Michael Blake Interview Transcript

A transcript of The New York Editorial Board's interview with mayoral candidate Michael Blake.

Michael Blake, a former New York State Assembly member and a candidate in the June 2025 Democratic primary for Mayor, spoke with The New York Editorial Board on the morning of April 3, 2025. (photo by Juan Manuel Benítez)

Participating journalists: Juan Manuel Benítez, Christina Greer, Ben Max, Akash Mehta, Harry Siegel.

Full Transcript

Eric Adams Case Dismissed, Skipping Primary / State of the Mayoral Race

Juan Manuel Benítez
We’re gonna start talking about the news of the day. An hour ago we learned that Mayor Eric Adams, after his corruption case being dismissed by a judge with prejudice, meaning that those charges cannot be brought back by the Justice Department, he is not going to run as a Democrat in the Democratic primary. He’s going to run for reelection as an independent. What’s your reaction to the news?

Michael Blake
Not surprised at all. I mean, he’s made it abundantly clear that what was more important was kissing up to Trump rather than doing what’s best for New York, and this is about survival.

In order to keep a close relationship with Trump, he has to be seen as someone who’s a viable candidate, and that’s his articulation of doing that through the general. It’s disappointing, but not surprising at all.

Juan Manuel Benítez
And what’s your reaction to the corruption case being dismissed?

Michael Blake
It’s the latest reminder that we have a Justice Department that is beholden to a man rather than doing what’s right.

You had a judge who stated he felt he had no other option, given the directive that was happening. And I will continue to remind people that this was not just about flight upgrades. That’s the frivolous conversation, trying to make it about. It was a donor scheme for matching funds and they knowingly did.

There was no confusion about it, because Eric literally said, delete the text messages. And charges are being dropped. You’re essentially saying it doesn’t matter.

Ben Max
How does the mayor not running in the Democratic primary, just sort of putting your political hat on for a moment, how does that change the race? How does the primary shape up from here? And if you can directly talk about your own candidacy, lots of early polling shows you at the bottom. How do you make your way?

Michael Blake
Oh, as you know, four years ago, Kathryn Garcia was essentially at four percent till five weeks before.

Today is truly the beginning of the campaign in earnest. You’re able to articulate, now it’s just Zellnor [Myrie] and I in terms of Black men. You had a lot of people who were holding back and moving forward until they had clarity on what Eric was doing. I will say that when you look at the polls itself, at the end of the day, it’s name recognition.

A lot of the conversation, a lot of this is also around undecided, which has essentially been 20 percent. So our job is to lean fully in that you have a choice of a Black male candidate in a Democratic primary, and I would say that every single election I’ve been a part of, I have been substantially underpolled.

In the Assembly race, I was told that I was gonna lose by ten points. On Election Day, we won by nine. We have an organizational structure that’s not gonna be factored into polls, fraternities, clergy, 100 Hundred Black Men, Masons. We’re ready to run that kind of race. And look, the reality is there’s only two people in double digits right now.

Everyone’s essentially between one and eight. We’re all running the same race of how you make sure that you’re in first against Andrew Cuomo. We just gotta be realistic ourselves. If the election is today, Andrew will win, but the election’s not today.

Andrew Cuomo / Democratic Leadership / Legislative Record, Executive Experience

Akash Mehta
You were a state legislator during part of Cuomo’s tenure as governor.

Michael Blake
Oh, yes.

Akash Mehta
Could you talk about your experience working with or against him in Albany?

Michael Blake
Andrew’s consistently a bully. If he does not like what you’re saying or doing, he will find every possible way to make it clear of his displeasure. If folks look back on the day that Raise the Age was passed, which is as you all recall, we had a delay in the budget for about a week.

If you look back at the video clip, there was a moment where we actually had to come off the floor and go back into conference. It’s because Andrew called upstairs and he said, if you all keep talking about me, I’ll stop the budget. This is while we were passing a bill.

This is a man who has said you don’t know what you’re talking about when you actually ask substantive questions. And I do think that it’s important, especially for the press to remind people of the things this man has consistently said and done that people are not aware of at scale. In 2008, there’s the same man who said that ‘you can’t shuck and jive’ in order to win, and then tried to say, I wasn’t talking about Barack Obama. Barack Obama was the only real Black candidate in the race, so like, who else are you talking about there? Within the legislature, you know, we were able to get My Brother’s Keeper done, not because of Andrew Cuomo, but because we had legislators who actually wanted to fight for that.

And now you have a man who will consistently lie and flip-flop for the purpose of trying to win an election. He now says that Defund the Police are the three dumbest words, but then while as governor he said, I agree, it’s the appropriate take. He would say anything to win. And that is not the kind of leadership that we ever need.

Akash Mehta
I think many voters would maybe agree that he’s a bully, but actually find that appealing about him. They think we need a bully on our side. To match the bully in the White House.

Michael Blake
I think people want someone that’s gonna fight, as we saw with Cory Booker. I don’t know necessarily if you want a bully.

Akash Mehta
Do you think his pitch though is based on this idea that yes, he’s rough, but he's an effective, competent, tough leader. Do you think that’s an accurate description of how he was governor?

Michael Blake
No, I think that’s an accurate description of how he pitches himself.

At the end of the day, laws happen from the legislature that he then signs. So you can’t just keep consistently trying to take credit for everything in that regard. You have an individual who is making a pitch that all things bad about Trump, I’ll be the one that could fight for you.

I’m actually the only person in the race that’s actually beaten Trump when I was the vice chair. So if we want to show people that you can have humanity with a plan and competency, that’s one of the reasons why I’m running. I’m being very clear that in this moment of time, every single day we’re watching, people are afraid, right?

Understandably. But your fear should not let you retreat to a man who still cannot articulate, why did he quit? Why should he be given a second chance after he quit? Why did he move forward with nursing homes, even though CMS and HHS never stated it was the right approach? You can’t be an effective leader if you can’t be honest about the decisions you made that were bad ones.

Christina Greer
I want to stick with the legislature for a second.

Michael Blake
Absolutely.

Christina Greer
So a few things. One, can you talk to us about your policy and legislative experience, and during your tenure in Albany, what were some of your legislative successes, and then two -you know, sort of detail specific instances where you had to make difficult executive decisions, either trade-offs or the budget or whatever it may be-, and then two, walk us through your executive level experience.

Michael Blake
Legislatively, My Brother’s Keeper still is probably the most significant item we’ve accomplished, because there’s no other state in the country that has done that, of expanded funding for Black and brown students, in particular men to go to school and graduate from school.

When we started, it was $20 million a year, consistently it’s been $18 million. And we have seen the measurement of progress that when you have that level of investment of college, career, addressing criminal justice on the front end, you can have substantive change.

The Prompt Pay bill, which was a bipartisan bill that I did with Jack Martins, was the bill that you had, if a company had less than 300 employees, they had to get paid in 15 days instead of 30 days, that was contracting with the state, which was a continual frustration and still is one today.

Diversity in medicine, an effort that started with Crystal Peoples-Stokes, that I then co-led with her, where you had a complete reduction that was happening of Black and brown doctors and those in the medical field, where that funding was able to be pushed because of what we did there.

On criminal justice, we were one of the co-leads on Raise the Age, on speedy trial and discovery. You all know Kalief Browder was our constituent, his mother was our constituent. We saw that consistently, and something that was the right thing to do, but there’s changes that have to be made on that and we have to all be honest about ourselves with that. From an executive perspective, we run two different businesses, our Atlas Strategy Group and our Kairos Democracy Project, as well as serving as president of Next Level Sports and Entertainment.

So we can show people the ability of how we have managed people at scale, Next Level Sports and Entertainment, the only Black home sports TV network in the country, more than 31 million homes, Atlas Strategy Group, a public affairs firm, where we’ve been focused on conscious capitalism through our Kairos network.

So when we’re talking through the ability of substantive success, as a legislator, as well as management experience of people, we have both. And I know, and I think I’m gonna tie it back to your question, in large part people are looking for both of those. People are looking to see what have you actually done from a policy perspective, and can you manage?

And we can definitely say both.

Christina Greer
Are you the president or executive director of the Sports Management and Atlas?

Michael Blake:
I am the founder and CEO of Atlas. I’m the president of Next Level Sports and Entertainment.

Christina Greer
And how many people are under that?

Michael Blake
For Atlas, I think it’s about 18 right now, Next Level Sports is just under a hundred.

Harry Siegel
Just bringing those roles up, you had roles in the Obama White House, and as DNC vice chair — the focus on national politics, you’ve done a lot of things, how do you assure New Yorkers that your focus is gonna be, specifically on hyper-local and New York City issues and not viewing the mayor’s office as a stepping stone to the national stage?

Michael Blake
Because the work that I’ve done is helping people locally. When you have a My Brother’s Keeper, it’s providing funding to schools. When you have diversity in medicine, it’s giving people local scholarships. During COVID when Cuomo was killing people in nursing homes, I worked with World Central Kitchen to feed people across the city, you know, and so everything that I do is about a granular impact on the community.

Being a reverend, being a Mason, being an Alpha, being a 100 Black Men are all about community efforts, and the very unique distinction that we communicate, as the only person who can say that I have community, state house and White House experience, I think they’re all intertwined. So if you are looking for someone to show you practical impact, I consistently do that and will.

Ben Max
Can we stick with My Brother’s Keeper for a couple minutes?

Michael Blake
The educator’s coming out.

Ben Max
Say a little bit about where that is in terms of metrics of success. Would it be your argument that it just needs to be scaled up and funded at much larger levels to have more success? Obviously, the pandemic disrupted everything for a lot of young people, but we’re still seeing huge problems with young men of color, finishing high school, going to college, being involved in the criminal justice system, etc., So what’s your assessment of how that top accomplishment of yours is working, isn’t working, can work better?

Michael Blake
We’ve been seeing success in terms of an increase of community parental engagement, where there’s been a shift to be able to look at instead of having meetings with parents on Wednesday nights, have them on Saturdays and engage it around sporting activities has led to an increase of parents and family members being present in that regard.

We have seen a greater focus in the conversation around financial literacy, which was not happening to the degree before when the program started. We’ve equally been able to see an increased escalation of success of partnership with businesses, because people need to see that career trajectory.

In terms of improvements, we have to get much better around literacy, earlier. We’re still seeing that as a challenge across the board. We have to get better about connecting with the community groups that are part of that expanded effort around family community engagement, and we have to expand and put more funding in because we have a federal government that is directly communicating anything that’s Black or brown they’re gonna be attacking.

If that is the case, you can’t have a retreat of anti-Blackness and anti-Latino and anti communities of color to that regard. I also think we have to recognize the moment we’re in of there is a conversation around immigration that has only been Latino only, which we need to make it Latino, Caribbean, African, and all of us to be a part of MBK if we want to make sure that our young men are being expanded out in that regard.

Now in the city, of course, you’ve had funding around the Young Men’s Initiative, itself. I do think you have to make sure that there’s an MBK pilot and a community partner connected to every school. That is not happening right now to that degree. To the broader part of our education vision, I do believe that every kid should have civics, financial literacy, and mental health before they graduate, which would be aligned in terms of the milestones that we are looking for in MBK, that would impact everyone at scale in a very substantial way. And then we have to simultaneously have an increased recruitment of Black male teachers, which we have seen. Again, the data shows when you have an increase around that, it does substantially lead to improvement.

Too often people will say these pieces are a lot. Absolutely. You’re trying to transform what’s going on in education. And if we’re serious about that, you have to treat it with a holistic approach.

Donald Trump, DEI / Cost of Living, Economic Agenda / Federal Funding

Harry Siegel
Can I ask a follow-up there? Trump has put out executive orders saying all things DEI are anti-American ideologies, pulling funding from Columbia and other places on related premises. Do you want to talk about how, a bunch of what you’re saying I think might be illegal in the view of the federal government. What you would do as mayor to protect these sorts of initiatives, to protect outside institutions that the president might go after, and to protect the budget.

Michael Blake
If he comes for us in cutting funding, we would work in collaboration with employers to withhold sending federal taxes to DC. You can see this is a man that clearly, when you check him, stands down quite quickly.

Second, when we talk through a broader approach of how do you have these legal protections, you have to be in collaboration with the broader lawyer community, the Metropolitan Bar and others is a perfect example, to be able to immediately sue and counter his frivolousness, which again, we’re winning a lot of these court cases. I think it is a chaos strategy from them of trying to delay and distract.

Third, I do think you have to then equally look at what are place-based strategies, so you can still have the level of impact for success if and when he comes after anything that’s race-based. Because we know, at the end of the day, the communities where people are coming from and you’re able to sustain that work at a very consistent and a higher level to that degree.

And so you take those pieces there, and then to the broader piece, look, you’re gonna have institutions that are going to be attacked by him every single day because of what he felt when he woke up that morning. and so what are we doing to make sure that we’re putting in place, including looking at money within the reserves, to fill in the gaps when these efforts happen, of cuts.

Harry Siegel
Why did Trump improve his standing with a lot of these groups?

Michael Blake
Because one, we didn’t have the vice president directly campaigning here in New York. Trump showed up several times, including the MSG rally. Two, he spoke to the critical issue around economics. I’m gonna help you with your cost of living, and people are pissed and they’re frustrated. So I think we have to assess that if you have one person campaigning and another not directly in the same ways, even with that he only got to 30 percent. Like the numbers are a slight bump. But also, look, I also say you have conservative sentiments that exist in Black communities. Like the Black community is not a hundred percent Democrat, right? So you’re gonna have those numbers that are moving that way.

That said, one of the things I consistently say throughout this race [is] I am running so that we have policies to help people make and keep more money in their pocket. Full stop. That’s what folks want to hear. That goes to the sentiment of why you have success that’s been happening. You also have to be very clear that you will counter the anti-Blackness and be willing to be direct about that. You will counter the antisemitism, you will counter Islamophobia, you will counter the immigrant hate. People want to hear us say that very directly, which I will and I am.

And then third and finally is that you have to actually articulate, how do you reduce cost while improving our city, while not making it more expensive on the city budget. And I’m actually articulating how you pay for these kinds of plans, which I do think that feeds into the vote turnout as well. People kept hearing ideas, but they weren’t hearing, how does that happen on our side, versus on their side you effectively kept hearing a rhetoric of “I’m gonna fight for you and help you,” which tied to the frustration people were going through.

Ben Max
Let’s stick with a piece of that. On one specific piece of that, you’ve talked about implementing an executive order on day one to address the true cost of living, and affordability in the city. One key piece of that plan is an idea of guaranteed income for the neediest New Yorkers that you’ve spoken about as one of your biggest ideas of the campaign. So will you say a little specifically about how that executive order would work and where the guaranteed income piece would fit in and, as you just said, how you’ll pay for it? So take us through that theme right there.

Michael Blake
If you want to substantially transform what has happened in the city, and you want people to have a better chance to advance, they have to have more money in their pocket to get through the prices that we’re in. In order to do that, when you declare emergencies you not only unleash with speed management services, a greater integration from city agencies, but then you’re able to look through how you break through the backlog of bureaucracy.

One very concrete thing I stated is that within the first 100 days, outstanding approved contracts in particular to nonprofits will be paid out. That is a very immediate way that you are able to raise wages, put money in people’s pockets. There is not a strong reason why they’re not being paid because the contracts were already approved, and a lot of times it’s not happening because of backlogs and inefficiency. Second, I do think we have to get very serious around the close to $2 billion of unclaimed parking fees and fines across the city — collectively. Parking is a part of it. It’s over $2 billion, is the total number. And I do think we need to have a vacant apartment tax. If someone does not have their primary residence here, then have a tax on that individual, which will either lead to them coming back here and-or renting out that unit.

That collectively, with other reforms that we’ve been talking through, bring in about $3.3 billion of revenue. So how to achieve it, we need to implement what we’ve heard consistently from Jennifer Jones Austin, right? The true cost of living, which has not been actually implemented, to understand that data and then create a local median income [LMI] as opposed to AMI [area median income]. Because then you’re able to, directly to your question, understand the funding gap and the true baseline across the city in a proportional manner to determine: Does this individual need an emergency economic relief, as we have with COVID checks? Is there a shift that has to happen in terms of immediate expansion of income thresholds for housing applications? I do believe, to that same point, we should ban using credit scores for rent and homeowner share locations.

You take these kinds of steps within our control, you are able to quickly and fundamentally increase the income that’s going to someone, help them keep more money in their pocket and actually give them a better chance to be able to succeed and thrive. And those are steps that there’s not a strong reason why they’re not happening. It’s lack of leadership. The nonprofit reimbursement piece: We saw this with the childcare centers out in Brooklyn where you had the administration miscounting attendance rates, and therefore saying, this is the reason why we’re gonna have these places get closed. It’s absurd and it’s ridiculous. You have entities that are waiting to get paid, year, years, months, that goes into the challenges that someone has itself. And so very practically, taking those types of steps will lead to us having an increase in income, an increase in actual take home pay, and more consistency there.

Lastly, I do think we need to have some form of a municipal job guarantee for those that are, again, in need, which goes to the guaranteed income approach. A lot of times people hear that, they just think it’s some broad, progressive idea that can’t be achieved. We know we have vacancies and jobs across the city. Let’s then make sure you are plugging someone into a job in a career where they can have sustained benefits as well. We have the ability to pay for these things, to be able to make sure New Yorkers can actually succeed.

Christina Greer
So the shadow of this campaign and also the tenure of any mayor will be Donald Trump and him withholding these funds. So how do you make that new standard work with federal subsidies — all that you laid out, how does that work with federal subsidies that are essential to affordable housing development and that are tied by regulation to an area median income? And then are you going to stop using programs such as the low-income housing tax credit, and what replaces that?

Michael Blake
That’s one reason why I think you have to go to an LMI approach, because then that gives you the ability to move forward as opposed to an AMI. We see this in other places right now. We’ve seen this out in Stockton. We see in Connecticut, they’re moving forward with a baby bond approach for that exact reason. Second, when we look through, you have to find ways for an increase of what’s happening in the current budget that needs to be reallocated. I think that when you look at NYPD and the $1.4 billion of overtime last year it’s a perfect example of where you can find the funds to pay for these particular programs.

You have to have a much better relationship in Albany to be able to draw down more forms from there, which is something I think we can all attest: a Cuomo Albany relationship would be disastrous at best in terms of how they’ll be battling regularly. And I do think, to the last part of your question, there are programs that I still think you, yes, pursue, because you have to implement them for the chances for those subsidies. But then that means we have to look at what new subsidies do, we create here locally. And so I think we’re in a dynamic where I don’t see developers and others walking away.

I don’t see a scenario where people are saying, “You know what? I am not gonna be consistently working with New York City.” I think people are gonna be testing us and really pressuring: “Are you actually gonna move forward with this kind of vision, and how do you move forward with it?” And one of the reasons, and I think actually this goes to your earlier question around management. you have to articulate to people how do you pay for these things in a real way given the cuts that are coming. And I really have not heard that from many others in the race except us, in that you anticipate these challenges are happening, you recognize that you still want a vision to implement. How do you still then have the revenue to pay for this in that spirit of Donald Trump?

Business Subsidies

Akash Mehta
On subsidies, the first two items on your platform are new subsidies for businesses: one for creating green tech jobs and another for relocating to New York City. Research has found that a lot of corporate subsidies don’t actually work in creating jobs, and you yourself were a critic of the proposed Amazon HQ deal. Could you talk about your philosophy around subsidies, and how you would make sure that taxpayers aren’t getting ripped off?

Michael Blake
Well, let’s be accurate. I was a critic of the Amazon portion where they were using facial recognition. I still said that the jobs could be quality if they would’ve addressed it. So let’s make sure we tie that together. I said very clearly that you should not have a scenario where—

Akash Mehta
You talked about the helicopter pad, and—

Michael Blake
Yeah, but I still said that if you did a better deal, you can make this work. So I think let’s be clear about that to that degree. And to the point around subsidies, if we didn’t think that they didn’t work at all, why do they continue across the country? You have to create an incentive for action to occur, right? Whether it be around development, whether it be around hiring of people, whether it be around training. And so it is around creating incentives for action to happen. We see this across the—

Ben Max
The argument would be that New York City is a place that isn’t like a lot of other places and doesn’t need to provide that many incentives because there is such a draw here. There’s talent here, there’s culture here — there’s so much that people want to live here, they want to develop their businesses here that New York City especially doesn’t need to be sort-of competing that much and throwing subsidies at businesses to locate here or stay here.

Michael Blake
And the counter would be, look at how many Black New Yorkers have left. Look at how many people are working in the city, but then living elsewhere.Look at the increase that we saw consistently around vacancy rates from commercial itself. The reality is we are the greatest city, but we can’t ignore that that are people that are walking away. They feel that it is too expensive to live and to work here. They do not feel that there’s an environment for them to succeed in a long-term basis. There is a reason why we have seen population decline and people walking away. So to the point, you have to find ways to inspire people to consistently say, “I’m not only just coming to New York but I actually think I have a chance to succeed here and thrive.” We feel that, instinctively, but we would not continue to be having many of these conversations if everyone felt it was working quite well.

Akash Mehta
To the question, rather than just painting all corporate subsidies with one brush, there are some that are better structured than others presumably.

Michael Blake
Totally.

Akash Mehta
How do you structure subsidy programs, incentive programs to make sure that taxpayers aren’t being ripped off?

Michael Blake: Fair. And I appreciate the revision of the question. You have to align the incentive [so] that you’re actually implementing why I gave you the subsidy in the first place. You have right now funding that’s given out to developers with the expectation that they’re gonna have true middle class, working class housing. What are they doing for low-income communities? They don’t hit particular thresholds, but we never had a conversation about rescinding those incentives. I think that needs to be immediately on the table. We want to actually talk through, “Are you going to build in our city? Are you actually going to hire and therefore say you’re gonna hire communities of color, women, low income, et cetera.”

If their metrics don’t show that they actually do that, you have to rescind those. I do think, fundamentally, that you can’t just continue to have an approach where we’re hoping that someone will have action. If they don’t, there has to be remedy and accountability on that. That’s why I think people get frustrated.

Criminal Justice Reform / Education / Campus Protests / Immigration Enforcement

Christina Greer
I’m gonna shift gears just slightly. During your time in the assembly, you supported various criminal justice reforms. Given some of the current concerns about public safety and specific crime trends — subway safety, retail theft — would you revise any positions you previously held on issues like.bail reform or raise the age?

Michael Blake
Absolutely. We need to give prosecutors more time when it comes to discovery. We need to have greater revisions around repeat offenders. You can’t have someone that is consistently going in and out and effectively then cops and others believing there’s nothing that will be done to hold the person accountable. And I do think you have to look at: what is the timetable when it comes to the elements, the implementation, of speedy trial. At the end of the day, I think that being a good leader is recognizing improvements that have to happen on policies. I still do believe that the intent of Raise the Age, of speedy trial, of discovery was the right intent. But I think there have to be improvements on it to effectively address the public safety concerns that people have.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Harry has a question on education.

Michael Blake
It’s masterful to watch the execution right now. Go ahead.

Harry Siegel
I'm going to give you a quick double barrel on education so we've got time for ethics and maybe a closing question. What’s your plan for getting more or all New York public school children reading at grade level by third grade, and how do you think higher education in the city is doing right now?

Michael Blake
Very light load of questions right there…We have not effectively funded the total ecosystem around literacy up front, including but not limited to the training of not just teachers but parents and all administrators and educators around, how do you actually help address the pedagogy of literacy for students. Second, when it comes to higher ed, right now we have to get much better around what is the clear pipeline on someone graduating and therefore seeing a pathway to a job and a career. And that has felt very distant, while simultaneously you have a lot of — it’s not just students and I think we make it just about students — what’s happening at Columbia obviously is most top of mind. There’s a difference between exercising free speech and are you damaging property per se. But we shouldn’t be in a scenario where someone can’t feel like they can exercise their free speech if we’re doing it safely. I do think that we’re effectively going down a road where people are gonna be afraid to actually speak their mind.

Harry Siegel
I’m not sure if you mean the college or the city, or—

Michael Blake
I think it’s intertwined, because you have a scenario where we saw under Eric, you were sending in NYPD and others. And I think in this environment — actually, this goes back to the question about Trump — there’s going to be more instances of someone speaking out. It’s not just around antisemitism, right? It’s not just about what’s going on in the war in Gaza. And do people feel that at higher ed, it is actually a safe haven to be able to speak up and speak out. I will tie it back to a previous question as well on education that needs to be addressed. We have to ensure, when this currently is not the case, that all schools are being treated as safe havens so that you don’t have a scenario where ICE is rolling into schools and community centers and places of worship.

It is not automatic right now that a school is treated as a safe haven. It’s unacceptable. It’s not safe. It will lead to reduction of attendance rates. The ramifications of that is all intertwined.

Harry Siegel
Is there something the mayor should be doing if potentially ICE agents do go into a school or a campus building?

Michael Blake
Well, as we know, you have to immediately tell the school to ban someone coming in unless they have a judicial warrant. That kind of guidance is not being articulated. And you have to be able to put on the table the withholding of federal funds if they continue that behavior.

Outside Income as a Legislator

Akash Mehta
Switching gears a bit. While you were in office, you had a lucrative side gig consulting for a political party in Bermuda. You didn’t register as a foreign agent, which you later said wasn’t required because you performed the work during trips to Bermuda. The prominence of foreign countries trying to influence domestic politics has increased in recent years, including in New York, and this is of course at the center of the Eric Adams scandal. Do you think New York officials should be working for foreign political entities?

Michael Blake
There’s variance on the question. I am also internalizing — you said ‘lucrative side gig’? Okay. Would you say anyone who has outside income has lucrative side gigs?

Akash Mehta
You were registering between $20,000 and $50,000 of income per year.

Michael Blake
So when legislators are getting over $400,000, would you say they have a lucrative side gig? That was the framing of your question, right? You just said I had a lucrative side gig.

Akash Mehta
Yes. I would say that between $20,000 and $50,000 a year is lucrative.

Michael Blake
So if someone was making multiple figures, do they also have a lucrative side gig? Because the framing of it has a negative connotation, right? Because it’s outside income that is permitted, in particular for Black and brown legislators who don’t have the level of income that many of the white legislators do. So to the question, it was a public affairs job as it relates to a campaign, not for policy itself. We were not advocating for any policies that were happening, and immediately when there was concern raised I didn’t move forward with it. Full stop. Should someone be working for the advancement of a government or a policy for another country? No. You can’t do that. There’s obviously clear conflict. But that was not the case.

Akash Mehta
One question you didn’t answer at the time to reporters was whether you ever took a phone call or an email for that job while you were in the US?

Michael Blake
Do I remember ever taking a phone call while [doing] the job? I guess I potentially did take a phone call. I mean, it’s hard for me to remember, do I remember taking a phone call?

Akash Mehta
The reason I ask is because that would’ve required you to register as a foreign agent, which you did not.

Michael Blake
Yeah, I don’t recall if I took a phone call on that, to your question.

Akash Mehta
OK. One related question. While you were an Assembly member, and working through the same political consulting firm, you introduced a bill that was also being supported by Airbnb. And the same year Airbnb paid nearly $200,000 to that same consulting firm that employed you, including for work organizing grassroots support for the bill that you introduced.

You said that you never worked with Airbnb and you didn’t work on New York policy, but it looked to a lot of observers like a conflict of interest. Do you think New York elected officials should be working as political consultants?

Michael Blake
Well, yes. Do I think someone should be working as a political consultant? Yes. I mean, the reality is like when we created and supported Win With Black Men, would that be something that someone should not be supporting? Should someone be able to help campaigns outside of their everyday duties? Yes. Short answer is yes. Should you have the opportunity to do some of these projects? Yes. Because it’s not in conflict with your work.

Runs for Office

Juan Manuel Benítez
The only campaigns that you really won were to the Assembly. You ran for public advocate—

Michael Blake
Well, I won — again, I got elected as the vice chair [of the Democratic National Committee].

Juan Manuel Benítez
Right, I mean when it comes to general voters. You ran unsuccessfully for public advocate, for Congress, now this time for mayor. You’re having some trouble getting donors to donate to your campaign right now. You haven’t qualified for matching funds as of yet. Do you think that New Yorkers are gonna end up seeing you as that chronic candidate that keeps running for different offices, and doesn’t really know how they want to serve because they’re picking different offices to run for?

Michael Blake
No. Part of it is time. We started the campaign much later than almost everyone else in the race except for two, because we were doing everything possible to try to get Vice President Harris elected. There are many examples of exceptional public servants who have run for multiple positions before being successful. Our public advocate is a perfect example. You know, LG [lieutenant governor] run, governor run, City Council Speaker run. Our AG [attorney general] before that.

I don’t think that the everyday voter is thinking to themselves, “I am not going to consider you.” At the end of the day, it’s a choice. It is a choice for that individual on what do they want to do in terms of their support.

And in terms of not qualifying for matching funds yet? For myself, Adrienne, Jessica, there are several who have not as of yet — it’s about time and work to do that, and laying out the case as to why you should be elected to office. Look, we’ve had multiple races where the conditions are not normal.

It is not normal that you have a former governor running for mayor. It is not normal that you have a global health pandemic that would happen while you’re running for Congress, where in that election we had essentially every major union with us. It is not normal that when you have a special election for public advocate, you have an individual who had just run for lieutenant governor, came incredibly close, and then had incredible name recognition.

Conditions were the conditions. But that does not mean it impacts your servant heart.

Rank the Mayors / Rank Opponents

Juan Manuel Benítez
We have to let you go. But really quickly, if you could rank the mayors during your lifetime from best to worst?

Michael Blake
Dinkins. Bloomberg. De Blasio. Do I have to rank the other two? I mean, you don’t necessarily have to rank all five.

Ben Max
In this question, you do.

Michael Blake
Ah, come on.

Juan Manuel Benítez
And if you had to rank your opponents in this race?

Michael Blake
I can’t, I’m not going to —

Juan Manuel Benítez
You’ve been to so many forums with them. Any of them that you think are impressive, that you see yourself as similar in platform positions or that you’d be, as a voter, inclined to support them?

Michael Blake
I find all of them impressive except for Andrew Cuomo. And I have not made a decision on who I’m ranking.

Juan Manuel Benítez
Thank you very much.