- [Narrator] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith
is provided in part
by Hillco Partners,
a Texas government
affairs consultancy,
and by Claire and Carl Stuart.
- I'm Evan Smith, he's the
109th mayor of New York,
a few months into his
second term leading
the biggest city in America,
and on the long list of names
floated as possible candidates
for president in 2020.
He's Bill DeBlasio,
this is Overheard.
(light music)
- [Evan] Let's be honest.
Is this about the
ability to learn
or is this about the experience
of not having to talk properly?
How have you avoided
what has befallen
other nations in Africa and--
You could say that
he made his own bed,
but you caused him
to sleep in it.
You saw a problem, and
over time you took it on--
Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak.
Are you gonna run for president?
(overlapping voices)
(audience cheers)
- Mr. Mayor, welcome.
- Thank you.
- Thank you very
much for being here.
Let me go right to the
elephant in the room,
or the donkey as it were.
- The donkey in the room?
- Do you understand--
- You just coined a new
phrase, the donkey in the room.
- The donkey in the room.
- All right.
- You understand why people talk
about you running for president?
- Sure, I think
it has a lot to do
with how mayors are
becoming more prominent.
- [Evan] Are you
encouraging it, personally?
- No.
I have a tremendously
valued job,
I really appreciate
the opportunity
to serve the people
in New York City--
- Right.
- But I'm also going around
the country talking about
the need for a more
progressive Democratic Party--
- Right.
I'm talking about
the need for cities
to stand up and address what is
not being addressed
in Washington--
- Right.
- I think mayors have a very
big role to play nationally
in the absence, in my view,
of a federal government that--
- Right.
- That is absent, so
it doesn't surprise me
that for, probably the
first time in memory,
you hear mayors talked about as
potential presidential
candidates.
Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles,
- Sure.
- Mitch Landrieu in New Orleans,
even Pete Buttigieg in
South Bend, Indiana.
We hear mayors alongside
senators and governors,
and regular old folks
being talked about.
I mean, a long list of people.
- Yeah.
- You have foreclosed
previously when asked,
when you went to
Iowa and why would
a mayor of New York go
to Iowa, it is assumed,
except to kick around the
idea of doing something else.
When you were asked, you
said "I am not running."
Is that your position today?
- Yeah, I'm mayor
of New York City,
it's a tremendous
honor to do that,
I've got a lotta work to do
for the next four
years that's my focus.
- You commit to
running, you commit
to staying in that
job for four years.
- I have, but my focus
also, 'cause I think we have
to be able to do more
than one thing at a time
in this very roiled
environment we're in--
- Right.
- Is to build a national
progressive movement,
is to help push the Democrat
Party to the left, explicitly,
- Right.
- And to actually amplify
the work of cities
all over the country,
and create more coalition
among cities for change.
When cities act in unison--
- Right.
- You create another
version of national policy.
- Right.
- And so all this
work is crucial,
it cannot just be done
from my desk in City Hall.
I'm gonna keep doing that work,
but I feel it's important
that mayors stand
and be counted at this point,
because you can't sit back
in your cities and
expect the kind of
bigger changes to occur.
We have to build something
nationally that's different.
And I gotta tell you,
the energy on the ground
in this country is
absolutely amazing.
- Right.
- When you look at what is
being achieved city by city,
and I wanna talk about a
couple of things we're doing.
- A host of issues, right?
- Yeah, but what's
so fascinating is
cities have woken up.
They are in an aggressive
posture right now.
- Right.
- To create real change
in their communities,
whether it's addressing
affordable housing
or, in our case, for example,
pre-K for all our kids--
- Right.
- Or going at changes
in how we have police
and community relate
to each other.
We're not waiting
for a federal policy
or even a state policy--
- Right.
- It's a do-it-yourself moment.
- Why now, Mr. Mayor?
You know, is it all Trump?
Because you had
eight years of Obama
when the mayors could've
gotten as activated
and as organized, where the
cities were just as much
laboratories of
innovation, experimentation
and democracy as they are now.
If you all wanted to activate
at that time, you could've.
This seems to be more about
what you're opposed to,
versus what you're for.
- I appreciate why
it may look that way,
but I'm gonna argue
that actually it
was well in motion before that.
I think there's a
historical trajectory
that has to be talked
about a lot more.
The Recession, which
has, The Great Recession,
defined the politics
of our time.
Occupy Wall Street, I think,
was a signature moment--
- Right.
- In terms of opening up
the political process.
Then you saw progressives
start to get elected
all over the country
at the local level.
In 2012, my number
one platform item
when I was running in the
election the following year
was a tax on wealthy New Yorkers
to pay for pre-K for all.
- But yeah, we have some
experience with that in Texas,
in San Antonio, specifically,
where they raised
the sales tax by some
incremental amount
to pay for full day pre-K
for 22,000 4-year-olds.
- And what San Antonio
did under Mayor Castro
was well before you
ever heard of the name
Donald Trump as a potential
presidential candidate.
- Correct.
- When I, in 2012, said
"Let's tax the wealthy
for pre-K for all,"
that was well before--
- He was still your constituent.
- God help me.
- Right.
(laughs)
- Not a point of
pride for some of us.
That's okay.
(audience laughs)
But look, here's
what I wanna say.
- Yeah.
- That was well before Trump.
Cities were increasing,
more and more progressives
were being elected, more and
more change agents, I think,
again, Mayor Adler's done
amazing things here in Austin.
It's a different type of mayor
that emerged well before Trump.
Now, I think you're right
to say the election of Trump
then crystallized a
movement locally--
- Yep.
- And among mayors,
to force change.
The most obvious
example is when Trump
left the Paris Agreement,
which could've been
a devastating moment, had there
not been a vivid response--
- Yeah.
- Over 300 American mayors
said "No, we're still in.
We're going to abide
by the Paris Agreement.
We're going to create a
response to global warming
on our own, locally, in the
absence of national leadership."
And this is a paradigm
shift, that I think
is only beginning to
be fully understood.
Think about it
this way, and I'm--
You know, being in the
great state of Texas,
and it's a long
tradition of independence
and independent thinking.
- Right.
- If your federal government
is not functioning,
do it yourself,
create on the ground.
So imagine the
notion of something
that you would think is
quintessentially federal
and national, like a
policy on global warming,
in the absence of
a federal policy,
a extraordinary coalition
of localities get together
and say "We're not only
saying symbolically
we're going to abide by it,"
- Right.
- "We're actually going
to meet these standards.
We're committing
ourselves locally
to meeting these standards."
- Practically, Mr. Mayor,
what does that mean?
What can you actually do
to affect the outcome
of this issue?
- So, we are now putting
mandates on our buildings.
You know, the biggest
source of pollution
in New York City is
actually big buildings.
We're putting mandates
that they have
to get cleaner, they
have to be retrofitted,
or there are substantial
penalties if they don't.
- Right.
- We're putting up electric
car charging stations
all over New York City,
as a public investment
to encourage the conversion
to electric vehicles.
Our city car fleet is
gonna be all electric.
We are divesting our
pension fund investments
from fossil fuel
holding companies.
It's five billion
dollars, ultimately--
- Yeah.
- That will be taken out
of fossil fuel industry.
We are actually suing
five of the largest
petroleum companies to
hold them responsible
for the impact they've
had on global warming.
- Yeah.
- This is one city, but
now I'm talking about
300 cities, each
in their own way--
- Versions of the same thing.
- Each in their own way--
- Right.
- That are finding a way
to address global warming.
- Are you getting pushback
from the big businesses
that are either headquartered
or have significant amounts
of business in New
York, who might be
on the receiving end of a
lot of these regulations
or a lot of these policies that,
while they may be
well-intentioned,
and people in the
communities may support them,
but at the same time, you
know the tension between
the climate issue
on the one hand,
and economic development
and the business community
on the other.
- I'm very familiar
with the tension,
and I'll tell you, it's happen--
- Yeah.
(laughs)
- Well, I am and
yes, yes I have.
- Yes I am, well right.
(audience laughs)
That's why I'm the host,
I ask the good questions.
- It has become, you know,
this is my fifth year as mayor.
- Yes sir.
- And I'll tell ya, when we
went to do paid sick leave
for half a million
more families--
- Right.
- Some of the business community
told me the sky was gonna fall.
When we pushed for a
higher minimum wage
in our state, which we
ultimately achieved,
the economy was going
to ground to a halt.
- But we're gonna have to
lay a bunch of people off.
- Right, when we said was
gonna be tough mandates
to address global warming, oh,
literally our real estate
boards said at one point
this was going to devastate
the real estate market
in New York City.
- Yep.
- I'm like, come on,
that's ludicrous.
I think it is, when you
know that kind of critique
is coming, it doesn't mean
you don't listen to people
or work with people, but I'm
just not falling for that.
We have to, look at
that line of examples.
We have to raise wages
and benefits in a society
that's absolutely
being undermined
by vast income inequality.
We have to address
global warming.
It's a survival matter.
It's not a matter that
could be sublimated
to the needs of a
company for profit.
- Right.
- We have to sort
this out together,
and honestly, I said, I
went to the United Nations
a few years ago and
said we would abide by
the core Paris Agreement
goal, which was 80 percent
reduction in emissions by 2050,
and I said there,
literally at the podium
of the United Nations
in the General Assembly,
I said if the business sector
comes along voluntarily,
that would be our preference,
if not, we will issue mandates.
Lo and behold, after
several years of discussing,
I was not shocked to find
that the business community
did not voluntarily meet
the standard we needed--
- Right.
- So we said, great, we'll
make it really easy for you,
meet these standards
or there will be
substantial financial penalties.
That's a language
they can understand.
- And you have to
mean it, by the way.
- You have to mean it.
- It cannot be an idle threat.
Do you worry that Scott
Pruitt at the EPA,
or the Trump administration
will swoop in
and say "This is not really
the purview of the cities,
and we're gonna challenge you."
I mean, you don't really care
about that either, do you?
That's a fight
you'd love to have.
- Well not, look, the
irony is it's a fight
I'd love to not have--
- [Evan] Yeah.
- Because I like the notion of
local control to be respected
- [Evan] Right.
- And let us do the work
we're doing for our people
with the values of our city.
But if it's a fight that comes,
we will meet 'em
on the battlefield,
and I believe we will beat them,
because what's been forgotten
in the whole Trump epoch
is the United
States Constitution
is very friendly to localities.
A few weeks after the election,
I gave a speech at The
Cooper Union Building
in New York City,
very historic place
where there've been important
moments in history discussed.
I said, "Look,
we've gotta remember
our constitutional structure
is a defense at this moment.
The values of New York
City, the values of Texas--
- [Evan] Right.
- Are going to be expressed
by local government
and state government
in a variety of ways."
And in fact the
Constitution does not allow
the federal government
to come in and say
"We're gonna be able to nullify
everything you want to do."
- And yet, Mr. Mayor, you know
that the local control
conversation has been turned
on its head in many places--
- Yes.
- It has in Texas, I don't
know if it has in New York.
- Yes.
- Where the state
says, "States created
the federal government,
states created
the cities and the
counties, the states
have the ultimate
sovereign authority."
So the fact is, local
control only works
if we like how the locals
are being controlled,
otherwise we say that
whole Jeffersonian idea
of the best government
is the government
closest to the people,
forget about that.
I just wonder if,
really, you can make
the civics textbook
argument successfully
if the federal
government decides
that all not withstanding,
we wanna swoop in
and tell you you can't
do what you wanna do.
- Oh, we believe we can.
I'll give you the
example of the attempts
by the President and
Attorney General Sessions
to threaten to withhold
our security funding
if we don't change our policies.
- Sanctuary cities.
- Undocumented
immigrants, right?
So the, look, this is
one I love to talk about.
- Well, you boycotted
that meeting, right?
You were proudly, you decided
not to go see the, right.
- I didn't want to have
to boycott the meeting,
but once again they
threatened my city.
- But you did it,
but you did it.
- But here's the bottom
line, and actually had
a very surreal meeting
with Donald Trump
and Jeff Sessions a week
or two after the election
in an attempt at some
kind of dialogue,
and I said, "Look, the
reason to understand
how we approach immigration,
in say, New York,
with half a million
undocumented immigrants--"
- Yeah.
- "Is about public safety."
I said, "Don't talk to me,
talk to my police commissioner.
If you wanna hear a
non-partisan assessment,
talk to my police commissioner
about why we will not
ask documentation status
and why that has helped
us to bond police
and community together
in immigrant communities,
and that is why we are
now the safest big city
in America, it's part
of what got us there."
- And isn't it
consistent, Mr. Mayor,
not just in Texas, but
all over the country,
that law enforcement tends
to think that those laws
actually don't
improve public safety?
- Actually--
- In fact, they
create disincentives
for people in the
undocumented community
to come forward
and report crimes.
- Yeah, what I have seen from
law enforcement leadership
all over the country
is exactly that.
They need the dialogue
and the open channel--
- [Evan] Right.
- Between immigrants
and police to be there,
and if you ask someone's
documentation status,
you're basically asking
them not to come forward
if they see or witness a crime,
or they're a victim of a crime.
So to wrap together to
your previous point,
what I feel, in that case--
- [Evan] Yep.
- We've been threatened with
our funding being taken back,
funding that helps us fight
terrorism, for example.
- Right.
- We're gonna stand and
fight to keep that funding.
And we believe,
constitutionally, we're
on very firm ground.
- But that's a harder
fight than climate.
Climate seems to be,
relative to sanctuary cities,
more of a polite disagreement.
Sanctuary city is a fight,
and it's not just a fight
where you are, but it's a
fight all over the country.
And unlike climate,
which the President
didn't necessarily seem to
care all that much about
during the campaign, he
made sanctuary cities
and legislation
around immigration
the basis for his campaign.
Is he gonna relent?
- I don't think he
will want to relent.
- Big campaign issue for him
going into the next election.
- Perhaps, although
again, look at
the public opinion polling
around the country.
Look at the views that Americans
have about the Dreamers,
for example, I
think there's a lot
more open mindedness
than is often ascribed.
I think the President
obsessively focuses on his base.
- [Evan] Yep.
- But we see the polling.
His base is somewhere in
the 30 to 35 percent range
in terms of the total
of the American people.
- Right.
- To the core point you
raise, look, in the end,
there is a dynamic, there is
a reality of local control,
on some of the most
fundamental things
affecting peoples' lives.
If the federal government
or a state government
want to try and
turn it on its head
and say "Oh, wait, wait,
you're creatures of us,
so we're not going
to allow you to do
what you wanna do," that,
politically, is untenable.
At a certain point,
the emerging majorities
on these issues take
over the situation.
- If not immediately, then soon.
- Exactly.
- Right.
- And so, for example,
on climate change,
and this is both
growing awareness
among people all
over the country,
but it's clearly
generational as well.
Every single day, there
are more young people
who are registering to vote,
who fundamentally believe
that climate change
threatens their futures.
- [Evan] Right.
- They want to see action.
They will stand by that action.
If their state government
tries to stand in the way,
or their federal government,
they will act on that.
- They'll be the pushback.
Speaking of young people,
is guns going to be
the next frontier for mayors?
I mean, obviously, the
federal government's
disposition on guns has
been shifting back and forth
and back and forth, depending on
who the President last talked to
- [Bill] Yeah.
- Over the last couple of weeks.
But the reality is, if you look
at the public opinion polling,
not just after Parkland,
but frankly before Parkland,
on things like ban on
high-capacity magazines,
- Yeah.
- Limitations on access
to automatic weapons,
strengthen background checks,
the public has really been,
maybe as far back as
Sandy Hook, or before--
- Yes.
- 60, 70, 80 percent in
red parts of the country
and blue parts of the country--
- That's right.
- For these things, and
yet Congress has not acted.
Can the cities take
over that issue as well?
- We can't take it over, but
we can help build the movement
that will achieve the change.
So when you talk
about the gun issue,
there has been a huge opening,
in terms of actual public
opinion, for years.
The x factor now is
these Parkland students
have done something, I literally
cannot find a parallel,
unless you go back
to the 60s and 70s.
A high school student
starting to be active--
- [Evan] Yep.
- In this way, and having
this kind of impact,
their moral voice
is extraordinary.
- And completely counter to
the rap on that generation,
which is, they would just
as soon be on Snapchat
all the time and not be paying
attention to this stuff.
- Which is a fundamental
misunderstanding, you know, I--
- Well you've got kids this age,
you know these kids,
these are your kids.
- Let me tell you, I am struck,
my daughter Chiara is
23, my son Dante is 20,
and I was always struck,
when they were growing up,
they were really serious
about the world around them.
- [Evan] Yep.
- And I said, I kept
trying to figure out why,
and I was watching
in 2015 and 2016
during the
presidential campaigns,
you saw this super
evolving youth energy,
obviously a lot of it
for Bernie Sanders,
but you saw a different
kind of youth presence
in the campaign than
we've seen for awhile--
- Right.
- And here's my analysis.
These young people grew
up with global warming,
they grew up with
the Great Recession,
they grew up with the fear
of crippling college debt.
- Right.
- I liken them, in a
way, to the generation
that my parents were
from that had grown up
with the Depression,
and World War Two,
and had a kind of worldly
wisdom as a result of that.
I think this
generation is focused,
and has tools to organize
that for the rest of us,
when we were young, we
could not have imagined
in our wildest dreams.
- And in addition to that, kind
of on the affirmative side,
this generation is going
to have less of an issue
with same-sex
marriage, potentially,
this is gonna have
less of an issue
with reproductive
rights, potentially--
- [Bill] Yep.
- Less of an issue with diverse
populations, necessarily,
because for them, that's
sort of like, ugh.
We're past that fight already.
For them, that's kind of
like, let's just keep going.
- That's right.
- The overturning of
them all generationally
is going to create some
interesting opportunities
in this country, to finally
get at some of these problems.
- Well, I think that's--
- At least you can be
hopeful that it will.
- I am very hopeful.
- Yeah.
- And I think it's a
redefinitional moment,
I think that the
generation coming up
is going to fundamentally
change the ground rules
of American politics.
- [Evan] Right.
- And I, look, it's
already started.
I think we are focused,
of course, on the results
of election night,
November 8th--
- 2016
- 2016
We gotta remember what was
happening the day before,
and for the year
or two before that,
where, in the case of the
Bernie Sanders movement--
- Right.
- For example,
you saw a whole new
kind of politics,
you saw a kind of
grassroots activism
and, obviously, the ability
to generate the resources
for a campaign on
a national scale
that we never could've imagined.
- Right.
- Politics in
America was shifting
before the election of Trump,
the election of Trump then
supercharged it, things
like the Women's March,
the single biggest
demonstration in the country.
- So you believe that
the Women's March
and the protests at
airports like LaGuardia
and JFK over the refugee ban,
and the protests in the
streets over ICE deportations
and everything else, that these
will ultimately
translate into votes?
Because I have to tell
you, I'm skeptical.
I see moments not movements.
I will believe that these things
are going to be
meaningful politically
when the same people
in the streets,
in the pussycat hats or
in the airport gates,
actually go to vote.
We know that voter
turnout in this country
is not what it oughta be.
- Well, so I wanna
say two quick things.
- Yeah.
- One, I believe they will,
and I think if you look at
the elections of November 2017,
and everything since,
these turnouts surges--
- That's a tell.
- We're seeing--
Yeah, it's something that's
going on that's deeper.
The second thing I'd say
is, we need to address
the problem of democracy.
So, in our state
we have, actually,
very backward election laws.
- It is hard to
register to vote.
- [Evan] Yeah.
- You don't have same
day registration.
We don't have early voting,
we don't have vote by mail.
- Texas, by the way,
says to New York on that,
"Hold my beer," as far as,
like difficulties to vote.
- You think you
have it bad, but--
- Well, I hear you, but I
want to wrap it together.
Yeah, but New York, my beloved,
very self
congratulatory New York,
meanwhile, has laws that
are not helping people vote,
and actually stand
in the way of it.
- [Evan] Yeah.
- So, physician, heal
thyself, I say to New Yorkers.
Look, we have two
million people eligible
to register in the
state of New York,
who are not registered.
We can fix that, so
what I've announced
as a democracy agenda
for New York City,
we have set a registration
goal for the city.
Absolutely non-partisan,
we want everyone
of every background to sign up.
- Right.
- But we want to
register 1.5 million,
1.5 million New Yorkers
in the next four years.
We've got a Chief
Democracy Officer.
We want someone who is
constantly looking at
the ways to encourage
involvement and participation,
we're gonna do civics education
a very different
way in our schools.
It's been staid and uninvolving
for kids for a long time.
We're going to encourage
kids to get involved
in the issues of the day, and
actually learn how to be--
- And to those people who
are critics, Mr. Mayor,
of this effort, and say "What
you're really trying to do
is indoctrinate, not educate,
and what you're really
trying to do is to turn
out Democratic votes,
not turn out votes,"
your response is what?
- It's, we're going to
do a non-partisan drive.
I don't care what you believe.
- I want you involved.
- Right, just participate.
- I think it is about the
health of this city, my city--
- Right.
- My state, but also
the whole country going forward.
- Right, yeah.
- But let me tell you,
we're also going to go to
public financing of elections.
Taking big money out of
politics encourages people
to run locally, encourages
people to believe
that their vote matters.
This, to me, is one of
these transcendent things
that could actually
change and reengage
the democratic process
in the country.
So, I think we're in a
very exciting moment,
but we've gotta tend
to our democracy.
It's been hurting
for a lotta years,
but not for lack of concern.
The concern levels,
the interest levels,
are shooting upward.
We've gotta figure out
how to now align our laws
to actually meet that
moment, and the last point
I want to make is Alabama,
which is very telling.
- Yeah.
- Even with the repressive
laws, my editorial comment,
laws that were meant to
restrict voter participation,
you saw the result in
the U.S. Senate race.
- Well, if you ran a child
molester in every election,
you guys would win.
(audience laughs)
- And I gotta tell you, I
appreciate that analysis,
but I think there's
something else going on
that's been under analyzed.
- Okay.
- Doug Jones was a
candidate who actually spoke
to people's minds
and their hearts.
He had done something
powerful and meaningful
in his work as U.S. Attorney.
- [Evan] Yeah.
- The level of activity and
organizing and door knocking
that was happening was
far beyond the question
of who Roy Moore was.
And if you look at the turnout
in Alabama in that election,
with all the barriers,
there's like,
people had to jump
a bunch of hurdles
to get to their
polling station--
- But they got there.
- But they got there
in record numbers.
- Right.
- That says something
about the moment.
- And that was about candidate
recruitment on Mr. Jones,
to a great degree, they
got a good candidate,
and we have just a
couple minutes left.
On the subject of
candidate recruitment,
are you recruiting Cynthia Nixon
to run against Andrew
Cuomo for governor?
- No.
- Why do people think you are?
She is a political ally
of yours, let's just say
that you and the
governor are not exactly
America's fun couple, right?
(audience laughs)
We think we have cities
versus state tension in Texas,
nothing compared to
what you have there.
She's talking about running.
- Yeah.
- It's like, I go
to bed at night,
there's no snow on the ground,
I wake up in the morning
there's snow on the ground,
I didn't see it snow,
but I know it's snowed.
You want to tell me you have
nothing to do with this?
(audience laughs)
- Okay, that, your
analogy is fascinating,
I know explain how--
(audience laughs)
- I mean, come on, I don't
see your fingerprints on it,
but you're not telling
me they're there?
- Evan, Evan, let me
explain how snow works.
(audience laughs)
- Okay, all right.
- It gets very cold, and then.
- I get it, okay.
(audience laughs)
- I am not involved
in that effort.
- It's not snowing in
the governor's race.
- Yes, it's not, okay.
One, I'm not involved
in the effort,
two, I don't know
what she's gonna do,
three, she has been a
prominent political activist
in New York state
for many many years.
- I'm not suggesting this
is, like, Cardi B running,
I'm suggesting that
this is actually--
- I am impressed by
your cultural relevance.
- Thanks very much.
- Very good.
- We both have teenagers.
- Yeah.
- The point is she
is not showing up
having not been involved
in politics or in activism,
stipulated, but
still she is somebody
who shares your political view
- Yes.
- progressive politics
- Yeah.
- Is to the left of Governor
Cuomo on a lot of issues
- Yeah.
- And has been an ally
of yours, so one would--
- I understand that.
- One would wonder.
- But I'm just saying
it very clearly.
Not involved, I don't know
what she's going to do,
I think what is
happening, though,
is happening all
over the country.
We are seeing progressives
in the Democratic Party
questioning the status
quo all over this country.
And not accepting
the old ground rules.
If you've got an
incumbent Democrat,
it used to be the message
within the party is
"Oh, don't challenge
the incumbent."
- Friendly incumbent
rule, right.
- Right, and oh,
we've gotta worry
about what happens in the fall.
That's not being accepted,
all over the country.
- Yeah.
- I think progressives
and Democrats are saying
we need a progressive
party both morally,
we believe in those values,
but if we wanna win nationally,
we've gotta get back
to our core values,
we've gotta have a strong
populist economic message,
but populism in the sense
of actually trying to serve
everyday people,
we've gotta be willing
to say things like "We're
going to tax the wealthy,
so that working people
can have a better life."
There's a set of ideas that
progressives believe in,
that are basically
non-negotiable at this point.
- Yeah.
- Meaning, if our candidates
are not evincing those values,
if our national party is
not evincing those values,
progressives are
gonna challenge it.
We don't think it's ideal to
just stay home and stay back.
- So you don't run
from, Mr. Mayor,
the divide in the Democratic
Party at the moment,
you run toward it.
- Absolutely, because I
believe it's going to be
ultimately an act of
healing, I really do.
- Yeah.
- I think that, look,
I grew up a believer
in the party of
Franklin Roosevelt--
- Yeah.
- And by the way, tip of
the cap to Texas' own,
Lyndon Baines Johnson,
for what he achieved
as President, and I think
it's underrated in many ways
what his domestic agenda
was for this country.
- He also, by the way, was
attacked from the left.
- Unquestionably.
- I mean, the fact is,
this is not a new thing.
- No, and thank you!
A very important
historical perspective,
it's not a new thing
because, unfortunately,
on foreign policy in particular,
he governed very much
as a conservative,
but my point is,
the Democratic Party
has an essential nature, as
a party of working people.
A party that is willing to
challenge powerful forces
on behalf of working people.
That got lost, in many ways,
over more recent decades.
What's happening now,
and again, it goes back
to the Recession, it goes
back to Occupy Wall Street,
there's a lot of
things pre-Trump
that were already building this.
- Yep.
- Bernie Sanders' movement
occurred before anyone
thought Trump was serious.
All of these pieces
are coming together,
and Democrats around the country
who are progressive, are saying
"We're gonna remake this party.
We are going to have
an identifiable party."
This is the important
point, Evan.
If you don't know what
Democrat stands for,
the Democrat will lose.
This is some what happened
in the 2016 election.
- Right.
- All over the country.
- Democrats were against
something, not for something.
- And Democrats did not
have a differentiation
from Republicans that was
sharp and clear enough
to actually motivate
all those people
who went to Trump, a lot of
them had voted for Obama before,
they didn't feel there
was a clear idea,
a clear vision that
would change their lives.
We gotta recapture that.
- The big message is
differentiate yourself,
don't be a faked Republican,
be a real Democrat.
- Correct.
- And then that's the
political future for the party.
- Both, again, morally,
in my opinion--
- Right.
- And practically.
- Mr. Mayor, we're outta time.
Great treat to be with you, sir.
- Thank you.
- Mayor Bill DeBlasio,
thank you very much.
(audience cheers)
We'd love to have you
join us in the studio.
Visit our website at
KLRU.org/overheard
to find invitations
to interviews,
Q and As with our
audience and guests,
and an archive of past episodes.
- I think it's gonna
be a Democratic
and progressive rallying
cry going forward,
to rescind the tax
giveaways to the wealthy
and corporations, and
what was a very unfair,
in my view, effort to take away
state and local deductibility.
Been part of this country
for over a hundred years--
- [Evan] Yeah.
- Affected about 100
million Americans,
I don't think that
action is forever.