Joe Borelli, former minority leader of the NYC Council Interview

Joe Borelli speaks with Mendte in the Morning about some shady ties that Zohran Mamdani has as Andrew Cuomo turns up the heat on his Mayoral campaign.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joe Burrelli, managing director of the chart Well Strategy Group
and former Minority leader of the New York City Council,
with us every Tuesday at this time. Good morning. Joe
so Zorimamdani has dual citizenship, but he is tightly connected
and has pictures taken with some of the people who
believe in a punishment for somebody that is either gay

(00:24):
or lesbian, anybody that's in the LGBTQ category up to
the point of death. You would think, yeah, I mean,
you would think if he wants to be Mayor of
New York, he'd denounce that, right.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I mean, dual citizenship in and of itself is not
that uncommon for New Yorkers. There's plenty of people who
have dual citizenship, but not many of them are dual
citizens and paying taxes and owning land, owning property, are
embedded with the local political class of a country that
is imprisoning people who are gay and lesbian and potentially

(00:58):
have the ability to kill people for that fact. I mean,
this is certainly not what you know any Democrat if
you ask them, I think you know, just six months ago,
is this what New York City is about? I think
they would have all said, this is not what New
York City stands for. I mean, you know, at some
part of this is Andrew Cuomo sort of, you know,
trying to throw as much you know what against the

(01:19):
wall and seeing what sticks. I think this one does
have a little bit of legs because it really does
draw a question between his past as a Ugandan citizen,
as a Muslim and the stuff he sort of portrays
as his progressive vision for New York. I mean, those
two things are not consistent with each other, and I

(01:39):
think he does have to answer each questions. And also
on the same token, Mamdanie's doing a very effective job
lately of staying out of the press, staying away from
unfavorable journalists and people that will ask him questions. He's good,
I mean, he's good with journalists. He gives good answers,
he's very articulate, and he knows how to deflect questions.
But on this issue he seems to be a little

(02:01):
bit hesitant to addressing.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, I agree with you. It was surprising to me.
He is very good, and normally he's right out on
front on this kind of stuff. He hasn't been. He's
been hiding from this issue, which to me believes it's
a good one. It's something that he is concerned about.
And I'm sure they're trying to figure out right now
what he's going to say. He has to address it today,

(02:25):
He's going to have to. It'll be interesting to see
what he says.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
And Andrew Cuomo knows that he needs to peel off
people from both the right and left. You know, he
knows that Curtis Leewa is a lot further to the
right from him, and that Zorin Mandonie is obviously much
further to the left than Cuomo. So he does have to, though,
peel off people from the fringes, not necessarily the fringes,

(02:50):
but from the pool of people who call themselves on
either side of those of those political spectrums. I mean,
that's what he's doing. I mean, we've seen Cuomo to
re emerge as sort of the law and order candidate,
the candidate that believes in law enforcement, to candidate that
wants to prosecute criminals, right, all the stuff that he
really wasn't saying four years ago. But again, he also

(03:13):
the math doesn't work unless he pulls some people from
the left, some people who have you know, liberal views
on LGBT issues, but also don't want to feel unsafe
on the subway. That's the demographic that I think Cemos
correctly going after.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I'm just thrilled that he woke up. He was he
had another lackluster campaign, just like the primary. Suddenly out
of nowhere he has come out swinging, both on the
view and on the streets. So maybe maybe we could
have a race. But this is really late in the
game to be doing this.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, and he thankfully ditched the muscle car right, I mean,
I look, I love cars, I love driving my car,
but your city's not a car friendly city. You know,
most of the Democrats are are sort of that car
just goes to show you how how poorly their their
campaign was strategically messaging when they thought, you know, showing
up in your mom jeans with your hot rod was

(04:09):
going to yourself the voters. But it is getting late early.
But there's also a couple of million dollars flowing into
the pack that is baked for his benefit. So you
are going to see an influx and and overwhelming I
think amount of TV as digital ads, all that stuff.
I think it's it's not going to be about the

(04:30):
quantity of those ads. We're gonna get flooded with them.
I think in Clomo's case, it's going to be about
the quality. Uh. I mean, you're competing with someone who
ran a very effective ad campaign for the Democratic primary,
like Cuomo. Can't just do the old stick of Oman Cuomo.
My dad came he here and worked very hard. I mean,
first of all, people aren't buying it. Dude, your dad

(04:52):
was the governor. You you had you know, maybe you
didn't have a silver spoon in your hands, but you
didn't have a you know, you didn't have a lump
of coal in your stock at Christmas time. Right, Let's
be honest about who you are. A lot of people
did have affinity for your father, and that's fine to capitalize,
but sticking to that messaging just isn't gonna work.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, and he's got to do more than prop himself up.
Everybody knows what Andrew Cuomo is and who he is.
What they need to know is the other side. They
need to have an attack on Mom Donnie that sticks.
So every time they try one, I think, oh my,
this might be the one, This might be the one.
He has been really slick in defecting and deflecting all

(05:29):
of this stuff. Let's see, let's see if he can
handle this one. I know, I ask you this same
question all of the time, and I get the same answer,
But I'm gonna keep asking it. Do you see any
way he's gonna lose at this point?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah? I think. Look, you know, Curtis, for better or worse,
is not really you know, pulling out of that third
place spot. He seems to be hovering at a lot
lower than the actual number of votes and percentage of
votes he got in twenty twenty one. So I think
you're gonna see more people just dropping off the Curtis
bandwagon as reality meets the you know, just their own

(06:10):
perception of the race changes, whether Sleeve was a viable
candidate or not. You know, again, this is not me
knocking Curtis leewoop. I told them, you know, and his
people the problems with his campaign, and if he can't
get ahead, I think there will be more and more
people and maybe, mark my words, you might even start
seeing some Republican elected officials come out and publicly say

(06:33):
you know, I mean, the President already said it essentially,
but you might see some local Republicans, even saying like, hey, Curtis,
time to pack it in. I'm with Cuomo.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, so you're telling me there's a chance, there's a chance,
there's a chance.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Is it a good chance? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, I don't think it's a good chance. Joe Burrelli,
managing director Trutwell Strategy Group and former City Council Minority leader,
with us every Tuesday at eight oh five. Thanks a lot, Joe,
Talk to you next week.