Vickie Paladino- New York City Council

Larry Mendte and Vickie Paladino discuss the rising popularity of Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayoral candidate.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, let's bring in one of our favorite guests, Vicki Palladino,
New York City Council members. She represents District nineteen of
Northeast Queens. I know you have a big news conference
a little bit later today, but before we get to that, Vicki,
I do want to talk to you about this new
poll showing Zorhan mom Dini still rising up to eighteen

(00:23):
percent again in second place. Should we start to worry
about him?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes? Absolutely, Good morning Larry, Good morning you. Yes. I
don't think anybody should take this for granted at all.
They're killing Cuomo, you know, because Cuomo's history is recent.
He killed the city, he killed the state, he killed
small business, the heartbeat Cuomo took out. People are not

(00:49):
forgiving of Cuomo. Cuomo. I know he's leading by very
very big margins. Well, Culomo's got a past, and I'm
not talking about the sexual harassment stuff, talking about the
meat and potatoes that made Cuomo an absolute failure. And
it's very fresh. In the fired firefighters, fire the fired teachers,

(01:11):
the fired police officers for not getting a vaccine, killing
of the elderly in nursing homes. This is very very
fresh small business owners crushed. Here's the problem. We've got
this guy Zoran coming out of Queens. He is an
absolute prize for this radical left lunacy that we have

(01:33):
running this country. Make no mistake, these people vote and
they got their fifth waving anti Semitic, running pro Palestinian
running for the mayor of New York City. To not
underestimate him. He has raised a ton of money. Okay, yes,
Cuomo's got the unions, he's got all of that. But

(01:53):
we also have here's a flip side, should Cuomo not
break the fifty percent sking everybody out there that's a
Democrat a reasonable mind to just go out pleased and
do not fall into the trap of rank choice voting
where you place it like a horse race one, two, three,
four five. No, go in there and vote for your

(02:15):
one candidate and your one candidate only. So this way
is a clear win for whoever should do it. We
are in a pickle here. We've got We've got a
disastrous lineup on the Democratic side. But here's the flip.
We've got Curtis Lee was running for mayor on the
Republican ticket. We've got Curtis, who is a wealth of

(02:36):
information We've got Curtis, who with the proper people around
him as he filled city Hall, he could win this.
Should this Zran guy take the lead in the Democratic primary,
he will be aces for Curtis, red meat for the
shock and to be quite frankly, to be quite frank,

(02:59):
I also bel leave that he will be red meat.
Cuomo will be red meat for Curtis as well. The
fact is Curtis needs donations. People really need to donate
to Curtis's campaign, and we need a shot here because
this city will burn to the ground. We have our

(03:19):
choice in Cuomo, who is a tyrant. We saw what
he did just a what was it five years ago? Yesterday?
Mask up six feet apart, lock us down. You know
this took toll on our kids. This is who wants
to be mayor.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
You know this election coming up though, Vicky, I wanted
to talk to you about the city council races because
you've made the point several times that many of these
city council some insane city council members, are vulnerable and
if people just get out to vote, they can they
can make the city council just a little bit saner.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
That's right. We're looking to pick up. We hope Alicia
I forgot her last name. She's I believe District thirty.
Uh in Queen's she's our Republican choice. You know, there's
there's different Republican choices scattered about the boroughs. We need
to be smart. You know, we got Christy Mamorado up
in the Bronx. She must maintain her seat. I must

(04:21):
maintain my seat. Uh. Some of my others in my caucus,
they're not being challenged. Christy and I are being challenged.
There's a Democratic primary on our end, and there's a
Democratic primary on my end.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
We want to maintain our seats. We have become a
very big voice. And the fact saw what they are
come out and vote. The low voter turnout, I think
is a reflection of people's discussed with the way things
are going in this city. It's almost like for the
mayor's race I'm.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Talking about, but in the city council races, that's where
real change can be made because we're talking about such
small margins. So if people were to get out, just
get out and vote on that day and vote for change,
they could make that big difference in that city.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Explain that go ahead one hundred, Larry, you couldn't be
more right because basically, now, uh did you hear that
Randy Mastro was appointed the first deputy mayor, that Adams
appointed Randy Mastro, And just to show you, I just
want to give you he ran for, didn't run for.

(05:36):
Adams wanted him to be the council's council and our
council ripped him to shreds because he had he was
Rudy Juliani's chief of staff. This council wants this soul
rand guy really bad. We cannot allow this to happen.
And like you said, we must get out and vote.

(05:57):
Start local, as local as you could get. Is your
council member. Do you know how many people out there,
regular James and John's that have no idea who their
council member is or what their council member does. Now,
it doesn't happen here in District nineteen or in several
other districts because we're out there every day doing our job.

(06:21):
But the Tiffany commands and these other ones that are running,
they need to be replaced.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Hey, Vicky, I don't have a lot of time and
I want to make sure I get to the City
of Yes and what you and other council members are doing.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Today, Okay, on the steps of the city Hall today
at ten am, we are having our press conference because
we are suing the city against the City of Yes.
What they did was they changed our zoning. It's going
to hit residential areas. Allow for doing away with a

(06:56):
great deal of our power as far as are yes
or no when it comes to our land use issues,
if something that's going to hit every neighborhood. It was
blanket coverage. It was not done per district. It was
one size fits all, and that doesn't work here, certainly
not in my residential district. And it's a big conference today.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I'll tell you what we'll we'll have it on tomorrow.
We'll cover it. And thanks a lot, Vicky. You were
great as always.