUD secretary. I built affordable housing. I was in my twenties. It is not rocket science.
Sean O'Brien: So how would you fix this problem as a newly elected mayor? I mean, the government, I read some stuff under the new administration's affordable housing policy, there's 650 million acres of government land. Some that may not be suitable for housing, but a lot of it can be suitable. Is that an avenue or is that not an avenue?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: You have to go down every avenue. We need a lot and we need it quickly. You have public housing authorities in New York. They're called NYCHA, they look the same as they do in Massachusetts all across the nation. They always have the same footprint, but you have a lot of green space in the way on the campuses of public housing. New York City's probably the largest landowner in New York City. You have city buildings that have air rights. You have more offices than you will now need, right? So the office to residential conversion. So you have to go down all of these paths aggressively and you have to be good at it. That's the other point that we missed. Government has to be competent. You want to be a mayor, you want to be a governor, you want to be a chief executive. You have to know how to get things done. It's one thing if you're a legislator or an advocate or something, do a bill argue about the bill. But if you want to be an executive, that is a specific skillset. And at the end of the day, they measure you by what you actually accomplish and they should.
Sean O'Brien: Where do your opponents stand on the housing crisis in New York City?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, everybody who says build more affordable housing, right? The art form is doing it. And we elect on promises without any guarantee or assurance of performance.
Sean O'Brien: You're not suggesting in politics that people over promise and under deliver?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: No, no. I would never suggest such a thing.
Sean O'Brien: So what is Adams on housing? Mayor Adams.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Mayor Adams did pass a new zoning law that basically upzoned, and that's a good first step, but you know Sean, people want to see progress and they want to see it quickly, and they're frustrated and they're angry and there's no patience. I think for incremental progress.
Sean O'Brien: Are developers frustrated with New York? City developers, with the bureaucracy?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Oh, yes. The developers will say a big obstacle is the intransigence of the government itself. The bureaucracy itself, the ineffectiveness of the bureaucracy. I was just with a group this morning that was saying they build affordable housing. They then wait for months to get tenants from the city and they have empty apartments. So the competence of government is something that we've lost along the way. It's a skillset. Your Massachusetts, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, what are they doing? They're teaching you government. There's an art form to it. There's a skillset, and we forgot that.
Sean O'Brien: They might not be teaching government moving forward, but getting back to your opponents, Adams obviously did some stuff to try and mitigate the housing crisis. What is your other opponent? The DSI guy, the DSA guy, I should say –
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Free. Free housing.
Sean O'Brien: How do you a hundred, you promise free. Who pays for that? Because you've got 123 billionaires that live in New York City. You've got 350,000 millionaires. Are they going to pay for it?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, well, they pay for everything under these plans. Everything is free. Everything's free, housing's free. Everything's free. And we'll tax the millionaires. What they don't appreciate is that you can't have a socialist. And –
Sean O'Brien: I'm all for taxing millionaires and billionaires, just so you know.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, but here's the reality. You can't have a socialist state in a capitalist nation. In other words, if New York became a socialist economy, everything free, we tax the rich at an exorbitant rate, the rich will move to Massachusetts or New Jersey or Florida, which is what they're doing now, by the way.
Sean O'Brien: They won't move to Massachusetts. It’s just as bad before socialism.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: And we have 1% of the wealthiest New Yorkers pay 50% of the taxes, so you lose a fraction of that 1%. You have a major financial problem. So there is no theory of a socialist state where you are going to sit in this state and pay 17% income tax when you can move 20 miles away, or you can move to Florida and pay zero, right? It doesn't work. You'd have to have a socialist nation, which we don't.
Sean O'Brien: I grew up in a city where you pay for your services, you pay for your bus, you pay for your trains, you pay for parking, you pay for whatever. It's just the culture that we grew up in. Obviously you are a pro-union city, New York City, just like Boston is, and I never have a problem when my taxes go up because I know that person working at the DPW, I know that person that potentially is picking up my trash that's going to be able to afford and give them a wage through collective bargaining, which will create and support and continue to support middle class jobs. If you are given everything away for nothing, how are we going to maintain? Because we have Teamsters that have a presence of about 30,000 public sector workers that depend upon services paid to the city. How do we support those contracts? How do we support those jobs? How do we support a middle class wage if we're giving everything away?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, sure. And we talked about alienating people talking about social values. The other way we alienate people is talking about totally unrealistic plans that don't make sense to anyone. And it's your point. People understand it can't work that way, but on your point, we pay and I'll pay my taxes, I'll pay my taxes, but I want performance for my taxes. I want a delivery of result for my taxes, and I don't feel that I'm getting the bang for my buck with my taxes right now. And that's another problem we have. It is the lack of competence of government. And as we said, I stress the infrastructure. I love the infrastructure.
Sean O'Brien: We like the infrastructure too, because it's putting people to work.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: It puts people to work, it helps the economy and people can see it and feel it and touch it, and they can feel good that there's some future and there's some hope.
Sean O'Brien: Do you remember Joe Muldy?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah.
Sean O'Brien: They asked him one time in an interview and they said, in the city of Boston, what's your favorite bird? He says, a tower crane. And they said, what do you mean a tower crane? He goes, every time I see a tower crane, it looks like a burden. That means the economy's humming, Which is a hundred percent true.
Now, let's switch gears. Public safety is a big issue in New York City. You committed to put on 5,000 new NYPD. Your opponent is defund the police, which I'm very supportive of police officers. I grew up in Boston. I grew up respecting, sometimes running from the police. But you always knew there was a sense of the sense of lawfulness. What is going to be your biggest challenge if you win? And when you win on recruiting those 5,000 police officers, because there's been such a scrutiny of police, not just in New York, but nationwide and public safety is probably the most important part of governing, whether it's in a state level or city level. How are you going to deal with that?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah.
Sean O’Brien: And the cost of living.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Well, defunded police, again, getting back to just pure ideology, political ideology that had no connection to reality, defund the police. That became the chant for the Democratic socialists. And basically all of my opponents defund the police, defund the police, defund the police. They cut the police department 3,000. They cut it so much that the existing police had to work and the inordinate amount of overtime, right? Normally people love overtime. They were working so much overtime that they actually.
Sean O'Brien: They were forced, they were forced because it's a public safety issue.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yes. That they actually didn't want to work that much. We have one of the highest attrition rates from the police department, and we spent a billion in overtime. For half of the 1 billion, you could hire 5,000 new cops, and that would then reduce the amount of overtime, reduce the stress, and let police officers have a balance to life, right? At the same time, you're also right that we're having trouble hiring police officers. And think about this, back in my day, you took the police test, you passed the test. You waited two, three years to get called. Now you take the test, you pass the test. We don't have enough police officers to fill a class in that moment, no waiting time. And partially they have to know that you fixed the overtime problem. They're not going to have to work seven days a week all the time. The new officers would do that. Second, they have to know the mayor has their back and someone is going to stand up and support.
Sean O'Brien: Does the mayor currently have the police back? I mean, he's a former police officer.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: He's a former police officer. And I think they took comfort in the fact that he, as a former police officer, he understood what they were dealing with. I think the cuts to the police department though actually aggravated their situation. We sort of discounted their connection. So they have to know that the mayor has their back, and then we have to work on the relationship with the community.
Sean O'Brien: Do you think you'll get the support of the New York City Police Union?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I don't know if they will take a political position in this election. I just don't know.
Sean O'Brien: Right. So you talk about crime and the platform that the Trump campaign ran on was that there was a problem with the borders. There was a problem with crime being committed by illegal aliens. And we have the Democrats criticizing, scrutinizing the President's stance and actions on illegal immigrants who commit crimes. If you could just roll that tape, this is 2008, Hillary Clinton, who you supported back in the day. This is 2008.
Hillary Clinton: So I think we have to have tough conditions, tell people to come out of the shadows, if they committed a crime, deport them, no questions asked. They're gone. If they've been working and are law abiding, we should say, here are the conditions for you to stay. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes and you have to try to learn English. And you have to wait in line.
Sean O'Brien: So that was a 2008 political platform. DNC sounds kind of familiar with what President Trump and his administration ran on. What do you think about immigration in this country and what do you think about the current administration's approach to it?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Democrats made a mistake. Democrats made a mistake. The Biden administration made a mistake saying that you were going to open the border without having a plan as to what would happen when you opened the border. Was a mistake during the campaign, Biden versus Trump. Biden said he was going to reverse the state of Mexico policy. Fine, but then you have to have a plan when you open that border. And they were warned about this, Sean, this was not rocket science. I'm a governor. We're very practically oriented. What was going to happen when hundreds of thousands of people came into Texas, who was going to process them? Where were they going to stay? And hundreds of thousands of people came in. They had no plan. They shipped them all over the country, the governors of Texas. Everyone says they did terrible things in Florida, did terrible things. But their point was ‘you let them in Democrats, you house 'em.’ And it became a problem in major urban areas all across the country. It was just a pure mistake. And Trump capitalized.
Sean O'Brien: Why didn't the Democratic Party or the Democratic governors or the DNC nationwide, I mean, if we are recognizing it was a problem, it was a mistake. Why weren't people speaking out about this to the president at that point in time saying Why you open the borders? You're going to allow illegal immigrants in there that are going to commit crimes, that are going to rape children, that are going to rape women and just be non-productive people in a country that, look, I think we all agree, we're all products of immigrants, some form or fashion. I just went back to Belfast, Ireland. I got to see my great grandmother's farm where she grew up in. She immigrated there in 1921, but she came here. She went to pay her fee went to the Catholic church and went through the whole naturalization process, got a job. There's nothing wrong with that. But why weren't people standing up and screaming at that point in time, especially if we knew it? Was it because we're Democrats and we don't want to oppose the President or we didn't see the problem?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I think all of the above, I think we're Democrats. You're a good loyal Democrat. Don't say anything. This is a team sport. Don't criticize the team. I think it's, we're all immigrants. How can you be anti-immigrant? I'm an immigrant. And I think it was a fear of the far left that was 100% pro what Biden was doing. And I think moderate Democrats are intimidated too often by the far left, and they threaten the moderate Democrats, they threaten them with primaries. They're powerful in primaries, so they threaten them into silence.
Sean O'Brien: So you should compromise values and your backbone because you want to actually do the right thing. And I always tell people, look, I'm always going to be loyal to my organization. I'm always going to be loyal and true to myself. I'm never going to compromise my integrity, whether it costs me or doesn't. I mean, if we're looking at a situation and allowing something like that to happen because we want to be team players knowing that it's wrong, then we shouldn't be serving in any public capacity at that point in time.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Look, I think the Democrats made a mistake there. By the way, I think Trump went too far the other way, when you now say you're going to go into schools and take children out of schools, you're going to separate families. You're going to deport people without due process. And by the way, we're going to make a few mistakes along the way and take people who are here legally and deport them. I think he went too far the other way, and he could have had a more reasoned approach in dealing with it that would've actually highlighted the Democrat's mistake rather than him going so far that both sides were charged with a foul.
Sean O'Brien: What is the immigration status in the city of New York right now?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: It is dramatically different since Trump. It is dramatically different. The number of crimes committed by undocumented... We had a rash of scooter crimes, motorcycle crimes, snatch crimes, off moped type crimes that has come way down. The census has dropped. And partially what happened is Trump just scared the heck out of the undocumented. Many of them went underground, moved. Many of them pulled their children out of school. I was in a school a couple of weeks ago. They said the pupils just disappeared and they're worried about them. They didn't even know where they went.
Sean O'Brien: They were children of undocumented, illegal immigrants? Were they children of illegal immigrants that were committing crimes or–.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: No, they were just undocumented children. Their parents were undocumented. They were the children. They had come over. They were in a migrant shelter. They were in a public school. And then Trump came in and the family disappeared, took the children where they went. Nobody knows what happened to the children. Nobody knows. You have undocumented people who were so afraid they wouldn't drive a car because they were afraid they'd get pulled over and deported. So there's no doubt that Trump, Trump went too far. It was too harsh. There was a lack of humanity to it. You're going to go into hospitals and take people out of hospitals and churches and schools. Give me a break.
Sean O'Brien: But the average person, or the average citizen paying taxes in any city, whether you're in Boston, New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, if the majority of crimes are being committed by illegal undocumented aliens, and you come in with a bold program, there's always going to be victims as a result of the action. And unfortunately, to your point, some people were taken away from the family, some people just disappear. But I think if you did a general consensus in those major cities where a lot of these crimes were happening by illegal aliens or illegal immigrants, the majority of people would be supportive of taking criminals off the street.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, I know in New York, the majority of crimes were not being committed by undocumented people. But I think you're right. If you said this person committed a crime, yeah, we don't harbor criminals.
Sean O'Brien: And there's a lot of [explicit] that are from this country that commit just as many crimes.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's right. But if an undocumented person committed a crime, we don't harbor criminals, deport them, there's no doubt about that.
Sean O'Brien: So tariffs, let's talk about tariffs now. There's a whole different opinion one way or the other. There's a tremendous uncertainty on tariffs. And I think living through covid during the peaks and valleys of Covid, the one thing that was clear was that we depended on other countries for certain goods and services that we couldn't get. And this country basically shut down. And a lot of it had to do with these tariffs, these bad trade deals that were made by previous Democrats, like the Clintons went NAFTA and other bad trade deals, PNTR with China. Do you think that tariffs will be able to create infrastructure and industry that went away as a result of these bad deals and create opportunity for scale? I know in Mexico they want to tax Mexican beer. I'm all for that because I got 10,000 teamsters. You've got a big brewery right here in New York where they brew American beer 10,000 Teamsters nationwide brew and deliver American beer. So I'd rather see attacks on Mexican beer, which would bring production up, create more jobs, create more opportunity for people. What are your feelings on the tariffs?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, I think Sean, there's a pattern to Trump. He always over does it by one step. He takes one step too far, right? We were talking about–
Sean O'Brien: But isn't that leveraged though? You negotiate for a living. I negotiate for a living. You always push your initial position as far as you can, and then you back it down to get something else. So could it be viewed as, 'Hey, he's being extreme, he's not going to move.' Or is it leverage in a strategy?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: No, you don't take a strike on day one as a negotiating tool and place thousands of workers just as a negotiating tool. You do that at the end of the day, what President Trump did here with the tariffs, he roiled the markets. Who knows when they're going to come back. He destabilized the economy. He destabilized people. You look at your 401k, now it's a 201k. He really made people nervous. He made countries around the world nervous. And then he backtracked, right? He negotiated against themselves, Sean. He said X. And then the markets went crazy. And he said, all I forget, X, X minus two. And then the markets went crazy. He said, all right, forget that it's X minus three. He's just been going backwards because of the reaction to what he did.
Sean O'Brien: But if you look at some of these tariffs, some of these other countries, I mean, they're not reciprocal taxes. I mean, you look at them and I've looked at 'em. I don't understand some of them, but you look at 'em, we get the short end of the stick when they say we the United States. Is there a way, was there a better way to do this? I mean, because if we're, we're taxed, if we're getting taxed 55, 60% on exports to China and they're only paying us 15%, math doesn't seem accurate or fair.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah, but it's always how you do it, Sean. You can make a very good case that there was a trade imbalance and that when the president says he wants to get the companies to come back to the United States, and the way to do that is through the tariffs. That's a legitimate argument. But then how do you do it and the way you do it without causing the volatility and the instability and hurting the reputation of the country and hurting the markets and consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is the one number I always watch because it's everything, right? It's when they buy a house, it's when they buy a car. It's when they take out a small business loan. I mean, he just paralyzed the country and sent it into a state of shock.
Sean O'Brien: Read something interesting the other day and it was actually resonated with me because everybody thinks while he was running that he was beholden to Wall Street, right? He's beholden to Wall Street as a result, what he did with these tariffs and caused the uncertainty in the market, clearly the article was insinuating that he's not beholden to anyone. Do you think that's accurate?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, that assumes that he knew what the markets were going to do. I don't know that he knew what the markets were going to do. And by the way, if he knew what the markets were going to do, he wouldn't have done it because as soon as the markets dropped, he reversed himself.
Sean O'Brien: But again, back to the tariffs, creating industries that went away, I think we would all agree that's a good thing. If that happens, he can take credit for that.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: If industries come back to this country, that is a good state and he can take credit for it. No doubt. What we are arguing about is not that we're arguing, but what we're talking about is how you did it and did you need to do it this way, right? With this much disruption, with this reputational damage, and that I think is the real issue.
Sean O'Brien: Well, you know yourself though you were in public office, you did a lot of great work. You did some controversial things. No matter what you do, whether you're a D, an R or an I, you're going to have Monday morning quarterbacks saying, why did you do it this way? I wouldn't have done it this way. You should have done it this way. I mean, it's fair to say that no matter what this guy does, especially in the nature of politics, he could cure cancer and he's going to get scrutinized.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Sean, this was not Monday morning quarterback. This was in that moment in the game when he ran the ball on the fourth down, the whole place went crazy and said, what are you nuts? It was simultaneous. They didn't wait till Monday morning.
Sean O'Brien: Alright, let's talk about union endorsements. You had two major endorsements recently that in your previous job as governor called for your resignation. Is that an indication of your ability to navigate through a crisis and reestablish relationships?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I think one, it shows the mercurial nature of politics that something happens in the news. Everybody reacts. Everybody reacts. And then the domino effect, right? One person takes a position and then it's like dominoes because nobody wants to be left out. And then what happens over time is the truth comes out, the facts come out and then people say, ‘oh, well, it's a different factual situation than what I thought three years ago or four years ago.’ So it is both. It's sort of the knee jerk of the political system where nobody says, well, you know what? Before I decide, I actually want to hear both sides of the story. I also want to hear facts, because they're under such pressure by all the different groups. So they come up with an immediate knee jerk response. Time goes by different set of facts. Okay, now I have a different opinion.
Sean O'Brien: So you're pro-worker, pro-union candidate for mayor. You are a pro worker, pro-union governor. You are a pro-union pro worker, attorney general. Where do you stand on Amazon?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Amazon. Well, I respect what you are doing with Amazon. I get that fight. I think you're right. I think if you could unionize the Amazon workers who need it, they would have better pay, better conditions, et cetera. I believe in the labor movement. I always have. My father did before me. Labor movement was the base of the Democratic Party, right? Getting back to the early conversation. It's a lot of the people who we now lost, we had a lot of union leaders endorsed the Democrats, Harris for President, and the membership went the other way. So to me, the union movement is the heart of the Democratic Party. In many ways and it needs to be again. And that's what my campaign is all about.
Sean O'Brien: Isn't that the responsibility of the Democrats to take a step back and say, we lost a core, core group. Why did we lose that group? They haven't done that yet nationally.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's exactly what I'm doing in this campaign. Exactly what I'm doing in this campaign. I'm saying, why-- look in the mirror? Because we just got knocked on our rear end in case you didn't notice. That's okay. Get up, look in the mirror, figure out what happened and fix it. And that's what I'm doing with my campaign. I'm saying we didn't listen to our base, we didn't hear our base. We got disconnected from our base. We were talking about things that they did not give a hoot about and we weren't talking about them. And number two, Sean, we didn't deliver enough. We lost our competence in government. We lost our ability to affect people's lives with government. And that has to change, why--you mentioned the 32 BJ and the Hotel Trades Council last week. Yeah, I got their endorsement and I got the endorsement of the laborers, and I'm going through the building trades and the utility workers. Why? Because I want to reestablish that base of the Democratic Party because that's who we are. And if we are not that we are nothing. Right?
Sean O'Brien: Right so, how do you navigate through if and when you win the election? Can you work with President Trump?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Look, President Trump. The question is, can President Trump work with me? I know President Trump many years. He's a New Yorker. I worked with him through Covid. We had good days, we had bad days. So as a mayor, you don't turn down anyone's help. New York City is going to need help. All these cities are going to need federal help. And if he cuts the budget to these cities, you're really going to see cities in trouble. No one can turn down federal help. But on the other hand, if he is going to attack New Yorkers or attack our values, nobody will stand up and fight harder for New York.
Sean O'Brien: Do you think Mayor Adams cut a deal with him, the Department of Justice?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, he cut a deal is sort of a Boston, New York expression. That doesn't have a great connotation.
Sean O'Brien: You think he negotiated a way out from---negotiated a way out for himself.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: A resolution? Yes.
Sean O'Brien: Was that resolution the best interest of the constituents and the men and women that he's paid to represent the City of New York?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, the resolution was about him. So that was his business. And when they say you are going to trial and if you lose a trial, you may go to jail. That is then your decision because it's about your life.
Sean O'Brien: Okay, so what does a day in the life of a candidate for the biggest city in the country? Right. I think New York is the biggest city in the country. What time does your day start? It starts early right?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I'll have an early breakfast and I'm way down into it, right? I'm down close to the end. Sure. June is the primary, correct? Yeah. So you get out there as much as you can, try to get the message out as much as you can. And again, it's not just about winning the election, it's about resurrecting the Democratic party in New York because somebody has to show that it can be done because the national Democrats are not doing, they haven't learned the lesson. If anything, you see more of a movement to the democratic socialists, which is what got us into trouble in the first place, in my opinion. So the union endorsements, reconnecting with fallen away Democrats. I can't tell you how many people who say’ I was with you, I was with your father. I just voted for Trump’, breaks my heart. But Sean, there are a lot of them.
Sean O'Brien: And it's not their fault.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's right. It's not their fault. It is not their fault. And I say to them, flat out, I get it. I get it. But my party is going to be a different Democratic Party and my administrations are going to be a different administration. I'm a different kind of Democrat. I get it.
Sean O'Brien: So this has to be, you've dedicated to elected politics like your father did. I recently am a fan of your brother's podcast and what he's doing. And he said something interesting in one of the podcasts he did. He said, my father and my brother basically dedicated their entire life to politics. And I wouldn't do that to my family. You've got three daughters, adult daughters. How has life in politics affected their lives? The good and the bad. Although I think your brother framed it as my brother Andrew brought me up because my father was so into public service, which isn't a bad thing, it's not a criticism, it's who he is. Do you feel that that's what you've done in your life as well?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's a tough question. My father worked 24/ 7. I never saw a man who worked the way my father worked literally seven days a week, not euphemistically. The deal with my mother was he had to be home seven o'clock Sunday night for dinner. That was going to be family dinner, Sean, Sunday night at seven o'clock. Otherwise you didn't see him when you were a kid. And he never made seven o'clock on Sunday night.
That's what Chris is talking about, that I tried to fill that void for Chris. I learned that lesson. I was much more present for my children. Having said that, I wish I was more present. If there was something I could unravel and if I could replay the game Monday morning quarterback, I would've spent more time with my kids because they were born during the Clinton administration. Clinton worked all the time. I was a cabinet secretary. I was very close to him. So I was on the road. I've been in every state in the nation many multiple times. I missed a lot of their early days. And then attorney general, then governor, all of these jobs are consuming. And now they're 30 years old, 28 years old. I call 'em up and I said, how about we go to dinner? And they're like, forget it Pop-- we're busy.
Sean O'Brien: I have a 24-year-old son and a 21-year-old son, and - same life I lived, I've dedicated my entire life to the union because it's given me everything in my entire life. Four generations. I'm dog loyal to it and sometimes it's hard to find that balance between doing your job and family because you're kind of torn. You've got to do your job to take care of your family. And it's funny you say that. My youngest will text me, “Hey Dad” and my response is, “how much”?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: That's exactly right. That's when they call.
Sean O'Brien: I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule. Wish you all the best of luck and thank you for coming on Better Bad Ideas. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: No. I have a great respect for you and for your union and what you represent and keep doing what you're doing.
Sean O'Brien: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate you.
Listen to the Interview Here
###