Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on ABC's Close with Bill Ritter

March 15, 2020

Bill Ritter: And good morning, everyone. Welcome to Up Close, I'm Bill Ritter. Our lives have been changed, no two ways around that. Even if you're still having a hard time wrapping your head around all this, it is hard to ignore all the signs out there. The coronavirus pandemic, so many things we perhaps take for granted have now closed. We're talking Broadway and cultural institutions, sports of all sorts, businesses being urged to let employees work from home or stagger their hours to prevent subway overcrowding. How bad is it really? How are we handling it? How long does it last? Questions some of which don't have answers to. Joining us this morning, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio who is not over exaggerating to say this, more entrenched in this one issue than any other issue perhaps of his six years as mayor. And thank you for joining us, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you, Bill.

Ritter: We're talking every inch of our lives is affected by this.

Mayor: No, this is changing everything. And you know, it's so funny to think about, you know, we didn't even have our first case in New York City until March 1st. That's officially two weeks ago. It feels like a century ago.

Ritter: Yeah.

Mayor: And what happened just in the last 48 hours was probably the most profound shock. We’ve known about this disease since December. You know, we've seen horrible things from around the world, but the last 48 hours, 72 hours, you know, you've gotten a situation where our world has been turned upside down and now we're in the great unknown.

Ritter: It's not a hoax. I think there are fewer people than ever – the president on Friday had a press conference. He had, you know, a speech in the Oval Office. It seemed that he had finally come to grips with that and realized it's not a hoax. I'm not sure how many of his most ardent supporters don't think that the Democrats or the media is making this up. And I want to say that we are recording this on Friday for airing on Sunday. So, who knows what's going to happen. You think that by the end of this coming week, next week you're – we could have a thousand.

Mayor: Yeah, I think it's just good to be clear with people that that's the kind of number we could get to. I'm certainly not guaranteeing it. I'd love it to be less.

Ritter: As of Friday, it’s 154 cases.

Mayor: Right – and we could easily get there. But I do want to say I think people are really paying attention. I think they are getting information on this in a way I can almost think of no parallel because it's not just like a horrible crisis that you're dealing with for a day, a week. I mean this has really been almost two months where we've been seeing more and more and more of this and so, the reason I say that is I believe New Yorkers – first of all, the people are going to be the key to solving this, not just the government, the people, and I think the people are really paying attention and are making a lot of the adjustments that we need to finally get to the day, months from now, when we're done with this. And so I actually believe Mew Yorkers are being extraordinary in a time of crisis, really, a strength and resiliency is really coming out.

Ritter: Once you get over the hump that says, you know, I can't go to the gym or I can't do this or I'm not going to do this – once you get over it and come to grips with that and wrap your head around the fact that life has changed, then it gets easier because you accept that new reality. It's not going to be un-difficult, it's going to be difficult for some people. But I think people saw when all these places were closing, when the sports teams said the season's over for right now.

Mayor: That was a shock.

Ritter: But it's a good shock because it made people say, okay, wait a minute, it's not just a pain in the butt for me.

Mayor: Right.

Ritter: All these people are giving up things that we took for granted.

Mayor: I agree with that, but I want to caution that I'm not giving people the guidance to shut down their lives. And this is a very difficult balance to strike, but it's something that I think we can have a mature conversation about and New Yorkers get it. I don't want the economy shut down, I don't want jobs shut down, I don't want people to be without a livelihood, I don't want people to be without the basic resources they need for food and medicine and rent. You name it.

Ritter: You don't want schools shut down.

Mayor: I don't want school shut down. But even before you get to schools, which we'll talk about, I want to say that, you know, the media has asked me in the different press conferences, well, what should people do, should they go about their lives? I do want every effort that we can at normalcy, but what we can't afford anymore is the huge gatherings, we can't afford, you know, I'm thinking about the bar on the corner of my street in Brooklyn. It's a wonderful place, but we can't afford everyone pressed up against each other in the bar.

Ritter: But that will hurt business.

Mayor: Of course, it will. But – and we can't afford everyone, you know, in the rush hour train at rush hour, I should say. But we can find a way to have a life. So, I am not telling people, don't go to the bar, don't go to the restaurant to throw away everything you love in your life. I'm telling people, it's sort of all in moderation, if you will. If you go, you're going to need to keep a little more distance.

Ritter: And you've already done that by asking companies to sort of have some people working home, stagger hours so that not everyone's doing the rush hour thing.

Mayor: Stagger hours, telecommute. Let people telecommute, if you can. And for bars and restaurants, we're saying go to 50 percent capacity, which I know is going to affect the bottom line. But you know what, think about it for a minute. Instead of everyone – you know, with a lot of bars and restaurants in New York City, I mean, the tables might as well be on top of each other, they are so close. If you say, let's spread people out you're still going to have business. Maybe you have fewer staff members –

Ritter: Better than closing up –

Mayor: Better than closing up, and people are desperate for some solace and they – I think it's important to keep it going. But let's strike that balance.

Ritter: Let's dive into the schools a little bit. You're trying not to have the schools closed. On Friday, 68.5 percent was the attendance records, attendance rate. 91 percent usually at this time of year, so far. So that's a lot of people. But I thought it was interesting the way you did it. And I did the math very quickly. That's still 750,000 kids that are attending, even though 350,000 kids are not there. 750,000-odd – that means two meals a day for them. That means guidance from adults. That means not being home alone. That means not having parents having to stop working and find childcare for these kids. So, I understand what you're trying to do, but that's more than 500 people in the school that are still there. And that's gathering of 500 people.

Mayor: It is. But let's remember, even in the school, we have a lot of opportunities to do things differently. We're going to change – you name it. I mean, there's not going to be field trips. There's not going to be all sorts of extracurricular sports activities. So what you do is, you know, we're going to limit what we're trying to do. And then in the classroom we're going to try and do some more distancing in a lot of ways, in the cafeteria.

Ritter: Spread the tables out, spread the –

Mayor: Everything we could do to create a little more space between people. And you know, when cafeterias, where we can do it, we will. Where we can't, we're going to do some meals in the classroom. Look, we have to adapt. But you make a great point, Bill. I mean there are lots of unintended consequences, lots of negatives. And here's another one. Hundreds of thousands of kids – think about high school aged kids, middle school kids, if they're home, they may be – we're talk about months potentially. I don't want those kids without adult supervision, home during the day. You know, that creates its own set of challenges. Health and safety challenges too. So, I'm holding on, understanding why a lot of people are anxious. I'm a parent, my kids went to New York City public schools, but I also say – I'll tell you, a lot of parents are telling me, please keep them open. There are certainly parents who want to shut them. There are certainly teachers who are concerned.

Ritter: The union wants to shut it.

Mayor: The union wants to shut it – 

Ritter: And your Council Speaker wants to shut it.

Mayor: Sure. And then the biggest union in New York City, 1199, the health care workers, asked to keep them open because they said our members are dependent, and they need to get to work at the hospitals. So, it's a balance. We're going to make the decision. We're going to watch every day for any changing developments. But I say to New Yorkers, I've got three pillars here of what will define civilization in New York City – schools, mass transit, and the hospitals. Those three things, in my view, we have to keep going. They all interrelate, by the way, if you don't have mass transit, your health care workers, your first responders, a lot of them are going to have trouble getting where they need to go. If you don't have schools, a lot of people who we depend on are not going to be able to show up for work if they have to take care of their kids. We got to look at the whole picture. My job is to try and keep those things together and it's going to be tough sometimes, but that's what I want to do.

Ritter: Let me ask you about the subways. You know, you want to stagger them but – and a lot of people are –

Mayor: Stagger people going on it.

Ritter: Right. A lot of people are avoiding the subways.

Mayor: And it's actually – so what that's done is it's created the social distancing. I mean –

Ritter: Citi bikes are way up, people are walking.

Mayor: People are – this is what I'm saying, New Yorkers are the most resourceful, resilient people on Earth, are making the adjustments. And there's always a little bit of that, doom-saying whenever there's a crisis and then New Yorkers, every single time, prove to you they can put up with anything, they can deal with anything. So what's happening now is people have cleared out of the subways. We still need the subways. And there's obviously a lot of people using them, but not that crushes much. That's good, right? There's some real natural adjustments happening here and that's going to help us do better. That's going to help us get through it. But we don't – here's my problem. Look at Italy. You know, I'm going to tell you, in America, I am pained to the core by what's happening in Italy. They ended up with a crisis that just was out of control before they –

Ritter: And a lot of people died.

Mayor: Oh my God – but you know, I feel for everyone involved because just almost before they could recognize what was happening, it was massive. And here's what I'm saying, they've gone to full shutdown. God forbid that ever happened here because you know what, they have lost, not just the year of 2020, they've lost the year 2021, they may have lost a year 2022. When it comes to creating a functioning society where people have employment, where there's money for even the basics. I mean, that's a society that's going to suffer for years.

Ritter: And tourism. How fast can that [inaudible] –

Mayor: A long, slow rebound. So there's got to be an impulse here that strike’s some balance.
Right now, the city is still functioning, right? I want to be careful that we hold that line to the best of our ability because if we slip into much more of a shutdown mode, people have to understand all the consequences of that and then how long it will ever take to bring it back.

Ritter: If you all this pressure continues, if there's more schools that have – virus indicated they're inside and you have to shut down the schools. What's that going to do to the economy?

Mayor: So, let me take the word pressure out of your vocabulary because I – you know, some of the media was asking me about a lot of people criticizing. I said, you know, we're in war time. I don't care who's criticizing. I'm listening to valid concerns. I'm trying to balance the equation but this is what people hired me for. I am here to make decisions to protect people and I'm going to use my best judgment. I don't care if it's – it's not a popularity contest. We're going to do what we can do to protect people. And look – and I'm trying to think about today, I'm trying to think about the long game also. So, you're right that there may come a day where the facts lead us to shut schools, but it's not going to be because of who has the loudest voice, I assure you.

Ritter: Okay. If you do have some students who want to take remote learning, how are you going to get the computers to them and everything else and Wi-Fi?

Mayor: You know, the Chancellor talked about this blunt reality. We have kids who have Wi-Fi, have internet service, have computers. We have a lot of kids who don't have any of that. We would do our damnedest to get what they need, but it's going to be very imperfect. And then here's the other problem. If the parents aren't home [inaudible] depending on the average middle school student or high school student to keep that schedule, to do the homework and who's following up and what if they need guidance. Remote learning is a very imperfect tool. We'll do our damnedest, but that's why I'd much rather keep the schools going.

Ritter: We only have two minutes left. I want to talk to you about politics a little bit. We have another Tuesday – a little mini Super Tuesday on Tuesday. Bernie Sanders, you're a big supporter of.

Mayor: Yes, I am.

Ritter: Still on there. Some people were surprised he didn't get out of the race on Tuesday. You were not, I assume.

Mayor: No, and I'll tell you why. Listen to what he said. It was very powerful. He knows that it's a tough situation, but he's also a guy who has been counted out a bunch of times and come back before. By the way, we're not even at half the delegates being distributed yet. There's still a lot of time on the clock. But Bernie Sanders, instead of saying, you know, I'm going to fight with Joe Biden, he said, I'm going to ask him the tough questions because he hasn't answered these questions yet. And I respect Joe Biden, but I've been very blunt. He's not been vetted in this election because he was the front runner for a while and then that stopped and people stopped paying attention to him and they focused on Elizabeth Warren and they focused on Michael Bloomberg and they focused on Bernie Sanders, and they got all the tough questions. Joe Biden has to be asked, how is he actually going to change this country? Because I'm very blunt about the fact you can't just go back to November 7th, 2016 and say, everything would be great and we [inaudible] a lot of Democrats, you just didn't have Trump. We have a lot of other things we have to fix and Bernie is going to put him through his paces.

Ritter: If Sanders loses badly to the Joe Biden on Tuesday – Ohio and also Florida – what's going to happen?

Mayor: Look, Bernie is a very thoughtful, decent human being and he's going to look at the facts and he's going to make decisions accordingly, but not – I think this is a fair statement. He is going to make sure there is an honest debate about the issues because that's what he's about. And he's not ever going to be someone who gives up prematurely because he's been counted out so many times before and proved the pundits wrong. But in the end there will be unity. Whoever wins – I really feel this – there will be unity because Democrats have to have unity.

Ritter:  He will support the nominee.

Mayor: He said it.

Ritter: Will his supporters support the –

Mayor: The vast majority will.

Ritter: Because a lot of them did not. And they didn't vote for Hillary Clinton and they – some of them voted for Donald Trump.

Mayor: But I want to give Joe Biden credit now. I was a big fan of Hillary Clinton in that election and worked hard and believed in her, but I don't think there was a sense of welcome sufficiently from the Democratic Party to Bernie supporters. Remember, 13 million people voted for him in 2016.

Ritter: That’s a good point.

Mayor: They didn't get the welcome. Joe Biden did an important thing on Tuesday night. He immediately addressed the Sanders supporters.

Ritter: Come over, he said.

Mayor: And he was very warm about it. And I want to give him credit now. This ballgame ain't over. But he did the right thing to start the process of saying, if he is to prevail, he showed respect and inclusion. That was smart.

Ritter: I think it's safe to say politics aside this is the biggest and most intense campaign that you're running as mayor. What you're dealing with –

Mayor: This threat is –

Ritter: And the city's behind you on this because we are together in all that.

Mayor: We are, and it's the biggest threat, unquestionably, of my morality. But I have to tell you, I really believe in New Yorkers. I believe in the solidarity people feel for each other.

Ritter: I would shake your hand, but we don't do that. It's an elbow – we'll go like this.

Mayor: That's very good.

Ritter: Okay.

Mayor: Thank you, Bill.

Ritter: Mr. Mayor, thank you.

Mayor: Thank you, brother.