I still am a virulent anti-communist. It is a bad system, an immoral system, and one that takes away the rights of people and the rights of individuals. And everywhere it’s gone, it’s failed. – Joe Lhota
I have Czech, I have Russian, I have English, I have Italian. Uh, what am I missing? A little bit of Irish. The Russian is Jewish. So I’m your classic American mutt. – Joe Lhota
The mayor of New York is the chief executive of the city. It is a complex organization, and it requires the requisite skills to understand how to be the leader of the people and manage the government of N.Y. – Joe Lhota
The role of government is to steer us in the right direction, not do all the work for us. – Joe Lhota
Would I be the 3rd term of Rudy Giuliani or the 4th term of Mike Bloomberg? It’ll be neither. It’ll be the first term of Joe Lhota. We’re all different. – Joe Lhota
My dad was a New York City cop. His father was a New York City fireman. And my mother’s dad was a city taxi driver. – Joe Lhota
I am extremely respectful of the Jewish community. You know, I am Christian. I think of Jews as my older brothers. I mean, there wouldn’t be Christianity without the Jewish religion. There is a direct connection between the two of them. – Joe Lhota
I know Rudy Giuliani. I like Rudy Giuliani. I worked with him during his administration. But we’re completely different people. – Joe Lhota
There were 23 or 24 separate tax cuts during the Giuliani administration. I’d love to be able to equal that. – Joe Lhota
In 1964, I tried to convince my grandfather, who was active in the New York City firefighters union, to vote for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson because at the time I thought his approach to limited government was right on. – Joe Lhota
I’ve been marching in every single ethnic nationality parade all throughout the City of New York. We’re all Americans first and foremost, but people understand their heritage and it’s good to see. – Joe Lhota
What was unique about me being in City Hall during the Giuliani Administration, I was the only one who wasn’t an attorney. I may have been the only one who didn’t work in a prosecutor’s office. So I took a completely different point of view on how the city should be run. Very close to a business, very close on metrics and numbers. – Joe Lhota
I would leave school every day and walk to my grandparents’ house under the El because everyone worked. I was 6 and walking home alone from school. It was a different city and a different time. – Joe Lhota
My earliest memories are of my father explaining to me the American Dream and how he expected me to do better than he did. – Joe Lhota
Mayors of New York have been elected not because of their party label, but because of their philosophy and their approach overall, and that has been since time immemorial in New York, that people are not party-oriented in New York. – Joe Lhota
Rudy Giuliani did some phenomenal things in the city if you think of the transformation of the city and the quality of life. – Joe Lhota
I was born here in the city, born in the Bronx. Son of a cop. One grandfather was a taxi driver; the other was a firefighter. New York is in my DNA. – Joe Lhota
I have voted for a Republican for president ever since I was voting and since I was 18 years old. – Joe Lhota
