Vickie Paladino, New York City Council member Interview

Mendte in the Morning talks to Vickie Paladino about the NYC Mayoral race and the best strategy to use to beat Zohran Mamdani.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now let's get to Vicki Pallandino, New York City council
member represents District nineteen of Northeast Queens with us every
Wednesday at this time, and Vicki, I wanted to talk
to you about Jim Walden dropping out of the race.
Not that that's that significant because he never caught fire.
He's about three percent in the polls. But what was
significant is what he said from the very beginning, and

(00:23):
that is, if I don't see a path to victory,
I'm going to drop out. And I think others with
no path to victory should do the same, so we
can stop zorin, Mom, Donnie, do you think the same thing?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
He was very profound. I mean, I always liked the guy.
There was something about him that I saw in the debates.
There's something real about this guy. And that just goes
to show that anybody who felt that way was correct.
Decent human beings saw the riding on the wall. But
let's remember also, his bowling numbers were so so incredibly

(01:03):
low that he did absolutely the right thing to do,
which was to drop out. As far as anybody else goes,
I think we all know that Cuomo is not going anywhere.
Adams is not going anywhere, and Curtis is having a
surge that I don't think really should be ignored anymore.

(01:24):
And I'll tell you why I think that he was.
He spoke last night at a place in Queen's called
north Shore Towers. North Shore Towers populates thousands of people
and it's blue dog liberal Democrats, and he filled the
auditorium last night that speaks volumes. They would never they rarely,

(01:48):
if ever, had a Republican speak there. So he got
up on that stage and he stated exactly what his
plans are, which was an excellent way to go because
his first line was I could get up here and
talk about the other candidates, but I won't do that.
Let me lay out my vision. And he took it

(02:09):
from there and the crowd loved it. So, you know,
the other thing that's worth mentioning, Larry is the fact
that Zoe Ran has never been able to break more
than forty percent in his polling. If you if you
notice that, you know he's not bringing any new voters
to his so called coalition. And uh you know that
one pole. I think it was a week or two ago,

(02:32):
everybody was freaking out because he pulled at fifty percent. Well,
that's fifty percent was an anomaly. He was done by
his own people. So and who's just people, Larry. He's
not popular with the working class New Yorkers. He's not popular,
you know, with our bus drivers and with our you know,

(02:53):
real people. He's he's he's with these affluent transplants, you know,
young people. Yes, and uh, you know this is it.
They work for non for profits. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I know who he is, and I'm afraid of him,
and I, like you are, I'm afraid of him. So
let me ask you this question, let me rephrase him. Yeah,
because I love Curtis Lee with two I do. He's
been great to me in my career and I and
I'm a friend, and I hope he does well. However,
if Cuomo is a running second, and it's a month

(03:27):
from now and it looks like Zura mom Donnie's going
to win, wouldn't it be wise for not only Eric Adams,
but Curtis Lee would a drop out?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
And like you say, he's a friend of mine too,
and a really good friend of mine. Uh you know what, Larry,
I won't speak to that because in my opinion, he's
a legitimate and I think in everybody's opinion, he is
a legitimate Republican candidate. I know, I know what everybody's

(04:01):
saying about Cuomo. I'm gonna still take that wait and
see attitude because Zoe as an oxymoron that he's the
legitimate Democrat candidate, because he's not. He's a Democrat socialist. However,
let's see how Cuomo does. Cuomo is still I feel,

(04:23):
I don't care what the Poles say. He's lacking the
zest and he's lacking uh that that that push that
he really needs to do to show up against this
young person. I think Curtis brings such a history with
him and such a good history with him that it's

(04:45):
just the fabric of Curtis Leewa. So I would say,
let's wait this out. Let's see what's gonna happen. Happy
September everybody, Yeah, how.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Long are you willing to wait? Before years? You say?

Speaker 2 (04:58):
You know, I'm going I'm gonna go a couple of
weeks in Larry, I'm going to go into We're only
on the third of September. I'm going to go into
next week when we speak, and definitely the week after that.
I think we're going to have to have some very
serious conversations. But with that to the side, you know,
you said you know Curtis and you say you're a

(05:20):
friend and you know him, so I know him too.
Do you honestly think in your gut that this guy
is going to pull out no matter what the poland
numbers says.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Absolutely I don't.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
And by the way, if it's saving the city from
a socialist, if it is, and I'm not saying we're
at that point right now. If it is, I hope
he does the right thing.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yes, you know, I think everybody's hoping for that. And uh,
like I said, there's a lot of conversation going on,
but not about dropping out. There's a lot of conversation
going on in the campaign that you know, you could
do this, you could do this, but it comes to time, Larry,
when numbers don't lie, and uh, you know, we will

(06:03):
have to decide from that point going forward. I spoke yesterday, Oh,
by the way, if I could push this out, hey, everybody,
Vicky Palladino's running for office, band.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Vicky. I didn't forget that.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
I didn't forget that we got carried away with this conversation.
Let me do this. You'll be back next week. That's
all we'll talk about is your campaign. Okay, let's do
it now.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
No, no, no, no, I don't want to talk about it.
My grand opening is this Saturday at the Bay Terror
Shopping Center from one to four of my campaign headquarters.
If anybody wants to come join us, it's the Bay
Terrace Shopping Center in Baseiklic.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
I'm glad we got that in great. Thank you very much. Counsel.
The council Woman Vicki Palladino is with us every Wednesday
at eight o five