Speaker 1: This is the seventy seven WABC Mini cast.
Speaker 2: Jake brought up an issue to me which I think
Speaker 2: merits us discussing it for fifteen minutes. Jake, and that
Speaker 2: is Hispanics are roughly thirty percent of New York City's population,
Speaker 2: yet New York City has never elected a Hispanic mayor. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: New York is elected the first Muslim. Muslims are only.
Speaker 3: Nine percent of New York City's population.
Speaker 2: Why haven't Hispanics been able to do it?
Speaker 1: Is it turmoil?
Speaker 3: Leadership, organization?
Speaker 2: Unity? Jake and I are going to have that discussion
Speaker 2: now today and after that we have it.
Speaker 1: Padre Alberto QT.
Speaker 3: Padrio Alberto is a.
Speaker 2: Great man, a great humanitarian, one of America's most recognized
Speaker 2: Hispanic religious figures. For those of you who don't know,
Speaker 2: Pabrio Alberto was a Catholic priest, and as a Catholic priest,
Speaker 2: he was caught in Miami zipping and kissing a young
Speaker 2: lady from the congregation, and that became blockbuster. A Catholic
Speaker 2: priest kissing a woman on the beach in South Beach
Speaker 2: while he was also a Catholic priest. That's a no no,
Speaker 2: But we will have him here with us, and we're
Speaker 2: looking forward to speaking to him as well. Jake, let's
Speaker 2: get to with my man. What's going on with Hispanics?
Speaker 2: Why don't we have a mayor? What's going on, what's
Speaker 2: going on in the city.
Speaker 4: Well, I think there's a great saying about all politics
Speaker 4: being local, and I want to extend that to this
Speaker 4: question about not having a Latino mayor yet, And a
Speaker 4: lot of it has to do with all politics eventually
Speaker 4: gets down to the individual person. So before we talk
Speaker 4: about the Muslim community in general and the Latino community
Speaker 4: in general, you need to take a look at this
Speaker 4: particular mayor. Now, this is not someone who is your
Speaker 4: run of the middle typical immigrant to New York City.
Speaker 4: This is a child of very wealthy and prominent parents.
Speaker 4: He had a very coddled childhood and life, and his
Speaker 4: transformation from activist to politics is a very easy one,
Speaker 4: very easy one didn't have to worry about making a living,
Speaker 4: raising a family, doing any of those kinds of things
Speaker 4: which most immigrant communities, no matter how large or how
Speaker 4: long they've been in the city, have to do before
Speaker 4: they can start thinking about running probus. So that's the
Speaker 4: first thing, But the second thing is pretty much what
Speaker 4: I was just talking about. Latinos in this city, just
Speaker 4: like every other larger immigrant group, have come here with
Speaker 4: the number one purpose, not necessarily to get political power
Speaker 4: or to get representation, but to set up, like you,
Speaker 4: a financial foothold in this city, create the opportunities that
Speaker 4: they didn't have back home. And when you're doing that,
Speaker 4: as you know very well, because you had your foot
Speaker 4: in both of those worlds for a while, there, you
Speaker 4: can measure success. I think, as tough as it is,
Speaker 4: it's a more fair and honest world to measure yourself
Speaker 4: in the financial world than in the political world.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, Jake, I ran for mayor, I ran as
Speaker 2: a Republican. I won Queens, I won the Bronx, and
Speaker 2: I won Manhattan.
Speaker 3: But I did not.
Speaker 2: Win Staten Island. Staten Linen turned their backs on me.
Speaker 2: I guess they were looking for the person they liked
Speaker 2: and not the person who could get elected. Right, so
Speaker 2: they went with I don't even want to mention his
Speaker 2: name because I just disliked the guy, because he's a
Speaker 2: natural born loser, a liar, a perpetual liar, and has
Speaker 2: lied his entire life.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But Staten Island liked his rhetoric. Right, That's what the
Speaker 2: Republican base was. If stat Linan would have said, you
Speaker 2: know what.
Speaker 3: This guy stands no chance.
Speaker 2: We need to look at the party ahead of everything,
Speaker 2: and they would have supported me. I would have with
Speaker 2: the amount of Hispanics in New York, we would have
Speaker 2: bought them together. Democrats Republicans didn't matter. We would have
Speaker 2: bought them together to support me, and I would have
Speaker 2: beat Eric Adams.
Speaker 1: Well again, you know, compare this to the business world.
Speaker 4: I can like a shopkeeper all I want all I
Speaker 4: you know, he might be a great guy.
Speaker 1: We can talk sports.
Speaker 4: But if he's selling lousy items and the guy across
Speaker 4: the street who doesn't talk at all is selling me
Speaker 4: better stuff at a better price, I'm going to that guy.
Speaker 4: That's not how politics work. Politics are an incredibly emotional arena.
Speaker 4: Whenever I hear people saying, I'm voting for so and
Speaker 4: so because I've looked at all the evidence, boloney, I
Speaker 4: don't get how smart you are, educated you are. We
Speaker 4: make an emotional connection to candidates, just like we do
Speaker 4: with dating.
Speaker 1: It's very similar.
Speaker 4: By the way, psychologists have confirmed this very similar thought process.
Speaker 4: So you know this is what I You know, and
Speaker 4: I see somebody like you who's been successful in business
Speaker 4: and they get into politics and suddenly it makes no sense.
Speaker 4: There's no rhyme or reason to this. It's all about
Speaker 4: crazy emotions. You could have brought the goods instead of
Speaker 4: he who should not be named. Well, Listen, people were talking,
Speaker 4: but people were emotionally connected to him in Staten Island,
Speaker 4: despite data that should have told them otherwise.
Speaker 2: Listen the amount of votes that he got in the
Speaker 2: general election. It was shameful, right, he beat me, and
Speaker 2: I admitted he beat me in Staten Island, and Staten
Speaker 2: Island convinced Brooklyn not to support me, so Brooklyn was divided. Right,
Speaker 2: he got a lot more votes than me because all
Speaker 2: the Republicans came out and voted for him. That's why
Speaker 2: I say, you know, the GOP needs new leadership.
Speaker 3: They need people.
Speaker 2: That understand what winning is and what the possibilities of
Speaker 2: winning are.
Speaker 3: Okay, and like in business, you know what I when.
Speaker 2: I used to go out to make a sale, first
Speaker 2: in my mind was I gotta get the buyer to
Speaker 2: like me. If the buyer likes me, I'm freaking thirty
Speaker 2: steps ahead of my competition. Why Because people make emotional
Speaker 2: decisions and they do the same in business. If they
Speaker 2: like you, they'll buy from you, even if you're a
Speaker 2: little more expensive. Why Because they trust you. You're able
Speaker 2: to push those buttons where they trust you. You know,
Speaker 2: I believe that we need to elect a Hispanic mayor
Speaker 2: at some at one point or another.
Speaker 3: I mean there's a lot of Hispanic talent.
Speaker 2: Don't count on me because I will not run again
Speaker 2: unless the GOP comes and says, hey, hey, mateo, we're
Speaker 2: gonna give you twenty million dollars. We're gonna deposit it
Speaker 2: in your bank account, and this is the money you're
Speaker 2: gonna use to run. And if they do that, I
Speaker 2: will consider. But I will not go out there begging
Speaker 2: people because you become a beggar. When you run a campaign.
Speaker 2: You have to call everybody you know and ask them
Speaker 2: for ten dollars, twenty dollars, two hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: It's like humiliating to go out there and beg people
Speaker 2: to give you money so that you can get matching funds, okay,
Speaker 2: in order for you to run a campaign.
Speaker 3: No, it's over.
Speaker 2: If the GOP wants a winner here, they're gonna have
Speaker 2: to put up money like they do for the US Senate,
Speaker 2: for the US Congress, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Well, you touched on the other reason here, Zora Mamdanni Doar,
Speaker 4: Liza Chevlee, you're gonna have on and these other Democrats socialists,
Speaker 4: especially the ones like Mom Donnie, received massive amounts of
Speaker 4: money from foreign donors.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, is illegal.
Speaker 4: You're not allowed as a foreign entity to donate to
Speaker 4: an American political campaign. But they found ways around it.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of evidence of this, and I've never
Speaker 4: heard of a Latino candidate running in any office getting
Speaker 4: money from back home, from a significant donor back home.
Speaker 1: What never happened.
Speaker 3: Listen, let me tell you.
Speaker 2: I if that, if what you're saying is true, because
Speaker 2: you're saying.
Speaker 3: It, I could believe it, then people should be in jail.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Has anyone gone to jail?
Speaker 1: No, it's Godami gone to jail. No, it's not gonna
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be very difficult. But this is the
Speaker 1: same way that this Abdul Rahman El say it has.
Speaker 4: Won the amount of money that came to him from
Speaker 4: foreign connected money. You know, something you need to understand
Speaker 4: is even when the price of oil is low, and
Speaker 4: it's not you know, it's actually not very high right now,
Speaker 4: it's sort of a middling price. The cash flow, the
Speaker 4: daily cash flow of dollars going into the oil trade
Speaker 4: is overwhelming. In other words, they're never actually going to
Speaker 4: be able to say, well, I can't give you money today.
Speaker 1: They'll always be able to give you money.
Speaker 4: And even at the height of the Cold War, Fernando,
Speaker 4: our biggest enemy, the Soviet Union, didn't have that kind
Speaker 4: of cash flow, which is why they never interfered in
Speaker 4: our elections in the way that these guys are doing it.
Speaker 3: Listen, I have to say something.
Speaker 2: I started my campaign very late in the game because
Speaker 2: although I didn't know John Katz and Matias as well
Speaker 2: as I know him today, I always saw him as
Speaker 2: an honorable person, as probably one of the best people
Speaker 2: that would actually run the city. And he was undecided
Speaker 2: until like January of twenty twenty or twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: He was undecided, and I said, listen, I'm not jumping
Speaker 2: in the race if Katsa Matidiz is gonna run, because
Speaker 2: I want to support him, right, But he decided late
Speaker 2: in the game that he wasn't gonna run then the
Speaker 2: field open.
Speaker 3: I announced in March, and.
Speaker 2: After I announced, my good friend, who I thought was
Speaker 2: my friend, Curtis Leewa, started lying through his teeth about me, right,
Speaker 2: started accusing me of doing of wrongdoing, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: believe it.
Speaker 3: He's a rat, you know, Curtis Lee, what guys is
Speaker 3: a rat. He belongs in the subways.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why he lives most of the time
Speaker 2: in the subways, right, So he's one of those rats
Speaker 2: that you see running around the rails. You just have
Speaker 2: to put a little beanie on some of those rats
Speaker 2: so that they can say, oh, that's Curtis. They're running
Speaker 2: around right.
Speaker 4: But let me ask you a question, because we were
Speaker 4: just talking about this foreign funding. Who are the wealthiest
Speaker 4: people in the Dominican Republic, for example, who are the
Speaker 4: wealthiest people still living there they what's their business and
Speaker 4: what's their story?
Speaker 2: Listen front Jewel who just passed away. He owned all
Speaker 2: the sugar cane and he owned the people natural resources. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: then you have a few families there that are very wealthy.
Speaker 3: I met with a few of them.
Speaker 2: They invited me to go to the Dominican Republic during
Speaker 2: the primary.
Speaker 3: And you know what I said to them.
Speaker 2: I said, no, I can't go there because I can't
Speaker 2: go there unless I know I've won the primaries. And
Speaker 2: if I won, If I win the primaries, then we'll
Speaker 2: see what happens. Right, then we'll see what happens. But
Speaker 2: I lost the I lost in the primaries. And that's why,
Speaker 2: you know, Eric Adams became mayor and it was very
Speaker 2: unfortunate what happened to him during his four years. Because Eric,
Speaker 2: believe it or not, I've known for thirty years. I
Speaker 2: ran into him on Staten Island and handing out palm
Speaker 2: cards in the parade out there, and he came to
Speaker 2: hug me and we started talking. And as people pull
Speaker 2: them away and say, hey, Eric, you can't be seen
Speaker 2: next to Mattale.
Speaker 3: He's running.
Speaker 2: He might run against you, And Eric told them, yo, chill,
Speaker 2: that's my guy. That's my guy. If he wins the primary,
Speaker 2: we're going to have debates of substance, not debates of
Speaker 2: gossip and making up stories and lies in order to win.
Speaker 4: Let me just make one last point. We've had three
Speaker 4: mayors of New York City who were Jewish, A beam
Speaker 4: Ed Koch and Mike Bloomberg. It should be noted that
Speaker 4: none of them, at any time and when they were
Speaker 4: running for mayor ever presented themselves as an advocate for
Speaker 4: or a spokesman for the Jewish community in New York City.
Speaker 4: That is a very important part of the messaging. First
Speaker 4: of all, they weren't lying, not they weren't enemies of
Speaker 4: the Jewish community by any means, but they really weren't
Speaker 4: there to be advocates for Jews in New York. They
Speaker 4: never were, and so they were telling the truth about that.
Speaker 4: So if a Latino is going to win for in
Speaker 4: a mayor's election, they're gonna have to follow that same
Speaker 4: pattern and basically say, listen, of course I'm concerned about
Speaker 4: my own Latino community, but that's not why, primarily why
Speaker 4: I'm running.
Speaker 1: That has to be part of the messaging.
Speaker 4: Very important to do that because otherwise it's gonna fall
Speaker 4: into the same, the same kind of quicksand as we've seen.
Speaker 2: Before, Listen, Zoramondami ran a brilliant campaign. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: take anything away from that. He organized man, he spoke well,
Speaker 2: he delivered the message. He's very sharp, He's got sharp
Speaker 2: people around him deliver hammering the same message over and
Speaker 2: over and over in his mind, and that's what makes him.
Speaker 3: So so good and so likable.
Speaker 1: Not gonna disagree with you, Listen, it's the money. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you. For example, in my.
Speaker 4: Gym's I'm not gonna disagree with you, but the money
Speaker 4: was overwhelming. The Zora and Mamdanni marcials that ran twenty
Speaker 4: four to seven on the local television stations here in
Speaker 4: New York make no sense based on his balance sheet
Speaker 4: of his campaign, there was a tremendous amount of money
Speaker 4: that has not been accounted for. I'm telling you, just
Speaker 4: working out of my gym every day before the election,
Speaker 4: I saw in the you know I work out usually
Speaker 4: an hour and a half. I saw at least eight
Speaker 4: nine or ten z'm'm Donny commercials on the screens every time.
Speaker 2: Jake, if he did wrong, he should be investigated. Where's
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, you know that's the bottom line line. But listen,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go to a commercial. And before we go
Speaker 2: to commercial, I want to tell you, I don't know
Speaker 2: what it is with you.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: It's like you want to look like me now you
Speaker 2: cut all your hair off.
Speaker 1: None I've always had.
Speaker 2: Now you cut all your hair off, your beard is
Speaker 2: growing out, You're looking good.
Speaker 3: You know. Hey, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not gonna be running as a Latino candidate.
Speaker 1: Don't worry.
Speaker 3: Let's go for a commercial break.