Americanswers... on 5 Live! Has Zohran Mamdani achieved a miracle in New York?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. It's been a while since we talked about Zoran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York, but some people are crediting him with achieving a fiscal miracle, a fiscal miracle, closing a$12 billion budget gap without forcing billionaires out of the city or cutting lots of services either. Has he actually done that, though, or is there something else beyond the headlines? We also talk in this edition of America Answers about the ruling against Donald Trump saying he can't use public funds to build his ballroom.

1:08How seriously should we be taking that? And how seriously should we be taking his posts on social media about his threats against Iran? Anthony, Marianna and I join Matt Chorley on Five Live. So welcome to America Answers. AmeriCast.

1:27Marianna Spring:AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

1:54Donald Trump has issued his latest warnings with Iran on his social media platform, Truth Social. He posted yesterday the message for Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them. Then in capitals, time is of the essence, exclamation mark, President DJT. So, John, in Yorkshire's WhatsApp to us, does anybody listen to anything Trump says or writes anymore? Has his cry wolf outrun its usefulness? Justin? Yeah, I mean, I think the answer to the first question is increasingly not. And that, of course, is a real concern for the administration and a real concern for those countries around the world who depend on the Strait of Hormuz being opened again and the American blockade got rid of.

2:39And particularly the Gulf countries. You had attacks over the weekend, didn't you, in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, possibly from Iran, possibly from Iran proxies firing from Iraq or sending drones from Iraq. But either way, dangerous to both of those countries. They're now involved. They want some kind of closure to this. And this is what they get from the Trump administration. You can imagine behind the scenes some quite pointed conversations going on, including the Israelis as well, saying, OK, what are we actually going to do next? And I mean, for me, I don't know what Anthony thinks.

3:13It just seems bizarre, really, that there isn't a bigger sense in the administration of urgency, not because America is particularly economically affected at the moment by what's going on. But there is this drip, drip, and there has already been a rise in inflation, and there is nothing going in the right direction for Donald Trump on this. And you just think he'd kind of get a grip of it. And then he's been, Donald Trump has been facing questions on it, including this one. This reporter's question went viral after asking Donald Trump about Iran. This is before he left for China outside Air Force One.

3:53Mr. President, to what extent are American financial destinations motivating you to make a deal?

3:59Marianna Spring:Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about any, but I think about one thing. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. That's the only thing. What do you make of that, Anthony?

4:18Anthony Zurcher:Oof. That's the kind of thing we're going to hear over and over again during this upcoming midterm congressional campaign. I mean, not only did he answer the question, but then he repeated the question back to her saying, I don't think about America's financial situation. So it makes for a very nice clip. He was asked about that action on the flight back in a Fox News interview on the flight back from China. And he doubled down on it. He said, no, it was a perfect answer. And he stands by it. I think if this continues to be a weight on American pocketbooks, if the price of gasoline, petrol, still is$4.50 plus a gallon, which it looks like it's going to be for some time, if there are knock-on effects like the price of food because of a shortage of fertilizer and the price of transportation, I think Americans are going to think about that clip and think that this is a man who is not in touch with their everyday concerns, that he is fighting this war that they don't think is necessary and it is going to be a drag on his popularity.

5:19Anthony Zurcher:We're already seeing it be a drag on his popularity. And then there are other questions about affordability and where's money being spent and where isn't it being spent. So let's talk about the ballroom. Glenn has been in touch, emailing americast at bbc.co.uk. It says, if the ongoing lawsuit manages to thwart the building of the big, beautiful ballroom and the Democrats take back the House in November, will this present an opportunity for the Democrats to kill the ballroom dead in the water? And if so, where does Trump go from there? Well, there are a couple of parts to that question. The first is the lawsuit, and the lawsuit's ongoing.

5:52Anthony Zurcher:We're expecting to have some sort of a new decision in early June about whether this planned ballroom that Trump has that hasn't been yet approved by Congress can even go forward. So that's something we're waiting on. Now, we have had a recent development, which is that Congress was trying to find money trying to do their own bit of approval for construction of this. They were packaging it in a larger bill that didn't require a supermajority to pass in the Senate, so they didn't require Democrats to sign off on that. And just the other day, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that they can't fit this into that package, that the$1 billion that they were planning to approve for construction of the ballroom can't fit in this larger financial package.

6:37Anthony Zurcher:It has to be approved separately, and it would require a 60-vote majority in the Senate to sign off on. So that has thrown another wrench in these plans for a ballroom. Now, Donald Trump has talked about the private funding that could back this up. So if the court case is signed off, then he could still use that private funding. But it seems a lot less likely now that Congress is going to chip in with their own amount of money. There is a coherence to economic populism, isn't there to an appeal to the american people particularly after the financial crisis and after covid and all the rest of it where people at the bottom of the pile didn't see any improvement at all in their living conditions in fact much the opposite and wages have gone up and all the rest of it there is a coherent donald trump second term that you could imagine and some of his supporters imagined that would bear down on the price of medicines, that would bear down on the banks, that would maybe, and he toyed with this himself at various stages, possibly even raise taxes on wealthier people, that would be a kind of properly populist agenda, not really left or right, but just populist and economically useful to those at the bottom of the pile, as he was during his first term and a lot of people during his first term really felt that life improved for them this time round i mean there's a sort of incoherence about the whole thing and the ball room it just seems to me if the democrats can get their act together again as anthony says it's the adverts that you make with all of this stuff and the idea whether or not who's going to pay for it and all the rest of the fact that he's making a ballroom while people are really suffering it just doesn't work but it's basically a building site isn't it anthony yeah it's a big hole in the ground.

8:23Anthony Zurcher:Donald Trump played golf yesterday. And according to the pool reports, he came back from his golf trip and took a little detour to look at the big hole in the ground. That is, there's still some construction going on because the judge who put some of this on hold said you could still do some of the security, national security things like the massive bunker that apparently is going underneath the ballroom. But there's still a lot of work to be done. And if the court rules against him. And if the Congress doesn't end up passing some sort of approval of this, then you could have a big hole in the ground for some time, which I don't know, there are some on the left who kind of see a symbolism to that, if that's the legacy Donald Trump leaves on the White House grounds.

9:05I'm just thinking about the mosquitoes, Anthony, in Washington.

9:09Anthony Zurcher:Oh, my God, I was outside and they were already biting me. So I can't imagine a giant swamp pit next to the White House. We've created a swamp. Let's head to New York now. Well, via Basingstoke. Mike is in Basingstoke, who's got a question about the mayor of New York City, Zoran Mamdani. Let's take a listen. Hello, I'm Mayor of Kars. It's great that Zoran Mamdani has balanced his budget. But I do have to ask, is that something that's balanced right now? Or is it going to be in several years' time when that target is 27 or 28? It seems that Donald Trump will often say something's happening and then it's actually pushed out for several years before it happens.

9:53And I just want to hold Mr. Mamdani to the same standard, but reckoning he's done a good job. So before we come to that, we can hear a bit of Mamdani himself. Here he is explaining how he did it. We inherited a$12 billion budget deficit.

10:07Marianna Spring:We are speaking about a fiscal crisis at the scale greater than the Great Recession. Was the Great Recession? Great Recession. Many said the only way out of this was slashing services and passing an austerity budget. We rejected that. After months of painstaking work, that deficit is now zero. Our city is now on firm financial ground. We achieved this in two major ways. Increasing revenue and support from Albany, and cutting waste and finding savings here in New York City. Thanks to Governor Hochul, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie, and months of organizing from New Yorkers, we taxed the rich.

10:39Before we come to the content of that, His videos are so slick, Marianna. They look like the adverts for AI. You know, those things that say, you know, just upload your clips and AI will turn it into a video for you. It's emulating what he does.

10:56Marianna Spring:Yeah, but it's really interesting because one of the reasons why Mandami's been particularly good at social media, and the same applies to Donald Trump, is this kind of air of authenticity. They're not cringe posting, as we'd call it, but they're actually kind of seeming like they are themselves and quite genuine and authentic. But that is slightly at odds with the very sort of slick curated feel that you get from some of the videos. If anything, I think one of the reasons why Mandami's content continues to do so well is because it's almost like he's like a YouTuber. Like it's so native to people on social media, the kinds of videos he does, even things that are kind of slightly more obviously campaign-y.

11:30Marianna Spring:They still seem like it's what he genuinely thinks and says. And I think that's what he's cracked. And as we chatted about on quite a few AmeriCast episodes, is the thing that you imagine the Democrats That's we'll want to capitalise on. But ultimately, it requires the right kind of personality in order to be able to do that, as the Republicans have found with Donald Trump. He's also a bit Trump-like. I mean, to go back to the questioner, who I think is dead right, that you should be holding him to the same sort of standards. And there's a reason why he and Trump seem to get on, which is they are quite similar in there.

11:59They are willing to pay him. And Anthony will know the details of this. But there is this claim that the deficit has been eliminated depends, doesn't it, Anthony, on quite a lot of money. He mentioned that actually Albany, which in other words, the state government. But but also on. So that's a sort of gift, as it were, from the state and for the Democratic governor of the state and deals that he's done with her. But also there's some sort of shenanigans involving pension payments, isn't there? Where he has slightly delayed something. So you'll know the details, Anthony. But I think the questioner is right to smell this as a little bit fishy.

12:37Anthony Zurcher:Right. He talked about the$12 billion deficit. And he did give credit to Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, and the aid that New York provided. That's$7.6 billion coming from the state. So that right there alone takes a pretty big chunk out of that$12 billion. And there's no guarantee, of course, that in future years that New York will continue to pony up that sizable amount. So that is a little bit of moving the balls around and not a kind of a permanent solution. And then you mentioned the pension shenanigans. I don't know if I'd call it shenanigans. It's definitely redefining how they or reorienting how they pay this long-term government pensions.

13:20Anthony Zurcher:They're basically stretching it out for another five years. They found out a few years ago that they had a deficit in their pensions, and so they had to pay more in order to cover it. They set a certain timetable for paying that down. Now they've extended that timetable another five years, which nets them about$1.6 billion in additional funds. So that takes another little bite out of that$12 billion deficit. And then he did raise taxes on pied-a-terres, second homes in New York, which angered some of the wealthy residents in New York. That's about$500 million in new revenue and some cost savings and things.

13:55Anthony Zurcher:So he gets there. But you're right. There is a little bit of moving money around, and there's a lot of help from the state government, which you just can't count on permanently. So it's a mixture of economics and politics going on there. But it seems to be working for him politically. A bit of news to bring you from Greenland. Donald Trump's special envoy to Greenland, Jeff Landry, has arrived in the capital of Nuke. There was little fanfare as he stepped off the plane, apparently. I'm here to build relationships, to look to listen and learn, he's told the Danish broadcaster he said he'd spoken to President Trump at the weekend, he told him go over there and make a bunch of friends, as many friends as you can.

14:35Fun. Only what, six weeks ago? How long ago were we talking about America invading Greenland and suddenly they were making friends? Yeah, that does say, that is an invasion that's off. That's what that was off. I think it's fair to say. It's not now going to happen. Anthony still hankers after Greenland. I'm not surprised if it's that hot in Washington, of course. A pianitarian nuke is what Anthony's got his eyes on.

14:59Marianna Spring:I did a pub quiz yesterday and I knew the answer to the capital of Greenland, nuke. Only from this. Thinking from AmeriCast. I was really pleased with myself. There's another reason to listen. Finally, we've found the purpose of this podcast. Of this podcast. Finally, quickly, we've got a voice note from Abbey in Essex. Hi, AmeriCast. Very long-term listener from the first episode, actually. and I would like to ask you for some clarity on the new Trump phone, which seems to be flooding my socials at the moment. In some posts and news articles, tens of thousands of people have paid a deposit for one, but there is no guarantee of even delivery of the phone, according to the terms.

15:37Marianna Spring:In others, the phone is described as a gold-reskinned Chinese phone retailing at about£160. In the UK, something like this would cause a scandal if a family member of the Prime Minister is promoting a questionable scheme, to put it politely. how can the president get away with such a serious conflict of interest as he has with the trump immigration gold card too thank you i mean there's a lot there if you haven't seen it yeah it's a gold phone gold plated phone with trump mobile engraved on the back i think there's been some questions about the number of stars and stripes on the flag as well also been uh raised

16:12Anthony Zurcher:what can you tell us anthony uh yeah so this was a phone that trump unveiled with a great amount a fanfare and they did take$100 deposits and there is no timeline now for delivery. The company has said the delivery is conditional on a variety of different factors, but people are rightfully starting to wonder what that$100 is being used for, when they're going to get these phones. It is sold on the Trump store along with all of these other Trump knickknacks and there's a payment plan, a phone service plan of$46.45 a month, which is an homage to Trump being the 47th and 45th president of the United States.

16:54Anthony Zurcher:But when you think about all of the different type of financial dealings and marketing gimmicks Trump has come up with, the Trump steaks, the Trump university, Trump wine, I hope that people went into this with their eyes open knowing that it doesn't always work out quite the way it might seem. You've got to make a decision now, haven't you? Might it be worth something anyway, just as a sort of thing to have in the future and some sort of... It might be worth more as a memento of the Trump period in office rather than anything else.

17:28Marianna Spring:Like the gold trainers.

17:29Anthony Zurcher:I've got a Trump coin from his trip to Singapore where he met with Kim Jong-un and it's sitting on my mantle as a souvenir of a historic peace agreement that never happened.

17:46Righty-ho, we're off the air now with Five Live and with Matt and Mariana has also gone, but Anthony is still here with me. Anthony, let's start by revisiting this business of Zoran Mandani because it's such an interesting thing. The issue for Mandani now is that he is still unquestionably politically getting somewhere. He's still in control. He's still able to enthuse New Yorkers. The problem for him, I guess, and it's not a problem that anyone would have suggested wasn't going to happen, but it is now happening, is that he's got to actually deliver. The rubber's hitting the road, and that means that life is going to get trickier.

18:23Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I agree with that. I think that it's not easy, that it's going to have to come down to some pretty tough decisions. There's no easy way out. And also, I mean, the crucial thing which you see and we've talked about in California, if you put too much on wealth taxes, one of the things that can happen in the United States more than in other places and other jurisdictions is that people just say, OK, I'm off and move to a different state. Maybe one that doesn't have wealth taxes. Maybe one that doesn't even have an income tax. And if you're super wealthy, it's terribly easy to do. But actually, people who are sort of slightly lower down the income scale are already moving.

19:07You think of the move that's been particularly from California to Texas, I suppose. And the big risk is that a load of people move with their money and their organizations, entire companies, just down the East Coast to Florida. And is there any evidence that's happening at the moment?

19:25Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, there was one corporate head who had a second home in Manhattan and that Mom Donnie actually did a video about him. And he said he was going to move down to Florida and move more of his offices down to Florida as well. Whether that leads to a mass exodus from Manhattan. I mean, it is still the financial capital of the United States, financial capital of the world, you could argue. And it's going to be difficult to see even whether it is a wealth tax, a narrowly targeted wealth tax, or this tax on second homes or something like that, leading to the kind of mass exodus. I think you see anecdotes as you see individual examples of it.

20:06Anthony Zurcher:But where you need to go to make money in this country, you still need to go to New York if you're a financier, if you're interested in technology and developing technology companies. Silicon Valley is the place where there's still a ton of money and capital being invested. It's still the place to be. Those sorts of things take a long time to build and they take a long time to shift even with government policy. And one day you'll be able to go on a New York bus for free and feel that you're really saving big time. But they're not yet again. Not yet. I mean, there are campaign promises he made and we've talked about them at the time when he was on the campaign trail in the same way that Donald Trump makes big campaign promises.

20:46Anthony Zurcher:There are things he said about lowering rent and about grocery stores all over the city that can provide cheap food in places that there aren't the kind of services provided. And free buses and free childcare, all of that comes at a cost. And yes, he has found a way to theoretically balance the budget, but some of those big ticket programs and some of those promises still are a long way off from being delivered. I go on London buses for free, Anthony, but that's because I'm old. You don't jump the turnstile?

21:21Don't. We can't even go there, which is another issue, of course, in New York. Actually, it's worth just following up on that, because another of the things that annoys New Yorkers is, well, I mean, low level plus a bit more than low level crime. this kind of sense of disorder that was a big deal and that wasn't really one of the stresses of his campaign because, as you say, he had all sorts of other things he was campaigning on as well. But what's his relationship like with the police? Because it was always going to be a bit difficult, wasn't it? Because he'd said pretty unpleasant things about the police in the past and you would feel that they would be quite suspicious about him.

22:00But I don't know, have you been to New York recently? Do you kind of sense any change in that respect?