and welcome back guys to general politics of baker machado
in new york were lasted six months away from the midterms
and president biden's approval, he's at a new loan.
So how can biden turn things around for himself and for other democrats?
Well,
that's not bad for the atlantic former new york city Mayor Bill de
Blasio is arguing that his mistakes as mayor of the country's largest city
can teach biden a thing or two about navigating the current movement.
So joining us now is the former new york city mayor.
Mr. Bill de Blasio, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much for joining us.
It's such a pleasure to have you here.
So what inspired you to write this piece about the atlantic sort of
relitigating a lot of the eight years that you were in office here?
Yeah, baker, I looked back and I thought,
why did it not work better?
Right.
And and I started to feel some residents with what
I saw biden going through and the bottom line is,
it's not that biden isn't working hard.
It's not that he's not a good communicator.
He's actually quite a good communicator. He's very relatable,
very much a person that people connect with. But
what I didn't see was him giving people a clear vision of
how we get out of some of the mess we're in?
And I think what's happening is joe biden works really hard behind the scenes.
But he doesn't give people
that clear kind of summary,
that clear vision of where we're going now if he does that if he says to folks, look,
we're gonna have a tough time on gas prices, inflation,
but here's how I'm gonna get us out of it.
The public really responds to a leader's voice,
giving them a sense of where we can go.
And the empathy.
Sometimes he talks government speak sort of technical speak,
which I think goes right by people.
But when he talks like a human being,
when he talks like someone who's sitting there at their own kitchen table,
he's actually quite exceptional as a communicator.
I want to see him get back to more.
Why do you feel like the former,
why do you feel like the president hasn't been able
to sort of connect with voters on stuff like this?
Because look,
there are some things like the coronavirus pandemic and
other things that he pulls incredibly well at.
But then there's also things like the economy, immigration,
a bunch of other issues that he's not pulling Well,
why do you feel like the president is not effectively communicating his
his agenda to the public as well as you think he should.
One of the things I say in the atlantic piece happened to me is I mistook
policy for popularity.
The president is a creature of Washington
and I think behind closed doors, he is creating a lot of the right policies
and it comes out and talks about them in kind of policy, long terms
and what people need right now,
I think is much more the big picture of the strategy than where we're going.
Not. Here's one policy or another, you know, a couple last couple of weeks
he did a major press conference on internet affordability. Great.
He did a press conference on competition technology, competing with china Great.
He did a press conference on the Javelin
missile factory on how we're helping Ukraine.
Great.
But the pieces of all these don't connect for the average person.
Each one is good.
But it doesn't answer the question.
If you're sitting at your kitchen table looking at your bills,
trying figure out how to pay for gas, how to pay the rent.
You want to know how will your life get better.
And I think what joe biden can do, I think six months is a long time baker.
I want us to really emphasize this.
This is all, you know,
we got a big play out in an ever changing world
as the roe V wade decision is teaching us right now.
If joe biden gets back to the basics,
I'm the leader, I have a vision. I know we can get better.
I know things will get better.
Here's what we're gonna do about it and pound away every day.
I see the mistake I made a lot of time was I think the work was pretty good, but
I forgot to go out and communicate every day to people.
We can get by this, We can overcome this.
And you're right.
He's done pretty damn well on Covid actually, you know,
two thirds of the country vaccinated, thank God fully.
He's done well on Ukraine for sure.
He has done well on infrastructure. I mean, it's got a lot to show
even in the midst of crisis.
But
I'll tell you another thing that drives me crazy is when he uses a lot of words,
when he needs to use a few words the day, the road decision that night,
that monday night, the road decision came out the next morning,
the president's on the tarmac
And they asked him what he thinks and he starts
talking about sort of the history of the Supreme Court and
how he stopped Robert Bork from being a Supreme Court
justice in the 80s and God bless him for that.
He needed to say one simple sentence that that
women all across America would have appreciated that sentences.
I will fight like hell to protect a woman's right to choose.
I would have loved it. He just said that dropped the mic and left
and that's where I think we,
we need to see that's what we need to see more for joe biden if
he's going to break through and help the Democratic Party to rally in this circle.
Let's talk about your time as mayor because
you write extensively about this in the atlantic.
I mean, look in 2012, you were you one By a very long large margin in 2017, you right,
I won my second term with two thirds of the general vote here.
But by the last year my popularity had tanked.
Why did your popularity tank,
what happened in the course of the last few years that new Yorkers
changed their perspective on you.
Let's state the obvious that people are going through
a lot of pain because of covid a lot of
tumult,
a lot of horrible things happening to people
and that's obviously gonna affect anyone's popularity.
But, but really I still take a lot of responsibility on myself.
Um,
I think what happened is
people need extra empathy,
extra communication,
extra clarity about the road forward when
you're feeling really insecure and fearful.
You look for something to give you hope.
Uh, there were times I think
I was able to do that like vaccine mandates was a very good
story for new york city as part of what brought us back.
It worked.
But I realized I had lost the connection with
people because they needed more of that empathy.
That presence in their lives
now any leader can do that.
President United States
has, you know,
a megaphone. Like no one else literally on earth.
And joe biden has the right personality on top of it.
But you know, again, I think sometimes he's captive of Washington.
I like that he's starting to get out around the country,
but I don't want him to just go to,
you know, set piece kind of press conferences.
I want to see him back with
everyday people because that also communicate something.
That's something I think that in the midst of crisis I forgot to
just be out among the people as much as I should have.
And that says a lot crime.
Crime also has been, you know, somebody who lives in Manhattan,
obviously a number one topic for a lot of people.
How do you feel like you handled the crime in the city and where it's at today?
And do you feel like the situation with where it's at
in the city where people are nervous to take the subway,
people are afraid to be out later at night
that the current mayor eric Adams will be able to handle that situation.
What happened where the crime got out of control over the last few years,
Covid happened.
I mean, we
were still living in the Covid era. So it's hard to examine it.
This was the single biggest crisis in a century.
When you really add together all the factors, you know,
I had relatives who talked about the depression
and that obviously was a horrible time.
But you still had a lot of things functioning
in our society and covid things ground to a halt
across the board
and when you think about young people who unfortunately
are often both the perpetrators and victims of crime,
there was a point for a lot of young people in this city, teens, twenties, no work,
no school, no entertainment,
no houses of worship,
nothing
people pent up
kept inside
tragically losing loved ones
around them.
I don't think, you know, we're at this million mark, tragic, horrible million mark.
We've lost a million americans.
There's no parallel in our history.
And so I think covid disrupted life
created fear created anger created on the ground in some communities, you know,
beefs, differences got magnified people armed up
and we're still in that atmosphere. Can it be turned around?
Yes, I think eric Adams is on a lot of the right track there.
I am absolutely convinced this year you'll start to
see a normalization I don't think will be immediate.
But we do see our society as a whole
starting to heal.
That's how that's crucial to bringing down crime really quickly.
One idea floated by Mayor Adams is um,
metal detectors at the,
at the subway stations for a lot of new Yorkers
that seems like they'd be incredibly difficult to implement.
What's your take on that.
Is that something that would be feasibly be able to do here, The kind that you just,
everyone's walking through all the time and senses a weapon
perhaps that.
But if you're talking about every individual going through like in an airport,
of course that's not feasible.
It really depends on how good the technology is.
Former new york city Mayor Bill de Blasio. We can talk about this for hours and hours.
Please come please come back, mister Mayor is such a pleasure to have you here.