From Community College to NY Power Broker

Hey guys, welcome to the Clappy and Frank show. Today we have the honor of having Assemblyman Brian Cunningham. >> Good to be on. >> Um, the first time I heard your name or heard your voice, I was in >> It's a great voice, isn't it? >> Not bad. >> Bit of voices. >> I was driving to SBH Hospital with uh in the Bronx at an event with Sima Einstein. >> Oh, my favorite. And this guy's on the phone and he's talking to this guy Brian and they were talking very freely, let's just say. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> All different types of words. >> I said, "Simco, who's this guy you're talking? They're like talking like two guys in the locker room. Like guys know each other for 100 years." >> Yeah. >> And he's dropping and cursing out certain legislator. I I wasn't following. I'm not I'm not a political guy. Clappy's way more. >> Y >> like he's he >> he's very political. >> Yeah. And I said, "Simple, who's this guy you're talking to?" He's like, "Oh, Brian, kind of an old friend." I said, "Friend?" Clearly a friend. The way he was talking to you was like, "Whoa." >> Yeah. Can I go back a couple hundred years actually? Um like dinosaurs. Um we worked together um with Senator Kevin Parker when I first started my political career. And obviously it's great to have somebody that's an old friend to look across the chamber and see them in Sim because one of those good friends that keeps me in line. And we speak freely a lot about the things and the affairs of the state and trying to figure out how to get it right. Actually, before you came on the show, Clap was I don't know what's this guy, Brian. I don't know what's going on. So, I put Sima on the conference call. He said, "Simka, are we uh are we good here?" He's like, "Oh, good. >> You're great." >> Clap, what do you say? >> This is Simonstein. I'm quoting him verbatim. Uh, this conversation was about 22 hours ago. He says, "Clappy." And I know Sima very well. >> Yeah. >> But we never I never spoke to him about you and you're my representative. I'm a Crown Heights boy. I was born in Crown Heights, Interfaith Medical Center in Albany. >> Okay. Nine out of 10 people I had mentioned that hospital, maybe more, they never heard of it. I'm so proud of being born in Crown Heights. Yeah. >> Born and bred. So he's like, "You're asking me about Brian Cunningham?" He's like, first of all, great great great leader. His leadership's qualities are like the best approachable. But then he's like, do you understand that he's the closest ally and friend the Jewish people ever had? He's like, "We've never had a bill." This is what Simka said, "We've never had a bill in the Jewish community that we needed passed that we had to argue with argue to be on our side." Yeah. >> Second of all, I know everybody here in the Jewish community, there's election coming up, a lot of Jews that live in Crown Heights. We're always worried, always concerned about our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land. And he said Brian is the closest ally um that the people have, the Jewish people have in the state of Israel. He says, "Do you understand?" He's been to Israel multiple times. >> I think like three or four times. >> He said he thinks you were there four times. >> Yeah, I think it's four. He said four times. >> He said four or six. He's not first three or four. I'm I'm going to go I'm going to go with four. Let's go conservative. >> So he said six and then he said a few minutes later he corrected himself. He's like probably four. >> Yeah, four is close to reality. >> I think he was taking mental notes. >> Hey Brian, you're a politician so we don't expect little stretching. No, not three or four. >> He basically said he's a very close friend of the Jewish community. He's like he always has our back. He's like, "I just want to let you know you're having on a very close friend." So, that meant a lot. >> Yeah. >> What's interesting about politics, and you are the first elected politician we had on the show. >> Oh, wow. >> I think we're 42 episodes in. >> What's interesting about politics is that I believe in America, >> I'm sure the studies, if you stop nine or 10 people in the street and ask them who their representative is, who's their assemblyman, I have a feeling most people have no idea. I I would agree with that. >> And it's sad because you guys are in Albany. You're in the capital. You're voting on all the laws that affect every one of the constituents in your district. >> Yeah. >> Based on some quick Googling search, our district here in Crown Heights Flappish, this whole area, East Flappish, whichever parts that district 43 that you represent, that you respectfully and honorably represent, >> much more research, you can see >> has about 130 to 138,000 constituents. >> That is correct. >> That's like four Yankee stadiums full of people. >> Absolutely. or 10 15 uh net stadiums fil filled. So you represent a lot of people >> you know in some places I would represent I'd be the mayor of a small town or governor of North Dakota, South Dakota. >> So you have tremendous amount of power. >> I wouldn't say all that. >> Okay. >> Influence >> influence of saying you're voting on the laws that affect the people of New York. So not only in your district but in the entire state of New York which is tens of millions of people. Yeah. >> So, it's a tremendous amount of power and I believe most people have no idea. Um, what's interesting about this election, the reason why I know who you are, first of all, you show up to a lot of events. I've I've saw you. I've seen your wife. Um, I when I Googled you the last few days and I looked research, I saw your wife. I was like, "Yep, you guys show up to events." If I believe correctly, she's uh the director of a museum. >> Yeah, she's director of Museum Hugh, >> which is interesting because it's like co-founder. >> One person is like in like politics and the other person is like in >> Museum. >> Museum Hugh. Um so Museum Hugh is a collection of museums across the country that believe that diversity, equity, inclusion is important part of the conversation. They do museum tours. They um make sure that people in a museum have an opportunity to get entry- level jobs but also rise up and become members of the board. Right. So I think art is a really important segue into a lot of things in life. Um I would argue that we have a quote in our house that says everything is art, everything is politics. Um and even by the beautiful decorations here in the studio, you can tell that it's very artistic. We're having a political conversation. >> Brian, you're talking to two art dealers. That's why that's why I started laughing. When we're not on the studio, we're pedaling art. >> Oh, wow. Amazing. Amazing. >> So interesting that you mention art. So when she when I saw that she's a director of art, as I was saying, got me excited because I'm involved in the world of art. >> She's far more interested than I am. So maybe she's your next guest in the podcast. >> You never know. So what's interesting about this particular election is that some of the people that are running um that are trying to get your seat politics, that's just the way it is. >> They made this campaign um >> am I wrong? It's a one It's a one topic campaign. >> It is >> one of the people that's running um I'm not going to get not no name calling and no name dropping. He made it into a oneisssue campaign. I'm on a lot of community WhatsApp groups with five, six, seven, eight, 900 WhatsApp group used to have like 50 100 people. Today they like opened it up. They're huge. And people are constantly sending flyers over and over and over again. And I wanted to discuss that topic as an opener. >> Yeah. >> About and also this is confusing. There's there's ho housing in New York City to get to get permits to build a lot of housing you have to give like lower income people um like 8020 like to build a multi-million dollar development today you have to give like 20% which is very standard so like low-inccome housing but hardworking good incredible people they go into like a house lottery and that's one thing that 8020 thing I I never hear people talking about because it's just the way you're doing business you know you want to buy a bottle of Poland spring $2 you go to bed next >> the 8020 thing is like standard it's hardworking people that are not millionaires, they should also have a chance to win. >> Yeah. >> What's happening now, I believe, and I could be wrong and I wanted you to explain that there's a lot of housing going up in the outskirts of Crown Heights, which is also for like rehab, mental health people, um people that are on the verge of poverty that are coming out of homelessness. And the whole campaign is about where are we building these homes? >> And for some of them that are trying to get into office, they like say, "Well, HE'S THE ELECTED GUY. We got to blame him. You know, like the the expression the buck stops here. You're in Albany. You vote on the laws and they're like saying we have to get rid of all these housing. Now, >> where should you build homeless shelters? Where should we build houses? I believe it's in Nimi, not in my backyard. I feel like >> in a way it's not fair that it's a lot of it is being built maybe now on the outskirts of Crown Heights and they're blaming you. It's going to be built somewhere. So, I just wanted to if you could educate myself Yeah. Yeah. And a little bit of how these housing works and what goes on in Albony and what what's being said, what's true, what's not be what's not true. I'm just curious. >> Yeah. Well, let's talk about the first thing. The first thing is housing in New York City in general in New York State. New York is probably the most expensive place in the country to live. I think we can all agree there, right? Let's start with the basic%. Um, and I think one of the things that the state legislator did a couple of years ago, um, even before I got elected was this thing called 421A. And 421A is a fancy way of saying we're going to help subsidize the cost of housing because the land in New York is so expensive. We're going to help developers offset the cost. But in exchange for that um land and for that subsidy, which is a tax subsidy, we're going to provide affordable housing to people who meet what's called an AMI. AMI is a fancy word for what do people in the five burrows Westchester and Long Island make on average. Um and obviously over the couple last couple of years, we've seen um that number go up because New York City's becoming expensive. So more people with wealth are living here. So the AMI is being skewed actually higher. So when you mention low-income housing, if you ask most low-income New Yorkers if they can afford their AMI style housing, they'll tell you no. They'll say they see buildings going up. They see people moving in. They see new coffee shops popping up, new supermarkets, new restaurants, but they feel like they're being pushed out because those rents, even in those deeply subsidized homes, are too expensive for the average person that lives in New York City. What I've done in the state legislator since being here since 2022 is I've introduced a new concept called CMI, which is community medium income. And what that means is we want to look at specifically what do people make in communities. So in Crown Heights, we know that Crown Heights income is way different from Westchester County. We know that Long Island income is different from Flatbush income. We know that even Bedstey and Brownsville have different incomes. So, we want to look at the community board and what the community board is saying people make in those particular zip codes and build targeted housing for those people for their average, not for this, not for the five burrows in Westchester, Long Island, but specifically that. Um, so that is what we're fighting up against is making sure that we create a fairer system so that no matter how much wealth has come in, and wealth again, it's subjective. Like people can say that one man is wealthy, some say five million is wealthy. Some people saying making six figures, $100,000, you're wealthy. whatever that is, we want to figure out what the baseline bottom line for those numbers are and really target making sure that we create housing there. The second thing um I guess on this particular issue of subsidized housing and supportive housing and shelters, what we're building at um the vital Brooklyn site is actually not shelters. It's actually supportive housing. This project started back in 2018. Now, let me go back to my previous statement. I was elected when? >> 2022. So, in 2018, a project began to underway pre- pandemic where the governor of the state at the time, who was then Andrew Cuomo, um and my predecessor, who was then Diana Richardson, they thought about how do we actually use some of this untapped state land. Um the governor actually thought about this. How do we use untapped state land and and underutilized resources to create housing because housing was becoming a issue? Not just a housing issue, but a mental health issue. When people are concerned about whether or not they should pack their bags before leaving home because they may be evicted, are concerned they may have to pack a U-Haul and move out of the state that they were born and raised in. That is a mental health issue. It is a big issue. And we identified places throughout central Brooklyn that this governor could invest at the time. One of those sites was a King um psychiatric site which was underutilized and we decid they decided at the time they were going to build housing there. Again, I was not elected at the time. >> That that particular one is causing a lot of controversy because a lot of young Jewish people in the community bought houses around those surrounding blocks and they're very worried. That's >> Yeah. I mean the the the worry I I guess the what I what I'm concerned most about is that a lot of what people are complaining about is going to happen at the project site exists now. It exists when they purchased their home. that area had the two shelters prior to them purchasing their home. It had the blighted um development site. We're saying as a state, let's invest in it. Let's actually create supportive housing folks there. Let's actually make sure that we have the supports for those shelters, which are pre-war shelters. So those shelters, when you look at those rooms, they're way smaller than the studio. They're probably smaller than the bathroom in the studio. We're trying to figure out how do we get people from shelters to supportive housing, from supportive housing to long-term stability. Again, this project, there was many town halls, many conversations that happened prior to this. This project met me at the doorstep of my election. And what I've tried to do throughout this process, create an open, transformative, and transparent process in which people and residents can have conversations about the parts we disagree with. One of those things that people disagree with was the amount of three bed threebedroom units for larger families. For our Jewish communities, for our Caribbean families, a lot of people have grown families. You guys, when I walked in the studio, I had my son. We live in a one-bedroom, one bath apartment. We would love a bigger space, but New York City is so expensive that the price of moving isn't just the price of the U-Haul truck to get the stuff in the truck, but it's also what are we going to find that we can afford and where do we have more spaces? So, we have pushed and got the state to invest more threebedrooms in those units. We have pushed on making sure we have more green space. A lot of the concerns that were met as a train had already left the station. We were able to retrofit. But in terms of the size, scope and scale of this project, this started before, and I think anyone in this room would agree and anyone that's watching would agree that development doesn't start when the construction begins. It starts sometimes 10 years prior. So you think about how much millions and billions of dollars would have been lost to just shut down a project where there was open conversations since before my election, eight years ago. I know that there's certain landlords, Jewish landlords actually in Crown Heights who for financial reasons only accept vouchers from like these post I don't know I I'm not a real estate guy. I'm not a >> who only accept vouchers from these post homeless shelter people. Anyway, yeah. So, sprinkled around gray parts quote unquote gray parts of Crown Heights. I know there's buildings full even a block away from my house of for these like I said these post homeless shelter posted drug >> section A vouchers FEP vouchers with this >> not even section 8 like people with like trouble you know people who have history >> well again those a lot of those are considered section 8 vouchers right you got to think about it from the >> someone told me that section 8 vouchers has a lot of regulations so if landlords found out there's another voucher that no one wants to take but pays better and there's zero regulation I don't know what it is that a lot of crown heights buildings have it. So I think that this concern about what type of people, you know, are going to end up in these housing by the Kingsbrook Psychiatric Land already exists. >> I I >> in central I know Kingston and Empire and Lincoln and all it already exists. I just know that for a fact. >> I would agree. I would agree. I would agree with that. But I would also agree with the fact that what people missed with this project is how much senior housing is coming online as well, right? And the reason why there's so much um studios in this particular mix is because of the kind of housing we're providing for seniors who don't need three bedrooms. My mother had a three-bedroom, she downsized to a onebedroom. Seniors don't need that kind of space anymore. So this again, this project was really a lot of community conversations and I went to some of these vital Brooklyn meetings and what would happen was there member at the time would go on the whiteboard and she would draft out what do people want to see? people want to see housing, people returning from foster care, people who are formerly homeless, people who are formerly incarcerated. All these groups were mentioned in these meetings. And when the proposal went to the governor's office after the community had an opportunity to talk about it, the proposal came back with a lot of the things that people said they wanted. I don't think people thought they would get everything they wanted, but they literally got everything they wanted with this proposal. >> I just want to make I know next to the housing there's already shelters currently. >> They exist already. That's my point. My point is that these two shelters exist and they're >> and it's clearly it's unfortunately clearly a shelter >> and and and right now currently what we don't have at those shelter sites is supportive supportive services. So the people who are in those shelters who can benefit from support services whether that be >> it's on Albany and what is it? >> Albany and um Clarkson. >> Cuz my friend's like, "Oh, I got a great deal. I bought a house." I'm like, "Oh, amazing." Cuz I rent I'm a renter. He's a renter. Let me check it. I walk to his house. It's Saturday. We don't drive >> and there's clearly shelters in route from my house. >> Yeah. >> My apartment to his house, you know, unfortunately. >> And and the question that will come is a a question of humanity, right? And whether we want those people in shelters on the streets. We saw nine people die in the coldest winter this year, right? Is it better to walk over dead bodies in our streets or whe better to house people? You know, let's let's keep it honest. Let's keep it let's keep it 100% honest here. >> I think people in theory would like to give charity to people who are less fortunate. They just don't want to give. >> Not in my backyard. >> But here's the irony. >> It's a hard I don't know what the answer is. >> But here's the irony of this, right? When you think about people who are suffering from street homelessness, particularly in the city of New York, it just takes one or two paychecks for someone to find themselves in rental arars in housing court, right? And the catch-up game, we all know when you're making whether whatever your salary is, when you're trying to catch up and dig out of a hole, it's much harder to get out of a hole than fall into a hole. If you see a hole, you can create traps. You can create preventions around those traps, but once someone falls in, the trauma is associated. Trying to get out is hard. So, I think what we have to do is not so much focus on what we build in our backyards, but how do we prevent people from even entering a system that is as inhumane as homelessness? >> I was going to go into contract on a home before Passover and my lawyer already started writing up the paperwork. Yeah. And I showed it to a really, really wealthy guy in my community. I showed him all the numbers. He said, "Izzy, call up your lawyer tonight and you're backing out of contract." You remember no money changed hands. He said, "The amount of money that you're going to need to go to put down for the down payment and the closing and the title insurance and the amount of money that you're rent the mortgage is going to be every single month and you're basing it on renting out the first floor in the basement for such amount of money." He says, "You miss one mortgage payment," which was very, very, very high mortgage payment. He's like, "You will never ever be able to catch up again." He's like, "It's a slippery slope. You're not ready. >> Yeah. >> But I will tell you something interesting and I want your opinion on this. When Eric Adams was elected, our old mayor was elected burough president. Yeah. This is a good 10 12 years ago. I'm not good with dates. >> Yeah. 2013. >> Oh, so 12 years ago, 13. >> Yeah. About that. >> He invited a bunch of young community guys from Crown Heights um community guys to come to um in Burough Hall. And we were sitting around this big fancy table and a big wooden oak table and big leather chairs. And I was sitting right next to him. >> Yeah. >> And he's like, "Guys, I want to hear what your concerns. I want to get to know the community better. I knew him already from years before he was already involved. >> State senator. He's like a lifime. He was like a lifetime into this. He was like a Crown Heights family boy. Everybody knows him. He was at every he was at more kdishes and sh than most Jewish people. And I told him at the time I was really like had like a really basic basic 9 to5. My wife also had a very basic job and things were really tight. And I said that I don't see a way to buy a home. He's like I want to tell you something. He's like I've been around your community for a long time. He's like, "I am not going to give you one positive word of encouragement." He's like, "You have to move out of your community." >> He said, "You got to I'm going to hate to lose you." He told me then, "You have to leave because it's not attainable anymore for the regular hardworking people to live here." >> Can I give you a better story than that? >> Yeah. >> My wife and I were walking through a neighborhood with our dog at the time. She's pregnant. We're getting ready to give birth to our child and we see a for sale sign in our neighborhood. Um, and I called the fair sale sign. I say, "Hey," I didn't say who I was. I just said, "Hey, I see the for sale sign. How much the house?" Um, they said, "This house is $15 million." So, I did the math in my head really quickly. I knew what the down payment would be. And I said, "Um, do you" They said I said, "I can't afford that one." They said, "Do you have a budget?" And I said, "Not 1.5 million, maybe 750, 500." They said, "Well, I have some good news for you. You can start looking for a different neighborhood. This is not the neighborhood for you." At that time, I was the elected representative for the community. And I was being told, not knowing that I was the elected representative, that this community is no longer for me. That is a struggle of so many black and Jewish family people who have built our communities that are being told that New York City, Crown Heights specifically, Prosper Left Garden and Flatbush are no longer for them. And that's what we're up against. We're up against an election where we're being told that we're supposed to remain in our communities, but at the same time saying we can't provide for those who live in our communities. And again, I said the AMI floor is much higher today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. But all these projects, do they help owners? Is there a path to owners homeowner? >> That is my biggest frustration. My biggest frustration is that there's no pathway to home ownership, which means there's no pathway to stability for our communities, right? Whether you're programs for cheaper rentals. >> It's for cheaper rentals. And for far too long, people who've run to the far left of the our party have talked about making sure that we beat up landlords and create more affordable housing. I've never heard people until this year begin to talk about the atrocities of deft, the atrocities of people not to own and remain in their communities. um some of the 421A um subsidies that have been tax subsidies have demolished some of our schools and making sure we don't have the proper funding. So there's a cost of every single public policy decision, which is why to mention about Albany, Auby's not a place where you send people who don't understand the totality of what we're getting into. As a state lawmaker, I can't be a oneisssue person. I can't care about one issue. I have to care about 138 issues. And arguably, every single person I represent has two or three issues that are top of mind for them, right? And I have to care about I have to care and know enough about all those things in order to be effective. >> Right. So just voting wise, your Jewish block here is what? 5,000 out of your 150. It's 510. >> Is my is my competition listening about that? Curious. How >> about curious? Yeah. >> 5 10,000 out of 150,000. >> And that that's assuming that everyone is registered as a Democrat. That's assuming everyone votes. That's that's making a lot of assumptions, right? Again, we represent 138,000 people, right? And the reality is I've never received 138,000 votes in any election I've run. What's the what's the average election? 20 30. >> Look, you talk about the general election, general election about 35 to 40,000 votes in a primary. It varies from year to year, right? There's election years where you talk about, you know, I think one of the things my opponent has been saying a lot is that um this is a non-presidential, non-governatorial election. No one's going to turn out. Um I I think they're wrong, but we will find out in a week from now. >> One of the things I I'm I'm I'm telling your opponent here, there's four cameras, and I and I tell this to people on the streets. I'm not saying who I'm going to vote for. I always keep that very private as you should. >> You seem to be making a very good impression on me now and in the past. I don't know much about him. I only found out his name a few weeks or a few months ago. >> I found out about it on March 11th and he filed a run. That was the first time I've heard about him. >> But but but assuming he's a top amazing, charismatic, great guy. I just I just don't know him on a personal level. >> I I just want to say that since I was in eighth or ninth grade and I'm going to be 40 after the summer. So we're talking about when I was 13. So we're talking about three decades ago. The people in Crown Heights were always saying that like in this election if every single Jewish person that ever lived in Crown Heights and your 94 year old mother grandmother comes with an oxygen tank and you register your 17-year-old this if nobody shows up and the vote is broken into 11 11 people and it rains that day. So listen, for all the people on, you know, the main guy that's running in the community that's rallying up very strong support, you got I'm happy that they're getting involved in the democratic process, you know, it's a beautiful thing and use the momentum and the excitement to get people involved in voting and in elections and, you know, showing up. It's a beautiful thing. Just >> Siminstein says that it's a very, you know, he says that you have this locked and sealed. It's in the barrel. Listen, I I Simka is a bigger believer in me than I'm over myself. I I don't believe and I don't take any election for granted. I don't think the people I represent for granted. >> We had a crying wolf politician, Heshi Tishler. >> Yeah. >> He cursed out every single politician in the entire world. And I said, "What about Sima?" Oh, Sim Sim was amazing. Remember that? >> But I would I would never say that any elections in the bags. I think at the end of the day, I have to always every two years go out there and earn the respect and the trust and the votes. And I look back at my record, right? I look back at not just my last two years, the two years before that. And quite frankly, I look at the time before I got elected. Some people will show up in election year and say that they're going to be the the new thing and they're going to change Albany completely. I've been around 20 plus years to understand that change in politics in general is incremental. It's slow. It's hard. Um but if you are diligent and you keep working hard, you can see progress. We've seen progress in $1.4 million coming into our district um for Vital Brooklyn. We've seen project at $1.3 billion coming in for Sunni down state. We've seen progress in the relationship we built with the Jewish community over the last couple of years. Not in an election year. We built that from the Crown Heights riots with the Crown Heights Community Mediation Center. We built that with building trust over the years of standing up when people have been anti-Semitic. We built that. And that's something you can't fabricate a record or experience on. >> Brian, currently the first time a mayor in New York City did not attend the Israeli Day parade. Yeah. It made the Jewish community for me very uncomfortable. like suddenly like what's up? How do you feel about that? >> Look, um I think obviously as a mayor and you want to celebrate the entire diversity. We talk about New York City being a melting pot. I want to describe it as a toss salad and I say that because you want to see the tomatoes, the greens. I think that every community deserves representation. Every community deserves to be celebrated. And we do these parades annually. We have the Puerto Rican Day parade. We have the Jewish parade. We have the Caribbean American Day parade. >> West India. >> If I if I was a mayor, right, I'm not. I'm these member. Um that is something that I think well we we'll see we'll just get past next Tuesday. Um but I certainly think that that is something that you want to make sure that communities feel seen that they feel validated despite our biases and we all have biases right we all bring that into this work and we have to break those things down by constant interactions with people that look different that sound different that pray differently that love differently and that's how we get to a more perfect city. the Crown I'm sorry the Crown Heights community which is a big part of where you elect it's very Jewish a lot of African-Americans now Caribbean Americans >> Caribbean is now hippies not hippie >> well a lot a lot of new a lot of newcomers to the neighborhood right I think you know I've been born and raised in this neighborhood my mother my mother got >> what are they called >> I won't use any words describe Phil but I'll say this in 1973 my mother's probably a newcome to this neighborhood she got here from Jamaica West Indy she came here with $56 in her pocket she thought that America streets to pave with gold. She arrived in February, it was covered in snow, and she learned very quickly that America and New York can be a very cold place, but if you work hard enough, you can, you know, become a part of a neighborhood. I think some of the challenges that we see now with some of the people that are moving to our neighborhood, is their inabilities to want to be a part of the full fabric of the community. And that's why I always say to our Jewish friends and our black friends, whether they be Caribbean, African-American, is that we want to be inclusive of everyone, right, in our communities. And we want everyone to want to be a part of the community, be part of the fabric, and respect that. because we all are different in so many different ways. Um, and I think, you know, we welcome our newcomers. We want them to feel like they're >> because because I would say a very high percentage of the people that watch our podcast are are Jewish, you know, acidic, even out of Crown Heights, but people are watching it. >> I you have to juggle on a regular day-to-day basis. There's different there's in all one community and we're all about bringing us all together, but there's things that like you have like the African-American community is very strong opinionated on one thing. The Hidic Jews are very strong on another thing. um what's going on now with the whole war that went on for years in Gaza. So there's people like to free Palestine and then there's like you know we have to defend Israel and a lot of the times people will find one tweet that a politician wrote and one Twitter feed and they'll be like >> I try not to tweet >> you know but what I'm saying is it's always going to work if you like if you like if you write everything pro Israel but then people going to say what about the innocent people like and I find that politicians like I'm sure your opponents are going to bring up a tweet that you once wrote or a Facebook post. I'm saying it's very hard to balance. Um I just want to know from your past couple years in politics, it's very hard to make all your constituents >> Listen, a good day for me is nobody being happy, right? Look, I've been married for um 13 years, going on 14. Um my wife and I have been together for 20 years. Every single day is not a good day in marriage. Every good day in politics is not a good day in politics. I'm going to leave my socks on the floor occasionally and wife's going to be upset. I'm going to come late from work and she's going to be upset. and I'm going to upset constituents every once in a while by taking a position that they don't believe in. The reality is if we find a balanced approach and you're right more times than you're wrong and you're willing to listen more than you talk, I find that is a good metric for a good politician. >> Just a hot topic. A few weeks ago, there was a event happening in Flush and you represent part of Flbush. something with some real estate event and some synagogue about buying land in Israel and thousands of pro Palestine with a mix of people that are pro- Hamas and you know a little sprinkle of everything and they started rallying and then like when the police dispersed them they were like just marching and saying terrible things about Jewish people and they were marching through the streets of Flapish and the media was making it labeling it as a pagrum and an elected politician >> the Brooklyn power president >> the book it was the Brooklyn power president put out some like major pro pro tweet to all the people that were marching and screaming and then the that the next night it was that night a Jewish organization gave him like the Jewish uh the lover of the Jewish people. I was like what like like okay they said he gives us funding he's a great guy it's like like what's how do you how do you how do you balance it? I think the important thing is particularly in politics, >> you know, but I was thinking after that protest, if they hate us so much, they should be happy we're buying real estate elsewhere and packing out of town. I don't know why they're protesting. You say, "Hey, just buy all the damn real just stay." >> No, because they're all about the Middle East. They don't care about the local >> Look, I I I think elected officials have to operate from the spirit of power in which we have. And for me as a local elected official, I try to focus on hyperlocal issues that are impacting our local community. Um, and I leave the federal representatives to focus on the things that are happening beyond the shores of New York City. >> But but that that's a good answer. But I'm saying Mamani says the same thing. Like when he ran, he's like, I'm just here to focus on garbage trucks and I'm here to make sure the fitney is, you know, supplied with the right oxygen masks and everything. And I don't get involved in the Middle East, but every two days he has something to say about the Middle East. >> Luckily, I haven't. Luckily, he and I have said the same thing. We've acted differently in that regard. Right. I honestly listen when I when when October 7th happened we tweeted out it because there there's no way that you do not tweet that this is an atrocity. Um when things happen here in New York that seem hateful whether it be the black communities or to Jewish communities or to other communities um or the gay community we certainly stand up and say that everyone is welcome here and that we try to have an inclusive style of politics. Do we miss the mark sometimes? Um right do we over do we jump sometimes to judgment before reading all the facts which why we try to restrain what we put out there till we get all the facts. We try to get police briefings and you get criticized for being low slow to the party as well when you sometimes don't respond at the same night. People go, "Well, you didn't respond." Well, I was gathering information. Do you want me to just speak off the cuff on this particular issue because it's your issue or do you want me to be informed and use my my platform as an informed platform to speak truth to power? >> There was a an open table conversation. One of my first political events I ever showed up to was an open table. The guy that was running against Bloomberg the third time. Yep. >> Was Thomas Bill Thompson. >> Bill Thompson. Yeah. And actually he came within four points and everybody said that Bloomberg's billions of dollars. No way. And it was interesting. It was a real close election. And he said, "Anybody here have any concerns or questions." So at the time like I had to go to the post office a few times because I don't know if there was any shipping stores then. I needed certified mail for something I sold to somebody on eBay or something. I had to get my passport photo. I had to have my grandmother wanted a package mailed. I said, "I'll take care of it." And every time I went to the post office, it was like the worst nightmare of my life. So he finally I waited to ask my question and I started telling him all the horrible things that happened to me in the post office and without skipping a second HE'S LIKE THE POST OFFICE IS FEDERAL. I'm the running to be mayor of New York. He's like I'm not even going to comment and I was like I waited an hour to let out my anger and misery and he like totally washed it off. So again, there's a lot of people getting involved in this particular election that have not gotten involved in the past and they PROBABLY SAY LIKE, "OH, IF YOU VOTE ME, UM, there won't snow anymore and if you if you vote, >> if that's the case, I might vote for my opponent." >> No, in general, whenever there's a local election, it's like, and oh, oh, the yeshiva tuitions are so high, summer camp is so high, it cost so much money to fix your HVAC. But on the other hand, I want to discuss something with politics. You know that the most popular commentary on the Bible to people that study the Bible, Rashi, is like from thousands of years ago. He says that he's writing his commentary thousands of years ago. The most studied commentary on the Bible said I'm writing my commentary for a 5-year-old. >> Simple. >> Yeah. >> It's like I just want to make the words keep it simple. >> What is in the scope of your job that people are going to vote for you on Tuesday or those early elections people already started voting since Sunday? Mhm. >> Um what is something that is your job and what is completely not your job? Like don't wait an hour. the post office. He's like, "Dude, it's a federal government. I don't deal with post offices." >> Yeah. So, um one thing that happens a lot in our office is immigration cases. People assume because I'm Caribbean, my parents are in Jamaica that I could do immigration cases. That is a federal issue. People assume that the stop sign across the street working is a state issue. No, it's a city issue. The things that Department of Traffic, >> Department of Transportation, right? Um the things that office focuses on state agencies. So you think about the DMV, you think about anything that says NYS, that is us. >> New York State, >> New York State. Anything that if it doesn't say NYS, don't come to us. That's a slogan. But what we try to do is obviously we try to kick people. So what our office does is we take intake from everybody. And what we do is we contact the federal representative. We contact the city council. We contact folks and we actually make sure there's a contact that is made so that you're not getting a runaround because that's so much of the city, right? Is that you feel like I came here cuz I got your mailer in the mail. I know who you are. You're in the corner and we I can't solve your problem. So I send you away. No, we're we're trained as an office to pick up the phone to call that city office, to call that city agency, to call that federal agency and do the correct handoff so that person knows exactly that they're going to go see this person in that office at this time. So that's our job to be a connector. >> So anybody anything in with New York State umbrella, that's what you're >> the slogan is New York State is us. Everything else is not us. >> Okay. So New York State. So could you give me a couple of examples? People going to the voting booth on Tuesday. things that impact my day-to-day life, their day-to-day life in District 43. That is something that you're involved in on a legislative level that you that you voted on that you're trying to push legislation on. How many how many um how many representatives are there for the state of New York? >> State of New York, you got 150 state assembly members and 63 senators. Um in this community, we have obviously one senator and one state assembly member, one city council member, one member. >> So, you're one you're one vote of 150. I'm one of 150 meaning that 80 people 80 79 of my colleagues have to agree with that particular policy for it to go through. Um and often times again because um we're a part of the same party you will see a lot of party votes are very similar. People generally vote with their party lines. There are times you break through your party when you feel like that's gone too far or whatever the case is. But generally speaking, that's >> on a legislative level right now today as of today at uh 5 to 5 and how many are Democrat and how many are Republican in the uh >> there are 103 Democrats in the state assembly and 47 members of the Republican party. >> All you guys got to do is one WhatsApp and decide how you're voting and the Republicans still go. >> I mean I mean look we worked I've worked across the aisle like while we do not while it's true we do not need a lot of Republican votes. There's a bill called Melany's Law which focused on domestic violence that actually worked across the aisle and had more Republican co-sponsors than Democratic co-sponsors. So there's ways, I think, and ways to get effective work done. And I think you got to also remember in a state of 22 million people that despite us being a majority party, they represent people, too. And there are many people in the Crown Heights community who do not ascribe to being a Democrat, I represent you. Whether you voted for me in the last election, whether you vote in this election, I will continue to stand up for folks, their values, their ideas, and willing to listen even when we disagree. >> Brian, did you were you planning on becoming a politician when you were 10 years? >> No. No. No. No. I wanted to be a business person. I wanted I studied business at BMCC. Um I actually wanted to be an ANR for music. I loved music. My father was always when when I was younger and he was home. He would always have records and play records. I was I loved music. Um I got to BMCC. I took an accounting class and I said, "This is not for me. I like people better than I like numbers." Um and that's how I got into I had a professor at Brooklyn College. I transferred Brooklyn College. A professor there named Professor Brown, former military guy. He said that we could miss class once a month if we attend this thing called a community board. I found out there were four committee boards in my particular district and I was able to miss class four nights. I had to come back and report. So that was kind of the impetus. I was in those community board meetings and learning about things on a very hypo local level whether it's a vital Brooklyn project or a street sign in need of repair. um started to get engaged, learn the community managers. And again, if you go to community board meeting, you know, there about 50 people who are on the board and about 60 people at best at every community board meeting. So out of 150,000 people, we represent about there are always about less than 100 people that are super engaged and I really got a chance to meet some of those neighbors and those are folks who I still call on my ride up and down from Auburn to find out what's happening in Crown Heights, what's happening in Flatbush because they're so super engaged on a local level. So, you went to the community where you said, "I want to run for office." >> No, actually, I then got a job with um a state senator. I was an intern. I had a day job. I worked in the daytime and from 9:00 to 5:00 I would go to work and from 5:00 to 9:00 I would intern for this state senator. Um eventually he needed a special assistant. I began to work for him. I went on to go a special assistant as deputy chief of staff. I went to go be a chief of staff in city hall. So, I worked at the state level, the city level. Had the honor of my life to work for President Obama, my brother's keepers alliance. came back home and um I got involved in some community based work. I ran for office for the first time in 2017. I looked around and I kind of thought about I think I know enough about my community. I didn't want to go to Albany. I thought Albany was far, cold, and lonely. Um ran for city council in 2017. I lost that election by less than 700 votes um in a five-way primary against a 10-year incumbent. Um went back into um working in nonprofits, then the private sector, and then in 2022, there's an opportunity to run for the state house. Um my family was in a very different place at that point. I didn't have a son. Um but it was very intriguing to get involved in the state level and work on a state budget. I worked there before and um did that won the election and um you know so far been pretty successful. I think we've passed almost 20 bills into law since being a state lawmaker. I've introduced over 190 pieces of legislation that I think vary from education to housing to quality of life. Um, and we broughten over, I would say, close to, um, $5 billion into this district between capital investments and expense money to nonprofits. >> Let's focus on an accomplishment. I like staying positive. Tell me in the last few years that you've been elected, what was the biggest piece of legislation that you passed? >> The biggest piece of legislation was probably going to be Melany's Law. I think that was big because it helped survivors of domestic violence close a very valuable loophole and it was bipartisan. >> Who was Melanie, if I may ask? Melanie was a young lady in Hudson Valley who was murdered by her mother's boyfriend who had a restraining order from the mother. But because Melanie was over the age of 18, Melanie had to apply for her own restraining order. Melanie was a typical 22-year-old girl in Hudson Valley. She went to school. She had a child named Miles and she worked. And Melanie never had a chance to get down to the courthouse to file it because her day was just packed. Um the person knew that she didn't have a restraining order. He murdered Melanie and as a result of that we closed the loophole to make sure that once a restraining order is filed in the household. It covers everyone in the household but if you want to get off of the restraining order it's like look I don't have a problem with Jill or James you can go down to court and get yourself off of it but initially you're put on to protect you. So that to me that was it I mean saving lives obvious saving the future Melanie is critically important crossing the aisle to get a bipartisan legislation done and as you mentioned as a statewide elected official it's not always things that happen in your own backyard. the things that happened from the north country to the north shores of our state. >> May her name be a blessing. >> Yeah. Absolutely. >> Wow. So, you passed that law. >> We passed that law. Yeah. I say we because it was a coalition of uh legislators, but it was my bill. Yeah. >> How do you win an election? >> You get people to vote for you. You get one more person to like you than the other guy. Um and I I obviously you knock doors, you talk to folks, um you articulate a vision for what you want to see happen. But I think as an incumbent, the unique challenge is not just articulating what you want to see happen over the next two years. It's articulating what have you done over the last two years. And I think for any candidate who's running for office, I think elections start before election day. It starts before announcing your candidacy. And it starts by what works are you doing in your community today that would allow someone to look at you and say you should run for office. >> Do you knock on doors now or No, >> I still knock on doors. Yeah, I have a pair of shoes in my office. I should have brought them with me. They're in um Alman office, but the holes are busted today. I knock no doors today. today. Yesterday I knocked 85 doors. >> 85 doors. >> Yeah. Which is a low number. >> It's tiring. >> Yeah. I mean, it's the work It's the work of elections, right? Elections are take work. >> My friend's a a big political consultant. He told me to in order to win election, you need a great ground game. >> Yep. >> A great team. >> Yep. >> You got to raise a lot of money. >> Yep. >> What else did he say? >> You need You also You also need to touch voters seven times. Each voter seven times. Seven times. Seven times. You got Seven's a magic number. It's a magical number in the Bible. I'm sure it is in um >> seven is a very lucky number in Judaism. >> It is. It is. It is a thing where you got to see me on social media. You got to see me at your train station. You have to see me at your um house of worship. You have to see a ad on on social media. You have it's just like they'll see this like it's just like seven touches usually is a trick. >> You know guys, Zelner Meyer. >> Zeli. I know him very well. >> I'm I'm walking up Eastern Parkway like three, four years ago. Again, I'm bad with dates. It could have been five and it could have been three. >> We won't hold it to you. And I'm I'm walking up and politician. >> It's a hot hot hot hot Friday in July or August. It's like 102 degrees with the with the temperature. I don't know what the Fahrenheit level, whatever. >> And he stops me, shakes my hand, he touch telling me about himself, and I'm like, I don't know who you are. And he's like, "Oh, I'm your local whatever." Told him where I lived. He's like, "I went to school at your corner growing up, elementary." He was like, "Oh, and I was with one of my kids in a carriage." He's like, "Oh, how is he? Whatever. How do you like living here?" Whatever. And he gives me his paperwork. He tells me when to vote for him. I said, "Who are you running against?" He said, "I have nobody I'm running against. I'm the only name on the ballot." Yeah. >> I almost passed out. I said, I told I I told Avi, a good friend of mine. He's a friend of yours. I said, "This is the most honest politician I met in my life. He's standing in a 100 degree weather, running unopposed, trying to get the voters to like him." I What was his endgame? >> The The endgame, I think, is you want your politicians to be working as hard in the off session that they are working in the session, right? Like we went unopposed last time because we worked so hard. We outworked everyone this time. You know, there's been a wedge issue as you described earlier where people are upset about not my record, they're upset about a project that is in progress that they don't like and that's a protest and that happens in time. But I think the fact that we've worked so hard over the years, there'll be enough good grace and great will people to kind of read between the lines on this one, >> right? What's the word that synagogue that they want to knock down in the Kings Brook Hospital? >> It was a huge hot topic. >> We we had talked about that back in March. I think I was on a podcast in March with Rabbi Yakov Burman back in March. I had wrote a letter to the governor. um spoke to the governor's team about this, obviously called it an outrage. Um that was a privately sold development project. I'm not I'm not sure of all the details there. I know that the synagogue was operating for over 100 years at the time. Um I know there was no recourse. I think it got sold during the pandemic. So again, this predates me a little bit. Um so I don't have all the notes. >> Is it owned by the state? >> It is owned by Brookdale Hospital or or one Brooklyn Health, I believe, is um that's a private enterprise. >> Yeah, that is a that is a private that's that's a private. It's not state run. It's not like it's not like Sunni down state where Sunni down state this was happening in Sunni down state and it's a Sunni state project. I have a lot more control over state. Remember that NYS is for us. Everything else not us. This is not a state. >> But do you have influence and connections in all these different departments you work on deals together? >> I mean obviously I mean unpopular an unpopular thought earlier this year people were talking about me being the next lieutenant governor potentially, right? That was a topic of discussion. So I have a lot of good relationships with the governor and I think we are getting to a good place. I know there's some litigation, there's some conversations happening um that I am not in the weed zone cuz it's not a state proposal, but the governor did get a phone call from me and her team did get a phone call about the importance and what it meant to the community and making sure we stood up for it. Again, what the outcome will become, we don't know, but what my job is is clearly to be an advocate for the things that matter to the people I represent. >> Very cool. Um, >> we talk about like one topic issues. I became a one topic guy lately. >> What's your one issue? >> I'm going to tell you what my my one issue is. What's your hot take? >> Always for the last three years, it's been on my mind every single day and I woke up like two weeks ago. A good friend of mine's son was walking out of a store on Kingston Avenue. Like 14-year-old boy walks out and somebody is flying up Kingston Avenue with an electrical scooter, knocks him over. He's the whole day in the in the emergency room and then they're getting tests and his femur and his bone and his this and that and he could barely move. And I got turned my phone around. I go super viral almost every day. I turned my phone around on selfie mode and I started screaming and yelling that the epidemic of electrical scooters and bicycles and hoverboards and Segways. My biggest joke about the Segways and all these things is if you Google what happened to the owner of Segway, he drove a Segway off a 30- foot cliff and died. >> Sounds anything electric is extremely dangerous. >> This is how I got 190 bills, right? Cuz you talk to 135,000 people, you get a bunch of ideas. We actually have a bill. There's a woman in my district who had a very similar situation. She was in Pro Park, was hit by this ebike. The ebike took off. We then introduced legislation to put license plates on ebikes and all bicycles quite frankly because we believe that once if in a car if I hit you and even if I drive off, there's recourse because someone is going to see that license plate, take a picture of be someone held accountable. We introduce legislation that would require the same thing for ebikes, particularly those going over the speed limit. We dropped the speed limit in cars down to 25 miles per hour. We have ebikes that are illegally classed that are going faster than that. If you can go as fast as a car, you should be licensed and have a license plate and just like a car is my opinion. >> So, what I'm screaming about is is that if we walk outside right now, we're in Crown Heights. If we walk outside the studio right now and just stop there with a stopwatch for 10 minutes, you're going to see 9 to 16 year olds riding on the sidewalk faster than the New York State speed limit. >> As far as I know, all the laws are in place. It's illegal to ride a motor vehicle, which these things have, I don't know how many cc's. They're going fast. They have powerful motors. They're all going on sidewalks. There's no license plate. Obviously, nobody has a license. They're under 18. They're all going on the sidewalks. My brother-in-law's father, an 80-year-old at Montgomery Street, was ran over a few years ago by a high school kid. He was in the hospital. He was in Rusk Institute for Rehab. And now that I became the huge advocate against ebikes and e- scooters, especially riding on the sidewalks or riding on the streets, not following the laws, which I think the DMV is your department this state. That is >> finally I found something. You found something I'm useful for. Finally, >> all I people say, "What do you want? What do you want? My kid has to get to school. What do you want? My husband has to get to work." You know what I want? >> I want all the laws that you passed to be enforced because my feeling is is that right now there could be 50 cops at the corner. >> Yeah. And they're not going to stop the 9-year-old kid and grab away his 40 mph school. Let me say this. >> Nobody's enforcing the law. >> I'm glad the state is putting together laws that people like. >> Unfortunately, municipalities like the city have to enforce these laws, right? So, we don't have state troopers on New York City streets. We have NYPD. So, this is occasionally. Um, but this is an example of where the state is doing our job, right, by passing the laws and saying this is the standard, but the enforcement gets handed down to the city and sometimes a ball gets fumbled there. And I'm not blaming my colleagues on the city level. I'm just saying that it is impractical for the state to enforce laws when the city has a the city's budget for law enforcement is over $6.5 billion. The state's um police budget is 1.9. You tell me what's greater. So on some levels, we have to work together. It can't be silos. If the law is a law, then someone has to enforce it. And now it's our job to pass it. It's the city's job to enforce it. >> So I'm just curious, how does that work? You guys pass the law. When you pass the law, you got thatund in you get you have you have you need 79 80 votes. I'm saying. Yep. >> When you pass that law now, that's the law. That's the law of the land. >> That's the law of the land. The only time the law changes if we pass bills that says in a city of a million or more, which means we're particularly talking about New York City. And that's laws that are very specific to New York City. But overall, any law the state passes applies to every municipality in the state of New York. >> So you pass a law and then like the police chiefs or the NYPD if they decide that we're not going to enforce that. >> If you guys really want to do, you could probably have a lot of power on you could defund them. I mean, we'll get to defund. >> Let's not do let's not do I don't want to get caught up with the defund word again. Don't do that. We've been there before. >> So how does it work? Listen, what happens is generally every city has what's called a state legislative affairs team that then interprets that law to the mayor and the municipalities and that memo goes out to the departments and the agencies have to enforce it. Enforcement the echo chamber would have to be that we are being told at high volumes that this is not being enforced and we'd have to have some oversight hearings and stuff like that. How often does that happen? Not very often. Um because we're only in session. People don't realize this. The state legislature is part-time. It is a January through June primarily job. We don't return to Albany until the following January. So you if something happened in July, we'd either have to host a hearing or we'd have to wait till January to go deal with it. And this happens a lot with a lot of state laws. You notice over the last few budget cycles, we're doing things to kind of look back at things we did maybe in 2020 or 2021 and trying to retrofit. Um >> I'm going to I'm going to reach out to your office because I don't want it to become take over the whole >> 71871 3501. office. Empire Rogers. >> Empire Rogers. >> But basically what what I want to what I what I want to say is >> the liquor store, >> right? But I was going to say that, but I didn't want to offend our guests. I'm not talking to Sim Kaine here. I want to be very careful. >> No, but actually our newest sponsor is a is a guarde. Oh. >> From Columbia. So bakan is our newest. Good to know. >> Yeah. >> Because I became the face of this uh e fighting the ebike thing. So I get now all the dumps every day. >> Okay. like all the paramedics, all the EMTs. Of course, they'll never tell me a name or anything. They'll be like, "Two calls today. One guy broke his this, one guy broke his that we took somebody on the bus now to to this hospital. They shattered their knee." And it's it's crazy. The A day doesn't go by in the last 10 days. And I don't get a video of a teenager like riding into a street and a truck hitting them. Miraculously, you see like seven, eight of these videos in a row how resilient people are. They get hit by A TRUCK, THEY FLY UP FOR THE DASH, THEY LAND, AND THEY'RE GRABBING THEIR scooter as the first It's crazy, but I mean, it's crazy. So, it's something that has to be enforced. Not because I want to be a killjoy, because human life is just so important. >> Um, and I just think that >> I think it's at a level that it's not being enforced to such a degree that >> fire hydrants are being enforced. You park at a fire hydrant, you're getting $115 tickets. Well, let me tell you there's about 131 bills in the state legislature right now from not just myself, from colleagues across the state who are really looking at this issue very seriously. I sit on the transportation committee, so I know that um it is a huge concern. Again, um this year we saw the budget go until um late May. When budgets go late, we have less time to actually legislate. And that is one of the consequences of a late budget. And we've seen that for the last four or five years consistently. And that's something that has to change in order for us to really spend the six months that we are in Albany focus on the issues of the day and focus on making sure the issues that people are bringing to our offices and emailing us about are actually getting resolved. >> So that law that you passed that could that literally will save lives. I mean, they forget to go to restraining or they're busy and they don't they're now like, god forbid they got that's horrible >> what's your proposal? People shouldn't drive a bike on the sidewalk. What's your proposal? >> My my my proposal is is that when >> nine-year-old kids can drive a bike on the side, >> an ebike over 30 miles. I don't even want even I don't even I don't even want bicycles. Maybe a tricycle. >> I mean, obviously I I think the city has done a lot. >> So, my 5-year-old son can't ride a bike on the side. >> Your 5-year-old son? >> He can. So, at what age do they cap tap out? >> I believe it's 16. Anyone can ride. One second. One second. Let's just talk say 5-year-old. I'm talking about the commentary for the 5-year-old. >> Your four-year-old kid riding a little tricycle bumps into my 80-year-old dad. He'll be okay. >> Okay. >> Your 16-year-old son riding a bicycle where a scooter at 40 m an hour crashing into >> Where do you Where does it break? Where's the break point? >> Electrical scooters and bicycles never because they're coming at too much force. >> Unless the electrical bike only goes 10 miles per hour. No. As fast as >> electric is off the scooter. It's a motorized. No, it's a motorized vehicle. That's what we have a driver's license for. Nothing electric. >> Big difference. The force of power of a non-motorized bike at 20 goes the same fast as electric 20. I don't understand >> anybody over childhood should not should be riding their bicycle proposal. Let's see you had the bill right now. >> He said he thinks at 16. >> I'm asking you if you were making strong enough if they bump into my father's official legal position for his bill that he's >> laws laws can't can't be emotional. They have to be whatever the law is. >> So you tell me he thinks it's 16. I don't know what you think. Well, 16 for riding on the sidewalk a regular bicycle to suggested law. >> I don't want a 16-year-old on the sidewalk either. >> If they could bump into an 80-year-old and they could get hurt, I don't want them on the sidewalk. Everybody has to be safe. >> So, better question. Do you want bike lanes? More bike lanes. >> Okay. So, >> cuz this is also controversial. >> So, so that was that was that's one of my topics. I knew it was coming. So, I just wanted trust me. It's coming. >> Hold on. Before what age? >> Nothing. I'm going to make a great electric on the sidewalk. Never confiscated 5 miles hour. >> Confiscated, ticketed, taken away, never given back. And the parents electric on the sidewalk never electric on the sidewalk. >> It's competing with my 80-year-old parents. Done. >> And the Hold on. The kid riding a bike at 20. It They shouldn't be either. It has to be very confused. >> Not electric. Little kids. Little kids with not a lot of fun. >> So, you don't like electric? You're against electric. >> I don't like bicycles and scooters on sidewalks at all. >> But if it's little kids riding a non-motorized scooter, it's okay. >> What age? >> It would have to be how much the kid weighs and how big the scooter is. I don't want Oh, why aren't we protecting the elder? >> Need to answer the question. Give Let's break it out. >> I'm going to leave it for Albony. >> No, I'm you. You You rant and yell and scream. Tell us what your proposal is. >> I told you just 10 times. Electric is off. >> Electric off. You don't like electric. >> Electric. Anything electric? Motor. >> You don't know why. Even though it's 5 miles per hour. Even it's going slower than a than a pedal bike. You don't care. >> Pedal back. Little kids. Little kids. Probably like seven or eight or under. >> I think he has trauma. His parents couldn't afford any electric cars. So, he's just saying no one can have electric cars. >> Electric cuz he's not saying why if it's 5 miles per hour. It's banned. He didn't give me a reason. It's >> Albany has to make the law. >> You know, this this is how typical constituent cases go. People have very strong opinions and sometimes it's based on emotion. Sometimes it's based on fact. But it's like talking about bicycling. talk about I'm gonna tell you my personal opinions and I'm sure 80% of the community is going to agree. >> Which community? >> So listen, I want I want to say my personal story and and maybe a lot of people that are watching the show are going to fall into the same category. I didn't own a car until I was 32 years old. >> Okay? I'm almost 40, so I'm on like my third lease, a three-year lease or whatever. Third third till almost 32 years old. My block is not such a popular block. We lost five parking spots to the bike lanes to the uh not to the bike lanes to the to the to the city bike the station. >> Oh, city bike is different from bike lane. So, >> no no I'm going to go to both of them. I want to cover say the bike station took away five parking spots now in Crown Heights and in East Flappish and Flappish all your areas. I saw in many times they put the whole 40 50 foot bike station like 50 bikes on sidewalks and nobody lost any parking spots. I was I felt disgusted and betrayed whoever it was that came in the middle of the night and they ripped up five parking spots and put every parking spot is golden. Now you're going to say cars are we know that all the laws being passed are terrible for car riders. I every single every two weeks I get a parking I get a ticket. If I went into a bus lane to cut somebody off 50 bucks if my wife went 35 or I went 36 on Atlantic Avenue which we feel like we're we're barely moving. It's not like a little >> surprised you can get that fast on Atlantic Avenue by the way. We get we managed to get >> I was on there earlier. 25 miles. >> Managed to get these tickets twice a month. 50 bucks. You don't pay it a day later. 75. When you see when they want to give you tickets, they're very quick. You know, when they want to legislate, they know how to get you quick. >> That's also the city, by the way. >> No. Hold on a second. >> And I only got that. >> I only got a car. I only got a car. I said until my Uber bill was like 7 8 $900 a month. I'm not going to get a car. I can never find parking. Now it's even worse because of those bike stations. I got it when it was life dependent. My wife couldn't was waiting 40 50 minutes on Utica Avenue in 2 ft of snow and it says bus delayed and she couldn't get to work with transfers. We had three four young kids. We had to get them schools and missing. I don't want a car. Trust me, it's a nightmare with the legislation and the tickets and the ticketing and the on top of that they punish us so badly. Four times a week alternate side parking. If you live in Brooklyn and you have a car, it's a full-time job. You have to wake up three kids. IT'S SO DANGEROUS. WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS that are sleeping? The mothers are leaving them in cribs running city, right? >> All inside of the city. >> It's not his problem. But I'm just saying that we're tortured. We're tortured. We're tortured. >> We don't we don't dismiss any constituent concerns. We take them all and we redirect them. >> People People are tortured and pain. And by the way, those trucks, they never show up to clean the streets. When they do show up, they >> I have a bill for that. >> They blow they they blow they just blow some. >> Well, part of the problem with that, let's jump in that way. Let me just finish the question. Question is that they took away a lot of parking spots for no reason. But now you said bike lanes. Here's the issue with bike lanes. Go ahead. >> There's so many bike lanes now going across strong Jewish communities where people have 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 kids in Bur Park Williamsburg. They're popping up and the buses have a stop sign. So they stop the busy in Williamsburg. This happened a hundred times and I'm not exaggerating. They make bike lanes. the the the bus driver puts the bus at an angle, puts up the flashing, stop, opens up the door that the kid could clear across the street, BUT THE GUY IN THE BIKE LANE GOES RIGHT INTO THE KIDS. >> WELL, here's the problem. That >> the bike lanes are to make people safer. They make people less safe in certain neighborhoods. >> But that person is not following the law cuz bikes are supposed to adhere to all traffic rules. So, here's another example of you saying the state has done the right thing by setting the gold standard by saying that bikes need to follow traffic vehicular law and they are not. to your point about enforcement, we need more enforcement because obviously there are all laws on the books that just not being followed and it creates resentment in communities. So it's not the bike lane, the bike lane is actually a good thing to your point because one of your arguments right before this was that you don't want bikes on the sidewalk. So there's not in the sidewalk, you don't want them in the street with the cars. So we created a dedicated bike lane for them and people have to ride in those lanes and also observe the traffic laws. If it says red light, you should not be riding through a red light. You need to stop. There is no exchange for doing the right thing. Do I bike? I bike. I drive. I walk. I take the train. I'm a New Yorker. However, however, how I have colleagues that do it. John Lou does it all the time. Um, but um, from New York City. >> He he bikes to a few hundred miles. What is it? >> 160 miles. It's not that bad of a bike ride. >> Brian, I have a friend who who owed an easy pass. Let's say he owed $5,000 because he couldn't afford to pay the bill. >> He ended up with fines for $30,000. Yeah, he had to give up his car. >> Yeah. >> How do you What do you think about that? >> I think Easy Pass is an atrocity. I think it's horrible what they're doing. I think the >> What are they doing? I don't even know about this. >> Easy pass. You go through easy pass. So, one, they want people to obviously have um easy pass in their car and not just do the toll by um plate by mail or toll by mail. Um >> isn't it cheaper if you have the easy pass? >> It is cheaper. Some people don't want some people don't want to get to their credit cards though, right? But what hap what's happening now is when people are getting these fines and unable to pay it off. So, it hits your credit card, your credit card or your bank doesn't have the money that gets an additional fee. Now, you're getting administrative fee, you're getting the regular fee. So, a $5 um easy pass toll becomes 50ucks. >> It becomes 50 bucks easily. And if you don't let that if you that that skips, it becomes $200 and now it's thousands of dollars. Now, you can't register your vehicle. >> You're charging more credit and more interest than credit cards and cash. By the way, EasyPass is also a private agency, which is what I think the the state needs the first reigning is actually make this there's no reason why we should >> Easy Pass is all private money. >> It's private. That has easyypass.com. That is not ago. >> So, the tolls are the the tolls are being collected by private companies. >> Yeah. And that's the first thing to change. We need to change who is collecting it. >> How did it happen to begin with? >> You know, this predates me a long long time ago. >> You love it that you only came in 2022. >> I love the fact. >> What's the stock? I want to invest in this easy pass. I don't think I don't think they have an IPO. >> If they did, it'd be a good IPO to buy right now. I mean, members of Congress certainly buy more stocks than members of the state legislature >> cuz I have a friend literally owed I think five three to $5,000 in total and these days that's two times Manhattan. >> It's it's enormous. I mean, obviously with >> you end up with a 20 $30,000 bill because you couldn't afford to pay the bill. Then they have to then they take away your registration. They susp you're you're done. >> But this is the point about New York becoming an expensive place. Whether it be driving to your point about driving and getting tickets or the easy pass or the high cost of housing, it's just becoming >> anyone trying to colleague of mine back in. >> Yeah, there's a colleague of mine, Kenny Burgles, who's no longer in the state assembly who this was his hot issue for a very long time. Um there's a couple of state senators who are also pushing this issue and there's some bipartisan I am on the bill to relay easy pass, but I think the first step is to make sure that easy pass is not a private organization. I don't think that any private companies be collecting state toll dollars. I think that money should go back to reinvesting in our bridges and our tolls. We have enough public infrastructure that we can use that money for without having a third party put their hands in the jar. >> So easy passes. Well, obviously they're tied into the state cuz if you don't pay your Easy Pass bill, then your registration there's a because they're break they're breaking the law of not paying your fine. But in terms of what the fines are, I think the fine has been capped. But if you owe $2,000 and then suddenly your bill goes to 20,000, >> you shouldn't even owe $2,000 quite frankly because there too much fees attached on top of what what was the it's almost like we do buses, right? Um I know a lot of people particularly our mayor talked about >> Easy Pass has a good lobby going on in Albany and therefore >> they've never lobbied me. I don't know. You're not a good lobby if you haven't seen me. >> They haven't lobbyed me. >> On the topic of lobbying. >> Yeah. >> If you could t talk in terms of strength if let's say I don't know we have a thousand people got together. We want to push a certain law. Y >> versus a wealthy company who has a lobbyist who have people parked in Albany just chewing your ear off all day trying to push deals. >> How does that work? >> So I say there two things. There's two kinds of lobbyists. They're what we call lobby lobbying issues where everyone's a lobbyist cuz you're lobbying me right now about bikes. You're lobbying easy pass. This is a lobbying effort, right? You guys are talking about the issue that matters to you and they're paid lobbyists which are these companies that >> but they're paid lobbyist. >> It was a friend whatever >> whatever he's like a friend said. not acting for me. No, but like a lobbyist essentially they're paid lobbyists and the the benefit of a paid lobbyist is that is their full-time job. Whereas you as a constituent, your lobbying happens to meet at a laundromat, a supermarket, at a restaurant because that is your opportunity to get your idea in front of me. So there benefits to both obviously. I think for me the most impactful person I can hear from is somebody who can vote for me, not someone who's lobbying me. I do think lobbyists get a bad name at times. I think lobbyists add a very val valuable part of knowledge base because a lot of them are former staffers, similar constituents. I have constituents who I see all the time. I saw one this morning in the district. I was going to train station who's a lobbyist, but she lives in this community, right? Do I devalue her because she's a a lobbyist versus actually listening to the issues she's championing. I think there benefits to both, but I I certainly listen to my constituent. >> Knicks fan. >> Are you a Knicks fan or no? Or Nets? >> It's a tough question. >> What What do you mean if I'm a Nets fan or a Knicks fan or Nets? >> Who's not a Knicks fan right now? There we go. >> The question is not if I'm a Knicks fan, it's when did I become a Knicks fan, right? Was it a tip on game four or was it um in 1973? >> You know, the Brooklyn Nets, I think, have a record amount of Jewish players in history of NBA. They have two Jewish players. >> I never I didn't know that. >> Danny Wolf and some >> He took me to a game. He took me to a game. I think they were playing Oregon and there was a Jewish player in Oregon. So, there was the world record. They had three players that were Jewish on the court at the exact same time. >> Oh, wow. I didn't know. >> Crazy game, right? Amari, do I I go to Knicks games more frequently. I go to Knicks games. Um, primarily because the cost of a Nets ticket is much cheaper than the cost of a Knicks ticket. And proximity. I love Brooklyn. >> I know I have friends who are in the ticket reselling business. And he told me right now maybe the Knicks or different teams are trying to block people in that business from buying and reselling. And there's a lot of legislation or he told me he was in Alb. I called him Sam like what's up? I want to talk to you about some tickets. I'm in Albian. I'm busy. I can't talk to you. Blah blah blah. I have a few people in that business. Do you familiar anything with those laws? And >> I know it's been an issue for a lot of people because I think what happens is you look at the Knicks prices for they take a sort of enormous player front. First of all, congratulations to the New York Knicks. Incredible championship. It shows what New York is all about. Resiliency, grit, determination, and finally ending bad cycles. A 53 year waiting, right? I'm 41 years old, so I've never seen a Knicks championship in my lifetime until today. My son is two. He has won already, so he's one ahead of me. Um, no, but I will say this. We look at the prices of what it costs for entry to sit in a game. A family of four, a basic family of four cannot afford to attend a regular basketball game, much less a playoff run. I think that's an enormous problem. On top of the resale prices that are compounding that so like I think it was se to like $14,000 in the Knicks finals run. Like imagine a family of four even the mayor said he spent $1,000 on his ticket, right? Standing ticket. So imagine for you and your your your you and your wife and your five kids. That's seven grand to go see the Knicks play on top of I'm a reseller. I'm going to put some money on top. I'm not selling it for the goodness of my heart for $1,000. I do think we have to reign at it a little bit. I I don't think it's a good idea. I think for working families that live in a burrow of Brooklyn and live in New York City, I think resellers sometimes can be a prohibitive nature of somebody actually attending and enjoying a game. And I think that nothing's better than watching baseball game or basketball live. >> So only the other flip side of >> that was a nice way of me saying it. The flip side of resellers is is that there's a baseline in tickets. Let's say the cheapest Nick ticket is $80 if you buy ticket master direct. The resellers if it's a bad game, they'll sell the ticket for $10 even though the face value is 80. >> So resellers are just opportunist capitalists where the game's very hot. They'll charge, let's say, $80 ticket, they'll charge if LeBron's coming to town, they charge a thousand, let's say. Yeah. >> But if blah blah blah's coming to town, they're playing. Now, let me give you an example. >> Hold on. Then the ticket goes down to $10. So, it really just reflects supply and demand where as a reseller, the tickets could be way cheaper because they don't they're not >> But one could argue those tickets that are $10 probably wouldn't get sold and the arenas would probably do discounted pricing anyway closer to the game. >> Arenas never change their prices. >> I think the beautiful thing about like these conversations, which is why I say I'm always open to having conversations. You gave me a different perspective. Like I think about it from the perspective of my bias of saying that what's going to drive the price up. You're saying that there's occasions where it actually drives a price down. I think that's obviously an interesting lobbying tool that you just use to help me look at that perspective and look at that issue differently. >> I'm not in that business, but as an end user, I always buy last minute and >> no, I mean, but but again, I think sometimes people believe that the lobbying business per se is always about like someone being in a business or being impacted or being, you know, positive or negative impacted. I think it's just people who have different perspectives saying, have you considered this? And I think that's a huge part of being a lawmaker is looking at various perspectives and trying to figure out like what is the right perspective? What is the right thing? And sometimes you get it wrong. Sometimes you look and you go, I wish I would have thrown it this way or that way. But the reality is you don't get a chance to Monday morning quarterback. The game is today. >> Uh DMV. >> DMV. >> Why does everyone hate the DMV? Is it your fault? Right. >> It needs to be modernized. This is an issue that I will take full responsibility of and one that I've tried to legislate against and to make it better. The last time the DMV was modified or modernized was the ability to make an um appointment online. Think about that. That is the most modern tool in DMV's handbook. I think we certainly have to figure out how to get signatures signed quickly, get some of our documents saved into the cloud so that people can access information quickly, transfer stuff quicker. I think the DMV just moving at a pace that seems very 1980s at a time where technology is moving so quickly that we got to do that. >> Could it be people exaggerate a little bit about the DMV? I think people hate people hate the wait times, I think, primarily. But there's also like just >> I'm just trying to practical. I got I got a learner's permit at 16. >> Yep. >> I went to Atlantic Avenue Mall. There was a DMV there. I did wait like an hour. >> You were one of the first people in Atlantic Mall when it opened up. I guess >> I think I I think I waited it was horrible. Like an hour and a half or two hours. >> Terrible. >> And I got my learner's permit. Yeah. In 25 years, I've never gone back. Every few years, I get a letter in the mail. I have a doctor sign off to I thing. I get a new license for $10 or $20. My car registration. I go to the local >> to the enhanced license. Yeah, the enhanced license change everything with um >> Oh, you're saying the next time around I'm in trouble. You have to physically go in. >> Yeah, because now if you're traveling, they want to make sure >> I just use my passport. >> Oh, use passport. Well, okay, that's a wraparound, but there's certainly a new >> Well, I have a hack to the passport thing. We went upstate for Passover. We took all the kids to the local uh post office. I think one person comes there every 3 weeks. >> So, they're excited to see. >> So, the guy like >> like seven people like what the >> How many kids you have? >> Four. And they're all smiling. I think they keep some of the money to the local. >> He's like, he took the picture and each time he took the picture, he's like, "You want me TO TAKE IT AGAIN?" YOU KNOW, I was like, I was like, "The trick is >> I've never gotten that before." >> Calhoun. Where's a Calahoo? New York. >> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. Like, wasn't that We were the only person there. >> Isn't it beautiful how you get outside of New York City? How beautiful is this? >> I'm like, "Yeah, the post passports came a few days later in the mail." I was like, "Really good experience." I'm like, "Oh, the post office is good. I didn't need Thompson to be there." >> Well, if you want to have a hacked DMV, there's a DMV in the state capital on the concourse level. You can actually be in and out in 10 minutes. So if you drive to Albony 3 and a half hours, you can come with me on a Sunday night when I'm driving up. We'll go together. I'll drive you back on Thursday night. Just find a place to stay and we'll figure it out. >> Stay a week in Albony. >> Stay in. You can see what I'm You can see what I'm up to up there. My friend has a hotel. >> That'll be a great live podcast up there. >> Country in and suits. >> Our future sponsor and guest Mars Oring has a hotel country in Sweets. Networking >> on the 787 right downtown. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> Country and sweet. >> I don't stay in the hotels up there anymore. have an apartment because it's been four years and >> no wonder why you can't buy a house. You're paying rent here and paying rent in Alman. >> Well, luckily the state does give you a PDM for the days that you are in. So for the session I'm covered in off session. I'm coming out of pocket. But it's helpful I think with a family. Obviously I have a son, my family. You're away from home four days a week. It's good to be able to bring them up there every once in a while >> because I lay every night. I'm guilty. I lay at night every night for maybe an hour or two before I go to sleep and I just watch YouTube videos. I'm addicted. I I find like topics and I just go through them from weeks and months at a time and then YouTube sends you similar ones. Yeah. So like you're following >> the algorithm. >> Not yet. Not yet. Yeah. Well, yesterday I Googled you a little bit. So you're going to start now. You're going to start seeing my stuff. >> Yeah. So he's pop. So I follow they have this new series of like following somebody for like in their lives. They have pilots, captains for Delta, for United. >> These are great. These are great series. I love that kind of stuff. >> They talk about the day in the life of a pilot. He's like, "Oh, I started off in national." >> Did you watch any of our shows yet? >> I did. >> Okay. >> Of course I did. I wanted to know what I was walking into. I'm a politician. I'm not walking up on your job. >> So, I want to follow the life of >> Did you subscribe? Hold on a second. Did you subscribe? >> I will subscribe after this episode. >> Oh my god. >> I didn't I'm being I'm the second most honest politician you met the first one. I'm the second one. I didn't subscribe yet. >> I thought Sima was >> Sima is the most important politician in the room. >> Oh, no. No. Sim is like number 24. >> Tell me what goes on a day that you're in Albany. >> Yeah. >> What goes on all day? Like I'm so curious. What do you do from 9 to 5? >> He's not following my Instagram because we do this all the time on Instagram. No, I'm joking. Um, no. So, Monday, >> you drive up Sunday nights. >> I drop Sunday night cuz I like to wake up in the place where I'm going to legislate. I'll wake up in the place I'm going to work. Um, let's do Monday morning. Monday morning, we start off with a 10:00 caucus meeting. So, there's the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian caucus meeting. That starts at 10:00. 11:00 there is a task force meeting. 12:00 all the Democrats gather for what we call conference. We talk about the week at a glance, what's going to come up, what votes are going to happen. 1:30 we 1:30ish we're schedule a start session. 2:30ish we start um session. Um we go until about 5:'lock in the evening, sometimes later depending on what time of the year we're in. Um in the evening we have some receptions that we attend. And then um that evening I go back home around 8:00. I do some reading on my briefing documents for the next day. On Tuesday we have a bunch of committee meetings. My first committee meeting starts at 9:00. My last one ends at 2 o'clock. We go back to the floor. We vote. Um there's some more receptions. I go back home. I read briefs. Um and then >> when you say back home, you're not with your wife and kid. You >> back home. Back home in Albany. Back home. Yeah. It's very lonely. Um my kid comes up sometimes. He's at the age where he can still come up. Next year he's starting to get into the cadence of school. That's going to change the way I could bring him around and what I could do with him. It's going to change my relationship with how I feel about Albony at times because it is again family is you know family faith. These things are very very important to every single person including myself. Um so that is the toughest part about being a state lawmaker is being away from your family. um you develop new community among your colleagues obviously in terms of people you work with Simas and Common Joerger and Aaron those guys and >> you know all 150 on a first-name basis >> I know all 150 on a firstn name basis I know um personal details about their lives you say a member's name I can tell you a personal detail about them in terms of I think how you how you succeed in Auburn is being invested in the people that you serve with understanding their perspective so that you don't hate the person they may take a vote that you may not agree with they may have an issue that you don't um like but at the same time you get to know people on a personal level and what their community is. I got a chance to travel around the state and see people's communities and kind of go, "Oh, I see why this person votes the way they vote or why they see the world that way because of the people they represent." I think that helps me become a better lawmaker, help him be a better person. >> How was the mayor as assemblyman? >> The mayor was actually, you know, he is what you see on television. He's one of the most charismatic guys you'll meet. He's a very funny person behind the scenes. Obviously, there are issues, as I mentioned, that the mayor and I don't see eye to eye on, right? Um, but in terms of a person, um, you know, Zoron is incredibly funny, um, incredibly charismatic, um, incredibly personable. Um, I think that comes across as you watch him on television. Now we interact with people. >> He's not religious Muslim, right? He drinks apparently. >> I've never had a drink with him, actually, funny enough. Um, I wish I did, quite frankly, but we've never we've never had the opportunity to share a drink. He spent a lot of He got there probably in 2020. I got there in 2022. Um, but I know that even on issues where you disagree, he's constantly the kind of person going to push you um to kind of see it from his perspective. And you got to be as forceful with him. And I think he respects those lines when he knows where you stand on issues and know that you're advocating your heart's in the right place. >> Was he popular in Albony? >> Among colleagues? Yeah. Or in general? I mean, in general, I would say Zoran could walk in a room in Albany um prior to the election, no one knows there, right? Unless you're a colleague, right? I think his popularity certainly he cannot walk anywhere anymore without >> No. He was there 5 years ago. Was he a popular guy? Like everybody liked them like amongst his colleagues. >> I think you know the obviously Zoron is a part of the democratic social America, right? And the Democratic social New York. They have a block of votes. Um and they kind of, you know, were very much hanging together. Their policies weren't as widespread as they are now. I think some of the ideas that he championed throughout the campaign have become very popular and populist. Um and I think people have latched on to it. But I wouldn't say that he was necessarily the most popular guy in Albany. But he certainly is the most popular guy in the world probably right now. >> So that's Monday, Tuesday. And then Wednesday and Thursday are similar. >> Wednesday and Thursday are similar days. Wednesday and Thursday a lot of meetings um with folks. People come up whether it be constituents, whether it be lobbyists. Um Wednesday and Thursday is usually what we call the getaway day depending on how the schedule is situated. So on a Wednesday we could be driving back home or it could be a Thursday. Um but those are typically days that we have a looser schedule. Amtrak. I've done Amtrak to Albany. I've done drive to Albany. I've flown to Albany. My favorite method is driving in Albany. It gives me 3 and a half hours in a car to just kind of especially like you leave on a Sunday evening around 3:00 in the springtime or 4:00 after um a church service or brunch and you see all those beautiful trees and you get a chance to not be thinking about anything. Just kind of taking it all in >> or or I I some I use a dialer and I put a like I put a hundred numbers in a a dialer and I'll just call random constituents and say, "Hey, just calling to check in to see how things are going." Um, and that's a good perspective because sometimes what you what you hear from people when you talk to actual constituents is people are one shocked you called, right? Because they're not used to their politicians calling. They're used to calling their politicians. Um, and two, you get a perspective on what's happening on the corner of St. John's and Kingston, right? Versus I live on Lynon Boulevard, right? So, I know that perspective of my neighbors, but I don't know what it means to live on the other side of the district. I don't walk that part of the district every single day. So, it's helpful. >> Favorite store in the Jewish part of Crown Heights. It's the It's I don't know the name of the store, but it's on Kingston and Empire. They have great pizza there. Um why is the name escaped me? They have a bunch of things, but >> Kingston and Empire. >> Kingston Empire. It's right in the corner. They used to be on Kingston and Empire. I think >> it's not a It's not a pizza spot, but they serve good pizza. It's right in the corner of Kingston and Empire. >> I don't think it exists. >> No, that exists for sure. >> I think they did. They did exist. >> Maybe it's not there, but it exists. I was there back in December for sure. >> Kingston and Empire. King. >> It used to be that pizza place was there for six months. >> It was there for a few months. >> Whenever it was the pizza, I'm telling you. I'm telling you, I know I had pizza. >> Joey, open up again. >> Oh, it's the Es guy. >> Yeah, they had Joey. I think you opened it up like a year and it didn't work. You weren't buying enough. >> No, it was good though. >> Which other store have you been to >> in Crown Heights? >> The Jewish part. >> Good question. Um, Eastern Park the the spot on EMP Eastern Parkway in Kingston as well. What's the name of that spot? Meny's obviously I go to Meny's quite a bit. There's also Meat 123 Kingston who just there last week. >> That's for people. >> That's for rich people. >> Oh boy. Here we go. You see this? Why I shouldn't have started saying anything cuz now you got me. But that that was incredible. >> But with that Rolex and we >> I had a life before public service, right? >> What was that? What was that? >> Was that you in the private sector? >> In the private sector. Yeah. I worked for a group called Hawkfish. Hawkfish was a data company that focused on elections and data information. U Mike Bloomberg had started Hawkfish back in 2018. Um obviously throughout 2020 when he was thinking about running for president, Hawkfish was one of the groups he contracted to help look at the data and understand um voter psychology. We coined the term the red bar mirage. Talked about what was going to happen in 2020 elections. Um it was really proud of the work that we did. >> Let me ask you a question. If you got off you got on the three train, this just a three train is the one I took my whole life. Now I don't use it anywhere. But you got on the three train and you get off at any local stop that's part of your district and you walk down the street. Do people recognize you or most people don't? >> So it depends. I think most it's it's it's interesting, right? Because I have a very familiar look. People say, right, because of the big beard and ball, >> right? Did you grow the beard for the election blend in avenue? >> Actually, I was actually told in 2017 when I started growing a beard that I would never win an election with a beard because people don't trust people with beards. That's what I was told. Right. And politicians specifically don't like the last politician that had a beard that was famous was Abraham Lincoln probably, right? Most politicians have very clean aesthetic. So, I started growing this beard back in 2016. I went to Thailand um for a week-l long trip with some of my friends. Um and when I got back, I had a little bit of scruff on my face. My wife said, "That looks really good." And when she said that, I said, "Oh, you like it." Um so, I kind of kept the beard thing going. Two months later, we had a sizable beard and I haven't looked back since. So, that's kind of the origin of the beard. I remember in 2017 specifically though there are images of people drawing my beard on the floor at train station saying vote for the beard. Um and that became the moment I knew that it was a part of my political DNA. So even if I wanted to shave the beard I'm afraid it's underneath it. Um in our community it's very popular beard. >> Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. Um I trim it I trim it maybe weekly. Like I'll do a little clip because it does get big but I just kind of keep it shaped. >> How often do you post on social? >> Post on social three times a day sometimes. >> Three times a day. Yeah. Yeah. >> How many followers? >> How many followers? Um Jake, what number are we at right now? >> I'm looking. >> Check Instagram. >> Yeah. >> Uh are at 42 39. >> 429. Yeah. >> 40,000. >> That's on on Instagram. >> 4,000. >> 4,000. He's a showoff. He has 100,000 followers on Instagram. And I have uh 36. What do I have? 39. >> So, how do I get better at social media? Talk to me. People want to know. Brian, >> huh? You got to pay. You got I'll pay for that. No, I think I mean that's it's obviously we post a lot on social. One one my calendar is bigger than the social media stuff. What we post is only a fraction of what we do, right? Quite frankly, I think part of the posting cadence for me, particularly with social media, is to your point, most people don't know who the elected officials are and they don't know what we do. And I think we try to do a good job of posting content to show in real time some of the work we're working on. So we use a lot of stories, we use a lot of regular posts. Um, but it's really an effort to just get information out to the community because oftent times people don't know what's happening in all >> your podcast audio or video. >> Both off the floors on your Instagram. >> We do. >> You do? >> Yeah. >> You gave us a success story. >> They're just not as interested as you guys. So, I got to get you guys on my podcast. >> You gave us a success story before. >> Yeah. >> Tell us a piece of legislation that you're never able to pass that's pressing that maybe we could take on as advocates and start getting involved with our huge social media platform. Something you're trying to do for your constituents. >> So, one thing we are trying to do is faith-based affordable housing. faithbased based affordable housing. >> Sounds illegal to begin with. >> So there a lot of faith institutions that have excess land or ear rights or they have land that they're not using. It may be a building that was a school for them. There was an extra space that they're not using right now. >> There's a church like New York Avenue that's used land. I saw one side they built up. You know what I'm talking about? >> Yeah. I know you're talking Yeah. New York and it's right by it's it's on New York. It's not in Brooklyn because the museum the Brooklyn Children Museum is on over there and one side they built up land. monetize empty. >> So people don't realize there's a lot of red tape when churches are trying to churches, moss, synagogues are trying to offload their land and actually build particularly outside of New York City. >> I heard that when nonforprofits or synagogues or churches want to sell land for development, I heard it's the hardest thing in the world attorney general has to sign it and they don't get involved. >> So So what we what we just would do is actually provide a technical assistance program built in so that they would have the kind of the attorney general is skeptical and scared of when you're a developer, you know what you're doing. When you're somebody who studied theology or religion, you may not understand all the technical terms and we don't want people being taken advantage of like Diff. So part of what this effort is is to one give the technical assistance to the houses of worship, our faith-based institutions to actually do this work and a lot of faith-based institutions are saying quite frankly after the pandemic they saw a lot of their parishioners members move south. We seen a lot of people look you look at the postal back to the post office you look at the zip codes of whippable went they went to North Carolina South Carolina Georgia and Florida and part of that was the affordability crisis what we're saying in the state of New York is that we have a lot of untapped opportunities to create real affordable housing for people who live in communities it doesn't mean that you have to be a member of that church synagogue or moss in order to get that housing but that church synagogue or moss has an opportunity to provide additional space that can be built up for housing let's undo some of the red tape and allow them to build some housing on it so we So what's the so what's the push back? >> The push back is there places across the state of New York outside of New York City that do not want new neighbors. Um the nimism is real, right? And it's from California to New York. People all agree that housing is too expensive that people but don't want to build it in their backyard. >> Why can't they just build if they just theoretically let zoning go wild on a certain you know I see Atlantic Avenue a lot of big buildings coming up. If they just build for the next 10 blocks gazillion towers, wouldn't the supply >> infrastructure >> wouldn't they just supply jump up and then the price will drop? >> We got to think about infrastructure though still, right? We still have a city that is interconnected in all ways. Whether you talk about our public hospital, you talk about interfaith hospitals started the conversation. How many public hospitals are in? How many schools exist? How much trains exist? Is there enough electricity? Is there enough water? We still have to zoning. While people hate it, it is a check on the infrastructure check and make sure that we have enough of the things we need to make a community a community. I believe that we should create more 15-minute communities and make sure we have enough resources within 15 minutes of someone's home. But we got to do that responsibly still. >> People are going to be so upset. We're so pressed for time. Why didn't we bring up this topic, that topic? I want to bring up a topic that in Florida, insurance on homes are like unaffordable. People literally can't afford to buy homes now because there's so many floods and so many hurricanes. Unless they self-insure, >> whatever it is. I don't know how that works. I don't know if the laws are self-insuring a house, but the insuranceances are so crazy. What I hear less people talk about is is that since I got my car 8 years ago, my car insurance goes up 20 bucks, 50 bucks, 40 bucks, 50 bucks. I didn't get into any accidents >> here in New York or >> in New York City. My car insurance is almost as much as my lease. >> Well, and I'm over 35. I'm almost 40 years old. And everybody I speak to you, you everybody says insurance on cars in New York is the highest in the world. It is. It is. It's an issue that the governor tried to tackle in this budget. The the governor giving her credit on this. She did tackle this a little bit. This is one of the things that held the budget up was the insurance um reforms. Um part of this is deductibles. Um some of the no fault stuff in terms of when the accident happens, who shares a burden, um and trying to get make sure that when people don't have accidents that money actually gets returned back to the policy owners. This law has been passed in the budget. Um, we I I always say I have a wait and see approach to every public policy because everything sounds good on paper until the rubber meets the road. Something recently it passed in the state budget. >> I heard that insurance hold on our insurance. >> Yeah, we had an insurance guy. >> He said that because the in the insurance laws in New York State are so pro are so anti- insurance. They have to charge more money to cover >> the insurance company. I mean >> when I say anti- insurance mean they favor the injured not the insurance company. >> I'm happy that they favor the injured but they're it's also costing people so much money. >> I I I think that unless you are imp unless you are in a car accident your premium should not go up. I think that is the hallmark. Like you have a bad driving record there things that you know whether you want to put that tracking device in your car which I think a lot of these car companies now say you put on your phone or pennies. >> Yeah. you save pennies and sometimes it actually drives you a premium more because those devices don't know the difference of when you're a passenger in a vehicle versus you're driving a vehicle or if you're on a plane, right? So there still not to be worked out there and a lot of people don't read the fine print. But I certainly do believe that insurance rates in New York again everything in New York for the whether you're talking about gas or you're talking about housing, it's just more and more expensive to live in New York. >> I know there's a big push lately now postco to get people driving the subway, right? Mhm. >> I was in China in 2010 and I had Wi-Fi >> throughout the entire subway system. 2010. >> Yeah, >> we're in 2026. >> Are you saying Are you saying New York's a little behind? >> I think I know you're getting where you're going. >> We're in 2026. And we want people >> to drive the subways, but I think 40 or 50% of the subways underground. Yep. >> And there's only Wi-Fi at stops. >> At stops. Why is there no Wi-Fi >> underground in between stops >> infrastructure? >> And therefore, because I know a lot of busy people like myself, I live on my phone. If I knew there was Wi-Fi in between stops, I get work done. I'll take the subway more often and I won't hear about all these stories of cars. >> It's interesting. People talk about New York City's public transportation. And one thing I will say about our city's transportation is that it is the most affordable in the world, right? At $275, $3 a ride, it is probably the cheapest ride you get in most other cities comparably. >> Well, it's supposed to be free. Mom, Donnie said it's going to be free. >> The buses. He said >> I won't comment, but the reality is at $3, right? >> MTA MTA State. So, you got you got me again. There we go. DMV. >> Wi-Fi between stops ever been brought up ever or never. Lobbyist. It's never been something that wisely lobby. Yeah. Start taking Brian for dinner. >> Start lobby. Well, I can't take dinner with $14 these days anymore. So, the dinner won't help very much. I'll be paying for my own dinner and my own Wi-Fi. But the reality is like how can we get Wi-Fi in between stops more people to use. >> Why don't you start a campaign of like getting people busy with the scooters? >> Yeah, you're busy with So you got scooters, you got you got easy passes. Who do we put on um um Wi-Fi and trains? >> Did anyone ever constituent ever mention Wi-Fi between stops? >> No. People talk about >> more so elevators and other capital projects. I think the problem is now people are so focused on the basics that they're not thinking about the abundance, right? and how much better a system could be if you put those dollars towards >> or basic in 2020. >> I think it's basic. I think Wi-Fi I mean but but again when you have nonworking elevators, right, and trains that are reliable who you think I do I do now. You know why I have a child stroller, right? So like but something I never thought about until I became a father, which is why I always say we're always blind to our own privilege till we experience it ourselves and we're like, "Oh, wow. That's >> No one ever mentioned to you in 20 years about Wi-Fi between stops." In the four years I've been in the state assembly, this has been the least discussed issue. >> Never. Not least, never. Never. This is the first time. >> There's 150,000 people are happy to get a break from their smartphone on the train. And you have to use it even on that little time. I I use a sauna almost. >> Well, he's checking his easy pass bill completely. >> Until you solve this easy pass issue, he has to use. No, but you know, I I I sort of know anytime there's an issue that people are embarrassed to say publicly that I can't be my pass bill, no one's going to talk about. >> No, I mean this is an issue that again I think >> and I say I this rabbi called me, oh there's a big scandal with the, you know, maza on the door, the Jews of the mazuz. >> Yes. >> He's he's trying to promote >> I live in Crown Heights my whole life. What do you mean by no ma? Come on. >> Authenticity and and and the kosher level of maza. They said, "Bro, until the mazuza is rolled out and you can't see what's inside, you have no chance of winning this war." So, the same thing with, let's say, easy pass bills, people don't want to talk. It's uncomfortable. >> I mean, people don't want to talk. >> They don't want to fight. Oh, you're the guy that can't afford his bill. >> Well, the problem is, I think that is the thing. Like, so many New Yorkers are, I think, keeping their heads down and not talking about the things that are afflicting them. And again, going back to housing again, there are many people in the community who are struggling with housing, but people aren't talking about it. So, they make it seem like we don't want it because this is our issue. We don't want anybody to have the rent control. We all need it. >> Brian, the rent controls rolls now are very pro tenant, right? They can't raise the rent and this all these landlord. >> The mayor has direct oversight over the rent guidelines board, which I think has posed a 0% increase this time. But over the last few years, we've had um the rent guidelines board talk about the increases. I think there's a balancing act. If you live in a house, there's obviously need to be capital repairs and things that need to be done. I think we need to look at how do we get landlords to make the repairs, provide the necessary paperwork to make sure they're not overcharging people. But we don't want apartments sitting vacant because it's more expensive to fix the apartment and to put it on the books. We can actually solve our housing problem, most of our housing problem, by just looking at some of the units that are vacant. vacant because they cannot be repaired because those landlords won't put that capital in because they feel like their hands are tied. >> I know a landlord I know on Skenctity Montgomery your district who has 20 empty apartments he's not renting. >> What is he what is he afraid of? The repairs or bad tenants? >> He says he says it's just not worth it. It's not worth it to pretend. >> Is it worth Is it worth Is it worth it to hold on to the housing though that someone else be using? I mean, I get it. I'm trying to I I mean I think if he has a more thing where he says it's not worth it because the repairs cost 50 grand. You're only giving us back 10 in reserves. Then we can talk about like how do we fix that, right? Which >> 20 empty apartments in prime a block away from the subway. >> Apparently apparently the laws in New York are too protenant where I have a relative of mine that bought a house. Squatters people that had fake leases. They're in landlord tenant court to be over two years. They get extensions. They file this permit that. Meanwhile, he can't afford to rent another place. He's living in a relative's house. It's it's a real issue. >> I mean, part of it is >> you buy homes and you can't move in for two to three years because of the courts are tied up and they like protenants, even squatters. >> I was going to say that's the part I think we are in a situation where the courts can't even get through the docket quickly enough to get through all the cases that sit on your desk. And I think that's a much larger problem. >> I want to talk about this deed thefting because there was one particular home in Crown Heights that had 4,500 rallies over the last 10 years. And it's so embarrassing for me because whatever. I'm not going into all the people that are saying it and not saying it. It's it's like one of these very uncomfortable topics because I'll just say it. A lot of times it's Jewish people that are being accused and some poor what is the story? How do how do I walk over somebody and grab their deed? It's not so simple. No, I'm I'm not trying to sugarcoat it, but teach me wrong. Nobody Nobody walked by somebody's house on St. John and SAID, "OH, THERE'S YOUR DEED. I got it." What what I believe is I believe it's a lot of times it's a 50 60 70 year old lady maybe no husband and she fell on hard times and it's public record that she's about to lose the house and somebody comes to them and says listen I'll pay your mortgage for four years and then you'll sell it to me at this rate and this and that whatever and then they go into they get a lawyer and they notoriize the papers and then they fall on behind then we're going to lose the house anyways and then they bring in all the politicians and they make like a WHOLE BLOOD LIKE DEATH I NEVER WALKED BY MY HOUSE AND SAW A DEAN AND GRABBED IT. I know I'm sugar coating it. What's the story? >> I I think there there is a that's an oversimplification of the issue. But I also think there's a situation where you have a lot of people one of the bills that I'm proud of that also needs to be done is >> on your Wikipedia page. It says you're involved in deed theft. >> Yeah. So high impact tutoring is one that I'm very involved in as well. So high impact tutoring means that we want to get folks to read at grade level. There are a couple of things. There's some folks who really do not understand the paperwork that is before them, right? There's a lot of language barrier. You live in a city as diverse as New York City where you have people that speak different languages and also an educational system does not teach people how to be homeowners. Like we talked about like we are putting so much energy into people becoming just renters and affordable housing that we aren't even scratching the surface of the conversation of what it means to own a home and the different taxes that are involved. It's not just whether or not you could pay the mortgage, right? That's one number. What about the water bill? What about the utilities? What about the taxes? Right? And I think we don't have that kind of com conversation. So you have a lot of folks that get involved in purchasing a home think it's the right thing because it's going to baseline and stabilize you. But if you don't know all the underlying costs, you can quickly fall behind to your point and someone who says they're offering to help you. Sometimes sometimes they they explain they go we're going to buy your home from you. Sometimes it's not as simple. They say we're going to help you out for four years. And that conversation for someone with a language barrier or someone who doesn't understand the complications of owning a home can sound like you're doing me a favor and I'll pay you back at this percentage but I'm going to keep my home. So there are again deep is not a clean thing. I think there's various circumstances where there are people with estate issues and trust issues or who owns a property. There are people who passed away and a kid may have had the right to the property or two kids are in conflict and they're trying to figure out one person sells their shares or whatever the case is. There's a lot. It's a very complicated issue and one of the things that our office is serving is a triage for deft to help understand and demystify some of that stuff. >> Very cool. Anything else? Clap. >> So easy pass fees. We have right clappy bikes. >> Don't forget bikes. >> The scooters. >> All right. Somebody that's still an undecided voter didn't vote early to voting on Tuesday. What's your closing remarks? >> You sound like a real like presidential right before the Brian. Are you planning next level? you doing a burough president or government? What's your plans, >> Brian? I am applying for the job that I currently have for the next two years and we'll see from there as I will never say that um the capacity to serve is always on my mind and I would love to serve at higher levels. Um but right now I'm focused on the job that I have and I think I've to your to your closing pitch I think when people look at the last two years and the last four years of what I've done and what I've said and how I've been honest and transparent and how I've delivered and even when we disagree I've been able to sit down and have tough conversations. I think that's the kind of person you want in office. And that's my closing pitch to voters. If you want somebody who's going to have a record of showing work both in office and prior office, look no further than me. >> Brian, how how just for my Wi-Fi between stops. I'm I'm hooked up on that thing. >> What's the process if you want to put the bill on? Is it a headache? You have to have your staff writing up. You need lawyers. What What is is there what's the cost or time constraints? Right now there's 150 >> bills. Drafting legislation isn't the issue. Passing legislation is right. Okay, so I have 190 bills. I passed it. I passed 20 into law. That doesn't mean I've only passed 20 bills. That means that's 20 bills that have gone across my desk, my senator counterpart, and the government. >> I would even pay for the Wi-Fi. I don't, you know, $30 a month to get Well, >> how what's the time constraints and why do only >> Here's how it happens. >> X amount of bills get passed. >> You you gave me an idea. Yeah. Right now, I'm going to go this is a good idea. I'll go back to my office and I start drafting a a sponsor's memo. I send that to my LD and we start going back and forth with some language. We submit it to program and council. Program and council sends us back a bill which are a team of lawyers. We approve on the language and then now we say all right we're looking for a Senate sponsor who could be the Senate sponsor. We look at all 63 senators and say this person sits on the technology committee or this person has a history of passing bills like innovation. I'll say hey do you and my co-sponsors bill and carry in the Senate. Now we both got to pass in both of our houses. The governor has to sign it and then we have to determine does this bill have a fiscal impact. With this bill, I certainly know will have a fiscal impact. So, we would have to pass this bill prior to April 1st, which is the state's budget deadline because we want to make sure there's money in the budget to actually roll out the program. So, and that's a simp that's a simplified version of how bill gets passed. >> But if a private company, you say put out for a bid, let all the companies arise. >> We would first we have to first we would first have to legislate that we want the baseline to be that we want this in the system, right? Some people do polling. Do people want it? To your point, you said you want a quiet train ride. He wants to work on a train ride. You know, there's a lot of factors that go into politics. It's the politics of does this make sense? Is the politics of should the state spend $50 million of its budget on putting Wi-Fi? >> No, not the state. Make it privatize it just like they messed us over on easy pass. >> Yeah, but there's going to there's going to there's going to be some state contract is going to be involved in terms of the even the reading RFP is going to cost state money, right? >> Hold on. They >> on the subway the ads are not ran by the MTA. It's third party companies bidding it on bidding on it. >> Yeah, >> I'm assuming. Right. >> So, we should look at you want you want to you want to co-sponsor the bill with me? >> Me? I I don't need to be a salient man. >> Well, you had a debate earlier about him on the record. I'm teasing. I'm teasing you. No, but I I think this is something we can look into. I I have not thought about it long enough, but we >> because I know they made this big push drive the subway. Great. I'll li the subway. If I can email and text and WhatsApp while I'm doing I mean, you can fly in planes. There's Wi-Fi the whole time, right? >> That is true. >> I just And it's only 40% of the subway needs it. >> Maybe we just all above ground. I think to your the point that I made earlier though, there's a a tendency to not modernize government because so we're so caught up on these single voter issues and we're not thinking big picture. One of the frustrations I'm going to Albany is not the three and a half hours ride there and three and a half hours ride back. It's are we meeting the moment of big ideas in this moment to actually make an impact to people's lives, right? And we're so focused on the basics of giving people homes, food, and shelter that we can't even get to what I call abundance. But you're like, is that really abundance? When you can't afford to live where you want to, when you can't afford to live in a community or you feel like you can't afford a mortgage or you can't afford to rent, you feel like groceries are too high, if you feel like easy pass is squeezing you, then having Wi-Fi becomes a luxury, right? So, you're like solving these small issues so we can get to bigger >> I'm thinking now if you tell people they could use have Wi-Fi throughout the train, they could check in to work an hour early and they could get paid to work for that hour because they're answering emails on WhatsApp because they have access to technology. >> You have you proposed a great idea. I'm looking forward to introducing the bill. >> And I think Brian, if you if you pass it and because it's I remember when I was younger, I was like, what do politicans really care about? They love doing these little things that make big splash >> help a lot of people >> and but it just sounds like you really care. Like alternate side, I'm going to cancel for the holiday or this. >> Why she and I in a few months are going to come up to Albony. >> I'm gonna call it Marshall. Yeah. >> And we're going to call it the Brian Cunningham Clappy Frank Wi-Fi. >> I like that. No, it's just >> now we got to get Verizon as a lobbyist to get in. >> Well, you got to open this AT&T mobile. Everybody else is well, they all got equal opportunity opportunity. Verizon Verizon is my phone carrier though. >> So, put the bid out there and let people bid and I think more people use the subway. >> Very simple. The fact people I know if I go on the subway, I know I'm a I'm going to miss out of work. Knowing that there's Wi-Fi or internet access even for a small fee, I would be using the subway a lot more. >> It's true. I mean, I don't disagree. >> All right. Thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure and an honor to have you on. Elections are the voting is all day on Tuesday. >> All day Tuesday, June 23rd, but you can vote between now and Sunday from 9 to 5. >> Early voting is through Saturday. >> Early voting is until Sunday. So >> on Sunday itself on Sunday as well. >> And it stops Monday. >> And it stops Monday. We take a break on Monday and then Tuesday we go. >> Instagram handle people. >> Instagram is NYAM Cunningham on all platforms whether it be Tik Tok, Instagram. >> And how do they hear your podcast? >> On off the floor. Um off the floor on um all platforms as well. Got you. Thank you. >> Spotify, Apple, all that. >> After this long podcast, I can see why Sima and him talk like two guys in Yeshiva, cursing everyone out. Am I You should hear that clap. I didn't I always I'm not a politician guy. I always wonder what how do politicians talk to each other? He's cursing together. I'm not going to quote the words he said, >> but let's just say it was like two guys. >> It's mostly Sima. It wasn't me. >> It was both ways. I was shocked cuz Sim, you know, he's a religious looking guy. >> Sim is hilarious. >> And he's shooting like cursing at other legislator. That guy is such a like, wow. >> Listen, I always say we're normal people with normal lives. We just have extraordinary opportunities to serve our community. So, we're excited about it. >> Love it. Thank you so much. >> Brian, you recommend other people to run for office in general? You think it's a good business? It's a good life. >> Just not in the 43rd Assembly District. >> Brian, bro, you're you're government material. I don't know why you've been thinking about 43rd. >> Appreciate that. Thank you for having me on, guys. >> Thank you so much.