00:00What is a big problem now more than before in New York City?
00:03Every neighborhood that you go, you see a lot of homeless and
00:07all over the place.
00:09What would you do if you become a mayor?
00:11Because there's so many neighborhoods that are really, really concerned right now.
00:15I would like to hear about, to tell them what is going on.
00:18Thank you for your question, Yolanda.
00:20And it speaks to the fact that we have the highest records of homelessness we've
00:25seen since the Great Depression. And we know that to fully understand this moment in time,
00:31we also have to understand what led up to it. And when Andrew Cuomo was leading the state,
00:36he cut funding for the Advantage Program, a program that was critical at tackling homelessness.
00:41And we have seen a rise in homelessness since that decision. Today, there's an estimate that
00:47more than 4,000 New Yorkers are living on subway platforms across this city.
00:55number of vacant supportive housing units within this same city.
00:59And it is an illustration of the fact that so much of this can also be explained by the lack
01:05of political will and interest in actually tackling these issues and ensuring that the services that
01:11we are funding and creating are actually being provided to those who are in dire need of them.
01:15And additionally, we know that the greatest cause of homelessness,
01:20one of the greatest causes of homelessness in our city is the rising rents of this city.
01:26We cannot decouple these two issues from them. And that's why we have so much of a focus of using
01:31every tool at our disposal to not only freeze the rent for more than 2 million New Yorkers,
01:36but also to build housing at a scale that we haven't seen in this city for quite some time,
01:41such that we can ensure that we are taking every action to tackle the homelessness crisis
01:47through all of the different tools at our disposal.
01:49Yeah, Sam right here from NBC.
01:51I'm curious on the ABC decision, sorry, would you mind speaking a little bit louder?
01:58Yeah, no worries, New York City.
02:01What do you think of the, why do the decisions of the conservative voices
02:04are going to come out, whether it's Ted Cruz or Rand Paul,
02:06who repuged the FCC for the pressure that you just described,
02:10and do you think there will be more Republicans
02:13who will potentially take that step in the face to come?
02:16No, I hope to see that, but I'm not holding my breath. And I think this is something that should
02:22concern all Americans, no matter of their party. Because we often hear from Republicans about their
02:28desire for a smaller government, for less of an intervention in people's lives, as they put it.
02:34And yet here we have a Republican president, whose FCC is seeking to intimidate
02:40the media, and looking to use their regulatory powers as the means of doing so.
02:45This should offend all of us. Because to be a leader, it means to encounter speech that you hate,
02:52speech that you disagree with, speech that you oppose. It does not, however,
02:56mean to use the powers of that leadership to then stifle that same speech. I'm running to represent
03:01all eight and a half million people in this city. There are undoubtedly people who will disagree with
03:05me, who will come up to me, who will yell at me, who will shout at me. That's part of what this job
03:09means. It cannot mean that I look at those same people and say, these are the freedoms that I must
03:13stifle. These are the freedoms I must repress. That is what it means to live in a society is to engage
03:17with that disagreement. And to look to stifle it, it just showcases a complete betrayal of so much of
03:24what is the bedrock of this country and our ability to actually live out these freedoms.
03:30Joe. How's it going, Joe? Good. I feel bad you're always seated.
03:35This is my purse. I like me right here. I get good audio.
03:38All right. I was wondering if you could react to
03:42several U.S. allies recognize their plans to recognize a positive statement. And
03:48could you talk a little bit about maybe how you feel this would distinguish you from your
03:52competitors than they always? You know, my
04:01the candidate that is closest to me in the polls, Andrew Cuomo, there are many things that distinguish
04:06with us. One of which is his decision to serve on Benjamin Netanyahu's legal defense team. A decision to
04:18look at the genocide that we've seen in Gaza and choose to defend the man responsible for it.
04:27And New Yorkers know that this is a race about the future of this city. It's a race about the
04:34welfare of the people who call the city their home and that the focus of any mayor of the city has
04:38to be on those same New Yorkers. And they also want to see a politics that is consistent.
04:44And what I've heard from so many New Yorkers is that they are tired of a politics of exception,
04:50of one when they do not know if someone believes in freedom and justice and safety
04:53before they ask as to whom it applies to. And what I offer to those New Yorkers is that consistency,
04:59a belief in that universality. And I also know that this is not a hypothetical concern for many New
05:05Yorkers. You know, a few months ago, I met a Palestinian New Yorker who told me that 85 members
05:15of her family had been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza. How do you even understand the
05:22depth of that despair? And to know our complicity as Americans in funding that should be an affront
05:30to all of us. And even as we are here speaking about ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, we know that the attack on
05:37the freedom of expression is not limited solely to these institutions and individuals. It is also
05:44affecting New Yorkers in their own lives. And I think about a Palestinian New Yorker by the name of
05:48Mahmoud Khalil, who is recently facing a judgment from an immigration judge that is calling for his
05:56deportation either to Algeria or Syria. Never mind the fact that he's a New Yorker who is married and
06:02raising a young child in this city. Never mind the fact that he has had to spend months in detention
06:07for the crime seemingly of uttering an expression of solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian human
06:12rights. This is what it looks like to see this attack on freedoms of expression. And so to stand
06:20up against these attacks, it means at once standing up for the right of someone like Jimmy Kimmel to be
06:27able to say whatever it is that comes to their mind when they're on the air, and the right of someone
06:31like Mahmoud Khalil to stand in solidarity with the fight for Palestinian human rights. These are all
06:36intertwined as one fight together. Specifically, what's your reaction to this idea that these allies
06:42are going to recognize statement? You know, I think
06:46any recognition of the dignity of Palestinians is something that I welcome. I think that the most
06:53urgent focus should be from these allies and from our own federal government to stop this genocide.
07:00We are seeing one Palestinian child having been killed every hour for more than a year. We are
07:10seeing a scale of devastation that many of us cannot comprehend. And I think that recognition of dignity
07:16is important. And yet the most important thing is to stop the suffering.
07:20Okay, we've got time for one more. Yeah, Gloria.
07:24We've talked to some business leaders and some previous public servants that have worked across
07:31different administrations. And there's been a consistent thing that comes up, and that's then
07:36questioning whether or not you're doing enough to lay the ground or to make sure your administration is
07:41ready if you win. Can you give us a little bit of insight into how you are preparing? I think you're pretty
07:47confident that you're going to win in November. Can you give us a little bit of a window into what that process
07:53looks like as you clearly are still very much on campaign mode, balancing those two priorities?
07:59And can you give people who are looking at you and thinking he doesn't have the experience,
08:04he doesn't have the amount of time working in government to be able to hit the ground running?
08:13You know, I am someone who now understands what Andrew Cuomo felt like
08:18a few months before the election in leading this race. And also, I don't want to understand what
08:25Andrew Cuomo felt like on the night of that primary, where those polls showed that they didn't count for
08:29much. And so I'm spending each and every day looking to earn the support of New Yorkers and not looking at
08:37these polls as permission to take this election for granted. This is one that we will earn,
08:44one that we will win every single day. And that is why we continue to campaign across the five boroughs.
08:51That's also why we look at a historic 52,000 person strong volunteer team and say that we need
08:58to actually increase the numbers of our volunteers. And we're proud to say that
09:02we're confident we will reach 90,000 volunteers by election day, that we will knock on an additional
09:07one and a half.
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