Leftist Mayors Should All Face the Mayor Lightfoot Question

BUCK: People are recognizing that, not only is Joe Biden bad at his job, which we have to point out here ’cause it’s the president — and you’re noticing everything is getting more expensive, more dysfunctional, and the lies don’t even make sense anymore. But beyond that the leadership of major American cities — and I can speak to that from personal experience here in New York City. But how is the mayor of Nashville, by the way?

CLAY: Not good.

BUCK: Not good.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Okay. Fair enough. I had a feeling. But the mayors of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago — just go down the list of major American cities that come to mind here —

CLAY: Who loves their mayor? That’s a good question. Who’s out there right now?

BUCK: Mayor Suarez in Miami, I will say.

CLAY: Yeah. Yeah.

BUCK: A lot of people, including conservatives I know, actually are pretty pro-Suarez. But, anyway, the mayor of Chicago has had a really rough go in the job, right? It’s not been going well. Lori Lightfoot has had… (laughs) It’s not been a good tenure in this position, so much so that you just had some random journo — I don’t even know who this guy is — ask, “Hey, since you’re so bad at your job, you’re not running for reelection, right?”

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Play clip 1.

BUCK: Can I just say, first of all, she’s clearly rattled.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Because I can say from the New York City municipal-cover, City Hall press corps, you come at the mayor with something like this, you find yourself getting the cold shoulder from all the administrators and bureaucrats. Clay, he’s just saying what’s obvious: You’re so bad at your job, how could you possibly think you should run for reelection? I hope Joe Biden’s listening.

CLAY: Yeah. By the way, I also think that’s a hundred percent a fair question. I mean, I’m thinking about it from the context of let’s take it outside of — and I understand, I think you’re right, that many times people pull their punches when they cover politicians ’cause they’re worried about whether their officials are gonna continue to speak to them.

But when you have a bad coach, the coach gets questioned all the time about why he deserves to keep his job, and that’s basically what Lori Lightfoot is, right? I mean, she is, in theory, the coach of Chicago, right? When you’re the mayor, you’re supposed to build up the city into something better than it was, just like you’re the coach of a team.

So I think that’s a hundred percent a question that’s well within bounds. I would think a huge number of people in Chicago would want the mayor to have to answer the question: Given how poorly you’ve done, why do you deserve reelection? That’s the very essence of the question she would have to answer to get reelected.

BUCK: I think in a lot of ways, in general, national-level politicians, people identify with based upon values and narrative and the storyline, right? The president or even the senator from your state. When you get down to that local level, if you live in a city or a town, the mayor, it really should just be all about results, right?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Is the trash being picked up? Are your streets safe? Are they clean? And is everything functioning, you know, are the traffic lights working, are they getting fixed, are the poet holes being filled in and, you know, that’s why Mayor Bloomberg, for example, in New York, guy’s an anti-gun lib. I disagree with on some things, very competent.

He was a very solid mayor of New York City. I know people don’t like that when he ran for president but I’m just saying he was a good mayor for the city of New York which obviously was a Democrat enclave. Lori Lightfoot is just not good at the job, Clay, and this is what… Just not good at this.

CLAY: Actually, atrocious at her job would be a way to describe it. And that’s the essence of what media should do, in my opinion. Speak truth to power. You’ve done a really bad job, why do you deserve an opportunity to run again?

BUCK: It’s results.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: When your town council, when you’re the mayor of your city and really the governor of your state, too, these days; but when they are bad at their jobs, you feel it and you see it and you know it — and major cities with Democrat leadership all across the country are just a mess. Real kind of a sad laughingstock.

CLAY: Well, I mean, this is how we got Giuliani and Bloomberg in New York City, right? The Democrats had so failed for so long that people finally threw up their hands and said, “We gotta try something different.” I’m curious whether that might start to become a prevailing narrative at many different big cities across the country where they’re all failing.