For former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who entered the New York City mayor’s race as a frontrunner in January, this week brought into sharp relief some yawning gaps between what he knows and what he doesn’t about the basic functioning of New York City.
On Thursday, flanked by former NYPD officer Edwin Raymond, who’s running for City Council, Yang was asked by NY Post reporter Julia Marsh if he supported the repeal of 50-a, the long-standing law that shielded police discipline records from public view. State legislatures repealed the law last year, amid massive public demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd.
“The repeal of 50-a,” Yang repeated, blankly. “Do you know what 50-a is?” Marsh prodded. “This is not the, it’s not the mandatory interview of the…” Raymond tried to push Yang towards the right subject area, muttering under his breath, “the records, the disciplinary records.” At which point Yang finally arrived — “Um, I think we should get more transparency in terms of police officers and their records.”
Earlier on Thursday, at a taped forum on the future of homelessness sponsored by WIN, the largest provider of shelter and supportive housing for homeless families in the city, Yang said it would be “extraordinarily helpful” for the city to have shelters specifically for victims of domestic violence. The event was moderated by Spectrum NY1 reporter Courtney Gross who noted, “There are already a number of domestic violence shelters... They do already exist.”
Yang walked back his statements, his eyes darting to the right of his zoom screen, insisting he’d meant that there wasn’t enough capacity at such facilities.
“There are. Oh no, I, of course they do exist, so that’s one aspect of something we should be increasing capacity of,” he said, pivoting to talk about the need for more beds in psychiatric facilities. “There are a lot of things we should be increasing capacity of.”
As of last year, the city had 2,500 emergency beds for survivors of domestic violence and about 800 families are housed in the system on any given day, according to city figures.
Yang sat down with Gothamist / WNYC shortly after that press conference in Brooklyn Thursday and said running for mayor “has been a blast” and he’s learned so much about New York City in the process. He said his campaign has put out over 80 pages of policy that present a clear vision for the city but, he stressed, he doesn’t think people in government have all the answers.
“My goal as mayor will be to take the work that oftentimes others are doing and then augment it and amplify it. I'm not someone who thinks the government is going to have all of the answers or even most of the answers,” Yang explained. “I feel like oftentimes, especially in a place like New York, they'll be some nonprofit organization or activist group that is tackling it and has been working on it for years that you can build on and learn from.”
Update:
Yang actually passed the buck when asked and stumped on what his favorite Jay Z song was.
i asked new york mayoral candidate andrew yang what his favorite jay z song is pic.twitter.com/UV8tQJXta1
— ziwe (@ziwe) May 22, 2021
To paraphrase legendary Queensbridge rapper MC Shan, Yang needs to "kill that noise" with his campaign.
