Janno Lieber’s Trump PR strategy

Nov 18, 2024

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MTA CEO Janno Lieber and Gov. Kathy Hochul at a press conference

MTA CEO Janno Lieber is hoping Trump won't try to kill congestion pricing, so he's leaning in on rhetoric that plays nice with the former President. | Marc A. Hermann / MTA

HE’S A NEW YAWKAH: MTA CEO Janno Lieber is taking another victory lap on congestion pricing — with hopes that he has a win that sticks.

With the signoff from Gov. Kathy Hochul to implement congestion pricing (this time at $9), the transit agency’s board today approved the tolls, which it expects to begin collecting in early January — as long as the MTA can get federal approval before President Joe Biden leaves office.

But, in interviews and press conferences, Lieber is also trying out an argument to placate President-elect Donald Trump, the latest congestion pricing foe and one with the power to blow up the plan if it hasn’t been fully implemented by the time he takes office.

Lieber has rolled out a Trump-tailored argument at least three times in the past several days, appealing to the Republican as a New York City civic leader who owns office buildings filled with commuters who rely on MTA buses and trains.

“He’s a New Yorker,” Lieber said on Thursday, at the press conference where Hochul announced the reintroduction of the toll. “I think that there’s a real possibility, if he takes a hard look at the issue, he will, as a New Yorker, he will understand.”

At a press conference today, after the MTA board officially approved the reintroduction of congestion pricing, Lieber said he’s not ignorant of Trump’s anti-tolling statements.

But he cited his own 14 years of work to rebuild the World Trade Center site and name checked Trump’s views at the time. “I remember Donald Trump, office building owner downtown, who wanted to make sure that the transportation network downtown after 9/11 was revived, that it was rebuilt, that it was improved because it impacted on his office buildings,” Lieber said.

But don’t call it Plan B for delays that give Trump the power to tank it altogether: “We’re not contingency planning for failure,” Lieber said.

The move from Lieber to appeal to Trump’s New York roots comes as Hochul has enjoyed a sudden détente of sorts with the president-elect.

The day after Election Day Hochul held a press conference with Attorney General Letitia James where the two vowed to be a Democratic bulwark to Trump. But just two days later, the governor told reporters Trump “seems to share my priorities” during a “really lengthy” and “very cordial” phone call with him.

That call led to a New York Post cover flattering the two leaders on their showing of bipartisanship.

It was also followed by a Thursday statement from Trump where he praised the governor while expressing notably measured opposition to congestion pricing.

“I have great respect for the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, and look forward to working with her to Make New York and America Great Again,” Trump said. — Ry Rivard and Jason Beeferman

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From the Capitol

Andrew Cuomo speaks during a press conference.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's attempt to eliminate the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government were rebuffed in a legal brief filed today. | Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

CUOMO AND COELIG: A lawyer for the state’s ethics and lobbying commission pushed back in a legal brief to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s effort to dismantle the panel.

New York’s top court in January will determine the legality of the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, the government watchdog that investigated Cuomo’s alleged misuse of state resources when he wrote a book about his Covid response.

The ex-governor’s attorneys have argued the panel’s creation violated separation of powers rules. But in a recent brief, lawyers for the commission argued to the seven-judge Court of Appeals that Cuomo’s legal claims fall short.

“Plaintiff has failed to establish — beyond a reasonable doubt — that the Commission’s enabling act either constitutes a legislative usurpation of executive power or excessively impairs gubernatorial control,” commission attorney Dustin Brockner wrote in the 47-page brief.

Hochul and state lawmakers created the ethics commission in 2022 to replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, a maligned entity set up during the Cuomo administration.

The new ethics commission probed whether the ex-governor used state resources to write his 2020 memoir about the pandemic. Cuomo received a $5 million contract to write it, and the ethics panel moved to claw back the money he earned for the book.

Cuomo has denied the allegations of misusing government resources and has sued to challenge the constitutionality of the ethics commission.

The former governor has been victorious in lower-court decisions, including an appellate court’s ruling in May.

Five of the commission’s members are nominated by the governor and six by state legislative leaders. Nominees are then considered for approval by law school deans.

Cuomo, who has been considering a political comeback, expressed confidence through a spokesperson that the lower court decisions will be upheld. “Six judges have already ruled this commission unconstitutional and we believe the lower court decisions will ultimately stand,” Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said. — Nick Reisman

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FROM THE DELEGATION

Reps. Ritchie Torres and Dan Goldman

Rep. Ritchie Torres has been critical of far-left Democrats, saying they may have cost the party the presidential election. | Citizens Budget Commission

ELECTION REFLECTION: Rep. Ritchie Torres, an Afro-Latino man from the Bronx, has thoughts on Black and Latino men who voted for Donald Trump, including in his home borough. And he’s making them known at a moment when he and other Democrats are reflecting on how Republicans came to win the White House as well as control of the Senate and House.

The Democratic House member contends the country needs to move back toward the center.

“My argument is: If we swing the pendulum too far to the left on issues like immigration and public safety, you’re going to alienate the majority of Americans,” Torres said at a Citizens Budget Commission event today. “You’re going to elicit a public reaction that will make the country more right wing.”

It was a sentiment Rep. Dan Goldman, a Manhattan Democrat, and Citizens Budget Commission trustees at the breakfast appeared to agree with. The nonpartisan group is inclined toward fiscally conservative policies.

“Those who are focusing on all of these identity issues and political correctness are generally not the ones who are worried about the price of groceries,” Goldman said of exit polling. “That is the biggest takeaway that we have to realize from this election.”

Democratic socialists like Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who’s running for New York City mayor, agreed that economic issues should be the focus – but not at the cost of social ones.

“Voters were primarily motivated by the economy, by a rising cost-of-living crisis and by despair over the continued genocide in Gaza,” Mamdani told MSNBC after he interviewed voters in Queens and the Bronx.

Torres has described the accusation that Israel is committing genocide as a “blood libel” and “a dangerous lie intended to incite hatred for Israel.”

Ana María Archila, co-director of the New York Working Families Party, recently told Playbook’s Jeff Coltin, “I am most frustrated at the fact when people are looking at Latinos and saying, ‘It was you.’ When the majority of white voters voted for someone who has an extremely hateful discourse.” — Emily Ngo

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ALL PROJECTS A GO: The MTA now has the green light to begin work on all capital projects it had initially stalled when Hochul announced the indefinite pause of congestion pricing.

And while the lower toll price also means the MTA will be issuing $15 billion in bonds along a longer timeline, don’t expect any projects to be significantly delayed, according to Lieber.

“What matters is that we're going to be able to generate 15 billion,” Lieber said.

“This will take a little bit longer at the back end, [but] what people are missing is that the governor's full-throated endorsement of the next MTA capital program gives us the certainty we'll be able to sequence projects… in a way that we're not going to delay the improvements.”

During her Thursday announcement to unpause congestion pricing, the governor pledged her support for the MTA’s next capital plan that puts the state on the hook for $33 billion.

“To ignore the challenge of finding improvements for 100-year-old aging infrastructure would be nothing but an abdication of my duties as governor, and I will not do that,” Hochul said last week. — Jason Beeferman

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IN OTHER NEWS...

— CAREER CHANGE: Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, the Brooklyn pastor who was subpoenaed by the feds for payments to a law firm connected to Adams’ former chief of staff, has been relieved of his administrative duties but will remain a pastor. (THE CITY)

— AOC AND RITCHIE TEAM UP: The two NYC congressmen are joining together to oppose Hochul’s plan to widen the Cross Bronx Expressway. (Streetsblog)

— MORE FBI RAIDS: The feds raided the Long Island City hotel owned by an Adams fundraiser tied to his former staffer Winnie Greco. (Daily News)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

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