Jim Walden Interview Transcript

A transcript of The New York Editorial Board's interview with mayoral candidate Jim Walden.

Jim Walden, an attorney and a candidate in the 2025 general election for Mayor, spoke with The New York Editorial Board on the morning of February 13, 2025. (photo by Juan Manuel Benítez)

Participating journalists: Juan Manuel Benítez, Christina Greer, Alyssa Katz, Ben Max, Akash Mehta, Harry Siegel, Ben Smith, Liena Zagare.

Full Transcript

Reaction to Eric Adams DOJ announcement / Trump Administration

Juan Manuel Benítez
Let’s start by getting your reaction to the latest news in the city and in Washington, DC: The Justice Department telling the Southern District to drop the charges right now, for now. Mayor Adams says he’s innocent, and that the verdict he wanted. Now he’s running for re-election. We don’t know if he’s going to run as a Democrat, as a Republican. If you can give us an initial reaction of what you think that decision by the DOJ means for Eric Adams and for New York City?

Jim Walden
I think he’s fatally compromised, and I think it makes him unelectable. And every single time there’s a dispute now between him and Washington, he’s under the thumb of the administration, and those charges can be revived at any time. I’ve been either in or alongside the Justice Department for 30 years. I’ve never seen anything like this, so I think it brings disrepute on everyone. I think it’s terrible for our government. Guess I can leave it there.

Ben Smith
If you’re mayor today, they withdrew money out of city accounts yesterday, announced a lawsuit against Hochul yesterday. How do you react? What do you do?

Jim Walden
I’m sorry, so—

Ben Smith
So you’re mayor today. Yesterday the federal government withdrew tens of millions of dollars from city accounts and announced a lawsuit against Kathy Hochul — how do you respond?

Jim Walden
So I sue to get the money back. Obviously, that’s a complicated issue, and I understand the mayor is look at having his Corporation Counsel look at legal remedies, but I just can’t imagine him pulling the trigger on that, or anyone having confidence in an aggressive litigation with this issue hanging over his head. So I think at this point, what the city really needs is core competence in government that tries to have a standard of excellence and is willing to fight where necessary, and that they trust that those fights are actually intended for the public good and not as a talking point. And that’s what that threat seemed to me to be, was just a political talking point.

Alyssa Katz
So what would you do? And, that’s the question, right? You’re mayor. Now, if the Trump administration does something, who knows what’s coming next, tries to pull money out of a Citibank account, tries any number of things, what is your response? You can litigate, but we can’t necessarily trust that that will immediately remedy the problem. What do you do politically? Not just in the courts.

Jim Walden
Well, when you say, ‘What do you do politically?’ Obviously you announce what you’re going to do, and then you do it. And so when the federal government does something to the city, there’s not a whole lot that the city government can do to stop the federal government other than go to court. So that’s why a credible threat of litigation is important, and getting a temporary restraining order is important. But the problem with a temporary restraining order is due to some problem that has not been explained yet, the money was sitting in accounts and not distributed. So how can you even prove irreparable harm? That money should have been allocated and sent out. That was the problem. That’s why we’re dealing with this problem, because the city didn’t do its job to get the money where the money was needed, and it was sitting in an account, not used, and the federal government took it. So you’re asking me what I would do with bad options. The only option that I can conceive of, given the fact that they have the power to do it, is to stop that power. But the way that they mismanage this makes getting immediate relief very difficult.

Building Name Recognition

Christina Greer
Thanks for coming. You’ve got very little name recognition, and I looked it up, you don’t have Bloomberg money. How do you plan on getting your name out there and getting your message out there in a really short window? Even if you do run as an independent, we know that the general election is in November, so how do you plan on getting your name and your message to New Yorkers?

Jim Walden
A ground game and good earned media and some paid media where it’s necessary. Those are the three ways that other candidates have done it in the past. I’m not the first candidate to run for mayor that had a name recognition issue. Many of the candidates that are in the race and have citywide offices have little name recognition in lots of areas so this is not an impenetrable problem. If you look up Mayor Bloomberg, when he first ran everybody gave him zero chance of winning — said he had a name recognition problem outside of the business community in Manhattan, and that was true. He had a lot of money to get his name out there. I’ll be fully funded, and I’ll follow the strategy. Ground game to make sure that I visit and get out to as many voters as possible; earned media based on my innovative policies and what I plan to do to be a steward for the city, and some amount of paid media as well.

Christina Greer
Bloomberg also had, like, $60 million on the books, $100 million off the books to get his name out there. How much money do you plan on investing in getting into your name?

Jim Walden
I already put half a million dollars into the race, and I don’t plan to do more. I’m going to participate in the matching program and obviously I’ve got to repay that loan pursuant to CFB rules. But Bloomberg literally almost lost. He was polling so far behind Mark Green until 9/11, and 9/11 catapulted him. If you look this up, the Washington Post did a retrospective in 2020 where it reminded us that Bloomberg’s mother thought that he was going to lose. John McCain prevailed on Rudy Giuliani to call Bloomberg to a meeting when he first declared and tried to convince him not to run because he was going to lose. So I’m not the first person with this problem, and what people don’t often dial into is that outsiders win a lot, and honestly, right now, we need an outsider. Nobody trusts the political parties that we have, and the third-party alternative at this moment in time is probably the most important thing that New Yorkers can choose.

Policy Learning Curve

Ben Max
Hi. I’ve been watching some, not all, of the candidate forums. I’ve seen you at a few, it seems like you’ve even acknowledged at some that you have a big learning curve on some of the policies, the ins-and-outs of the government stuff. You’ve obviously had a legal practice that has included cases relevant to government, but there’s clearly a learning curve. I heard you at the transit forum saying you were googling things the night before; maybe it was about Fair Fares or something else, reading up on things; the housing court issue that came up at a housing forum about there being housing courts in different boroughs. So just say a little bit about your assessment of your own learning curve, about the ins-and-outs of the government. We obviously have a variety of candidates in the field that are in government, have been in government a while, or were in government for a long time. I hear your case against them, about being an outsider, but in terms of your learning curve, about the ins-and-outs of some of the policies that you’re dealing with, the government, the budgets, assess your own learning curve and your preparation for running this campaign and being mayor.

Jim Walden
So I think as a student of policy, as a believer in facts, I’ve been on a learning curve my entire life. I’ll never stop learning. So in terms of assessing it, there are lots of things that I now understand at a granular level and there are other things that I’m still learning about, and that’s a daily exercise. Given the fact that it’s literally one of the largest municipal, probably the largest municipal job in the country, I assume that that learning curve is going to continue and I hope it does continue when I’m mayor, because I think that people make mistakes by putting their heels firmly in the ground without data, policy, understanding, and listening to people. So I can’t really assess where I am on the learning curve, it would be an issue by issue—

Ben Max
What are some of the things that you feel maybe the strongest on, and some of the things you feel weakest on? Do you know the ins-and-outs of the city budget? Do you know housing policy well? What are a few of the things you would say are your strengths and some of the things you’re really trying to get up to speed?

Jim Walden
So I’ll start with the weaknesses, because everyone would probably start with the strengths and I hate that. On the budgeting process, that is definitely something I’m at the initial stages of. Over the course the last couple weeks, I’ve tried to get into the weeds of and convene a subcommittee to help me understand some of the places that the city budget doesn’t make sense, starting with these mayor’s offices, not all of which are transparent and what they do and why there’s so much redundancy even within City Hall. So I would say that that learning curve, I’m not as far along as I am on something such as safety or housing. I would say, probably on education, I have a lot to learn there as well. I’ve been meeting with education experts from different perspectives and trying to get the lay of the land and understand at an initial level why so much of the dollars that are spent are spent on administration, not on direct money to kids in schools. And why there seems to be both a decline in enrollment and an over-capacity of schools, and what it will take to rationalize that. Did that answer your question?

Ben Max
Mostly, yeah. I can come back to some follow-ups, but it’s a perfect segue to Liena.

Education, Mayoral Control of City Schools

Liena Zagare
Your platform does not include a word about education so far, is that correct?

Jim Walden
I’m not sure what you say when you mean my platform. I have a platform that’s called ‘the centrist platform,’ and it does speak to education. Certainly, there’s more than I need to build out in terms of the topics that I just talked to Ben about.

Liena Zagare
OK. Well, it is the largest department that the mayor is directly responsible for. So would you mind telling us how you think about education? And what would you say to the kindergarteners that are starting school this fall, and by the time your first term would be over, would be in third grade, which is where half the city’s kids don’t read at grade level, and the third grade is known to be a very important predictor of how well the child will do later on.

Jim Walden
OK, I apologize, you asked, I think, three questions, and I want to make sure that I answer all three questions. I’m going to start with what you just said about the kindergartners but then we’ll have to go back to the earlier one. With respect to what I would say to kindergarteners and what I would say about the initial stages of learning, I appreciated that Mayor Adams was focusing on phonics. I definitely believe that the earlier a kid can learn to read than they can read to learn, and that is a place where New York City has traditionally fallen down. I’m looking at ways that we can take what was proposed and enhance it. There are a lot of private sector programs that have a great track record of increasing learning speeds and the quality of the education at very young ages. And I think that one of the things that I’d like to do is study that more and figure out how we can use those private sector alternatives to create better outcomes for kids.

Ben Smith
Do you have something specific in mind there?

Jim Walden
You mean, do I have a specific company that I’m—

Ben Smith
Your private sector—

Jim Walden
No, no. Just in the course of reading about why the administration under [Chancellor David] Banks was focusing on education and learning about his focus on phonics, I started reading as much as I could about it and saw data from private companies that have phonics programs that seemed very successful.

Liena Zagare
It just seems that this issue is an entrenched one. Everybody tries to do something, and yet the kids are stuck in the 45, under 50% of reading at grade level.

Jim Walden
I agree, and what I can say is that in terms of the qualities of a mayor, it seems to me that the key quality that everybody seems to just kind of glide over is actually solving problems. And I think in terms of what we need in the next four to eight years is someone who actually will get people in the job that have the goal of solving the problems. And, the education department has been historically mismanaged. I’ve seen that myself when it comes to enforcement of rules against bullying, when we had what were starting to be really alarming trends in child suicides. All I can say to you is that I want to pick a person to lead the education department who’s an expert. I’m suspicious of mayoral control. Every single mayor wants to control the schools, and it’s this carrot that Albany keeps hanging over heads and as an outsider, I think to myself, “Why? Why do we have to have a choice between the mayor controlling it, with mayors that do a bad job of actually getting outcomes for kids, as opposed to Albany controlling?” And I think about having a board that is apolitical and runs the school district as a board of managers that transcend mayoral administrations so we’re not constantly shifting priorities and creating a lot of dislocation in schools as priorities change from mayor to mayor. It really should be about providing fundamentally good education efficiently to kids.

Alyssa Katz
I believe that the state law is that if mayoral control lapses, the power does revert to a board of exactly the kind that you’re describing. That’s been the historical norm.

Christina Greer
As a quick follow-up, did you talk to education experts, who are some of those education experts you spoke to?

Jim Walden
I have a policy council that I’ve promised that I would not disclose their names unless they agreed. So there are some people that are public and some people that are not, and the folks that I’m talking to on education are not in the public domain.

Christina Greer
Who is in the public domain?

Jim Walden
The guy that’s running the policy council at this point is named Bob Mascali. He was the deputy commissioner for, I think, homeless services from 1999 to 2002. And there are a number of people that you’ve seen on my policy documents that are part of the policy council. There’s Alan Vinegrad, who’s the former U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, who’s helping me on criminal justice issues. I actually don’t want to say at this moment. I can get back to you when this is done. I don’t want to say a name and then realize that I forgot that the person wasn’t public, but I can certainly give you a list of the people that are public at this point.

Juan Manuel Benítez
But it seems to me that you don’t really have a plan for education in the city, and that you’re going to give a lot of responsibility to whoever you pick as schools chancellor. Do you have a name for that position since you’re going to rely on that person so much?

Jim Walden
When you say I don’t have a plan for education—

Juan Manuel Benítez
Do you?

Jim Walden
I have not issued a plan — I mean, I’m sure you’ve looked at my website, I have not issued an education plan. I’ve got certain priorities that I’ve focused on, and I’m going to enhance those as the campaign goes along. But if you’re asking me if I have an education plan today that I’ve released, the answer is no. But there are priorities that are important to me, like getting more money to the actual kids as opposed to paying roughly 40% of the spend on administrative costs.

Ben Max
I’m struck by this idea that you want to be a no-nonsense manager, focused on ‘Mayors don’t focus on getting things done,’ and now you’re here saying, ‘I actually don’t want to run the Education Department. I want to hand it off to an apolitical body, a board.’ Can you square that? I mean, I heard you say, ‘I don’t want it to be this political football with Albany.’ But you’re also saying ‘I don’t actually want to be in charge of the school system.’

Jim Walden
I didn’t say that I don’t want to be in charge of the school system. I’m saying that the choice that we have right now under the law is, this board that didn’t work before mayoral control, and mayoral control. All I know about the prior board is that it was a mess, and the outcomes there were even worse. And so my point was simply that I don’t tend to look at things from a false choice perspective. I would trust a board of education experts who are accountable more than I would trust some of the mayors that we’ve had to actually run the education department. While mayoral control exists, I will be actively involved in making sure that schools are well run, that they’re efficient, that they’re great outcomes for kids, and that we direct the money where we need to to make sure that, especially in early years, kids get better outcomes with better policies.

Ben Max
But meanwhile you’d ask Albany to change the law to take your power away?

Jim Walden
I didn’t say that. I said that I don’t believe in false choices between the two. The law is the law. That’s a law that was passed in Albany. I’m only saying to you that I think the education system in New York City, given its size and scope and importance, would be better run by a board of education experts that were apolitical and transcended mayoral administrations. This is not the first time that somebody’s advocating such an important job being removed from the political system and administered by an accountable board of experts. And that’s what you’re going to see through all of my policies, which is being mayor of the city of New York is not a one man or one woman job. It’s a job made up of an entire cabinet of people. And those people, I want to make sure that they are experts in their field and that they run with excellence based on priorities that are clear. With education, because it’s one of these things where it’s so important to kids and there’s so much data on what works and what doesn’t work, I think a better system would be it being run by a board of education experts, not the vicissitudes of the political process and some mayors that are not well equipped to really drill into the issues and solve problems for kids.

City Contracting

Alyssa Katz
I want to go back to what you were saying before about the federal emergency shelter funding sitting there in a bank account not getting spent. We have had for a long time now, and not just under this Mayor, some major issues with procurement and payments going to contractors who shoulder a huge portion of the city’s work at this point. We’ve also seen, we’ve seen a couple of issues. One is that the funds are really slow to go out, to the point where nonprofits and other groups providing services are taking out massive loans and sometimes shutting down. It’s an ongoing crisis the mayor has promised to resolve and failed to resolve. And at the same time, the very same, this current administration has had a terrible problem with issues in procurement. I won’t say; I will say corruption. No charge has been brought by against anyone who’s been handling these programs. And at the same time, they’re major issues that we as journalists are continuing to uncover about how procurement has happened. So I wanted to get a sense from you of how you reconcile these two items that are in tension. There is the problem of money not going out the door to provide the services, and there is also the very real problem of corruption, mismanagement, waste, fraud, cronyism, a whole bunch of things that are in play.

Jim Walden
So what you just unpacked is a complicated set of issues that are dealt with by several different agencies. And I know for sure that people that are trying to get contracts with the city are hugely frustrated with the delays, and oftentimes people have to, and I just talked to a huge service provider about this issue. They start providing services, they still don’t have a contract approved yet, so they’re paying services, they’re going out of pocket, and they don’t have money to pay. So one of the things that I’m exploring is the creation of horizontal agencies to try to streamline some of these problems. And I’m aware of the fact that it’s not just Mayor Adams, but it’s other mayors that have promised to solve the problem and then not solved the problem. So there’s really kind of two issues that you’ve articulated, the review and vetting of a contract before it’s signed, and then an audit function to try to find fraud after the fact.

Alyssa Katz
I would say, there’s a third issue right? Because you have contracts that have long been signed and in place and renewed, and the payments do not come through in a timely way.

Jim Walden
We’ll break it down then. There’s the vetting of the contract before it’s signed, the payment of the contracts while the contract is in place, and at the end of the day, there is a review function that tries to identify fraud, waste and mismanagement. Those are very complicated issues. On the payments issue, and ‘How to speed the payments?’ I’m not familiar with the problems and processes that hold up payments. So unlike other people, I’m not going to make up answers that sound political. I’m just going to tell you I don’t know that process yet. With respect to vetting, I believe there is a way, and there has been a plan articulated that hasn’t been implemented to try to reduce that time and just put a time limit on it because right now, one of the problems is there’s no time limit on the city. There’s a time limit on the Comptroller ultimately registering the contract, but there’s not a time limit on the city. And I think that if you looked at the flowchart, and I haven’t seen the flowchart, it’s only been described to me, of the way in which a contract flows through the city from its initial negotiation where it’s a final document subject to review, it criss-crosses so many different agencies, none of which have a timeline, and that’s obviously a terrible process.

So I would commit to fixing that process. I wouldn’t just say it and then not do it. On the corruption side, obviously this is an incredibly important issue to me. Back to Ben’s question, some of the spend in the city, and how much money that we seem to be wasting and not accounting for, I’m super concerned about this. I’m concerned about it just from the perspective of, we’ve got budget deficits that are projected for what the next three to five years that are getting increasingly large. So we have to clamp down on that. And the identification of fraud is going to be one of the reasons that I articulated the vision for a city-wide Department of Public Integrity, and they would certainly be looking at that as one of the issues.

Ben Smith
Do you like how Elon Musk is doing it on the federal level?

Jim Walden
No. Did you seriously think I would answer that question “yes”?

Ben Smith
I didn’t know. That’s why you ask questions.

Housing / Congestion Pricing / Climate / Bike Lanes / YIMBY-NIMBY

Akash Mehta
You mentioned housing as a policy strength, and you have opposed the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning reforms, saying that they barely make a dent in the housing shortage, even as they unfairly push the burden onto outer boroughs. And you say that you have an alternate approach that would create over 50,000 units a year. But you don’t say how you would do that, and your website has said that “my plan is coming this week” for over two months. So how will you create 10 times as much housing as “The City of Yes” while simultaneously imposing less of a burden on outer boroughs?

Jim Walden
Just to be clear, you’re totally right. I said that housing plan was going to come out, and it hasn’t come out yet. I’m continuing to work on it alongside the other things that I’m doing, but I would say that there are lots of different tools in the toolbox in order to create those units. And from day one, one of the problems is the warehousing of rent-stabilized and public-housing units because there’s not enough money for landlords to bring them up to code after long-term residents leave. By the most conservative estimate I found, there were 25,000 units being warehoused in the rent-stabilized system and 5,000 in NYCHA, because when people leave they can’t bring it up to code. So those are 30,000 units that should be brought online, and in the first term I certainly would make that a priority.

Another one of my priorities is an idea that has been talked about several times, attempted twice and failed, and now is being done in the Elliott-Chelsea Houses in a way that I think is a good step in the right direction, but not bold enough. That is reimagining NYCHA properties and returning them to city blocks with the consent of NYCHA communities that want new apartments, and the largest delay in my housing plan is to really make sure that we can get the numbers right. If, for example — and again as someone that’s represented the NYCHA community, this is super important to me, because I know that the reason that the NYCHA community has been so suspicious of programs like infill or whatever the name of the week is, that they’re concerned about dislocation, and they’re concerned about having to move out of their building into temporary housing that is much worse and does not provide what their families need. And the Build First program and the Elliott-Chelsea Houses is a very good model where they build the [new] building first and then, other than a small building where they had to relocate people in order to make the repairs because they weren’t tearing down that building, the first building is built on the property and then people are moved from an existing building to the new building. So I would want to greatly expand that with a process that gives the NYCHA communities a voice in the process. I can unpack that if that’s helpful. There are other tools that I think we have in the toolbox that we haven’t used yet, but I don’t want to–

Alyssa Katz
I have one follow-up on rent-stabilized housing. The two tools that are currently in play to address the warehousing problem are, one, would be potentially having the Rent Guidelines Board allow [rent] raises that are more in line with landlords cost than they have been in recent history. And the other that we’ve talked about a lot is to provide grants or other kinds of financing to landlords — or maybe you have a different idea. How would you propose addressing that issue?

Jim Walden
The most important thing is getting the warehoused apartments back online, and first of all, accurately counting them. Because the estimates that I’ve seen range between 25,000 to 60,000 units. I have no idea, and I don’t know that anyone has an idea of, how many there are. I think the NYCHA number is pretty solid at 5,000. Again, It’s difficult for a political candidate to say, and I’ve been very vigilant about trying not to do this, ‘Well, we have to give free X, Y or Z,’ but getting those units back online would be a critical step forward. And so I support giving grants or some sort of financial benefit to landlords to bring all of those apartments online as fast as possible.

Juan Manuel Benítez
You said your priorities include safer streets, better mass transit, and making New York City more sustainable. Congestion Pricing is helping on those scores. We have car, truck travel time is down, transit ridership is up, foot traffic is up in the congestion zone and the revenue will support subway modernization and expansion. Would any evidence change your position on congestion pricing, and do you have some other plan to generate revenue for transit?

Jim Walden
I think my position on congestion pricing — it is pretty clear that I thought that this plan was a bad plan, and that if I were in charge I would have gone about it differently. And from my perspective, it’s a bad idea to use a stick when you can use a carrot. And there are lots of reasons that I believe that that’s a better approach to government. But at this time, to announce congestion pricing, after it’s been debated for 20 years, and the governor paused it largely for political reasons, [to] reduce the amount of money without a lot of study about the impacts, and certainly without any transparency at all, and then to resume it when we’re in the middle of a crisis in our subways, I thought was just a terrible use of government power. So I think that if you’re going to use congestion pricing — and I’m not saying I would never ever support a program like that — give drivers better alternatives first.

What better alternatives are there for drivers? Well, first of all, let’s make sure that the subways are safe because that’s something that we should be able to fix. It’s not easy to fix it, but among the places to keep safe because the subway is a closed environment, from a policing perspective, by definition, it is an easier place to keep safe, and we’re not doing that job. We’re in the middle of a bus rerouting program that is causing a lot of dislocation, and we have bus trips that are significantly delayed. So if I was going to have a congestion pricing plan, I would plan first and then execute second, and that’s not what happened here. I’ll give you a simple example. How many parking garages are there in the zone? Does that make sense that we’re supporting parking garages in the zone when we don’t want cars there? This has been in the works for 20 years. People have been talking about what a good idea this is. Put parking garages outside the zone that have electric charging facilities in them, and then give either no-cost or low-cost charging facilities, which we desperately need if we want to become a city of electric cars, which I think is a beautiful idea. I think that’s better urban planning. I think one of the things that rarely happens in this city is urban planning. And I don’t want to filibuster on this, but you can just take Hudson Yards as an example. Hudson Yards is built up. Gowanus is another example. How much urban planning was done before these enormous buildings were put up? There’s not even a firehouse that can serve Hudson Yards. They have to go to already strained firehouses that aren’t equipped. I’m sorry I deviated from congestion pricing, but I can get back to it.

Juan Manuel Benítez
But if President Trump effectively tries to kill congestion pricing in New York City, would you partner as mayor with him to kill the program?

Jim Walden
Yes. I would, and I’ve been pretty clear that I believe that there’s a better plan to get drivers out of their cars.

Juan Manuel Benítez
And what is that?

Jim Walden
It is to create incentives. It is—

Juan Manuel Benitez
But do you have a plan ready?

Jim Walden
This is the second time now you’ve asked me if there’s a plan.

Juan Manuel Benítez
I mean, you’re running for mayor. Voters would expect you to have a solid plan on all these issues.

Jim Walden
So let me articulate the plan. The plan is to have planning around creating incentives for drivers to get out of their cars. The plan is to move, assuming that congestion pricing’s goals were to reduce carbon emission and to reduce congestion, to give incentives to drivers to get out of their cars, by making sure the subways are safe, giving them financial incentives to be on the subway as opposed to bringing a car in, and recognizing that some people are going to drive anyway, and giving them incentives to transition from gas-burning cars to electric cars. So in terms of the plan, that’s the way that I would do it.

Juan Manuel Benítez
But if I may, congestion pricing’s number one goal was to generate revenue for the MTA. So do you have an alternative plan to generate that revenue that the MTA would be losing if you effectively kill congestion pricing?

Jim Walden
So the answer to that question is no, I don’t have a plan. And my understanding of the MTA benefits is that there’s an expectation that it will pay for something. But we just saw MTA ask for what, another $133 million — I’m sorry—

Ben Max
$33 billion.

Jim Walden
$33 billion, sorry. So I don’t know how much of the MTA budget this is going to fill, and the numbers seem to me like a goal post that keeps moving. So what I’d like to explore is a micro tax, a temporary, transparent micro tax on all transactions as one possible way. I’d like to look at other, what I would consider to be innovative taxing policies to supplement MTA’s budget. But at the end of the day, a lot of this money has to come from Albany, and New York City does a lot for this state and does a lot for the federal government, and we need the federal government’s help as well. People don’t remember this, but New York City is the city that returns more money to the federal government by a wide margin than it gets. In 42 other states, the balance is the other way. So we need to get Washington’s help on this. And I think that all of those different levers are a better lever than a plan that was, in my view, rushed and poorly planned and stuck on drivers without giving them the incentives to get out of their cars before we hit them with a stick.

Akash Mehta
Zooming out from congestion pricing a little bit, you say that you will get New York carbon neutral. It’s one of your five priorities. Could you tell us more about what that commitment entails? For instance, what year would you aim to achieve net zero emissions by, and what would it take to get there?

Jim Walden
So I don’t know If you’ve read the 2021 report that was a combination of the New York City Con Ed, National Grid, and Drexel University — that is a pretty comprehensive plan. The city’s policy is 80 by 50, a base of 80% reduction by 2050, but it already has a goal of net zero. I’m not aware of a city in the world that has actually achieved net zero at this point, but the three drivers are obviously buildings, waste, and transportation. The 2021 report only looks at road transportation and not the other forms of transportation. So there’s a pretty big gap in what other forms of transportation do on carbon, and how we can reduce them, but I agree with the goals of that report and I think that those goals need to be implemented and we need to do more, for example, to treat waste at inception. So there are now technologies that allow for essentially the conversion of food into reusable soil ingredients in someone’s house.

Those are things that I’m looking at as ways to try to get more of the waste out of our trash cans, which will have derivative benefits. Obviously, we’ve all known for years and years and years that roofs and streets can be imagined in ways that reflect rather than absorb, and that has a positive impact. And so in terms of your question, I think a blueprint is there and there are parts of it that I would like to accelerate if possible but I haven’t studied them to figure out whether or not it’s feasible, and neither has the city. The city has an accelerator program on converting buildings to non-carbon-burning alternatives for heat and electricity, but they don’t have all the answers either. So it’s certainly an evolving area and by the time I’m mayor, I’ll have a more detailed plan of what we can do more quickly to try to reduce carbon.

Akash Mehta
On housing and climate, you’ve come up with pretty specific goals of 50,000 units a year and getting New York to carbon neutrality. And in your answers to both of those things, I haven’t heard — Do you think that the policies that you laid out would get to 50,000 units a year, or would get to net neutrality? Like more incentives for cars. And I think the reason I’m asking is that a big part of your pitch seems to be that you oppose empty political promises and want to get down to the brass tacks, but I haven’t really heard policy commitments that add up to the pretty lofty goals you’ve set.

Jim Walden
And the question? What’s the question? I didn’t issue policy commitments where I don’t feel as though I can make an enforceable promise. This is a campaign. It’s obviously four months old. I’m working on these policy issues and trying to get policy commitments out as often as I can, and putting them in writing so people can see them. Where I haven’t put them in writing, I’m articulating goals that are based on information, studies, and data that I’ve read myself, and this is a continuing process. So as the campaign goes on, I will be issuing more policy commitments. I’m going to be doing it the exact same way that I’m doing it, which is on every topic where I feel as though I’m ready to make a commitment in writing, I’m putting it in writing. I think that’s a pretty good practice. So if your criticism is that I’m not doing enough of them or I haven’t done enough of them, I don’t know what to tell you other than, we’re getting them out as soon as they are ready, and I’m not going to issue an half-baked cake and then have to walk things back because I’ve made a promise that is not achievable.

Ben Smith
What I think he’s saying is that a net zero city is a wildly ambitious goal, an unbelievably ambitious goal that would entail essentially social and economic revolution, and I mean not in a violent way but vast social and economic changes to everyone’s life almost immediately. And it just doesn’t seem like the plans that you’re laying out, which are very incremental, add up to a city where all of our lives are vastly changed really fast, which is basically what a net zero city in any short timeline would entail. Is that a good interpretation of this?

Akash Mehta
Or housing progress ten times faster than what a relatively big housing plan is going to achieve.

Jim Walden
It sounds to me like you guys are making statements, not asking questions. I’m going to interpret it as a question.

Ben Smith
Yes, please do.

Jim Walden
So the net zero goal is already the city’s goal. So I’m not sure if that’s a criticism of me or it’s a criticism of the goal that already exists. The plan is 80 by 50. The goal is net zero. I believe in that goal.

Ben Smith
So you think that you get net zero by when?

Jim Walden
I don’t know the answer to that question. I really don’t know, and I’m not sure that anyone could give you a real answer to that question because are we actually tracking 80 by 50 right now? Does anybody know literally how much carbon has been reduced since the initial plans went into place? We don’t know. Right?

Juan Manuel Benítez
There’s publicly available data. The city puts out data on this.

Jim Walden
So if the city puts out data showing the amount of carbon reduction over the course of time, I haven’t seen it.

Ben Smith
Chrissy, do you want to ask something more tangible?

Christina Greer
So you’ve opposed expansion of bike lanes, and docking stations, in the past. So I’ll ask you a direct question: What is your vision for New York City when it comes to expanding bike lanes, programs like CitiBike, and even bringing in Razor scooters that have been successful in other major cities?

Jim Walden
I’m going to comment on the second part as opposed to the first part, because what I would like to do is rationalize bike lanes. Meaning, there are places where they’re heavily used, there are places where they’re not used. hardly at all. And I’d like to rationalize it in terms of putting it in places where I know that it will be used. And of course I think that whether that is an aggregate increase or decrease, it will expand and add bike lanes where they’re useful, and it may remove bike lanes where they’re not useful. In terms of Razor scooters, I haven’t thought about that issue at all so I can’t give you an intelligent answer on that.

Ben Smith
In your actual involvement in sort-of city policy, you fought the bike lanes in Park Slope, you represented people—

Jim Walden
I didn’t fight the bike lanes in Park Slope.

Ben Smith
You represented—

Jim Walden
No. Excuse me. I knew that— I fought the misuse of data in a bike lane. I had an expert. The expert believed the Department of Transportation manipulated data for a bike lane during an experimental period where the data showed that crashes and injuries went up by 20% and instead told the public that the experiment was a success and that crashes and injuries went down. That was the basis of the lawsuit. If that wasn’t true, there wouldn’t have been a lawsuit. It wasn’t about ULURP, or all of these other ways that people try to hang up projects that they don’t like in their backyards. I wouldn’t have done the case just to remove a bike lane. I did that case because I didn’t think the Department of Transportation should be lying to people about the safety of a bike lane.

Christina Greer
I think I have a correlation-causation conversation, because in so many communities where they don’t have enough bike lanes or enough docking stations, we see that they don’t use them. People aren’t comfortable using a bike without a bike lane. So if you’re saying you’re assessing the use of bike lanes and/or docking stations based on use, some of that use is largely because they don’t have bike lanes and docking stations, so how are you going to properly measure communities who don’t have it, who actually may use more bikes if they actually do have it?

Jim Walden
I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t have a plan to assess communities that want bike lanes but don’t have them other than talking to the community boards. If somebody’s done that sort of a study, I haven’t seen it.

Ben Smith
We’re about to get to Mayor Adams, I have one more bike question, which is, just to let you draw out the thing you were saying before. There is a critique right now, Ezra Klein has a big book out on this, that lawyers like you hang up projects by filing nuisance lawsuits, just across the board, in New York and California, that makes it impossible to build. I think you took the gist of my question accurately to say, are you basically a NIMBY lawyer who believes in hanging up, who doesn’t want to reform this system in which lawyers hang up projects all over the place? I guess I just wanted to give you an opportunity to answer that more fully. Do you think that these planning requirements that are a big reason that nothing gets built in New York and California — should they be reformed, or should communities and their lawyers retain the right to sue and hang up and delay projects around the city?

Jim Walden
So, you’ve asked three questions.

Ben Smith
OK, let me ask it simply. Do you sort-of associate yourself with this reform movement that calls itself YIMBYs, or do you consider them kind of a threat to local communities?

Jim Walden
So—

Ben Smith
Just that question.

Jim Walden
Just that question.

Ben Smith
Yeah.

Jim Walden
I think you are either misunderstanding or misapprehending the cases that I’ve done.

Ben Smith
So just answer that question.

Jim Walden
So ask the question again, because I’m so focused on the earlier—

Ben Smith
A big part of the urban planning conversation right now, this group calls themselves YIMBYs — you’re familiar with the term?

Jim Walden
“Yes in my backyard”? Yeah, NIMBY, YIMBY, I get it.

Ben Smith
And so I’m just curious, based on your record, you talk about—

Jim Walden
But hold on, slow down. You just said ‘based on your record,’ Ben. What are you talking about? Are you talking about my lawsuit to enforce bullying rules in school? Are you talking about my lawsuit to restore food stamps to 10,000 people that were–

Ben Smith
The bike lane lawsuit was the one we were just talking about.

Jim Walden
No, don’t — please don’t interrupt me. Please don’t interrupt me. What cases are you talking about? The bike lanes case, and what other cases?

Ben Smith
Let’s just stick with the bike lanes case.

Jim Walden
What other case would you characterize as a NIMBY case that I’ve done, other than the bike lanes case 15 years ago?

Ben Smith
I’m actually just asking you how you think about it, I’m not—

Jim Walden
I’m asking you a question. You just said based on my record, and I’m asking you, we’re on the record here, name one other case that I’ve done—

Ben Smith
That’s the only one I’ve got.

Jim Walden
So your question is, based on a case that I did 15 years ago, whether I consider myself a NIMBY lawyer — the answer is no.

Ben Smith
But I’m curious more broadly, how you think about that debate. Do you think that the case for that kind of reform is basically right, that there should be less legal process, less regulation around all sorts of urban projects, or do you think that’s a threat to communities? I mean, it’s just sort of legitimate debate and I’m asking you what side you’re on.

Jim Walden
I don’t know how to answer that question, other than we have laws in this country that need to be followed, and when government officials break them over projects that impact people and communities, I think that it’s critically important for people [to] have the right to sue their government. And so I’ve sued our government — whether it’s Democrat, Republican — over any number of issues, and I believe that’s a fundamental right and it’s very important and It should not be manipulated or misconstrued by interest groups that are upset that their project gets delayed. So that’s just as bad to me, if not worse, than telling a community that they don’t have the right to fight a project that hurts them. You may disagree that it hurts them, until it was in your community, and then suddenly you’d be a plaintiff. And I’ve seen that a thousand times. I’ve seen people that were screaming about the bike lanes case subsequently filing a lawsuit over something that was happening to them that they didn’t like.

Ben Smith
Right and I guess in some sense: Which of those is more annoying? Is it more annoying that they’re screaming about the bike lanes case, or more annoying they turn around and when it’s in their backyard they don’t like it? Where is your heart on that?

Jim Walden
I’ll tell you where my heart is right now, Ben, which is I find it deeply offensive that you would imply in your question that I’m a NIMBY lawyer over one case from 15 years ago that completely misconstrues my record. That’s what annoys me.

Ben Smith
If you’re going to run for mayor, you’ve gotta not be that upset about an occasional provocative question. But anyway, Harry over to you.

Jim Walden
I do appreciate the questions, but you’re a big boy–

Ben Max
This feels like an argument for you to avoid the question, actually. Because when we look at your position on City of Yes, for example, you’re talking about pushing burden onto outer boroughs, which the zoning reform doesn’t really do, and it’s sort of in the air of a lot of your candidacy and your position. So instead of just staying offended on the characterization of your career, which again, you’ve had a long legal career so understandable that you want to defend your record. But this broader question, it again seems like you’re not really answering, is about the vision for the city: Growth, abundance is the term of art of the day — the title of the book Ben [Smith]’s talking about — a more connected bike infrastructure; because the advocates would say you have to actually connect all the bike lanes, you can’t just say, ‘oh, these communities will have them and then we won’t have them here, because if it’s not all connected then people don’t feel safe. Do we need more abundant housing so that, and you’ve talked about wanting the private market to work better, there is growth in the city? Or, lots of evidence says, people can find all sorts of issues with environmental review laws and all sorts of things to file suit over and over again — Elizabeth Street Garden, you name the example — to muck up the works so that their communities don’t change. What’s your vision for the city in terms of growth and abundance — housing, bus lanes, bike lanes, all sorts of things? Are you more wanting to keep the city more as it is? Or do you have a vision for sort-of growth and change that you don’t want lots of process to get in the way of?

Jim Walden
That was a very expansive question so I’ll answer it this way. The city needs more people. It needs more businesses. It needs to be dynamic, and everything that the government can do to turn the spigot on, to make those things happen, makes the city better as long as the city is providing the services that keeps people safe and keeps people able to pay their bills. So my vision of the city as the mayor is to do everything I can to make the greatest number of people happy and to actually run the city with a standard of excellence, not mediocrity. Obviously housing is critically important, and obviously it’s really important that when my housing plan comes out that everyone flyspecks it and makes sure that what I’m saying I can deliver, and I believe that 100%. And more housing is imperative. Better affordability is imperative. We don’t have a plan for that. We have programs for that. And everyone’s talking about new programs and new spend without looking at why SNAP is not working, why Fair Fares is not working — looking at those programs and figuring out, are they wasting our money? Because we have all of these programs to give people services and benefits, and we still have an affordability crisis. As an outsider, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. So in terms of my vision of the city, and maybe this ties into at the end of the day what I hope people will say about me being the mayor, which is that I want to solve problems and I want to have a really well run city that has zero corruption, and I want to deliver the services that are necessary. And at this point, I think everyone would feel better with a period of stability where there was someone that was actually trying to fix problems, not just hold a press conference, that by the way, each of those things cost a hell of a lot of money, to pat ourselves on the back before we’ve ever even solved the problem. And as a taxpayer—

Ben Smith
Speaking of Eric, we’re about to segue to Eric Adams, and that was the perfect segue to Eric Adams.

Jim Walden
OK, sure, sure.

Adams Corruption Case, Broader Corruption Issues

Harry Siegel
So this is a conversation, not a deposition. I just want to put this out in an open-ended fashion. You’re in this crowded field with people running against a mayor with a lot of corruption concerns, and questions about how the city is being managed right now. There’s candidates talking about having the judge intervene shortly and introduce a special prosecutor. There’s talk about whether the governor, who said she doesn’t think it would be very democratic, should remove the mayor. There’s talk about the Attorney General investigating the apparent deal that may have been struck between the Trump administration and Eric Adams. And there’s talk about District Attorney Alvin Bragg maybe picking up this case. In the midst of all this, I saw you on twitter hitting at Zellnor Myrie, who’s also trying to get in the anti-corruption lane. Is there an intervention that you support right now from one of those sorts of parties or a thing that should happen? Should this just get decided in the course of the election? What does New York need, in your view, as a mayoral candidate and as an attorney and former prosecutor?

Jim Walden
So, I’m going to answer the question this way. If I were Alvin Bragg, I would certainly review the evidence in the case and decide whether or not I thought there were charges that were appropriate. I think that is an incredibly important use of his power. That is within his discretion, not mine, but I;m just answering it as if I were Alvin Bragg — I would have done that already. And I think that he has actually done it already in the sense of taking some of the corruption investigation and looking at whether or not there should be state charges, and one of the cases is a state charge. So I think that that’s totally appropriate. As a mayoral candidate, what I don’t like and what I disagree with are stunts. I just don’t like stunts in this area. This is a really important — this is an awful situation. And as a mayoral candidate, what I want to do is kind of lead people to the hope that steps around all of these issues. The mayor of New York cannot tell a federal judge to — I mean, especially without clearly disclosing that he’s a political opponent which was nowhere in Zellnor’s letter, which offended me — tell a federal judge to undo what happened with respect to the dismissal. If I was in DOJ, would I have issued that order? If President Trump asked me to call the Southern District and dismiss the charges? I’m going to tell you right now what I would have done. I would have resigned that minute.

Harry Siegel
Should Danielle [Sassoon] resign right now?

Jim Walden
I’m going to tell you what I would have done. I’m not here to tell other people what to do. I’m telling you what I would have done. I would have resigned — period, full stop. So now we’re stuck with a terrible situation. What do we do about it, right? Whether it’s me or someone else, we elect someone who is not going to do the same thing over and over again. Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Right? Let’s do it differently. So what do we need in the city? We need, whether it’s me in the mayor’s chair or someone else, we need an independent, apolitical corruption investigator that has prosecutors and cops working together to root out corruption in the city, period. That’s what we need. If people saw–

Ben Max
Like a Department of Investigation?

Jim Walden
The Department of Investigation, do you know how many prosecutors they have?

Ben Max
It’s relatively small.

Jim Walden
No, zero. They don’t do any prosecutions. They’re only investigators. They have to refer a case to another prosecution agency. We’ve got a Department of Special Narcotics that does what? How many different narcotics prosecutors do we have in the city? We’ve got prosecutors in the Department of Special Narcotics that really should be redeployed to an agency that has independence and power to prosecute corrupt officials. And the sign that I believe this is that I’m fine with them investigating me. I don’t care. I should be investigated. Everyone should be investigated. And if people had confidence that they were electing people that were — and I’m sorry for this because it’s going to sound inconsistent with our tiff just now — willing to be scrutinized on corruption, that would be a huge lift to people and have confidence in their government again.

And you guys, I assume you’re going to ask me, “Why am I doing this?” It’s not easy, trust me. This was not an easy decision at all. We’re at a time when people don’t trust any level of government. And we can talk about congestion pricing and YIMBY lawsuits all we want, but at the end of the day, if we don’t do something about this now, we’re not going in a good direction. We are not going in a good direction as a country, as a city, as a state, where people are fundamentally, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, distrustful of their government. I want people to trust their government again. And I may not have all the policies outlined and I may not have all the facts right, but I’ll tell you the one thing that I know for sure is that we can fix these systems, at least in New York City, so that they’re apolitical and so that people have confidence in them again.

Harry Siegel
Real quick, last thing here. You’re now running as an independent. The last mayor was investigated, nearly charged. He says the case against this mayor that DOJ is in the course of dropping, evidently, was flimsy. Is this a problem that is baked into Democratic Party leadership and having a one-party town, etcetera?

Jim Walden
Boy that’s a really good question. Let me answer it this way. When I don’t directly answer a question, I want to say I’m not going to directly answer the question but I’m going to admit that. It’s a problem of the two-party system. Yes, New York is heavily Democratic. We all saw that shift a lot, and if you actually looked at the voter data from even the first de Blasio administration, you’d see that there’s a lot of purple in the city. It’s just that that purple has grown, and that’s an indication that people are not crazy about the two-party system. And I think when you have an entrenched party, when you have, for example, a Democratic Party and local Democratic clubs that have a heavy say in who gets jobs in courts, in our city, that’s a bad thing. That is just a bad thing.

I’m a student of history, just kind of step back a little bit and think about all the mayors over the course of the last 50 years. It’s like, Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, independent or Republican, Democrat, Democrat, independent or Republican, and that’s the way it’s going. And I think that we’re in a cycle like that right now. So I do believe that the local Democratic Party is producing terrible candidates. I do believe that the campaign finance system is broken and needs to be fixed, and I do believe that there should be a period of time where there is someone who is not a Democrat who is looking over what has happened in the past 10 years, and in particular what’s happened in the last three, and getting rid of the corruption and the abuse and the waste and the patronage jobs and the programs that don’t do anything but spend a hell of a lot of money and redirecting that where people can have confidence that kids are getting better educations, people are having easier time getting the benefits that they need, we have fair processes for immigration, and a thoughtful way to respond to federal power in this area, and not the flip-flopping. If you literally looked at what Eric Adams said about any number of issues, including immigration, you know exactly where we are. He initially had one position. Now he has another position. He’s not the only person. The Democratic Party right now is producing terrible candidates, and we need a change. By the way, how many of you are Democrats? Will you say? Registered Democrats? How many of you are registered Democrats?

Ben Smith
For the purpose of primary voting, I think a lot of us.

Jim Walden
That’s okay. No, no. I was just curious. I was just wondering if this table represented the split of the city or something else, that’s all.

Ben Smith
I think a lot of people who care about the city, probably speaking for some people in this room, register as Democrats because the only elections that matter are Democratic primaries, without really feeling any party allegiance.

Jim Walden
That was going to be my point, which is, as I’m going across the city, this is the thing that I actually take a little bit of hope in, is that I think that there are a lot of people that are just centrists, and they identify as Republican or Democrat, mostly Democrat for the reasons that you state. But we owe it to people — and I’m not saying that I’m the perfect candidate, please don’t take this the wrong way — but we really owe it to people to come up with a system that has better candidates.

Juan Manuel Benítez
So will you support non-partisan elections? Michael Bloomberg tried…

Jim Walden
I know, I know. The truth of the matter is that I think it’s an interesting idea, and I just haven’t studied it enough, and I’m just not one of those people that’s gonna say, “Yes I am,” without having really looked at what the results are, and whether it’s a better result. But the idea of an open primary, when I first read about it, was super appealing to me. As someone that left the Democratic Party in 2006 and hasn’t been in any party since 2006 — very appealing to me.

Christina Greer
Based on this exchange here, I’m just curious, how would you describe your management style?

Jim Walden
Oh, you confused me with the question because how does that—

Christina Greer
This experience here, the last one hour we’ve been together, I’m just now curious. It’s not a question that I had, but I am now curious: How would you describe your management style?

Jim Walden
Hmm. Hands-on, collaborative. I like to give people running room to sometimes make mistakes and learn from those mistakes as a group — I think that’s a natural part of leading an organization. I think my management style is hands-on but not micromanaging. Does that answer your question well enough?

Christina Greer
[Nods]

Jim Walden
OK. I was only confused, and I just want to make sure I answer your question, with what that had to do with the conversation, that’s the part I didn’t connect to.

Christina Greer
I don’t know you. We’ve been together for an hour. You’ve sort of had some energy, so I was curious as to how you would describe your management style.

Jim Walden
Oh, OK got it. Thank you.

Alyssa Katz
I want to follow up on what you said about the campaign finance system needing reform. And just for people listening or reading this transcript of our conversation, just to review, a couple of salient points. One is that the indictment of Eric Adams says essentially that he was involved in ripping off a system for $10 million, which is the amount of matching funds that he got. We’ve also seen a candidate for comptroller also be subject to federal prosecution charges, in his case dismissed, in connection with a matching funds scheme involving straw donors as well, and it goes down the line. So when you’re talking about systemic issues, we’re talking about those cases, and other cases for city council and so on, where we’ve seen people abusing the system. So I’m wondering what your thoughts are about how to fix the system? And clearly this will require city charter reform as well. You can call a commission and someone, but ultimately, you need the voters of New York City to be voting for this reform when everyone in the political system already benefits from this large amount of public financing that got them in office in the first place.

Jim Walden
So as a general matter, I wish that there was a way that we could have campaigns that were really just based on ideas and not salesmanship, and that it was substantive. That’s the part of this process that I’ve hated the most. I’m just being frank with you. The fact that so much of a candidate’s time has to be involved in raising money at all, just to me, is a broken way to do it. It would be a much better way if there was a way to fund elections publicly. Everyone got the same amount of money. There were certain qualifications that someone needed to show before they could even run for office. And there were guardrails where, if you had certain things, like a felony conviction, you couldn’t run for office. That, to me, would be a better system, and it would be a better system if it was a level playing field where candidates could spend the time doing what you’re very right to point out, which is that my housing plan is delayed, and I don’t have a plan for this, that, or the other thing.

Christina Greer
Do you think people with felony convictions should not be able to run for mayor?

Jim Walden
I do. I do. I think that a felony conviction should be a disqualification for holding elected office in our country. Period.

Alyssa Katz
And just to clarify what you’re saying about the existing campaign finance program, which, of course, for years and at the time of its creation amidst corruption crisis then, it’s considered the gold standard of systems, and clearly needs some repair now given what we’re seeing happen, so what would your repair plan be?

Jim Walden
I don’t have a repair plan for this.

Alyssa Katz
The word plan is dangerous here. “Concepts”…

Jim Walden
Ouch, but that’s a fair point. All I can say is having experienced it as a candidate, I see a million different ways that the system can be gamed, and I wish that we were imaginative and innovative enough to think about a public financing system that was like the way that France did it where there’s a certain amount of money, every candidate has a certain budget. It’s paid for through some public, private endowment of a not for profit or with city funds or state funds or some combination thereof. And the fundraising piece was taken out of it. That’s the way to solve the problem, is to take fundraising out of it. And there’s a ton of conflicts that occur that we see because it’s just not the black and white stuff — there’s a lot of grey in there. And we have a poorly funded Campaign Finance Board and frankly, Board of Elections that is highly partisan, and not so much the CFB but DOE. So in my perfect view, in my world view, we would have publicly funded finance campaigns that were relatively low-dollar and relied a lot on debates and people focusing on policy and getting policy positions out there and talking about things like management style and having those things matter more than the splashy commercial that someone puts on whatever TV station.

One Big Idea / Rank the Democratic Candidates / Rank the Mayors

Akash Mehta
If you could get the entire mayoral field to adopt one policy commitment, what would it be?

Jim Walden
Wow, that’s a good one. Getting more cops on the street. I think everybody has seen that one of the things that I think is a terrible thing is that we have people in this race that called for defunding the police. We have people in this race that called for stripping police of qualified immunity, while at the same time we had a mayor that had canceled two recruiting classes, and we don’t have enough cops and 25% of them are looking to leave the department. So have we built a sustainable system where we can actually keep a police force that’s well trained and does the important things we need them to do day-to-day? Because we still can. One of the things that drives me crazy is that there are acts of heroism that occur in the city every single day in every single borough, and those aren’t celebrated yet we attack cops every time we can. So if I had one policy that I could get people behind, it would be to advocate for smart police reform because there’s things that we could be doing that we’re not, but to commit to get more cops on the streets and in communities, and on subways so that people don’t just feel safe, people actually are safe.

Ben Smith
Good segue for a final question.

Jim Walden
How long has this been going by the way?

Ben Smith
We’re just about out of time.

Jim Walden
I have more time if you need.

Liena Zagare
So, I know you said you haven’t been a Democrat since 2006, and you’ve been on a lot of candidate forums with your opponents in this race. If you were a Democrat, how would you rank them in your—

Jim Walden
My ranked-choice voting?

Liena Zagare
Your ranked-choice voting.

Jim Walden
What a fun question. I’ll stay longer if there’s more fun questions. I hadn’t thought about that at all, so I need to give it a little bit of thought. Can I answer it this way? If Zellnor Myrie repudiated his plan to strip cops of qualified immunity, he would be my number one I think. I think that he would be my number one. He’s really young, but he’s really bright and I think that he could be a good leader. Honestly, I wish that he ran 10 years from now as opposed to now, and I don’t know how you guys feel, but I always distrust that, it’s the young-man-in-a-hurry syndrome. I’ve seen it a million times, frankly. When I was younger than him, I was the young man in a hurry and just tried to focus on that and disabuse myself of that, and focus on doing a job day-to-day, as opposed to some ambition that I wanted. But I would think I would put him first. In terms of after that, oh boy that’s a good question — you want me to rank three?

Liena Zagare
Yes. I mean you get five, but—

Jim Walden
OK.

Ben Max
You can include Andrew Cuomo if you’d like.

Jim Walden
No, thank you. So I would probably say Scott Stringer, and Jessica Ramos. By the way, I read her interview, and I thought her answers were really thoughtful. I honestly thought that she answered you guys more directly without all this political nonsense. So I appreciated that.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Political nonsense from?

Jim Walden
I didn’t give you a 10-minute speech. When I started this, I tried to answer your questions directly and tell you when I did or didn’t know something, without giving you very sophisticated, smart people, without giving you political bullshit, frankly. So some of – at least two of the candidates did that in my humble estimation.

Ben Smith
Thank you.

Ben Max
We’ve gotta rank the last five mayors, no?

Ben Smith
Oh, sorry, while we’re ranking things, last question: How would you rank the mayors of our lifetime?

Ben Max
Best to worst, last five mayors.

Ben Smith
Our shared Gen-X lifetime.

Jim Walden
Bloomberg, number one. I wasn’t that dialed into city politics during Dinkins, so that one’s a little bit hard for me. I mean I have soft and wistful feelings for him as a leader, but I wasn’t really super dialed into his policies, so I’m just going to rank four. So I would say Bloomberg, Giuliani, de Blasio, Adams from best to worst.

Ben Smith
Well, thank you for taking the time.

Jim Walden
Thank you.