Did Trump Win Over Black Men or Did the Democrats Lose Them? with Astead Herndon

19:42Astead Herndon:That's not implausible. Maybe she goes the opposite direction and like doesn't do as much I'm with her identity politics and cobbles together more votes. Maybe, you know what I'm saying? It's too small for you to just for it to just be persuasion as the only thing she failed at. They failed at several fronts that could have gotten the election.

20:00Coleman Hughes:Okay. I don't mean to harp on 2016, by the way. We can move on. I would love to move on. Okay. If you're like me, you've probably seen a recent headline and wondered, can the president really do that? That's why I recommend checking out the chart-topping podcast, You Might Be Right, hosted by former Tennessee governors from the left and right, Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam. It's produced by the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee. And fun fact, the show's named after Howard Baker's principal, Always Remember the Other Fellow Might Be Right. Now that's a quote that conversations with Coleman can get behind.

20:41Coleman Hughes:On You Might Be Right, the governors tackle timely policy conversations with political luminaries like Al Gore and Judy Woodruff. If you need a place to start, check out their recent episode on whether there's too much money in politics. Political spending enables expression and participation, but at what cost? As we approach the midterms, this is a timely and thoughtful discussion featuring Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig and former chair of the Federal Election Commission Brad Smith. Hear balanced perspectives without the shouting matches found on mainstream news. Follow You Might Be Right on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and tell them I sent you.

21:21Coleman Hughes:On this show, we've spent a lot of time having honest, unfiltered discussions around Israel, Zionism, and anti-Semitism. And if our conversations have made you more curious about any of these topics, I have a recommendation for you. Wondering Jews with Mihal and Noam is a podcast hosted by two of the leading Jewish voices of today, Noam Weissman and Mihal Bitton. On their show, Mihal and Noam are finding fresh perspectives on tough subjects. They've explored the war on Iran from the viewpoint of Persian Jews, poked fun at anti-Semitism with comedians, and asked prominent rabbis about the future of religion.

21:57Coleman Hughes:If you value nuance over hot takes and want to get past all of the noise, this show is for you. Search Wondering Jews with Mihal and Noam on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, and subscribe. Let's talk about Mamdani. Sure. So, I guess, where should we start? What does Mamdani's election victory to you represent? Does it represent a shifting to the left of voters in New York City? Does it represent just a once-in-a-generation political talent combined with two weak rivals? Like, what's the story here? What's the takeaway?

22:46Astead Herndon:Yeah, yeah, yeah. A theme, but I'm going to say all, but I'm like, I can rank some important. I think that the trust collapse with Democratic establishment to their own voters is huge. So there's an open space for people to occupy, partially because of the broken relationship between, I would say, Democratic Party, particularly nationally, and their own base of voters who feels like they not only let them down, but aided in Donald Trump's comeback. And so I think a lot of people can seize on that gap, left, right, center. I think in New York, there's some specific lessons that Mamdani's campaign, I think, shows.

23:26Astead Herndon:One is, you know, speaking about, even if I go to that kind of breaking of the black-white paradigm that I was talking about earlier, I would say New York is on the forefront of this, right? Or, you know, as it's kind of immigrant-rich history, as I would say a reflection of an electorate that is increasingly foreign-born, and his ability to put together a coalition that goes beyond just DSA left, which is, I think, how a lot of people understand him. There has been a history of a lot of those DSA organizers and activists. What has made Maldana unique is his ability to go beyond that and to create a broader left liberal coalition.

24:03Astead Herndon:And so that is what has had him able to be successful. Now, I would say like that's somewhat about I would say like that's mostly about housing affordability. And I think what I and just beyond the kind of lefty concern of it, bringing Democrats back to an issue that is tangible. You know, so many of the things they were offering working class folks, people of color over the last several years were about representation, were about kind of like mushy, I would say, kind of elite focus advancement. I think one of the things Mamdani and mass politics does well is reframe it to people who are outside of that conversation.

24:42Astead Herndon:Things like buses, things like child care are obviously much more tangible than that. I think there's lessons about the ways Democrats have shifted in relationship to Israel and Palestine. I think his ability to cobble together a coalition in the primary was partially aided by his willingness to speak out on that issue. So certainly it caused him some issues in the general election, drove up Cuomo's numbers, allowed him to consolidate folks who were upset by it. But in the primary, it helped him become the Democratic nominee. If I was a Democrat thing about 2026 or 2028, that's definitely something to watch, too.

25:18Astead Herndon:The last thing I would say about this, though, it's just bigger than left, right, center. It's more just generational. I think if you just take people under 40 in the last Democratic primary, there was a huge gap between those people and kind of the rest of the Democratic electorate. That was kind of the entirety of the Bernie Sanders wing, with some exceptions. where that those folks are now the base of the Democratic Party. And so there is a growing question of can the politics of old really still speak to that coalition? And I think you're seeing that not just in Mamdani, but in the reaction to Chuck Schumer this week, in the reaction to Hakeem Jeffries over this year.

25:57Astead Herndon:There is a mismatch between where the leadership is and where not only I would say their activist base is from a left sense, which I think a lot of folks define it as that, That would increasingly say just even that kind of no kingsy crowd is not messing with the Democratic leadership. And so that is a, those are just fundamental facts they're going to have to deal with when it comes midterms and presidential primary time.

26:20Coleman Hughes:Okay, so one question I have about Mamdani is, and I think in one of your pieces on him, you framed it. I only wrote one, so. Sorry? I said I only wrote one, so it was the longest, but it was just one. Yeah, yeah. So it may have been in that one. But you kind of framed it, or maybe someone else framed it as it can seem like there's a Mamdani 1.0 and a Mamdani 2.0. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mamdani 1.0 is, you know, four years ago, he's talking about defunding the police. NYPD is racist and anti-queer. And, you know, I guess, tax on millionaires and all this stuff. And he's moderated on all this stuff.

27:00Coleman Hughes:He's moderated. Policing especially. Yeah, most of all on policing. He actually, I learned from your article, he apologized to a group of police officers recently in a private meeting. So obviously, you know, politicians pivoting to the center is as old as time. And there's always the question in the voter's mind, is the old one the real guy? Is the new one the real guy? Or is the truth some third thing? What do you think in Mamdani's case?

27:32Astead Herndon:Yeah, I mean, listen, like one man's opinion, but I don't think they're radically that different, except on policing, between 1-0 and 2-0. I think that, listen, it depends on when you start the story, because the question is, the left of where Mamdani comes from, the kind of DSA, New York, housing organizing left, has transitioned broadly since six years ago. When he was joining DSA after Bernie Sanders, there was arguments that they weren't going to participate in electoral politics at all because they, you know, their goal was to tear down the Democratic Party and exist outside of the electoral system.

28:07Astead Herndon:They've just started competing in citywide elections recently. So they're kind of building this plane as they fly, I think is the first thing to really remember. The thing about him is, he, like, you know, there is a sense, there's a recognition that I think you can say is a fair one that the role of mayor does not reward ideological rigidity. He is not going to be a member of Congress. He cannot vote his heart's feelings all the time. The role itself requires, quote unquote, moderation. And so what they would say is that their 2.0 was really a recognition of that fact and a sense that, like, for him to be successful, he needed to acknowledge his faults.

28:48Astead Herndon:He had to acknowledge that he didn't have management experience. He needed to acknowledge the fact that he probably couldn't cobble a team together if he was going to use things like Israel as a litmus test. And so he has been going to people, telling them, I recognize that. And because of that, these are not like, here's what you can expect from me. And all I'm saying is, it's not as if he's bringing the pharma CEO in and saying, hey, actually, I don't believe what I said about the millionaire stacks. He's bringing that person in and saying, tell me about leadership and how you make a team. And what are our places of overlap?

29:26Astead Herndon:Now, is that inauthentic because they aren't talking about their places of disagreement? Or is that authentic because you're focusing on the places you agree? That's up to you. But that's what's happening, mostly. And so I guess on policing is specific, because that's the place where it's been not just the moderation, an explicit 180. An explicit, I am sorry, I made a mistake, and I now recognize that. Now, does that mean in his heart of hearts, he does not think the NYPD is structurally racist? I asked him that question. He doesn't really have a good answer to it. What I think is clear is he thinks there's no point in having that argument anymore.

30:11Astead Herndon:and whether you think that means he is, and so I'm saying it's up to you whether you think that's a retrenchment on values, you know what I'm saying, or a priority of something else. What he would say he's prioritizing is being successful in the job he was running for, which required stepping away, I think, from some of that rigidity. It's clear to me that Momdani is willing to put some distance between him and the DSA left. They are comfortable with that. So that's not going to be now how, where, on specific races, on specific policies. Like, that's going to be the question. But the idea, like, if someone's thinking that, like, he's going to be in some secret meeting and won't tell them no, that's not really their type of relationship.

30:58Astead Herndon:There is an alignment on ideological values. But there is not a one-to-one in terms of how that has gotten done. And to your point about the millionaire's tax, I think is a good example. You talk to DSA. They will say the point of running a citywide campaign, not even it's just the revenue you raise from something like a millionaire's tax, is the part of the ideological project is to tax the rich, right? That's not what Mamdani says anymore. He says, I am here to get the product of what the revenue increase would have gotten, which is free buses or free childcare or whatever. If Governor Kathy Hochul will give that to me in some other form, I'll take it in one other form.

31:40Astead Herndon:That's 2.0. You know what I'm saying? Where 1.0 would have agreed about the importance of that ideological fight of the need to tax the rich. So I'm saying, whether you believe that in his heart, like in his heart, does he probably still wish for a world where that's true? I think so. But I don't think he's going to live and die on that hill. The hills he's going to live and die on are whatever makes those big three priorities happen. Free buses, free child care, rent freeze. I think he will basically say that I have to get done, and everything else, we'll figure it out.

32:19Coleman Hughes:Got it. Okay, so this is, I pulled a quote from, I think this is from your article. Mamdani was presented with polling that represented the conventional wisdom of the time. Public safety was the top concern among voters, and he instinctively dismissed it. This was going to be a campaign about affordability. So I think you can make a fair case that he was right about that, proven by the fact that he won. Or maybe it wasn't relevant either way, but it seems like he had, at minimum, a good instinct there. I'm curious because four years ago, it was very much about public safety. And that is what Eric Adams ran on.

32:59Coleman Hughes:I've been a cop for 30 years. I'm going to take crime seriously. and he was elected on that basis for the most part. I'm curious if his success in bringing down murders is part of what had, and violent crime in general, is part of what set the stage. Yeah, that people were feeling a bit more secure.

33:21Astead Herndon:For sure. People have made this argument, and I think it's a fair one. Like, you know, the subways are not the space of fear that they were three, four years ago. And so Eric Adams would say that's because they put more cops on there. And I think it's interesting that it's not part of Mamdani's pitch to take them away, you know? And so I asked him about what he would do about, say, like involuntary committals on the subways. And his point is, I don't want to take away that tool from cops. Again, that is not where he was come 2020. So I think that's a fine point to make, is that maybe actually the success of, and I wouldn't just say Eric Adams.

34:04Astead Herndon:We see crime and violent crime internationally. We've seen this in other cities, too. But I also think we should reframe, this was a hobby horse of mine at the time, exactly how we saw the Adams election. Like, Eric Adams was always all of the above. He was the cop on TV who would defend cops, and he was also the cop on TV who would criticize cops. And so I think that the read on his election as a full rejection of criminal justice reform was not true, even though I do think there's been a full rejection of defund the police, in question marks, as the vehicle for reform. You know what I'm saying?

34:43Astead Herndon:And so I definitely think Eric Adams should have been a course correction of the fact that many progressives, I think folks to the left, were fairly ignorant about that policy's impacts even within Black and brown communities. So I think that's a fair criticism. But I would also say to act as if those communities didn't mean any of the stuff they were protesting for in 2020 is false, too. I think that defund itself was not a solution that those folks endorsed. Doris, I remember being at, God, Lord knows, I was at George Floyd's memorial in Houston in the line. And I did a story for the Times about how the solutions to this stuff were unclear.

35:23Astead Herndon:Because I remember being frustrated by like the kind of Twittery social media ecosystem acting as if like there was one, there was one thing that these communities had decided on. They had some come to some summit and decided that they needed to defund the police. That wasn't true, even in those places. this. And so I was doing stories from Minneapolis, from George Floyd's Memorial, talking about that nuance. And so this is what I say about like, it depends on where the conversation's at at the moment, because at that time I was really annoyed with the progressive prescription that was, that they presented as universal and it was not.

35:57Astead Herndon:And now I'm annoyed with the opposite, where people act as if that means that these people didn't care about criminal justice reform at all. And that's not true either. And so I'm saying that there has not been a conversation a real one about solutions, about where that line falls. And I think Democrats have really failed in their leadership on that front. But to act as if, and this is what I think is the problem with kind of seeing this stuff through poll numbers, to act as if a change in sentiment is a full whiplash, is a disrespect to the nuance of beliefs people were holding at the time, in my opinion.

36:34Coleman Hughes:So this is the second time in the conversation, and I've read something of yours elsewhere where you've criticized polling. What do people miss? What do people get wrong about the importance of polling?

36:43Astead Herndon:The thing is, I'm so pro-data too. Like, I'm not even against polling. And I actually think for people who do things like I do in terms of talking to people anecdotally and really uplifting individual voices, you need to gut check a lot of what you're doing to make sure it's matching up with polling. I don't want to be outside of the quantitative stuff. However, I really think it puts people into boxes that aren't conducive to seeing how multiple things work at once. For example, if you ask, in my experience, if you ask somebody what their number one issue is that they care about in the election, every single person will tell you the economy.

37:19Astead Herndon:Now, that's true for, I think, seven out of ten of them. Maybe six out of ten of them. But I would say it's not true for all ten out of them. And you always have to ask some follow-up to know if they really mean it or if they're saying the economy because everyone's supposed to say the economy, and they really want to talk to you about something else. And so over the last year, this happened all the time. They would say the economy, and then it was really trans kids in sports, and that's really what they wanted to talk about. Or they, or, but I'm not saying that's everybody. And so I'm saying sometimes in the poll-focused universe, I really can just see like, oh, you all are getting a top line, but you're not getting a why, and you're not getting the dynamic nature of some of this.

38:00Astead Herndon:And so sometimes I think it's taken as this roadmap less than one data point that provides context next to several others. And so that's kind of the way I view it. And I really don't like it in terms of the predictive nature, right? Let's take the last election. From 2022, basically, through 2024, the data about who was more likely to win between Trump and Biden, changed very little. I mean, we're talking about the differences in like 5 % likelihood. And I'm saying most of that effort, most of that media effort, I find tracking that change in 5 % likelihood to be useless. There were so many other numbers under that data that we were completely ignoring for a long time.

38:51Astead Herndon:And so I'm saying, I find it to be informing and to point you in the right story direction, but I find the top line and the kind of way it acts as a Simon editor for too much discourse to really, I think, be a driver of the reason we've missed some of these changes. And so I'm like, some of the ways that, like, when you talk to Hispanic Latino voters or whatever, you can, it's clear. Like, you know, it's funny, like, we did this episode in El Paso, and we're talking to people who wouldn't even see themselves in the same community as other Latinos, largely. You know? And so then, when you see that data, does that mean it's useless?

39:32Astead Herndon:No. But it means without proper context, what do we even mean by Latinos? You know? And so I just think that so much of us in the kind of punditry space would do better to acknowledge that the info we're working with is limited. and there is a piece of it that cannot be, there's a piece of it that you're only going to get with some vibes, with some voices. And that's the part that I really try to impress on people.

40:08Coleman Hughes:Yeah, I agree with you. I've always felt polls were, people put too much stock in polls, even just for the basic reason that like, most polls are going to ask you a yes or no question. You know, do you support defunding the police or whatever, whatever it is. But they're not going to ask you how strongly do you... Exactly. How important is that to you?

40:26Astead Herndon:There's like an intensity piece that's off through this.

40:28Coleman Hughes:Which is like so much of history is small groups that have a minority opinion but really strongly believe it. For sure. Can be just as important or more powerful than a majority that like weakly disagrees with them. Yeah. Right?

40:41Astead Herndon:Yeah.

40:41Coleman Hughes:So yeah, I like that your MO is to three-dimensionalize.

40:49Astead Herndon:Yeah, and I'm like, the hating on polls is bad too. because sometimes I'll see people who've gone off the deep end where I'm like, the fact that 75 % of Americans consistently thought that Joe Biden shouldn't run for was the most important number of the last three years. And I was like, you didn't even have to go. It was true in every single interaction we had anecdotally. But I was like, you can forget the people. Gallup is telling you it every week, you know? And so weirdly, I... And so that's the thing I say too is like, sometimes people's poll fidelity I find to be inconsistent too because, you know, if I'm looking right now, polling's telling me tariffs are unpopular, immigration's, the immigration rates are unpopular.

41:35Astead Herndon:It's telling me Democrats are probably in a better position for midterms. But it's also telling me that the country's completely turned on Israel. It's telling me, and those are huge things. And so, like, sometimes I just feel as if we're, if we're going to let it lead, then let it lead. But don't pick and choose when we let it lead. And don't act like it's the only thing that matters. Even as it's leading us, we need to be rounding it out with the why. And I think to your point, the priority intensity of it all.

42:07Coleman Hughes:Yeah.

42:10Coleman Hughes:So one result in the polls I've seen over the past five years, and I've been tracking it, I've seen Pew did a study on it, is the rise in support for Donald Trump among black men in particular.

42:25Astead Herndon:Yeah, yeah.

42:25Coleman Hughes:It was on nobody's bingo card, I think, certainly not on mine, that Trump would run for office three times and each time would get a higher proportion of the black vote than the last time and would even do better than any Republican on the black vote than any Republican in my lifetime or maybe even my father's lifetime. So, three-dimensionalizing this trend, what's going on here? What are people saying in their own words?

42:52Astead Herndon:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, one, it starts, you know, it can be seen as Trump gobbling up some votes. It can be seen as Democrats losing votes, and both are true. I think that, you know, before we get to the race piece specifically, Donald Trump does well with men. You know, Donald Trump does well with men who put economics first. and I think Democrats have dropped off on working class people broadly. All of those shifts would include, and I think naturally sweep up a group of Black men into those changes. The other thing I think is important, and then the caveat, before I actually answer your question, is like we still are talking about a group of people, at least when we think about men, who are the most Democratic voting out of any group.

43:37Astead Herndon:So we're still talking about a largely Democratic Black. Now, to your point, I think that, one, Republicans and Donald Trump have put a ton of effort in just courting these votes. Like, you know, some of this is just straight politics. Like, I think, you know, I kind of hate to say it, but I think stuff like commuting the sentence of NBA young boy, like, they do rap stuff. They do, like, young Black people things intentionally for this type of community. I also just think the hammering the message home of, like, Democrats aren't offering you anything specifically has been one that has worked, partially because Democrats have not provided that affirmative vision.

44:20Astead Herndon:But I guess I would say, like, Democrats have usually come to men, Black men, young people, from a place of haughtiness, from a place of lecturing, from a place of imposing what the right thing to do is, rather than, I think, kind of taking those concerns at its face and responding to them. I thought this was really encapsulated in Barack Obama's message to Black men before the election last year. It wasn't—he wouldn't come to a group of Wisconsin moms and say that if they were considering Donald Trump, it was a betrayal, you know, or things like that. He would understand those concerns and talk to them logically about them.

44:58Astead Herndon:He implied they were being sexist. Yeah, and so I'm saying that to me is an encapsulation of the tone of patronizing that I do think has engulfed some of Democratic liberalism over the last several years. And I would just, and I think it's not surprising to me, because as I've gotten closer and closer to those rooms, I am surprised, even in their own, you know, they were so obsessed with representation. where was the person who didn't go to college? Where was the person who listens to Joe Rogan, you know, who likes football? You know, like, things that are, like, popular in this world. I was having Democrats tell me two years ago things like that they didn't need the NFL, which is literally like the one sporting event that, like, Americans still watch, you know?

45:51Astead Herndon:And so I'm saying there was a sense that they could impose onto people, And I think that's what they got embarrassed from, I would think, is just how badly that backfired.

46:05Coleman Hughes:Yeah. Okay, I want to go back to Mamdani for a moment. One of the most powerful moments of his candidacy, and I knew this not only from online, but just like talking to random people in New York City about Mamdani. One of the moments where he really stood out from the crowd was the debate. And they were asking every candidate, will you visit Israel? Will you visit Israel? As if any New Yorker should really care where a mayor should visit. I don't care if the mayor of New York visits any country. And he had the best response, which is like, I'm visiting New York City. And it made him seem like, wow, all these other people are either bought and paid for, or they're just not prioritizing New York.

46:48Coleman Hughes:And he is going to prioritize New York. And I thought that was brilliant. Yeah, go ahead. On the other hand, and you can just react to this in a moment, when he says stuff like, I'm going to arrest Feiglister Netanyahu, to me that seems exactly the opposite. That's like, the mayor of New York should not be threatening to arrest any global leader. That seems to smack of an obsession he has with the issue.

47:14Astead Herndon:This is why I focused on the arrest piece in my piece too, because I feel like I wanted to put back in front of him some of his own standards, he was saying. He was saying, hold me to my own campaign promises, which are focused on the direct kind of tangible impacts of New Yorkers, and that's my priority. I'm like, well, is arresting Bibi in that soup, you know? And it was interesting to me because even in his reaction to it, I think you see the push and pull between a personal political value and a role. And I think he's someone who, I think to the point I was saying earlier, learned how to kind of put those values into the elected office.

48:06Astead Herndon:And then on this issue, he can't break. And so even I was talking about with Nadler, I was talking about with Lanzer, some of his folks who have been supportive of him. And they were saying that, you know, not only is it kind of logistically impossible, but they felt that it was kind of like a hole or a corner he's dug himself into. And I kind of gave him opportunities to want a break from that. And he didn't want to. So you can take that for whatever you want. But it seems to me, basically, I'll tell you one thing. I'll tell you a story that's not in the piece. But first I'll say what people's feeling about this is, their private feeling is that he's gonna have to capitulate either way he cannot arrest him and so you might as well do that once and not twice so the the take i heard privately was whenever he shows up which he will and it might be inauguration day he has to take that l either way and so you do that from a place of saying oh sorry can't rather than backing off whatever that was the politics explanation.

49:13Astead Herndon:The thing I would, the, the, the story I was going to say that wasn't in the piece was I had heard about a meeting he had had with, um, all of his Jewish endorsers. So, um, these are a lot of elected officials, some other ones. And I had heard that in that meeting, uh, Jerry Nadler, congressman who's retiring, who I think among this group particularly is considered senior, kind of class president, was saying that he understands criticisms of Nanyahu, agrees with most of them, but that he doesn't get why these leftists have to make anti-Zionism fully their cause. And why can't it just be about criticizing the government, the prime minister, and how it exists?

50:01Astead Herndon:And I heard that in this meeting, another elected, starts explaining to Nadler basically why progressives and leftists believe or make a priority of anti-Zionism. And that Mamdani looks at said person and tells them to stop and says, this is not what we're here to do. We're not here to try to talk Jerry Nadler into some position he doesn't have. We're fine with the position he has. I would say, and the person remarked it to me as like different than the Zoran of four or five years ago, to your point. I tell you, so I say the story to say, you can see that, you can hear that and think that sounds like a mayor.

50:50Astead Herndon:Or you can hear that and think that sounds like someone hiding their beliefs. You can hear that. You can say whatever version you feel like that. But he, I can tell you for a fact, he is in those rooms telling them to stop. He is in those rooms saying that is not the point and that, and he, and it has mattered to people like the Nadlers of the world that he's doing that.

51:13Coleman Hughes:Yeah, I mean, it makes sense to me, especially your first explanation that he knows he's not going to arrest Netanyahu. Right, so I'm saying the first,

51:19Astead Herndon:that's the thing, the insider take is that you just take the L one time.

51:23Coleman Hughes:Right. But I guess it would, yeah, in the same way that his debate performance was so captivating and it sent a signal of, I care about New York, period. Yeah. Moderating on that would send the same signal or apologizing, not apologizing, but reversing on that, I think, would send the same signal. Like, I don't care about foreign policy. I know those are my private beliefs. For sure. When I say, like, that to me

51:49Astead Herndon:was the reason to focus on it and the questions was because of the standard he had set for himself. Was that if he's going to say, my administration is about the tangible impacts to New Yorkers and that's why I'm prioritizing these things. And in the campaign, I've only focused on these issues, not these things that are personally my beliefs. I think that promise is where those things, where that conflates.

52:11Coleman Hughes:Okay, so one more Momdani question here, or maybe one or two more. Rent control is a big idea. So I remember I had a -

52:22Astead Herndon:Rent freeze, which is a little different than rent control.

52:23Coleman Hughes:Fair enough. but I you know like when it comes to tariffs I've always been against tariffs I've always you know every time a Trump enthusiast brings it up my question is pretty much always the same like can you find a consensus of economists who study this issue professionally tariffs have been around for a long time they're very well understood economically yeah it's not a new idea can you find a consensus of economists that believes tariffs are a good policy economically. Like you want to make a geostrategic case, like it's a lever he can use, yada, yada, yada. That's actually a fair argument.

53:02Coleman Hughes:But there's no case to be made that they are good for American consumers broadly, right? And then when I get to, I make the exact same argument with rent control with people on the left. Like, can you find a consensus of economists that believe that rent control is a good policy for cities? It's very well studied. There's many meta-analyses you can look up on Google Scholar, and they all pretty much say the same thing, which is you try to control the rent for this piece of housing, it drives up the rent in the market housing, lowers quality, et cetera. And I feel like, I think the media does a really good job.

53:38Coleman Hughes:Like if I read, if I'm reading the New York Times about tariffs, I know I'm going to get a sentence in there. That's like -

53:43Astead Herndon:That's like it doesn't.

53:44Coleman Hughes:Yeah, economists do. But if I'm reading about rent control, I rarely ever see that sentence.

53:49Astead Herndon:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's fine as a critique. I would just say like, I think this is where his specifics matter, though, because if he's promising rent control, I think the policy has all those problems. And I basically think if leftists, if progressives see what he's promising as a mandate for kind of national rent control or to push that policy broadly, they would not have the same type of success. What's important is he is talking about a temporary rent freeze for rent stabilized apartment that New York City has long controlled the rent to. And so it's not for private partner. It's not for ones that aren't rent controlled already.

54:27Astead Herndon:And it's not forever. And so there's already been precedent for these rent freezes happening previously. DeBasio tried to do one like other ones. And so it's kind of a New York thing specific to the question of rent stabilized apartments generally. And so, you know, one of the, you know, I hate to be like, oh, NYC of it all. But one of the things I think, even in terms of explaining Momjani to others, is like, yeah, there are certain parts of this that he's totally getting to can get away with because of specific New York issues. So I think public transit and the primacy about fast and free buses is certainly a thing that has been, you know, more of a topic here than other places.

55:10Astead Herndon:But I would say, you know, to your point about the rent, you know, you're saying rent control. I'm like, that's not what he's promising. And so the reason you'll get, the reason he's got the Kathy Hochul's, for example, or Richie Torres, or your kind of old guardy New York City Democrats who still represent a lot of homeowners, who are still largely down with landlords is because he's done a couple of things. He has not gone further than that kind of temporary rent freeze. He has also embraced, more than other leftists, a role for private housing and for landlords to build more new housing, which he's only done in the last couple of years.

56:03Astead Herndon:And so those are both, I think, key planks to the reasons he has been able to keep an avenue open with some of those, I would call them more like moderate housing Democrats, or maybe even more abundancy Democrats. And so I just want to make a specific distinction between control and freeze being the only reason he's getting away with it.

56:25Coleman Hughes:I hear what you're saying, and that makes sense. At the same time, my guess, and I'm not an economist, but my guess is that economists would have all the same problems with a rent freeze as they would with rent control. They would have many of them, I imagine.

56:41Astead Herndon:And I actually imagine they would have the general, like, you know, carrot stick argument for them too. But I'm saying it would not be from a place of unprecedented and it would not be from a place of scope because we're not talking about, we're actually talking about a very specific slice of New York City housing more so than it is, like, my rent is going up. you know? Right.

57:05Coleman Hughes:But your rent is, on the margin, it's going up a little bit more than it would if this rent freeze doesn't happen. You know, that's my point. I guess all I'm saying is,

57:13Astead Herndon:I'm saying whether it happens or not.

57:14Coleman Hughes:I feel like there's a responsibility to educate people about that if there is an economic expert consensus. That's my point. Well, I would

57:23Astead Herndon:simply disagree that there's an economic expert consensus specific to his policy. And I would also go further to say, I think there's been a lack of education media-wise about the specifics of the policy. So to me, like a place where said Mythical Times article also fails is in explaining the tailored nature of it, even if they also want to say that certain groups of economists still agree. I actually think that's been a pretty well-told story, though. I mean, he spent a lot of the last several months talking to landlords, business community, specifically around their concerns, which was a huge media narrative.

58:03Yeah. Okay, so I guess final question.

58:10Coleman Hughes:I guess, sorry, final two questions. Cool. One about Mamdani and then one about Democrats in 28. Mamdani, what can he actually do? What does the mayor of New York City have the most control over? What is he actually likely to do as opposed to not able to achieve just because of the structure of governance?

58:29Astead Herndon:Well, it's kind of a trick question, because what he's likely to do, what he can do in terms of himself, actually, to the point about Renfries, that is largely driven through a board that the New York City mayor controls. Eric Adams staffed it with people who would oppose it. He could easily switch those people. Like, there's parts of that he can do by himself. But buses, child care, big stuff requires Albany. And so that's true for most mayors, but that's the reason he's been moving like this over the last several months. If Kathy Hochul did not endorse Eric Ad... I mean, Kathy Hochul's endorsement of Zohar Mamdani is more important than Hakeem Jeffries.

59:11Astead Herndon:It's more important than Chuck Schumer's for the purposes of him making... of him getting the things done. Now, it's also important that even folks like the Speaker of the House in the New York City Assembly are supportive of things like millionaire's tax. So the thing that Zora Mamdani has ahead of him is a set of choices. I don't think that the Democratic caucus of Albany will be against the idea of giving him a free bus program for like a year or so, or expanding money or finding money for expanded childcare. It's going to be about how much and how, and it's going to be about how tied he is to the ideological goal of using a millionaire's tax to make that happen.

59:50Astead Herndon:And so there's going to be several fights ahead of him. I think the biggest ones might be political, too, separate from the policy questions. If he gets DSA candidates running against Democrats all across the city next year, what does Mayor Mamdani do? Does he prioritize the people who could help his agenda pass? Or the people who have been his ideological allies, and many of whom are his personal friends? And so we saw this with City Council Member Chiyose, who's gearing up to seemingly run against Hakeem Jeffries in this district. Omdani does not want that to happen. There's reporting from The Times and other places.

1:00:26Astead Herndon:He uninvited him to his victory party because of that. Those are the tensions that lie ahead for him. Of course, the other big one is Donald Trump. Donald Trump can impose chaos on New York City, and he's obviously shown that willingness to use federal government layers on opponents generally, much less Blue City ones. So whether it's removal of federal funds, whether it's large-scale immigration rates, whatever kind of the White House puts on to Mimdani's New York City could also be a huge deal. So there's tons of potential, you know, minefields ahead for him. I would say from a policy nature is actually to me the one they've thought the most about and the one they actually have the most strategy for.

1:01:14Astead Herndon:I mean, they would disagree with some of that. But I'm like, they're fine with how they make those three things happen, mostly. The politics might complicate it, and Donald Trump might complicate it.

1:01:25Coleman Hughes:Okay, last question. Who will the Democrats run in 2028? Right now, the prediction markets are showing Gavin Newsom's top and AOC is second. And so I'm curious if you have any thoughts about, A, what they will do, B, what they should do.

1:01:41Astead Herndon:I mean, like, I imagine all the above are running. I imagine everyone who's looked in a mirror in the last six months is running. Like, I think that they think it's an open landscape, and they're probably right about it. The Newsom's of the world are certainly winning an early, early primary, but I would say that's probably a dangerous place to be. You know, I guess I'm informed by my last two cycles where I watched this stuff up close. And I really just think that, you know, there's a couple questions you can ask heading into a big Democratic primary. I would ask about young people and the left.

1:02:20Astead Herndon:Is there a Bernie successor, starting with that kind of AOC question? I would ask about kind of Black voters, that kind of Southern Bloc that really determine the moderate wing of Democrats. Is there a consensus person? I don't think they can skip over Kamala Harris. She's moved in the last three, four months, certainly to me, like someone who's still interested in running for president again. Whether the rest of the country wants that to happen or not, that will be a question that will complicate a potential candidate pool. And so I guess my biggest bet, really, is on other. You know, someone with money, somebody with name recognition, someone who's able to exploit what I think is a legitimate, growing mass sentiment in American electorate about feeling unrepresented by both parties and feeling kind of ideologically adrift.

1:03:19Astead Herndon:And so I think people like RFK Jr. sees on that successfully over the last couple years. I think there's ways to do that within a Democratic primary to present yourself as outsider and really be successful. And particularly at a time when folks don't think the party has done the right type of leadership that they want. And so, you know, we hear these rumblings about Democratic Party Tea Party. We have these rumblings about Democratic Tea Party. But that requires, you know, like that doesn't that's not inevitable that the Trump is on the other side. because that requires a unique figure who can push the party in a new direction.

1:03:56Astead Herndon:And so do Democrats have that type of person? I'm not sure. But I know the market exists for Warren, which wasn't true three years ago.

1:04:05Coleman Hughes:Okay, Ested, thanks so much for coming on my show. And before you leave, can you point people to where they can follow your work?

1:04:12Astead Herndon:Yeah, I mean, we're going to start a podcast next year that you should be able to follow. But for now, just follow me on socials at EstedWH. And look out for our new show from Vox come spring 26. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate your time. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at MintMobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month plan, equivalent to$15 per month required.

1:04:50Astead Herndon:Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Default terms at MintMobile.com.