Scott Stringer Interview Transcript

A transcript of The New York Editorial Board's interview with mayoral candidate Scott Stringer.

Scott Stringer, former New York City Comptroller and a candidate in the June 2025 Democratic primary for Mayor, spoke with The New York Editorial Board on the morning of March 27, 2025. (photo by Juan Manuel Benítez)

Participating journalists: Juan Manuel Benítez, Nicole Gelinas, Josh Greenman, Alyssa Katz, Akash Mehta, Myles Miller, Harry Siegel, Ben Smith, Liena Zagare.

Full Transcript

Trump Administration / New York Institutions / Anti-Semitism / Immigration Enforcement

Juan Manuel Benítez
Thank you so much for being here with us. As you know, Columbia made a really controversial decision of trying to meet some of the demands that the Trump administration imposed to renegotiate $400 million in federal funding. I would like your take on Columbia University. It’s a huge academic institution in Manhattan, in New York City. What do you think Columbia should have done? How do you feel about such an important part of New York City losing that much funding, or potentially losing that much funding, and getting into some sort of a political fight with the new Trump administration?

Scott Stringer
I believe that part of the success of New York is dependent on our learning institutions: Columbia, NYU, Fordham, CUNY. Part of what I appreciate about these institutions is they attract students from all over the world. And our job — as I worked with Mike Bloomberg on university expansion when I was Borough President, as we expanded these universities, the strategy was, people come here. They bring their smarts, they bring their skills, and they bring the entrepreneurial spirit to the city, which is why I supported the Columbia expansion. And part of our job is when they come here, we keep them here.

So for me, watching what’s unfolded at Columbia has been very tragic from an economic perspective in New York City, from an enrollment perspective. But look: the leadership at Columbia failed. They failed the Jewish students who were there. They failed to protect students. They allowed hate speech. They allowed gross antisemitism, and I find it horrific and inappropriate the way they comported themselves. You talked to the students who felt victimized, and it shouldn’t have been. I am all for free speech. I am all for protest. I’ve been arrested for civil disobedience. But the line in the sand must be drawn.

Having said that, Donald Trump saw an opening to disrupt student life and to disrupt New York City, and Columbia fell into the Trump trap, and now we have to claw our way out of it. I don’t think we should be defunding universities. I don’t think we should allow this to continue, but part of what the mayor has to do is work to strategize and work with our universities in good times and bad so that this doesn’t happen, and that’s the re-occurring theme of the Trump administration in almost every aspect of New York City — they’re going to come in, they’re going to disrupt, and that is why the next mayor has to have the skill, the experience to understand how to navigate this very treacherous terrain. I don’t think Columbia leadership has been good citizens, but obviously we have to make sure that Trump doesn’t tear this University apart and take down one of the great economic engines in New York City — not just Columbia but all of our Ivy League and CUNY schools.

Josh Greenman
You said that about hate speech. I’m sorry, but can you be very specific about what you define as hate speech?

Scott Stringer
From talking negatively and using gross, antisemitic words — I don’t have a transcript of what was said, but you do, and I think a lot of the conduct was inappropriate. Students feel uncomfortable. Kids banging on classrooms or entering classrooms of kids, many Jewish, who were trying to learn. I mean, that’s a very scary thing.

Josh Greenman
Is it hate speech to say Zionism is racism, for instance?

Scott Stringer
I think it gets very close to the line. Some people crossed it. Some people have not. But the bottom line is Columbia did not act to protect the feelings and the students there, and I think that was wrong and I think they should have been more proactive. I think most New Yorkers agree that this is inappropriate. Again, there’s nothing wrong with people’s peaceful protests. I was arrested during the apartheid era when I went in front of Mobil Oil and I got arrested. I got arrested as I should, because I was practicing civil disobedience. And when you block buildings, there should be an assumption that you will get arrested in the name of civil disobedience. But look, I think this went on too far. “From the river to the sea” — yes, that’s antisemitic. That, to me, borders on hate speech, but I will tell you about that: What was sad about it is half the kids who were protesting had no idea what river or what sea, and nobody stepped in to say, “It’s time for everybody in academia to come back and teach these kids and work.”

Juan Manuel Benítez
So if you were mayor today, and you had to strategize with the Columbia president and trustees on how to respond to the Trump administration threats, what would you advise the university to do?

Scott Stringer
I’ll give you an example about what I would have done, rather than act in a performative way. When Eric Adams sent in the cops and they scaled the building in Hamilton Hall, I would have said to Columbia, “Look, if you look at the history of protest at Columbia, you will know that Hamilton Hall is the building most likely to be taken, going back to the Vietnam War. So put two undercovers in the building so we can avoid confrontation.” And they didn’t do that. Eric Adams didn’t do it. The police department didn’t do it, and Columbia didn’t do it. So when we have a building that’s taken over, it puts the kids who took over the building in jeopardy of being suspended and the like. But it also puts everyone in harm’s way. So I would have had Columbia leadership in my office working on prevention, working on making sure that bad things don’t happen. And going forward, right now, I would say to Columbia, “Let’s figure out ways to backchannel with the Trump administration, with Schumer and Jeffries, and figure out how we can work to secure the funding.” I’m not saying Columbia should capitulate to the Trump administration. Obviously, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and we’re going to have to work collaboratively.

Juan Manuel Benítez
One more thing, because now what’s happening also is that ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is going around Columbia’s campus detaining some of those student protesters, some of them permanent residents married to American citizens. Those are the streets of New York, of the city that you aspire to become mayor of, and also the streets of your neighborhood, the old district, or very close to it. How do you feel about that? And as mayor, what would you do with ICE roaming around the streets of New York City?

Scott Stringer
I would use any legal means necessary to prevent ICE from picking students out and putting them in far off places, like they did with the student organizer. I have no tolerance for that. I think it’s outrageous. the Trump administration — a lot of this movement with ICE is about scare tactics. I think it’s unacceptable. I would use every legal means at my disposal. I would use the legal tactics, using our judicial system, making sure that we have means to prevent them from coming in. Obviously, there’s a federal-city computation, so we’re going to have to play chess, not checkers, and I will do the best I can to make sure that they cannot have entry points into our campuses, but also into our public schools. I see it in my own kids’ school right now: we have less enrollees, partly because I think immigrant parents are afraid to send their kids to school because of fear that they could be deported or their kids could be taken away. So unacceptable.

But also, I think there are some deep strategies. We have to galvanize or organize what we have in the city. And right now, we have a lot of connected people in the business community, who must work with us to gain entry into the Trump administration, to make it clear that part of the economic vitality of our city has to do with immigration and the ability of people to come from all over the world and make a difference in our city.

And again, I’ll go back to university expansion. You know, I worked for years to try to get the community to see the value of an expanded Columbia University from an economic perspective. I worked to make sure Fordham University could expand, and they did. And NYU, many of you know how contentious that expansion was, but I worked as the middle person to work with community and work with the universities to achieve the expansions that have helped our city economy. And Columbia — I had 1,000 people protesting me during the Columbia expansion, but I also made sure that we answered to the needs of that community, and we did the special district in West Harlem while we expanded Columbia University. So there are ways to specifically deal with whatever comes our way. And we have a business community that depends on these universities. They should be mobilized and galvanized. That is not happening this administration. I have not seen a mayoral administration in the weeds trying to navigate both the Trump administration and what’s actually happening on the ground.

But I do not believe ICE has a place here in these ways. Look, I’ve said, “Get rid of the gangs. We’ll turn them over to you. But don’t go after our children. Don’t go after families.” And it’s not what this city is about. We need our immigration, our migrants, to come here and thrive here. And by the way, what’s lost in this discussion, and that is why we need to mobilize different constituencies, is reminding people: every immigrant, every kid who comes here is sleeping on the gymnasium floor — when you look at those 100 kids in the school that Eric Adams packed them in when they came here, at least one of those kids is a Pulitzer Prize winner. Another kid’s a future engineer or a doctor, and we’re losing sight of what immigration has been to generations of New Yorkers.

Harry Siegel
So just to wrap with Columbia, you said a lot there, but I’m not clear if you think that the changes Columbia made in response to the administration withholding this Title VI money — the mask ban, something like receivership for this department, giving campus police arrest power — do you think those are good changes or not?

Scott Stringer
We’ll see. I’m not on the inside, so I don’t know exactly the negotiation or what they have to do in order to achieve the funding. My sense is that some of these changes will have a positive impact on campus life. Part of them will probably end up going too far. Again, we’re going to have to monitor a very tough situation. The other things — I don’t know.

Harry Siegel
A lot of institutions are rolling over. Columbia, a lot of people think, did. Paul Weiss appears to have. There’s a new executive order targeting Jenner & Block, which is also here. These are big players in New York City. Is there something the mayor should be doing in relation to this, as Trump is targeting individual actors and people he sees as enemies of his administration here?

Scott Stringer
Well, yes. The mayor should appropriately use the bully pulpit to organize and galvanize public sentiment. But I think this goes a little deeper. This is the next financial crisis that the city will have. We saw how, for example, how the Trump administration took $80 million out of the city coffers. Quite frankly, the response of both the mayor and the comptroller was very tepid, right? It was like, “I found out that they took $80 million, you know, praise me for exposing this.”

I would have gone a lot farther. I would have brought the banks, Citibank, all the banks into my office, whether I was comptroller or mayor and said, “We deposit billions of dollars — billions of dollars into your banks. You make millions off us. There’s no early warning system. You didn’t talk to us. You didn’t contact us. Unacceptable.” We should have triggered an early warning system. We should be doing this with every portal where federal funding is in jeopardy. I would have instituted that as mayor immediately. Second, I would have also turned around and said, “Look, we also have to have a financial strategy when they come and take our money.” I’ve called for a billion dollar fund, $500 million from the city, $500 million from the state, to specifically work to ensure that when funding is taken for immigrant services, for affordable housing — money that’s already been appropriated — we have a billion dollar replenishment fund to get us to the congressional elections, when we will take back the House.

Nicole Gelinas
In the business community, any particular prominent business people in mind that you think should be doing more? I mean, are you talking about Jamie Dimon, Steve Ross? Who here should be leading better?

Scott Stringer
People can’t lead better unless the mayor gives direction.

Nicole Gelinas
But they could. I mean, if you’re the head of major global bank, shouldn’t you be saying—

Scott Stringer
I just said Citibank should have come to us with an early warning system and say, “This is going to happen.” And by the way, this city — and I was there — we dealt with Trump one. So the notion that our head was in the sand, and then they turn around and suddenly show up and go, “He’s taking our money.” I mean, what the hell did you expect? And where were you?

So I think on the positive side, not to antagonize people, I think the next mayor will have wind at his or her back. I can certainly sit down with the two business concerns that make a difference and have a stake in the game here. One is Kathy Wylde and our business group, and the second is REBNY. And then the third is energizing the new entrepreneurs in the city, the tech community, the communities that will have a stake in the success of New York City and this funding.

And I think we give them a charge. I’m not making this up. Many of you know that we’ve had to mobilize labor and business before. It was in the 1970s during the fiscal crisis, when we were under attack by Congress and President Ford told New York City to drop dead. We could not get the loan guarantees that we needed. We needed to build, or the mayors at that time, Koch and even Beame and before that, the city comptroller, went out and built a coalition to go down to Washington and take on a Republican administration and win. That is not happening, people, in this city right now. It is a very laid back, lax view. We’re in the era of Twitter, so all you have to do is rail against Trump by going online, putting in front of a camera and saying, “This is bad….”

City Budget / Comptroller Record / City Workforce

Josh Greenman
So you talked about reserves, and you talked about the $80 million. But we may see significant cuts that require a much deeper look at the city budget. You, I think, purport to know the city budget better than anyone else in the race. So talk about some places where you could find savings. I know you’re for a larger police department, or more police at least if not more spending. Where do you find opportunities for savings in the city budget? And be as specific as you can, and with dollars too.

Scott Stringer
So I can talk to you about what my position has always been on savings. And you’re right. I do have a lot of experience as comptroller, and I use that experience in different ways, as being a watchdog, bulldog during my tenure. I’ve always said we have to look at PEGs and efficiencies. Bloomberg did it very well during his mayoral administration. We can save hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, by looking at ways to streamline government services. Any PEG can result in real savings because we see costs overruns on large outside contracts, donor-driven contracts. We’re talking about potentially billions of dollars—

Josh Greenman
But if you’re identifying departments that you think need more investment — are there any departments that need less investment?

Scott Stringer
Look, I think right now, we have a crisis of investment in our agencies. We are losing employees, we’re downsizing agencies, and we put ourselves in a very precarious situation. Eric Adams used the migrant crisis to essentially lie about what the budget deficit of the city was. Many of you covered the fact that we were at almost an $11 billion budget deficit, according to Eric Adams. He blamed it on the migrant crisis. It turns out, we didn’t have an $11 billion budget crisis. We had a $3 billion surplus. When you look at the multi-billion dollar out-year spending today, it is manageable. We have healthy reserves, some $3.2 billion in reserves. So I think today the state of play, we are stable. If I was comptroller, I would say that after doing my due diligence.

But look, I’ll give you an example. The NYPD is in a financial and governmental crisis right now, and we have the lowest police count we’ve had in a generation. We’re now down at 33,131 police officers. Our strength, maximum strength, was 37,000. As a result of the decrease in the count of police officers, we’ve now had to engage in huge overtime costs — from $650 million to $1.3 billion. My plan is to do a couple of things. You think hiring more cops costs money. It doesn’t. Hiring more cops saves overtime, saves costs, because the more cops you have, the less overtime you need—

Josh Greenman
But you’ve got to pay their pensions, and their healthcare.

Scott Stringer
You want to talk about specifics. Let me give you some specifics, because that’s what this tape is about, right? So what I would do is I would hire the 3,000 more cops. Cuomo, when you heard I said 3,000 he said, “No, no, 5,000.” That’s nonsense. You can barely get 3,000 cops on the force, because we have a retention problem, and we also have the inability to attract people to policing. Right now, 8,000 people took the police test. 8,000. Sounds like a lot, right. Out of that 8,000, only 1,000 will become police officers. In contrast, you know how many people took the sanitation test, or are on the waiting list? 60,000.

Myles Miller
And the day wraps up much, much earlier in Sanitation.

Scott Stringer
Myles, segueing to what you just said, which is very smart and specific — that’s exactly right. Overtime for young cops, round-the-clock tours, is not sustainable. They’re staying in policing. They are. But they’re going to other locations that have different work days, different opportunities for their lives. They’re not retiring. Our young cops leave the force three to five years after coming on the force. They don’t go for the 20 anymore, and they’re not retiring from policing. They’re going to Miami. They’re going to different places. We’re losing them for exactly what you said. So here’s what we have to do: hire more cops, reduce overtime, which can then be used for our mental health initiative. And lastly, let’s also go to a 10-hour workday, four days a week. Start thinking about ways to continue to attract them into the system.

Josh Greenman
Very last thing on spending. The biggest department, that spent the most, is the Department of Education—

Scott Stringer
$41 billion there—

Josh Greenman
We’ve seen substantial declines in [student] enrollment. Are there any opportunities for savings that you see there, possibly?

Scott Stringer
Yes. I’ve done audits of the Department of Education in the comptroller’s office — most aggressive when it comes to education. Wasted spending during COVID, we found hundreds, if not thousands, of iPads still in storage, not being used. We have a huge overhead bureaucracy at DOE. The amount of executives who are not professionals when it comes to education and finance is extraordinary. I can take you back to where I identified savings in DOE and the rest of the city. In fact, the work that we did on these issues resulted in a billion dollars in savings in my eight years as comptroller. And I think we have to be more laser focused.

Listen, I made Bill de Blasio somewhat better, because I held his feet to the fire on finance 364 days a year. I gave him Christmas off. But I held him to the highest standard possible. And one story, when you talk about, how do you find efficiencies in finance, Josh — because I think you’re right about this — during COVID, Bill de Blasio came to me and said, “I’d like to borrow $5 billion. Let’s borrow, let’s go into debt for $5 billion.” I said to him, “Look, I know it’s the middle of COVID.” I had just lost my mother. “You’re the boss. Tell me what we’ve got to do. What’s the financial plan? I’m down with you.” He said, “Well, I don’t have a plan, but if you as comptroller, would authorize $5 billion in spending, this will help.” I said, “No way.” Now, $5 billion means $500 million in debt service. He then went around me to the State Senate, because he was trying to increase his authority. I followed him to Albany via Zoom, went into the Democratic Conference. First time they ever let a comptroller into the Democratic Conference. It’s a true story. I went in and said, “Do not do this.” Some of them said, “Ah — give them the money.” I said, “Hell no. We have got to preserve that $5 billion that we could borrow, because you never know what emergency comes that way.” I saved this city $5 billion because I had the guts and the courage and the smarts to take him on at the worst moment in our city’s history.

Myles Miller
Can I just follow up on headcount? You talk about, like, city headcount and COVID. One of the things people, ex-police officers, that kind of thing — they’re so eager for unvaccinated folks who were fired to be rehired. Would you do that? Could that help solve the crisis of what’s happened at the NYPD and elsewhere?

Scott Stringer
I think we have a larger long-term problem, Myles. I think we’re just losing our young cops for the reasons I outlined. I think we can hire 3,000. I think we have to look at different ways to engage the police and the Department by the way. We have to look at getting cops out of desk jobs, replace them with civilians. I think we should beef up the auxiliary police force, because they can shift duties.

The way to engage in the long term, specifically: we need to start going back to something that a mayor should start thinking about. We don’t talk about quality of life in a real way, right? So what happens now is, police ends up getting called for the things that they don’t know how to do and they shouldn’t do. So the deputy mayor for quality of life is going to initiate something called QualitySTAT. We’re going to break down the silos of the agencies that interact on the quality of life day to day — Police, the Department of Homeless Services, mental health professionals We’re going to call them to account for 911 and 311 data, and how we answer those calls.

So for example, a lot of times we call the police in, because an abandoned building has turned into a drug den, right? People leave the building. The grass grows and grows. People come in and see that as an opportunity to do the things we don’t want them to do in a neighborhood. Months and months go by. The grass gets taller. And then suddenly we send in the Marines. The cops come in, clean it out. Great cost, great use of person power, and we start all over again. With QualitySTAT, maybe the smart thing to do governmentally was just mow the lawn, cut the grass, fix the building so they couldn’t get in. We don’t think like this any more.

Liena Zagare
I had just a follow up on the headcount. How do you think about the role of technology within the city and using that to make it just more efficient?

Scott Stringer
I think that is a very important tool that must be utilized. Look, did I think K5 the robot was silly? Yes, as mayor, I am committed to taking that robot and putting it into the Museum of the City of New York as the symbol of what not to do. But look, we do have drone technology. We do have the ability to monitor not just places like lower Manhattan, but the use of cameras in public housing, for example, where we know a lot of those neighborhoods have the highest concentration of crime. We have not fulfilled the technology mandate that the Police Department started, especially with the success of the cameras, which I’ve seen when I was comptroller in lower Manhattan. So I do think that technology has a tremendous role to play.

Liena Zagare
That’s in addition to headcount. I was just thinking in terms of actually using technology instead of hiring more people.

Scott Stringer
I don’t think it’s either-or. I actually think you have to do both, because look right now, we just lost another 600 cops.

Nicole Gelinas
Would you add Transit Police? We have the 2,700, Cuomo wants to add another 1,300 to the headcount. You say you want a police officer on every train.

Scott Stringer
During peak hours.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you mean pairs of police officers or just one? And two, would you increase the headcount just of the Transit Police, which they have not done?

Scott Stringer
I would take a more holistic approach on the numbers. I do think we could put a cop on every train during peak hours.

Nicole Gelinas
One or two?

Scott Stringer
I would start with one.

Josh Greenman
Why during peak? Isn’t that when most people are out and when it is the safest?

Scott Stringer
Actually, by numbers, actually, we do something pretty silly in terms of policing, right? So we have to look at how we do a modernized schedule and how we actually deploy police. You’re right. On the one hand, at 7:00 am there’s a lot of people on the train. On the one hand, that’s the shift change for the police. So we actually don’t have a lot of cops there, because they’re going to their shift. You know what? We also have a shift change at 3:00 as schools get out, so all the kids who are going out in the street, we don’t have cops because they’re getting they’re changing their shifts for an hour or two. So we have to look at how we have a staggered schedule, and some of the areas where we have a lot of people during rush hour or late at night, yes we could stagger it, you’re right. But look, we also have to recognize that — what is rush hour anymore in the city? It’s not, traditionally the boroughs coming to Manhattan, from 7:00 am to 9:00 a.m. or 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Rush hour has become 24 hours. We have frontline workers who have to get home at 11:00, 12:00 at night, and the trains don’t run. That’s their rush hour. That’s their challenge to get home after being frontline workers. So I think we have to align subway and buses and transportation and policing with the schedules that matter today for people.

Alyssa Katz
I want to talk about your time as comptroller. You compellingly talked before about the role of watchdog and bulldog and gave a couple of examples of that work. And when I think of your tenure, I think of that. And I think that the last couple of mayors have come from that place of being the critic who’s suddenly in power, right? De Blasio as public advocate, is an example, and Adams did come out of being an advocate as well. And I just want to hear about what in your experience as comptroller you think really qualifies you to be mayor and that you would bring with you into your office.

Scott Stringer
It’s a very good question, and thank you for your comments about my tenure. Look, the skills that I learned as comptroller and as borough president — and you’re not supposed to say this — I’ve learned, actually, what I don’t know in every one of these jobs. The politicians, candidates love to tell you that they’re the smartest people in the room, and when they get elected, they kind of act like it. I’ve taken a different approach. When I became borough president, I put together an office that understood land use and zoning and complicated urban planning issues. We did an urban planning fellowship program so I can give community boards the expertise they need to meet some of their challenges. That’s how we expanded three universities over opposition and through some real hurdles. And that’s how we did that. That’s how we diversified the community boards. That’s how we actually built affordable housing.

When I became comptroller, and the reason this job gives you such a real runway to how to manage the city, is I hired the best and the brightest people to do the capacity work that I was able to do. So for me, I believe it’s who you bring into government. Eric Adams brought the people who stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. I take a different approach. I want to bring people in who are here for the right reasons — economists, people who know how to manage. That, to me, is my real skill set. What I learned during the crisis of the de Blasio administration, the crises of the de Blasio administration, whether it was COVID or their own pay-to-play issues, I learned that you gotta be a bulldog. You better be a bulldog as mayor. And I audited every single agency for real and took them on, on their spending, on finances. I put agencies on watch lists. Imagine waking up and running when the comptroller reviews the budget and says, “No, Department of Corrections, you are spending hundreds of millions of dollars inappropriately. No, DOE, let me identify for you specifically—”

Alyssa Katz
But Scott, those are two very good examples, because in both those cases, you have very entrenched powers, and particularly very strong unions that have kind of run those places. Those are the two classic examples — the correction officers and other unions that pretty much run things in the jails, and similarly, with DOE, the United Federation of Teachers who endorsed you previously. So how do you realistically — it’s fine to do an audit or be a bulldog and critic. It’s quite another thing to actually get, with whatever tools you have, to get those changes with those entrenched powers. Like we don’t even have enough lifeguards and people are drowning. So how do you actually work with those institutions to change them, and not just wag your finger?

Scott Stringer
When I wagged my finger, I got the budget concessions I needed. I forced efficiencies in the agencies during the budget. I forced the administration to take a look at what I would say. When they tried to cut me off from reviewing outside contracts, you know what I did? I went to court and got my power reinstated. But you’re right about this, and this is where a mayor who actually doesn’t need training wheels will make a difference: When I became comptroller, and we all know this, many of you reported on it, we knew that the pension fund was in disarray. We knew the back office of the bureau of asset management was a mess. I hired an outside consultant. I looked at the issues facing the pension fund. They identified 200 issues related to the funding of pensions. The funds didn’t tell me there were 40 issues that we had to tackle immediately to clean up the system. I went to work and cleaned that up.

The second thing that people talked about was, why do we have five separate meetings to think about investments? The pension fund invested too slowly. The bureaucracy was endless. People wanted to do business with the pension fund — if they were in London, they had to fly in five different times. The whole system was not working fast enough or smart enough. So Bloomberg and other comptrollers tried to create legislation for one unified investment meeting. We’re getting in the weeds here, I don’t mean to be too specific. So now we have, so no one can get one investment meeting. You talk about skills. I went out, brought all the unions in, worked with UFT and my union contacts, and I got the unions to agree — without legislation that would get torpedoed in Albany — I got them to voluntarily consolidate into one investment meeting. Even during COVID. I got a 9% return. I did the divestments of fossil fuel and guns and private prisons that were so critical without hurting the integrity of the pension fund. What other candidate for mayor could bring all the unions together and say change the way we’re doing business for the benefit of the retirees of the city of New York?

Alyssa Katz
Well, we have another comptroller running, and you’ve criticized just now his response on the $80 million taken by the Trump administration as being inadequate. But what else, you know — again, voters are thinking between two comptrollers. Why you and not Lander?

Scott Stringer
The difference? Well, first of all, I like him. He’s smart. Respect him a lot. But when you look at the totality of my record as comptroller, let me, let me leave you with this. We consolidated the pension fund to one investment meeting. The day I left the office of comptroller, everything went back.

Eric Adams’ Record / Public Safety

Nicole Gelinas
Speaking of records, do you think that the voters were wrong to pick Eric Adams over you four years ago? And what was the message that Adams got across to the voters that you and your other rivals did not get across?

Scott Stringer
Yeah, I think people made a mistake not picking me. But all is forgiven. I don’t take the Ed Koch view of everyone be damned, I’m back for another look. Look, I think that campaign, in the midst of COVID, Eric Adams was able to tap into something. That’s usually what happens in these campaigns at the end. That’s why everyone who thinks this race is over, doesn’t understand the history of mayoral elections.

Nicole Gelinas
But what did he tap into?

Scott Stringer
He was able to focus, as we saw crime increase and we saw the streets in disarray, he was able to tap into that. And it’s not unusual for races to break late. Bill de Blasio tapped into sort of the undercurrent of the Bloomberg era and stop-and-frisk. Eric Adams was able to tap into a different discontent. I think there’s a runway for a candidacy that speaks to experience, competence, and has a real vision for specifically getting things done in the city, whether it’s quality of life, housing, building an education system for our kids.

Nicole Gelinas
And one of the issues that affected that election was the looting and the rioting, very separate from the peaceful protests that we saw beginning in the summer of 2020. Can you tell us, as you were the second highest citywide official, what did you do to try and calm that environment and deter people from looting and rioting small and large businesses as they were trying to recover.

Scott Stringer
First of all, thank you for recognizing what I’ve tried to tell people, that the comptroller is the second highest citywide official and not the Council speaker, or anybody else. So Thank you Nicole for the numbers.

Nicole Gelinas
Well, Council speaker is not citywide.

Scott Stringer
You know, I’m not going to overplay my role here. I didn’t run the police and I wasn’t the mayor. Obviously, to me, the looting was not acceptable and wrong. I don’t think that de Blasio at the time had a coherent strategy on protests. I think that the cops, in many instances, went too far in terms of how they handled some protesters. But I also think that it got out of hand because of his poor planning and just his lack of ability to just manage what should have always been, you know, peaceful protest, but I’m not going to tell you. I — you know, he didn’t call me and say, “What’s your advice?” So I wasn’t part of that.

Myles Miller
Good thing you’re running against Eric Adams and not Bill de Blasio here. I wonder if you can talk about an initiative that Eric Adams implemented that you support and why, and maybe explain what initiatives he put forth that you like.

Scott Stringer
It didn’t start off bad. It actually started off promising. One initiative that I thought he talked very passionately about was how we can align policing and a mental health initiative in the city, and how he was going to formulate that. And as we dig in, and again I’m not comptroller anymore, so I don’t have the laser focus I used to have, because I don’t have entree to the data. But it’s clear that we don’t have a mental health professional operation, both above ground and below ground. I don’t think he successfully aligned policing and mental health, but I think he started off wanting to do that. I think the lesson is that a lot of the candidates, including myself, will offer you very good plans to move the city. I think some of our plans are similar. Some of them are different. I think what it really comes down to, Myles, is who is the candidate that knows how to get shit done, manage the city, knows the agencies and can bring in the personnel to get our plans put in place.

[crosstalk]

Myles Miller
City of Yes…

Josh Greenman
…Containerization, Adams’ anti-rat stuff…You’re talking about quality of life, I think, a lot. Is that good?

Scott Stringer
Yeah, and by the way that’s a perfect start. I think containerization is a perfect place to expand on that idea. You know, containerization, certain containers work in some neighborhoods and not others. I also think we should look at expanding our sanitation reach, for example, specifically, we have to look at putting out the trash underground, especially in new developments. Why aren’t we thinking about how we move garbage from inside to underground, using technology and shoots that can put garbage right below ground? I still think we do not have a pickup schedule that’s worthy of the city. Look in my neighborhood, I could show you garbage that’s almost a story high. You see rats running around. They’re walking upright.

Ben Smith
Do you ever think New York is just doomed? Like the things you’re talking about are technologies introduced all over the world 50 to 100 years ago. What’s wrong with New York?

Scott Stringer
Look, first of all I love this place. I mean, I grew up here when there were 2,000 murders a year. I grew up here when my mother said, “Listen, get on the A train, sit in the conductor car.” For a long time, we raised a generation of kids that didn’t even know there was a conductor car. Come back now, my kids who are now starting to take the train - 13 and 11 years old - I say, ”Sit in the conductor car.” So unfortunately, we have seen us backslide to a place that I don’t want to go. On the other hand, let’s talk about the assets we have. We have the smartest, most diverse workforce. We’ve got an incredible talent pool of young people. We’ve got a group of entrepreneurs that are ready to seize this city’s economic spirit. We have a mayor and a government that is just lazy.

Ben Smith
Yeah, but you’re proposing garbage disposal chutes and it seems like that would be extremely hard, actually. Is there some more—

Scott Stringer
Why? Why is it hard? When you look at all the new housing, right, City of Yes, all the proposals, why do buildings have to be constructed the way we’ve always done it? One of the things we learned during Sandy is maybe putting boilers in basements when copper meets water and then the basement blows out. Maybe we should be putting in the boilers differently—

Josh Greenman
Do you really think your kids need to sit in the conductor car? There’s a violent crime less than once per million rides by one measure, and we can debate this, but to what extent are we actually back to those days when you seriously had to worry on any given trip about violence on the subway?

Scott Stringer
I think my lived experience is different from the lived experience of parents who, quite frankly, are a lot younger than me and came from different places. When I was growing up. I mean, us kids, we didn’t know better, right?

Josh Greenman
Would you advise other parents, “if you’re going to school, ride in the conductor car”?

Scott Stringer
I think for those parents who worry, sure. There’s nothing more important than your babies, And so I don’t dismiss parents who have genuine fear. Look, felony assaults are up 20% since 2019. The randomness of what is happening below ground and above ground is pretty staggering, and it only takes one or two instances for parents to rightly say, are my children safe? And I’m not going to say to people, look at the statistics — and anyone who thinks that statistics coming out of Eric Adams is anywhere near accurate, I can tell you just from my anecdotal evidence taking the train that we have some folks who really, really have severe mental health issues. They’re not all violent, not violent, necessarily. But it—

Akash Mehta
To Josh’s point, the statistics that show that New York is still one if not the most safest big cities in the nation, you dismiss that as Eric Adams sort of fudging the numbers?

Scott Stringer
No. I said, I don’t think these statistics they put out paint the whole picture. In talking to experts and folks—

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think that’s even true under [police commissioner] Jessica Tisch?

Scott Stringer
Let me just, I do think that part of being a mayor is anticipating not just the here and now, today, but looking at ways to ensure the safety of the city, not today but also in the future. That’s why we have to address our mental health challenges underground. That’s why we have to rethink how we not just move people out of the subway or move people who are homeless, but we have to come up with a real supportive housing model that also speaks to getting people medication and help they need. We can’t just put people in 11 public hospitals, leave them there. They get out 48 hours later. We don’t track them. We don’t try to help them. We don’t have social work or mental health follow up. I would love to see a system that aligns with—

Housing & Zoning

Akash Mehta
You were talking about housing a couple moments ago, You have a seven-page housing plan, and it doesn’t mention the word zoning once. You’ve said that your housing plan would create 20,000 affordable units. Some of your opponents are out there promising to create 500,000 new homes, a million new homes, in part by or largely by loosening zoning restrictions. Tell us how you think about that issue. Does New York need more housing, period? Or are you only focused on affordable housing? Where do you fall on the NIMBY to YIMBY spectrum? What’s the Scott Stringer philosophy on zoning?

Scott Stringer
I’m a Stringy. Can we strike that from the record?

Ben Smith
Bad puns become the headline.

Scott Stringer
Look, I think City of Yes will help identify greater density and greater housing opportunity, and I do think there’s a role for those zoning changes, By the way, I offer real experience in land use and zoning work because out of all the candidates, I’ve done more zonings combined that resulted in increased density and also affordable housing. I was the first person to work with the Picture the Homeless movement. We went in those days with clipboards, not iPhones, and we calculated all the possibilities, all the possible places where we could build new housing and development.

But part of the reason why I put out my plan is I don’t want to make promises without specifics. So Eric Adams said we need to moonshot 500,000 units of affordable housing, and he built basically nothing. Other candidates come out and they say, “we need a million apartments.” Okay, let’s look at how we do that. The reason I focused on my vacant lot plan is because that’s something I can control immediately. While fair market housing is increased through zoning and density, I can build on public land that we own immediately,

Alyssa Katz
I want to follow up on that. You’ve gone straight from Picture the Homeless to your current plan — it’s pretty much the same focus on these vacant lots, and the housing agency HPD has said that the number of vacant lots available for development — this is a few years ago — is close to 600, not 1,000, and that a lot of those lots were already in the planning for housing. So…

Scott Stringer
Let me tell you something. When I announced this the first time, and you’re right, the administration at the time was like, “oh, no, this is all being done. Yeah, we got it. No, he’s wrong. We built on every lot. It’s all taken up, and he’s wrong. There’s only 600 vacant lots that can build new housing, you know, free land.” And I was like, “Oh, they just admitted to 600. Oh, my God, I’m right.” And then we found out, digging deeper into HPD, that the lots are still there, and they’re sitting with subsidies and money to do this, but they have no ability to do Mitchell-Lama 2.0. And so you’re right, Alyssa — the lots are still there, and they haven’t built on these lots. In fact, the recent proposals, because people tend to follow my ideas, right? If you look at the campaign, it’s just the way it works. They had a minimal goal in this budget or last year’s budget to basically take my plan, water it down, because they can’t do the massive housing build that I would do. La Guardia built 2,200 public housing buildings. Mitchell-Lama was created under Lindsay. Bloomberg, Koch, let’s say Koch rebuilt the Bronx. We are so minimalist in our thinking. We marvel when a luxury developer gives us unaffordable affordable housing in exchange for huge density.

I’m not against City of Yes, I supported City of Yes. But I also want to think about how — that we build housing, but we’re also building neighborhoods. The Mitchell-Lama housing program was as much about middle-class aspirational housing as it was folks who had a stake, a long-term stake in the community. So schools were built, daycare centers were built, quality of life, parks, open space. It all came from people who had a stake with a secure apartment, and I understand the market and will build more housing and more density that could lower rents get us the density we need. But do not think for a second that government should give up its traditional role, going back to La Guardia, to build the affordable housing we need.

Josh Greenman
Is the Gowanus rezoning a big success?

Scott Stringer
There’s someone more qualified to answer that than me.

Harry Siegel
A follow-up question, very quickly, from Ben Max who’s not here. A lot of what you’re talking about here, he notes that you’ve been citing that number about the 1,000-plus publicly owned vacancies since 2016. The city’s Housing Department says only about 150 or 200 of those would actually be buildable. And you know, a decade later, have you looked at the number of actually developable lots in the last five or six years? Do you have a sense of what the current number is? I know your campaign is citing the 1,000 number still, that you’ve been using for some time.

Scott Stringer
In multiple administrations, they have said that this proposal does not have the number of lots necessary. Prove it to me. I’ll go meet with [HPD Commissioner] Adolfo [Carrion]. Let’s have them come here and show you the map and show you the vacancies. And by the way, if you can’t build housing on these lots, how do we repurpose them for public good? It’s our city-owned property, and we have a lot of other needs. If you can’t build a tall building, perhaps you could build a daycare center, perhaps you could build a playground. There’s a lot of excitement around city-owned property, and by the way, my plan is not just vacant lots. I refer to Picture the Homeless because [Manhattan] Borough President [Mark] Levine did a similar analysis that shows the ability to use public buildings, police stations, perhaps schools that could also have density and opportunity for development. That’s also part of my plan.

Nicole Gelinas
Could you name maybe one of these lots in each borough that you think is ripe for this kind of development?

Scott Stringer
I can get back to you. There’s one lot in — I’ve done so many events around the lots, but I will get it to you.

Nicole Gelinas
Finally, on housing, community boards, many of them rejected City of Yes. There’s a new lawsuit on the environmental considerations. Do you think community boards have too much power, too little power? Where are you on this? Would you be more or less respectful of them than the past couple of mayors?

Scott Stringer
My history with committee boards goes back, when I was appointed to a committee board at the age of 16 by Percy Sutton, then the borough president. It made the front page of the New York Times, first teenager ever appointed. The article appeared below the fold, so it wasn’t above, but I’ve gotten more committee board meetings in my lifetime, over 50 years than probably everyone combined in the city or everyone to run for mayor in the last 50 years. I believe in community-based planning. I believe in community consultation. But Nicole, it is hard work to roll up your sleeves, go into a community that may not see a development issue the same way you did and build the respect to get the big things done. If you think it was a walk in the park, to go to Morningside Heights and to tell people who remember Hamilton Hall and the Vietnam War and Columbia as a slumlord, “we have to expand the university.” That was not easy work. [Bloomberg HPD Commissioner] Amanda Burden and I went to every single meeting. We worked to forge compromises. We created the West Harlem special district to protect the people that would not be overrun by the development. At the end of the day in each of those rezonings, I was able to work with the community board, and this was my philosophy with them.

Nicole Gelinas
So you think Adams could have gotten approvals if he had worked harder?

Scott Stringer
If they knew how to manage community expectation and working with, but look, it’s a very special talent that I bring to this because of my longevity. And remember, I also made a deal with community boards: Help me work on these complicated issues, and I will provide you with the land use resources you need. I took graduate students, turned them into urban planners.

Akash Mehta
Amanda Burden and Bloomberg also downzoned much of the city. Do you think that was good?

Scott Stringer
Sometimes it was appropriate, sometimes it wasn’t. We could look at where those changes had a positive impact, where there was a negative impact. Because remember, you can look back and the city had different needs then. Obviously we have different needs now so you have to be flexible. But part of what I did was say to people, “okay, if you don’t want an up zoning in midblock, you have to identify where we can do an up zoning. Okay, you don’t want it on a side street, an 80-story building. I understand that. But then give me the upzoning on Broadway.”

Akash Mehta
Do you support lifting parking minimums?

Scott Stringer
Yeah. I was the first person to say, we don’t need to have guaranteed parking.

Education

Liena Zagare
What do you think are the main reasons so many students are failing at basic English and math, and what would you do as a mayor to change that?

Scott Stringer
I think education really starts at the beginning like it’s zero, the day your child is born. That’s why I’m so passionate about our child care plan and why I think we have to baseline pre-K and 3K. But there’s another aspect to this, and it has to do with resources for parents. I can tell you, even though my wonderful children are perfect and they’ve never missed a homework assignment — that’s not true; When a child has a problem, parents like myself can put down a credit card to get a tutor, get extra help.If a kid has a learning issue, middle and upper middle class parents can help their kid. That is not true for parents who are below the poverty line, live in public housing, or single parents. And what happens is that because we don’t have early education, we don’t identify the learning issues a child has at the beginning, when we finally discover the issue, whether it’s dyslexia or learning disability, they’re now in fourth, fifth grade, I’m not saying it’s too late but—

Josh Greenman
But is that it? You’re just talking about kids with learning issues, but are the basic blocking and tackling of what we do from K to 12 for a kid who doesn’t have specific learning issues, is that all working right or are there things we should be doing a lot better?

Scott Stringer
Again, I want to give you specifics, not just platitudes. I want to tell you where I think we have to, we have to zero in on, and I do think there is a resource issue that parents who have wealth can deal with that the majority of our parents can’t. So I want to fix that. In terms of reading and writing. I will tell you I think our teachers are excellent. I will tell you that my kids do well with these teachers. They do a job like none other, and we turn them over to them to make our kids good citizens, educate them. Where I think we have to really upend the system is at the DOE? Just like the police I identified who were leaving, 50% of cops leave policing here after three to five years. 40% of teachers leave after five years. When I was comptroller, when I wanted data from the Department of Education, they gave it to me in a timely fashion because I could subpoena the information.

As a parent calling the DOE, I would rather call any other federal government office that takes two hours to answer the phone. They give misinformation to the parents, misinformation to the principals. They are not user friendly. The different portals parents have to navigate and investigate means that homework assignments get lost. New regulations coming out of DOE are so onerous and so counterproductive to education, I would start there. Two ways I would tackle this: reorganize the Department of Education, their interface with teachers, principals and parents. And then I would really tackle the issue of inequity in terms of how we can get parents whose kids are struggling, the resources they need.

Liena Zagare
Data shows that something like 30% of kids miss months of school every single year. How big a problem is that in terms of actually getting the outcomes you want?

Scott Stringer
I think that’s an issue, and I also think we have to dig deep as to some of those issues and why. I think we do not have enough accountability in the system to make sure that we’re able to watch all of our kids. Part of it is some of our kids are suffering from post-COVID issues. We don’t have enough counselors and mental health professionals within the schools. It’s hard to track kids maybe having an issue. I think we should double down if that’s—

Alyssa Katz
When you say post-COVID issues. It sounds like you were alluding to, at least in part, to the lengthy shutdowns of schools, lengthy remote learning for high school students, they weren’t realistically back in the classroom of teachers until about a year and a half later. Do you think that was too long?

Scott Stringer
I think, on the one hand, we could never, we never saw, in all fairness to the mayor, we really did not see this coming. This happens once in a multiple generation event, but I do think a lot because of the bureaucracy, because of the bumbling and fumbling, because of the lack of cooperation between Cuomo and de Blasio, a lot of kids got lost.

Ben Smith
Does the union share some responsibility, too?

Scott Stringer
We’re all responsible for the kids, as parents, as teachers. I think, though, that the person that you hold accountable is the person in charge. And while we can shift blame, spend all the rest of the time we have shifting blame and going back to 2020, I think it’s more productive to pick a mayor who can learn from this experience, put protocols in place so if there is a pandemic or anything else comes our way, we are there. One of the things I think we should start thinking about is extending the school day to 4:30. I think that would go a long way to do the tutoring, the extra work that our kids need. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity to put chess in every school. I just think there’s so much opportunity.

Liena Zagare
One institution that has extended school days, including Saturdays, is a lot of charter schools, What do you think they’re doing right and—

Scott Stringer
I think that extending the school day is an idea that can be explored. I would certainly explore it with unions and teachers. I don’t think it’s a negative. I think it would be a real positive. Part of what charter schools do, and what their mission is, is they try new things. I don’t mind borrowing the good things that they do and putting that into our public school system.

Liena Zagare
Should there be more charter schools?

Scott Stringer
I don’t have the exact number, or I’m not going to say the exact number, the sub-number for New York City and New York State, but I’m not inherently against expansion. I think we have to come up with the right number given school space.

Time Out Of Government / 2021 Campaign

Juan Manuel Benítez
Scott, you spent almost 30 years in elected office before your last campaign abruptly ended with an allegation of sexual harassment—

Scott Stringer
It didn’t. First all, let’s get the facts right. It did not end. It just means I lost an election. It wasn’t my first.

Juan Manuel Benítez
What have you learned in the last four years you weren’t in elected office after almost 30 years? What have you learned and how do you feel about how the last campaign went?

Scott Stringer
I think stepping out of public office was a very positive thing for me. On a personal level, I really had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my kids. I have a different perspective on education and safety issues I don’t think would have come to me without this time period of actually taking the subways. You know, doing the work, being a citizen in the street, navigating what people have. Thirty years is a long time to be in elective office. It comes with sort of a natural separation, no matter how hard you try. So I learned a lot about the tempo of the city, the pace of the city, and what average New York are going through, whether going into a CVS or going to public school, picking up the kids every morning in the freezing cold, getting on the subway, spoiling them the best I can but also trying to raise them the right way.

In terms of the last campaign, I’m just not going to keep—I know people sometimes get fascinated, because they like to see, “well you lost. How did you survive?” I’m fine. 2021 is now four years ago, so I’m not relitigating all the races I’ve lost, because I can talk to you about the first race I lost, the second race I lost. I’ve won more than I’ve lost, but here’s what I can tell you: I think that in 2025 I think voters are going to buy what I’m selling. I have a vision. You heard specifically today, the things that I care about and what I can implement. You know about my long record in government, but I also think it’s time for competent leadership that is not corrupting, that will not bring chaos to the city. You know chaos is coming here. I’m the one who can stop the chaos. I beat Spitzer. I was 25 points behind with three weeks to go. I am not, I am very comfortable…

Akash Mehta
After you left office, you founded a lobbying firm, and you have been a critic of the revolving door. You didn’t lobby your former agency, the comptroller’s office, but you have been lobbying the city—

Scott Stringer
I just had one MWBE lobbying firm. I didn’t lobby, and I registered because I wanted to ensure that if I had an interaction, I would comply with the law. I wasn’t allowed, it was more of an advisory firm. And it was just me.

Akash Mehta
Could you talk about your decision to do that? What did you learn from that experience? How did you think about what clients to take on?

Scott Stringer
I thought it was very positive. It gave me a flexible work schedule. I enjoyed my foray into the private sector. Overall, I was able to put away some money for college, and I thought that was important. But obviously I’m back in the ring so I want to be back in government and do things that I love truly.

Josh Greenman
A quick question to go back to kids and fear and all of that. You voted against Megan’s Law when you were in the Assembly. It was not a popular vote to take. Obviously there was some fearmongering. You stood on the other side of that and you said the sex offender registry was not the right thing to do. Do you stand by that vote, and did you learn anything from it?

Scott Stringer
I voted against it, but then I also felt strong enough to vote. And again, you’re now pushing into the Assembly some decades ago, but my recollection was that I thought we could make the law better, more holistic, more not a response to fear, but something that would work and and so no I don’t regret the votes I’ve taken. Remember, the advantage of having a long career in government for spanning over many different challenges that the city faces is you think about things in a moment in time. So some of the work that I did in the 1990s would not be relevant today, 30 years later. But at the time, you know, we could probably go back and give you my rationale.

Rank the Mayors / Andrew Cuomo’s Record / 2025 Race

Ben Smith
Finally, can you rank the last five mayors for us?

Scott Stringer
You know, I just—

Ben Smith
If you can’t, we got a bunch more questions about the end of the 2021 race.

Scott Stringer
OK, La Guardia. I really admired La Guardia being able to go to Roosevelt—

Josh Greenman
The best and the least of the last few we just lived through. From Koch to now, who was the best and who was the worst?

Scott Stringer
I think Eric Adams probably was the worst in my lifetime. I think La Guardia was the best. I think there’s a lot of good in between.

Ben Smith
But you were not born in the La Guardia years.

Scott Stringer
But I’m a student of history in the city, and I think he brought a lot of gumption and a lot of reform-minded work as mayor.

Josh Greenman
Who made the most change in the last five?

Scott Stringer
I think Bloomberg had a model that I really respected, partly because I worked with his administration. His ability to attract the best and the brightest, to let commissioners do the work without favoritism I think made a big difference. I still think the smoking ban was one of the most courageous moments in a mayor’s history. It was the thing that saved lives, including my own. And I think we should reward people who take on the big fights, and that’s what I hope to do as mayor.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you think Cuomo was a good governor?

Scott Stringer
No.

Nicole Gelinas
And why is that?

Scott Stringer
Because when you go through 10 years as governor, and the best thing that you can say is you built a bridge, and at the same time you were doing that, he basically was the most anti-New York City governor in modern history, cutting CUNY, cutting the MTA, firing Train Daddy, and then–[laughter at “Train Daddy”]–I can’t wait to see this transcript. And then you go to the “great” moment that we had, when my mom died of COVID, and so many people talk about the public truth and here’s a guy who, through inaction and mistake driven governance, ends up harming 15,000 people in nursing homes by his poor decisions, by covering up data. That’s not a good governor to me.

And then think about this, which I still can’t wrap my arms around and it’s emotional to me, so I really can’t talk about it that much. He signs a $5 million book deal in the midst of a pandemic. I mean, who does that in good conscience? Five million dollars. While people die in nursing homes. While people like myself were trying to bury their mother, who had no direction except his silly press conferences, and then he leaves the press conference and him and his staff would write another chapter of a book about leadership. I don’t know, Nicole, that doesn’t make you qualified to be mayor.

Harry Siegel
Why don’t New Yorkers care? They were aware of all this. The Democratic establishment cared about some of these things and eventually pushed him out. He’s back and a lot of the establishment’s falling in line. The polls show that we all know lots of this history but New Yorkers don’t yet seem very concerned.

Scott Stringer
The history of mayoral races. That’s exactly what Mayor Yang said. That’s what all the people who have 32% of the polls say during the Ides of March. If the election were held today, he would be mayor. But as they say, there’s a lot of game left and this race hasn’t even started. And I know people are fascinated with the polls. It’s very hard to be elected mayor, with ranked choice voting, when 40 to 50% of the people are not going to vote for you.

And look, let’s go back. You wanted to talk about the 2021 campaign, Ben. You want to talk about 2013 for a minute? And you were there when Eliot Spitzer got into the race, and we were 22, 25 points behind with three weeks to go. I still remember the night that Eliot Spitzer came into the race for comptroller, people came over to my house and they brought food, and it was like having a shiva. I said, “Why is everybody here?” And they just held my hand, “It’s okay. It’s just gonna be okay,” you know, just just be calm about the whole thing. But you know how that story ended? It’s never about when you enter the race. It’s how you finish the race. I prosecuted the case in the comptroller’s race. I’m best qualified and most experienced to prosecute the case against Andrew Cuomo. I’m prepared to do that in our mandated Campaign Finance Board debates, which I think there are three, and some of you will be asking those questions, and the advertising hasn’t started yet, so I don’t sweat this. I just don’t.

Nicole Gelinas
Do you feel any sympathy for the way in which Cuomo resigned, considering the allegation against you of something that allegedly happened decades before?

Scott Stringer
No. You just can’t compare, and I think the voters know the difference. Look, for me, it’s not about sympathy or not sympathy. I don’t hate anybody. I actually like a lot of the people in this race, I’ve always had a cordial relationship with him. This is not about being personal to any of the candidates. It’s about the issues.

Ben Smith
Do you think voters should weigh allegations against Cuomo that were never arbitrated in the court of law? Like, should that be part of a voter’s calculation? The way that you ultimately did, I think voters thought about something that wound up, I mean, you are literally relitigating it by suing her, but that was a sort of hazy allegation from a long time ago that hit at the wrong time. Do you think that those allegations should be part of their calculation about Andrew Cuomo?

Scott Stringer
By the way, thank you for your article about that, Ben. Look. I think voters will separate out what they perceive as real and not real. That’s why you have a campaign. When we’re in public life, you have to be prepared to argue the totality of your lived experience, right? And nobody, as you see with what comes out during campaigns, nobody is beyond reproach or criticism. Just coming to this Editorial Board meeting, you can see what comes, right, and you have to be prepared to figure it out. I do think voters, though, in my experience running for office, it takes a while but voters actually usually figure it out the right way. Not always.

Ben Smith
So no sympathy for Andrew Cuomo from you?

Scott Stringer
Look, I have sympathy for anybody who feels personal pain. The people that I feel most sympathy for, and it took me a while to wrap my arms around it, was not what I would go through in another campaign or in previous campaigns, but what was my tolerance level for my wife and kids [experience]. And they’re the people that I worry about in all the campaigns. We have candidates running that have young kids like me, but even older kids, you know, have to love their parents. It’s a tough thing. When I was thinking of running for mayor, my 11-year-old said to me, we’re sitting on the couch, and he said, “Dad, you want to run for mayor again?” I said, “You know, Miles, I’m thinking about it. It was a tough campaign.” He goes, “It was, but let me tell you something. I am going to support you. But this is my last campaign, Dad.” I said to him, “You know, your father kind of got started in this at your age and never stopped.” He goes, “I know! Pick wisely, Dad. This is the last one.” And my 13-year-old said to me, “I’m fine with the race, as long as none of my friends find out, so…”

Ben Smith
Well, thank you, Scott.