Joe Borelli, Former New York City Council minority leader Interview

Mendte in the Morning talks to Joe Borelli about Frank Morano winning the special election yesterday to fill Borelli’s recently vacated New York City Council seat.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's now talk to Joe Burrelli, who is now managing
director of Chartwell Strategy Group and former Minority leader of
the New York City Council. Joe, as always, thanks for
being here this morning. I know you were endorsing Frank
Morano and he won big.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Oh yeah, I finally slept last night. The Staten Island.
The constituents I represented the south shore of that island.
They're finally safe. They can rest easy in their beds.
And I was able to get a good night's sleep
with a nice dream and then the whole work. So
oh that's nice.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, why did you endure some sorry.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, let's start. I mean I've known Frank since he was,
you know, twenty years old. I mean, which is which
goes a long way. And he's someone that has been
active in the community. You know, he was a guy
at twenty three years old testifying at the city's charter
revision commissions, you know, trying to fight for changes in

(00:57):
obscure election laws and the state's city charter and everything.
I mean, this is a guy who didn't wake up
yesterday and decide I want to be in politics. This
is a guy who woke up twenty five years ago
and said I want to make my community better, and
this just happened to be an avenue that opened up
for him, you know, twenty five years after he decided
to become involved in his community. I mean, he's just

(01:21):
a good guy. He's been on the community board. He
understands the issues, he understands the players, he understands politics.
He lives in the borough for goodness. Stakes. But I
couldn't say that about all the candidates. So he was
a clear choice for me, and I'm happy that the
people of Staten Island recognized that you had the chance
to elect someone who is dedicated and focused on representing them.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, you know, seem to have liked him so much,
and I can understand. I also like Frank Verano. But
if you like him that much, why would you do
this to him. It's got to be the most frustrating
job in the world to be a Republican on the
New York City Council.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
It look, it's an uphill fight, right, It's definitely not
one that you're gonna go down your laundry list of
wins that you have. You know, if you're a Democrat
who goes along to get along. You're gonna leave your
term in the City Council with a laundry list, a
little funding you got for different organizations and groups and
parks you built the list for. Frank is never gonna

(02:24):
be as long as a member like that. However, he's
gonna be the guy who we not just Setlunders, but
outer Borough people who have to rely on cars, who
care about safe streets, who care about clean parks, who
care about government spending. He's the guy that we have
to rely on to speak up and speak against some
of the progressives and some of the go along to

(02:44):
get along Democrats who are equally as responsible for putting
us in these financial and public safety holes.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right, and you keep fighting against it, and nothing ever happens.
The most perfect example recently that the fact that the
cards are stacked against Republicans and stacked the common sense
is the fact that Ice has been blocked from going
into Rikers Island. That started with a lawsuit by city council,
and now a judge has agreed and a judge has

(03:11):
an injunction on it. For now. It never made any
sense to me, Joe. This is this case sums up
the insanity of the way New York City is run.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
And this is why the Democratic Party is losing the script.
I mean, they're losing the battle of public support. This
is why, Yeah, people are going crazy over Trump's polling
numbers that have dipped a little bit. But Gallup right,
in their April fifteenth poll that came out, recorded that
Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schuer have the lowest approval rating

(03:46):
of any House leadership and Senate leadership since Gallup started
recording House and Senate leadership right, And it's because of
stuff like this. The majority of New Yorkers, even woke
New Yorkers, even tho you know, you can pull in
New York Yorker straight from the Pride Parade for goodness
sakes and explain to them that hey, ice is on
Rikers Island, so that when a person is accused of

(04:09):
gunpoint robbery and they're here illegally, we can shift them
through the immigration court system and the end result will
likely be they get deported. Even the most woke New
Yorkers are coming around to that and saying, yeah, that
sounds like a much better idea than just letting them
back out on the street. And this is the scenario
where we're in right now, and again this is why

(04:31):
they're losing public support statewide and nationale.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, you say that, you say that everybody's wising up,
and then you look at a guy like Zorin Mamdani,
who is a socialist that is rising in the polls,
is extremely well funded. He's got an organization behind him,
which I'm sure he didn't put together, that's been put
together for him. I think that New Yorkers should be

(04:55):
afraid of this. This is this looks good for him.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
But the polling that he's rising in, remember, is only
of Democratic Party voters who are likely to vote in
the Democratic primary, right, so this is a super base.
This is why, you know, over the years, my position
has evolved on non partisan municipal voting like almost every
city in America except for US in Philadelphia ironically to

(05:22):
not well run cities, but almost every city has non
partisan elections. And this is the reason. So we have
a local election that would be decided not by these
Democratic extremists that would consider Zowor and Mamdani, but more
like the base public of the city who could do
an instant run off that they want to keep rank
choicing or whatever. As long as it's a non partisan

(05:44):
race where everyone gets to vote, not just the woke Democrats,
I think you'll see a better outcome from the city
and it would prevent people like Zowa and Mamdani from
being anything more than fringe candidates where they deserve to be.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
I know that we've had Curtis Lee in here. Of
course we'd love to have him back again soon. And
he sees Zori Mandani as a reason that he could
become mayor because the party will be split four ways,
because he believes Mandani will not win the Democratic primary,
the Cuomo will, but he'll still run as a working

(06:17):
family candidate. And so then you'd have three strong two
strong Independence running. You have Cuomo running, and then Curtis
Lee with sees that as an opportunity, do you.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I do. Look, I mean going from twenty eight percent,
which was the base Republican vote, to fifty percent, so
fifty point one percent, right, Let's just say the win
is very difficult for Curtis Leeway. It's very difficult for
any Republican. It took Mike Bloomberg one hundred million dollars
to do that and win as a Republican. But when
the calculation now becomes Curtis might only need to get

(06:53):
this from twenty eight percent to thirty nine percent. Let's
say now the winning is with in grasp. And when
you have these people like Andrew Cuomo and Mamdani and
whoever else and Eric Adams as an independent, yep, they're
going to be beating the crowd out of each other.
And there's an opportunity if Curtis runs the right campaign

(07:15):
and has the right messaging and is offering genuinely a
different path for the City of New York. But it
doesn't have to be far right, it doesn't have to
be right wing, but just offer a different path of
this to the City of New York, one that involves
public safety. And in fairness, he's going to sound a
lot like the new Eric Adams, and that's fine, right,

(07:37):
but offering that new path, that different path from the
other candidates could actually net Curtis Lee with a win. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I hope he gets the money this time. Joe Burrelli,
Managing director Chartwell Strategy Group and former Minority Leader of
the New York City Council. Thanks so much, Thank you,