Zohran Mamdani on NYC as a blueprint for Democrats | NPR's Newsmakers

PR's and newsmakers, where we interview some of the most influential people of our time. Our guest today is the mayor of New York City, Zohan Mamdoni. When you were campaigning, President Trump called you a communist lunatic, you called him a fascist. Now that you've met with him, that you've spoken with him multiple times, do you still think he's a fascist?

Yes. And do you tell him that? Yes. Is your party ready for the midterms?

“I think not only will we push back against the bigotry and cruelty that we've seen in so”

much of these last few years, but also push for a dignity that too often it seems like we have to look for in the history books of the Democratic Party and not in the present day. Mr. City may or Zohan Mamdoni was swept into office on a promise of affordability that resonated with so many voters. It's been just over a hundred days that he's been an office, so I came to City Hall to

ask him about his accomplishments, the economy, the war in Iran, and his relationship with President Trump. We're in a different place. We're in City Hall. From the last time that we spoke, it's been over a hundred days.

We've made inroads on some of your campaign promises, on others, you have not. What would you give yourself as a grade?

I will always leave it to New Yorkers to provide the grades, but I will say that I'm very

proud of what the team was able to accomplish over those first hundred days. This was a time when just on date eight, we delivered $1.2 billion to make universal childcare a reality across our city. This is a time where we secured more than $30 million in settlements with bad landlords repaired more than 6,069 apartments.

A time where we were able to secure nearly $100,000 a day for workers and small businesses that had been exploited by mega corporations and delivery apps. We showed that government can do all of these big transformative things while also doing little things, while also filling in a hundred and two thousand potels in that same length of time.

There are things that have been maybe more difficult to get started. These reform being one, another critics will say that you promised to expand a rental voucher program, but now you're trying to limit it. Are you finding that it is harder to implement campaign promises now that you're actually in the office?

“I think this job comes with an immense amount of difficulty, but that's also because it”

has an immense amount of possibility within it. When I rent for mayor, we built our campaign around three central promises. We talked about the importance of delivering universal childcare, the importance of making buses fast and free, and how we believed that tenants deserve to rent fees and rent stabilized housing.

I'm proud of the fact that beyond the universal childcare, we also announced just on Sunday.

We were going to be speeding up buses for more than a million New Yorkers, because as you

know, we had the slowest buses in America here in New York City. Some of them are riding at an average speed of five miles an hour. We're going to be putting up to six minutes back into New Yorkers' lives for each of these trips, and then when it comes to the rent guidelines board, we had six vacancies on that independent board, and we filled all of them, and we're now looking forward to the decision

that they come to. But I share this with all of you to give you a sense of where we are and what animated so many, and how that coupled with just today's announcement of delivering on city-run grocery stores. Within our first term, it shows people the very things they were told they would be wrong

to believe in. The fact the ones that we can deliver on, when will New Yorkers start to feel that promise of affordability?

“I think there are many who are feeling it already.”

I think of a young mother who told me that she wouldn't consider having another child until she heard the news that we were going to save working parents' upwards of $20,000 a year with free childcare for two-year-olds. I think about even just the cyclist who would come up to me and tell me about the fact that now that we've decriminalized, what was previously a criminal summons for cyclists

across the city, how it's easier for them to get around, be treated the same as they would if they were driving a car. I even just think about the city workers who've been at the heart of so much of this accomplishment, and so much of this work, even predating this administration who for the first time in a long time are getting some of that deserved recognition for what they

do to keep the city running. One of the places where it seems a bit more challenging is on your promise around police reformist, especially because you and the commissioner don't seem to be on the same page. When you look back at what you did promise on policing, especially when it's that particular unit that deals with protestors, some accusative heavy-handed tactics, where do you stand

now?

I stand in the same place as I always have.

I'm committed to disbanding the strategic response group and decoupling our city's response

What we've seen is the bringing together of these two things when in fact they do not need to be conflated.

“And I think part of what you're seeing in our administration is that we want to deliver this”

in the manner that isn't just checking a box, but in a manner that both upholds the sanctity

of the first amendment, the freedom of expression of protest, and also does so in a manner

that keeps New Yorker safe. And in the same period of time, we have codified the fact that the NYPD will now release body-worn camera footage within 30 days. We have stopped the prior administration's approach of giving criminal summonses to cyclists. We have started to bring back that same commitment that we spoke of not only keeping

New Yorker safe, but also delivering justice. We have also established our city's first-ever office of community safety, which will be tasked with delivering the kind of innovative responses to the very crises that have long been pushed aside in New York City politics, whether they be gun violence or the mental health crisis.

This is the very work that our city is taking on as an urgent task before.

But how will you disband that particular unit, which arrested protesters, if the police

commissioner doesn't have the same goal, and if police see you as overly sympathetic to accusers who come forward and say, the police were not acting right. Well, I would say that at the end of the day, as the mayor of the city, if there is something

“that I believe we need to do, then we will do it.”

And I am proud of the work that my police commissioner has been doing, and we are very much on the same page in the need to deliver both safety and justice to New Yorkers. And to me, it's not a question of if we will do this work, it's a question of when, and wanting to ensure that we do this in a manner that we can look back on weeks, months, years after the fact, and say, not only do we do the right thing, but we did it in the right way.

What happens when our political party becomes the prism through which we see every other aspect of our identities? What we're living through, I think, is really the two parties taking opposite sides on whether we want to keep making this type of social progress or whether we want to go back in time.

This is the MPR's coach podcast in the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcast. For a proud Democratic socialist, it's clear Republicans plan to use you and that platform as an attack point come the midterms. Do you feel pressure to prove that your brand of Democratic socialism works before the midterms?

I feel pressure from New Yorkers to deliver for them on their day-to-day needs. For Republicans want to attack a record of making it easier for families to raise their kids in the city, of workers to get paid, what they're owed, of New Yorkers to get around the five boroughs. They can feel free to attack that, but what they will find is that the reasons so many

people across the city and across the country have lost faith in politics is because of that sense that politics has less and less of a relevance to their day-to-day needs. And in fact, one of the most relevant things that we can be doing in our politics today is addressing the material needs of working-class people, that's exactly what we focused on.

What I'm asking is whether you like it or not, you have been made to seem like a boogie man of some kind, right, from the Republicans, especially when you're running. So do you feel an added sense of pressure nationally because of the face you've become

“of the Democratic Party and specifically the progressive part of this party?”

I'll be honest with you, I don't let myself think too much about what Republicans seek to portray me as. I think about the fact that the power of an ideology is judged in the worth of its delivery. And delivery, at the end of the day, is every single thing that we want to do, it's why I spoke on Sunday about hot-hole politics as a way we describe the work that we do.

Because for a long time, it Republicans have sought to describe themselves as being driven by the needs of working people when in reality we've seen a chasm in what they've actually delivered for those people. I mean, look at the war in Iran today.

We're talking about a federal administration that has spent close to $30 billion, killing

thousands of people. At a time when working-class people across this country cannot afford the bare minimum and to be told that a city-run grocery store is implausible, but spending more than $500 million a day to kill people in Iran and Lebanon is not only plausible, but necessary. It speaks to a broken kind of politics and what we're showing is that we can put forward

not just our principles, but also the practical impacts of this work. We can deliver universal childcare and change 6,700 catch basins. We can take on bad landlords across the city and start to repave more than 1,000 miles of roadway. We can do all of these things where we've been told in the past, you can only do one.

Has the war in Iran had an outsized impact specifically on the economy of the city?

than the economy, it's had an impact on the people of this city and across this country. The core of any war is a dehumanization that takes place, and that dehumanization is not limited to any battlefield. It extends into the lives of people across this country, and I spoke to a young Muslim woman who had called after seeing the news that she had been thrown to the ground at a subway

stop.

She told me that the first thing her attacker said to her before he attacked her was I wonder

how many Iranians we killed today. That is what we are allowing to take hold in our politics, and it is critically important for all of us to speak up not just from a position of politics, but frankly even just from a position of morals. Have you shared, I know you've spoken publicly about your concerns about this war, but

“have you shared those directly with President Trump?”

I'll keep the nature of the conversations with the President between the two of us, what I will tell you is that it is no secret. Not my concerns, I would describe it more as a deep opposition to this war, a deep opposition that comes out of a concern for what our politics are incentivizing in this moment, the killing of civilians as opposed to the uplifting of working-class people across this country.

So I know you said, I'll keep the context of those conversations between us, but when

you were campaigning, President Trump did have names for you, called you a communist lunatic, and you had names for him, you called him a fascist. Now that you've met with him that you've spoken with him multiple times, do you still think he's a fascist? Yes.

And do you tell him that? Yes. How does he react?

“I think everyone saw in the conversation we had in the Oval Office after our first meeting.”

What about your impressions? I mean, given the questions that have been raised, including on the right about his mental acuity in this moment, posting online that he would end a civilization, recently posting an image, AI generated of himself that seemed to depict him as Jesus and then deleting it. How do you assess that as somebody who has met with him, spoken with him?

I've been quite clear with the President also with the public of my deep disagreement and opposition to so many of these policies, and I think that one of the few things that we have in common is that we are both New Yorkers, and we will both, and I think one part of being a New Yorker is both to be honest and to be direct. And when I'm sitting with the President, we talk about places of potential collaboration,

whether it could be working together to deliver more than 12,000 homes, the most homes delivered in a single housing development, the city of scenes since the early 1970s, but we're also very clear about places of disagreement. And one place that I mentioned to the President was on my views around ICE.

“I believe that ICE raids are cruel and inhumane, I believe they do nothing to deliver us”

on the state of intent of public safety. And in the previous meeting that I had with the President, I mentioned that just that morning, a Columbia student had been detained by ICE, and I said that this was actually part of a larger pattern of five individuals who had been detained in or around Columbia University. I gave him that list about 30 minutes after the meeting he called me and said that he had

now made the decision that he was going to release that Columbia student. And to me, it also showcases the importance of continuing to make the case for our city and its people no matter if you agree or disagree with the person that you're speaking with. He seems to like you. Are you in the President, friends? I would say that he's the President and I am the mayor and the basis of the relationship

comes from those two positions. But other democratic mayors have asked for people to be released from detention. They have seen ICE presences in their cities that we haven't seen here in New York City. Why hasn't he had the same approach to New York City that we've seen in Chicago in Minneapolis and other democratic-led cities?

I think in some ways that's a question for the President. In other ways, I think to be a New Yorker and to be speaking to another New Yorker is there is a commonality that it comes with that where the President himself said that the better this city does the happier he feels. That's something that I feel the same way, the better the city does the happier I feel.

And so in those meetings I seek to always bring up things that are both honest about

how we both feel and that would be transformative for the city that we both love. And to New Yorker's public safety is a prerequisite for the affordability agenda and then that affordability is something we want to deliver. And we know the number one crisis facing New Yorkers is the housing crisis. You've inherited a $12 billion shortfall.

There have been job losses in the private sector that we haven't seen in other parts of New York. And one of the things we talked about the last time we spoke was the concern among business

Has that shifted?

“People like Bill Ackman, Trump supporter, Billionaire, who really bet against you, literally”

with his money.

That has that relationship changed.

Do you talk to him now and get advice on how to deal with these businesses and attract them here? I can't say that I get advice from Bill Ackman if I had done that I wouldn't be sitting opposite you as the mayor. But I do speak to a number of business leaders across the city.

And while we see that both at a national level there are troubling economic signs in the New York City is obviously part of that national economy, we also look at a local economy that sees the highest demand from Manhattan office space in over a decade that sees the most amount of venture capital arrays in the single quarter since 2021 that sees the highest number of Wall Street bonuses and also an economy that we know still needs to strengthen

so that every New Yorker can feel that strength in their day-to-day life. Because no matter the statistics that I read a lot, I can walk anywhere in this city and I can meet a New Yorker who feels as if their day-to-day needs are even harder to afford today than they were the day before. And so to that end, we're looking to also build more of an economy that reaches the extent

of each parts of the five boroughs and one that every New Yorker sees themselves as a part of. As part of our NPR Newsmaker series, Jamie Diamond, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, which is headquartered here, told Stevenski, he thinks cities need to compete to attract businesses, to by giving tax breaks and incentives.

He cited places like Texas as very business friendly. And you came into, as I mentioned, this office with a tough budget and significant job losses in the private sector. Are you willing to offer those kinds of incentives to bring back some of the thousands

“of businesses that have left or shuddered over the last few years?”

You know, first, you are absolutely correct to describe this what we inherited as difficult.

We're talking about initially a $12 billion fiscal deficit that through an immense amount

of work and savings and use of our own reserves. We were able to bring down to $5.4 billion that's still where it stands today. And it is the kind of fiscal deficit the city has not seen for a generation, dwarfs even that of the great recession. What makes this distinct, however, unlike the great recession, is it's a crisis purely

of city governments making, not one of any external factors. It's an inability to budget in an honest way to actually account for the expenses of what is in our city government services. We are looking now for every potential saving and any example of fraud or inefficiency or waste is something to eliminate entirely.

Now amidst all of that, we also want to build a city that in the words of Jamie Diamond competes, because I agree there is no, we do not have the right to be, it is not something that is that we inherit to be the greatest city in the world. We have to prove it and earn it every single day. And part of the ways that we do that, I don't think it's necessary through a government

and policy of subsidy and tax breaks. I think it's through a government that delivers the highest quality of public services across the country. I think it's by ensuring that New Yorkers can look at streets that are paved, at potholes that are filled, at a quality of life that has no competition frankly.

And I think a big part of this also that I've heard from many business leaders as well as New Yorkers across the five boroughs is public safety.

“And that's why it's been such a focus for us.”

Is how do we drive down already record crime to even lower levels such that when businesses are thinking about where they want to open a business, where they want to keep that business, they think of New York City.

And we're excited by the fact that not only has JP Morgan Chase opened their new multi-billion

dollar headquarters, but also that MX has decided to build a new global headquarters here. The Bank of America has recommitted to a long-term lease with the city and that when we look at the World Cup coming in now less than 60 days, that there's a multi-billion dollar economic opportunity that comes with that as well. You talked about wanting to build stronger relationships with all kinds of New Yorkers,

but specifically Jewish New Yorkers. You drew significant support from liberal and leftist Jewish Americans, Jewish communities, but you also drew a lot of skepticism. And there was a lot of fear that your sharp criticisms of Israel would also translate into something else.

You did not renew two executive orders from your predecessor. One that adopted a broad definition of antisemitism and another that prohibited city employees from engaging in the boycott divest and sanctions movement against Israel. And there's drew some concerns from some Jewish groups here. Why did you make that decision?

So we made the decision coming into office that we would revoke all executive orders that the prior mayor had signed after he was federally indicted. It was a moment at which many New Yorkers started to ask themselves what was the motivation

Was it driven by self-interest?

“Or was it in fact being driven by what it should be, which is public interest?”

And we've also sought to show that we are fully committed in fulfilling what we had spoken about over the course of the campaign to not just keep Jewish New Yorkers safe across the city alongside each and every New Yorker, but also to celebrate and cherish those same New Yorkers. And so over the course, for example, of Passover.

It's been an incredible opportunity for me to attend a number of sayders to host Jewish

city hall officials at our home at Gracie Manchin for a sayder to sit there as staffers look for the africoment to get a better sense of what it means to lead a city with such incredible beauty and breadth of Jewish life across the five burrows and also to get a glimpse into the amount of service that so many organizations within the Jewish community are providing, whether it was joining with an organization on an airfield to give out food that they had

procured for teachers in the community or if it was sitting with a Jewish New Yorker looking at civil war era texts together, it is all been a joy to be able to be the mayor of a city with such a flourishing community that I'm so proud to represent. How will your office define anti-Semitism? So we actually have the office to combat anti-Semitism here at City Hall and one of their

jobs is to not only define that but frankly to conduct a listening tour to actually bring in the perspectives of Jewish New Yorkers from across the five burrows. You face a lot of anti-Muslim rhetoric and fear mongering around your faith and the faith of many Americans, you know an example that you'll bring Islamic law to New York City, but you do turn to scripture to make political points both from within your faith and from

other faiths and you I for example an immigration, you quoted the Quran, you quoted the Bible, should there be a role for religion and politics?

“I think that religion is a part of so many New Yorkers lives and it also provides a guide”

for many as to what it looks like to bring a morality into a politics that is often missing and what I mean by a morality is a belief in the dignity of those who are struggling and we've seen religion used as a tool to divide and I've instead seen it across the city as a tool to actually find commonality among so many because the lessons of many scriptures they are similar in the empowerment of working people and in the belief that there has to

be something more than simply a desire of profit when it comes to delivering for people. You said we've seen religion used to divide, are you talking about this administration? I think it is something that is frankly not exclusive to any one administration, we're seeing it within this federal administration, we've also seen it within both political parties in this country, there, you know, so much of the bigotry that I faced, it was

not just in the general election, it was also in the primary election and the language that was used then was language that was used among and by Democrats within a primary for this position and we're speaking about a city that has more than a million Muslims that call at home and yet it's a city where so many are made to feel as if their guests as if their belonging is forever in question and I want this to be a city where every

New Yorker no matter their faith no matter where they were born understands that their

belonging is never in question.

Has that changed in your party because when we spoke when you were the presumptive nominee, there were still many democratic leaders who would not endorse you and had severe criticisms for you and at times said things directly about your faith.

“I think that many are waking up to a New York city that is eager for a new era of politics”

and one where there is a belief in that most sacred thing which is what makes all of us New Yorkers and we define being a New Yorker as anyone who lives here and we don't seek to bring back that politics that has been almost a part of so much of the discourse across the city across the country which is looking for different ways in which to define people

such that we can always have those who are excluded.

Are there ever any times where you smile a lot and even when people are being insulting you, you still smile. Are there ever any times where you're like I'm done being nice about this? It is much easier for me. My natural disposition is to smile however there are things in our politics that are worthy

of being pushed back against and I make sure to make that clear and my own words and

what it is that we will fight back against because what we see is that the kind of

bigotry and cruelty that has become endemic in our politics it's not unique in that so many people across the city face it what makes that unique sometimes is the willingness to allow

“it to fester and it requires the kind of forceful pushback that I think has often been”

missing. You are a leading voice in your party, you're the mayor of New York but you are also a national figure. Are you included in these conversations about the future of the party and what Americans writ large want from this party?

In a group chat or do you think I don't know do you have a WhatsApp chat? Is there a group chat? I don't know they have it you know I think what has been really exciting is that the hunger that I speak about for a new kind of politics it doesn't feel specific to New York City it feels broader than that and I think in our politics we've often spent a lot of time

pontificating about the meaning of something that is time that I believe we could spend doing more of that thing and I think that in delivering what it is that we've been speaking about over the last more than 100 days that in itself serves as the power of example for what can be done elsewhere.

“I think about the path to so much that we aspire for in other countries it all begins with”

one example and here in New York City we're seeking to be an example for what it can look like to make life more affordable for working people. Is your party ready for the midterms in the sense that there was a message from American voters in the presidential election that they did not want what the Democrats were promising or saying is that going to be different do you think?

I do. I think that what we are going to see is a message that Americans across the country are fed up with what politics has come to mean over these last few years and I'm excited by a number of candidates right here in New York City we have Brad Lander who's running for Congress here in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Claire Valdez running for Congress in Queens and Brooklyn

and I think what they show is the very kind of politics that people have been eager to see on the national stage a politics that understands not only will we push back against the bigotry and cruelty that we've seen in so much of these last few years but also push for a dignity that to often it seems like we have to look for in the history books of the Democratic Party and not in the present day.

Okay I can't let you go without asking you went from one bedroom in Queens to a literal mansion. It's just. What are you doing with all the space? What's it like?

You never realized how small your one bedroom is until you try and move into the larger

bedroom that we have there. I'll be honest with you it's pretty nuts to move into a space like this. I don't spend all that much time there most of my time frankly is here at City Hall and around New York City. I've tried to live life like the same New Yorker that I was before this because so much

of how you see the world is informed by who you're seeing it with and how you're living in that world. So if you spend every single day driving around in a tinted window security detail you will have a very specific view of the city.

“That's why I'm looking to take the train to bike around the city to walk around the city”

because that's also how you actually meet other New Yorkers and you break out of the bubble that so many have come to expect of politics where politicians only seem to be spending time with other politicians or the people who donated to make them politicians. Is there anything you really miss about your old life? I used to only be about three blocks from Steinway and I definitely missed Steinway but

I can still see it very far but it's still there from from the long. Hey everyone, Danny, thank you for taking the time. Very welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

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