December 31, 2015Brianna Keilar: I want to talk more now about the security situation in New York City for New Year’s.Joining me now, we have New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Thank you so much, mayor, for joining us – and you’ve said that you are going to have the biggest police presence ever for New Year’s Eve celebration. Tell us about what that means – the officers, the multiple agencies that are coming together for this.Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, Brianna, we’re going to have about 6,000 police officers in Times Square to keep everyone safe. It’s a very, very extensive process of screening that we go through, for anyone who goes into Times Square to enjoy the celebration. Look, this is one of the great events in this country each year – about a million people are expected. It’s a fantastic party. We’re going to keep it safe. It’s going to be one of the safest places in the United States tonight because 6,000 police officers – lots of additional measures, lots of security measures you can see, lots you can’t see that will keep people safe. And we have added now in New York City over the course of this year a new 500-person specialized, anti-terror squad within the NYPD – our Critical Response Command. We put that in our last city budget. That’s now up and running. These are officers who are heavily armed, well-trained, specifically to prevent terror incidents – 500-plus officers, full-time – you’ll see a lot of their presence tonight as well.Keilar: Is this one of the big concerns for you? This idea that, maybe there are no credible threats when it comes to this huge celebration in Times Square but, you know, we just heard Evan’s report there, before San Bernardino there wasn’t a credible threat – it’s this, sort of, amorphous challenge that you deal with when you’re a city official.Mayor: Well, it’s true there’s always things that are out there that we may not know about, but I’d like to note, Brianna, for one thing, New York City has a tradition – over 14 years now, the NYPD has done an extraordinary job of preventing terror attacks. There’s been a number of plots that were threatened, a number of plots that were thwarted – the NYPD has an extraordinary intelligence gathering capacity of its own and we work, now, increasingly more closely with the Department of Homeland Security, with FBI, etcetera. One of the things I think we can say in the past is the different agencies didn’t always communicate optimally. Now, that communication is much, much stronger. So, you see plots like the one up in Rochester, New York, which is a couple hundred miles from here – you see plots like that caught in time – that has been what’s typical. Now, from time to time there is a lone wolf who we don’t have indication of – that’s a reminder to all of us to be vigilant. The phrase, if you see something, say something, actually is a very meaningful phrase. You may get an indication – someone’s behavior changes, they say something to you that suggests a problem – the authorities need to know that. One of the things every citizen can do is let the authorities know if they sense something that could be a danger – obviously, if you see a suspicious package. I think the fact is that most of the time – the vast majority of the time we do have an indication of the problem in time to do something about it.Keilar: And we just heard from someone not too long ago who did security for this Times Square celebration for ten years and he said that, look, people are standing around for hours and they have really nothing to do but kind of look, and watch, and wait – and, so, that’s what they’re doing.I do want to ask you about something that we’ve seen out of Belgium. In Brussels, officials actually cancelled their New Year’s celebration, cancelled their fireworks because of the threat of terror. Paris cancelled fireworks – they’re toning down their celebration. Can you imagine that ever happening in New York?Mayor: I can’t except for the most exceptional situations. We have a 35,000-member police force – it’s actually going to grow by several thousand, next year, in patrol strength. We have the capacity here to take a celebration like this, and to make sure it’s exceedingly safe. We did that with the Pope’s visit back in September. At the same time his Holiness was here, 170 – I think it was – leaders from around the world, were here for the U.N. General Assembly – that came off without a hitch. The Thanksgiving Parade had several million people at it – that came off without a hitch. We have the capacity, and, as I said, now – a 500-plus member anti-terror dedicated force that specializes – and you’ll see them tonight. You’ll see lots of police officers in regular uniforms with regular weaponry, but you’ll also see the heavily-armed officers from our Critical Response Command. We can protect people in a very special way here in this city. And anyone who goes into the celebration area, goes through not one but two magnetometers, and gets a very, very careful screening. So, you’re right, with this kind of concentration and focus, this is going to be a very safe place tonight.Keilar: Yes, they are dedicated people, for sure, to go through that to celebrate in Times Square tonight.While I have you mayor, I want to ask you about an announcement that we’re expecting from President Obama – that he’s going to take executive action when it comes to guns – that he wants to, through his power alone, expand background checks on gun sales, going after the so-called gun show loophole, where when you have owner-to-owner sales, there’s, sort of, a way to avoid a background check. I imagine there’s going to be a legal challenge. I also know that that you would support this move. How do you see this playing out? What are your concerns here?Mayor: I think the president’s right and I appreciate the boldness of the action he is taking. Look, from a New York City perspective, too many of our people have died because of illegal guns that got into the hands of criminals. Some of our police officers have died because of illegal guns in the hands of criminals. We’re sick of it – and we need stronger gun regulation in this country. It has to be fair. It has to respect Second Amendment rights. But I think the president is absolutely right to say, here’s a loophole where the background checks aren’t being done properly, we need to close that loophole – we need to make sure that terrorists don’t get those guns – we all know there’s thousands of people on the no-fly list who can walk into a gun shop, or go to a gun show, and get a gun. That’s unacceptable – that’s certainly unacceptable for New York City – it’s unacceptable for the whole country, in my view. We need to make sure that our families are safe and our law enforcement officers are safe by getting rid of these illegal guns. So, the president’s on the right rack – and I think, bluntly, that this horrible series of events – you know, the campus massacres that became all too common, what happened in San Bernardino – all of these events are, I think, increasingly causing the American people to look for some middle ground on the gun issue, and I think the president is doing something to bring us toward that kind of progress.Keilar: Mayor Bill de Blasio, thank you so much. Happy New Year to you – good luck. We hope this is a wonderful New Year’s. We will be watching, of course, because our special coverage starts at 8:00 pm with Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper.[Laughter]Mayor: Thank you. Happy New Year, Brianna. Enjoy.Keilar: Alright, you too.