Joe Borelli, Former NYC Council minority leader Interview

Joe Borelli speaks with Mendte in the Morning about the NYC Mayoral race as today is primary election day.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
By the way, go to the iHeartRadio app and leave
us a talkback if you can. And while you're there
on the free iHeartRadio app, be sure to set a
preset for seven to ten. Woor but would love to
hear from you. You always make the show better, and
so does Joe BURRELLI, Managing director of Chartwell Strategy Group
and former Minority Leader of the New York City Council.

(00:21):
So let's talk about this mayor's race. Today is election
day and a new poll is out showing that in
the I forget if it's the eighth or ninth round,
let me take a look at it real fest. Yeah,
in the eighth round, mom, Donnie wins to show you
how ridiculous this rank choice voting is.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look, I have to say I'm not surprised if you
follow the trend line of Mandanni's campaign over the last
two months. He has been consistently trickling up, trickling up,
trickling up, And as I've said over and over again,
in campaign's momentum and the trend is more important than
any one particular poll. And you know, before we get

(01:05):
into all the bad things about Zoora and Mamdani and
there are so so many the lists. He did run
a very effective campaign and he talked about issues that
matter to New Yorkers, whether you agree with his solutions
or not, as opposed to Andrew Cuomo, who avoided the press,
avoided making any policy statements, tried to just remind people
about how he used to be as governor, which wasn't

(01:28):
exactly great, wasn't exactly a flawless exercise in governing state management.
So you have to give some credit to Mamdani for
really having an idea based campaign, using the latest stylistic
and technological investment in campaigning, and now we shouldn't be

(01:48):
surprised he is within striking distance of winning this race.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, Joe, I've said from the beginning, you have to
keep an eye on this guy. He's a great candidate,
he really is. He's extremely likable, he's very glib, and
you're right, he tapped into something and we knew that
Cuomo was in trouble, Joe over the last few days,
because he was doing negative ads against Mom Donnie and
spending money on that. He also gave a big speech

(02:14):
last night on affordability. It's like welcome to the party.
That's what mom. Donnie has been hitting the entire time,
and now he's trying to say that I'm going to
deal with that. First thing. He said, I'm going to
have an emergency order. First thing.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
The problem is his solutions make New York City more unaffordable. Right.
The rent freeze freezes, you know, rents for about five
hundred thousand units, but doesn't mean that we can build
any more housing, doesn't mean that we could increase supply elsewhere.
Having socialist grocery stores isn't going to tear down the
price unless the taxpayers are paying for it. They're new taxes. Right.

(02:50):
These are all bad solutions. But again he's talking about
challenges that real New Yorkers face when you drive down
the SDR and you look at all the apartment buildings
of people struggling, you know, just to think of how
many people there are in New York City living, you know,
we just try and make ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck.
Who are looking and correctly, by the way, looking for

(03:11):
a mayor to offer them solutions. And Mamdani filled that voice.
And the Cuomo people, as I'm hearing from numerous sources
and friends, are freaking out. They are very worried. They
know they did not run an effective campaign. They know
that all of the quote unquote crowds that have showed
up for Andrew Cuomo have just been labor unions. You know.

(03:33):
I forget which radio, which TV station it was. I
think it was Melissa Russo from Channel four. It might
have been hurt maybe not. I don't want to quarter,
but she was one of the reporters was asking carpenters
at a Cuomo rally, where are you from? Oh, I'm
from Westchester, I'm from Long Island. Only two out of
ten were actually from New York City and are even
eligible to vote neverybody, whether they're ready to Democrats or not.

(03:55):
So like, yeah, they're a rent the crowd for Andrew Cuomo.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah that that is incredible. But of course in New
York City it doesn't matter because of your bizarre election rules, right.
I mean now, of course and Andrew Coomo's going to
get the run again. He's going to have to get
a redo against mom Donnie. Maybe he'll learn the second
time around for the general election, but.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
It's going to be an open field with Adams as
Freewa entering your race. And by the way, there is
a Republican primary on Staten Island for Frank Morano and
in South Brooklyn for Ina Vernikov. So if you're listening
and you're a Republican, you know, double check that you
don't have a race in your district is you've got
to get out and support those two. But the general
election is actually of all people. I was talking to
Build a Blasio at CNN last week, and Bill and

(04:37):
I have always been friends, and I always give a
little bit of respect to build a Blasio because I
would bash him night after night, especially during COVID on
TV channels, and then if I ever called him up
and I said, you know, there's some kid who's handicapped
needs to go from this school to that school, he'd
always do those things and I always respect him for that.
But we're talking in CNN and we're just laughing about

(04:59):
how and happy rather about how this is the first
time in several years where there's a general election that
will actually matter in New York City, and even Build
a blos Fiel conceded that there's a chance that Republicans
or independent Eric Adams could actually win. It's going to
be an interesting general election and we'll see what people
end up supporting Adams. We'll see the coalition he was

(05:22):
able to bring.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I think the general election is going to be fascinating
because you're going to have four people that can conceivably
win the election, and that's going to be the first
real competitive general election in a long long time. So
that's going to be more fascinating than these primaries. And
we'll talk to you again about that at that time.
Joe Burrelli, Managing director Chartwell Strategy Group and former Minority

(05:48):
Leader of the New York City Council, talk to you
again next week. Joe, thank you. Yeah, right,