Listener supported WNYC Studios.

Brian Laird on WNYC, studios.

Brian Lair on WNYC, we continue now to interview all the major candidates in the primaries coming this June for mayor of New York and governor of New Jersey.

The mayoral primary is shaping up to be a fierce contest, as you probably know already, with Mayor Eric Adams seeking a second term and a growing field of challengers, mostly from the left,

making the case for a change. Our latest guest from that field is Scott Stringer, a veteran of

city and state government who has served as New York City Comptroller, Manhattan Borough president,

and a state assembly member. Now he's running for mayor, as he also did in 2021, arguing that his experience makes him

the right person to fix the city's biggest challenges.

Scott Swinger, welcome back to WNNIC.

Brian, it's been too long.

It's great to be on.

So let me just dive right into asking you what you argue, sets you apart from some of the other

candidates in the race, especially because the field of progressives to the left of Mayor Adams,

where I think you would count yourself, is long. Brad Lander, the current controller,

Zellner Myrie, Zoraem Amdani, Jessica Ramos, Michael Blake. Why are you more than any of them from the progressive

camp if you accept that framing?

Look, I think we're in a very difficult time, very difficult times, I should say, both in terms

of the Trump presidency, the impact that we'll have on New York, and also the very real

challenges of affordability, of education,

of trying to make it in a city where inflation is just hurting families in all five boroughs.

This is not a ideological moment. This is actually an experience to govern moment. And in every office that I've had over the last three decades,

I have not just existed as an elected official,

...