Governor Cuomo Joins Coalition for Community Concerns Forum with Congressman Adriano Espaillat
We're going to make New York City shine again because this is the best city on the planet and it has the best people on the planet. And it just needs a government that knows what it's doing and a government that is as good as the people of this city.
Governor Cuomo, candidate for Mayor of New York City, last night joined the Coalition for Community Concerns co-hosted by Congressman Adriano Espaillat, where he addressed 150 community members, touting his experience, proven record of results, and his vision for New York City. In his remarks, Governor Cuomo addressed the crisis of affordability and public safety that New York is grappling with, his record on infrastructure as Governor of New York, and fighting to protect New Yorkers from President Trump’s threats in Washington.
Read Full Remarks Below:
Hello everyone. Thank you very much for having me here today. Let me start by thanking Congressman Adriano Espaillat. I was looking at some pictures getting ready for today. I saw a picture of Congressman Espaillat and myself in the Dominican Republic after Hurricane Georges, and it's been 25 years ago. We haven't changed a bit. I want you to know I, besides that, Congressman Espaillat, the decades of service we all owe, give the debt of gratitude because in the Congress, seniority is how you move ahead and he has the seniority and I can't wait until we can call him a cardinal of the Congress and he can really have power.
I'm running for Mayor of the City of New York, frankly, because New York City is in trouble. It's not my life plan. I had done my tours of duty more than most, but watching New York City and what's happening in New York City, I'm worried about New York City. It is in trouble. We have hundreds of thousands of people leaving New York City, all income levels. We have a deterioration of the quality of life in New York City. And then after the last election, the Democratic Party has work to do. We lost in many ways the last election. We didn't lose here in New York, but we lost nationally. And there's a message for us. Donald Trump did well in New York and did well in New York City not because he got more votes, but because 500,000 Democrats didn't come out. And that, my friends, is a message to us. The Democratic Party has to get back with the Democratic Party has always been all about, and we are about the working men and women of New York City and working families and helping them.
We're not just about elite boutique issues. We're about kitchen table issues. People need help. And that's what they expect from government. They expect a government that makes a difference for them on the issues that they care about, and they expect a government that actually delivers. Don't talk to me about what you're going to do for me. Show me what you're going to do. Make a difference in my life and if you have to hand me a big press release about all the things you’re going to do that doesn't work, I'm not going to be able to feel it in my life. And Mayor of the City of New York is an office that's supposed to make the difference. That's where things happen. A mayor delivers services to the people and to run this city is not easy. And to run this city now is not easy. This is 300,000 employees, a $112 billion budget, and experience matters.
Some people think they don't need experience, they're just going to be able to manage it when they walk in the door. We tried hiring inexperienced people to run New York City. It did not work. You have to know how to manage. You have to know how the federal government works if you're going to make an actual difference, and I have spent my life doing all of that.
What's important? Public safety is job A, because if the people of New York are not safe, then nothing is going to work. The three dumbest words used in politics in New York City, defund the police. 75 percent of the victims of crime are black and brown. We reduced the police force down to 3,000 people and crime went up on the streets and crime went up in the cities, and then we had to pay $1.2 billion in overtime because we didn't have enough police. It just made no, no sense. Homeless mentally ill on the streets, and we argue that it's their civil right to be on the street, or we think we're showing compassion to leave a mentally ill person on the street. We are not. If you really care about a person, if they're mentally ill and they're seriously mentally ill, get them the help they need. Don't abandon them to the streets. That's not what we believe as Democrats, as human beings. That's not about human rights.
The situation with e-bikes, you can't figure out how to cross the street. They come from the left. They come from the right. They come from behind. They drop from the heavens. I've never seen anything like it and they're abusing the deliveristas, the apps are making billions of dollars. Let's make sure they treat the deliveristas fairly and let's have some rules and regulations to protect public safety.
We have to make New York more affordable. People can't afford to live here, working men and women. It starts with affordable housing. Build it. It's not hard. We've been building affordable housing in this nation since the forties. When I was in my twenties, I built hundreds of units. It's not complicated. You just have to make the government work to do it, provide childcare, cut taxes on working families, but we have to make New York more affordable and we have to do it quickly.
The good news is this. We know that we can do this. I took over the state of New York and it was called the most dysfunctional government in the United States. People had left. Nothing was getting done. We had to put the whole government back together again. And then we had to develop a relationship with the legislature where we actually got things done and we passed groundbreaking progressive legislation that the rest of the nation followed.
First big state to pass marriage equality that said, everyone can get married and we're not going to make a decision based on discrimination of sex or gender. We passed the best minimum wage law in the United States, the best paid family leave law. We passed eleven budgets on time, never done in modern political history, and then talked about delivery.
We got big projects done quickly that they said couldn't be done. LaGuardia Airport was the worst airport in the United States. Remember Joe Biden said at one time, “if you were blindfolded and you landed in LaGuardia Airport and you took off the blindfold, you would think we're in a third world country.” That's what Joe Biden said. And we said, No, we're going to build a brand new airport, and LaGuardia Airport went from the worst airport in the United States to the best airport in the United States. A new Moynihan Train Hall that we built there. They talked about it for years. A new Second Avenue subway, a new Jacob Javits Convention Center extension, a new Kosciuszko Bridge and Mario Cuomo Bridge. I named that bridge obviously.
But we can get these things done. We just need government to work, and government to be competent, and we can get things done. The major threat we face is a gentleman named President Donald Trump. That is the major threat. You see what he's doing on migrants, you see what he's doing on education– you haven't seen anything yet. He is going to come for New York City because he's from New York City and he wants New York City back, and he wants to come in here next year and run against the Governor and against the Attorney General and against the congressional people, and he wants it to turn red. He wants Republicans to win. That is what is going to happen. And I'll tell you what else is going to happen. He's going to come and cut funding for the poor in this city and in this state. He's going to cut Medicaid funding because he's going to target the blue cities and the blue states, and that's New York.
But we know how to deal with President Trump. I am willing to work with anyone on any level, and I have. But make no mistake, if anyone thinks or President Trump thinks he's going to come in here and bully New Yorkers, that is not going to happen. Nobody knows. Nobody knows better than I how to deal with President Trump. I know how to fight him. Nobody will fight him stronger. Nobody will fight him smarter because I did. And I have every day of COVID, day after day after day. And you know what? We're going to be able to handle President Trump. Don't you worry about it. And we're going to make this government work. We're going to get affordable housing built. We're going to get the Kingsbridge Armory finished. We're going to get the Second Avenue Subway finished. We're going to make New York City more affordable.
We're going to clean it up. We're going to get the graffiti done. We're going to get the homeless mentally ill off the streets and into the care that they actually need. We're going to make New York City shine again because this is the greatest city on the planet and it has the best people on the planet. And it just needs a government that knows what it's doing in a government that is as good as the people of this city. And we're going to make New York City the comeback city for Democrats, and the rest of the nation will look to New York City as a model of how to come back.
Thank you and God bless you.
Watch the Full Remarks Here
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