A Night for Democrats: Zohran Mamdani & The Party’s Future 11/5/25

0:00Bring in show music please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Election day, the morning after. The Big Apple has a Democratic Socialist mayor-elect. New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change. What an off year can tell us about national politics. Fascinating to see what took place. Democrats notching some key wins. What it means for the man not on any ballot, President Donald Trump. This was a pass-fail test, though. They passed. And how new leadership impacts a certain group of voters. New York's richest residents will catch up with CNBC's wealth editor, Robert Frank.

0:45If you have one person who makes a million dollars leave, you have to have 10 people who make$100 ,000 replace that person. On the other side of the Democrats' 2025 victories, a MAGA donor and tech investor, Chris Buskirk. He's close to Vice President J.D. Vance, and he weighs in on the political skill of New York's Zohran Mamdani. He's openly embracing Marxism, and while that might work in Manhattan, I'm not so sure that that works in Michigan or Wisconsin or Arizona. Plus, the looming Supreme Court showdown over whether the president can use emergency powers to enact tariffs. Oral arguments are today.

1:22Our Eamon Javers in Washington on the business response. Yeah, I think you're seeing a decision by big companies that confronting this administration is not a good use of their resources. It is Wednesday, November 5th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this, to get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.

2:21And of course, Andrew, we are thinking through everything we saw with the Election Day results. Let's let's get everybody up to speed. It was a remarkable evening. Fascinating to see what took place. Democrats notching some key wins on Election Day. Democratic Socialist Zoran Mondami is elected mayor of New York. He defeated independent Andrew Cuomo. About 90 percent of the expected votes in. Mandami has more than 50 percent to Cuomo's roughly 42 percent. And even if you were to factor in the Sliwa vote, it looks like Zeran Mandami would have still won. This was a tough fight and this is a tough state.

3:03But I know you, New Jersey, and I love you. Democratic Representative Mikey Sherrill elected New Jersey's next governor, beating Republican Jack Cidarelli in Virginia. You had former Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger set to become the state's first female governor, defeating the state's Republican lieutenant governor. We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump said that Republicans lost yesterday because he wasn't on the ballot and because of the ongoing government shutdown. I don't know what your reaction to all of this is.

3:58I'm fascinated by just how big the win was for Zoran Mondani. I thought it would be closer. I'm fascinated by some of the poly market results in terms of how how frankly close these elections were, but how the poly market wasn't close. I don't know what that says about anything. And I also now wonder what this means for the Democratic Party and whether this is going to be considered. We didn't talk about California, by the way, as well, in terms of what happened there. pretty strongly, too, by better than 60 percent on the ballot. Look, this was a pass-fail test, though. They passed because these were all Democratic strongholds where these things happened.

4:35This was the anticipated result. So there weren't any upsets. Democrats passed the pass-fail test in this situation. I do wonder what it means for next year with the midterms and which route the Democratic Party is going to take in terms of whether they're going to follow the far-left progressive wing or try and follow a more moderate centrist attack when it comes to how they handle national elections? Midterms are always bad. Is it going to be worse than normal or not? I thought Polly Market was incredibly good. I mean, it was 90-10. It never got anywhere except 90-10 from him. There never was any question that he was going to win.

5:11And it never got more than 90-10. Maybe it was 84-15 in New Jersey for a little while. But there was never any waffling. waffling. I mean, I didn't wait up for any of this. And, you know, in my hat, my son was like, what he was worried about was down in Virginia and that guy with the tweets about killing, you know, someone's family. And he won. He won, too. I think it's a little weird, Andrew, because, you know, I saw some takes on CNN and David Axelrod. And so they were giddy and gloating. And it's just weird that, I mean, they know better than to think that this is a great outcome in New York City and for the Democratic Party to move that far left.

5:54But anything that repudiates Trump, it's like an enemy of my enemy. It's like they'll take they'll ride whatever horse they can that repudiates Trump, including a Democratic social. And, you know, if you sleep with the Joe, Joe, look, I'm not I'm not disputing that. You know, my view, I don't I don't like the extreme sides of of either party. I would like I'd much prefer something in the middle. But the truth is, I think there's a lot of people. It's actually kind of like the question that Norah O'Donnell asked the president, which is to say that, you know, she said to him about Zora Mondami. Is he the left version of you?

6:32There were a lot of people in the Republican Party that did not want President Trump ultimately to win either, but ultimately fell in line in the same way and have continued to support him. And so we have this sort of unique moment in our country where I think there's people on both sides who think who think both sides are to some extent extreme. I know you don't think that that's the case. I think of it in a different way. I don't. The litmus test for me is communism and socialism and big government and free things. And, you know, populist and populism is run rampant for. Well, there's a populist, you know, we're going to have a actually the the one of the founders of Aristo populism is going to be on later.

7:12Chris Buskirk, who's with Omid Malik in 1789. And we'll talk all about that. I mean, it's weird to let them eat cake. Aristo populism, Warren Cass, people like that, to where billionaires can try, you know, to help people that that that need help. But I always come back to I've seen progressives try to help the people that they want to help. The policies never work. They never work. They never, ever work. And the people they're trying to help end up worse off. So it's it's how you approach things. You know, Andrew, small government, maximum freedom, low taxation, private sector builds wealth and builds prosperity.

7:55So I don't see how Trump and Mamdami, you can say them in the same sentence, but that's, you know, it doesn't, the comparisons don't hold, except that Democrats think Trump, or the left thinks Trump is extreme. Yeah, he's extreme, and there's tariffs, and there's things like that, but at least he's, you know, deep down, you know, believes in capitalism and believes in the private sector, hopefully. He believes in the private sector so much that the government's investing in the private sector. Questions about how Wall Street is going to react to this, how business in general is going to react to this.

8:25We had more than 50 percent increase in business tax. We had a disaster. We had, you know, the blah, blah, blah for eight years. And then Eric Adams for four. The city's fine. So, you know, I wonder how divided the city is going to become as a result of all this. And that's what I'm concerned about. Both the divide that I think is going to exist in the city. Frankly, I think the divide that's going to get even wider just in the country writ large. And for the city, I live in New York City. I worry about we keep talking about whether billionaires are going to leave the city. I worry more about whether businesses are going to leave the city if, in fact, the mayor is able to increase corporate taxes.

9:04Forget about forget about wealth taxes, corporate taxes unto itself, given how high those are ultimately going to go, could create a real issue in the city. And I'm not even sure he has to be able to enact them unto itself, meaning even if he's even if he's unable to do it, even just talking about it as an idea, as something that he's trying to pursue, I think will scare off companies that were ever considering moving to New York and will scare off companies that are maybe in New York considering whether to move or whether to move more employees to other places. And that, I think, is actually going to be a real issue.

9:36Well, I think Chuck Schumer's great fear and trepidation about a primary from the left, from AOC, it's going to happen. And the whole, you know, government shutdown, everything else that Republicans say, that's why he needed to do that. I think it's going to be a senator AOC. So I do wonder if this will get ready for that, too. Much worse. The government shutdown because the Democrats will look at last night's results and say, hey, we don't we don't need to fold or cave anytime soon. They're going to they're going to it's going to be this. it happens it's going to be this week hopefully it happens this week but i don't think there were about 12 senators who were yeah i don't think this had anything to do with with uh with the shutdown it's it's look what what is the base level of of uh of people that just think donald trump is is the worst president ever it's 30 and i've said this before then you add in you know people that like free stuff and want one uh you know one health care that doesn't cost a lot would like the government to pay for it you got another 20 there so you're you're at the majority already at 50%.

10:36None of this is surprising. There's some crossover in the circles. Here's something I was thinking about this morning, guys. You know, after President Trump won... It's your problem. I'm glad I go... I got my own problems out there with Mikey Sherrill. After President Trump won, I think we all said, you know what, we're Americans. Let's give him a chance to do it. Is that what you said? I don't remember you. No, no. That's the first time, right? I said the first time. Did you? Yeah. All the Democrats did. And the first time, too. And they were conjuring up great success. I do. They were conjuring up the whole Mueller probe.

11:14They were saying they were saying, give him a chance. Yeah. And Democrats were saying, hey, let's give this guy a chance. As a New Yorker, Joe, as a New Yorker, I woke up this morning and I said to myself, you know what? I don't agree with everything this mayor or you want to on the show. Now he's going to be our mayor, you know, says or plans to do. But I want to give him a chance. And I hope for the sake of the city, he's able to do good things for the city. You wouldn't even say you weren't voting for him. Excuse me? You wouldn't even acknowledge that you weren't going to vote for Mom. So, you know, so you got that.

11:48You can tell him, hey, I didn't even say I wouldn't vote for you. So he'll come on the show. We can talk to him. He can tell us how everything's going to be free and it's going to be great. Look, the truth is that as a journalist, I think it's not my role and not even my role. I actually think I cannot tell you who I'm voting for. You may disagree. You have a different position on that. But I think it's better not to. Not only better not to, I think it might even be a policy. OK. I mean, you can't give money, but I think you can make it clear of things that you disagree with or else I don't even know what you are.

12:20If you can't even, you know, if you don't have the, you know, the, you know, that's your thing. Good. Stick with it. The current government shutdown is now the longest on record. Emily Wilkins joins us now with more. Emily, good morning. Good morning, Joe. Well, yeah, as you guys are discussing, Democrats are feeling good after their decisive wins last night in Virginia and New Jersey's governor's races. And that could translate to Senate Democrats feeling comfortable enough to continue to hold out on reopening the government until they get an agreement on health care. Now, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Kristen Gillibrand, she's leading the Senate Democrats campaign arm.

12:56They did say in a statement last night that these victories show continued momentum for Democrats and represent a growing midterm backlash against Republicans who have fallen in line behind Trump's chaos and dysfunction. And in 2026, voters will hold GOP Senate candidates accountable. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy also tweeted that maybe the take is that, A, this is his tweet, A, people think Trump is out of control, and B, people like when Dems were taking a stand and fighting for what we believe in as we have been in for the last month. So that was Chris Murphy on Twitter. Meanwhile, Trump took to Truth Social last night, partially blaming the shutdown for the election's result.

13:36He posted that Trump wasn't on the ballot and shutdown were the two reasons that Republicans lost elections last night, according to pollsters. That was Trump's tweet there. It remains to be seen, really, if the results are going to have any impact on the stalemate in Congress. Of course, this week you've seen a group of senators. They appear to be getting closer to a deal that would fund some key areas of the government for the next fiscal year. But some Democrats, they do still want to hold out for a firmer agreement on health care tax credit. And it's going to remain to be seen exactly if some of them want to cross the aisle, if some of them remain firm in their position.

14:12Meanwhile, we're also keeping an eye on GOP senators. They're headed to a breakfast at the White House this morning and will, of course, be keeping a close eye on what message Trump will have for them. He did tweet again last night about ending the filibuster, which so far Republicans have remained pretty firmly opposed to. Joe? All right. I'm not sure it's just a pass fail. Becky was talking about that. But there are two blue states that they were flukes last time with California, too. And New York City. Is it a surprise? A Democrat won New York City? I'm going to say if you sleep with the devil.

14:44But, you know, the attorney general in Virginia, OK, you want to elect that guy? That's fine. You want to elect Mondani in New York? OK, that's fine. But for New Jersey, uphill battle all along for Cittarelli. And all along, it was Trump says he wasn't on the ballot. Well, you kind of were on the ballot in New Jersey, and you were on the ballot in Virginia. And they're both blue. They both start pretty darn blue. And, you know, until the midterms come along, that's a way that voters are able to vote. And, you know, we know how much Democrats don't like what's going on and what happened in the last major election.

15:25Look, Virginia, 6 % of their population is in the federal workforce. So it's not just the government shutdown. It probably has to do with Doge and some of the things that came before that. There are questions around those things. It's very rare for a Republican to win in Virginia. I forget the last time McAuliffe was there. I guess Gilmore. Was he Virginia? I think he was a Republican. That I don't remember. But look, they were purple or blue states, however you want to say it. The California initiative, Prop 50, passed. New York City elected the Democrat as the mayor. There are huge surprises on these things.

16:02It would have been a big issue for the Democrats if they didn't sweep in all of these areas. People would be saying this morning what happened, particularly if one of the more central candidates in either New Jersey or Virginia had lost. There would be a lot of questions about what had happened. It's weird to gloat about Mondani being, I mean, I think it says, what's the journal? Mondani leads. Democrat wins. I would be uncomfortable with that as a Democrat. I wouldn't want him leading my party. 34 years old, never running. Did your hair stick up? Yeah, I did. My hair's on fire. Coming up, markets.

16:37It barely is. Third quarter results just out from Wagovi maker Novo Nordisk, the Danish company lowering its full-year profit and revenue forecast. Novo's CEO citing lower growth expectations for GLP-1 treatments. Separately, the Wall Street Journal now saying the White House speaking with Nova Nordisk and Eli Lilly about making some of their obesity drugs available on a proposed government run website for one hundred forty nine dollars a month. The report says Medicare and Medicaid would cover the drugs for weight loss, a big issue for for the world, frankly. But be fascinating, Joe and Becky, if, in fact, we're able to get these drugs at, you know, meaningfully lower prices.

17:20and then what it would do to the health care costs in the country. Still calling it unmet need. Still calling the obesity market unmet needs with all these drugs. I mean, it's been revolutionized in the last couple of years. And you know who's been watching, twiddling their thumbs? Albert Borla. We still have a bunch of COVID stuff. You know, while the stock has gone from... Pfizer needs Metzera, I think. We'll see. Yep. It's kind of interesting. Pfizer had a deal. They got regulatory approval and everything else. So but Novo, what you think? Novo. Novo has had some disappointing follow on for it.

17:58It's been Eli Lilly that he's the king of the market with all of these things. Now, there are new drugs that are out there to try and see if you can improve delivery systems, improve timing on this, lessen the effects potentially. This company's got 100 employees and no drugs. And we're up to$10 billion now for what people are offering for this company at this point, which just shows you how important it is to, I think, to Pfizer probably. I guess it's important to both. You love stuff like this, Sorkin. Like we haven't, what was it, was it, Phillips 66 or Conor? We used to have great, remember those great fights?

18:35They come back and forth, you know, keep raising it to where it gets in the stratosphere, what people are offering for things. Maybe maybe that's coming. Yeah, maybe that's coming. Maybe you're having it in the media entertainment industry right now. Yeah, except they're each the next bit is lower. No, no, no, it's going to be it'll be it's going to happen with Warner. Sorkin, do you know you got your ear to the to the pavement? Can't you you got nothing? I gotta put my head down for that. You hear people running out of New York City. Help! In company. Run! Tees will be next. Coming up, the other side of today's political story.

19:18Chris Buskirk is Vice President J.D. Vance's co-founder of the Rockbridge Network. And he is, according to a new profile in the Washington Post, one of the donors that helped propel Vance to the White House. He's a new voice for us, Buskirk's tech-centric vision for this country, and how he views the 2025 election results just one year after President Trump's 2024 election victory. The Republican Party and the MAGA movement now has a working-class base, and if they're not excited about the candidate, they are not going to come out and vote. And that's what we saw in Virginia. We'll be right back.

19:55And we're back. This is Squawk Pod. You're watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Time now for a look at how the New York City mayoral election could impact wealthy people in the Big Apple. The one and only Robert Frank, who knows more about this than just about anybody else, joins us right now. Andrew, great to see you guys. Have had some great discussions this morning all about the question of wealth flight. Will the wealthy stay or go? And in fact, there are competing studies on recent wealth flight from New York. If you look at left-leaning groups, they point out that New York's population of millionaire earners, so those who earn a million dollars or more in income, that has nearly doubled since 2010.

20:36There are 34 ,000 New Yorkers making at least a million dollars or more. Now, while high earners did leave during COVID, of course, that out-migration was brief. The wealthy are now less likely to leave New York than middle-class or lower-income New Yorkers. On the other side, conservative groups argue that while New York's millionaire population has increased, the growth lags far behind other states. New York's share of national millionaires has fallen from 13 to 9 percent since 2010, and the city's share has fallen from 7 to 4 percent. California, Florida, Texas all saw gains in those millionaire shares.

21:12Now the Citizens Budget Commission estimates that the underperformance for high earners in New York has cost the state$11 billion in annual tax revenue,$2.5 billion for New York City. Governor Kathy Hochul says she opposes Mondani's proposed tax increases on the wealthy New Yorkers because, quote, I don't want to lose any more people to Palm Beach. We've lost enough. Robert, was it you we were talking about? Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Andrew. No, go ahead. I was just going to say we were talking with someone the other day, and I think it might have been Robert, about what happened to New Jersey when David Tepper left.

21:51They had to redo the budget and cut the budget. as a result of one person leaving the state. That's right. And if you look at New York, okay, it's the top 1 % pay 40 % of the taxes. But in the city and in the state, it's actually the top 200 pay something like 6 % or 7%. And even within that group, you know, we have 152 billionaires in New York City. And so you could say, okay, the lower income folks are four times more likely to leave New York than the wealthy. But if you have one person who makes a million dollars leave, you have to have 10 people who make$100 ,000 replace that person. And so that's the part where people say, well, the wealthy don't leave at the same rate as the lower income people, but they cost the tax base a lot more.

22:37I think you need more because the marginal rate you're not going to get. Because it's progressive, it's even more. Now, what does have to be said is that New York has become a place for the wealthy. And for everyone else, it's incredibly difficult to live here. And, Joe, to your point all morning, it's the prescription for how to fix that that's the issue. I mean, a lot of the real estate being sold in New York right now is for the wealthy that don't pay taxes here. This has become a seasonal resort town for the wealthy and for everyone else. A$3 ,700 median rent is getting to be unsustainable.

23:13The one other thing which we haven't talked about this morning, which I think is the most important impact from this election, is to what extent the fight between Mamdani and Trump makes New York collateral damage in that political battle. So, you know, we talked to Secretary Sean Duffy when he was here about the Gateway Bridge Project being canceled. Well, Duffy said, this is not political. They're just going through the process. Besson yesterday to Andrew made the point that, well, we could cut off their infrastructure funding. In addition to anything self-inflicted from having this guy as mayor, it could also cause Trump to even pile on.

23:47One hundred percent. And that's where New York City becomes a victim. And that, I think, is the biggest economic risk to New York City from this election. Thank you so much, Robert. We appreciate it. The Washington Post published a profile on 1789 Capitol co-founders Chris Buzzkirk titled The Secretive Donor Circle that Lifted J.D. Vance is now rewriting MAGA's future. The piece highlights him as a key figure behind the scenes in the MAGA movement, detailing how his organization, the Rockbridge Network, helped propel Vance into the vice presidency and continues to shape Republican strategy and policy.

24:28Joining us now on this and more is 1789 Capital Rockbridge Network co-founder Chris Busker. Chris, it's good to have you on. Morning. We've had a lot of the people that we're talking about. We've had Oren Cass on a couple of times and we've had, you know, Don Jr. on. And obviously, Omid Malik has been on and the vice president. So it's a wide net. Do you have any comments about what we saw yesterday in the elections? What are four tens for the midterms? I've got a bunch of comments, probably more time than you have on the show. But I mean, my high level is that I don't think that the New York mayoral race says a whole lot about the midterms of Manhattan and the five boroughs, obviously, are unique kind of one to one.

25:16So I don't know that that data point tells us a whole lot, except for one thing, which is that the Democratic Party continues to go towards the radical left. I mean, his openly embracing Marxism. And while that might work in Manhattan, I'm not so sure that that works in Michigan or Wisconsin or Arizona and so forth. With regards to Virginia, candidates matter. Winsome Sears was a weak candidate. She had eschewed the president, made it very clear that she was not supportive, asked him to step aside in 2023. And that makes it really hard to turn out the Republican base and get them excited. And that's a lot of what we've learned over the years in the political work we've done is that you have to motivate your base.

25:59The Republican Party and the MAGA movement now has a working class base. And if they're not excited about the candidate, they are not going to come out and vote. And that's what we saw in Virginia. The overlap between differing philosophies, Chris, is apparent to me. And whenever we had Oren Cass on, it was always apparent to me. And now, for lack of a better term, aristopopulism. Have you used that term as to what maybe... I learned that term yesterday when I read the story. So no, it's not a term I've ever used, but it was, I wrote it down yesterday, but I'm not exactly sure what it's supposed to mean.