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"FacebookPinterest\n\nSo what have you done so far this morning for the city of New York\n\n Well, I didn&amp;#39;t ruin it. We\u2014my girlfriend and I\u2014actually went to the opening of the opera last night. To say that I&amp;#39;m a great opera fan is probably overstating it by 1000-percent.\n\nUnlike your predecessor. How was it\n\n Long. It takes opera singers a long time to die. I mean, the female star was very good, I forget her name. She took 30 minutes to die, thank you very much. If it were up to me, you&amp;#39;d run the whole thing once. I love plays where they do it soup to nuts without an intermission. You get done early, and why do I need to stand around I don&amp;#39;t smoke anymore.\n\nHow did you quit\n\n Cold turkey.\n\nReally\n\n I&amp;#39;m a believer that you can&amp;#39;t do anything partway.\n\nAnd that was it Boom You never--\n\n I would be afraid to take one drag of a cigarette, because I wouldn&amp;#39;t want to find out, it would be so tempting. I mean, if God told me I was going to die tomorrow, I would have a cup of coffee, a Dunkin Donut and a cigarette. I remember those days. They were great! You know, I loved it! But no.\n\nSo much of what you&amp;#39;ve done as Mayor was pretty unpopular at first, like the smoking ban. Now you can&amp;#39;t even smoke in Paris.\n\n Paris! And England! Who would have -- nobody, in a million years. If I had said to you, &amp;quot;They&amp;#39;re gonna stop smoking everyplace in Italy and Ireland,&amp;quot; you&amp;#39;d say, &amp;quot;You&amp;#39;re out of your mind, This guy&amp;#39;s really stupid.&amp;quot;\n\nAnd you started it all.\n\n The reason I have the best job in the world, I would argue, is because it is such a bellwether for everybody. People watch New York in a way that nobody quite understands. Other elected officials don&amp;#39;t quite get it until the two of us are on a stage and they say &amp;quot;Bloomberg and the other guy.&amp;quot; So it&amp;#39;s a great platform, if you&amp;#39;re trying to encourage people to do things.\n\nHow does it feel to be called Nanny Bloomberg\n\n I&amp;#39;ve been called worse. Besides, if it means saving lives\u2014which we have\u2014they can call me whatever they want. . . . But the smoking ban is just [one thing]. I&amp;#39;m setting up my foundation, because that&amp;#39;ll be my next job probably. And I gave 125 million dollars for a two-year program to try to attack worldwide smoking. . . Second thing my foundation&amp;#39;s working on is traffic deaths. Traffic deaths kill an enormous number of people. And it&amp;#39;s not the automobiles. It is people in the Third World on scooters without helmets. If you could get people to wear helmets. . . I want my foundation to work on things that are different. I mean, I&amp;#39;m trying to build a better mosquito.\n\nBuild a better mosquito\n\n If you could build a better mosquito that was tougher than the average mosquitoes, it would take over! You could stop malaria.\n\nDo you wake up thinking of these things\n\n Generally I wake up thinking I had too much wine to drink last night and I better get going. No, you know, seriously, I&amp;#39;m very interested in public health. I think that if we spent more money on preventive rather than reactive, I guess it would be the opposite\u2014I&amp;#39;ll have to put a good word\u2014uh, medical care. For example, if you read in the newspapers all of the debate of all of the presidential candidates, and what they would &amp;quot;do,&amp;quot; whatever that means, about health care, none of them for a start are realistic. Because nobody&amp;#39;s willing to say: We can&amp;#39;t afford what we have today and we certainly won&amp;#39;t be able to afford it tomorrow, and that means you can&amp;#39;t have it. Or, somebody&amp;#39;s gotta pay more. And nobody&amp;#39;s willing to. It&amp;#39;s always, &amp;quot;We&amp;#39;ll soak the rich, because there aren&amp;#39;t very many rich votes, and the rich know they&amp;#39;re not gonna do it anyway because they need campaign contributions.&amp;quot; So that&amp;#39;s an easy way. And I find that offensive.\n\nSo whose plan comes closest to what you think would work\n\n Well, I don&amp;#39;t think any of them have addressed the real issue. I will say, you gotta give Hillary Clinton credit. It&amp;#39;s an issue that she got beaten up\u2014she got beaten up, that was 15 years ago, and a lot of the things that she suggested, the private sector has done. I mean, nobody&amp;#39;d give her credit for that. And I don&amp;#39;t know if she deserves credit. But she was at least trying. I&amp;#39;ve always found it offensive when people criticize people who try. You know, if you want to innovate, you gotta be willing to fail.\n\nWhat do you think was your greatest innovation The thing you&amp;#39;re proudest of\n\n Let me ask the question slightly differently. The reason the administration has been successful--which I think most people even if they don&amp;#39;t like me would admit is successful\u2014is the same reason that my company is successful. It is a strategy of picking the best people, incentivizing them, providing an ethical standard, getting them to work together, and then holding them accountable. And accountability really is something . . . When it comes to schools, we have never held our teachers responsible. The number of teachers who get fired is, I don&amp;#39;t know, one ten-thousandth of the teachers get fired every year. I mean, it&amp;#39;s ridiculous. And I&amp;#39;m not against teachers. In fact, we have actually, with three different contracts, in spite of all the yelling and screaming, teachers are happy in this city. We had 50,000 applicants this year, 40,000 the year before\u2014for 8,000 slots. Teachers want to come from around the country and teach here, because they see us making a difference. . . And in return, the teachers now get 43-percent more than they did when I came into office.\n\nThat&amp;#39;s remarkable.\n\n Well, I said, Education&amp;#39;s my number one priority. And if you want to know\u2014this is a separate question you should ask me: What&amp;#39;s the most annoying thing about the press\n\nOkay, what&amp;#39;s the most annoying thing about the press\n\n And it is: We put out\u2014I have always been a believer that when an elected official runs for office and says they&amp;#39;ll do something and they get elected, you should check and see whether they did it. And you guys don&amp;#39;t do that.\n\nSo what&amp;#39;s it like to work with Bill Clinton [He&amp;#39;s teamed up with him on the Clinton Climate Initiative, making buildings green in New York.]\n\n Oh, Bill&amp;#39;s easy to work with. You know, he&amp;#39;s a nice guy, he&amp;#39;s a star. The Clintons have both been\u2014I can say nothing but good things. They did endorse my opponent, but when Hillary endorsed my opponent, both times she said, &amp;quot;But Mike&amp;#39;s been a very good mayor.&amp;quot; So when she was running for [re-election to the] senate a year ago, I said I was staying out of the statewide races because I had to work with anybody, but Hillary&amp;#39;s been a very good senator. Which is true. Hillary Clinton, when I call, takes the call. I mean, they say, &amp;quot;She&amp;#39;s in the middle of a speech on the floor, do you want us to pull her off&amp;quot; I mean, her staff is under orders: Mayor calls, get me.\n\nAnd Bill\u2014\n\n Bill Clinton is trying to do something. He is\u2014how old is he He seems a lot younger than me. I&amp;#39;m 65. He&amp;#39;s finished his career. Any job, you&amp;#39;d say, Well, what do you do after President Same thing: What do you do after Mayor He&amp;#39;s trying to do some stuff. He&amp;#39;s not just sitting back and saying, &amp;#39;Well, all I&amp;#39;m gonna do is play golf.&amp;#39; Bill Clinton&amp;#39;s tried to do something! And people say, &amp;#39;Oh, if you vote for Hillary, you&amp;#39;ll have Bill in the White House all the time.&amp;#39; I think the last thing that Bill wants to do is to be the vice-president in spirit and be in the White House. He does not want to play second fiddle to his wife. He wants to have his own career. And Hillary doesn&amp;#39;t want to play second fiddle to her husband. She wants to have her own career. And that&amp;#39;s healthy!\n\nSo if you had to vote tomorrow, based on who&amp;#39;s in the race\u2014\n\n I have said that I will stay out of the race. I&amp;#39;m just gonna stay out of it. I&amp;#39;m a non-partisan guy. I have spoken extensively against both parties. I think this partisanship, I don&amp;#39;t think we&amp;#39;re asking the right questions, and I think that the decisions are based on politics much too much. And people would have said before, Oh, you don&amp;#39;t understand, you&amp;#39;re not in government. Well, I&amp;#39;ve been in government six years, thank you, I think I know a little bit about government. You do not have to be so partisan. And I would argue that the way to get elected and to be very popular is to take tough, controversial positions if you really believe, and not pander. If you&amp;#39;re pro choice or pro-life, say so. I&amp;#39;ll tell you a quick story. My first day campaigning [in June, 2001], I&amp;#39;m in Staten Island, nice weather, this little old lady, gray hair, looks up at me adoringly, and says, &amp;quot;Oh, you&amp;#39;re gonna win! All my friends are gonna vote for you, you&amp;#39;re gonna be the mayor.&amp;quot; I&amp;#39;m thinking, hey, this is the first day I&amp;#39;ve ever campaigned in my life, This is easy, I&amp;#39;m gonna win! And then she looks at me and she says, &amp;quot;And I&amp;#39;m so glad you&amp;#39;re pro-life.&amp;quot; And I remember for one-billionth of an instant thinking, What do you say And I looked at her and I said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#39;m sorry, I am very much pro-choice.&amp;quot; I&amp;#39;ll betcha anything I got her vote.\n\nSo it has to make you crazy when you see Rudy trying to woo the NRA\u2014\n\n Look, you know, everybody wants to draw me into a fight and create a good story. Rudy and Hillary and McCain and Edwards and Obama or Thompson and Romney, they&amp;#39;ve got to say what they stand for. I have been scrupulous in trying to say, &amp;quot;This is what I stand for.&amp;quot; If you want to draw comparisons, you&amp;#39;re a journalist, you can do it.\n\nWhen you look at the process of running for president today\u2014is that one of the reasons you don&amp;#39;t want to run\n\n Well, I don&amp;#39;t know that running has anything to do with it, because I don&amp;#39;t think you&amp;#39;d have to do that. You just refuse to do it. Just refuse! I didn&amp;#39;t go on New York One for a debate because I thought it was a ridiculous format. You don&amp;#39;t have to do it. But I think from the country&amp;#39;s point of view, it&amp;#39;s a terrible idea. I&amp;#39;ve always respected two senators who I don&amp;#39;t agree with, either one of them, Orrin Hatch on the right and Teddy Kennedy on the left. They&amp;#39;ve both been in the senate for 40 years, both have consistently said to their constituents or the voters of the great state of Utah\u2014Hatch is from utah, right\u2014and commonwealth of Massachusetts, &amp;quot;If you elect me, this is what I&amp;#39;ll do.&amp;quot; And then they do it!\n\nPlease run.\n\n Oh, you&amp;#39;re nice to say so. I&amp;#39;ve got the greatest job in the world, I believe in term limits so I&amp;#39;m not gonna try to extend it. Um, I would never run for Governor.\n\nSo why did you switch to independent when you did\n\n My plans for the future haven&amp;#39;t changed\u2014if that&amp;#39;s what you mean. I changed my affiliation to bring it in line with how I have led the city. A non-partisan approach has worked here. You need to put partisanship aside to solve our big challenges.\n\nOkay, but you&amp;#39;re not ruling out a presidential run.\n\n I have ruled it out. Look, there&amp;#39;s other ways to influence the world. I&amp;#39;ve got a media company, I&amp;#39;ve got a foundation\u2014it&amp;#39;ll be one of the largest foundations in the country by the time it&amp;#39;s funded. So there&amp;#39;s a lot of things you can do. You know, for another two years, I&amp;#39;ll be the mayor, and then the ex-mayor, so if I call up, I&amp;#39;ll probably still get a dinner reservation."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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