Robert Holden, New York City Council member Interview

Mendte in the Morning talks to Robert Holden about the arrest of Brad Lander by ICE agents yesterday and his thoughts on the NYC Comptroller.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me read you my favorite post on X from
the last twenty four hours. It reads, Brad Landers spent
the past four days loitering inside twenty six Federal Plaza
grand standing instead of working. Now he got the moment
he was waiting for by breaking multiple federal laws, and

(00:22):
as Brad himself loves to say, no one is above
the law. Time to face the consequences. That was written
by New York City Council Member Robert Holden, who is
co chair of the New York City Council Common Sense Caucus.
You can follow Congressman. I mean I made you a

(00:42):
congressman already, Bob. You can follow Councilman Robert Holden at
Bob Holden NYC at Bob Holden NYC. I just love
that post. You really summed everything up, so you're not
buying that he was just out there for the common good.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's this is uh, this is power for the cost
for for Brad Lander. We call him Brad Pander because
that's what he does. I'm telling you, you know, what
they don't realize is that many there are many Democrats
like me who support Donald Trump's President Trump's deportation of
criminal illegal immigrants so uh, there's there's many of us,

(01:24):
and this is like was grand standing and it's funny.
He fools a lot of the media so many times
with this, with these antics. But he's you know again,
he was up there to provoke ICE agents. Of course,
he's got cameras all around him on purpose his own
many times, and he's doing this and it's a it's

(01:45):
a publicity stunt, that's all it is. And it's again,
it's like out of some playbooks by some of these
democratic uh elected officials like Mayor Ross Baraka of Newark
who got arrested, you know, trying to the block Ice.
Who else, Senator.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Alan Alex Padilla.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, there's a whole bunch of them. This has been
done many times, and I hope they keep getting arrected.
I just don't let's really charge them with something, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, it is I heard a great term. It's performative chaos.
And I will push back when one thing you said,
you said he fools the media, He's not fooling anybody.
They support him. The media is just as bad the media.
If they've done polls on this, eighty eight percent of
the media are Democrats and liberals and so when he

(02:38):
does something like this, they are fully supportive. So it's
it's not fooling them. The media is supporting this.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, but you know again you got it was a
three ring, three ring circus outside the courthouse because you
had Kathy Hulkel. That was pathetic. First of all, that
she was there and she comes marching out of the
you know, in a photo op out of the Ice
detention area. She comes walking out that was with brad Lander.
That was really uncalled for, and I think she looked

(03:10):
very bad. Also announcing she's fifty million dollars for undocumented
immigrant defense. I mean, you guys, it was a circus
out there. And again it was all planned, all planned
by Brad Lander. And he doesn't even do his job
as control. He doesn't do it, you know, he's everywhere else.

(03:31):
So why doesn't he just focus on his job. He's
running for It's bad enough he's running for mayor while
he's working. But then he's got to put this, you know,
get in and get in the way of Ice. Certainly
officials that that is like against the law. First of all,
what is he doing there? He's walking every migrant up

(03:54):
upstairs and trying to block Ice come on.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
And hoping to get arrested. What is wrung with your party, councilman, holding.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Don't ask me, I'm the wrong guy. I just can't
figure it out. There used to be moderate Democrats, but
now even you know, Kathy Hogel was a moderate when
she first was running and first got in. Now she's
a wokester, just like you know many of them. They
went far left and that's where they lost me. Uh

(04:23):
And there's so many running for mayor now it's just
you can't even keep track. But what you know, what
is what do we do with with the Democrats that
are really for law and order? And even you know,
former Governor Cuomo got you know, on on on X
and was saying, you know that I saw thugs again.

(04:44):
You know, he said that years ago and he's now
he's saying the same thing. They're all demonizing Ice. These
are law enforcement enforcement officials that are there to protect us,
and you got the governor speaking out against them. You
know what's going on with this? It's because of Donald Trump.
It was you know again, when Barack Obama did this

(05:05):
and deported individuals who were here illegally. You didn't hear
a peep out of them.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Robert hold New York City Council member,
co chair of the New York City Council Common Sense Caucus.
Everybody's going to be following you now on X. Thanks
so much. That was a great That was a great post.