Politics Unusual: AG Letitia James, Saritha Komatireddy

Welcome to Politics Unusual. I'm Morgan Mackay. This is it. The last show before Election Day. New York voters will get to decide who they want to represent them for the next four years when it comes to governor, state comptroller and state attorney general. All 63 state senate seats and 150 assembly seats are also up for grabs this year, as well as 26 congressional seats across the state. So if you don't know who you're voting for yet, now is the time to start deciding. That's why this week we are finishing off our candidate series by focusing on the state attorney general's race. So first up, we sat down this week with the New York state attorney general and Democratic nominee Letitia James to discuss her re-election bid. And then we also sat down again with the GOP nominee for state attorney general, Sarita Kamatreddy, to discuss how she's working to reach voters in these final days. But first, in 2018, Letitia James was elected as state attorney general and became the first black woman to hold statewide office in New York. We sat down with the state attorney general, Letitia James, earlier this week. Here's a good portion of that interview. So you've been in office for eight years, and if re-elected, you'll be in office for 12 years. What do you see as the role of the attorney general? And looking forward, what's next for you? Oh, so first of all, let me thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. As the attorney general of the state of New York, you are the state's attorney. And so you have to represent the state. You have to defend all of their laws. And you have to ensure that New Yorkers are safe. From county to county, we do cross-county and cross-state investigations. We also do consumer affairs. We focus on landlord-tenant. Right now, we're focusing on deed theft, which is a major issue in the state of New York. We've been focusing on health care, which is a major issue. Individuals, unfortunately, are, you know, are maybe, might be losing their Medicaid and their Affordable Care Act, and that's a major concern. I've heard it all throughout the state of New York. So it's mostly A civil and we have a small criminal enforcement area and we have removed over 10,000 guns off of the streets of the state of New York. We've busted up gun rings and gang members. We've removed fentanyl and xylazine and cocaine off of the streets of New York State. We've worked with the district attorneys, there are 62 DAs. We've worked with the FBI. And we've worked with seniors. In fact, Morgan, this morning, I got an unfortunate call. This woman called me and she said, Tish, what should I do? And I said, what happened? And she was scammed out of $5,000, scammed, This it's called gold bar scams and we had issued a guidance and it was a drop down that she received on her phone and she thought it was her bank when in fact it was a bad actor and she lost five thousand dollars. And so we're trying to get her to recover those funds. But I hear that over and over again from senior citizens. And I'm really concerned about senior citizens and nursing homes who have been left alone. And so we do a wide range of investigation. And of course, as you know, the governor appointed us to do a comprehensive investigation into the court rail case. Your opponent, Saritha Kamar-Turetti, envisions expanding the reach of the Attorney General's office to really go after street crime, retail theft, hate crimes, and more. Now, your office is focused primarily on civil cases. Explain why that is. So, again, there are 62 district attorneys, and I have full faith with the NYPD, and I've worked very closely with NYPD. And NYPD does a great job with street crime, which is why street crime is down. Now, can we do better? Can we do better on the subway? Can we do better with sexual assaults? Yes. And that is why it's so important that we support NYPD. We give them the necessary resources as well as our district attorneys who enforce the law in the state of New York, particularly street crime. Now we have two units and other criminal units, small units within our office, but that jurisdiction is given to us by the state legislature and by the governor of the state of New York. And again, those units work cross county, cross state. And sometimes in cross jurisdiction and we established task force, which is why we were responsible again working with the FBI and with district attorneys in prosecuting individuals the most, I guess the biggest retail theft ring in New York City. Our office was involved in that. We also have taken down gang members, gang rings, we've taken down gun rings. We have enforced the law with regards to illegal drugs in the state of New York. Again, working with our district attorneys who have primary jurisdiction in that area and working with NYPD. Again, 62 DAs, and I would dare not trespass on their authority. But is there more that you can do? Just looking at NYPD's crime statistics, felony assaults on the rise for the sixth straight year, up 48% since 2019. More than 260 people have been arrested at least three times for felony assault. On the subway this year, are district attorneys doing their jobs if numbers are like this? So let me just say that a number of these incidents, particularly on the subway, involve individuals who are struggling with mental illness. And as you know, under previous administrations, they closed all of the facilities for individuals who were suffering from mental illness. And they did not provide the aftercare, the services that they need. And one of the things that I've been doing is working with the legislature to ensure that those services are in place and that we provide more services to individuals who are suffering from mental illness. My opponent would like basically to have all of the individuals basically institutionalize. And we tried that before. Remember Willowbrook? It did not work. What we need is compassionate and sensitive care to individuals who are struggling with mental illness because the vast majority of individuals suffering from mental illness are not criminal. Two, we need to support our police. We need to support sheriffs in upstate. We need to support NYPD. We need to provide them with the necessary resources. I worked with Commissioner Tisch when we put in place a former police commissioner, a shot spotter. I worked on body-worn cameras. Thank you so much. on other nonlethal uses of force to address this increase in crime that we are seeing in the state and in the city of New York. Mayor Mamdani was supposed to add additional police officers to the city's budget, but he decided not to. Do you think that was a mistake? It's not a question of mistake. It's the question of the budget. And so in the city of New York, we would have to work with the city council. In the state of New York, we would have to work with the state legislature during their budget process. And so I look forward to working with the city council and the state legislature to see if we can do more for law enforcement, particularly at a time when we're seeing an increase with crimes on the subway, as well as sexual assaults. Now, you mentioned Cornell. You were appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul to be a special independent prosecutor in the alleged rape case at Cornell University. But before you were appointed, you posted to social media saying, quote, what this young woman has been forced to endure is horrific and unacceptable. I'm holding her in my heart and in my prayers to her and to all survivors. You're not alone. We stand with you. Now, some critics and even some legal experts have questioned your impartiality. Have you thought about recusing yourself? No, because tweets are not evidence and they're not facts. And we will engage in a comprehensive investigation based on the facts, the evidence, and the law. Yeah. Tweets are not evidence. They're not any indicia of where I stand with respect to this particular case. This will be a comprehensive case. The governor has placed trust in our office. And we will engage in an investigation, again, based on the facts, the evidence, and the law. And your office is hiring outside investigators to help with the investigation, or how is that going to work? At this point in time, when we have something to report on the progress of the Cornell investigation, you'll be the first to know. Now, in President Trump's first term, you sued his administration 66 times over the span of two years. Looking back, is there anything you would change from that? No, because, again, as I mentioned earlier, these executive orders... ...are oftentimes arbitrary, they're capricious, they violate the spending clause, they violate the fact that Congress has already appropriated all of these funds for New York, and the executive, the President of the United States, cannot on his own... Just issue an executive order, which basically terminates funds for New York. In fact, on the largest infrastructure project in this country, the Gateway Project, the tunnel between New York and New Jersey, there were over 1,000 New York workers, most of them union workers, and the president of the United States decided to cut those funds. It was incumbent upon me to fight for those funds and fight for that project because of the economic benefits to New York and to New Jersey. So I joined with the New Jersey attorney general. We sued and we won. It's those cases that I'm involved in. I have no personal animus against the president. I took an oath to New Yorkers to protect them from harm. And so whenever you harm New Yorkers, whenever you terminate funds for New York. Be it Medicaid funds, be it funds for police, funds for seniors, senior citizens, funds for veterans, funds for housing. I have a responsibility, a duty to stand up and fight back. And it's unfortunate that my my opponent has not mentioned one thing about standing up and fighting on behalf of New Yorkers, particularly when the federal government is engaged in federal overreach. What's your message? What do you hope they remember about you and your time of service? So if there's any difficulty when individuals go out to vote, they need to reach out to the office of the attorney general. We have individuals who are manning the phones with individuals who will respond to any issue. If they're concerned that ICE will be at the at the polling sites, if they're concerned about any disruptions, the office of the attorney general, again, is there to protect New York from harm. And I just want to let everyone know that I live and breathe justice each and every day. And I live and breathe standing up for the great state of New York. It is my honor and my privilege to serve as the attorney general of the great state of New York. And I look forward to serving in the next four years. And it's an honor to be on your program. Thank you so much. You can catch the rest of our interview with James on our website. Coming up, we're sitting down with James's opponent, Sarita Kamatredi, next. Welcome back to Politics Unusual. You might remember a few months ago, we sat down with Sarita Kamaturetti, the Republican nominee in the race for state attorney general. We discussed her background in a wide range of topics. You can check out that interview again on our website. But since it's so close to the election and we weren't able to sit down with her opponent until this week, we wanted to give Kamaturetti some additional time to answer a few more questions. So after the debate, your campaign saw a surge in donations and some of the viral clips and It has led more New Yorkers to discover your campaign, but there's not a lot of time before election day. What are you doing to gain ground? Well, we've been on fire, Morgan, and we've been going everywhere to talk to New Yorkers. I'm on the street, I'm in the subways, and I talk to folks everywhere I can because it's really about hearing the message. What New Yorkers saw in the debate was a clear contrast. You saw our current attorney general, who has a failing record. Crime is up, homelessness is up, fraud is out of control, all under her watch, and she wouldn't change a thing about how she Handles her office. I represent a huge change. I'm the change that New Yorkers have been waiting for. We're going to take the AG's office, take the politics out of it, focus on public safety and actually make New York safer and more affordable. So one of your main campaign messages that really seems to be resonating with voters right now is that the attorney general's office can be used for criminal prosecutions of street crime, subway crime, retail theft. Why is this something that you feel that the Attorney General's office can be expanded and can pursue? Well, because it used to. Before Tish James, you had other previous former prosecutors that were attorneys general, both Democrats and Republicans. And, you know, they used the Organized Crime Task Force, which under state law allows the Attorney General to prosecute any crime that crosses a county line. And, you know, so other AGs did it. Letitia James chose not to. She chose to shift the focus. And that's what New Yorkers have been living for the last eight years. It's easy to forget what the attorney general can do when you don't have an attorney general who's doing the job. But we have an organized crime task force. We have a financial crimes task force. We have a hate crimes task force. Under Tish James, she's de-staffed all those task forces. I'm going to bring them back online. We're going to make sure we have a real chief law enforcement officer again in the state. That's what local law enforcement wants. You know, I've talked to DAs across the state. They say they've asked for help from the AG's office, and she's declined. I've talked to sheriffs and local law enforcement police chiefs. They say they've asked for help, and she's declined. I won't decline. When local law enforcement needs help, I'll be there for them. That's what they want. That's what an attorney general should do. And that's why I had the endorsements of the major upstate police unions, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse. This morning, the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association endorsed me unequivocally. And I've got the endorsement of Ray Kelly, the longest-serving police commissioner in New York. Now, speaking of district attorneys, Attorney General James, that's one of the things that she says is why she pursues civil cases with the office. She says that, you know, across the state, 62 district attorneys that are separately elected. Why step in? Do you feel like you would step in if district attorneys are not doing their job? And, you know, what does that say about voters who elected them? I would step in. And here's the thing. This is a big difference between us. She said very plainly the other day she would never step in. Well, that's the problem. Look at what happened in Cornell. Two years ago, where was Tish James? When the DA in the Tompkins County said, I'm not going to conduct an investigation, Tish James should have been on the phone and said, listen, You've got to conduct an independent investigation. I'm not telling you how to come out, but you've got to do it because that's your duty. And if you need help, if you need a sex crimes prosecutor who specializes in that kind of case, I'll send you one. If you need a forensic investigator. Or if you don't want to do it, I'll have the governor refer it to me. That should have happened two years ago, not one month before an election where now these people's lives have all been politicized and she's already prejudged the case for political purposes. You look at what's come out in the last few days. In New York City, you have DAs, Alvin Bragg and others, who routinely downgrade charges. People aren't being charged with what they did. They're dishonestly being charged with lesser crimes that includes hate crimes. The AG can step in and should step in to protect New Yorkers. I'll override Alvin Bragg when it's necessary to protect New Yorkers, and I'll make sure that we actually prosecute people for what they did, not overcharge them, not undercharge them. Prosecute people for what they did. Let the jury decide if they did it. Let the judge decide the punishment. That's the system. That's how it's supposed to work. Now, the latest Siena College poll has your opponent about 15 points ahead of you. And whether or not the polls are correct, the fact remains that the last time a GOP candidate was elected, state attorney general was 30 years ago with Dennis Vacco. How are you convincing independents and Democrats to vote for you? The polls... The only poll that matters is the one on Election Day, and I can tell you, walking around New York, going to the airport, flying to Buffalo, people come up to me every day and say, I hope you win. I've seen you on social media. I watched the debate. You're great, and you're what we need. And you know what? No one's been in this environment before, where we have broken through directly to the people. I have worked... I have worked for Democrats and Republicans. I have worked with Democrats and Republicans. And in this race, I am endorsed by Democrats and Republicans. And that's for one reason, because public safety is not political. New Yorkers see that. They want the blindfold back on Lady Justice. When I'm attorney general, that's what we're gonna make sure New York has. We are gonna lead by example. We're gonna be the best attorney general's office in the country, and we're gonna do things right. Your opponent has really worked to tie you to President Donald Trump. Do you feel that Trump is affecting your campaign? New Yorkers are focused on their own well-being, and I'm focused on the safety of New Yorkers. What they want is someone who's actually going to solve the problems in front of them, not engage in political grandstanding. I say leave the politics to the politicians. The Attorney General should not be a politician. The Attorney General should be a nonpartisan law enforcement professional. That's what I'm offering for New Yorkers. I hope anyone who hasn't seen the debate Please watch the debate and then make a decision about who you're going to vote for, because you get to see for yourself who you want to be your lawyer. And that's the amazing thing about the attorney general's race in New York. Only the people of New York can hire your attorney general and only the people of New York can fire him. Now, you've said in the past that if elected as attorney general, you would fight to defend New York's laws in court, regardless if you personally agree with them at times. But are there any cases or lawsuits you would recuse yourself from? Well, of course, I'll always follow the ethical rules and the rules of the New York bar. And so that's my reference point for recusal. We'll have to see in a specific case. But of course, I will always follow the law. That is the obligation of the attorney general, uphold and defend the constitutional laws of the United States, the constitutional laws of New York. And we're going to bring you more from this interview right after the break. Welcome back. We are continuing our conversation with Sarita Comitretti. In her last interview a few months ago, you described your background, but just real briefly, remind our viewers just who you are and how you got here. Sure. So I was born in Brooklyn. My parents came to New York in the 1980s. They're from India. So we're an immigrant family. I currently live in Manhattan. I'm married. I have four children, two sets of twins. We love New York. We want it to be a wonderful, beautiful place. It is a wonderful, beautiful place, but it could be safer. And I think a lot of people are feeling right now that public safety has deteriorated because it has. We're seeing violence against women have gone up. Hate crimes has gone up. Assaults in the subways, outside of the subways have gone up, car theft, shoplifting, and it's affecting New Yorkers everywhere. My background is I was a federal prosecutor for 12 years. I served under the last three presidents under more than 10 U.S. attorneys, people of both parties. And I was served as chief of staff of the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, under President Biden. That's a 10,000-person organization, which is five times the size of the New York attorney general's office. I have the experience as a prosecutor and as a manager to take over the attorney general's office and set it right. And that's what we need right now. And I do this for my kids. I do it for the same reason everyone else does their job. You want the best for your family. You know, I saw just a few days ago a woman about my age was walking through Central Park, approached by a man with a knife, dragged into the woods and raped. That's every woman's worst nightmare. I don't want that to happen. It shouldn't happen. It's the fifth time it's happened this year in the park. Violence against women has surged 41% under Tish James. I saw just two days ago, a mother in my neighborhood told me that a homeless encampment has popped up right outside her kid's school. This shouldn't be happening in New York. We've gotta make sure repeat offenders are behind bars. And we've gotta make sure that the severely mentally ill get treatment. We have to take care of our New Yorkers. That's the Attorney General's job. That is the Attorney General's job, to protect New Yorkers. And that's what I'll do. And you can also catch this full interview on our website. Next up, what you need to know for Tuesday's election. There's still time to vote early. Polls in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will remain open through Sunday. The general election will take place on Tuesday. Polls in New York will be open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. Polls in New Jersey and Connecticut will be open from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. We'll catch up on our trivia next week, but that does it for this episode of Politics Unusual. If you missed any part of the show or just want to check it out again, we're now on Spotify and any other platform you listen to podcasts on. So be sure to follow us. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Morgan Mackay. Have a safe weekend. We'll see you next week.