Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers to break down her role in the letter business leaders sent to Congress to certify 2020 election results.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Nearly 200 business leaders have signed onto a letter urging Congress to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. That letter was published yesterday by the business advocacy group Partnership for New York City. And joining us now is Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City. Kathryn, thank you so much for joining us.

You know, we have a sizable number of business leaders who signed this letter, including executives from Edelman, Pfizer, BlackRock, just to name a few. Why was it important to those business leaders that were signatories on this letter to essentially urge Congress to move past these elections?

KATHRYN WYLDE: Well, unfortunately, we've reached a point where the economy and business are really being impacted by what's going on in the political world. The challenge to our political stability, to our political system, to our electoral process by members of Congress is a real threat to business. And so there's great concern, and people just wanted to weigh in before the critical vote that takes place tomorrow so that the members of Congress understand that this is not just a political game that can stay within the confines of Washington, DC. This is going to affect our entire country.

Business investment creates jobs. It keeps our economy going. And that's going to be in jeopardy, at risk if we have political instability, a potential constitutional crisis with challenging the legitimate election of a president.

KRISTIN MYERS: You know, I think a lot of folks don't necessarily think of political chaos being an economic issue. And you just highlighted one area in which it is. And challenging these elections has caused a lot of chaos throughout an already turbulent year. I'm hoping you can connect the dots for us just a little bit more and for some folks at home how business leaders are seeing their bottom lines continue to be impacted by a lot of the political back and forth, the political theater that we have going on right now around these elections.

KATHRYN WYLDE: Well, to start with, our economy is global. And the whole world is watching what's going on here. And frankly, it doesn't make much sense to those who are seeing it from the outside. It doesn't make much sense to many of us here.

But the business community, in particular, is looking for stability, for certainty, as is the American public. The COVID has created great uncertainty and a lack of trust in our institutions and in our ability to economically recover. People-- millions of Americans have lost their jobs, lost their livelihoods. Small business is in crisis.

And we're in the process of doubting ourselves over an election that's been through 50 different courts that have validated the results. And it's time for Congress to act, certify, which is supposed to be a ceremonial process-- certify the decision of the Electoral College, and let's move on.

The everyday people are dying in this country, and we need to make sure that we have a clear plan, a clear path forward, and that it happens quickly. We can't wait 10 days. We can't wait any longer to have the transition of the duly elected new administration take place.

KRISTIN MYERS: Now, you just mentioned the pandemic, which, of course, no one can stop thinking about, as we are currently still in the midst of it. And throughout this pandemic, we've seen a lot of companies stepping up and filling a lot of gaps that have been left behind from this pandemic and also from the federal government.

I'm wondering, as you're talking to business leaders, how are they planning on navigating in this post-pandemic world? And how are they planning to help their workers navigate through all of these challenges?

KATHRYN WYLDE: Well, I think you're going to see a lot more workplace flexibility. We've learned that remote work can be productive. You'll probably see less business travel and more use of-- of media to communicate. And that's going to have repercussions throughout the economy.

You'll probably see people spending less time in the office, more time flexibly. But I don't think that-- and people will want office space, private office space near where they live so they can check out when they don't want to be home with the kids learning remotely and go to a local office.

So I think we're going to see lots of changes. We have great confidence that we will recover. But we need leadership, strong leadership to do that. We need to know who is president. And we need to have the transition to the new administration be clear and be sending the right messages.

The vaccine crisis that you were just talking about, getting the vaccine out is one area that we all know is so important. And that with all the distraction, with the tension focused on the politics rather than the vaccine, that's got to be holding things up.

KRISTIN MYERS: Right. Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, thanks for joining us today.

KATHRYN WYLDE: Thank you.