The City is going through a difficult period but will come out better.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today is former Congressman Anthony Wiener, also almost mayor and WABC host Anthony, Good Morning. How are you this Sunday morning.

0:12 Speaker 2 I’m doing well. Thank you for having me on the show.

0:14 Speaker 1 Well, tell us you’re very, very smart in so many areas. What area do you want to cover this Sunday morning?

0:22 Speaker 2 Well, this was an interesting week.

0:23 Speaker 3 This was the week that NATO got together, and it’s when the war had started in Ukraine. The NATO meeting was like, hey, well, what’s going to happen here? Now a year and a half later, you can argue that NATO has never been stronger, and that’s ultimately a very good thing for the United States of America. You know,

0:42 there is a fringe of the left and a fringe of the right that doesn’t have a lot of confidence in what we’re doing there in Ukraine. But NATO thirty one nations that are in the defensive posture. You know a lot of my colleagues used to complain when we were in Washington. You know, we should be we should

0:58 be in a position where we get other countries to do more than lifting so we in the United States and the US taxpayer doesn’t have to do everything we’ll hear, NATO has never been stronger. Two new countries, Finland and Sweden get accepted into NATO, which is good news because Turkey had been an obstacle and the other countries are

1:15 really stepping up in a way that is ultimately good for the United States of America. And you know, you can make this argument. I think it was former Vice person in Pence made this argument today. He said that the beginning of the war, Russia was the second most powerful military in the world, and today they are the

1:30 second most powerful military in the Ukraine, meaning that we have found a way to have one of our real geogra geopolitical rivals has really struggled, and it’s because we’ve all cooperated under the NATO umbrella.

1:44 Speaker 2 And that’s ultimately a very good thing.

1:46 Speaker 3 You know, when people complain about the challenges that the United States face, and even my friends on the right who talk about America first, let’s keep our resources here locally, let’s not get involved overseas.

1:57 Speaker 1 The United States made a deal, it looks like the Turkish government, uh and to allow Sweden to go into uh NATO and uh, you know, we’re friends with everybody and uh and UH Turkey is a member of the of NATO. UH, but they always ask for something to be back.

2:23 Speaker 3 UH.

2:23 Speaker 1 We heard and it’s not confirmed that Turkey we’d like to have uh EC membership that they may or may not get, but if they can’t get membership, they I think they’ve asked for the ability for Turkish citizens to go into uh European Community countries without a visa.

2:46 Speaker 3 Yeah, so erdo one had alreadys made has always made this connection, you know, as a negotiating point. We want to be in the EU, and so we’re gonna slow down any expansion of NATO, including Sweden and Finland.

2:57 Speaker 2 They were more concerned about Sweden.

3:00 Speaker 3 So long as as they were held out from getting into the EU, and and the and the NATO nations said, listen, that’s.

3:06 Speaker 2 Not the way we roll. We were not going to link these two things.

3:09 Speaker 3 And and Turkey has some concern the EU has some concerns with Turkey, but I think it’s it was another great victory for the US, the United States America and for NATO that that Turkey basically gave in and they acceded to permitting Sweden. In Sweden had to make some minor changes, you know, that the Turks are concerned about.

3:26 You know, the Turk says, as a Muslim nation, they are concerned about the rise of some challenges that they sought to Muslim citizens in Sweden.

3:33 Speaker 2 That all got resolved.

3:35 Speaker 3 And so now if if if if Putin thought that this was going to weaken nat NATO’s resolve, he found out quite the opposite. And now after the war has has begun, we’ve added two new members. I don’t believe the Turkey is going to get into the EU very quickly, but I think the United States should get some credit

3:53 here for getting Erduwan to agree, so that now the thirty one nations have been able to speak with one voice.

4:01 Speaker 1 What else would you like to talk about?

4:03 Speaker 3 Well, you know the well that’s pretty far afield. Here in New York City, we’re starting to see some signs that, you know, the inflation rate is coming down and now finally a little bit, rents are starting to soften a little bit on the residential side. But what we really need to do, John, is we really need to figure

4:20 out waste to incentivize some of these b office buildings, not the fancy ones that have the super high rent, but the ones that are kind of in midtown that are the backbone of our real estate economy. To get some of those employers to have their workers come back, I know it’s a heavy lift. There are a lot

4:35 of younger workers who don’t know anything but remote work.

4:38 Speaker 2 But until we.

4:39 Speaker 3 Get those those office buildings back filled up, and I think that we should figure out waste to offer some incentives to get them back. But first and foremost, the thing that’s going to bring them back is lower crime and a sense of safety. And I think the numbers are going in the right direction. But until we can

4:54 resolve that, we start to get tourism back we’ve got. Obviously the markets are doing pretty well, but that real.

4:59 Speaker 1 Iss Anthony Wiener, I agree with you, but I don’t want to give up just yet. But when I spoke to Governor Hochel last week, she didn’t believe that crime was as bad as we’re living it. And also Mayor Adams, who I support, yesterday in the last couple of days were saying that he’s blaming the media on the crime,

5:30 and it’s not you know, the media. You know, it’s not the Media’s fault. Is somebody’s pulling the trigger and they’re not going to jail for it.

5:38 Speaker 3 Well, there is you know, you you talk about this in economic terms, this idea of leading and trailing indicators crime. The statistics are hopefully a leading indicator of where the where people are going to start to feel, but it never happens quickly. You know, both things can be true, John, that that crime is coming down, but that people don’t

5:57 feel it. I think that there is this sensibility that all mayors complain about. Rudy Giuliani complained about it when crime started coming down. If you look at the two year mark of the Rudy Giuliani administration, crime had started to come down after years of going up, but people were still saying it was an unsafe city to live.

6:13 Speaker 2 And it takes a little while.

6:14 Speaker 3 I think that the mayor and the governor have to understand that there are two different things.

6:18 Speaker 2 You can look at all the numbers in a chart that you want, but.

6:21 Speaker 3 It’s part of their job using the bully pulpit and using places like like seventy seven WABC Radio to get the message out. If they want people to believe that things are changing, it’s more than just statistics on a page.

6:31 Speaker 1 It’s going to do that Anthony Wiener, I wish you would have been Maya. You know why, we would have saved eight years of the builde Blasio, builde Blasio. I like him, he’s a good guy, but he didn’t do a good job for us city. I think you would have done a better job.

6:47 Speaker 3 Well, you can put that on my tombstone. Anthony Wiener a good guy, but he gave us eight years at the Blasio.

6:51 Speaker 1 That’s what you did. Thank you much and we’ll catch up again real soon. Thanks John,