Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show

November 16, 2016

Rachel Maddow: Joining us now is New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio. Mr. Mayor, thank you for being here. It’s nice to see you.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: It’s my great pleasure, Rachel. 

Maddow: How did it go in that meeting today?

Mayor: Look, it was a candid meeting and it was a substantive meeting. We talked about a whole range of issues. I talked to him about stop and frisk and why it hadn’t worked in this city. I talked to him about the fact that he would actually undermine public safety – in addition to any moral question about immigration and deportation, it would undermine public safety if 500,000 New Yorkers who don’t have documentation feared talking to a police officer because they feared deportation for themselves of their family. I tried to shed some light – I told him there are 900 Muslim-American members of the NYPD – which many people don’t know – protecting all of us. And so, my job was to tell him there’s a lot of fear out there. There’s a tremendous sense of disenfranchisement that people feel. They don’t know what’s going to happen to them, their family, what their place will be in his America, and that he need to address that in word and in deed if that kind of rift was ever going to be averted.

Maddow: Do you feel like he can hear you? Presumably, this is not the first conversation you’ve ever had with him. I’ve spoken with him once on the telephone and I know that he’s an empathetic listener – he reflects stuff back to you, he seems to absorb stuff when you’re taking to him about things. Did you feel like he either was persuaded or that he was absorbing what you were telling him?

Mayor: I think it’s fair to say there was a give and take, which I always appreciate in any human being, but, with him, the proof will be in the pudding. We’ve heard so many things – such harsh rhetoric, such extremist proposals. What’s going to happen now? We could see a very different outcome, but people have to see it and experience it before they’re going to have faith, to say the least. So, was there a real dialog? Yes. Will that amount to something? We have to see some action to believe that. 

Maddow: There’s been a lot of controversy about his immigration proposals not just in terms of what he and his transition team say they’re going to start doing on day-one, but what’s going to happen as they try to force cities like yours around the country to do their will. They say they’re going to cut off all federal funds to any city in the country that says that their local police force won’t hand people over to the border patrol, if they won’t act as basically part of a deportation force. How do you react to that threat?

Mayor: The Constitution doesn’t create a national police force, you know? It’s local police forces, it’s local schools, and so on and so on. We’re going to run our police as we see fit. We’re not going to deport our own neighbors. Now, look, there are some individuals who have done heinous crimes and New York City’s law right now says there are certain categories of crime where we do participate and work with ICE. But I think the bigger concept here is, we’re not going to work against our own people. And one of the things that isn’t accounted for in all this rhetoric is that local governments have immense sway over the day-to-day lives of their people and don’t take orders from the federal government. Yes, you’re right, they can threaten funding, although my sense of what the Supreme Court has decided previously is that’s pretty narrow. You can threaten funding in very specific categories, you can’t threaten education funding if the issue is about public safety, for example. But I think it’s going to be a reality on the ground that changes the whole political context. We have to remember, this is so dynamic – if cities all over the country are saying we’re not going to participate in that, we’re not going to – for example, on the policing – we’re not going to reinstate stop and frisk, which failed in the city and divided police and community. We’re going to see the political spectrum start to shift. And one of the things I’m hyper aware of – this election was about economics. If he does a tax cut for the wealthy, a tax cut for big corporations, a lot of his own voters will start to be disillusioned. If he deregulates Wall Street and repeals Dodd Frank, a lot of the same people who are so frustrated and felt the elites in Washington let them down will say, well, wait a minute, here’s a new elite letting us down. So, I think he has to recognize that he’s in a very dynamic political situation. The campaign’s over, and these positions will determine whether people support him or not, including the very same people who voted for him.

Maddow: What he’s doing in terms of transition – who he’s lining up around him – makes me think that he’s going to govern exactly the way he campaigned, but, you’re right, that we will have to see. I have to as a parochial question –

Mayor: Please.

Maddow – Which is, it’s not at all clear the he’s planning on moving to the White House. One of the unusual things about this is that we don’t actually know if he plans on leaving home. If he does plan to spend substantial time, or even just keep his primary non-in-DC residence here in New York City, how is that going to change New York City? Obviously, there’s security concerns around that, and the issue with protests, but also just securing the President’s residence – that’s going to be a big hassle, right?

Mayor: NYPD can handle it, I don’t have a question in the world. You know, we’re used to having the President come here constantly as it is. World leaders for the UN General Assembly, we had the Pope a year ago – the NYPD can handle it. We’ll work closely with the Secret Service. Yeah, there’ll be some dislocation in Midtown. We’re going to have to do real work to accommodate and not have that part of Midtown ground to a halt, but there’s no question in my mind we can keep him safe. And I actually have to say, if this is – if this is his place that he feels is home, I’d like him to stay in touch with his home, because part of my message to him today is you have to hear the voice of the people. You can’t end up in a bubble. And if people are fearful, and if people feel they’re being left out in the city that he grew up in, maybe it’s important that he stay here some of the time and hear those voices and recognize what’s actually happening rather than end up isolated in a white house with a big fence around it. 

Maddow: Which is almost impossible not to do, but we will – we are in uncharted territory in so many ways. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much.

Mayor: Thank you, Rachel – pleasure. 

Maddow: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio – it should be noted, in terms of Democratic prospects around the country and how Democrats faired in these last federal elections, Bill de Blasio, as a Democratic official, stands for a lot more constituents than almost any other Democrat anywhere in the country right now. He’s a big-city mayor and one of the most influential Democrats in this country, and will be for at least a couple of years – so, pay attention.