Jay DeDapper

NBC News Forum host Jay DeDapper pressed freshman Representative John Hall on the Iraq war during the taping of the show today.

DeDapper notes that Hall and others won their seats in 2006 in part because of sweeping antiwar sentiment, but as he faces reelection, he may have to explain why the country is still engaged in combat in Iraq, even though Democrats have a majority in Congress.

The show airs Sunday, but here's a segment from a transcript the studio sent over:

DeDAPPER:…Democrats, including you, were elected to Congress in 2006, a lot of people believe because there was a public sentiment to get out of Iraq.

Rep. HALL: There still is.

DeDAPPER: You're not out of Iraq. The Democrats haven't been able to do
that.

More after the jump.  read more »

Bill Thompson has a problem with congestion pricing.

Here’s part of the transcript from a television interview Thompson did this morning with NBC’s Jay DeDapper which will air on Sunday:

Mr. THOMPSON: I've got some problems with it. I mean...
DeDAPPER: Name one big problem you have.

Mr. THOMPSON: Well, how do you allow deductibility of tolls for people
coming in through the George Washington Bridge and coming in from Jersey...

DeDAPPER: Like the Holland Tunnel, right.

Mr. THOMPSON: ...and Long Island, and at the same point, you say to New
Yorkers, you have to dig deeper in your pocket? You know, those are the sins of the city. I mean, I think there's an unfairness there. So that was one of the big complaints I had before. I still have that complaint. I just think it's unfair to New Yorkers.

 read more »

Two of the state Senate’s most articulate members, Marty Golden and Eric Schneiderman, debated Eliot Spitzer’s driver’s license plan today on NBC’s News Forum where host “Jay DeDapper was forced to play referee as the two men battled it out.”

Before the outbursts (sort of minor, but still), Schneiderman said there is no safety issue at stake: “In fact, our undocumented immigrants are the safest population we have, committing crimes at one-fifth the rate of native Americans.”

You can watch the debate here.

Here’s a bit of Bill Thompson’s interview with Jay DeDapper of WNBC in which he discusses Eliot Spitzer’s still-unfolding Joe Bruno problem.

Thompson said that if a circumstance arose in which his own chief of staff failed to inform him that he was doing the kinds of things Spitzer’s top aide, Rich Baum, admitted to doing, Thompson would fire him.

From the interview:

JD: If your chief of staff didn't tell you about something like this that was going on and was actively involved, would he still be working for you?

BT: My chief of staff would not be working for me. I'm not going to commenton what Eliot should do with his staff, at the same point, the one thingthat has to occur, his two staff people, it has come out today that they have not spoken to the Attorney General's office. They have to come forward.

Later in the interview, Thompson says he's open the idea of another inquiry into the whole matter, as long as it's carried out by both houses of the state legislature, not just by the Republican-controlled Senate.

From Spitzer's point of view, it's not exactly clear that getting the Democratic-controlled Assembly involved in this matter would be an entirely good thing.

A longer excerpt of the interview is after the jump.  read more »

So, how does anybody run for mayor in this town in the wake of Michael Bloomberg? Aside from the disastrous school bus plan, the race to City Hall at times seems more like a race to stand closest to Bloomberg.

Case in point, WNBC reporter Jay DeDapper's interview with Christine Quinn, whose big State of the City speech - that informal mayoral campaign warning shot - got slightly overshadowed with the mayor's flap about not easing parking restrictions.

But no complaints from Quinn.

DeDAPPER: Is that his problem that he's got a little bit of a tin ear?

Ms. QUINN: You don't end up being the mayor of the city of New York if you don't understand politics.

DeDAPPER: Good point.

[skip]

DeDAPPER: Does the next mayor need to continue his legacy, do you think? I mean, if he laid the path that whoever it is, a Republican, an Independent, a Democrat, they basically have to say, `I'm going to do Bloomberg'?

Ms. QUINN: I think the next mayor, whoever they are, has to be somebody who has a vision for the city, somebody who has a belief in this city and somebody who's willing to work very hard and put the good of this city ahead of politics and who's willing to really move the city forward to keep all of the progress that Mayor Bloomberg has set up moving forward, but to keep it moving forward in a vision that really embraces the needs of New Yorkers.

-- Azi Paybarah

This Sunday on NBC's News Forum, reporter Jay DeDapper talks to republican gubernatorial candidate John Faso.

When asked if he would like George Bush to campaign with him should he be nominated for the republican ticket, he responded: "Well, I will be delighted to have the support of all the republicans that want to support me but particularly the three point two million republicans here in New York State."

Not surprisingly, Faso sees no coattails to ride in this race.

—Nicole Brydson