6/24/26: Zohran Clean Sweep In NYC Elections, Pro Israel Dems Destroyed

21:28So he broke that kind of train from Adam Clayton Powell to Charlie Rangel. And so that was only 10 years ago. So he didn't have a big kind of well of goodwill to draw on. And so then I think when he comes in and says, oh, well, she's actually Haitian. It felt off and it did not work particularly with that district. He also, one of his big kind of slogans that he had up around the district, he would say, an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. And it would be a picture of him and like Tish James. And the attack, I'm like, wait, what is he talking about here? Oh, he's saying that the attack is him getting a primary challenger and so like you're trying to lump us all in together no like you have a you have a primary challenge he's not not attacking us here and that

22:19Ryan Grim:backfired too interesting you know i obviously zoran you know comes out here as the the king maker um undisputed like every single one of his candidates won the vast majority of those i think all of them except for brad lander who's not a dsa member all of the rest of them were dsa members So huge, huge win for DSA. But I also want to say, I think Hassan Piker has genuinely been extremely impactful in his community. They reportedly phone banked like 90 ,000 calls for Daryl Lisa in the last days of this campaign. The campaign says that, you know, that resulted in at least 2 ,000 voters going out to the polls for her.

22:57Ryan Grim:The margin of the victory is not a lot more than 2 ,000 votes. Not to mention, Ryan, you know, centrists really decided, starting with the Zoran campaign, that they were going to try to make Hassan and his most controversial statements a centerpiece of their attack on the left. And talk about strategies that completely backfired. I think they successfully did, in a way, make him a litmus test. But for a Democratic base that is overwhelmingly now disgusted with the genocide, pro-Palestine, opposed to the status quo of our relationship with Israel, in association with Hassan Piker became a symbol of, oh, you're on the good side of this issue.

23:37Ryan Grim:You're with the good guys that opposed the genocide. So not only in terms of the actual organizing that he did that may genuinely have helped to make the difference in this very close race with Daryl Lisa, but also in the way that he became that they made him this litmus test. I don't know that I've seen a more foolhardy and disastrous political tactic that's been deployed. And you can see this not just in New York City, obviously. I mean, the other campaign that really stands out for this is Michigan and Abdul Al-Sayed, who has only surged to the lead in the polls since this whole flop about, oh, how dare you campaign with Hassan Piker and one of his opponents, Mallory McMorrow, who chose the other side of that debate has seen the complete collapsing of her political standing.

24:18Yeah. And he also, I think, played a pivotal role in helping to elect Adam Hamillie in New Jersey. And then Chris Rabb nearby in Philadelphia, he went out and rallied with them and campaigned with them, and they embraced him. And it helped them kind of pop off. I was with Hassan in Harlem yesterday while he was streaming. And I mean, you can see it on the stream. The reaction to him is wild. Like the number of people, you know, in that district, white, black, brown, new, you know, new new residents, old residents, you know, who know who he is under under 45 or so, all of them or under 40. but a very broad base and a ton of people were you know coming up to him saying like they watched the stream regularly they uh they they voted because of him you know they got into politics because of him um and thank you know thanking him for kind of giving some you know meaning and and giving them some purpose like it feels like they have which he talks about on the stream is like that to you know channel your rage into your community and and get active uh in in order to kind of push back against this, the atomization and the kind of the depression that is, that just comes about from the kind of modern society that we live in.

25:35So yeah, I think that all of these efforts by the New York Times or by Third Way or by any of these other candidates to try to stigmatize him have only elevated his visibility, which then forces people to polarize around that question of good and evil, you know, moral and immoral. And I think you're exactly right that when people have to face those questions, it's certainly in a democratic primary, they're going to come down on the side of good.

26:05Ryan Grim:Yeah. Let's go and take a listen to just a little bit of Hassan reacting to some of the victories from last night. This is a eight and him talking about how he may change his endorsement process going forward. Hey, after tonight, my price went up. You have to be a democratic socialist if you want some of this fucking shine. Sorry. So only DSA members may apply now. I mean, talk about DSA, though, because obviously very important for Zoran's victory. You know, he deserves a lot of credit for the risks that he took and the selective nature. You know, he didn't jump on board with everything. He famously refused to endorse Chiyose against Hakeem Jeffries.

26:43Ryan Grim:And she decides, OK, I'm going to take a pass on this. Didn't endorse any of the challengers to Richie Torres. Torres is able to win, although, you know, his challengers did get some chunk of the vote. didn't endorse. And this one I'm a little bit bummed about, but Chuck Park actually came pretty close against Grace Meng with not a lot of support whatsoever. It seems like if he had had some endorsement and backing, he may actually have been able to get across the finish line there. And we spoke with him. He seems like a great guy and a great candidate as well. But talk about what this means for DSA and their role in the Democratic Party.

27:16Ryan Grim:I saw CNN with some polling that says, you know, DSA and socialists in general, more popular than Democrats in Congress at this point. So it should be no surprise that in Democratic primaries, you increasingly see DSA backed candidates rising to the top. Yeah. And with Chio say it was interesting way that he approached it. He did it kind of democratically. DSA is very famously a very democratic organization internally. And he, like any other member kind of went to the new york city dsa and made his case for why they should not endorse him at this moment um just strategically and tactically and he narrowly won that vote and without that support you know chi wasn't able to go forward uh you know clearly he wanted to you know focus his his energy on other races i think you're right by the way that ian park should probably run again in two years.

28:11And if he gets any attention at all, I think he can win that race. New York, of course, is a little bit unique when it comes to the ability to have this many kind of young professionals in their 20s and 30s. And it's hard to replicate it everywhere around the country. But in major cities like Philadelphia and Chicago, where you do have urban cores, You're seeing, you know, similar ability to kind of come together. And it really shows the hollowness of the kind of coalitional politics that, say, like New York City's WFP represented in Brooklyn. Like they got behind Antonio Reynoso, who had the support of basically all the labor unions, all these nonprofit progressive organizations that have memberships and that do work in the district.

29:09And they didn't have the kind of manpower behind it. Like it did not – there's something broken between it and voters. Like they weren't able to turn that out. So they're going to have to do some real thinking about why DSA was able to build so much power in New York City, whereas they couldn't. But they are the predominant force in New York City politics at this point. And just basically eight years ago was when June of 2018 when AOC won her shock primary. And from then to now, they have become not just a player, but dominant.

29:52Ryan Grim:I want to talk a little bit about AOC because in some ways, I know she endorsed down ballot some of the same candidates as Zoran, and they were predominantly successful. She not only didn't endorse any of the victorious federal candidates, she hasn't endorsed against any Democratic incumbents. and so you know that creates she's had this like sort of very no risk strategy doesn't want to rock the boat with her relationships inside the house that's you know apparently the reason why also she decided not to endorse her own chief of staff shoykat chakrabadi um in a way that you could have very much made a difference for him too um and so while zoran is rightfully being recognized as like this kingmaker now, it's pretty wild to see AOC, who in a lot of ways kicked off this moment and this movement that, you know, ultimately builds to where we are today.

30:46Ryan Grim:Seeing her being absent from the movement that it's very easy to imagine her being the one that's getting all the credit now, like look at all the power AOC has. And yet she's decided de facto to effectively be an incumbent protector since she refuses to endorse against any of them. I find that pretty, you know, know, pretty extraordinary. I mean, she wouldn't even endorse Brad Lander, for example, in a race that was almost a slam dunk against Dan Goldman. And it's easy to take that for granted because that was kind of a foregone conclusion. The margin was so large, but as you rightly point out, anytime any incumbent goes down, that's pretty wild.

31:20Ryan Grim:So what do you make of AOC being on the sidelines for this big Dem tea party moment? Because I think it's a, you know, I think it's in terms of, you know, as someone who wants to see these candidates succeed, it's unfortunate to see the level of power that she could bring not being brought to bear in these instances. But also if she has bigger national ambitions, it really seems like a massive political missed opportunity for her. Right. I mean, we've been talking about, you know, kind of mom donning in the DSA through this whole conversation because she, you know, absented herself from it. The Dan Goldman example is really perfect because can you imagine if the shoes on the other foot you know if aoc had a credible challenger in her district do you think dan goldman of all people is going to give her the respect of incumbency and not support that like so she's giving you know she's throwing her way she didn't endorse him but like she didn't help brad lander uh she's doing this for people who whose political project is to destroy her um yeah now that's not the case with uh that with brooklyn 7 which is clara valdez and i and i saw her um after her victory last night and and uh aoc was one of the few calls uh that that clara took that was an open race like that that there wasn't even an incumbent there what was different there is that nydia velazquez um who a puerto rican uh congresswoman who's retiring and had been and had become something of a mentor to AOC on Capitol Hill, was retiring, and she wanted Reynoso.

32:53And so she pushed very hard for AOC to stay out of the race. And AOC, out of respect for that relationship, decided to do so. But that's an interesting decision. Like, this is a retiring congresswoman.

33:05Ryan Grim:Well, and Mondani had a kind of a similarly difficult decision because he didn't, he, is that the one where he actually told her, like, oh, I'm not gonna... That was Espeyat. Oh, it was Espeyat where there was a pledge that was made. But Velazquez was supportive of him. Yeah, and Mamdani very well could have come up with some type of candidate that both Nidhi Velazquez, the WFP, and DSA could all agree on. There was a path to that. But they decided, no, we're going to fight this. We're going all the way for it. And then AOC stayed out of it. And then, yeah, also stayed out of the Espeyat race.

33:44Even though, you know, APAC, which would love to see AOC's project destroyed, was spending millions to try to boost Espyat. But yeah, the difference in ruthlessness between her and Mamdani is interesting there. Because to your point, yeah, all the reporting is, and this is my understanding too, that when Espyat endorsed after the primary, endorsed Mamdani, Mamdani promised not to primary him or to get behind a challenger. And yeah, he did that. which is, you know, shows kind of how cutthroat he is, which is unusual on the left.

34:20Ryan Grim:It is very unusual. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing it. So it's pretty incredible. You know, a couple of the so I watched some of the CNN coverage last night and you and I are co-hosting again tomorrow. We'll do a whole thing on like the media reaction and the establishment reaction. We'll get it. We'll get into all of that. Never you worry. But, you know, a couple of things that I heard from Republicans and from the Neera Tandans and Cory Bookers of the world is like, well, this is still, if you look at the watch parties or the victory parties, it's still mostly these young white professionals.

34:55Ryan Grim:And that's what DSA ultimately is. You know, my view is that's an increasingly difficult, not that there isn't some truth that like in terms of the bedrock, like the core sort of organizing base of the DSA, I think there is some truth there, But it becomes a very difficult argument to sustain when now, just with the victories last night, you had extremely diverse districts that were won in every borough of the city save for Staten Island. So how can you look, for example, at Daryl Lisa, who obviously herself is not white and who won the majority of the black voters in the district and say, oh, this is just a thing for white gentrifiers in these neighborhoods?

35:36Yeah. And I think if they only won with these like gentrified neighborhoods and it's a bunch of gentrifiers that are doing the organizing, then I think you have a pretty clean hit on that. But both in Mamdani's mayoral race and then in Espyat here, I mean, Brooklyn 7 is so gentrified that it's kind of beyond – it's very – it's just what it is. But in Harlem, like you were saying, they – Darylisa won a significant portion and probably a majority of the black vote in Harlem. So what I would say to people who are skeptical of this element of politics is that, okay, yes, it is true that in the past, a lot of voters would support somebody like an espayette.

36:26And you feel like those voters are kind of getting pushed out by these people who are coming in, and they've got their laptops, and they're really good at this block-by-block organizing. But what's so critical is that they're not doing it with big money. They're not doing it with corporate money. They're not doing it with AIPAC support. They're doing it with small dollars, which means that it is a clean fight. It's bringing actual democracy to these districts. And so the previous supporters of Espyat, if they don't like exactly what Daryalisa is doing, they actually now have a way to influence her with their just individual voices and with their organized voices.

37:09in a way that they didn't when it's organized money that is controlling the districts. And so it really opens up possibilities for kind of all voters in these districts. Yeah.

37:22Ryan Grim:I also, you know, I sort of object to the idea of dividing people along these racial lines in any case. You know, the young white professionals who moved into these districts are also desperate for affordable housing and, you know, and support for genocide. So there's, I think, also a lot more common cause and common concerns among these voting blocs than is sometimes portrayed where they – I mean we saw it in Darylis's race where they tried to exploit ethnic divisions and obviously didn't end up working on Espyat's behalf. So on that point, yeah, DSA has been objectively, if you count the races that they've won at the state and federal level, the most successful actually in Queens, which is, Queens doesn't get as much attention as Brooklyn or the Bronx or Manhattan for whatever reason.

38:09But Queens is the most diverse, maybe the most diverse kind of urban area in the world.

38:17Ryan Grim:Truly is like the melting pot of the world in Queens. It really is. It really is. And they are more dominant there than anywhere else. And so that should tell you something about the way that their class politics are able to bring so many diverse people together. The other thing that I have heard, Ryan, is, oh, well, this doesn't really matter because it's just New York City. And New York City is different. And so, you know, that's nice for you. But this is not going to be replicable in other places to which I would say, OK, well, let's take a look at Graham Plattner. This is Maine count. Let's take a look at Abdul Syed.

38:53Ryan Grim:Michigan, I think, is a pretty important state in the country. So we're going to talk a little bit more in a minute about the way positions on Israel have really become central to all of this. But I think anyone who's trying to deny that there is a kind of nationwide reckoning that is happening in the Democratic Party is just ultimately deluding themselves. Yeah, and also just throughout history, New York has really driven American politics. It was the crucible of the anti-slavery kind of politics that then surged. It was the progressive reformers really were dominant in New York first before they kind of became national in the early 1900s.

39:31FDR obviously comes out of New York. The idea that New York is this kind of separate entity from the rest of the United States ignores the fact that the politics there usually end up influencing national politics relatively quickly and in a profound way.

39:47Ryan Grim:Um, the, the last argument I heard is like, well, careful what you wish for. Daryl Lisa has some, I think it's fair to say radical views, you know, against cops and borders and like the things that they caricature that Kamala Harris is saying, like she actually holds some of those views and, um, took down some tweets. We asked her about it the other day, the famous, you know, fuck Kamala Harris line, et cetera. I know that there's a lot of angst in the Democratic Party that like, oh, my God, now they're going to say we're open borders. And I'm like, they've been saying that all along. So I'm not sure that really changes the game for you here.

40:21Right. So, right. They've been saying you're open borders. They're saying you're prison abolition. And so, yeah, now they can now they can point to her. I would say just don't don't have candidates. They're so bad that you lose to people like like that. I mean, I mean, come on. Like it's it's pretty it's pretty embarrassing. And at the same time, when the Republicans have a Randy fine in the House and Donald Trump in the White House, I think the public's kind of willingness to get worked up about kind of one individual's out there position on one thing is pretty limited. Yeah.

40:57Ryan Grim:And I also I mean, I hate the comparison between, you know, someone who wants a different system of policing and more immigrants and someone who's like, let's nuke an entire let's do a Holocaust just out in the open. So there is there is that as well. Lastly, before we move on to the Israel piece, let me put up a seven because we have, you know, kind of a list here of some of the other races from Daniel. I put this up earlier as well, but it wasn't just New York. We've got New York and Maryland. I know you were following some of these races in Maryland, so I wanted to get you to weigh on this in particular.

41:35Ryan Grim:Daniel says, I'm counting 12 Democratic incumbents who lost or in one case are trailing to challenge her to the left, two Congress members, four state senators, six state House members. And then he breaks all of that down. So what was noteworthy in Maryland to you in particular, Ryan, that you were following? Actually, I've got to look because I know they were going after the Senate leader. And I've got to check to see if he was one of the ones that went down. He was standing in the way of the redistricting effort that Democrats wanted to do. I'll check that. We can talk about that tomorrow. But yeah, down in Southern Maryland, we covered this race a little bit.

42:12This guy, APAC Adrian Boafo, who was a former Steny Hoyer aide and got$12 million in APAC and crypto support. He wound up winning, but it was a crowded field of literally 24 candidates. And so he wound up with just 32 % of the vote. So I haven't done the math yet, but$12 million to get that poor of a performance gave kind of APAC the only thing that they could celebrate. Last night, they did a big – they did their line they always use. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics. Congratulations to Adrian Boffo. You know, so such great politics that normally they kind of funnel the money behind a different pack like they did with Espeyat.

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45:22Ryan Grim:The one race that had a real different dynamic was, um, the, which was that upper West side, upper East side district. I can't remember 12, 13, whatever that one was. Um, Michael Asher, who was the, the candidate, you know, chosen by Jerry Nadler to succeed him. He ends up pulling it off. It's pretty close with Alex Boras. Boras definitely positioned himself as an AI critic. Tens of millions of dollars of AI PAC money flowed into this race. I know you follow this closely. Isn't this one where the anthropic AI PAC, which is supposedly pro-regulation, backed Boras, the open AI PAC backed Lasher?

45:58Ryan Grim:It became a bit of a central issue. I know voters were telling some of the reporters in the area that that was part of what they were voting on. Israel didn't loom as large in this race because the candidates had kind of similar relatively, you know, status quo friendly positions on Israel. So what did you see as noteworthy in that particular race? Yeah, that that it was it was closer, I think, than people thought it would be, which suggests that there is a decent amount of anxiety, you know, in particularly in that district. But also, I think, everywhere about the role that AI is playing. There was some fear that if Boris lost, that that would be a signal to Democrats that they need to just completely bend the knee to AI or risk getting massively.

46:47Ryan Grim:The way they did on crypto. Right, exactly. But I don't think the results signal that to Democrats. I think it remains kind of an open fight, particularly because the public is just so hostile on the other side of this issue. So yes, like the AI money might come at you, but voters are going to come at you if you're connected with their higher electricity bills and also all of the kind of anxiety tied to the massive economic disruption that AI promises to bring. um let's talk about israel because i do think this was really central in many of these races um but in particular those three in new york city um you know with daria aliza in particular so she was an organizer at the columbia university encampments now she's going to be their member of cars like she was just just not long ago getting arrested as a protester and now she's going to represent that district.

47:48Ryan Grim:Pretty incredible turnabout. She said she was really motivated by the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Representative Espyat's failure to stand up for him when he was arrested. You had a chance to actually speak with Mahmoud Khalil who was there in the district and is close with Dari Elisa. Let's go ahead and play A10. There are consequences of abandoning abandoning your communities. There are consequences of supporting a genocidal state. So I really feel sort of like some sort of justice, although my fight is not final yet. But even if I get deported, to me, the fact that the American public now is well aware of AIPAC's tactics, very, you know, like dirty tactics, that's enough for me.

48:39Like even if I get deported, at least now we're getting that change. But we're getting, you know, like not only with Daryl Lisa, we have, you know, Claire Valdez also won her campaign, Adam Hamwe, and of course, Chris Rav in the past. So this is to me is really like I feel sort of like some sort of justice. I got some sort of justice, even if I don't get it from the courts, at least I'm getting it from the public opinion.

49:06Ryan Grim:And by the way, the Trump administration is still trying to deport him, which is what he refers to there. I mean, there is something really beautiful and poetic about this. Yeah, and he, so Dagger Lisa and he knew each other from the encampment, from their work in activism. And when he was grabbed, his wife reached out to their member of Congress, which is what you do. She's an American citizen. She called her member of Congress. And he would not, he and the office just wouldn't respond, did nothing. And so she eventually got AOC and other members of the New York congressional delegation to help kind of make some noise about it.

49:44And it was immediately a very national story. And it cuts to the problem that Espeyat has there, which is that the old school kind of corrupt machine politics worked when the machine would at least be responsive to constituents. Like, OK, we know that these guys are on the take. We know they're taking pride. I know they're friends with the realtors, the real estate lobby and everybody else. But if I have a problem, you know, if I get a problem at work, if I have a problem with the city, I can call my member of Congress and they have a constituent service operation that is going to be well-oiled and that is going to care because then when it's time to vote, we're going to come out and we're going to keep electing these guys, even though we think that they're corrupt.

50:29Like that's the machine in the best case. But because he was so dependent on APAC support, he couldn't do that part of the constituent service for this very famous constituent. And it became then this proxy for everything else about him. And it really gave her the kind of rationale, the case, like, why are you running? Like, oh, well, my friend got arrested in the district and he didn't care. and people are like, oh, okay, that's a legit reason to run. Yeah. And I actually, maybe we could roll this. I saw Espyat on Lenox Avenue, Malcolm X Avenue yesterday, outside of the Harlem Hospital, and I kind of put this to him.

51:15We can roll this. My thing is, I bet if you guys would have called out a genocide and told APAC F-off, you wouldn't have had a race at all.

51:30And I really actually do believe, and maybe it's not just, but I do believe it's the case that if six months ago, if he had taken Mahmoud Khalil's wife's calls, just done the bare minimum to help her and said, you know what, I'm not taking AIPAC support anymore. Like I took it in the past. I regret it. I don't like what they've done in Gaza. I'm not taking APAC support anymore because this is a genocide that's been carried out. Where does a challenger have any opening whatsoever to take him on? I don't see it. And I think he would have cruised to reelection last night.

52:06Ryan Grim:Well, and Valerie Fushi sort of tested that case. You know, she had a close call. She changed her views, repudiated APAC, and she hung on. Right. You know, the other, let's talk a little, so this was my favorite. And actually Nita Lama was there last night. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, she didn't want to miss it. She flew up from North Carolina. That's awesome. This was my favorite tweet from last night with regard to Daryliza and Espyat from Ed Intermentum. He said, taking out the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with a self-described communist, 32-year-old PhD student who tweeted, fuck Kamala Harris, is beyond insane.

52:41Ryan Grim:DEF CON one moment for the Democratic establishment. And, you know, similarly, Claire Valdez, I feel like we sort of glossed over her a bit, but she won easily. Like, it was 20-plus points. And she beat the sitting Brooklyn Borough president, who, by the way, is progressive in many regards. And so when you ask yourself, OK, well, how important was Israel in all of this? He had all the all the unions, working families party, Nidia Velasquez, this power base is Brooklyn Borough President, which coveted position, et cetera. And it wasn't close. He got blown out. You have to look at that and say there were there were two major differences.

53:22Ryan Grim:Well, three, I would say, number one, DSA organizing. Number two, Zoran Mamdani and number three, you know, AIPAC and Israel. And I think you don't get the first two without without the third. yeah of course yeah yeah and when we had him on the the show and he is you know he has a record he kicked ice out of rikers um he's he has he took on the machine himself in brooklyn he's a he's a progressive up and down the board except for the fact that he refused to take a stand on israel and it's genocide until he ran for office and so people it's people think well you're people are too obsessed with videos and it's that's not what it is what it is is that that tells people that he's not willing to fight for them that he's not that he's not there when it's going to get hard and they know that if you're going to take on kind of corporate power you're going to take on any other power centers you have to be willing to do the hard things and tell the tell the powers that be no uh even when it's and especially when it's difficult for you and the fact that he didn't do that, I think that really resonated with people.

54:27And the fact that he did it then, it's one thing if you don't believe it, but then to do it as you're launching your campaign just tells people, oh, okay, yes, I like him. He's been great, but he's another politician.

54:40Ryan Grim:Was there Israel lobby money in that race? There was a lot of controversy because this real fight pack got in. We know for a fact that about $200 ,000 of that money was teachers union money, some other union money in this big super PAC. Valdez was accusing it of possibly being APAC money. We don't know yet. It seems more likely that it's real estate focused money. But so there's no evidence yet that they got in. Because I think APAC understood, I think they would have preferred Reynoso, obviously, to Donnie's candidate. But they also understood that once Renoso was in office, if he'd have won, he's gone to them, like a Valerier Foucher style.

55:25He wasn't coming back.

55:28Ryan Grim:Yeah, the politics of the district dictate that if he would want to hold on to that job, he would need to take those votes and reposition himself fully and completely. Let's talk a little bit about Dan Goldman and Brad Lander. Goldman, I don't think, is as consistent or progressive. He's got some corporate centrist in him for sure, more so than Reynoso, but also very clear here that the dividing line was Israel. You know, Brad Lander endorses Mom Donnie, you know, comes out. And I don't know that he would describe himself as an anti-Zionist. He's not a DSA member. He's a little bit more, you know, to the center than certainly like a Dario Lisa or a Claire Valdez, but also has made it plain that he opposes the genocide.

56:16Ryan Grim:He opposes these war crimes and human rights violations and wins handily. It was a foregone conclusion, basically, as soon as they closed the polls, Lander was able to declare victory. So talk a little bit about the dynamics there and why that was such an incredible slam dunk for him. And by the way, I think one of the most heavily Jewish districts in the entire country, if not the most heavily Jewish district in the entire country. Yeah, that really could have been Goldman's seat for life if he would have been kind of even a normal Democrat in that district. Instead, he decided to make, and he was this hero of the resistance, leading the Trump impeachment and Trump won.

57:01He's like a real kind of resistance 1.0 MSNBC type figure who rode that fame to then a very divided race. If people remember, there was Mondaire Jones, Ulan New, very split field. So he kind of squeaked by and never had a huge base of support and was able to win thanks to spending a fortune of his own money. He's an heir of Levi Strauss, which also San Francisco's mayor is also a Levi Strauss heir. What's going on with his family? But he instead decided to be this hostile antagonist to Mamdani and to all of the protesters against the genocide. like he became one of these like the chief spokespeople against that and i don't think he's still to this day like endorsed mom donnie not in the definitely not in the primary not in the general um and he still is kind of fighting with mom donnie constantly and i saw somebody floating like oh maybe goldman is now a leading you know challenger to mom donnie in you know for re-election it's like bro yes so he got absolutely destroyed in his own district but he's gonna be more popular in the rest of the city.

58:08But yeah, so he made that his issue. And it did, and it blew up, it blew up in his face. You know, the last couple of days of the race, the big scandal there was that he went into a coffee shop called Poetica. And so his daughter could use the bathroom and so he bought a coffee, so she used the bathroom. And later -

58:28Ryan Grim:Very common New York City experience, by the way. Yes. Later they realized that, no, that was Dan Goldman. They said this is blood money, this is eight-pack money. And they refunded the money, and that became a public thing. You know, he said, he talked about, you know, he and his defender were saying this is, you know, anti-Semitic. They were quite clear that this was aimed at his support of genocide. And interestingly, I talked to somebody last night who was following Espyat around, and he said Espyat got thrown out of a bodega when they realized, when the bodega owner learned that Espyat was taking APAC money.

59:05And Espyat's not Jewish. It's the same thing. You're taking APAC money and you're supportive of genocide. We don't want your business. Right. So that is a completely separate thing. And I think it's inconvenient for Goldman that he was beaten by a Jewish opponent. Yes. In a landslide. So that's a –

59:29Ryan Grim:You know, I mean, he's he's very proud of his Jewish heritage. He talks a lot about that. It's very clearly central to Brad Lander's identity. And yeah, to your point, because he has a different position and doesn't take APAC money, he's not getting thrown out of bodegas or having his money refunded to him after the fact, because it's not about Dan Goldman being Jewish. It's about the position that he holds and, you know, like running cover for a genocide that people find to be abhorrent and unconscionable. Right. Yeah, there's no protected kind of civil rights class of genocide supporter like that is.

1:00:07That is some now the Department of Justice under Trump, certainly, you know, they tweeted that they're going to try to make a federal case of it.

1:00:15Ryan Grim:Which I do want to say to Goldman's credit, he came out and said that's we shouldn't do that. Right. He did not support their decision to go in that direction. But at the very same time that you have J.D. Vance saying, oh, if everything if everything's Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred. You have the Trump DOJ acting as if everything is Jew hatred and pursuing federal prosecutions based on, you know, opposition to to someone supportive genocide. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so to get beaten that badly, like I said, like it's the biggest defeat margin wise for a Democrat. And I can't I can't remember when not in my lifetime.

1:00:56Ryan Grim:I feel like we're going to talk more tomorrow about the fallout from all of this, because I do think there are going to be a whole lot of holy shit moments going on right now of Democratic candidates who bet the way that Dan Goldman bet that, you know, it's always been safe politics to be pro Israel up until the The past couple of years, it has always been that's where the organization has been. That's where like it has always been the safe political bet to do effectively the bear hug strategy when it comes to Israel. And in the Democratic Party, that is just no longer the case. And I don't think anyone has described this better than Ta-Nehisi Coates, who's like, yeah, because if you aren't willing to stand up against genocide, why would we think you're going to stand up for democracy?

1:01:36Ryan Grim:or I would add to that fight on any other issue where it requires standing up to power, to the donor class. And we've got an oligarchy crisis in the country and the world that I think is extraordinarily grave and genuinely existential. If you're not willing to say a genocide is a genocide, we have no chance of you going up against Elon Musk and the burgeoning class of trillionaires. So to me, it makes all the sense in the world that this has become a core litmus test. And then, of course, just the nature of how many horrific, unconscionable, stomach-churning images of toddlers being murdered and young babies who are triple amputees.

1:02:19Ryan Grim:I mean, of course people are going to look at that with revulsion and say, if you did anything to run cover for this, I don't want anything to do with you. And I don't know how you even call yourself a Democrat and pretend to posture like you care about human rights and morality and democracy. So there's just an overwhelming revulsion, too. So the way that most Democrats, the vast majority of Democrats, comported themselves throughout the period of this genocide. The last piece I wanted to play here before we move on to the next topic is you were able to speak a little bit exclusively to Zoran Mamdani last night, where he reflected on what this all means and, you know, what voters, what sentiments they were trying to express.

1:03:04Ryan Grim:You want to set this up a little bit, Ryan? Yeah, this was A.B. Youssef is a drop site contributor. So he spoke at the Daria Lisa event and was on his way out. And so A.B. was able to grab him for a couple of minutes here. Let's roll that. This win is incredible. Daria Lisa began a campaign where she was up against every possible set of odds. And she pulled off a victory that is helping to rewrite politics in our city and in our country. She is someone who brings a clarity, a conscience, and a conviction to a politics that has often been missing those things. And in a city and in a district that has been so desperate for leadership when it comes to putting working people back at the heart, she will deliver that.

1:03:46And it was an honor to be one part of this incredible campaign and to see her win alongside Brad Lander, Clara Valdez and every single one of the state legislative candidates that I had the privilege of supporting. It shows that last June was not an anomaly. It was not an aberration. It was the beginning of a new kind of politics. And I cannot wait for what that next chapter is going to look like.

1:04:06Ryan Grim:I think supporters and detractors alike probably agree that, you know, last night shows that there is a new kind of thing that is happening, that Zoran was not a one-off, that this is much more of a movement that is also not just about New York City. Yeah. No, yes, they're going to have to pay attention to that. And credit to AB for doing a better job with his mic than I did with mine, but I'm learning. I'm trying.

1:04:36Thank you.

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