Craig McCarthy, City Hall Bureau Chief at New York Post Interview.

Craig McCarthy speaks with Mendte in the Morning about the NYC Mayoral debate last night and who he believes were the winners and losers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've been talking a lot this morning about the mayoral debate,
the Democratic primary MA oral debate last night that was
on NBC and how it seemed to turn into the
Andrew Cuomo roast. Let's talk more about that with Craig McCarthy,
City Hall bureau chief at the New York Post up
and looking forward to this, Craig, I wanted to get

(00:22):
your thoughts. You just give me some general thoughts at first?
What did you think?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
No, thanks for having me on. I mean, I think listen,
we all walked into this knowing that it was going
to be a pile on and Andrew Cuomo. You know, listen,
only one other candidate really in the field has gained
any momentum, and that's the DSA Socialist candidate, does Zoramandani.
I mean, all of these candidates were really looking to
make a name for themselves, right, trying to land a
good one liner, a good singer, but also at the

(00:48):
same time get some policy in there, get some information
out there about them, because most of these people aren't
even pulling into double digits. So it's sort of exactly
what I expected to happen last night. But you know,
it's still I would say entertaining, entertaining.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
CV to watch, so pick some winners and losers for us.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I mean, I think, listen, the bar was set pretty
low for Cuomo at this point. I mean, I think
it's safe to say that we walk away and saying
he's he is one of the winners here, right. I mean,
he pretty much didn't have to trip walking up to
the podium and he would have kind of come out
the winner here. But you know, listen, he successfully went
back and forth with some people, countered a bunch of

(01:34):
things and a bunch of accusations, and you know, I
think he was a little bit strange taking him taking
some shots at people that was kind of like kicking
some of the candidates while they were down. I mean
Lander's specifically kind of going after his wife. I mean
it was for a front runner, kind of a little
bit strange in that situation. But you know, listen, I
think two of the kind of lower polling dems that

(01:58):
are trying to get some sort of you know, catch
fire at this last minute. I mean, people I talked
to you thought Adrian Adams did very well. You know,
was her interruptions were you know, concise, and she actually
hit some good policy things. And then Michael Blake I
think was just the wild card of the night and

(02:18):
I think stood out. But he's not gonna be there
next week because he has no money and didn't get
matching funds. So next week we're down to seven candidates.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Well, the other person to talk about is the is
the candidate that's rising and zorin mom Donnie, how did
he do?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Do you think? I mean, I think he held his
own I think this he landed a bunch of attacks,
a little subtle jabs on Cuomo. Cuomo went back and
forth with him. I think it kind of showed that
Cuomo in his camp do fear him as a true
challenger to him, because they had a bunch of attacks

(02:54):
ready for him, and they were ready to go at
him with that. He listened, you know, these debates. I
don't think it hurts I think it. I don't think
it helps him as much or hurts him. I think
it kind of keeps the momentum going. I actually think
what's happening right now as we're talking, we're writing the
article and that's the post at the Times broke this
morning that you know, AOC just endorse men. Donnie is

(03:16):
her number one ran choice. I think that probably will
have more effect on his campaign than the debate last night.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, who didn't see that one coming though? Of course
AOC was going to endorse Mondanni. Don't you think, I
mean that's that was kind of a given from the beginning.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, I mean there was Listen, there was a little
bit of a back and forth about whether go to
somebody like Lander who's not as far left as as Mendanni.
And then also, why would you weigh in in something
when it seemingly you don't want to endorse the person
who then loses it kind of like takes away the
steam of your endorsement power. But yeah, I mean it

(03:56):
was widely expected it would either have been him or
Lander in the last few weeks.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I know that there was a few people that went
after Mom Donnie a couple of times, But it did
seem like he was almost leading a group of people
that there's a lot of people that are that are
far left candidates that have decided to team up together
to try to take out Andrew Cuomo. And we've seen
that at news conferences too. After a while, I know

(04:26):
you were saying that he did a real nice job,
and you don't think there's gonna be that much of
an effect. But after a while, I mean, I'm getting
a little bit nervous because I think Zura Mamdani would
be horrible for the city. And I'm getting a little
bit nervous because it does seem like the AOC endorsement.
Now all of these people working together to take out
Andrew Cuomo and mam Donni seemed to be skating through.

(04:47):
I know Cuomo took a couple of shots, but the
media really hasn't been after him like I think they should,
Like how is he going to pay for everything? Did
you see that last night that it was almost upon
see of Mam Donnie people going after Cuomo.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, I think you know, listen, the media has really
pointed out all of these highlighted all of the things
that men Donnie wants to do since the beginning, since
he sat down with us. In the follow up articles
and pointing out political had a great piece as well,
like pointing out how most of these things that even
if he could get done, doesn't guarantee the money for
New York City, such as reasoning their capital attacks and

(05:25):
most of the stuff he needs, all the need to
do the vast majority of it. He needs Allbany to
do to even do it, to get these policies funded.
I mean, I mean working together and doing this. This
is this is putting in part of their strategy, part
of their their dream act. And and I think we
you know, listen people inside the Cuomo camp that have

(05:46):
spoken with and or sources. I know that smoking with
the Coloma camp. We reported this the other day that
they expected Andrew Cuomo was never going to galvanize a
movement behind him. That he's already well known, he has
Naymark Engish, and people already made up their opinion on him.
They just they knew inside the camp when they started
this campaign, and this is why he launched it so late,

(06:07):
was that they just needed to essentially survive to the
to the primary day. But they were there was always
going to be the fear of somebody catching fire, whoever
it was, and now it is Mandani.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, who would have ever thought, Ma'mdani though. I mean,
and look, I've watched an interview with them on MSNBC
the other day, and of course MSNBC has them on,
but I watched them morning Joe. He was spounding out
all of these policies, all these things he was going
to do. Give things free to this person, give things
free to the free housing, free free vounchers, all of
this stuff. Never once was he asked how he was

(06:42):
going to pay for that, because he's not gonna get
money from the Trump administration, right right.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I mean, his whole plan is running on raising the
corporate tax and taxing more wealthy people. I mean, listen,
I think the math on that is a little bit
funky at this point. It's not clear that he would
even cover it even if everything went his way. But
I was gonna have to remember the you know, the
two mayors ago. I mean, the reason why he won

(07:08):
was he promised universal three K and pre k. I
mean that was it's easy, you know, the momentum in
these campaigns. It's easy to campaign in something and saying
let's give everything away for free, and then people get
excited about that and posted to a fiscal responsible moderate
Democrat who's coming in and saying, well, we just want

(07:30):
to run the city effectively.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Does he have a shot at winning this? I mean,
he went from one percent to the point, and then
in one last poet he was down nine points and
among likely voters almost tie on like the fifth ballot.
Does he have a real shot at winning this?

Speaker 2 (07:49):
I think he has a At the current moment, he
definitely is a strong shot. I'm not sure. I still
think he has a ceiling here from everybody I speak with,
he is too far left lot of people. I think
the Israel issue is a sticking point for a large
voter block. And I think if you look at the
rank choice voting in the last poll, which is where

(08:09):
you're talking about, goes to the tenth round, where and
he loses nine points to America, Andrew Cuomo comes out
with fifty four percent, and he has something in the
mid forties. And I think the words telling and where
I've been explaining this to people is that if you
look at when you when you eliminate a stringer and
uninate lander, there whoever those voters are, they're number two

(08:31):
or their number three picks or the number four picks
are Andrew Cuomo. Because a large majority of those votes
when they are eliminated from the ballots go to Andrew Cuomo.
So I think there is you know, listen, I mean
two for control or in a former control. I think
they're they're kind of pictured as this more get stuff done,
more like very let's just kind of run the city effectively.

(08:54):
So I think there is a striving for that for
the voter base, and I think that kind of shows that.
I think somebody like Mandonie, I think the fear with
h with some of the voters and why he's capped
is that is these really really a far left socialist
moves and in an agenda with you know, obviously the
free buffing the grocery stores. I mean a lot of

(09:17):
people free everything. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Craig McCarthy, City Hall bureau chief of the New York Post.
Thanks so much, Creig, really good