Meet the Candidate: Raymond McGuire

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and with New York City in crisis, like much of the country, and with Mayor de Blasio, term limited out after next year, we've been introducing you to some of the people who are now running for mayor. The Democratic primary will be in June, 2021. Really not that far away, six months away. You will have to cast a vote for mayor if you were a registered member of-- I guess, any party might have a primary next June in New York City.

Officially entering the race as of today is my next guest, Ray McGuire, a former city group vice chairman and one of the few African Americans to rise that high on Wall Street. Look who endorsed him in an introductory campaign video this morning, filmmaker Spike Lee.

Spike Lee: We have an opportunity to rebuild, and that starts with who's leading our city. If we want to stop more and more jobs and small businesses from vanishing, we need a mayor who could think big, bring in every expert, call in every favor. The leader could pull us off as long as he knows hundreds of small business owners and the people invest in it. For the fight for racial justice, we need someone who lives that fight every single day. We need a man who can bring us together. We need Ray McGuire.

Brian: Spike Lee on Ray McGuire. Let's meet Ray McGuire himself. Mr. McGuire, thanks for joining us, and welcome to the mayoral campaign.

Ray McGuire: Hello, Brian Lehrer. It is great to be with you. You are legend, and you have so many followers, I'm honored and privileged to be your guest. Thank you. I'm humbled to be here with you.

Brian: I'm honored to have you. Now, since most of our listeners don't know you at all, and you have not been in electoral politics before, why don't you take a minute or two and introduce yourself to people and say basically why you think you'd make a good mayor?

Ray: Thank you for that. What people may not know is how I grew up, which is who I am. I grew up without money or connections. I never knew my dad. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents in Dayton, Ohio across the street from the Howard Paper Mill. I shared home with my two brothers and we had foster siblings in the house. That means I understand the fears and anxieties that many of us have, many New Yorkers have from how I grew up, every time I changed from a business suit to a suit and walk our streets, and my mother sacrificed for me, and I was able to get a great education.

I came to New York with a world-class education, lots of student debt, and no money. Because of my mother's sacrifice and my family's sacrifice, I've been able to come here and I've been able to be enormously successful because of the love and the faith that I was given to me early on. Teachers believed in me, and New Yorkers have the same hopes for their children, but our kids are- they're not getting the same opportunities that I've gotten.

Brian, I love this city. I came here 40 years ago. It's given me everything. I've been able to be actively involved in the city's civic life from healthcare to the libraries, to arts and culture. I've been able to be involved in the educational part of the city as well. As I travel in this city to every borough and talk to New Yorkers, we have one shot now, one shot to lift the condition and improve the condition of people's lives in New York.

Today, New York is broke. It's broken and divided. New Yorkers are scared. They're scared of losing a job. They're scared of violence in their neighborhoods. They're scared of getting sick with COVID. We're facing three existential crises at the same time, the pandemic, the economic challenges, and racial injustice, Brian. That's why I'm running for mayor. I've been able to have lived experiences, which is how I got here, got the management capabilities, relationships, proven leadership. I have a vision to lead the greatest comeback in this history and the history of New York City. That's why I'm running for mayor.

Brian: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls if you want to ask Ray McGuire a question, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. We do ask the mayor on Fridays. We do ask the mayoral candidates on days when we have them on, 646-435-7280.

Coming from those humble beginnings that you just described, it's great that you've risen up to be one of the highest-ranking people on Wall Street and one of the highest-ranking African Americans ever in the white-dominated finance industry, but that still means you're in the finance industry. Fighting inequality is a central organizing principle of yours. If a lot of voters out there might be suspicious of anybody coming from city group or other companies like that, why have you made that your career so far?

Ray: I made-- In my neighborhood we didn't know anything about investment bankers. We didn't know anything about finance and we didn't know anything about Wall Street. I looked across, as I was in graduate school, and looked at those people who were making the decisions. I looked at the industries where the big decisions that were affecting us all were taking place.

I thought that if I had the opportunity that I would go compete in that space, and I would encourage people to look at the totality of my lived experiences, my opportunity to gain the experience that I've gotten in business, the opportunities I've had to lead in business and to build teams, and building those teams is occurred during the worst of the economic times. When people look at me, they should look at the totality of my record and my ability to lead and to manage.

The fact that I know how New Yorkers feel, I know how it feels for those people who were the least of them, who were the most challenged, who're the most at risk because I've been there, it's a life that I've lived and the opportunities that I've had, or the opportunities that I want every child in New York City to have. I want them to be able to have the same opportunity that I had regardless of their zip code, regardless of their race or their religion, every child should be able to have that. That is our future.

That's why it is so important today that we attempt to give those children and the people in New York the same opportunities. Wall Street business gave me the opportunity to go and compete and compete in the field that is one of the most highly competitive. For that, my 94-year-old mother is quite proud of the things we've been able to accomplish. I say that with all humility, we have been blessed to walk this journey.

Brian: What does that mean in terms of education policy for you? If you're talking about giving every New York child, those kinds of opportunities, would you say you're more a Bloomberg style education reformer and the kinds of choice and other policies that he promoted, more of a DeBlasio education reformer, however you would characterize that, or what would be the center of your education policy in order to empower more children?

Ray: I would say it's the Ray McGuire educational opportunity. How do I think about that? Education should be every kid's ticket, as it was mine. It is today 2 out of 10 Black and Hispanic kids, Black and brown kids. 4th graders are below proficient, or only 2 out of 10. Only 2 out of 10 are proficient in math and reading. It gets worse than the eighth grade. My plan, the education opportunity plan is what I call a "cradle to career."

I will applaud what we've been able to do with pre-K, but often with these children, by the time they get the pre-K they're behind. My cradle to career is as we know, and the science tells us that kids begin to learn as they are developing. We need to support families. Kids are ready for pre-K, ready for pre-K, and that's the cradle part.

I would also make certain that by- and I would focus on the third grade, and I would make certain, and I would be held accountable, I'd want to be held accountable that for every third grader in this city, that they knew how read, because up to third grade, our children are learning to read. After that, they're reading to learn. I would have with the current educators, also with many of the college students, I would have them all certified and I would create a tutored core so that we could ensure that every third grader could read and that they couldn't go on until they could read.

I'd also have, as my cradle to career, cradle to a job, I would have the mayor be held accountable for where kids go after graduation, put our students on a career path, workforce, job training, national service, four-year college. This has to begin before graduation. I would expand programs like P-Tech and C-Tech so that we can make certain that our students have the opportunity to get a job. Remember, no jobs, no dignity. No jobs, by the way, no city. I would be so focused on my cradle to career, cradle to the job program so that each student has the opportunities that I had.

Brian: What do you do, because this has come up with Mayor de Blasio and others, when a lot of kids get to third grade and they can't read at grade level, do you hold them back? Then there's a conversation about kids of color, disproportionately being left back, Black and brown kids, and maybe that's not in their interest, versus social promotions, the other side will say. How do you walk that line?

Ray: I walked the line by making certain that each of these children has the opportunity to learn how to focus and learn how to read. We have to do that. These are the basic skills because to remediate after the third grade and going forward, it means they're always playing catch-up, which is why I would have my tutor core and make certain, absolutely certain that every child could read.

Brian: Seth in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with mayoral hopeful and city group executive, Ray McGuire. Hi, Seth. Seth in Manhattan, are you there?

Seth: I'm here. Can you hear me?

Brian: I can hear you now. Go ahead.

Seth: Okay, great, thanks for having me. Thanks for taking my question. If you are the next mayor, you will likely inherit a city that's in a grave economic situation as a result of the pandemic and others. The current administration has shown a lack of leadership from the city on city planning, on being able to capture private dollars for public good, as illustrated by the Amazon project, being driven out of the city by a vocal minority. How are you going to balance the strong anti-development sentiment in the city with the need for economic development that in this city so often goes hand in hand with real estate development?

Ray: I will tell you that I have three major priorities. We've talked about one, which is education. The first one is jobs and the economy. The second one is going to be safety and security. Jobs and economy, we now have a high, a disturbingly high unemployment rate. We lost 500,000 jobs in 30 days. What I want to create is a economic plan that is go big, go small. Go big as to great 500,000 jobs, the biggest job program in New York City history. In the immediate term, we need to fix the fractured bridges, bridges and make sure that we have affordable housing.

Longer-term, we need to prepare the economy for the future. We need to extend broadband so that every New Yorker has access to the economy. We also need to restore the city's vibrancy, including the culture, large and tourist institutions and all five boroughs. They are central to our economy.

Also, I will not miss out on the next numbers on our industry city, but let me be very clear about going big. You have to involve the community. We have to fundamentally involve the community from the outset. That's going big. Going small, we have toured in some about 1000 businesses. One about small businesses. One of every three is down. It may not come back.

We need to extend a lifeline, a lifeline to those small businesses. When it comes to the private sector, if you think about what happened in the 1970s, we had labor and business and then the public sector, all coming together, labor bought the bonds. If you also remember that at the height of the great depression, we built the empire state building and the Chrysler building, we can do this. Government, public private partnerships, go big, go small. We're going to have to have a plan like that. We're going to have to have a vision like that in order to, in fact, have the largest recovery that this city has ever known.

Brian: You mentioned industry city there, and if I heard you correctly, not missing another industry city opportunity. Should I take it from that, that you supported the big development program for industry city that just got rejected by city council, partly because of the opposition of one of your rivals for the mayoral nomination now, city council member, Carlos Menchaca, from that district, you supported that industry city program and to the caller's point about Amazon, he saw it as a vocal minority running out of needed development program, were you for the Amazon deal?

Ray: I am for creating jobs, which are desperately needed. No jobs, no city, no jobs, no dignity. What I'm for, creating jobs. Two, those jobs create revenue. We have a budget shortfall here.

Number three, fundamental to all of it is to make certain that we have when we have these projects, that that community is involved from the start and have the community been involved from the start, those leaders, those people who are most affected, who run the risk of being displaced at the table in the room, I would not open the door until we had all important constituents in the room from the start, because people recognize the importance of having these jobs on their lives, on their communities, on the condition of their well-being, so that is crucial to this city and the vibrancy of this city.

Brian: Alicia in Queens. You're on WNYC. Hello, Alicia.

Alicia: Yes. Hi. How are you doing now? I'm a retired lieutenant.

Ray: How are you?

Alicia: Okay, good. Thank you. I'm a retired lieutenant from the NYPD, and having been on the inside I know there's a great need for reform in the NYPD. I'd like to know what your one big idea is for police reform.

Ray: Listen, this is personal to me. When I take off my suit and put on a sweatsuit or a tracksuit, I could be George Floyd. I could be Eric Garner. Our children could be Tamir Rice. My plan straightforward, we need better police with accountability, not for your police. I have a plan. The plan is call RAP, R-A-P, respectful, accountable, proportionate.

Police should apply the minimum use of force required, and then we need to have these recent the transparency forums have been good for police and good for the community. We need identify those policemen who put a cloud over the entire force and take action, but also remember that 4 of the 10 calls that go into the police have to do with mental health issues.

We need to partner with the mental health professionals, like the Co-Response Teams that were in place. We need to do that. We need also to make certain that we invest in the community-based violence interrupters, like LIFE Camp in Queens and street corners in Harlem. We also need to return to community-based policing because that's where you restore the trust. The narrative now is so divided that we need to restore is trust between the police and the community. That would be my approach to police reform.

Brian: The term "defund the police." Do you use it? Do you think the city should do it?

Ray: I am not for defund. I'm for restructuring, having better policing had to your police. We need to restructure, reallocate dollars to the organizations that have identified, mental health infrastructure, community-based organizations, especially those who are the violence interrupters. We need to have those dollars allocated so that the police can partner.

As has been said, if the only thing that you have is a hammer, everything that you look at looks like a nail, and sometimes we just don't need that. Often we don't need that. We can have people who intervene, who are trained to intervene and left support and fund those organizations so that we prevent crime, we prevent the need to have police do what they're not trained to do and so, yes, I would restructure, reallocate to those organizations.

Brian: One more call, Max in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with mayoral hopeful, Ray McGuire. Hi, Max.

Max: Good morning, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Mr. McGuire, you spoke earlier about three existential crises in the city, the economy, racial justice and the pandemic, but I'm curious to know, there's another existential crisis, and I'm curious about how reacting to the climate crisis is going to factor into your leadership should you win the seat.

Ray: The climate crisis is, I lived the climate crisis. When I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, I grew up across the street from the Howard Paper Mill, and the Howard Paper Mill used to emit fumes that were so heavy, and we had no mask. The only way that we could get fresh air would be to open the refrigerator door so that we could breathe, and we took turns doing that.

Environmental justice is something that has been front and center for me from the beginning, and it will be front and center for me today. It is vital that we make certain, that we have addressed the issues of climate change, which are real, and make certain that we have the infrastructure in place to anticipate the results of that and to get ahead of it, so that is primary. That crisis is going to be an overarching crisis. I agree with you, but we need to have jobs. No jobs, no city, and no job, no dignity. We need to have jobs. We need to repair the economy, make the city safe, make certain that our children have the opportunity and education.

Brian: We've got about a minute and a half left in the segment. Coming from Wall Street, as you do, I'm sure people will want to know the answer to these three questions. We can tick these off pretty quick because they're a yes or no. Do you support the millionaire's tax as proposed in the state legislature now to help deal with the immediate fiscal crisis? Will you accept financial real estate industry campaign donations? Do you support the rent cancellation bill for many New Yorkers during the pandemic, I should say, that's in Albany right now? Millionaire's tax, yes or no?

Ray: I would say we can't tax your way out of this. We need more our way out of this. We're just going to have to contribute.

Brian: That's a no. Financial real estate industry campaign donations, would you accept? Are you accepting?

Ray: I will accept donations from all New Yorkers who are interested in the well-being of New York City.

Brian: The rent cancellation, not just delay bill in Albany right now?

Ray: I think we need to make certain that New Yorkers who are already feeling the crunch, when in really difficult circumstances that we have some lifeline and some relief for those New Yorkers.

Brian: That would include some rent or mortgage payment cancellation?

Ray: I would say again, we need to make certain that we extend the lifeline not only to the people who are suffering, but also to those small businesses that are suffering. We need to find a way to make certain that the implications are implications that have the least negative effect on all of us.

Brian: 30 seconds for anything you want to say on your way out the door.

Ray: I am honored to be here. I think I have a unique skill set, which is my lived experiences, my capabilities that I've learned over the years, my relationships, and my vision to stay is the largest and most important comeback in the history of New York City. I'm honored to be on your show with all of your listeners. I so appreciate the invitation.

Brian: The newest mayoral hopeful entering the race as of today, Ray McGuire, thanks so much for your time. As I say to all the candidates, good luck out there. We'll talk to you again in 2021.

Ray: Thank you very much.

 

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