Scott Rechler: Welcome to recalibrate reality, the future of New York, I'm Scott Rechler share the regional plan association and CEO and chair of our XR working with the 92nd street. Y we've launched a new conversational series where leading thinkers and decision-makers seek to answer the question. How do we recalibrate reality to create a better and brighter future for New York? This is a first in a series of conversations about the future of New York in a post COVID world. And there is no one better to kick off this series than the chief executive for the state of New York. Governor Andrew Cuomo. Governor Cuomo has been new York's leader since he was elected governor in 2011, but at no other point, has his leadership been more critical than with COVID-19 we've watched the governor and his team operate in real time through the COVID fog of war. And now with the vaccine, we're finally starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. And so let's recap it reality with governor Andrew Cuomo, governor Cuomo, welcome to recalibrate reality, the future of New York. I really appreciate taking the time to be here today. You know, I can't believe it's almost a year since we began this battle against COVID. I know for me personally, I can't remember a more intense time, so I only can imagine what it must be for you. So, so before we jump into this conversation like this, how are you doing? How are you holding up? How are you staying so energized to this?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, first Scott, thank you. Thank you for all you're doing in this. Thank you for the civic involvement, what you're doing on a personal level of professional level, and thank you for this series because it is smart. We do have to understand what's going on and we do have to plan what's going on. I really believe at this point, our future is what we make it. You know, that expression it's never been more true. The future belongs to the state, the County, the region, the country, that best recalibrates reality, because reality has changed. You used an expression that caught my ear at a previous time when we were together. When you said there's been 10 months of change and retrospection almost daily, there's been a rate of change in society that we really have to appreciate and understand. So thank you. Thank the RPA. Thank the 92nd street. Y how am I doing? I'm tired. It's been 347 days, but you know, we do what we have to do, right? You rise to the occasion. We do what we have to do, but relative to our experience, yes, it's been testing and trying,
Scott Rechler: Right. Well, you know, listen, we're with you. And actually that's part of what I'm trying to do. We're trying to do with this conversational series, which is as you, you and I have had the conversation in the past. It feels like that since COVID, there's been a void in the business, the cultural, the civic community, all coming to tackle our, our state, our reasons challenges like we've done in the past when we've had other crisises. So the purpose of this show is to bring together leaders from the arts, the civic, cultural institutions, business, community restaurants, across the spectrums on a weekly basis to hear their insights as to what's happening. And how do we recalibrate reality for a post COVID world? And there's no better person to start with this conversations than you. Someone who has literally been writing a new playbook for us to, to work our way through and how we can rebuild back better and stronger, stronger in a post COVID world. So thank you for, for doing this again.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: My pleasure, but Scott, I think you're right. That it's, first of all, it's a matter of timing, right? I used to work in the federal government on emergency management. You'd fly into a place where a hurricane was about to hit. Before you do the damage assessment, you have to let the hurricane pass first is just
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help people during the hurricane. When the hurricane passes, then you do a damage assessment. How do we rebuild after COVID? Well, let the hurricane pass first, right? And let's see, what's still standing. Now. I think that the bulk of the hurricane has passed. We're still losing people every day. We still have a while to go, but we know the basic parameters of the damage. So I think now you can start in an intelligent conversation about let's take an assessment of the damage and what happened and then where do we go from here?
Scott Rechler: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think, you know, as you think about it from the here and now, it's starting to feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel, particularly with the vaccine. I know there's been a lot of challenges with getting supply. No one expects it to happen overnight, but what do you think the timeframe is for the vaccine to hit the critical mass for the new normal, to get us to that point?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Look, I do believe the previous federal, federal administration, this was their parting gift. They did mess up the production of the vaccine operation warp speed in the Trump administration. If you remember, they gave billions of dollars to drug companies to expedite the vaccine. Great. But the vaccine is only as good as the vaccine production and we don't have the vaccine production. Now the Biden administration has been in for a few weeks, literally, but it is a supply problem of the vaccine. And it's an incredible foul up in the last days of the Trump administration, they opened the eligibility. So you had nursing homes, nurses, doctors, essential workers, 65 plus in New York, that's about 10 million people. We get 300,000 doses per week. The mayhem is 10 million chasing 300,000 doses every week. So it is all about that supply. Now we have a whole distribution chain set up and pharmacies and small mass vaccination sites, large mass vaccination sites, but it is supply.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: And the federal government on the Biden has been increasing that supply slowly in about three weeks. They've raised at about 28%. If Johnson and Johnson is approved, that would be the first major surge. But if you, if you look at the trajectory now, I think you're talking about an upward trajectory. Overall through may, June, may, June, the vaccine should start to hit critical mass. The production should increase. Pfizer will up their production with during, and we'll up their production. Another, a number of other drug companies will up their production. And I think may June, July some, we'll say September, you'll really hit critical mass on the vaccine, but that is the light at the end of the tunnel because the vaccine works. We have the infection stable. Now the vaccine kicks in, that'll bring the infection rate down. The only asterisk to the entire conversation is unless a variant causes may have, what does that mean?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Unless a South Africa variant the UK variant a variant of a variant because this virus mutates constantly, unless one variant comes out that is resistant to the vaccine. That's the caveat that we should keep an eye on. But absent that, I think you're looking at June to September as a range for the vaccine take critical mass. And what I'm trying to do in New York is accelerate the reopening, not waiting for that point, using testing and look on the reopening of the economy. It's all balanced, right? Life is balanced. We're going to reopen the larger arenas. We did a demonstration and the Buffalo bills playoff game 7,000 people were in the stadium all tested before they went into the stadium. First football game in the country to test people going into the stadium will start to open up the larger Rina's with the testing first.
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And I want to continue to do this. You could open theaters with testing. You could open restaurants to a higher percentage with testing. So I think the testing ran rapid testing is the key to accelerating the reopening because we can't sit here until June, July, August, September. We just can't.
Scott Rechler: Yeah. And, and in to that point, just to think about things, when you made the reference earlier, my comment about the Vietnam war with COVID sort of, we had like, you know, 10 years of new innovation adoption in 10 months. And, and when you think about how that has changed society, right? I always like use like the Netflix and blockbuster scenario, right? We knew blockbuster. Wasn't going to be around for a long time, but you know, over a 10 year period of blockbuster would go out of business. The CVS would take the store, they'd hire the people and eventually blockbuster was gone and totally, and Netflix was there. You know, that now has happened in this 10 months to a year. And you know, our systems of government and policies and programs, you know, really, we were never built to have that level of disruption and dislocation so quickly. And so, you know, one thing that concerns me and I'm curious on your take is there's going to be large swats of the economy, small businesses, local businesses, essential workers that you know, are now displaced. And even though we may have an overall economic recovery from a macro basis. So when you look below the line, you know, these people aren't going to necessarily have, you know, jobs or the training for the jobs. How, how are we equipped as a government at the state level and the federal level to try to address that problem?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Good point. Let's separate two issues. If we can, let's separate government response to a medical emergency government, public health response, especially federal government gets a C minus in response to this, you had no PPE. We couldn't find ventilators. There was no surge plan for hospitals. We have no real operational public health capacity. You couldn't do health screenings at airports. Your point is then there's a second category on how do you adjust to these dramatic changes that were really coincidence with COVID has nothing to do with the virus, but the virus accelerated social business changes across the board that I don't even know that we were fully comp comprehended. You know, we talk about what zoom did, but zoom is just the surface. You said to society, the workplace is no longer preeminent.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: It is now acceptable to do business like this, and everybody can now do business like this. I was talking to a partner in a big law firm. He said to me, if I called up a client and he said, I can't come to your office, I can't come to a meeting. I can't go to your son's wedding. I can't take you to lunch in a fancy restaurant. I would be fired. But all of that now changed the way lawyers do business accountants, the business, the arts do business, it's all changed. And what does this mean now? And will people go back? And to what extent will they go back? And what does it going to take them to go back? And then what are the ripples and the ramifications of these major changes? What is urban? I was HUD secretary. I started assistant secretary for community planning and development.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: What is a city, the future of a city when it does not necessitate a daily commute of, of workers to come in, who then frequent the retail stores in the restaurants, et cetera, how much of a reduction can an urban environment handle and what does that do to the revenue of the urban environment? And can you still the have a critical mass to handle the stores, et cetera. This is all uncharted territory and you're
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right. This normally would have taken 10 years to happen. And it happened in 10 months and assessing it, what are the consequences of it? Can we attenuate some of the consequences? And then how do we address those consequences that we can't attenuate that all has to happen now and quickly?
Scott Rechler: Yeah. And I think, you know, two things that come to mind as you were speaking about that one is from a policy perspective, we need bold policies, right? This is you got to take new plays that have a new playbook for a post COVID world and, and, and accelerate this. And so, you know, example in my mind is a policy you put forward in terms of, of thinking about some of the hotels that are oversupplied or the old office buildings that are going to be BMT and accelerating the ability for over the next five years to convert them to housing, where we have a housing shortage, right? Cause it's going to happen over time. But if they sit vacant, you're going to basically have vacant buildings, vacant blocks, which then means the restaurants aren't having customers, local businesses, aren't having customers. But the other point I would say is from a civic standpoint, right?
Scott Rechler: And this, this is a part that has frustrated me a little bit, which is that we all need to take responsibility. You know, the, the business people, the people that live here need to realize that if you don't come back to your, your community, your downtown's because you have the luxury to be someplace else. You're, you're actually impacting the, the, the future prosperity of that community of your community. And so it's almost this you'd have a sense of civic obligation to recognize that you need to be there supporting it. And then the business leaders like us, you know, we at the new think about restaurants. We have to be thinking about those local stores that add to the character of those communities as, as what makes our communities great, right? It's what gives it the, a way of life that people want to be there and not a rental stream. And so we need to now re-imagine structures where we're partnering with them and it's not about them paying us rent. It's about getting them open, getting them vibrant again, and then cutting a deal that if they're profitable in the future, that we then figure out what's fair at that point. But that's, you know, we need to reimagine and reinvent at all levels, I believe.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Oh, you're so right. And like, would you just talk about the transition for business, the business community. This is a conversation we have to engage in because it's not a business calculus, right? The business calculus is I'm going to rent that space for what I can get economically. And if I'm not going to make enough money, I'm not going to rent that space. Okay. Now there's a new calculus. Having an urban environment is a community asset, a metropolitan asset. Yes. You can stay in your house in the Hamptons or in the Hudson Valley or wherever you want to be. But what cities do for you is there places of creative synergies, that's the place of music. That's the place of theater. That's the place of history. That's the place of cuisine that is an art form in and of itself. And cities are a laboratory for those art forms.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: And you don't want to lose that because that's an asset for all of us. Yes, you can live in the Hamptons and you can zoom from the Hamptons and you can do work that way, but there's more to life than sitting in a home and zooming to work, right? This friends, there's stimulation, there's arts, there's culture, there's music that makes us who we are. And that is all in the urban environment. And we have
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to understand that that urban environment is going to change. And we have to be part of the solution for those urban areas.
Scott Rechler: Yeah. There's no, that it's this interconnected ecosystem that creates a magnetic quality of life that makes cities vibrant. Right. And that's what we've had. And we got to get back to that. And for those who think it's just going to return to what it was and are, are holding out. They're just going to go through a slow, painful obsolescence, and eventually be forced to get to the same solution. Anyway. So trying to accelerate it, I think is, is key. But you know, another piece of this, this ecosystem that you have been particularly focused on for, for, for years now is infrastructure and how important infrastructure is to, to our region and to our Santa Ana. I don't think many people, particularly outside of New York, or even the people that particularly as we've been, you know, staying at home through the pandemic, realized how much has been accomplished on the infrastructure front.
Scott Rechler: I, and I had a phone call recently with someone that flew into LaGuardia airport, got off the plane and he was on his iPhone, just sending a text and looked up in the terminal and thought he landed in the wrong airport because the water was so beautiful. And he couldn't remember it being like this. Right. So, you know, you're, it's, it's a, I don't think people really understand how much has been done in New York. Can you take a minute and maybe just share sort of, as you think through all the projects that are in our pipeline, what that looks like, you know, three to five years from now, so that people understand, you know, how cutting edge New York is going to be on that front?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, to me, that is the light at the end of the tunnel. When, when people say I'm nervous about New York, and by the way, they're nervous about New York. You talk to the people in LA, they're nervous about LA. They're nervous about your cargo. They're nervous about Rome. They're nervous about Paris, right? The COVID made density of frightening thing. There was a reason people left cities and went to more rural suburban communities because they were afraid of the density. They didn't want to be on a bus. They didn't want to be on a crowded street. They're referring to the virus, which is understandable. You will alleviate the concern with the virus. The density itself won't be as frightening, but it's also, and this sort of thing before it is up to us and New York did not just evolve. New York was built strategically and dramatically and with ambition and we were always ahead of the curve.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: So we want to say COVID is going to change the market and the market forces fine, anticipate them, figure that, figure them out and get there. First we're building. And we accelerated it during COVID. And I'll tell you a funny story, an entirely new transportation network for New York that will lead the nation. We start COVID and the construction companies were doing everything about COVID and all the construction companies that were doing the project say, well, I guess we'll put these all on hold. I said, no, no, no, no, no. This is actually the best time to build because the traffic is down. The volume is down. The traffic on the subways is down. Roads are down. People need work. Now is the time when government builds any economist will tell you, you look at the economic cycles. We talked about FDR and the new deal, the economy is slow.
Governor Andrew Cuomo:
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Private economy is slow. Government. The economy, public sector work comes in to bolster that economy. And it does something else. It bolsters the spirit. Yes. FDR was raising buildings from the ground. FDR was more raising spirits of people. He knew that every time a new building went up and somebody said, Oh, look at that. That's new. That hasn't been there before. There was a sense of optimism that develop. And that's what FDR was doing in the new deal. You land at that new LaGuardia, which was accelerated during COVID. And it's the first new airport in 25 years. And it went from frankly, an embarrassing experience to what is going to be a world class airport at LaGuardia, JFK transformation, $13 billion. It's going to be a world class experience that Moynihan train station is so beautiful. We have people going to visit the Moynihan train station as if it was an art gallery.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: And I was talking to the managers of the train station and they said, Oh yeah, we got a lot of people coming. I said, and that traveling where they sit, they're not traveling. They're just coming to see the art in Moynahan and the architecture. It is that beautiful. So airports, rail, new rail coming in from the long Island railroad long Island, the commute, you can't drive in on the LAE anymore. Right? We're battling zoom. I'm not going to spend two and a half hours in the car driving in from Nassau anymore. Okay. The long Island railroad has a new third rail. We have new cars. It's a totally different community experience coming into a new Penn station. And we're going to rebuild an entirely new Penn station at 80% more track capacity. So you can get more trains in and mass trans that actually works.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Second Avenue, subway now goes to 96th street, opened up that whole corridor. When we extended it now going up to 125th street train coming in directly from LaGuardia airport. So you don't have to get in a cab. You land in the plane, you get into train the train to New York city. This is going to be a totally different story. It's of New York city. We're redoing more work on the subway system than ever done before all new station enhancements going for the long Island railroad and for Metro North. So it's a really quality experience. This is all new, your point about taking the commercial that will be vacant and converting it to housing and affordable housing. To get that young talent back to New York, which we were having a problem before the pandemic, because the cost of housing was so high. I mean, you couldn't move.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: You know, I'm a Queens boy, you couldn't even get an apartment in Queens of Brooklyn as a young person and afford the rent. We're going to have access commercial. That's good news lemons into lemonade. Let's have more affordable housing to get that young talent back. You can afford to live here. And you're a dreamer. You're going to be an artist. You're going to be a sculptor. You're going to be the next great newscast that God bless you. Come here and you can afford to live here. So there are major dynamics and factors already at work that will really show a different side of New York. And I believe show an optimism. You know, people don't believe that government has capacity anymore. They don't believe in government competence. Don't worry. We have a plan. Yeah. I worry when a government says that because I don't believe they have a plan.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: And if they have a plan, I don't believe the plan is right. And if they have a plan that happens to be right, I don't believe they can actually do it. I think new Yorkers now we're feeling confidence. We can do this. Go look at my NAS station. Tell me if we can do it. Go look at the Mario Cuomo bridge across the Hudson
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river, $5 billion, the largest infrastructure project in the United States of America on time on budget and beautiful. So we are, we are blessed with a team in New York that can make these things happen. And if people know that this can work, their confidence is up. Their optimism is up. I see a future they will buy in and that's what we need desperately. Now it's been a long year. I'm depressed. I don't know what to do. I've been walking around the house in my bathroom. I only put it on a shirt to do zooms. Okay. But there is a bright future. And New York is resilient in the way we came back after nine 11 and went from the trade centers to a freedom power. We're doing that all across the state and they will see it, Scott. It's not that they need to believe a speech from the governor and they will see it and touch it. And there will be nothing like that to boost the spirit.
Scott Rechler: Yeah. And the other thing I think it does is it actually instills confidence in companies to invest in New York, right? When you're thinking about companies that say, I want it to be in New York, because this is where the talent is. And when they see the state investing in this type of infrastructure companies, like the Googles, the Facebooks, the Amazons, the JP Morgans, the, the Pfizers, the Disneys that are building these big campuses in New York are making commitments to New York for decades to come. Because to your point, this is where they believe the talent will be. And if we weren't making these investments in infrastructure and that quality of life, they wouldn't have that conviction to make investments in our city and bring that talent back here. So I think you're a hundred percent correct. And it's really, frankly, it's going to be the bridge. In my opinion, that's going to get us to the oversaw. The other side of this COVID crisis, where we're living in this fog of war, where people haven't necessarily been out of their homes, they haven't seen this. They haven't been interacting. This is going to be the bridge. That's going to get this, get us there.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. We are still in the fog of war, by the way, I believe that's very true. Yes. And when we were saying, before you to let the hurricane pass, before you can do the assessment, we are still in that fog period. But I think what you said is exactly right, Scott, those companies that came here, they didn't come here just because they liked the New York accent. They came here because the talent was here and they need the talent. These businesses are a function of the young minds and the young talent. And you're not going to get the young talent to sit in a retirement community in another part of the country and put on sunscreen. They want to be here because they're young and they're stimulated and it's exciting. And the companies follow the talent, right? The fish follow the bait, the big companies follow the talent.
Scott Rechler: Yeah. The other thing I think on your point on infrastructure, just to follow that through is that, you know, th th in, particularly in this environment, there's going to be more of a regional approach, right? And some of the challenges we faced before in terms of congestion capacity on our transit systems and affordability of housing, you can solve. If you look through a regional lens and, and putting in things, infrastructure like the third rail in long Island railroad, or the East side access, we're making that connectivity that much better. And when people can work remotely a day or two a week, they'll going to go further out. And they're going to be willing to go to the West gesture and parts of long Island where they can afford more affordable housing and quality of life, and then come into the city when they need to be in the city. So, you know, these are the, the, that you're planting seeds for a post COVID world that plays into what the new post COVID reality is going to be. And I think it's critical that we're all thinking through, through that lens.
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Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, this is where the RPA and the, the regional plan association and their orientation is so smart. You're right. Look, will people will the same percentage of people coming to work five days a week. I don't believe it. I believe zoom has changed the rules and shown people a different lifestyle. And they like it. Right. But yes, I will stay in the house during COVID, because frankly, I'm afraid to go into a restaurant and I'm afraid to go into a wedding, but post COVID, I want to get out of the house. You know, this is nice spending a lot of time with the kids. That's nice, but I want to get out of the house. I want to go to a museum. I want to have a conversation with some other people. I want to have a meal with my colleagues. I want to see what's going on.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I want to see a play. I want to see Broadway. I want to, I want the stimulation of the city. Okay. Now it was that two days a week. Is that three days a week? Is it four days a week? I think for young people, it is still going be a five days a week. You know, I think young people almost like us, but a little younger than us. I think they're going to say no, no, I want the city five days a week. You know, I think just if I had to prioritize and I'd, I'd love the RPA to think about this. We get the young people back. I think that brings so much more energy.
Scott Rechler: Yeah, no, absolutely. So speaking of local governments in, in New York city, we have another campaign coming up for the new mayor of New York city. The primaries in June, obviously that the in New York that leads to who the mayor is. W when you think people, as people are thinking about considering their choice for mayor, what advice would you give them in terms of what they should be thinking about and making that selection? I think there's like 30 candidates running right now. Well, what should they be looking at?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I would say first Scott first learn from the past experience. Second stop disrespecting the politics and the political office. There's this attitude that, well, anyone can do politics. Anyone can be mayor. It's just politics. That is so wrong headed. And so disrespectful of public service. You know, if you're going to hire a plumber, you want to make sure that the plumber is licensed and certified and knows how to do his job. You're going to get in an airplane. You want to know that the pilot is trained and certified, but anyone can be mayor. Anyone can be president. Anyone can be governor. It doesn't take any expertise whatsoever. Yeah, it did. And you learn that through COVID because the incompetent ones failed. They just fail. And we have to get smarter about selections and take them more seriously. There is a skill set required. You're hiring a person, understand the job description. You're hiring a manager of New York mayor is a manager, right? He has to run a $90 billion corporation. What is your management experience, sir? I've never managed anything. I have a staff of six people. Oh, you understand from six people. And you're going to now run one of the largest corporations in the United States of America. And you had no management experience. How do you think that is going to work?
Scott Rechler: Yeah. And you know, two takeaways from that that are important. I think one is that, you know, the, the responsibility of being good citizens also falls on off, right? We need to actually go out and vote, which we've been, I think as, as community woefully, irresponsible of not only not having that job interviewing, but exercising our right to vote. And then, you know, once we don't vote, I don't think you really have
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the right to start, you know, yelling at that elected official for not liking the job they did, because you didn't actually exercise your right to vote for that person to hire that person along the way. And if you look at how some of the, the mayors have been elected, they've been elected with very, very small amounts of votes in the past on getting people out to vote, I think is critical.
Scott Rechler: And the second point you raised, which is the slogans, the two words, slogans, you know, these are complicated issues, they're complex, and no one likes to do a complexity. And one of the things that we've been hoping to do with this conversational series is to have longer conversations and digging into some of these more complex issues with, you know, thoughtful insights and approaches to them rather than just the slogans that are more ideological in nature, but not necessarily focused on the policies that help the people. So I appreciate those two, those two points there. Last question,
Governor Andrew Cuomo: We'll make one other quick followup. One quick follow-up you want to talk about not an informed discussion on the New York city mayoral race. You're a few months from the election. One of the pressing issues is crime in New York city. And it's not just crime in New York city. It's a dysfunctional relationship between the police and the community. Not novel to New York, it's a national problem. But the protest, this trust in by many members of the community against the NYP D that relationship does not work unless this trust and reciprocity. And you can feel it from the NYP D who have their argument, their concerns about the choke hold law, the diaphragm law, the lack of respect, and you have it from the community. What are you doing to resolve that? And what mayoral candidate are your plans to resolve that? I forced the conversation on the state side.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I said, every city that has a police force in the state 500 must have a collaborative convene. I said this last year and have a new public safety plan passed by April one. When we do the state budget, otherwise you're not going to get any state funding. Now, all the local officials said, Oh, that's a hot potato. I don't want to get near it. The police and the community. I said, I know it's a hot potato. That's why you have to go near it, right? Because you need to have a functioning public safety system. You want to talk about bringing back New York city. No one is going to bring back New York city. If they think they may be walking down a block and a homeless person may hit them over the head with a brick, right? You hear stories from people saying, I'm afraid to walk around New York city.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I haven't heard that since the sixties and the seventies, right? What is their plan to address it? There's no discussion. I said to one of the civic organizations the other day, I said, why don't you have a debate mayoral debate just on safety. And how do you fix the police and community relationship? What's your plan to do that? Because without public safety, none of this works, but it's just not a smart conversation. It's also important for young people. I say this to my daughters and their friends all the time. Don't tell me who has the cute slogan and who, you know, looks like they're going to be the radical departure. Who has the experience, the wisdom, the ideas to actually do it. My father used to say, we don't need ideas. That sound good. We need ideas that are good and sound. It's a little cumbersome, but it's true. Don't give me your simplistic platitudes that are never going to be implemented. And then just this solution, everyone give me real ideas that a thought out where you thought out their consequences and tell me how you're going to do it. And tell me you have the skill set to do it.
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Scott Rechler: I, I think having those extreme positions in those slogans just create divisiveness and they don't create solutions that are the good for the most. And then usually they're the ones that are coming from a few very, you know, vocal activists that have their own agenda that they're pushing either on the left or the right, and not necessarily focused on the people that live in those communities. So that's a good point. You raised your father, right? And I wanted to just touch upon this because both of us in many ways have continued in the family business, you in politics, me in real estate. And I think both of us were taught. Ultimately our, our mission is about building stronger, more equitable communities. It's in our blood, it's it energizes us in, in, in, in Judaism, they call it [inaudible], which means to literally repair the world. Right.
Scott Rechler: And I think I was brought up that way. And you were brought up that way. And, and last March, when, when COVID hit, I realized that, you know, early in my, on those days, that business would never be the same life would never be the same things were going to change. And I found myself thinking a lot about what my dad would do and what kind of advice he would give me to get through this. And I'm, I'm curious as you've been going through COVID have you had the, you know, the voice of your father in your head and, and things that he might be saying to you to help guide you through these difficult days?
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. He would be saying my father to Qunar alarm reach out, fill the abyss Sadaqua charity, but even more justice. So DACA is justice, social justice. I talked to him many nights because this is a situation I wouldn't want anyone else to ever have to go through in life. You know, people dying every day, every expert telling you there's nothing that can be done. And it's just you at the end of the day, you know, I have a great team and they have been magnificent, but somebody has to make the decision and I make the decision for better, for worse. So there were many nights when I talked to my father because I could talk, he was my best friend also. And he was so smart and so right. And so many things. So there were many nights I talked to him and I knew him so well.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: I knew what he would say in response. Cause his analysis was always basically the same, but I, I would have this little exercise that I would have the conversation with him. I knew what he was going to ask and not analyzing the fact pattern. And it was an exercise that I would use to go through it and it would help my thought process. It would also come may. And he also had a, he was so secure Scott in himself and in his own skin that the bottom line was always, if you are doing the right thing, it doesn't matter what anyone else says. If you feel in your gut that you're doing the right thing, that's all that matters. And if you don't feel like you're doing the right thing, then nothing else matters either. Right? It's totally binary. So that's liberating in some way, make the best decision you can.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: They like it. They love it. They throw rocks at you. It doesn't matter. And that's what, that's what guided me and his voice helped me. And I really believe that he was with me all through it. I believe he would be proud of what we did. I think he would have been really disappointed with the Trump administration. I don't know that he would have been as tolerant as I was with the Trump administration. I've bit my tongue and my many times, because I really thought maybe if I, if I'm try to be nice that there'll be some
RR Governor Cuomo - Mp3 Audio_draft Page 10 of 11 Transcript by Rev.com
This transcript was exported on Mar 26, 2021 - view latest version here.
reasonableness on the other side, although it never happened, but I think he helped me and he guided me and I think he'd be proud at the end of the day. That makes me feel good. It makes me feel good.
Scott Rechler: I'm sure he would be on, I know your voice to many people around the country during this COVID crisis. Was that voice of comfort. I mean, I know I've gotten phone calls during the, the crisis that people were getting up early from the West coast to, to, to watch your, your briefings. And my mom would call me, she's watching your briefing. So we're fortunate to have had your leadership guide us through that, that crisis and that fog of Wars as we've discussed. And, and now is we're getting ready to depart that fog and start thinking about how we're going to recalibrate reality for a better, more equitable New York to have, have your leadership and you at the helm. And I thank you so much for that. And for being here today for this conversation.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Well, that's the next chapter. Scott is the rebuilding chapter. Hurricane passes save as many lives as you can. Hurricane leaves assess the damage, start to rebuild chapter two. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll do it together.
Scott Rechler: Thank you governor. I appreciate it.
Governor Andrew Cuomo: Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me.
Scott Rechler: That concludes our first episode of recalibrate reality. The future of New York, as you just heard, the COVID hurricane is starting to pass. Now we need to assess the damage and then start to rebuild. We can't use a playbook from the world that once was, but instead we need a new playbook for post COVID world that imagines a better and brighter future for all new Yorkers. I believe that can create such a world, but only by working together. Thank you again to governor Andrew Cuomo. Thank you to the 92nd street, Y and the regional plan association and that you to the team for making this week's episode possible. I'm Scott Rechler from 75 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. See you next week.
RR Governor Cuomo - Mp3 Audio_draft Page 11 of 11 Transcript by Rev.com