NY-10 Abundance Forum with Brad Lander & Dan Goldman

Summary

Max Politics Podcast: NY-10 Abundance Forum with Brad Lander & Dan Goldman

Date: May 20, 2026
Host: Ben Max
Guests: Brad Lander (former NYC Comptroller, Democratic challenger), Dan Goldman (incumbent Congressman, NY-10)
Produced by: New York Law School, with Abundance New York & NYC New Liberals

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Episode Overview

This special episode features back-to-back in-depth interviews with Congressman Dan Goldman and his primary challenger, former City Comptroller Brad Lander, in the hotly contested NY-10 Democratic primary. The candidate forum, held May 19, 2026, centers on “abundance” issues: housing, transit, clean energy, and government reform/delivery. Both candidates discuss their records, policy visions, federal roles in local development, and approaches to making New York City and State more affordable and functional. The host pushes both on balancing big plans with bureaucratic realities, compromises, and their competing track records.

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Key Segments & Discussions

1. Framing the Forum & Abundance Agenda

[00:00–08:28]

• Host, Ben Max introduces NY-10 and the forum’s focus on abundance—making it easier, faster, and cheaper to build housing, deliver transit, accelerate clean energy, and streamline government.
• Sponsors articulate “abundance” principles as an alternative axis to left vs. moderate: growth, human agency, pragmatic reform, and resisting bureaucratic stagnation.

Memorable Quote:

“Abundance is not a point on the left-to-right spectrum, but its own axis entirely.”
— Katherine Vaughn, Abundance New York [05:41]

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2. Brad Lander: The "Abundance Champion" Progressive

[09:21–46:21]

A. Opening Statement & Philosophy

[09:21]

• Frames election as a "five-alarm fire for our democracy" (Trump, rollbacks) and a pivotal moment for delivering on affordability via abundance.
• Stresses his 30-year track record: affordable housing, prominent role in Gowanus rezoning (9,000 homes, 3,000 affordable), transit reforms, climate investments, process innovation.

Quote:

“There are not two abundance candidates in this race. There’s just one… Goldman is a corporate Democrat and they aren’t the same thing.”
— Brad Lander [13:11]

B. Housing & Process Reform

[14:52–19:44]

• On why city government remains slow: Adams’ lack of will, entrenched interests, but touts meaningful tools he launched (capital projects dashboard, procurement reform).
• On Gowanus rezoning: Claims success stemmed from consensus-building, but acknowledges time lost to administration priorities, pandemic.
• Advocates for “speed with vision”: rapid build-out happens best when there’s buy-in up front.

Quote:

“It is not going to work to take a sort of ‘take your medicine YIMBY’ approach… What will work is let’s take a little time to build a vision of growth we’re excited about and then put processes in place that make it move quickly.”
— Brad Lander [19:53]

C. Federal Role & Trade-offs

[22:04–27:20]

• Urges housing/transportation/clean energy funding with incentives and mandates for streamlining and fair housing—including pressure on exclusionary suburbs.
• Critiques poorly designed NY 421-a tax break: “The governor gave in to the building trades… now no new housing is being produced.”
• Supports labor standards, but demands smarter structuring to ensure outcomes.
• Opposes large-scale “build-to-rent” by private equity, sides with Elizabeth Warren’s bill restricting it: “We don’t want a tiny handful of people to own everything and the rest of us rent from them.”
• Champions federal “social bond” financing, regional high-speed rail, and a stronger metropolitan growth agenda.

Quote:

“We will need to focus on making sure that other forms of financing can flow in as the market continues to work… That’s why that metropolitan growth is so important.”
— Brad Lander [27:33]

D. Infrastructure & Project Delivery

[31:12–34:58]

• Stresses getting fairer federal transit funding (“we get totally screwed”—currently 80% goes to highways).
• Wants federal dollars tied to mandates on speeding up delivery, lowering costs.
• Enthusiastic on subway expansion, regional integration, but calls for early land value capture and ongoing management reform.

E. Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT), NYCHA, and Accountability

[34:58–44:36]

• On BMT: Wants more time to integrate port/transport functions, claims process failed to build enough consensus.
• On NYCHA: Endorses “vision of growth” with resident input/votes on tenure options. Champions “Yelp for NYCHA repairs” to rebuild trust and accountability.

Quote:

“Selling people on a vision of growth, giving them an opportunity to weigh in and make their choice, and then move forward, is the right answer.”
— Brad Lander [39:37]

F. Party Leadership & Governing Style

[45:14–46:21]

• Strongly backs Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker; promises to both work in coalition and push leadership.
• Prefers forums/deep discussion over “one-minute sniping” debates.

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3. Dan Goldman: The Pragmatic, Progressive Deal-Maker

[46:23–91:36]

A. Opening Statement & Experience

[46:54–52:35]

• Cites Washington/federal experience as key advantage—seniority, committee assignments, direct leverage on oversight, affordable housing, and clean energy.
• Defends BMT redevelopment as an example of his ability to convene stakeholders and deliver a bold, fast-tracked, community-engaged solution (6,000 homes, 40% affordable, new port/industry/green space).

Quote:

“That is exactly the type of big, bold project government used to be able to do, and has for way too long, including 20 years in city government of my opponent, not done.”
— Dan Goldman [48:32]

B. Process, Compromise, & Delivery

[53:15–64:28]

• Rejects “needs more time” and process delays as NIMBY tactics; touts BMT taskforce, explicit vote, and community involvement; credits himself for plan approval and swift action for federal grant.
• Argues for streamlined permitting—clearing red tape that hinders big projects, emulating his intervention to save Empire Wind 1 offshore wind from Trump administration obstruction.

Quote:

“I strongly believe in permitting reform in licensing. I strongly believe in streamlining processes… That is, I think, a critical part that has an impact on housing, on renewable energy, on transit, and that's what stagnates us.”
— Dan Goldman [58:19]

• Supports targeted environmental review reform: expedited for renewable or “disturbed” land; rejects Republican attempts to equate fossil fuel permitting with climate action.

• Describes building bipartisan relationships as essential to legislative progress: recounts persuading a GOP congressman to help unstick Empire Wind investment.

Quote:

“If you take the view you're not going to support anything unless it meets your exact ideological or litmus test, then you will get nothing done.”
— Dan Goldman [64:28]

C. Housing & NYCHA

[70:25–80:45]

• On build-to-rent: Concerned about barriers to homeownership, but supports moving the housing package forward, emphasizing not letting “perfect be the enemy of the good.”
• Proposes creative financing (like interest rate tax credits for banks) to address equity barriers in affordable development.
• With NYCHA: Supports current tools (Preservation Trust, RAD/PACT conversions), backs resident votes but insists on communicating the fiscal reality—significant new federal funding is unlikely.
• Endorses tear-down/rebuild/infill pilots as a viable model if displacement risk is addressed.

Quote:

“I've spent a tremendous amount of time in the 31 NYCHA developments in the district… We've actually closed over 400 specific cases… and really tried to implement serious oversight and accountability.”
— Dan Goldman [76:43]

D. Oversight, Federal Leverage & Democratic Party Tactics

[81:04–91:36]

• Pushes for more robust federal oversight of local capital spending (especially MTA), details facilitating FEMA-municipal coordination as a model.
• Criticizes Democrats’ tendency to “cave” in bargaining, calls for more muscular use of leverage to push progressive priorities—even if it means short-term pain.
• Supports Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker but calls for a tougher, less compromising negotiating posture.
• States confidence in victory but frames himself as uniquely qualified to defend democracy and get practical results—referring to previous impeachment leadership.

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Notable Exchanges & Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On NIMBYism & Process:

  • “The concerns that you hear about, ‘oh, we need a few more months,’ …that is NIMBYism, that is how things don’t get done.”
    — Dan Goldman [53:17]

• On Build-to-Rent Housing:

  • “The anger at private equity is real… We don’t want a ton of housing getting built that is owned by, in private equity ownership with rentals where there used to be homeownership.”
    — Brad Lander [25:56]
  • “We have to be facilitating and incentivizing home ownership…and this build to rent program… is not the best way to do that. But we do need to build.”
    — Dan Goldman [71:08]

• On Federal Role in Local Delivery:

  • “The federal government isn’t asking those questions. So more money tied to a set of incentives and mandates…”
    — Brad Lander [33:13]

• On Gowanus Rezoning:

  • Lander: Proud, consensus-based, but admin delays; would speed up with ballot reforms [16:42]
  • Goldman: “Conceptually… it was done well… My only criticism… is the impact… not what people were expecting. …That’s a problem with oversight and accountability.” [68:03–70:25]

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Structure & Style Differences

• Lander frames himself as the pure “abundance” visionary, not afraid to challenge entrenched interests, but also emphasizing consensus. He criticizes excessive compromise and positions himself as an outsider to “corporate Democrats.”
• Goldman touts his practical experience securing federal outcomes, his ability to broker real deals, and work within the system to deliver. He positions himself as bold but pragmatic and a proven leader in tough negotiations.

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Takeaways for Voters

• Both candidates promise to make federal tools work for New York’s housing, transit, energy, and infrastructure needs, but differ on approach, urgency, and willingness to compromise.
• Lander pledges a harder line against backroom deals and private equity, proposing big federal investment and structural reform, especially in housing and regional planning.
• Goldman offers proof of delivery, bipartisan dealmaking, and measured reform—willing to move imperfect but big packages to break through gridlock and “get stuff done.”

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Timeline of Major Segments

• [00:00] Forum opening, context
• [09:21] Brad Lander interview begins
• [13:11] Lander: "Only one abundance candidate"
• [19:53] Lander: Balanced approach vs. everything-bagel liberalism
• [25:56] Lander: Build-to-rent/private equity
• [34:58] Lander: Brooklyn Marine Terminal
• [39:37] Lander: Vision for NYCHA
• [46:23] Dan Goldman interview begins
• [48:32] Goldman: BMT as bold delivery
• [53:17] Goldman: Delay arguments & NIMBYism
• [58:19] Goldman: Permitting and process reform
• [64:28] Goldman: Compromise in divided government
• [70:25] Goldman: Homeownership/build-to-rent
• [76:43] Goldman: NYCHA vision & concrete TA support
• [91:36] Closing remarks

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For more detailed timestamps or to jump to a specific policy topic, please request that segment.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hello and welcome to MAX Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in. Special edition of the show here today. What you're about to hear is a candidate forum in the Democratic primary for New York's 10th congressional district. That's sitting Congressman Dan Goldman and his primary challenger Brad Lander, the former City Comptroller. This forum took place place on the morning of Tuesday, May 19, 2026 at New York Law School, hosted by our center for New York City and State Law and co sponsored by two groups, Abundance New York and New York City. New Liberals and the candidates join me one at a time for in depth conversations that you're about to hear with a focus on abundant issues, housing, transit, clean energy and government reform and delivery. We also touched on some other things in the conversation. So I was first joined by on the stage in front of a live audience by former Comptroller Lander and then by Congressman Goldman. So you'll hear those interviews back to back here on this episode of the podcast covered a lot of very interesting territory with both of them, including projects they've worked on in the district and ways in which they would approach these issues of abundance and more in Congress going forward, including under a potential Democratic majority in the House of Representatives if Democrats are successful in taking that majority in the fall elections. But first, we have these primaries. This one very interesting, as well as others in New York City that we've been covering here on MAX Politics. The election is coming up fast. We held this forum on the morning of May 19, which is basically just about a month away from primary day, which is June 23, and there'll be early voting and mail in voting before that. So it is the home stretch of these elections. This 10th congressional district is Lower Manhattan, below 14th street and a big swath of Brooklyn, including neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boreham Hill, Gowanis, Park Slope, Sunset Park, Red Hook and Burrow park, some or all of those neighborhoods. So I hope you enjoy these conversations with former Comptroller Brad Lander and current Congressman Dan Goldman. And if you're eligible to vote in the 10th congressional district primary, I hope this helps you make up your mind about who you're supporting. But even if you aren't a voter in this district, hope you're ready to get out there and vote in the primaries. If you're eligible and you have a local primary, don't forget all of the state legislature also on the ballot. This year, as well as the 26 House districts across New York State and more. So the elections are coming up fast. Enjoy this New York 10 candidate forum and keep listening here at Max Politics for more on the races.

[C]

Good morning. I'm Anthony Crowell, the Dean and President here at New York Law School. Thank you. I'm the Dean and President here at the law school as well as the director of our center for New York City and State Law. And and it's a great pleasure to welcome you today to host this forum For New York's 10th congressional district, our home district. I want to thank Abundance New York and NYC New Liberals for sponsoring and organizing this forum and working with our center to host it. I want to thank Congressman Dan Goldman and former Comptroller Brad Lander for participating in today's forum, which will be led by Ben Max, our Center's Executive editor and Program Director and the host of of the Max Politics podcast. As New York's law school for the past 135 years, we really take pride in engaging on the key legal and policy matters that affect New York. And we see ourselves as a key resource and host of many different government and civic community programs. And so today it's a great honor to do this. One third of our graduates go into public service. We're ranked number three in the nation in terms of law schools who send graduates into public service, just behind George Washington University. And I'm very proud that the work we do here leads so many of them to serve our city and state. Certainly our location Here within the 10th district is one that we take great pride in. We are a proud civic institution in tribeca, serving as a partner and convener to small businesses, labor organizations, legal organizations, and everyday New Yorkers. And that's what makes it a point of pride for us to host today. The issues to be discussed this morning include housing, transit, clean energy and government reform, which are also many of the issues the center focuses on. So I think today's conversations will be informative and engaging and I hope that all eligible voters vote in the primary, which takes place on June 23, which with early voting beginning June 13, and of course, remember to vote in the general election on November 3rd. So thanks again to the candidates and the forum sponsors and Ben and everyone in attendance. I'm going to ask the representatives from the forum's co sponsors to come on up and add their welcome. Thank you.

[A]

Thank you so much, Dean Crowell. And I'd like to thank the New York Law School, Ben Max, my co host Tabitha Kanane from the New York City New Liberals the candidates for making time out of their busy schedules to be here this morning and to the audience for spending their Tuesday morning with us. My name is Katherine Vaughn and I'm the co founder and executive director of Abundance New York. We are a community of 5,000 New Yorkers who believe in a new politics of growth and change. Decades of laws have made it slow, difficult, slow and expensive to build what New Yorkers need. The result is a housing crisis of epic proportions, a struggling transit system and infrastructure that is vulnerable to an increasingly frequent set of weather emergenc like the mid May heat wave we're currently experiencing. We believe that to find our way out of these interlocking crises, New York's elected officials need to make it easier, faster and cheaper to build dense housing, reliable transit, renewable energy, and a government that can deliver them all. While we typically focus on state and local elections, which are especially relevant to issues like zoning and permitting, for example, Congress plays an important role in shaping the incentives for what gets built. We're excited to hear from how from each of these candidates, a sitting member of Congress and a challenger who has held local and citywide office how they plan to use federal levers to make it easier, faster and cheaper to build. We're also excited to hear the candidates respond to a set of topics that they might not be asked about that much. In New York's primary elections, the most legible axis of conflict is often the ideological spectrum, the left to right spectrum. Both candidates and voters position themselves in either the left or the moderate lanes, but we often make the argument that abundance is not a point on the left to right spectrum, but its own axis entirely. We're looking forward to seeing how these candidates, who have differentiated themselves ideologically, articulate how they will approach abundance issues from their respective lanes. With that, I'll pass it over to Tabita.

[D]

Thank you. The New York City New Liberals are a coalition of pragmatic liberals dedicated to advancing society of abundance anchored in human freedom and agency. We're honored to work with Abundance New York and NYLS to bring you this event featuring two esteemed public servants vying to represent this district. We hope today's conversations will help us understand how these candidates would apply abundance principles to deliver tangible change more housing, better infrastructure, cleaner energy, and expanded economic opportunity, not just for New Yorkers, but around the globe. We care deeply about how they will fight back against populous efforts to dismantle their federal investments and institutions our society depends on. We are equally focused on their affirmative vision for what comes next, how abundance ideas can operate as the foundation of

[B]

a liberal post MAGA governing philosophy.

[D]

This will require a government that prioritizes outcomes, sets clear incentives and defines trade offs in order to guide policymaking and public discourse. Will also require re engaging with the world in a constructive, principled, pragmatic and humanistic manner. Because all of the abundance issues involve cross border exchange of ideas, people, goods and services. Our discussion will be moderated by Ben Max. Ben is Executive Director and Program Director at New York Law School's center for New York City and State Law. He hosts the Max Politics podcast and writes on New York politics, government and policy. Please welcome Ben Morning.

[E]

Good morning.

[B]

Good morning everybody. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Dean Crown, thank you to our co sponsors.

[D]

Very much.

[B]

Happy to be here. As Dean Krause said, voting's coming up real soon. We're just a little over a month to primary day June 23rd, so hopefully we have a lot of voters in this room today looking forward to the elections. There's obviously more on the ballot than just Congress, so be ready to vote in June. The New York 10th congressional district, as most of you know, is lower Manhattan, basically below 14th street and a swath of Brooklyn. I won't list all the neighborhoods, but many, many neighborhoods in Brooklyn. And the two main candidates are joining us here today. Former Comptroller Brad Lander and Congressman Dan Goldman will be with us in just a little bit. So let's jump right in. I'm just gonna give you a couple minutes opening statement, sort of tell everybody what you want to know about your campaign for Congress here.

[D]

Thank you so much. Good morning Ben. Good morning to everyone here. Thank you to Abundance New York at NYC New Liberals and thanks to New York Law School. As Dean Crowell said, this place was founded to provide legal support capacity for New York City government. Like the kind of public, private, you know, education sector capacity building we need and it is delivering on it like an institution that's working. So thank you. A lot of our institutions are not working. I mean this is a five alarm fire for our democracy. Donald Trump is locking up our immigrant neighbors and shredding voting rights and eviscerating the rule of law and of course at the same time eroding the capacity of government to deliver for people whatsoever. Eliminating housing vouchers without anything that would help us build more. Eliminating the Inflation Reduction act, funding for climate with rolling back policy that would help deliver. Meanwhile, the affordability crisis is growing. Cost of living higher than ever and so people get fed up and lose trust in government. And that's where we are right now. What we need are leaders who are willing to take on the entrenched interests that rig the system and block progress, who have a track record of delivering on affordability, on housing, on transit, on climate, on government reform and people who focus on delivery, making those systems work better. And that's what I've done across 30 years in the affordable housing sector and in government. You know, it's a moment. It's funny, people are talking about how Zoran is, you know, has the model of populism in the front, abundance in the back. I guess that's now referred to as the abundance mullet. I think I ran my mayor's race with like abundance in the front and populism in the back. That's not a good hairstyle. Like it's covering your face. No one could see you. I'm not going to make that mistake in this race. But I've been there on this work long before it was named or before it was cool. You know, I started working on affordable housing and then on profit sector to build and renovate homes to show we could address the affordability crisis by building housing. The work I did in the council to deliver The Gowanus rezoning, 9,000 new homes, 3,000 of them affordable. A real effort. And now not just more housing, but a vision of growth people are excited about and would want to do over and over again. On transportation, from the fight for other than Prospect park west bike Lane to the fight for congestion pricing. I've been there all across from them on housing that continued in the battle for city of yes, in the battle for the ballot propositions and on climate as well. Yes, I divested $4 billion from fossil fuel reserve owners. I invested $15 billion in climate solutions and created this great program called Public Solar NYC that is going to help us deliver public option for affordable rooftop solar in New York City. And I focused all along the way on making government work better. The Capital Projects dashboard, a law I passed in the City council. And we don't have time for all the work in the comptroller's office on procurement reform, on civil service reform, but I'm happy to say that my policy director now runs the Mayor's Office of Operations. So many of the things we did there, you're going to see moving forward in the days to come. I guess I would submit to you there are not two abundance candidates in this race. There's really just one. Like, yes, I have a progressive history and Goldman has a moderate history. I have an abundance champion history, and he is a corporate Democrat and they aren't the same thing. He opposes building housing on the Elizabeth Street Garden. He's opposing a shelter in Brooklyn right now. That's not what we want more of, but it's just yielding to NIMBY neighbors. He opposes the Manhattan jail. Again, not that we want more jail beds, but if we're going to close Rikers, it has to get built. Yielding to NIMBYism will not help. And when Governor Hochul put congestion pricing on pause, I convened the coalition of advocates and lawyers that brought the two lawsuits that got it off pause and implemented before Donald Trump became president. He was nowhere to be found. So let me just say this. I know Ben's going to ask me about bmt, and I'm excited to talk to you about it. We will get that done.

[B]

Brooklyn Marine term.

[D]

You've seen me on every single fight and I will be that champion for a progressive vision of abundance in Congress on housing, on transportation, on clean energy, on climate, and on making government work better. I'll just give you one little taste, which is we need a champion for metropolitan growth, for regional growth in the New York metropolitan region, and we don't have one right now. And I will be that champion for the kind of regional high speed rail that opens up significant new areas for affordable housing growth. In the era of remote work and new technology. We need big ideas and people who will fight for, build the coalitions for and deliver them.

[B]

We're out of time. So let me follow up on a couple of things you said. One, if you've been doing all this work in city government, process reform, why the city government still seems so broken? Bunch of years in the city council capital projects tracker, four years as comptroller, doing audits, doing procurement reform, etc. And we're still having a lot of the same conversations, aren't we?

[D]

Well, of course. I mean, look, for the four years that I was proposing procurement reform, capital projects reform, and civil service reform, Eric Adams was mayor and he had no interest in any of those things. It was both disinterested in delivery and corrupt. And he had no interest in taking my suggestions, even where we were able to build pretty broad coalitions for them. But some of the best innovations are ones that I helped win. I mean, congestion pricing is working, traffic is reduced and money is being generated. And the MTA is working hard to spend that money more effectively. You know, the, that Capital projects dashboard is a good management tool that if we were only starting to build it now would not be available to this administration to improve projects. So I mean, I'm not telling you things are good. I'm telling you the fights I fought are delivering in Gowanus on those capital projects. There is actually procurement forum legislation moving forward in the council that builds on inside of the reports we did and that's the track record of delivery.

[B]

On the Goanis rezoning, you get a lot of credit from abundance folks and people who are happy to see all this new housing coming, especially in sort of a high opportunity area. There's obviously concerns about environmental remediation and a variety of other things. We won't go into all of that. But on the other side of the equation, part of the abundance agenda is speed and that took a very long time to come together to that rezoning. Are there ways that you think differently now, having come through that experience and other experiences about speeding up some of these processes, about balancing outcomes versus community input and things like that? Yeah, of course. I mean you're not obviously going to say you want to do away with most community input, but how do you think about speeding up some of these?

[D]

I mean, I was a very strong supporter of both city of yes and of the ballot propositions. I didn't hesitate to support either of them. I was an early supporter and a loud supporter of both of them. And in particular the ballot propositions offer a significant number of ways to speed up the process. So yes, I mean, I believe in that. That said, the speed with which housing is going up and new jobs are being created and new open space and cultural space as well as being created in Goanis comes from the consensus we built and a vision for growth that people are excited in. So I think if you measure from concept to delivery as opposed to concept to plan approval, I think we get actually a pretty good grade. It is true that the pandemic and a shift in administrations and a thoughtful planning process took some time, but I can't. I don't think you can find one place where the speed from approval to implementation has been so fast. And that's because it's a great plan. It includes features that help it deliver and people are excited about it. So yes to the reforms and I think we need more. But I feel proud of how that one has moved things into the real world.

[B]

In a process like that though, if you could go back, is there something you do differently to speed it up? Is there a way that a process, if some, if a council member is starting something like that today, you know that type of process with, with the community that it could be done faster to get from the concept to approval.

[D]

Well, again, I think the reforms in the ballot propositions are include those things. They shorten the amount of time on a significant number of the projects. They make it possible for things to move forward. I will say three years of Goannis. One was lost to the pandemic and two were lost to the fact that when I first went to the de Blasio administration to propose it, they said we're going to start in neighborhoods where we don't fear opposition. And they chose to go to East New York rather than come to the high opportunity neighborhood of Gowanus. So I spent the next two years till on the soil getting the ground ready. So mayors who are more willing to implement both a fair housing and an abundance agenda would be are also a great.

[B]

So in your opening statement you made a bit of a pitch as being an abundance Democrat, an abundance candidate. I think there's this, the sort of abundance agenda is put forward by abundance champions and you know, some of the more prominent writers and thinkers like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson who have the abundance book, of course, you know, they also decry everything bagel liberalism. Right. Where a lot of liberals and Democrats are trying to bake into so many projects and laws, something for everybody. Lots of process, lots of well intentioned things. But then it makes delivery really, really slow and difficult. Are you an abundance Democrat? Are you an everything bagel liberal?

[D]

Well, I mean, how do you, how

[B]

do you think about sort of balancing.

[D]

Yeah, absolutely. First, I would say if you want to know Ezra Klein's opin in on whether I'm an abundance Democrat, just Google Ezra Klein. Brad Lam. You'll see the best thing ever written about me.

[B]

He was.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

He was saying he's a voter in New York.

[D]

10 know about my track record. Look, Gowanus is a great example. We got the deal done. Does it include substantial open space? Does it include new arts and artists and light manufacturing and nonprofit space? Yes. Is it a neighborhood people are excited about for those reasons? Absolutely. But. But we were working with the developers as well as with the community and we structured a deal that worked and that's what you have to do. It's true that like first of all, you know, what you have to craft is something that will work within the economic features and that you can build enough popular support for. That's why I think a vision of growth matters. It is not going to work to take a sort of take your Medicine yimby approach to these issues like we need more housing or we're going to have an affordability crisis. So you have to take it even if you don't like it, is pretty unlikely to work for people. What will work is let's take a little time to build a vision of growth we're excited about and then put processes in place that make it move quickly. And that's what happened in Gowanus. That's what I believe public solar NYC can deliver. That's what we did on climate investments in the controller's office and housing investments in the controller's office. And that's what the federal government should do as well, is say, here's the funding for housing, for transportation, for climate. But it comes along with a mix of incentives and mandates for improving your processes for fair housing. That means taking on suburban entrenched interests that don't want to have it for working with your transit agencies to show how they're speeding up project delivery. That's what the federal government can do. And it will take more public sector capacity with the federal government, but it'll also take funding programs. And look, I'm proud to have the support of Elizabeth Warren, who's just gotten a bill moved through the Senate 89 to 10 that includes significant housing incentives for more growth, but also some restrictions on private equity so that people were like, yeah, let's do that. And now there's a big coalition for a significant pro housing bill that otherwise I think would be languishing in Congress.

[B]

What I want to come back to that in just one second. But what, what processes or what layers of process should Democrats have learned by now to not be attaching to some of those funding mechanisms? Are there considerations that if you go to Congress, you'll be, you'll have a very hawkish eye in terms of we can't be layering on too much X or Y requirements. There's a lot of trade offs here, right? There's labor trade offs, sometimes there's small business, you know, MWB requirements, sometimes there's a lot of different things that get layered on. Sometimes again with good intentions. Are there things that if Democrats control the House, if Democrats control all the federal government at some point in the next several years need to have learned from past mistakes about getting that funding out the door, about service delivery, things that really can't be part of some of those future packages?

[D]

Sure. Look, I mean, the 421A negotiations in Albany have delivered a program that is producing very little housing most of the New housing starts, many of them are at 99 units or fewer so that they don't trip the. But that's an evidence of a, of a bad negotiation. Right. And that really was Andrew Cuomo and then later Governor Hochul's fall. They wanted a political solution to pass a deal and they weren't actually focused on whether it would work. And yes, in that instance, it is the labor requirements that are poorly written and that have resulted in no housing getting built. So yes, I think that, you know, the governor gave in to the building trades and as a result no new housing is being produced under that program. That doesn't mean we don't need good labor standards. Of course we need good labor standards. I mean, look, this is an interesting thing. So the federal regulations of Davis Bacon are prevailing wage requirements which take the prevailing wage that already exists in the region and apply it to projects. And that actually has been pretty successful. Now not every project gets built that way. Lots of the housing in Gowanus prevailing wage doesn't actually apply to. But it is a good approach. The cockamamie approach. They put in 421A with different zones, unlike a made up wage level. Like they created a whole new bureaucracy in order for the governor to satisfy the building trades. And now no housing is getting built. So I'm, look, I'm for labor standards. I've been fighting for workers rights my whole life. You can deliver them, but this is where you need people who will take on the entrenched interests, but who also can know, okay, here's how a deal will work and if it's not going to go back to the negotiating table.

[B]

The governor and the building trades have both endorsed your opponent in this race. So maybe easier to, to, to criticize them for that deal.

[D]

I mean, maybe that's because I was willing to push on congestion pricing when the governor put it on pause. And if I had not convened the coalition of lawyers and advocates, it might not have gotten implemented before Donald Trump entered office. So I don't have a lot to apologize for. No, I've got a great labor track record. I'm proud to have labor support from SEIU 32 PJ UAW communications workers fight strongly for, for workers rights, but I also want things to get done.

[B]

Speaking of one of your supporters, Senator Warren, as you mentioned, there's this housing bill seemingly working its way through Congress, maybe could be a bright spot in the much, much maligned machinations of Washington D.C. one of the central provisions that is most controversial here is this idea of build to rent single family housing. And Senator Warren is very opposed to that and very much wants to limit that. What's your stance on that and why I assume you have.

[D]

I mean I agree with her entirely and for two reasons. I mean first, the extraction of ownership and wealth into a tiny set of hands through private equity is bad for America. America has succeeded by building a lot of homeownership. Now I like multifamily homeownership, co ops and condos, but that model of investing people with an ownership stake is a good one. The model that a tiny handful of people will own everything and the rest of us will rent from them is a recipe for continuing to move toward authoritarianism as people are furious about it. The anger at private equity is real. And sure, if you want to check who has the private equity donors in this race, not a complicated thing. So, but, but you know, and, and we should, we want more housing built. This doesn't prevent housing from getting built. But it says what we don't want is a ton of housing getting built that is owned by, in private equity ownership with rentals where there used to be homeownership. So that's why on the other side she's got all these pro growth incentives and you've got to put a package together. And this is, I guess I would urge abundance advocates and many of them, I think Abundance New York has been great on this to combine the abundance goals and those progressive goals. That's why that model of, you know, populism in the front, abundance in the back I think is a very appealing model right now.

[B]

Now you're not that concerned that estimates are that tens of tens and tens of thousands of units would not be built if, if that those limitations on build to rent single family homes are put in.

[D]

Well, it's important to offer other models for financing. So I've proposed a model using what I, what are called social bonds. We issued the first four social bonds here in New York City, $4 billion. It financed 12,000 homes. There have never been social bonds that were federal government treasuries. Fifteen or 30 years, it could be hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in housing. So no, look, there wasn't private equity ownership of housing in the big eras of housing expansion in, in the United States. That's only in the last, you know, recent period of time restricting private equity. You know, build to rent for single family homes and acquisition of existing homeownership blocks off one thing that I don't think is serving us well. We will need to focus on making sure that other forms of financing can flow in at the market continues to work, let's make sure more of those places have incentives to build that density. That's why that metropolitan growth is so important. This is really, I think, worth focusing on for just a minute. I mean, if you think about what's possible now because of remote work in this region, if we invest in high speed regional rail, I mean, you could live in Wilkes Barre and work in New York City one or two days a week if you had a good train going there. And then you could build housing at density all throughout the region. Transit oriented Development linked with a genuine metropolitan plan. I guarantee you that housing can be financed and developed. If government both makes the investment in rail and pushes both to deliver on the rail projects and has the courage to say to the three states and the suburban jurisdictions, you can't block all the housing. I mean, Governor Hochul worked with, you know, then mayor Adams and now mayor Mamnani to focus on housing in New York City. But the effort to push housing in the suburbs, transit oriented development has fallen totally flat. And the federal government should be on the side of statewide fair share approaches. Transit oriented development, high speed regional rail and a metropolitan vision of growth. To me, that is the best way. New York City can't solve our affordable housing crisis on our own. We've got to be part of it, but it's got to be part of a metropolitan solution.

[B]

Some people might hear high speed regional rail and think about, you know, California boondoggle, never get built rail projects. How do you avoid that? How do you. What would be the essential ingredients into that vision to make sure it actually happens and it happens on some kind of fast timeline?

[D]

Yeah, I mean, there's a range of things here. First, you do need leadership. You know, you've got entrenched interest in all kinds of places. And unless you have leadership that's willing to say we are passing this law. I mean, the fact that what got passed at the state level mostly affected New York City and the suburban stuff was left on the cutting room floor, I believe was a failure of leadership by governor Hochul, I'm sorry to say,

[E]

on

[D]

making the projects work. Well, you know, I think the federal government can do some interesting things for incentives. So there's always a conversation about can there be more manufactured housing. I don't think there has been a good federal government incentive to say we would like to work with states and cities. You know, when New York City did that effort and the plant was opened in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There was no federal support for for it. The federal government has not tied its housing, its transportation, its climate programs to a set of incentives around more effective delivery. And it absolutely should.

[B]

You talked about congestion pricing a few times. Let's talk a little bit more about the mta. The MTA costs, you know, per mile of subway construction are among the highest in the world. There's a lot of abundance attention on how to make that cheaper, faster, build more subway. You're talking about regional rail, obviously. What federal tools would you use to drive down the cost of building transit in New York and especially in New York City?

[D]

Yeah, these have to go together first. We get totally screwed on just getting our fair share of transit funds. So, you know, it's currently 80 highways, 20 transit. And even of the transit funds, even though we have half the transit riders, we get 15% of the funding. So we need a champion in there like Jerry Nadler has been to grow our share of transit funding, especially for capital projects. But I think that funding should have incentives and mandates to focus on getting costs down and speeding delivery up. And just one example I'll give of something I did on this. You know, I fought for a long time to win the funding for the elevator at the 7th Avenue F train stop. And it's being funded in part, I think, with the congestion pricing dollars we helped win. Then somebody from the neighborhood reached out and said, oh, my God, the project's going so slowly. So I asked Jamie Torres Springer to come down and do a walkthrough and present the deck on what they learned from that project and what kind of reforms they put in place. And actually, we got a great presentation. They changed the way they did the procurement so that they had procured that one off. But then instead they bundled, I think, the next 10 with an incentive for reduced costs and sped up time and they put a set of reforms in place that they were able to show me, as, you know, an elected official who had helped fund it. But the federal government isn't asking those questions. So more money tied to a set of incentives and mandates to show what you're doing to reduce, you know, produce lower costs and reduce the amount of time projects take.

[B]

What should the vision for New York City subway expansion look like?

[D]

Well, I mean, first, I'm very excited about ibex, but that does need a Transit Oriented Development Plan to think about growth around the stations. And we should be doing that now before the land prices skyrocket. That's, you know, whatever. Certainly one thing in Gowanus I wish we could do is not have had the real estate prices skyrocket so much during the period of time for the land, during the period of time people knew it was coming.

[B]

So earlier mechanisms to capture more of that.

[D]

This is exactly what I mean. You know, I mean, we did some of that, but to do it through, you know, because this is a city state project, the opportunity to use, whether it's a tax increment model or, you know, a financing model that takes the opportunity of density at the stations is a really good idea. And then I really do think, I mean, although, you know, that a regional approach, look, it's the same MTA that just, you know, had to settle a strike. We've got to have a regional approach. There's so many things you could do. I mean, half MTA integration is entirely possible that doesn't even need new construction. You know, you've got stations where they're linked, and yet you need different systems to use them. A genuinely regional rail system is. Is essential. I mean, that's been part of the vision since the first RPA regional plan. And again, I just see very little leadership on metropolitan growth agenda. And I just promise you, you vote for me, if you elect me to Congress, you will have somebody in there who is the leading voice for a vision of metropolitan growth aligned with an abundance agenda you brought up earlier.

[B]

And I want to come back to the Brooklyn Marine Terminal plan. Six thousand homes, all electric port, over a third of those homes with affordability requirements, all electric port, acres and acres of open space, coastal floodwall, etc. Are you. Have you changed your position on that? Are you now questioning the vision and the plan that came together? Where do you stand on this plan and it moving forward? And if you're elected to Congress, would you be seeking to change some of it and how would you sort of see it to fruition? Yeah.

[D]

So, I mean, I didn't take a public position at the time that the plan was adopted. I was focused on a few other things. I do think a little more time is needed to refine that plan. I believe that the process that Eric Adams structured and that Dan Goldman chaired failed to look at and seriously address a number of issues in a way that makes even abundance champions like Antonio Reynoso and Shahana Hanif excited about it. They voted for it in the end, but what the borough president did was insisted on the issuance of this request for expressions of interest for port using operations for businesses that would use the commercial port. That should have been done at the beginning of the process. The things folks had, the questions about were on, okay, what is the nature of the port operations throughout the harbor? What of that can and should happen here and what are the transportation designs that are going to make that work? And at the end of the process, people not NIMBYs who are never going to get there, plenty of people who want to see growth and development of jobs, of housing, of port operations, of open space, of transportation, had a lot of reservations. And I think it's worth the new administration taking a little more time. You know this, we're talking about a couple of more months to engage with people thoughtfully on the RFPI responses on the transportation planning. So I want to get that done. Again. I would just say, I mean, you know, if you look at the track record here on Elizabeth Street Garden, on homeless shelters in the district, on the plan to close Rikers, on congestion pricing, on city of yes on the ballot propositions, every single time I have been an abundance champion. We will get the MT done, but it means taking people's concerns seriously rather than quashing them.

[B]

This again seems like a situation where there was a pretty lengthy process. And now in the midst of a, of a political season, of an election, you're sort of taking the moment to say, well, we need more time. We got to sort of. I mean it seems, I mean, I

[D]

had my doubts about the plan at the time. Other folks who I trust had doubts about the plan at the time. We have a new administration. They have to. But isn't this come to a bracelet criticism?

[B]

Right. Of, of things is like a deal was put together. A new administration sure has the prerogative to come in and look at it. But if every time we get a change in an executive leader or a member of Congress, those things happen, it, it can slow almost everything down. You wouldn't want Shahana Hanif to have come in and reopen the Gowanus rezoning. I know the timing wouldn't have worked,

[D]

but, but I got the Gowanus rezoning through a Euler process with the vote over. These things matter. But this is my point. How did that happen? Because we had done consensus building so that the community board voted overwhelmingly for that project. This project is not going through Euler. There's a made up process like a new board of appointed people who did vote for the vision plan. And I want to get there, but I think in this case with a new administration with some doubts about it, it is worth a few more months. I will be a champion to get it done. And you know I will be because you've seen me on every single project, every single hard choice, being on the side of spending some time building consensus and then moving forward productively.

[B]

Let's talk about NYCHA for a couple of minutes. Well, why don't I just let you say what you would do about NYCHA if you were in Congress. There's tens and tens of billions of dollars of capital backlog. There are some programs in place that seem to be less and less controversial by the day because they're advancing and people have realized tens and tens of billions of dollars are not coming from the federal government to just sort of go into NYCHA's coffers. What would you do differently? What would you try to do to save nycha? And do you like the tear down, rebuild infill model that we're seeing advance? Maybe in, in Manhattan here?

[D]

This is where selling people on a vision of growth, giving them an opportunity to weigh in and make their choice and then move forward is the right answer. There are basically sort of three ten year options. Do you want to stay traditional Section nine, knowing that you may never get the funds to renovate your homes? Do you want to go into the RAD PAC program with a private manager? Or do you want to go into the preservation trust? And then there's a separate question. If your development has enough land, would you like to see new development on it? Those things should be put on the table and let residents make their choice. And I have trust and faith in NYCHA residents and they're already in many cases voting for that redevelopment and those tenure choices, in some cases they haven't. And that's good. Like there's not enough money to do all the projects through either the trust or through pact. And so giving residents some time for planning a genuine vote makes it possible to move forward much more quickly. Rebuilds trust in the system, helps you deliver. So that is how I would do it. And I think that's a great model. It's good options. Some of them move more quickly, trust people to choose. And you can already see that people are choosing in ways that not 100%, but that makes sense here. And then we also need to reform systems. And honestly, maybe the thing I like best that we did as controller, that I really hope the new administration will do and I'd love to incentivize from Congress. Is this what we call the Yelp for NYCHA repairs? This comes out of an audit we did of the repairs that NYCHA contractors do in people's homes. These are, you know, relatively small jobs, under 50,000, you know, fixing, you know, mold or replacing a bathroom sink. And the residents told us, you know, half the time the work doesn't get done. So we did the audit and sure enough, on 44% of the invoices, there was no documentation the work was ever done. And we created this NYCHA resident audit committee that informed the audit. And one woman got out her phone and she said, controller, how come I can rate our restaurant on Yelp or I can rate my Uber driver, but nycha can't ask me whether the sink was replaced in my apartment and whether I was satisfied with the work that got done. So we mocked up this app, Yelp, for NYCHA repairs that when implemented will mean that when work is done before with NYCHA pays, that tenant gets a text or an email and could just rank 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 like you do. Was it done? Was it done? Well, would you hire this contractor again? And we'd very quickly have a scorecard for contractors. We could keep hiring the ones that are good, we'd get rid of the ones that aren't. We would save a lot of money. We would reform that system and we would rebuild trust for those residents in a way that would repay itself many times over.

[B]

Just to come back to part of what you said about nycha, does it make sense for resident votes to be basically the only determining factor for the vision for these projects? I mean, there's obviously federal government constraints being put on some of these programs and there's different. But when you get a project like what's happening on, on the west side, the tear down, rebuild plus infill, you get proposals like that that would have a citywide or a borough wide framework and abundance mindset. Now that that project was voted in favor by residents, but of course, you know, people are calling to reopen some of that process. How do you balance the broader NYCHA interest, the broader citywide interest?

[D]

Right. Well, the plan has to be developed before it's voted on. So there's a role for NYCHA to say, here's the broad set of tools we have and here's what we're aiming for. We need to come up with the dollars to preserve buildings that are going to be so dilapidated they can't be repaired if we don't move quickly. We would like to build new housing. Of course we want to make as much of it affordable as we can, but we also need the resources to finance the rest of the development. We can only do that in places where There is land and if you want dollars generated, you know, market, you know, sufficient market demand. So NYCHA is putting that plan together, working with a lot of stakeholders, working with the residents. But then you offer the residents to vote amongst the options that are put on the table. And yes, I think, think what you will get there if you offer residents a vote on every one of those is most of the time they will vote in favor of something that is going to give them better living conditions. Sometimes they won't and actually that helps increase trust that the whole thing is a legitimate system and the benefit you get from people being on the side of growth is enormous. You know, you will move things much more quickly that way than trying to hammer them over opposition.

[B]

We've got two more minutes here. So last two questions. The number one inquiry I got leading into today is why isn't this a debate? So that was your choice. Why isn't this a debate?

[D]

There will be a couple of debates. You'll be able to watch US debate on New York 1 and on Pix 11. Brian Lehrer is having us both on next week. I think for the kind of topics we're talking about here that really like, I don't know that the debate style, one minute sniping back and forth is nearly so good as you asking thoughtful questions that push each of us on the areas you think it's worth pushing and we get some time and dialogue with the folks in the room. Okay.

[B]

Lastly, if Democrat, if you're part of a Democratic majority in the House come January, Hakeem Jeffries for speaker, open up a competitive process. What's your stance and why?

[D]

I am very excited to vote for Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker. Democrats, broadly progressives and moderates, abundance minded folks, you know, all gotta come together if we are gonna stand up to Donald Trump, if we're gonna have the majority, if we're gonna move forward effectively. But you also have to be willing to push leaders and not just go with whatever they want. That's why AOC voted for Nancy Pelosi, but also sat with Sunrise in her office. That's how the Inflation Reduction act got started. The fact that Ro Khanna was willing to push so that the Epstein files got released on the War Powers Resolution, made it to the floor. That is the kind of member I will be. Someone who knows when it's time to be in coalition but also knows when it's time to push on power. I think you have seen me do that time and time again.

[B]

Former controller Brad Lander. Thank you for being here.

[D]

Thank you all very much. This was great. Ben, thank you.

[B]

Welcome to part two. Again, thanks everyone for being here for this candidate forum in the 10th congressional district of New York, Lower Manhattan, below 14th street and a swath of Brooklyn. I again, will not name all the neighborhoods, but if you're here, you probably have a sense. Congressman Goldman, why don't you take a couple minutes and just give an opening statement to the folks in the room here. We'll get into lots of abundance details. I think you heard some of that conversation there, but just broadly speaking, say hello to everybody.

[D]

Great.

[E]

Well, thanks for having me, Ben.

[D]

Thank you.

[E]

To abundance. Thank you. To the New York City new liberals. Just to pick up on where we ended, I, I do wish this were a joint forum. I think people get a lot more out of it when the candidates are able to respond to each other. So I'll try to do that. But I want to be very clear. I wanted to have both of us. I've asked for seven debates. He has reluctantly agreed to two. We've had no forums. And I think that says a lot about where the two of us in our campaigns. And I've been proud to represent this district now for coming up on four years. And I'm running for re election because of my record of accomplishment and because of my bold progressive agenda. I use my experience as a former federal prosecutor and as the lead counsel on the first Trump impeachment investigation for many things, including oversight and accountability and investigations. And I certainly look forward to leading the oversight and accountability efforts when we take back the majority in January. And because of my seniority and my committee assignments, I will be in position to do that. But it is also essential that we recognize that we are not. We cannot just do oversight and investigations. We need a bold agenda that addresses the most fundamental problems we're facing. The number one challenge we're facing, in my view, is wealth inequality. That is what is creating the massive affordability crisis that all so many New Yorkers are feeling, whether it be rent or, or groceries or health care or other, other food. So many other issues. The way that I have tackled a lot of these issues is through a true abundance agenda in the sense of we have to figure out a way to streamline permitting and regulations to make government efficient, efficient and effective and to be able to do big things. And while I've been in Congress, I've done that both in Washington and here here. Ben was talking to my opponent about the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, and I hope we do get a chance to talk about a little bit more because that is exactly the type of big, bold project that government used to be able to do and has for way too long, including during the entire tenure of 20 years in city government of my opponent has not done. That site was falling into the channel. It had been deteriorating for 30 years. And with my leadership, and I'm proud of my leadership, we figured out a deal between the state, the Port Authority, the city. We put together a 27 person task force, representative of the community, of the experts, and we went through a grueling year and a half long process that took in tremendous community input and ultimately two thirds of that task force voted for this plan. And the plan is fantastic. Certainly need some work in terms of the transit and infrastructure and making sure that the space can support what is proposed. But you're going to have a modern electric port. You're going to have additional flexible maritime industrial space that is softly been targeted for a hub of the blue highway, which is something that we need to be pushing forward. We're going to have corporate space, industrial space, 28 acres of green space, 6,000 units of housing, 40% affordable. 40%, not a third, 40%. The city is going to subsidize the commercial space so that the residents of Red Hook are not displaced. And that is one of the things I hope we also talk about. It's unfortunate about the Gowanus project. This is a bold vision that I'm proud to have pushed through in Washington. I helped pass a significant reform to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which is the largest federal program to support and incentivize affordable housing. And HPD has already said that because of this expansion, they are increasing by 70% their pipeline of affordable housing. And I played an instrumental role in getting that done. I'm also working on expanding those tax credits to be used for renovating and refurbishing existing affordable housing to keep it affordable and bring it up to speed. I hope we do get a chance to talk about renewable energy. Empire Wind 1 is a huge offshore wind project in my district that because of my experience in Congress, the relationships I have built in Congress, I was able to get it unstuck when Donald Trump tried to stop it. And it is now going on. I was just there the other day. It's going to power 500 homes and off and commercial units in this city when it's done. It is a model for the future that I'm very proud of. And so I, I'm happy to be here. Talk about a lot of These issues and, and certainly eager to get into a good conversation with you alone, not with my opponent. But hey, all right, what can you do?

[B]

You'll, you'll be ready for those debates when they happen. All right, so just, why don't we just stick with the Brooklyn Marine Terminal for now since it was. You heard it come up in the prior conversation. You're ready to defend that. But when you say, when you say transit and infrastructure improvements will be needed, what is top of mind? There is. Are there things that came up in this process where you passed a plan and, and you've since realized there should have been more to that plan. There's people questioning whether the infrastructure in the area can handle all that new housing and all those new residents. How are you thinking about either the modifications or the supplements complements to that plan that you need to continue to work on?

[D]

Right.

[E]

Let's just take a little bit of a step back because the concerns that you hear about, oh, we need a few more months. The process that is NIMBYism, that is how things don't get done. And we went through an exhaustive process that considered all of these things and we fashioned a plan that depends on an EIS and a proper infrastructure, transit and congestion plan that can support the development. That is what will happen in the eis. I've been always adamant that that has to happen and the project cannot happen unless we're able to do that. But you can't create a transit plan there without incorporating the bqe. And that project is separate. And if we were to have done that whole study beforehand, we would have been dependent and we would have been reliant on the BQE project, which is totally separate and we had no control over. So we could have just sat around and waited and tried to figure it out. And that's how things get stalled. That's how the port would fall into the water. So what the idea here is that we have to do that, but let's move forward with the process, do the EIS and then we can incorporate it. And to be clear, 2/3 of this task force, including Borough President Reynoso and Councilmember Hanif, voted for the plan. Interestingly, and I will add shortly after the Democratic primary in the mayoral election, we were at the near the end of the process and we waited for the election to happen because we wanted to see who would be mayor likely and whether they would weigh in. I reached out at that time to my opponent who was fully on board with the plan and was calling people to support it. And I want to be clear, that was before we added in the RFEI the request for expressions of interest, which when we came up with that idea, I was fully supportive of. And I thought it was very important to go straight to the market to test what the consultant said the demand was. There are expressions of interest. There are none that would really use it for more maritime and that can pay for it because the port cannot pay for itself. And so I think this is a great example, first of all, of my opponent flip flopping being for it and now being against it, but also of how process arguments and allegations of no community engagement when there was community engagement. But of course, in a compromise scenario, not everybody's view can be incorporated. And we had tremendous community engagement. In fact, the community was represented on the task force itself, which I constructed and required there to be a vote so that the community engagement had some teeth. That vote was not something that had ever been done with a project like this. And that was my idea. So I think it was a trying process because it's a massive, massive piece of land with so many different interest and variables. We were able to focus on the displacement issues. We were able to require a one to one affordable housing market or luxury housing ratio of being built so that we avoid what has happened in Gowanus where all the luxury housing has been built, prices are skyrocketing, people are displaced. And because the affordable housing got the crappy land with the environmental projects, it still has not been started. And so we made sure that that was not going to happen.

[B]

You have secured money for federal grant money for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal plan. How are you going to ensure that that actually comes through? And if we can then shift out of that project? But, but say take a minute on that. But connected to the larger issue, some of what we're talking about here in the abundance framework of government process, getting money out the door, strings that are often attached, putting too many requirements and process onto things. So first, how do you keep that money and make sure that it does come from the federal government amid a Trump administration where you're obviously not on particularly good terms with, with the president or his, his team. And then secondly, take us, zoom us out. What are the, what are the problems in federal process that you will be looking to address moving forward?

[E]

So you, you are right, we got the, we secured the largest infrastructure grant ever for New York City EDC 164 million for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, which was another reason why we had to finalize this plan because we had to do it by the end of the federal fiscal year, otherwise we would lose grant money. Now, we know Donald Trump has tried to pull back on a ton of money for the city Gateway Second Avenue subway, obviously, two very important examples. This one is moving through. And while so far so good, I think I was actually just talking to the deputy mayor about this and there's some surprise that he has not tried to stop this one. But I think it's obviously because he's afraid of me. I'm just kidding. But no, but that was, that was very important. And it's important to make sure that you go through the processes in timely fashion so you don't run, give an excuse to do it. I use Empire Win one as the best example of why our system is so stagnated by the administrative burden. That is a renewable energy project that will have massive impacts, positive impacts on climate change and the environment. It took seven years from the time that the Norwegian oil and gas company that was doing this project got the lease to the time they broke ground on the project. Seven years, primarily because of environmental regulations. Now we, of course, have to make sure that we're still implementing NEPA and that we're still adhering to environmental conservation. But there needs to be a different standard if what we're trying to build is actually tremendously beneficial for the environment. And so as we talk about permitting reform and regulation reform, which I support, we, you know, I'm not. This is my first foray into elected office. I'm not a career politician. I came from a very different background. And I've been now doing this for four years. I've been alarmed at how inefficient bureaucracy is pretty much at every level. And I strongly believe in permitting reform in licensing. I strongly believe in streamlining processes. There are often the city, federal government, so many different agencies that are involved in each thing, and they barely talk to each other. That's an easy one to fix. So that you're streamlining the system because there's a lot of duplicative work. So that is, I think, a critical part that has an impact on housing, has an impact on renewable energy, has an impact on transit, and that's what stagnates us so that it's so hard to do big, bold things.

[B]

Speaking of that bucket of reforms, there's a state budget deal coming together that includes some significant seeming reform to the state Environmental Review act and process to speed up housing development, especially in New York City on previously disturbed land. A Do you support that? And Then, B, coming back to what you mentioned about abiding by federal environmental review, there seems to be a good bit of bipartisan interest in reforming federal environmental review. Is there a set of reforms to that that you support?

[E]

Well, look, I, I support moving faster, period. And especially if you can separate out different areas of development. So as you say, if this, if the state is going to say, okay, this is disturbed land that's different than, you know, other land that's perhaps undisturbed or, you know, near in a flood zone or, you know, something that is, is very different, we should treat different things differently. And that goes for permitting reform. And yes, there's bipartisan support, but there's only bipartisan support because Republicans want permitting reform for oil and gas and fossil fuels and Democrats want permitting reform for renewable energy. And I'm not going to yield on acknowledging that those two things are equal. They're not. And we need to. I'm not saying that we need all of the above energy right now as we have these data centers and energy prices are rising. But we should not have the same permitting standards for an environmental project, renewable energy project, as oil and gas. And we should stop subsidizing oil and gas projects and, and continue to subsidize renewable energy with the new technology that solves so many of our problems, including not just the environment, but all the America first things in theory, energy independence, American manufacturing, American jobs, national security. We don't need to be dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for, you know, whether our cars can, whether we can drive far enough because of the price of gas. So there's a really strong argument to be made to people who are not angry about windmills off the coast of their golf course in Scotland.

[B]

He is the president. Republicans control Congress. Even if Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, you'll still have a Republican president. Do you not make some of those deals to move things forward? Governor Hochul had to make a deal with the federal administration on a gas pipeline in order to advance clean energy projects. How do you think about compromise? You say you're not willing to agree to equate clean energy and oil, gas infrastructure, but then does that mean nothing gets done when Republicans have won elections and are in charge?

[E]

Well, I think you'll see from my record, and this is another significant distinction between my opponent and me, that I use my different background, my prosecutorial litigation background, to come up with creative solutions that can move forward. What I think what Democrats, what, you know, progressive, bold policies, but also give Republicans something to Sweeten the pot. Because you'll never hear me say, oh, I passed a bill through the House. It's irrelevant if it doesn't get through the Senate and signed by the president, and people don't care. If you pass a bill, you will not hear me tout press releases, this, that or the other thing, because I'm focused on actually making a difference. And I note that, you know, when my opponent was in the City Council, he was often one of very, very few no votes on redevelopments. And his reason and rationale was it wasn't good enough. It wasn't enough. Well, let me tell you, city government is the Democratic supermajority. You're with your colleagues trying to split up a set budget. And that's one thing. When you're in Washington and you have to do things in a bipartisan way, it is entirely different. And if you take the view that you're not going to support anything unless it meets your exact ideological or litmus test, then you will get nothing done and the Empire win. One is another example where I used my bipartisan relationships in order to get that done, because the way we unstuck it was that I had a relationship with a New Jersey Republican who was leading the charge to stop it. And I went up to him and I had a conversation, because even though he and I do battle on the Judiciary Committee all the time, we, I have maintained a. A cordial and friendly relationship with him. And I said, I explained to him this is ongoing. You can disagree with it. We'll argue about that another time. But there's a million, a billion and a half dollars that's been sunk into this. Do you want to set a precedent that any foreign company that builds, wants to agree to a project here in the United States may have their rug pulled out from under them at any point, whether it's renewable energy or anything else. And he called the White House and he unstuck it. And so you need to have those bipartisan relationships in order to get anything done over my four years. And by the way, it's taken a steep learning curve to realize how all of this works. But now, over my four years, I have those relationships. I understand how it works. I have seniority, and I know how to get things done. And I have gotten things done, even the minority. And I promise I will get a lot more done or in the majority.

[B]

I know you mentioned some criticism of how the Gowanus rezoning is playing out. It's, it seems to me, sitting up here, listening to both of you. He's sort of doing to you on Brooklyn Marine Terminal and you're doing it to him on the Gowanus rezoning, two of these sort of big packages that you negotiated. And you know, they're pretty abundance minded, you know, to the theme our forum here and you're each trying to sort of find a point of criticism. Would you give your opponent credit for the Goana's rezoning writ large as sort of an abundance achievement that brought in a lot of community input, investments in nycha, so forth? I mean, generally speaking, are you supportive of it?

[E]

Yeah, and I've said that before and I've said it to my opponent, I've said it openly. I don't change my opinion when I now have a race here. And conceptually it is, it was done well, it obviously took a very long time and there are lots of reasons for that. But what is important, my only criticism really of it is the impact it has had on the area is not what people were expecting. And part of that is recognizing the sequencing of things. And you know, the fact that we're still dealing with serious environmental concerns at Gowanus Green, where the affordable housing would be built, has delayed that indefinitely right now. And the problem that I hear from a lot of Gowanus residents is that because of this higher priced luxury and market rate housing that they are being priced out of the neighborhood. And that's exactly what we wanted to avoid with the Brooklyn Marine Terminal.

[B]

So broadly, how are longtime residents being priced out of the neighborhood? If they have housing there, how are they being priced up?

[E]

Well, because of the high price of the real estate, it then increases the price elsewhere. You have consumer goods, you have the businesses are being kicked out because the price of rent for the commercial space is also going up. This is a massive problem in New York City. This is why people can't afford to live in the city, is that if you have these redevelopments, that may sound great at the signing of the contract and I support almost all of them at the signing of the contract. The problem is there's no enforcement and accountability. So that seven years later, when it's done, it often does not reflect what it looked like at the beginning. That's not a problem with development, that's a problem with oversight and accountability. That is something that's my background is all about and that I am pushing, you know, certainly on the federal level, but also even in the city and the state to make sure that promises made are promises kept.

[B]

There is a big housing package potentially Coming through Congress, potentially a sort of bright spot of bipartisan productivity in this very difficult federal climate. One of the sticking points seems to be this issue of regulating build to rent single family housing. The Senate, led by Senator Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren, seem pretty set on wanting to keep pretty strict limits on some of that bill to rent single family housing. The House seemingly is not so concerned with that. Where do you stand on that and where do you are. Where are you willing to potentially compromise?

[E]

Well, I think it's. It's a very valid concern. And it's interesting as I go around the district and talk to people who, you know, are on section eight, who live in nycha, who have, you know, co ops that they've had for a very long time. A massive. The co ops is a little different. But a big, big concern is there's no path to homeownership in those programs. And the main cause of wealth inequality that is escalating dramatically is the division of wealth based on assets and based on income. And if you own a home, that value of that home is skyrocketed and generally your wealth has risen with it. So we have to be facilitating and incentivizing home ownership. And this build to rent program that allows for private investment firms to essentially snap, you know, buy up so much of it and then build and, and rent with a purely financial model in mind is not the best way to do that. But we do need to build. And I. What I am encouraged by is this is a start. The Road to Housing act is a start. I supported it when it came first through the house, and I very likely will be supporting it if it comes to the floor this week because I believe in moving forward when you have that opportunity. I am not going to make perfect the enemy of the good. But what it reflects is this issue of housing is not just a big city Democratic party issue. There is unity between the parties that this is a massive problem. And what I am optimistic about is that now that we've established that unification on that, that we can fashion additional bipartisan programs. And I think about all sorts of different ways because there are not enough federal programs. You know, I'm a co sponsor of a bill that would provide $300 billion to incentivize and facilitate housing from the federal government. I lead the public emergency, Public Housing Emergency Response act, which would infuse over $70 billion to public housing units, including more than 30 billion to NYCHA, which is in such desperate need of it. And so we have to think bold and we have to think big about this and now is the time. But I'm also thinking about different ways of maybe giving a bank a tax credit if they reduce their interest rate on loans for affordable housing. Because what I hear as I've dug into this is that last 10% of equity is what holds up so many affordable housing projects. And if you can narrow the price of the debt, you might be able to cut out that barrier. And that would open up a tremendous amount of buildings. So we've got to be thinking big, we've got to be thinking creatively. And I'm encouraged by this bipartisanship on

[B]

this issue just to make sure I'm clear and everybody's clear. So you don't love the idea of allowing sort of unfettered build to rent single family housing, but you're not, you would not look to make restrictions on that a deal breaker?

[E]

I don't think so. I don't think so. And you know, it's, it's difficult. I'm going to have, I'm digging in as we speak to, because this just came, this deal just came out last Thursday, I think in the House. And so we are, I'm actually meeting with my staff later today to like really drill down on it. But my initial read is that there's a lot of really important stuff in there. And this is, you know, this is the problem with how things have operated in this city in particular. And this state, which is perfect, is always the enemy of the good. That's why rents are through the roof. That's why projects are not delivered. And we've got to turn that around so that we are, we are aggressively pushing for our priorities and figuring out creative ways to get them in, offset by things that the other side may want that are unrelated. But we really, really need to be thinking big, pushing big and making sure that we are moving forward.

[B]

On your comments about nycha, you have the Public Housing Emergency Response act, as you mentioned, tens of billions of dollars for nycha. Short of that. Because it seems like that Democrats couldn't even get that type of funding done when Democrats had the presidency and both houses of Congress, although obviously the Senate margin was extremely challenging there. But what. Short of that, what would you, what is, what is your NYCHA approach? Are you pretty much on board with the programs that are in place now and excited about how they are playing out? Do you have other things you'd look to modify short of tens of billions of dollars in fusion? What's your, what's your NYCHA vision?

[E]

Well, I've spent a tremendous amount of time in the 31 NYCHA developments in the district, which is why 90% of the TA presidents in those developments have endorsed me. And we've been doing work from the very on the ground. We have actually closed over 400 specific cases of NYCHA residents having issues that are not normally a federal issue. But I've asked my staff to be responsive to everything. And we've gone all the way to really trying to implement serious oversight and accountability with NYCHA writ large because there is so much wasted money, it is used inefficiently. So much of the repairs are done in a slapdash way which doesn't actually fix it and ends up costing a lot more when you continue to have to come back. So with the situation we're in right now, I think we've got to be doing both the big thinking and the on the groundwork, which is what I've done. I have a view that the Preservation Trust and RAD PACT are viable options in the face of the reality that we are unlikely to pass the Public Housing Emergency Response act anytime soon. And so what I have done is I have attended a bunch of meetings with the tenants association myself, individually, just so that they understand what is the, the different programs and the different options are. They should vote on it, they should make the decision. But I think it's important for me in my role to make sure that they understand the reality of the situation. And part of the reality of the situation is that there is no $30 billion coming anytime soon.

[B]

Do you like the model of what seemingly is going forward here in Manhattan with a tear down rebuild of public housing plus infill, mixed, mixed income infill? Do you think that that could be a viable model elsewhere in the city that rebuilds public housing and also adds to the city's housing stock?

[E]

I do, I do think that's a smart way of going about it. There are legitimate concerns by many NYCHA residents about displacement and that's a real concern. And it has happened before. That's something that I'm very focused on. The other problem that we run into with, that we have learned we've run into with RAD PACT is there's really no good oversight mechanism of the private manager of the building. And we have, I've actually in my office have really leaned in to trying to provide some of that. So we have built relationships with a lot of the managers and, and of these, of these buildings so that when residents call us with issues, we have built the relationships, and we have gotten a lot of them fixed. But that's a systemic issue that needs to be solved with RAD Pact because

[B]

there, should that be a federal responsibility or a city?

[E]

No, that's a, it's not a, it's not a fed. I mean, RAD Pact is not a federal program. So, you know, a lot of this stuff, frankly, a lot of the stuff we're talking about today is not federal. A lot of the stuff that my opponent talks about is not federal. But I have always taken the view that nobody wants to. Nobody cares whether it's city, state, or federal if they're a constituent. They just want something fixed. And so whenever anybody comes to us, we don't tell them, no, that's this, we say, okay, we're going to help it. If it's somebody else, we will direct them there. And I think that's important in terms of constituent services. But no, this is not a, I

[B]

would argue both that Rad Pact is federal and that we're, we've been talking about a lot of federal issues here.

[E]

No, no, no, I, I, I'm not not criticizing you. I'm just saying, you know, when and I'm in, I'm engaged in all of them because, as I said, I think it's important to be able to get stuff done one way or another.

[B]

I wanted to ask you about oversight, especially related to MTA costs, but this relates to any of this billions and billions of dollars of federal money that winds up coming to the city for various projects. What needs to be done on oversight to get more bang for the buck? A lot of times it seems like, of course, the federal government can sort of just print money and just increase the billions of dollars that are sent to the city for these infrast projects. But it doesn't make a lot of sense. There's huge issues with inefficiency. What are a couple of specific mechanisms at the federal level on oversight or reform that you will be looking to implement? Especially, let's take for example, something like MTA costs on construction.

[E]

Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a huge issue, and that is certainly a federal issue. And yes, Rad Pact is a federal issue with Section 8. But, you know, one of the things that Let me just first start in terms of the funding sources, I have been a consistent supporter of congestion pricing. I guess I've been criticized somehow for not supporting it. What actually happened is when the governor stopped it, I worked very closely with her to figure out a way to make sure it could get done before Donald Trump came into office. So I was actually involved in that process as opposed to on the outside. But it is an important way of generating capital. And I think it's important to recognize that there are different sources on the oversight. This is. This is a huge issue because federal funding, obviously we have oversight jurisdiction and. But it's a national body, right? So we're on committees. And, you know, to be able to target the MTA specifically, you know, requires, frankly, seniority, because you have to be able to control a subcommittee in order to be able to pick and choose where you're going to do it. But this is something that we all have to work together to do. This is a massive problem of just costs. And New York City is especially expensive, right? It's like 5.5 times more expensive to build in New York City broadly than it is elsewhere. And we've got to figure out how to streamline the system and how to make it much more efficient, which, you know, is my approach to pretty much everything. But it certainly exists with the MTA and it exists with the congestion pricing money as well. And so I don't think there's a silver bullet as to a way to do it. But just similarly, how I've put a lot of pressure on NYCHA to be efficient. I have been engaged in lots of conversations with Jana Lieber about how we can streamline the system, how we can get the money. In fact, in a separate issue, I passed a bill that streamline coordination between FEMA and the city and state agencies because so much of the emergency response money gets stalled and doesn't get there. And so through our work, we were able to actually pass that. And that's the type of thing that I think we can do, which is to make sure that there are more efficient processes between us, DOT and mta.

[B]

Last two questions for you. Appreciate the time coming back to a little bit of where we started, that this isn't a debate. Part of your approach to this race and calling for more debates, among other things, and your opponent's approach to the race, polling we've seen, et cetera, make it seem like you might be the underdog in this race. Do you feel like the underdog in this race? And if so, why would you be the underdog in this race if you've been in Congress for three and a half years doing all this good work?

[E]

I think that when people engage beneath the surface and engage on the issues, we have overwhelming support. And I think what this campaign has been about more than anything is making sure that the voters know what my record is. They know that I support the most progressive policies, but that I've also been able to be effective and deliver for both the district and the country. And then that I'm uniquely qualified at this moment because Donald Trump is attacking everything that we hold dear. As somebody who prove the case in the first impeachment, I know how to, I know how to take him on. And when we're in the majority, I will have a subcommittee chairmanship that will allow me to lead those investigations. And so there are a lot of important issues that many voters care about. And you know, I think as people learn, for example, about my Robin Hood act, which is a targeted measure of addressing the true source of wealth inequality by taxing, making billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos pay their fair share when they pay as little as 1% of a true tax rate. And that's a bill that is generating bipartisan support. Ro Khanna was the first Democrat on it. And we are building a coalition because it is, it addresses the real problem that we have and it's palatable for Republicans because that we know they are very, very anti raising income tax. But this one is pretty hard to, to disagree with.

[B]

So do you feel like the favorite, the underdog or it's a, it's a toss up race.

[E]

I feel like I'm going to win.

[B]

All right, last question. You've been outspoken about Democrats kind of needing to do things differently. The stance among many Democrats, including your opponent, and I believe yourself, is that the current, current Democratic leadership in Congress, if majorities are taking the House, the Senate, they should continue as the speaker of the House. The Senate Majority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, is that, is that your stance and is that emblematic of doing things differently? Does the Democratic Party need new leadership in Congress or do you feel like think it's more about strategies and tactics. But first things first, is, is taking the majorities.

[E]

Well, look, I think it is taking the majority. But we, I fully support Hakeem Jeffries in the House and have built a really good relationship with him. He has endorsed me and the re. He is just, just to be clear,

[B]

forgive me, I don't think either Brad Lander or yourself has supported Chuck Schumer as Senate majority in the future. I think you both stayed out of that question.

[E]

Well, it's for the Senate to decide and I don't know the dynamics over there.

[B]

It's fine. We'll stay with the House.

[D]

Go ahead.

[E]

And so if we stay with the House, what I will say is, and this is partly me really being an outsider to this political world, I have been very frustrated that all too often I find the Democratic Party caves when we have leverage in the minority in few instances. And my view has been we've got to use that leverage. And what happens when we don't and we ultimately cave is that Republicans know we're going to cave, and so they will never negotiate with us in good faith knowing that we won't ride it out. In December of 2024, I was the only one who stood up in our caucus meeting opposing the continuing resolution on the last day when it was expiring five days before Christmas, because we had a bipartisan deal that Donald Trump wasn't even president and Elon Musk forced the Republicans to back out of. They put some cockamamie additional thing in there. We opposed it. The next day they pulled that out. And a lot of my colleagues were like, all right, it's a win. I was like, that's not a win. He set a fire and then he put it out. But we're not getting the policies that we had negotiated. But that was a lesson for me and how things work. And I've been pushing ever since to build the consensus to make sure that when we do have those leverage points. And I thought, you know, I'm frustrated when we were winning this shutdown and we were a week away last fall from forcing the president and the Republicans to have to make significant changes because Thanksgiving was approaching, the air travel was miserable and it was a brutal shutdown for many, many people. I do not discount that at all. But if we are to make significant change, we have to be willing to for some short term pain, which is very hard. And it's not, I don't take it lightly at all. When Donald Trump tried to withhold snap benefits during that shutdown, I jumped into action immediately. We organized with a coalition, additional food services and nutrition and coordination. This is not trivial. But if we continue to cave, and in that case, eight senators on their own just decided that they were going to make this decision for all of us, even though we had the leverage, we end up worse off in the long run because we don't get our policies passed, but also in negotiating in the future. And so I do think we have to be much more aggressive. And I have been pushing for that since I've been in there. And this is where you know this. As you talk about this race being a little different, I've been in elected, you know, I've been in politics, elected office for three years. And I come with a prosecutor, prosecutor's mentality. My opponent has been in government for 20 years and is sort of accepting of the situation that we're in.

[B]

Well, it's been an informative morning, Congressman Goldman, thank you.

[E]

Thank you.

[B]

Very briefly, I just want to say thank you again to our hosts of the forum here, Abundance New York and NYC New Liberals. Thank you. To our teams at New York Law School, especially Rose White and Veronica Rose, our AV Team events, Security Maintenance and everybody, thank you very much. And please join us for future events here at the law school. Thank you,

[D]

Sam. It.