This Past Weekend with Theo Von - #687 - Zohran Mamdani

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00:00:30.120 He's the 112th mayor of New York City and one of the most talked about figures in politics.

00:00:36.520 He's got a lot of big ideas and we're going to get into it.

00:00:40.780 I'm thankful for his time.

00:00:42.260 Today's guest is Mr. Zoran Mamdani.

00:01:00.000 And if you got to move, Zoran, just do you prefer Zoran?

00:01:05.280 Yeah, I'm fine with that.

00:01:06.160 Okay.

00:01:07.240 Well, all right.

00:01:09.340 Yeah, Zoran is good.

00:01:11.940 Theo, I assume is fine.

00:01:13.360 Yeah, that's fine, man.

00:01:14.500 Thank you so much.

00:01:15.280 No, please, man.

00:01:16.540 There's a lot of folklore out there about who you are, right?

00:01:20.560 And a lot of people have heard your name, but they don't know you.

00:01:23.060 Yeah.

00:01:23.540 You were born in Uganda.

00:01:26.200 Yeah.

00:01:26.500 You moved to New York at age of seven.

00:01:28.660 Yeah.

00:01:29.300 You were a rapper for a little while.

00:01:31.200 Who wasn't?

00:01:32.300 Yeah, a little while.

00:01:33.960 But give me the two-minute,

00:01:36.660 give me the two-minute who is Zoran Mamdani.

00:01:40.520 I would say it starts and ends with being a New Yorker.

00:01:43.220 As you said, I moved to our city when I was seven years old.

00:01:47.180 My dad got a job here in New York City at Columbia.

00:01:50.300 And so I grew up in the Upper West Side

00:01:51.860 and went to middle school in the neighborhood,

00:01:54.740 went to high school in the Bronx, Bronx Science.

00:01:56.660 and then I left for college

00:01:59.280 and came back to this city

00:02:01.840 and the thing that has always been

00:02:03.300 a part of my life is this city

00:02:06.060 no matter what stage of my life I'm in

00:02:07.880 and to me right now

00:02:09.800 I have the greatest job in the world

00:02:11.380 because every day I get to wake up

00:02:12.900 serve the same city that I've loved

00:02:14.800 since I was seven years old

00:02:16.060 and I think especially with a view of

00:02:19.360 how do we make this a city

00:02:20.760 that not only everybody can love

00:02:22.260 but everybody can live in

00:02:23.400 because a lot of people love this city

00:02:25.140 but not as many of them can live here.

00:02:27.140 And that's because this is also most expensive city

00:02:29.920 in the United States of America.

00:02:31.040 Is that true?

00:02:31.660 Yep.

00:02:32.120 Wow.

00:02:32.340 It's the third most expensive city in the world.

00:02:34.400 Wow.

00:02:35.500 Yeah.

00:02:35.880 What am I talking about?

00:02:36.940 I got to pay whenever I leave here.

00:02:38.220 Yeah.

00:02:38.680 And I'm not excited about it.

00:02:40.720 It's an expensive place to be.

00:02:42.980 What made you want to be mayor?

00:02:44.840 Like I'm a comedian, right?

00:02:47.880 You know, self-proclaimed,

00:02:49.240 but there's some evidence of it, right?

00:02:50.560 Because it's a weird thing to say.

00:02:51.840 There's enough evidence.

00:02:52.760 It's a weird thing to say though sometimes,

00:02:54.460 but i'm a comedian because i need like there's something i need people's approval right there's

00:02:59.500 something i need when i go on stage the laughter i don't know what it is i need to be seen i don't

00:03:04.580 know what it is but being a mayor just it seems like you know sometimes the mayor is like you

00:03:09.800 know the the guy in town who like finally wanted to be able to say well everybody picked me or like

00:03:14.380 you know it becomes this sort of i'm the hero kind of thing like why like why yeah why do you

00:03:19.820 want to be mayor. I think the thing that pushed me the most to run for this position was both a

00:03:28.980 love of the city, but also a frustration with the fact that a lot of the leaders of the city

00:03:32.740 talked about the problems. Like they, there was nothing they could do about it. It was like,

00:03:37.920 somebody's got to figure this out. It's like, you're the mayor.

00:03:42.680 That's where we are with a lot of, with a lot of-

00:03:44.940 is you. And I think it's not to say these are easy things to resolve. It's not to say you can

00:03:50.480 snap your fingers and people just were refusing to do it. But it's that a lot of times it felt

00:03:54.080 like people weren't even trying. And if they were, they were just trying to make things worse

00:03:58.200 because there was money to be made when you make things worse. I mean, this flip side of being the

00:04:03.220 most expensive city in the world is that a lot of people make a lot of money in the city. And amidst

00:04:08.500 all of that wealth, one in four New Yorkers are living in poverty. So to me, it was looking at

00:04:13.920 the politics of the city I love and seeing a complete abdication of duty, just like a sense

00:04:20.500 of somebody else's problem, not mine to fix. And the thing about being the mayor is, yeah, it's

00:04:25.460 tough, but also you actually have tools that you can use to help people, to make people's lives

00:04:30.700 better. Is that an honest fact, Mr. Mondani? Yes, sir. 26% of me, so you're at your head.

00:04:39.320 It's going to be a tough start to the interview.

00:04:42.180 26% of New York City residents, totally a record 2.2 million people live below the poverty line.

00:04:51.320 Once you got in office, was there things like, do you get to see what's really going on?

00:04:55.600 Like once you're in there, can they keep like, I don't even know who they are anymore,

00:05:00.640 but it's like, are there still secrets kept?

00:05:02.940 Are you able to see that like, okay, the way that this is structured isn't for the everyday man,

00:05:09.000 that this system here has been built like for the elites

00:05:13.020 or to favor the elites?

00:05:14.380 Like, what did you see?

00:05:16.300 I think one of the major things I saw

00:05:18.280 was how deeply mismanaged the city budget was.

00:05:21.920 It's not a sexy topic

00:05:23.620 or one that most people wake up thinking about,

00:05:25.760 but so often in politics,

00:05:27.820 the incentive is just to tell

00:05:30.380 the best possible story of the day

00:05:32.000 and not tell the whole truth

00:05:33.440 about what's actually happening.

00:05:35.240 And so the prior administration had said,

00:05:36.920 you know, we had a balanced budget.

00:05:37.980 We had, I don't know, maybe a $6 billion deficit or so in the year to come.

00:05:43.220 And then we came in, we looked through all the books, and we found that at a best case scenario, we were at a $12 billion deficit.

00:05:52.880 In the city?

00:05:54.060 In this city.

00:05:54.940 Wow.

00:05:55.300 And the last time we had deficits like that, there was a major global event.

00:05:59.780 Something had happened to cause the deficit.

00:06:02.080 It was, you know, it was tough when it was the peak of the pandemic.

00:06:05.060 It was tough when it was the global financial crisis.

00:06:07.980 there was no event around this

00:06:10.340 that could explain this much of a deficit.

00:06:12.760 So what do you think is going on?

00:06:13.680 Is it just greed?

00:06:14.640 Like, is it just-

00:06:15.280 I think it's, I mean, look-

00:06:17.140 Like, what did you notice?

00:06:18.180 Like, what were some of the, like-

00:06:19.340 I think a lot of it is incompetence

00:06:20.780 and a lack of interest in resolving it,

00:06:24.020 a sense that you could just keep pushing it

00:06:26.300 until it was somebody else's problem.

00:06:28.200 Wow.

00:06:28.740 And that to me is like, yeah, look,

00:06:30.660 I want to do a good job while I'm the mayor.

00:06:32.960 I also want to leave the city

00:06:34.820 in a good standing for whoever comes next

00:06:37.820 because it's still the same city.

00:06:39.280 Whoever's the mayor, we still live in this city.

00:06:41.300 We still love this city.

00:06:42.620 And so when you come in and you're like,

00:06:43.980 actually the deficit is twice as large,

00:06:46.420 there's nothing you can pin it to

00:06:48.060 besides internal mismanagement.

00:06:50.340 It also just begs the question of what is going on

00:06:53.960 and what have been the decision-making points

00:07:00.880 over the course of the prior administration

00:07:02.180 that led to this point?

00:07:03.600 So I think that was one of the big things

00:07:04.860 where you look under the hood

00:07:06.060 and it is way worse than what you would have imagined.

00:07:09.240 And you also realize how so much of the government

00:07:11.560 is built with a short term in mind.

00:07:13.720 I'll give you an example.

00:07:15.420 I come in, we start to see the most serious snowfall

00:07:18.960 we've seen in New York City for a while.

00:07:20.560 We haven't really had winters with a lot of snow recently.

00:07:24.240 Oh, that's nice.

00:07:24.780 I like snow.

00:07:25.700 Yeah.

00:07:26.000 You know, I used to like snow until I became the mayor

00:07:28.920 and I thought about snow as a structural problem.

00:07:31.620 Well, we're probably overpaying for it from somebody.

00:07:33.520 Well, I mean, the big thing is that I found out that the way we budget for snow removal services is as an average of the recent year's cost of snow removal.

00:07:43.220 So if you haven't had snow for the last few years, you're not going to have any money really set aside for that snow removal.

00:07:50.120 Got it.

00:07:50.380 And so I think having to reallocate that funding, deal with the first blizzard in 10 years, these are the kinds of things that are some of the ones that they shock you when you get in there.

00:07:58.600 So it's fair to say then you just saw a lot of mismanagement.

00:08:01.200 There was mismanagement.

00:08:02.300 There was waste.

00:08:02.820 There's also this addiction to consulting, a sense that, you know, for years we've been told that if you contract something out of government, you will save money by bringing in kind of specialized consultants.

00:08:16.380 When we looked at the city budget, when we looked at different departments, we realized we had to save a lot of money through efficiency as well.

00:08:24.760 We couldn't just look for help from elsewhere.

00:08:27.360 So we set up something called chief savings officers in every department.

00:08:31.500 And their remit was, how can you save this percentage in your department without cutting

00:08:38.000 services? We do not want to cut services. So we saved $94 million just by renegotiating contracts

00:08:44.900 to a better rate. We saved $24 million just by letting go of unused office space. These are the

00:08:52.720 kinds of things where you can actually save more than a billion dollars without affecting the

00:08:59.140 services you're delivering to people and that to me is like look i'm i'm a socialist i believe

00:09:03.220 in the importance of government to deliver for working people i also believe that that government

00:09:08.020 has to be the most excellent efficient version of itself to be worthy of people's trust and when i

00:09:14.400 came in the government that we saw was powered by incredible city workers but mismanaged at the top

00:09:20.880 where waste was just an accepted part of doing business yeah and that can't be every time you

00:09:26.700 waste you tell somebody don't believe in government you give them a reason yeah that's a good point

00:09:32.840 actually yeah it's true you're like how why would i even yeah why would i waste i don't want to pay

00:09:36.880 my taxes somebody's just gonna somebody's just gonna misappropriate it but did you notice did

00:09:42.080 you notice a lot of fraud like was it fraudulent do you think it seemed or was it just or is it

00:09:45.700 is it even worth figuring that out i think it's it's if you if you find an evidence of fraud it's

00:09:50.400 always worth figuring it out if that's actually the case what i will say is from what we've seen

00:09:54.160 it's more to do with mismanagement it's more to do with just kind of fiscal impropriety i would

00:10:02.620 say like moving money around to make it look like things are better than they are um there there are

00:10:07.560 some people in the past administration who've been investigated for fraud that definitely did

00:10:11.840 happen it's not i'm trying to think i don't even know maybe it's eric adams i don't know if it's

00:10:16.500 him or not is it he was he was the previous mayor he was he he had a number of his bonkers dude

00:10:22.300 Remember when he was looking for those guns

00:10:23.560 in those Care Bears or whatever?

00:10:24.880 I do remember.

00:10:25.660 Yeah, check your backpacks.

00:10:27.100 Yeah, that's crazy.

00:10:29.160 That's crazy.

00:10:29.780 I mean, he had...

00:10:31.020 And they had drugs or whatever in that little...

00:10:33.860 They had like one of those little baby...

00:10:35.920 It was like a little baby stroller.

00:10:37.680 It was a fake one though for kids when they have a baby,

00:10:39.860 like a pretend baby or whatever,

00:10:41.160 to practice for being a mother one day or something.

00:10:44.480 And then they found like a little bag of dope on the side of it.

00:10:48.500 You know, I was like, what is this about?

00:10:50.320 But anyway, that seemed fraudulent to me.

00:10:52.100 He had a number of top aides who were investigated.

00:10:55.860 Yeah.

00:10:56.420 One of them memorably said, when speaking to a contractor, where are my crumbs?

00:11:02.020 Oh, yeah.

00:11:02.600 Like, where's my money as part of this deal?

00:11:04.660 Oh, that sounds like, that's a bar, though, to be honest.

00:11:07.600 If you were going to be corrupt, those are the best words to use.

00:11:10.300 Yeah, at least they were, like, kind of poetic at being corrupt.

00:11:13.380 You got to say that.

00:11:14.600 So that's kind of cool.

00:11:15.460 But I think that, to me, is an example of why people have lost faith.

00:11:19.620 And people, people look at it and they're like, I'm already giving you my money.

00:11:23.040 Why should I give you my time?

00:11:24.460 Why should I give you my care?

00:11:26.340 Yeah.

00:11:26.900 And, and I don't ever want to lecture somebody that they're wrong to feel that way.

00:11:30.700 I want to prove to them that it can be different.

00:11:33.080 And then from there, hope they can, they can believe.

00:11:36.500 I know that, um, and thanks for talking with me today, man.

00:11:39.720 Please.

00:11:40.240 I know one thing that you champion is rent control, right?

00:11:43.340 And that you worked in the housing as a housing counselor.

00:11:47.420 What's the term?

00:11:48.320 So I worked as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor.

00:11:51.780 And I'll say that in English.

00:11:53.200 That is me working for homeowners who are on the brink of foreclosure.

00:11:59.240 They would come in and I would negotiate with their bank on their behalf.

00:12:03.500 And was that private or was that was a public service?

00:12:05.560 That was working for a nonprofit.

00:12:07.240 Okay, got it.

00:12:07.920 So I would work for a nonprofit in Jackson Heights and Richmond Hill in Queens.

00:12:12.300 And these would be middle-class homeowners.

00:12:14.640 They were, you know, what I would find is these are people who we would describe as having a successful middle-class life.

00:12:20.480 Yeah.

00:12:20.700 They had a union job.

00:12:21.940 They had a home that they owned.

00:12:23.500 And it was just one emergency often that would throw them out of being on time with their payments.

00:12:28.800 Oh, yeah.

00:12:29.500 And it would be a medical visit they hadn't planned for, an illness of a family member.

00:12:34.820 You know, they had a car, you know, some kind of a car accident.

00:12:39.520 Yeah, I've been there.

00:12:40.400 I mean, I've been on the edge of where it's like you have to call and you're trying to figure out refinancing.

00:12:43.500 and that takes so much of your time.

00:12:45.040 And then you have to go to a public service

00:12:46.940 to get some help.

00:12:47.660 It's a nightmare.

00:12:48.120 It is.

00:12:49.000 And I think what was,

00:12:51.920 it was one of the more fulfilling things

00:12:53.520 I've ever done in my life

00:12:54.460 because I could help someone stay in their home.

00:12:58.460 The more depressing part of it

00:13:00.060 is no matter how many clients I helped,

00:13:02.440 there would always be another client.

00:13:04.200 And it doesn't take away from the people that you helped,

00:13:07.340 but it makes you realize that this is a systemic issue.

00:13:10.520 There is no amount of individual assistance

00:13:13.120 I can provide that will stop this.

00:13:17.160 And that's then what made me think about running for office

00:13:20.720 was understanding that actually,

00:13:23.160 if you want to resolve this,

00:13:25.020 you have to get into the systems and the structures

00:13:27.500 that create these kinds of conditions.

00:13:29.880 Because there are so many people

00:13:32.200 who you'd think are living a successful middle-class life

00:13:35.040 and they're, like you said, they're on the brink.

00:13:37.000 And they shouldn't need some intervention

00:13:40.440 from one person to be able to survive.

00:13:43.120 That shouldn't be based on whether or not that person does their job.

00:13:46.520 And in that case, that person was me.

00:13:48.620 Where does like, you know, rent increase, like the cost of living has gone up.

00:13:52.680 We live in a time, it's really, really tough, right?

00:13:54.960 You talked about a middle-class worker who's just trying to keep his home.

00:13:58.840 Do you think that the American dream is still alive even?

00:14:02.580 But bring up what is the American dream?

00:14:04.600 People have shit damn forgot what it is.

00:14:06.660 that's the American dream, is the belief that anyone in the United States, regardless of where

00:14:13.140 they started, should have a fair chance to build a better, freer, and more fulfilling life through

00:14:17.140 ability, effort, and opportunity. It's an ideal, not a guarantee. I mean, look at that, look at

00:14:24.120 that second sentence. I think in many ways, that is the issue. A fair chance. No, it is an ideal,

00:14:30.600 not a guarantee. Right. It's not, okay. So I see what you're saying. So it's not something that's

00:14:34.380 guaranteed to you, but it should be something that we can feel. And I think it's something

00:14:38.660 that it's like, it's kind of like this tone that resonates inside of everybody here that I have a

00:14:43.620 chance. If I show up for myself, if I do my best, you may need a little bit of luck or a little bit

00:14:48.960 of good fortune along the way. I feel like that's always felt like it's been the case, but I feel

00:14:54.120 like that, that, that, that's starting to dissolve. It's slipping away. And it doesn't feel real

00:14:59.160 anymore. It feels like a thing you can believe in, not a thing you can live. And it needs to be,

00:15:05.860 it needs to be a guarantee. If something is just an ideal, it starts to lose its worth. I mean,

00:15:12.520 think about democracy. A lot of people talk about democracy now as an ideal or as a value. And to

00:15:17.880 somebody who can't afford their groceries, they're like, what do I care about a value? What do I care

00:15:21.940 about an ideal? Like, I'll give you an example. To me, the greatest mayor in New York City history,

00:15:27.100 Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia

00:15:29.180 And when he was the mayor

00:15:31.100 This was about 100 years ago

00:15:32.160 He was looking at the fall of democracies in Europe

00:15:34.400 And he was saying

00:15:35.440 People are not turning away from democracy

00:15:37.740 Because they're tired of liberty

00:15:39.500 They're turning away

00:15:41.160 Because they're tired of being hungry

00:15:42.960 They're tired of not being able to feed their family

00:15:45.860 So if democracy doesn't mean the better life

00:15:48.180 That it has to

00:15:48.960 It'll lose its worth

00:15:50.360 And the same thing with the American dream

00:15:51.880 If it's something you can only see

00:15:53.940 When you turn on your TV

00:15:55.060 or you hear about that one guy you grew up with

00:15:57.140 who made it, that doesn't mean enough.

00:15:59.700 And so to me, it's like in this city,

00:16:01.840 the reason I'm focused on housing

00:16:04.500 and childcare and groceries,

00:16:06.800 it's like, these are the basic aspects

00:16:08.660 of a good dignified life

00:16:11.020 and people can't afford them.

00:16:12.540 I mean-

00:16:12.860 Yeah, oh yeah.

00:16:13.740 Well, I've seen some of the stuff that you've done.

00:16:15.140 You know, I know that you were offering

00:16:16.200 like a night out for parents,

00:16:18.340 you know, the opportunity to go have a night out

00:16:20.480 for themselves and to offer childcare to help with that.

00:16:23.660 Tickets for the opera,

00:16:24.660 which is just a chance for somebody to have a new experience. It's pretty cool, right? Like a lot of

00:16:28.580 quality of life sort of things. I think there's, oh, I know you're working with the stabilization

00:16:34.420 of rent control, right? And a two-year moratorium on an increase. Yeah. That's what the independent

00:16:40.500 rent guidelines board that came out, they said for the next year and the year after that,

00:16:44.780 no rent increase for more than 2 million New Yorkers. Right. And it sounds like to me,

00:16:48.560 it sounds like you're just trying to give people a chance to take a breath, right? That's what it

00:16:52.020 sounds like. I mean, all those things kind of like, you know, I can have a night out, right?

00:16:56.480 I can listen to a music that gives me a bit of peace, right? I can know for a couple years that

00:17:02.200 the job that I have is going to equate with the costs that are going to be going out, right?

00:17:07.260 That is such a beautiful way of describing it, is to take a breath. Because when we talk to parents

00:17:15.420 and we ask them, you know, what are the two most important things that could make a difference in

00:17:19.660 your life it's time and money yeah and you give them the time of a night out you take care of the

00:17:25.440 cost of child oh yeah and it keeps the love going if you got to take your lady out you know go out

00:17:30.600 for a dinner yeah go out for a fish dinner but if you got a little couple extra bucks if it's

00:17:35.620 friday that's fish dinner yeah that's if somebody loves you i think they buy you fish but what kind

00:17:40.580 of fish is your favorite huh you know there's one i don't like but it smells really bad but i can

00:17:44.520 never remember which one it is okay i'm gonna hit you with a couple all right is it branzino

00:17:48.740 I feel like it.

00:17:49.960 Branzino is the one that was in the mob or something.

00:17:51.760 I don't eat that one.

00:17:52.420 Was it?

00:17:52.900 Huh?

00:17:53.180 Yeah.

00:17:53.540 Branzino.

00:17:54.720 Was that in the mob?

00:17:55.700 He probably was.

00:17:56.720 What are you even talking about?

00:17:58.600 You're going to tell me Branzino wasn't freaking involved in some fishy business or whatever?

00:18:03.020 All I'm saying is if you want some good fish, 31st Street and Broadway, Astoria, Bahari Estetorio.

00:18:10.160 Great Greek seafood.

00:18:12.080 Bahari?

00:18:12.800 Bahari.

00:18:13.560 Bahari?

00:18:14.180 Yeah.

00:18:14.640 Estetorio?

00:18:15.320 Estetorio.

00:18:15.900 Okay.

00:18:16.420 Branzino.

00:18:17.280 Okay.

00:18:17.520 don't ask he's not a guy there okay okay is the fish okay got it i got it okay yeah i think but

00:18:23.140 there's they miss they there's a lot of misguidance with fish because they'll come in with like

00:18:26.720 every year like a new fish comes out like barramundi where was that my whole life didn't

00:18:30.880 exist bam suddenly who is that that's what i'm saying it's on the menus or yeah he's not running

00:18:34.720 against you you know what i'm saying but barramundi who is he yeah barramundi sounds like i thought we

00:18:39.720 dealt with him but me too but still then they come in with tilapia like they come in with

00:18:43.780 Tilapia is a classic.

00:18:45.060 But has it always been there?

00:18:46.260 It came out probably 16 years ago.

00:18:49.200 People started talking about tilapia.

00:18:50.400 Then they come in with whitefish.

00:18:52.100 And then a lot of American catfish got replaced with this thing.

00:18:54.900 I think it was called whee fish.

00:18:56.460 Can you look it up?

00:18:57.180 This Vietnamese fish.

00:18:58.420 Whee fish?

00:18:58.900 They snuck it in.

00:19:00.360 They snuck it in, you know.

00:19:03.200 Vietnamese fish dishes commonly feature.

00:19:05.800 No, it's called whee fish.

00:19:07.700 No, Q-U-E maybe?

00:19:10.740 Q-U-E.

00:19:11.360 Quee fish?

00:19:12.340 Quee.

00:19:12.860 Well, that's not the clip we need out there.

00:19:16.440 Okay, it's not.

00:19:17.340 Okay, I'm just saying, I'll say this.

00:19:19.820 I was repeating what you said.

00:19:21.360 Well, look, do not never repeat after me, sir.

00:19:24.980 I'll tell you that straight up.

00:19:26.600 But when you look it up,

00:19:27.660 it was a fish that replaced catfish in Louisiana

00:19:30.800 in a lot of restaurants, I think.

00:19:33.640 You know, it's funny because I was born in Uganda

00:19:35.800 and in Kampala, we're by Lake Victoria.

00:19:40.600 Oh, this is one.

00:19:40.900 Oh, swai.

00:19:41.820 The fish you're thinking of is usually SWAI, a Vietnamese farm-raised Pangasius fish,

00:19:49.120 often used as a cheaper substitute for Louisiana U.S. catfish.

00:19:52.300 Is this the one you're thinking of?

00:19:53.280 Yeah, they snuck it in a while back.

00:19:55.140 I don't know what happened.

00:19:57.180 Swai filets are mild, white, boneless, and usually inexpensive properties that make them

00:20:03.540 suitable for fried fish plates.

00:20:05.260 Anyway, there was a time when they were gaslighting a lot of fish plates with using this or whatever.

00:20:10.600 I don't know if gaslighting is a term, but they were tricking people.

00:20:13.340 They didn't tell you, but you just knew something was off, you know?

00:20:16.360 Swy.

00:20:16.960 Yeah, swy.

00:20:17.880 It was just a fish.

00:20:18.440 Never had some swy fish.

00:20:18.840 A fish that had happened.

00:20:20.160 Anyway.

00:20:20.640 Do you like it?

00:20:21.720 I didn't like it, and I knew something was wrong.

00:20:25.040 You knew it wasn't catfish.

00:20:26.160 I just knew, yeah, I just knew something was wrong, and I'd ask, and nobody would, you

00:20:29.940 couldn't get any real information, you know?

00:20:31.800 It's kind of like government, you know?

00:20:33.540 I think it's probably like that.

00:20:34.940 Like, you think you have this, like, democracy, but then you start realizing, like, something's

00:20:40.360 wrong here, right? Something's a little off, you know? There's some bad fish in here, you know?

00:20:46.040 And that's, I don't even know if that was a good comparison.

00:20:48.920 But I actually think, have you heard of the term inshittification?

00:20:53.140 Inshittification? I haven't.

00:20:55.420 I might screw this up a little bit, but my sense of it is that it's a description of

00:20:59.960 how something that is initially successful is then made worse, oftentimes in a pursuit of

00:21:06.520 greater profit. The quality gets worse. Oh yeah. Profit gets greater. Yeah. Stance Socks. There

00:21:11.460 was a company called Stance Socks and they had, this is just my judgment. They had the best socks

00:21:16.160 and then they started getting them, I think, outsourced. Something happened. They started

00:21:20.140 just wanting to make a higher, higher level of money and it's fair. That's their business, you

00:21:24.020 know? Um, but in shitification, the process where online platforms or digital services progressively

00:21:30.280 degrade in quality over time as they chase maximum profits. Um, well, that was going to be one of my

00:21:36.240 next questions for you uh is yeah like do you think that the american dream is still alive

00:21:41.660 you know um i don't know it used to feel like you did enough work you did this and you did these

00:21:46.780 things and you could have this you could have a life right you could have an existence what's

00:21:51.260 that graph we're looking at earlier nick if you had that it was about yeah u.s rent prices versus

00:21:57.180 income since 1986 and you can see that rent prices are up 150 percent uh whereas um income is up on

00:22:06.120 average 25 percent it's unbelievable it's unbelievable i mean it's right you're putting

00:22:11.320 people this is just a slow boiling yeah of people's ability to at some point even have peace

00:22:18.120 because if you don't have peace if you can't like catch your breath like you're saying it's like

00:22:22.100 you just can't operate you know like you can't live the american dream if you can get a good

00:22:26.740 night's sleep yeah you know like if you're stressed out it's like you know and i just think

00:22:31.740 that that's a place where a lot of people are um they've internally they still have that thing

00:22:38.360 that wants them to be able to do it right they're striving but the external isn't meeting them

00:22:44.040 halfway or even a third of the way anymore like i feel like it used to it feels like you have to

00:22:48.720 luck out in some big way yeah i mean in many ways i feel like it's why a lot of people play the

00:22:56.320 lottery that's for many it feels like their only chance well do you feel like there's like like

00:23:02.620 people people think that they have better odds playing the lottery than making it in their own

00:23:10.520 life what does that say about the country that we live in well it just feels now it feels like

00:23:15.140 if you are born in a certain circles you know if you have certain dna if you have um uh that

00:23:21.680 there's kind of like a, you do the work and I'll earn the wages. I'll earn the money. It feels

00:23:27.620 severely like there's like a trafficking of opportunity. That's what I would say it feels

00:23:31.920 like to me a lot of times. And to me, one of the greatest things about this country

00:23:36.100 is that the American dream wasn't just held up as an ideal for someone else. It was that

00:23:42.060 you thought it was for you too. And the problem is that people, like you're saying, people feel

00:23:49.280 Like no matter how hard they work, it's just as far away.

00:23:52.920 They're not getting any closer to it.

00:23:55.420 Well, they're the only ones holding up their end of the bargain.

00:23:57.480 That's what it feels like.

00:23:58.700 America isn't holding up its end of the bargain anymore.

00:24:01.220 And I think the tough part of this,

00:24:02.920 if I'm thinking about it from a city level as a mayor-

00:24:05.020 Yeah, that's what I was getting.

00:24:05.800 It's not really your responsibility because you're a city guy,

00:24:08.040 but it is a bigger picture thing.

00:24:09.340 The city is a microcosm of the country.

00:24:11.420 Yeah, and it's our biggest microcosm.

00:24:13.140 Exactly.

00:24:13.500 And if you look at it at the city,

00:24:16.840 it's not even like people are struggling and it's everybody.

00:24:21.320 It's that we're also the wealthiest city in the world.

00:24:25.620 There's never been a wealthier city than this.

00:24:28.320 So imagine you're living that graph

00:24:31.140 and then you look outside in your city

00:24:34.240 and you see the kind of wealth that exists here.

00:24:36.760 You realize that it's not for a lack

00:24:39.140 of opportunity being created.

00:24:41.020 It's that that opportunity is being consolidated.

00:24:44.040 Yeah.

00:24:44.120 And that's why, for me, one of the things that I speak about so often is we have to make this a place where everyone can afford it.

00:24:53.200 Because right now it feels like the city is becoming a museum, something a middle-class family can afford to visit once a month, maybe on the weekends.

00:25:00.780 We want people to live here.

00:25:02.940 And there's more than enough money for everyone to be able to.

00:25:06.100 Well, where does greed come into play then?

00:25:08.060 Because that seems like a word that's not maybe spoken about sometimes.

00:25:11.940 I don't know.

00:25:12.320 It just seems like then at that point, it would seem like some people are just being really greedy.

00:25:16.680 I think that greed is baked in to a lot of this economy.

00:25:20.160 I think that in just last week, we held DoorDash to account.

00:25:26.740 Yeah, congratulations, dude.

00:25:27.940 Thank you, man.

00:25:28.620 That was cool.

00:25:29.100 I mean, I know there were other people that were involved.

00:25:30.740 Who was involved?

00:25:32.040 I would say the first person I want to give credit to is the commissioner of that agency.

00:25:36.500 The agency is DCWP.

00:25:38.440 Commissioner's name is Sam Levine.

00:25:39.900 Nice.

00:25:40.280 Does a great job.

00:25:41.300 Thank you, Sam.

00:25:41.840 The people at DCWP, they are doing great work.

00:25:45.160 What they did, they poured through terabytes of DoorDash data, and they found that DoorDash

00:25:51.300 was underpaying or not paying at all more than 260,000 workers for $131.5 million.

00:26:02.060 This is the largest labor settlement in New York City.

00:26:04.080 Wait, how much was it?

00:26:05.740 $131.5 million.

00:26:07.700 That's a lot.

00:26:08.940 That's as much you can have.

00:26:10.300 That's a lot of money.

00:26:11.420 And the thing that I so appreciate about

00:26:13.960 Sam and DCWP

00:26:15.380 Is that they're not now going to make those

00:26:18.060 Delivery workers jump through a hoop

00:26:19.620 That money

00:26:21.220 They're going to hit them with it

00:26:22.160 They're going to the same email that they were registered with

00:26:24.560 With DoorDash

00:26:25.220 They have a choice

00:26:26.340 Do you want it as a check

00:26:27.380 Do you want it as direct deposit

00:26:29.020 And if you don't respond

00:26:31.140 Just send in the check

00:26:32.480 And that to me is

00:26:34.460 You have to make justice easy

00:26:37.120 If you make justice hard

00:26:38.940 Then we're going to end up with cruelty

00:26:41.960 Everything's big.

00:26:42.640 Well, not everything.

00:26:43.620 And I don't want this to be a dour conversation.

00:26:45.420 Sometimes I can get a little bit dour.

00:26:47.720 We're not getting dour.

00:26:48.500 Okay.

00:26:49.380 But that's awesome, dude.

00:26:50.740 Oh, God, I should have done freaking DoorDash.

00:26:55.220 What the hell?

00:26:56.180 I think you're doing all right.

00:26:57.360 Dude, you got to go after some other companies.

00:26:59.120 I have a list of companies I've worked for

00:27:00.300 that I want you guys to look into.

00:27:01.520 It was the sock one?

00:27:02.300 Huh?

00:27:02.880 Tans?

00:27:03.320 Oh, Stance.

00:27:04.120 Stance?

00:27:04.680 No, I never worked for them.

00:27:05.840 I've worked at Cold Stone Creamers, though,

00:27:07.280 for almost 11 months.

00:27:08.640 Seven months.

00:27:08.920 Like it, love it, gotta have it.

00:27:09.720 I did lie.

00:27:10.340 Seven months.

00:27:11.260 where did you work from i worked at location 1171 where would i know 1172 so i'm not as familiar

00:27:17.080 oh yeah it was i was outside of baton rouge so yeah and people like you know they like ice cream

00:27:22.520 but did you have to do the singing uh i would do it sometimes but also sometimes i would send once

00:27:27.120 i was a little bit of seniority which only took one month because we had a lot of turnover

00:27:30.620 and we had and we had layoffs but um once i had seniority i would make the like uh like i don't

00:27:38.980 I'm going to say lower level employees.

00:27:40.320 It was just me and one other guy, but I'd make, I'd make Danny go up there.

00:27:45.680 What was he singing?

00:27:46.680 Huh?

00:27:47.120 He would just sing the happy birthday song.

00:27:48.480 But anyway, we got more important.

00:27:50.080 I'm sorry.

00:27:50.720 Shout out to Danny though.

00:27:51.960 Yeah.

00:27:52.360 I hope he's well.

00:27:53.420 I think he's okay, dude.

00:27:54.980 Actually, I will rat him out a little bit because he had this, like, he kind of, this

00:27:59.160 another problem is some people want to take it too easy.

00:28:01.120 His arms would get too cold from being in the, in the, in where the ice cream was, like

00:28:05.280 in the ice cream aquarium or whatever.

00:28:07.060 And he'd have to go.

00:28:07.760 Ice cream aquarium?

00:28:08.160 Or like whatever you put the ice cream in.

00:28:10.240 I never heard it described.

00:28:12.160 You know what I'm saying?

00:28:12.800 Like the thing where the ice cream's in.

00:28:13.980 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:28:14.700 He'd start complaining his arms were too cold

00:28:16.600 and he'd have to go sit on the side

00:28:17.640 and wrap a towel around each arm.

00:28:19.080 So I'm going to rat him out, Danny.

00:28:21.060 You little freaking cold arm monkey.

00:28:23.360 Anyway, moving on, sir.

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00:30:25.920 advisor. Yeah, well, it just feels like, yeah, like, yeah, like how does greed, like, how do

00:30:32.380 you, I think, how do you battle greed? Like, how do you battle it? Like, is that a, is that even a

00:30:36.260 real thing that can happen? Yes. Yes, it is. And I think the reason I even was, was bringing up

00:30:41.840 DoorDash is that the CEO of DoorDash spoke openly about needing to use the greedy algorithm,

00:30:49.660 right? Needing to pursue, like we were talking about in shitification, needing to pursue

00:30:54.240 whatever the path was to highest maximum profit.

00:30:57.800 And why did he say he did?

00:30:59.140 Because to shareholders, profit is all that matters.

00:31:02.640 Dude, I'd rather lose money on the stock that I invested in

00:31:05.400 and everybody make a fair wage.

00:31:07.700 That's what I'm saying.

00:31:09.220 And I think the problem is we start to think about everything

00:31:11.840 from the perspective of a shareholder,

00:31:14.120 that people have to make more and more and more money.

00:31:17.780 And these companies look at the products they have

00:31:20.060 and they say, how can I create more money?

00:31:22.220 I have to drive up the margin.

00:31:23.740 And I can only do that by breaking the law, driving down the quality, whatever it may be.

00:31:30.300 And I think to your question, can you hold greed to account?

00:31:32.840 I believe you can.

00:31:34.100 You just have to be willing because it's not an easy thing.

00:31:36.960 And the funny thing is when you do it, the people you're holding to account will pretend like they were going to get there anyway.

00:31:44.360 DoorDash, morning of the announcement, puts out like a notes apology.

00:31:48.420 It's like a, hey, guys, we just found out.

00:31:51.160 Yeah, long night over here.

00:31:52.320 You know, we just, we mistreated some dashers.

00:31:55.080 It sounds like they're talking about like the reindeers that you love.

00:31:58.680 And it's like, you don't care about these guys.

00:32:01.240 But they're like, we just mistreated some dashers to the tune of 131 and a half million dollars.

00:32:07.740 Just like a post.

00:32:08.420 So sorry.

00:32:09.840 Never going to do it again.

00:32:11.140 It's like.

00:32:12.600 Do you, is your government, your state, is your city government equipped well enough to battle some of those algorithms?

00:32:20.640 Like, do you guys have a technical group that's capable enough?

00:32:24.180 Because that seems like a place where a lot of these companies sort of are hiding in sort

00:32:28.480 of this place that's not as brook and mortar where you can't send like a, you know, an

00:32:33.600 employee to go over there and just be a surveyor or be like a-

00:32:38.740 Inspector.

00:32:38.960 Inspector, yeah.

00:32:39.840 I think that's the only reason we were able to hold them to this account was because,

00:32:44.580 again, Sam Levine, DCWP, they have incredible city workers at DCWP who literally pour through

00:32:51.580 terabytes of data. And one of the things that's so exciting is this isn't just a settlement where

00:32:56.560 DoorDash delivery workers will get money. 15 million of this, roughly around 500, I think

00:33:02.220 about 16 and a half million is civil penalties and fines. From that money, we're developing

00:33:07.140 our own app that the DoorDash delivery workers can use to record their use of the DoorDash

00:33:15.240 app.

00:33:15.880 So when DoorDash gives us its data, we will also have the same, the workers who worked

00:33:20.260 giving us their version of the data to cross-reference it.

00:33:23.680 Man, that seems like so much extra work just because somebody doesn't want to be honest

00:33:27.240 though.

00:33:27.840 You got to plan for a lack of compliance as opposed to expect that you'll get it.

00:33:33.960 And who was the company, who owned that company that was doing that?

00:33:36.380 Like, who was allowing that to happen on their watch?

00:33:38.640 And that's DoorDash.

00:33:39.620 But who's the owner of it?

00:33:41.500 Who's the owner of DoorDash?

00:33:43.140 About to find out.

00:33:45.480 But who's the CEO of it?

00:33:48.760 Chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash is?

00:33:52.980 Tony Hsu.

00:33:53.520 Tony Hsu.

00:33:55.120 Hey, Tony.

00:33:56.920 What's up with Hsu, bro?

00:33:59.060 Pay up, dog.

00:34:00.720 Come on, bro.

00:34:01.840 And Tony, he knows what's popping, Tony.

00:34:05.260 What's going on?

00:34:06.380 And that's allegedly Tony Hsu.

00:34:07.860 We don't know.

00:34:08.300 We don't have an attorney.

00:34:09.480 So that's just allegedly him.

00:34:12.000 And that's allegedly how you even pronounce his name.

00:34:14.760 But yeah, don't dash on your workers like that, Tony.

00:34:17.220 That didn't seem cool.

00:34:19.620 So Ron, let's go into like,

00:34:21.120 let's go into a common ground actually that both of us had.

00:34:23.220 Please.

00:34:23.780 We both went to the nurses strike.

00:34:25.800 Can I reach over and dap you up?

00:34:27.320 Yeah, I'll do it.

00:34:29.000 All right.

00:34:29.960 Type shit.

00:34:31.140 We both.

00:34:33.620 Type shit, type shit.

00:34:34.540 We need a type shit at this point, dude, just for even being alive, bro.

00:34:39.040 We should have a type shit day for the entire country where everybody-

00:34:42.700 That's actually what I'm here to announce.

00:34:44.120 Thank you so much.

00:34:44.780 I didn't know that you were going to join me in this.

00:34:46.660 Type shit, man, just because people are going through it, bro.

00:34:50.500 And we're able to feed and house ourselves, man, and people are really going through it.

00:34:54.600 You know when the parents drop their kids off for that night?

00:34:58.160 For the night of what?

00:34:59.440 For the parents' night out when we're doing the childcare for the kids.

00:35:03.080 Okay.

00:35:04.540 Everybody just says it right after they drop the kids off.

00:35:06.540 Yeah, that's it.

00:35:07.780 Now, once the kids are out of earshot, the kids do not need to be hearing this.

00:35:11.240 Do not need to hear this.

00:35:12.000 No, but once they're out, I want to see parents high-fiving with a TS between them, brothers.

00:35:17.780 One thing that we have in common is the nurses strike.

00:35:21.020 We both went out.

00:35:21.560 My sister's a nurse, right?

00:35:22.660 That's awesome.

00:35:23.360 Yeah, it's just got a soft spot in my heart.

00:35:25.600 And it's probably the job that I admire the most because it feels like it's one of the

00:35:31.640 places that it's very obvious that someone is putting in their care, right? I mean, their genuine

00:35:36.040 care, their time, taking time. And these are mothers, a lot of them. And so they're taking

00:35:40.120 time away from their own children and their own family members to be there for someone else's,

00:35:44.440 which is, it's almost the biggest sacrifice you could do would be to love someone else solely for

00:35:52.640 their own wellness, right? But- That's a beautiful way of putting it.

00:35:58.500 I saw a fact that those nurses would have to work 200 years full time to make some of

00:36:05.780 the same salaries that some of these CEOs make in just one year at those hospitals.

00:36:10.660 I mean, that-

00:36:12.360 What are we doing?

00:36:13.000 It gets back to the lottery thing.

00:36:14.640 It's like, you don't even have that shot.

00:36:17.060 And it's not that people need to make what that CEO is making, right?

00:36:20.240 Like we're talking about astronomical figures.

00:36:21.940 but again to what you were saying earlier labor is what is creating the value yeah and you have

00:36:30.540 nurses who are pouring everything into their job yeah like sometimes it's hyperbolic when people

00:36:36.480 describe things as life or death or life saving this is literal this is literal when we describe

00:36:41.520 this as life it's a great point and and we can't even pay them we can't and when you go to the

00:36:46.520 picket line. And you hear from these nurses, what are they asking for? They're asking for safe

00:36:52.240 staffing. They're asking for better ratios between nurses and patients so they can take care of the

00:36:57.720 patients. Yeah. Some of them had an insane, like people don't understand the nurse ratio. Some of

00:37:01.280 it, it's like, yeah, how many patients are they responsible for for each nurse? They simply cannot

00:37:05.220 take care of that many patients. And yet that's what they're being asked to do. Yeah. And safe

00:37:10.060 conditions. They wanted security around some of their parking lots and around some of the hospitals

00:37:14.120 so they could walk safely to their car after work

00:37:17.120 so they don't end up hurt

00:37:19.380 and in the hospital that they work at.

00:37:21.420 Does this sound like luxury?

00:37:22.920 One nurse got hurt after work.

00:37:24.640 They put her in the hospital.

00:37:25.660 Then they put her on her own chart.

00:37:27.260 So she had to be the patient

00:37:28.540 and then come and take care of herself.

00:37:31.100 That's insane.

00:37:32.180 What the heck, dude?

00:37:33.760 That's impossible.

00:37:35.060 And I think-

00:37:35.640 And they won't give some of them adequate healthcare.

00:37:39.660 And what are we, that's, it's like,

00:37:41.920 it's almost at the point now

00:37:43.380 where it's like you have to laugh at sometimes because like they say that police officers

00:37:47.300 sometimes you'll see them laughing outside of something that like a murder scene or something

00:37:50.520 very sad and it's because it's a body's natural way of handling it and it's just like it's either

00:37:55.400 laugh or cry yeah and i think what's you know i i remember meeting a nurse i asked her you know

00:38:04.260 she let out a big sigh we were in the elevator together she let a big sigh i was like how's

00:38:07.380 your day going she was like oh it's going okay um i gotta go home after this i was like oh where's

00:38:12.340 that? She said, I have to drive for two hours because she couldn't afford to live in this city

00:38:17.200 that she's working. And, and I like beyond what that does for her quality of life, beyond what

00:38:23.240 that means about the city. Also in terms of safety, you have nurses pouring everything they

00:38:28.080 have into their shift. And then you want that person to get on the road for two hours at night.

00:38:32.880 Fucking unreal. And it's the same city that like would spend all the money on the commercial. Let's

00:38:37.680 applaud our COVID nurses, be in the front lines. And now they can't even like, where are those

00:38:43.680 commercials now when you want to take care of your nurses? Where's that same energy?

00:38:47.560 This goes back to what we were saying earlier, which is the difference between a value

00:38:50.600 and something that's material. It's like, we were there to clap. Now we have to actually take care

00:38:56.300 of these people in a way that isn't just 7 PM clapping outside of our window.

00:39:00.800 Is there a way, go on. I'm sorry.

00:39:01.900 Well, I think that was one of the reasons that I went out on the picket line. And there were

00:39:06.720 these articles written about mayors don't stand on picket lines. Mayors have to remain neutral in a

00:39:11.700 negotiation between workers and management. And Desmond Tutu spoke about a long time ago that

00:39:17.600 neutrality in the face of oppression is choosing injustice. And how am I going to be the mayor who

00:39:24.780 ran on a platform of making the city affordable and then just sit in my office and watch nurses

00:39:29.780 rally for the basics and say, not my fight. The basics. Agreed. Dude, if you're not fighting for

00:39:35.520 the underdog anymore who the fuck are you even fighting for bro that's my question and desmond

00:39:40.400 tutu came and spoke to us when i was a student i was a student on semester at sea i worked in the

00:39:44.220 bookstore there and uh they gave us a chance to go like on this cruise ship it was like a cruise

00:39:48.480 ship around the world and i got a scholarship whatever and i got to go but he came and spoke

00:39:51.900 to us on our on our boat one day it's pretty cool anyway that's bragging but that's awesome

00:39:55.780 it was not bragging it's facts it was pretty cool you're right but i mean to your question

00:39:59.440 if you're not rooting for the underdog who you're rooting for you're rooting for the favorite and

00:40:03.040 you're telling yourself they're the underdog that that's the funny thing is when you talk to people

00:40:08.120 nobody thinks that they're rooting for the system yeah they think that they're everyone thinks they're

00:40:13.240 aggrieved by the system yeah but we have to actually address the problems of it do you think

00:40:17.620 you can do that i think so you do i don't think it's easy right i don't think it can happen i don't

00:40:22.640 think we've solved it in in nine months but but i think in nine months we've started to deliver

00:40:28.440 universal child care for families. There's 2,000 families in the city that are now saving 20K that

00:40:33.820 they would have otherwise spent. We've shown that we can do the big things, the little things. We've

00:40:38.120 paved 200,000 potholes. We've won this $131.5 million back for the working class people who

00:40:43.980 deliver the food that people need to stay full. And this, while also saying that so many of the

00:40:52.360 things that annoy so many people, they're going to be our problem too. I mean, coming up in October,

00:40:57.660 we're launching the nation's first municipal click to cancel rule so what that means is we're

00:41:03.140 going to have a portal where you can submit any of the subscriptions you have like if it's like a

00:41:08.840 planet fitness or peacock or whatever it may be and you guys will cancel it for them that's what

00:41:13.820 we're gonna do go bro you're gonna do that and then that's the thing is that they it has to be

00:41:17.940 as easy to cancel as it is to sign up yeah because it's not fair because they trap you bro when you

00:41:22.400 call on somebody you don't even know like meet me under a bridge if you want to cancel whatever like

00:41:25.720 what our town doesn't even have a river in it like what bridge like it's all bro a lot it's a lot of

00:41:31.120 just a shell game to steal people's money and then your time and then your stress goes up and then

00:41:36.100 you get inflamed and then you have to go to the hospital you know that's where it's at it's like

00:41:40.560 it's just like yeah it feels like kind of a dark game sometimes it starts small though but all

00:41:45.860 those little small things are really starting to add up for people they built um some people and

00:41:50.920 yeah shout out nurses man that's cool yeah maybe i'll marry a nurse one day i don't know gotta

00:41:55.220 meet one inshallah single uh but tbd right tbd you know um you on the apps no i'm not on the

00:42:05.120 apps i don't you know what i don't like what i don't like were you ever on the apps i was you

00:42:09.720 are not no not now i was okay back then um i i met my wife on hinge nice but it's also it's not easy

00:42:17.520 oh dude i don't oh no i know it's not i know it takes a lot of work for people on there

00:42:22.200 um just the and that's a level of like you know you know well congratulations that's cool thank

00:42:28.180 you yeah and you're still married yes we're still married okay great oh yeah i didn't see that i'm

00:42:32.400 sorry um let me ask you but but i do want to answer the reason why i didn't like it i don't

00:42:37.160 like somebody being able to tell me no when they're not in front of me like you can look at

00:42:41.460 me and tell me no because i do that every day kind of like somewhere in the dark recesses in my head

00:42:45.780 you know but you're not going to do it from the comfort of your own home you know you gotta you

00:42:50.340 got to show up. You got to see me. Yeah. You at least show up. Cause if you show up and tell me,

00:42:54.500 no, it's like, I, that's fair. You know, like you come, you've looked in the window. You've been

00:42:58.960 like, dear God. You gave me a shot. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. You just said, even you just came over.

00:43:03.160 Yeah. Take a gander, you know, look, you know, filter, filter. I know it's a bit of a sale rack

00:43:07.480 over here, but filter through, you know? So I think that's why I'm not on them. I want to talk

00:43:13.820 a little bit about socialism, right? Cause it's, it's a buzzword, right? Cause socialism,

00:43:19.460 Will you define socialism for us?

00:43:21.160 Because people say it a lot and don't know what it is.

00:43:23.460 And sometimes those people are me.

00:43:26.840 I'm so happy to be with those people right now.

00:43:31.320 Socialism to me, it means that you will have whatever you need to live a dignified life.

00:43:39.080 And that it is the government's job to deliver on that.

00:43:43.760 Okay.

00:43:43.880 Right?

00:43:44.060 But it's a belief that you shouldn't live in a place where all you can do is pick your own leaders.

00:43:51.560 You should also be able to have that power in the rest of your life, right?

00:43:55.840 People talk about it as the extension of democracy from the ballot box to the rest of your life.

00:44:01.160 What do people mean by the rest of your life?

00:44:02.540 They mean your workplace, your home, things like that.

00:44:06.260 So when people say dignity, I want to be very clear.

00:44:09.560 We're talking about the things that allow you to take a breath.

00:44:13.260 Housing.

00:44:14.060 Child care, right?

00:44:16.300 Public transit.

00:44:17.380 No one should be priced out of these things.

00:44:20.100 These are non-negotiables.

00:44:21.400 You need these to live.

00:44:22.720 And what I think is so confusing is there's parts of life in our country that line up with this belief, right?

00:44:30.360 Public education.

00:44:32.160 We believe that everyone should be able to go K through 12 for free, and they do.

00:44:39.080 Libraries.

00:44:39.520 We believe that everybody should be able to read a book that they'd like to for free, and they do.

00:44:46.120 But when it comes to early childhood education, right, before kindergarten, we're comfortable with people paying $20,000 a year to afford it.

00:44:54.820 Because that's what the cost is, the average cost in New York City.

00:44:57.500 In New York City right now.

00:44:58.240 That's a good deal.

00:44:58.820 Yeah.

00:44:59.340 They did a study that found that for a family of three to afford child care, they had to make $330,000 a year.

00:45:06.800 To live in the city and afford child care.

00:45:08.740 and afford child care.

00:45:09.860 A family of three?

00:45:11.440 Of three.

00:45:11.800 So that means only one child?

00:45:12.660 One child.

00:45:13.320 Okay.

00:45:14.080 And to me, that's kind of,

00:45:16.100 even what used to be enough money 10 years ago

00:45:19.240 is not enough money.

00:45:21.020 The struggles of affordability,

00:45:22.740 they apply to a lot more people

00:45:24.540 than people typically think.

00:45:26.960 And to me, as a socialist,

00:45:29.500 what I'm fighting for

00:45:30.560 is that nobody is priced out of dignity.

00:45:34.280 And there's just a comfort right now

00:45:37.300 with living in a country

00:45:40.260 where the market gets to determine everything,

00:45:43.560 not just luxury, but dignity too.

00:45:45.720 We say, oh, I'm sorry,

00:45:46.680 I don't have enough money to afford a home.

00:45:48.400 It makes you feel like, yeah, there's something-

00:45:50.200 To afford food.

00:45:51.120 Yeah.

00:45:52.000 It's like, it's-

00:45:53.280 Oh, I can't imagine, yeah.

00:45:54.580 A dad that is like having to maybe watch his kids

00:45:57.240 eat something that he wishes they could eat something better

00:45:59.220 because he can't afford eating

00:46:00.300 until he worked all day.

00:46:02.000 So what do you want him to do?

00:46:03.500 Yeah, right.

00:46:04.060 What do you want him to do?

00:46:05.060 Where is he supposed to go?

00:46:06.120 Right. At that point, it's a level of, you're creating a level of suffering, right? And people will say like, okay, some of this stuff I don't know exactly about, but I'm just thinking the best that I can. And our listeners know that I don't know about this. So it's like, I'm not going to pretend that I know a lot about some things about socialism, democracy, communism, et cetera.

00:46:27.440 right at home in politics. Yeah. Okay. Good. I mean, you explain socialism like I kind of

00:46:33.180 thought it was, right? That's what I've thought it was. It feels to me like we're in this kind

00:46:37.640 of privatized communism right now that people don't want to admit to a little bit. Like it

00:46:42.420 feels definitely like the government, like it's basically businesses that are running how we

00:46:48.980 operate. It's businesses that are even puppeteering our government. I mean, it seems like that at a

00:46:54.700 very high level, especially like when you get into like, um, you know, lobbies and some of

00:46:59.120 these tech industries and stuff like that. I mean, and I think that's obvious to me by

00:47:02.900 you have people that were like heads of large companies, especially in the tech sector who

00:47:08.720 were Democrats last time, but now they're Republican suddenly and people like, Oh,

00:47:12.960 that's just odd. You know, it's not odd. It's just because of the opportunity that I feel like to be

00:47:17.200 some sort of a puppeteer. Right. But outside of that, like we've people want to, there's this

00:47:23.300 desire inside of us, I feel like as a, just an American person that you want to believe in

00:47:29.340 capitalism, right? You want to fight for capitalism because that feels like what's fair. That feels

00:47:34.640 like what's always been there. But now it feels like, like so much is owned by just a 1%, right?

00:47:41.160 That's like, like, how can you believe in if there's no capital to ism, you know, what are,

00:47:48.320 what are you still fighting for? Right. And I do understand though, that people, I understand when

00:47:52.780 people like socialism, you can't put the government in charge of everything. But at a

00:47:56.920 certain point, if capitalism is not working for everybody, if it's only working in theory and

00:48:02.320 1% own everything and have just monopolized everything and squeezed it into, you know,

00:48:08.800 just into themselves and into their own chest, if there's a level of greed that's that big,

00:48:13.400 then you have to do something to take care of people. At that point, it's not humane to still

00:48:19.500 believe in something that doesn't seem like it's working i'm not saying i know everything about

00:48:23.900 capitalism i don't i don't even know why i'm kind of agitated but you don't you don't need but it's

00:48:28.180 not but if it's not working then something has to be done and so that's like but when people hear

00:48:33.920 socialism they get very scared right so or is it like kind of a new idea of socialism that you're

00:48:39.780 pitching or is it just that that there's no other way out because for me i don't know i i wouldn't

00:48:47.760 describe myself as a socialist. I believe in democracy. That's sort of like, I think that's

00:48:51.280 the, that's the building block of socialism. Okay. And, and I would say is that you don't need to

00:48:55.300 have a PhD in this. Okay. You just need to walk outside, look at the world that you live in

00:49:00.300 and ask yourself, is this enough? Well, is this working also too? It's like, how long do we want

00:49:05.660 to keep like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like putting your fantasy team out there

00:49:09.420 every week and you're like, they fuck, they've been bad for like one guy's a hundred, one guy's

00:49:13.540 77. One guy's Mitch McConnell, who doesn't even know he's a guy anymore. It just, you know,

00:49:18.820 you start to look at like, if something isn't working, then even if there's a guy who will

00:49:23.740 come in and has a sort of a Hail Mary idea, even if it is a Hail Mary idea to some people, right?

00:49:30.740 I would, there's something about at least that's something different, right? Like that's the part

00:49:36.960 of me that like, I'm not saying that I'm a socialist or that I'm, you know, I'm a capitalist.

00:49:41.400 I practice capitalism.

00:49:43.280 I work in it.

00:49:44.580 You know, there's things I don't like about it,

00:49:45.940 but I still take part in it.

00:49:47.340 So it's tough for me to be angry at a system

00:49:49.480 that I also cooperate with and work in.

00:49:51.960 But I think the other thing is-

00:49:53.340 Am I making any sense?

00:49:54.300 You're making a lot of sense.

00:49:55.580 But yeah, just like, what else can we,

00:49:57.320 I feel like we're at a point where you have to do something.

00:50:00.100 And I think that the contradictions

00:50:02.620 that you're talking about,

00:50:03.860 those are the ones that everyone is living through.

00:50:05.700 We're all living through capitalism.

00:50:08.060 And you might be doing well,

00:50:10.480 and at the same time you can still feel anguish

00:50:13.520 about the fact that there are other people

00:50:15.080 working just as hard who aren't

00:50:17.100 and they never will

00:50:18.380 because they don't have a shot

00:50:19.800 and the only thing like if we keep going

00:50:22.220 I keep going back to this thing of the lottery

00:50:24.220 it's like the chances of hitting it are so low

00:50:27.460 and yet people see it as higher

00:50:29.160 what the chance is in their own life

00:50:30.640 and it effectively ends up becoming a tax on the poor

00:50:33.040 and what we're talking about

00:50:36.760 is how do you bring some humanity

00:50:39.460 back into what you guarantee to everyone.

00:50:42.900 And oftentimes people will say it's idealistic.

00:50:45.700 And I just go back to LaGuardia,

00:50:47.380 the mayor of about a hundred years ago,

00:50:49.480 and he said, I'm going to go right on with my idealism

00:50:52.060 because it is an idealism

00:50:55.100 that delivers for everyone who lives here.

00:50:58.020 And that to me is, if you're not fighting for them,

00:51:01.200 then what are you doing?

00:51:02.340 If you're fighting to just keep this system.

00:51:05.380 Yeah, that's crazy.

00:51:07.360 You know, and we don't, we don't want the same thing with a different face and a different name and a different, we want something different.

00:51:14.500 And I think.

00:51:15.400 It's like fucking, this has been a long Halloween, bro.

00:51:18.040 This like, this like system that we've been living in.

00:51:21.100 It's been a fucking, it's been a long Halloween for a lot of people.

00:51:23.980 You were saying earlier, you know, what do you do?

00:51:26.840 Right.

00:51:27.060 I think implicit in that is like, you feel this, then what do you do?

00:51:30.600 I mean, the place that I found as my political home was an organization called the Democratic Socialists of America.

00:51:36.300 and this was a place where I would just go for meetings

00:51:39.220 and I would meet people who felt the same way

00:51:41.220 and first you would realize that you're not alone.

00:51:45.660 You're not nuts.

00:51:47.420 You are actually part of something much bigger than yourself

00:51:51.160 and you can be as well.

00:51:53.360 And it feels like when people go through life,

00:51:56.300 the further they get away from school,

00:51:57.880 the more isolated they start to become

00:51:59.800 from the world around them.

00:52:00.920 And that is also a function of a society

00:52:06.060 where people are what they call increasingly atomized,

00:52:09.560 just separated out.

00:52:11.100 And so much of the fabric that we used to have,

00:52:12.900 it started to come apart at the seams.

00:52:16.220 And for me, being a member of this organization,

00:52:18.820 it was something that opened my eyes

00:52:20.340 to how to make sense of it

00:52:22.260 and also what I could do to change it.

00:52:24.560 And that was something that,

00:52:25.760 it didn't just help me with my anxiety,

00:52:27.140 it also just helped me with my sense

00:52:28.520 of my place in the world.

00:52:29.560 It was like, okay, I feel this way.

00:52:31.880 Here's a candidate that feels the same.

00:52:34.280 I'm gonna go and knock on doors for them.

00:52:36.060 And that's what I did for a lot of years.

00:52:38.200 I would just go out there.

00:52:39.280 I would knock on doors, door after door after door.

00:52:42.600 And one of the most radicalizing things is when you knock on somebody's door, they open

00:52:49.320 their door, they invite you into their home, and you see the life that they live, and you

00:52:55.800 ask yourself, how can this be okay in a city this wealthy?

00:53:00.000 You knock on a door.

00:53:01.400 You're there to ask them, are they going to vote in an election in three weeks?

00:53:04.140 and it's an older man in Bay Ridge.

00:53:06.860 And he says, come into my apartment.

00:53:08.940 And he's proud and he's welcoming you.

00:53:10.820 And you look at this man, he's north of 80 years old.

00:53:13.380 He's alone.

00:53:15.120 And you're like, how is this life?

00:53:17.660 This man has worked his whole life.

00:53:20.400 And how is this how we treat him?

00:53:23.860 Yeah.

00:53:25.020 Sorry, I know you said you didn't want to be dour.

00:53:26.580 I don't think it has to be dour though.

00:53:28.340 But yeah, so does our government

00:53:29.940 already kind of practice socialism

00:53:31.120 with some of their policies?

00:53:32.640 a lot of the programs that they're supposed to have

00:53:35.120 are already a form of socialism, isn't it?

00:53:36.880 Yes.

00:53:37.460 There are socialistic policies we have.

00:53:39.720 Okay.

00:53:40.380 The point is how do we actually expand that

00:53:43.040 so that everyone gets to benefit from it?

00:53:45.260 Okay.

00:53:46.120 And you think about whenever people come forward

00:53:48.380 with an idea of taking care of working people,

00:53:50.780 it is slammed with the most kind of fear-mongering tactics

00:53:55.640 you can think.

00:53:56.600 When the idea of social security was introduced,

00:53:59.480 it was described as trying to sovietize the republic that's how people talked about it and

00:54:04.900 now social security is the most normal thing you could think of in this country yeah and you know

00:54:09.060 right now we're trying to build five city-run grocery stores why because the cost of groceries

00:54:15.880 has gone up 30 since the pandemic people can't afford their groceries and we're going to have

00:54:22.020 one city-run grocery store in each borough and there's going to be a 30 discount on the essential

00:54:28.020 items. The idea is so that people can afford to go to the grocery store, they can afford to feed

00:54:33.200 their families. And you'll hear a lot of fear mongering around it. But the basic question to

00:54:37.200 me is, what's the point of government if not delivering for people who are being priced out

00:54:42.260 of the essentials? That's a key part of it. Well, government's been working for the elite

00:54:46.400 for a long time, it feels like. Or it feels like that certainly feels like what's happening more

00:54:49.780 than ever. And now it feels very exposed. It feels very out in the open, especially when there's

00:54:54.860 like a trove of emails, like connecting a lot of them, you know, involving certain crimes or

00:54:59.020 alleged crimes. Whenever you ran for office, some of your campaigning was calling out Trump for

00:55:06.440 his broken promises, right? That he campaigned on, right? Cheaper groceries from day one,

00:55:13.560 no forever wars and helping the working class, right? How do you work together with someone

00:55:21.100 that you've had so many public disagreements with,

00:55:24.560 but then keep that energy

00:55:25.860 when you have to go into a meeting

00:55:27.580 in order to like make deals

00:55:31.540 so you can get done what you do need done for yourself.

00:55:34.980 I think-

00:55:35.700 Sorry, God, you think it would be easier for me?

00:55:37.620 No, please.

00:55:38.540 I understood what you were saying.

00:55:39.780 Okay.

00:55:40.500 I think-

00:55:41.480 If you knew earlier,

00:55:42.340 you should have cut me off, dude,

00:55:43.280 because I'm fricking-

00:55:44.360 What are you doing out there?

00:55:45.900 You think I'm going to be like,

00:55:47.000 I got you, man.

00:55:47.840 I got you.

00:55:48.820 No, I'm going to let you finish your question.

00:55:50.840 Please. And also another thing I'm lobbying for, word lifeguards. I want them in the streets when

00:55:54.700 somebody can't get through a sentence, a word lifeguard. What do you want them to do? Come

00:55:57.940 up and just help you get there. That's what I need. Do they stop you or do they give you the

00:56:01.220 word? Whatever. Just put a little buoy on you and help you get to the end of a sentence sometimes.

00:56:04.700 Don't worry, brother. This is how it ends. Okay. There we go. Yeah, that's it.

00:56:09.940 Anyway, if you can answer that question. Because you've had to make, because you needed federal

00:56:15.540 funding, right? For some, you have to maintain that you keep your federal funding in the city.

00:56:20.500 I got you.

00:56:21.080 Okay, good.

00:56:21.460 Thank you.

00:56:22.060 All right.

00:56:24.060 A couple of things.

00:56:25.160 First is you have to be honest about the fact that you still have disagreements.

00:56:31.420 If you campaign saying you have disagreements, then you get elected and then you're like,

00:56:35.120 actually, we're all good.

00:56:36.020 It's like, you're just a part of the problem.

00:56:37.940 You're part of why people don't believe in politics anymore.

00:56:40.420 And so the president and I still have disagreements.

00:56:42.860 We talk about them whenever we meet.

00:56:45.660 And also the point of those meetings is not just to say, I believe this, you believe that.

00:56:50.860 It's also, okay, where is there a place where we could work together to deliver on something?

00:56:55.740 And so when we met recently at Gracie Mansion, I brought up this idea we talked about in the White House called Sunnyside Yard.

00:57:04.000 It's a rail yard in Queens in a neighborhood called Sunnyside where you could build a platform over the rail yard and then you could build housing on the platform.

00:57:11.800 And in this city, the number one driver of the cost of living crisis is a lack of affordable housing.

00:57:17.340 So this project would create 12,000 homes, 30,000 jobs, be the most homes in a single project since the early 1970s.

00:57:25.340 You can only do it with the federal government.

00:57:27.700 So the president and I, we spoke about this.

00:57:30.340 I pitched it to the president.

00:57:31.100 Why you can only do it with federal government?

00:57:32.160 Because they own the rail yards?

00:57:33.780 Antrach, federal authorization, and also the scale of funding required.

00:57:36.940 Okay, got it.

00:57:37.920 And so when I went to the White House the last time, I pitched it to him.

00:57:40.940 I brought him a mock-up of a newspaper. There was a famous Daily News newspaper headline.

00:57:48.100 The President Ford said, it said, Ford to New York, drop dead. And I brought him that and I

00:57:53.800 brought him a mocked up version where it says, Trump to New York, let's build. Like, this is

00:57:58.420 what the future could look like. And then in this last meeting, Gracie mentioned, he agreed, okay,

00:58:02.700 let's set up high-level meetings between your housing and operations team and our White House

00:58:07.180 about how we can move forward on this.

00:58:09.660 And that doesn't mean

00:58:11.240 we don't have disagreements

00:58:12.060 on other issues.

00:58:13.020 You know, we talked about them

00:58:14.040 in that meeting.

00:58:14.460 We talked about them before.

00:58:15.720 But it also means

00:58:16.840 if there's an opportunity,

00:58:18.600 take it to deliver for people

00:58:20.420 because that's also my job.

00:58:22.080 I don't just want to be a person

00:58:23.420 who tells you about what I think.

00:58:25.740 I want to also be a person

00:58:26.580 who proves to you

00:58:27.400 that you can trust

00:58:28.340 and believe in government.

00:58:29.880 And to the point of the way

00:58:31.560 that you were describing

00:58:32.340 some of the president's early platform,

00:58:34.220 You know, when we were talking about cheaper groceries, we were talking about the working class, we were talking about making for a city you can afford, about 60,000 New Yorkers who voted for the president voted for us in the election.

00:58:48.920 And that to me shows that for all of this impetus in politics where you want to judge someone and you want to cast them off as if, oh, they voted for them, you can never talk to them or things like that.

00:59:01.440 There are a lot of people who are just looking for someone to change their material reality.

00:59:07.320 And your time is better spent listening to them than lecturing them.

00:59:12.060 I mean, that's the point of political office should be to listen to people and then work on what they've told you.

00:59:17.580 Yeah. I think we keep getting all these questions of like, you know, what is the Democratic Party? Where is it headed? This, that and the other. What does this consultant think? What does this ex Democrat think? To me, it's like, what is the Democratic Party? If not, it's voters. And you're hearing from Democratic voters across the country. They want change. You even heard it from Republican voters.

00:59:36.880 Well, they're all the same voter these days.

00:59:38.720 People would try to pigeonhole, like, yeah, when pigeonholing is kind of bizarre,

00:59:41.960 like people would pigeonhole me as like this sort of MAGA guy.

00:59:45.600 Do you know where the term pigeonhole comes from?

00:59:48.740 No, let's look it up.

00:59:50.620 I don't.

00:59:51.580 I hope it's not a sexual thing.

00:59:53.420 I pray to God.

00:59:57.040 If it is, probably.

00:59:58.260 If it is, you're reading it.

00:59:59.580 Well, if it is, it's someone in your line of work who's been involved in it.

01:00:02.760 I'll say that.

01:00:03.400 The phrase pigeonhole originated in the 1500s as a literal term for a small nest, recess, or opening in a dovecote where domesticated pigeons live, or a dovisote.

01:00:17.000 What's a dovisote?

01:00:18.640 In a dovisote, or is it dovecote?

01:00:22.600 Can you look up dovisote for me?

01:00:26.420 Columbarium.

01:00:27.520 Oh, gosh, it's taken us.

01:00:29.060 This is what it's doing.

01:00:29.820 See, this is how it happens.

01:00:31.260 This is politics.

01:00:32.000 Columbarium, TSTS.

01:00:33.400 is a columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves um so just sorry it's okay no

01:00:44.240 it's good dude what are you talking about um but yeah people try to people try to pigeonhole they

01:00:50.660 try to pigeonhole voters i don't think voters are think that they're democrat or republican

01:00:54.560 anymore but everybody i talk to is like there's not a side anymore all of this is run it feels

01:00:58.980 like by a higher cabal that's every it because it doesn't feel real anymore it feels like bernie

01:01:04.600 got railroaded by his party they never even had a primary we tried to have kamala on our podcast

01:01:09.120 she didn't want to come on right so trump would come on um but everybody does want a pigeonhole

01:01:14.660 i guess it makes it easier for us i mean i probably do it too i'm sure you know i'll have

01:01:18.920 to read up and look on it well it's it's easier to categorize if you put everybody in a box right

01:01:23.440 It's easier to categorize.

01:01:24.280 And it also absolves you of responsibility.

01:01:27.960 What responsibility does it absolve you of?

01:01:30.120 If you're a politician and you look at a voter and you say, well, they're in that box,

01:01:36.300 it means that you don't have to try anymore.

01:01:38.460 Oh, I see.

01:01:39.540 You don't have to reckon with why they might have chosen that box.

01:01:43.020 Got it.

01:01:43.740 Right?

01:01:44.560 So often people talk about this like it's faded, like people are forever that thing.

01:01:49.420 and to me it's like every day is an opportunity to win someone over and if you're just caught up

01:01:56.980 in the fact that someone wasn't always with you then you're never going to actually build

01:02:01.860 something bigger than yourself if you just want day once all the time yeah then it's like well

01:02:08.480 how many people were your day once like shout outs to your day once but you also need to build

01:02:13.920 a coalition that goes beyond that yeah yeah it's it's i mean it's interesting and some of it is

01:02:19.040 just for safety it's some of it is operating systems that we just use for safety and because

01:02:23.540 it's been what's always been done you know um and some of it is familial as well you your parents

01:02:29.800 were this and so you're that but i think people believe that these walls have dissolved that

01:02:33.700 there isn't really that there's not really two sides anymore it's from what i gather just as i'm

01:02:39.920 a pretty i feel like i'm a pretty regular guy um that and that's a crazy thing to say that sounds

01:02:44.940 crazy for even a guy to say that so i'm probably not but it seems like um people don't believe

01:02:51.160 that there's any side anymore can i just so you know and it doesn't matter what i'm saying just

01:02:55.380 you know fuck i don't know but what i'm saying is it seems it seems like that like people don't

01:03:00.540 believe either one of these sides anymore is like a real side can i ask a question yes how many

01:03:05.800 people voted in the last presidential election?

01:03:10.900 Yep.

01:03:11.540 PS41.

01:03:12.980 Two?

01:03:13.980 Two of five?

01:03:14.780 Oh, no, no.

01:03:15.040 Sorry.

01:03:15.880 I didn't mean how many people in here.

01:03:17.560 I mean, how many people in the United States of America?

01:03:20.200 Oh, dang, dude.

01:03:22.260 Both of these gunners didn't even vote.

01:03:24.220 I was like, PS41?

01:03:25.580 What does that have to do with this?

01:03:27.520 What is happening here?

01:03:29.340 In the 2024 presidential election, 73.6% of the city voting age population.

01:03:35.800 was registered to vote and 65.3 voted according to new voting and registration tables. So 65.3%

01:03:43.900 voted in the 2024 presidential election. So almost about a third did not vote.

01:03:52.780 Yeah. And I mean, I think the reason I asked that was-

01:03:58.320 Could be disinterest.

01:03:59.520 When you're talking about people don't see themselves as part of a side,

01:04:02.840 people are choosing a new side which is to be uninvolved yeah you know it goes back to that

01:04:08.900 early thing of like you get my money you don't get my time and and i think that there's a lot

01:04:14.740 of times when you get closer and closer to election day where it feels like a politician

01:04:18.920 is lecturing you like why you need to vote and it's like actually i need to convince you

01:04:23.840 that this is worth your time because time is the most precious thing you have i need to show you

01:04:28.940 this is relevant to your life.

01:04:30.820 A lot of people look at the struggles in their life

01:04:32.660 and then they look at the politics they're offered

01:04:34.120 and they're like, this has nothing to do with me.

01:04:37.280 And to me, it's how do we eliminate

01:04:39.820 the distance between the two?

01:04:41.420 So that's why we're just as focused on a pothole

01:04:44.580 as we are on universal childcare.

01:04:46.520 Because you look outside your window,

01:04:47.700 you see a pothole, you're like,

01:04:48.940 how could I believe that that same government

01:04:50.640 that can't fix this could do that?

01:04:53.560 It has to be one that does both.

01:04:56.140 and, and then you will slowly start to get people to believe again, but they don't owe you that

01:05:02.220 belief. Yeah. I mean, look, I love, I love hearing it and I'm hopeful that, yeah, that anybody can

01:05:07.260 do something different. I think that's what people are like. People at this point would be shocked if

01:05:11.100 somebody can do something different. You know, I think that, I feel like that that's how kind of

01:05:14.720 in a place that people are. And I don't think they're in a place of disarray for like hopelessness

01:05:19.280 for themselves entirely, but I do feel like there's a, a hopeless malaise. There's, there's

01:05:24.600 somewhat of a hopelessness sometimes for a society and the democracy that we have that's what i feel

01:05:29.480 like and also who gives a shit what i think but i do i mean people do but but also what you're

01:05:34.700 describing is what a lot of people share yeah um like a lot of people have shared a sense of

01:05:40.940 hopelessness and we have to remember there's this a writer and organizer her name is uh mariam kaba

01:05:49.520 she talks about hope is a discipline you have to practice hope and you can't you won't just

01:05:55.500 wake up one morning and naturally feel it it comes from what you do hope is a discipline and

01:05:59.700 and to me it's also we have to make it easy for people to hope and that comes from from our work

01:06:05.400 that's our job yeah um recently they had netanyahu was in town right the big dog or some people call

01:06:13.300 him or the genocider that's kind of that's one of the terms i'll loosely use a lot of times when

01:06:18.080 referring to him. Um, but he was in town and you had, you guys had talked about, um, you guys had

01:06:24.040 talked about having to arrest him when he came into town originally, but that wasn't something

01:06:28.720 that you actually had a jurisdiction that could do or, or try to keep him out of New York city.

01:06:33.400 Was that the case that it wasn't like a, it was when we, you assess all of the legal framework

01:06:40.460 that you have, it is the federal government that if they were to join the international criminal

01:06:45.800 court, they could enforce a warrant. So just to the point here. The ICC, right? But we're not a

01:06:51.580 member of that. We're not. But I believe that we should become a member, that we should enforce

01:06:56.860 its warrants. Because I think this gets back to the question of, you know, when you're asking,

01:07:00.440 can you hold greed to account? Can you hold impunity to account? And the more people see

01:07:05.620 someone break a rule or a law, and there is no accountability for that. Or a morale or a thing

01:07:12.360 of moral conscience, maybe?

01:07:14.140 I don't know the terms.

01:07:14.700 It calls into question

01:07:15.720 whether that has any worth anymore.

01:07:18.620 And we always speak about the laws,

01:07:21.680 the international laws of the world,

01:07:24.200 the things that started to be created

01:07:25.460 after World War II,

01:07:27.140 the United Nations,

01:07:28.500 the idea of multilateralism,

01:07:30.680 and the lack of enforcement of it

01:07:32.340 also calls it into question.

01:07:34.540 So that's what I believe,

01:07:35.780 that the U.S. government

01:07:36.460 should join the ICC.

01:07:37.420 It should enforce its warrants

01:07:38.720 for everyone that has been issued.

01:07:40.540 And when it comes to the prime minister,

01:07:42.180 It's been issued for crimes, alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.

01:07:47.880 A lot of people are upset about what goes, what's going on in Gaza, right?

01:07:51.260 And I think specifically because it's been one of the most, it's been the first genocide

01:07:55.240 that's been heavily kind of televised, I'll say, like on our phones and in social media.

01:07:59.000 How do you keep people from like misdirecting energy that's against Israel towards like

01:08:04.900 their Jewish friends, right?

01:08:05.980 Because I'll talk about it with my Jewish friends.

01:08:07.820 So we have like a good relationship about it.

01:08:09.540 Like they know how I feel and I know how they feel.

01:08:12.180 And so it's like a comfortable like existence, but I think some people maybe don't have some

01:08:17.280 of those conversations and they don't know if it's okay to maybe bring them up or they don't

01:08:21.420 know. Um, or sometimes it's their boss and they don't know if they can talk about it. Um, what

01:08:26.920 do you, like, how would you manage some of that? Because you also have to manage it on an even

01:08:31.120 larger kind of scale because you know, you're the mayor in like a city that's like, well,

01:08:37.800 has a large Jewish population. And, and that's one of the things that I'm proud of is that

01:08:42.140 we live in the most Jewish city in the United States of America.

01:08:45.260 And to me, it's being very clear.

01:08:47.560 One, that no Jewish person in New York City

01:08:51.280 is responsible for the actions of the state of Israel.

01:08:55.200 And if you want to hold anybody accountable,

01:08:58.000 it's the people who are making those decisions,

01:09:00.360 the prime minister, the state of Israel,

01:09:01.620 also our complicity as American taxpayers,

01:09:05.120 given that we know how many billions of dollars

01:09:07.300 we have sent in bombs and continue to send.

01:09:10.060 And then I think it's also being very clear about, you know, actually just today we released the first plan at a municipal level anywhere in the country to combat anti-Semitism and listing out the ways that we would do so.

01:09:23.320 And one of the things is not only ensuring that, you know, when anti-Semitism takes place, that you condemn it, but also that you do the work to prevent it.

01:09:33.440 And also being very clear that critique of the state of Israel, you know, the policy actions, the genocide, that in and of itself is not anti-Semitic.

01:09:43.480 Yeah, I agree. Speak up about it.

01:09:45.260 You know, if you feel something, you should be able to say something.

01:09:47.260 We're alive.

01:09:48.480 This is our only chance to be alive.

01:09:49.860 And we're talking about, when you asked me about the prime minister, we're talking about the architect of a horrific genocide. And I think what's so, there have been all these attempts, you know, people talk about a ceasefire. Just last week, the Israeli military killed an 11-year-old boy, Palestinian boy in Gaza, in a section that's considered to be a safe zone. This is continuing.

01:10:13.380 Oh, it's unbelievable, man.

01:10:14.400 And last week I had a number of Palestinian families from Gaza come to Gracie Mansion, where I live as the mayor of New York City, and to hear from them about the way that their lives have been shattered.

01:10:29.020 You know, you meet two sisters and their mother and they tell you that the same airstrike that injured one of them ended up killing two of their brothers, that they lived in a tent that the father in that family is still there.

01:10:46.640 you speak to an older a grandmother and at the end of the meeting she just comes up and says like

01:10:52.600 can you bring my son here and having to tell her like i will try but as the mayor i i can't promise

01:11:00.340 you that and and all these people want is what everybody wants they just want their family they

01:11:05.680 want safety they want dignity and to know that not only have we watched as that has been stripped

01:11:13.960 from them but that we're financing it yeah i know it is this conversation that you and i are having

01:11:19.780 about faith in government one of the reasons people don't have faith is they look at the

01:11:25.500 kinds of things that governments do they say why would i believe in that yeah why would i even

01:11:30.460 associate myself with it at times and and so you have to stop those things if you ever want anyone

01:11:35.840 to believe and you stop them also for the morality of it do you think what do you think is this like

01:11:41.680 Like, yeah, how do we move forward from that?

01:11:43.660 Like just as a regular citizens, like.

01:11:46.360 Well, I think I've been asked about where do we go from here?

01:11:55.180 And, you know, we have 2028 coming up

01:11:59.700 in a big question of what happens after this administration.

01:12:03.800 And I think that there has to be a commitment

01:12:07.860 to a different kind of future.

01:12:09.160 There has to be, you know, we're talking about reckoning with this, what will you do that's different? How will you deliver something else other than thousand pound bombs? And I hear that from New Yorkers all the time, and I hear it from a wide variety of New Yorkers.

01:12:28.400 and and i think it has to be a big part of of what comes next is a politics of humanity not

01:12:36.020 just for the people that we represent at home but also the people that were bombing abroad

01:12:40.120 but if you had your say we had a we would have arrested the guy you think

01:12:45.460 if i had my say the u.s government would have joined the icc honored every single warrant

01:12:50.440 that they've issued fuck yeah sorry i say it like that but yeah i don't know it's just crazy

01:12:56.080 to see that guy speaking on our on our country it's almost unbelievable i was yeah i was i mean

01:13:01.580 he and he called you out too yeah was that weird was that scary it was it was strange i mean i was

01:13:06.580 i was having a meeting with the prime minister of the netherlands at the lgbtq center in downtown

01:13:13.960 manhattan then i and he's a gay guy the prime minister yeah yeah i've never seen him before

01:13:19.980 He's very handsome.

01:13:21.520 He is?

01:13:21.900 Okay, good.

01:13:22.420 I don't know.

01:13:23.680 Yeah, I'm trying to, yeah.

01:13:25.460 Hello, sir.

01:13:26.180 Very nice guy.

01:13:26.800 Yeah, good guy.

01:13:27.680 So you were meeting with him and-

01:13:29.520 I was meeting with him and the director of the LGBTQ Center

01:13:33.020 and a number of younger queer New Yorkers.

01:13:35.240 They were talking about what that center meant to them

01:13:36.780 to have a place where they could go and be themselves

01:13:40.240 and learn about the history of the queer community

01:13:42.700 in New York City.

01:13:43.660 And then I get back from that meeting

01:13:45.340 and it's like, oh, by the way,

01:13:47.400 here's what he was saying at the UN.

01:13:48.980 all right

01:13:50.300 it's so bizarre

01:13:52.060 yeah

01:13:52.420 did it feel personal then

01:13:53.980 I mean

01:13:55.360 he

01:13:55.540 he'll

01:13:56.620 all of this is an attempt

01:13:59.480 to distract

01:14:00.160 yeah

01:14:00.780 from responsibility

01:14:01.740 name as many people

01:14:03.760 as possible

01:14:04.280 try and make it into

01:14:05.080 a back and forth

01:14:05.680 it's not about

01:14:06.300 me and him

01:14:07.180 yeah

01:14:07.740 it's about the fact

01:14:08.740 that he's the architect

01:14:09.560 of a genocide

01:14:10.220 yeah

01:14:10.720 and it's like yeah

01:14:11.920 if I was the architect

01:14:12.760 of a genocide

01:14:13.280 I would probably talk

01:14:14.460 about anything but that

01:14:15.740 that's a good point

01:14:18.980 yeah it's just uh yeah i don't know it's an interesting time to be alive i think it's

01:14:23.100 probably an interesting time to be uh deep going further into politics you know a position that a

01:14:29.380 lot of people don't trust these days understandable um and yeah i don't know exactly where all my

01:14:34.720 laurels lie but i do love getting to learn about it you know and um yeah and thanks for just thanks

01:14:40.700 for talking about the about a little bit about the genocide yeah and just what's going on over

01:14:44.760 there. I do feel like it's okay to speak about it. And, um, and then it's gotten people have been

01:14:49.820 more comfortable with speaking about it. And, um, yeah. And a lot of people are afraid to speak

01:14:55.040 about it in politics. And I think one thing I would just say is your curiosity is a beautiful

01:15:02.000 thing. It is because that is also how you understand the world. And none of us are experts

01:15:09.020 on any of these things.

01:15:10.240 Yeah, it's our first time being alive.

01:15:11.460 You know?

01:15:11.940 So people try to shame others

01:15:15.060 for not knowing the answer

01:15:17.360 when they're asking the question,

01:15:18.800 but there's a beauty in asking the question.

01:15:21.300 Yeah.

01:15:21.840 The question is also such a critical part of it.

01:15:24.440 And then listening to someone else for the answer.

01:15:27.760 And I think to your point,

01:15:30.040 the reaction that we're talking about

01:15:33.160 is also a human reaction

01:15:34.520 to watching something horrific,

01:15:36.860 seeing it,

01:15:37.460 knowing that we're complicit in it and asking ourselves, what is there to do?

01:15:43.440 And I think raising your voice is one thing.

01:15:46.160 And I think understanding that no matter what box you put yourself in,

01:15:49.940 that there's a complicity across both parties when it comes to this.

01:15:53.940 And to me, you know, I think about there's a book that came out by a writer named Omar al-Aqad.

01:16:01.100 One day, everyone will always have been against this.

01:16:04.100 and the reason that stays in my head is it's such a succinct way of describing the fact that

01:16:13.100 the more years pass the more people will feel comfortable coming forward and saying that was

01:16:19.580 horrible and we'll eventually get to a point where some of the people responsible will start to say

01:16:24.460 that was horrible and just know that you are not crazy and thinking these things and our job is

01:16:33.280 not to pat ourselves on the back for when we got to it it's about to do everything that we can

01:16:37.880 to bring an end to it yeah and bring an end to this and and make it easier for people to hope

01:16:43.960 again that's the work cool man well yeah thanks for thinking about it and yeah that is hope and

01:16:50.480 you have to you have to stay hopeful that's a thing that i just it won't disappear from us for

01:16:53.980 some reason that's something pretty special you gotta believe that yeah that somehow we always

01:16:59.100 are able to keep some hope. That's exciting. That makes me think, yeah, that, yeah, that's

01:17:03.620 exciting. Thanks. Yeah. Mr. Momdani, thanks for your time. Good luck in politics, bro. Mr. Vaughn.

01:17:08.360 Yep. Wish you the best, brother. Thank you, sir. TSTS. TSTS.

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This Past Weekend with Theo Von - October 01, 2026

#687 - Zohran Mamdani

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