NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani On Making Government Work for People

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1:14Ben Meiselas:Republican lawmakers, senators, and Congress members alike have been inundating the White House and specifically Donald Trump's chief of staff with calls yelling at her and yelling at this regime. Republican lawmakers are yelling at them for focusing on running Venezuela. And the polling from YouGov and any other legitimate polling agency is showing that overwhelmingly 60, 70, 80 % of American people, based on how these questions are asked, do not want the United States running Venezuela. Should the United States prioritize Venezuela over America. It's like only 7 % of people support that. And I guess in that 7 % is Donald Trump and his cabinet who keep talking about we're running Venezuela.

2:07Ben Meiselas:It's our country now. Delce Rodriguez does what I tell her to do. This is my territory. We're the predator, Donald Trump says. And Republican lawmakers are like, hello, this is an election year. This is 2026. And right now you keep talking about invading Greenland and you keep talking about running Venezuela and how Colombia and Cuba and Mexico are next. The American people hate this and the Republicans are getting massive backlash. Here's the latest from Reuters that has a great scoop on this. After the president announced on Saturday that U.S. would run In Venezuela, Republican lawmakers inundated the White House with calls, insisting the only country Trump should be running right now is the United States.

2:56Ben Meiselas:Stop with the Venezuela stuff. The article goes on to talk about how Susie Wiles has been basically trying to convince Donald Trump that to keep on talking about Venezuela is not a winning issue. The article goes on to say, top White House aides are openly frustrated that Trump and senior officials continue to talk about foreign affairs and taking over different countries and that they're not talking about affordability. It goes on to talk about in multiple White House meetings focused on the economy since November, Donald Trump always pivots to talk about his personal grievances. And then he just puts out a bunch of lies about the economy and people are just fed up about this.

3:43Ben Meiselas:It goes on to say Republicans on Capitol Hill have privately questioned why is Trump not more focused on domestic priorities at all? He needs to stay focused on things that voters care about, not renaming buildings and other things that are not in the kitchen table category. They then talked about that Donald Trump did this retreat at the Kennedy Center, which Trump vandalized and called the Trump Kennedy Center. And Republicans have referred to it as an 84 minute speech wandering through his grievances and cultural war issues. And it goes on to talk about how the MAGA coalition is being ripped apart and how people just do not want to see this crap.

4:27Ben Meiselas:Now, contrast this, contrast this. And this is one of the fears that the White House has. Contrast this to what is taking place and just say New York, right? In New York, you have Zoran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, joining forces with Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, to extend childcare services to hundreds of thousands of more children to extend the idea and to try to make the reality of universal childcare a possibility in New York. More work needs to be done there. But in eight days, Zoran Mamdani does this announcement with Hochul to actually deliver for the people of New York. And as I've said before, you know, politics is often talked about in these gamified ways.

5:20Ben Meiselas:This personality, that personality, who's winning, who's losing. This person said this about this person. kind of like high school, right? But like a high school on steroids and also really freaking weird, okay? But as I've said, take a step back and ask yourself, what is this government doing for the people? Because that's what the government's supposed to be by the people, for the people, not for the billionaires and for the bullies, not the ICE Gestapo on the street. Healthcare, education, housing, affordability, quality of life. People get paid with dignity. That's the stuff that we should be focusing on.

6:02Ben Meiselas:So Donald Trump was asked a question about Momdani. Did you see this at one of his bizarre pressers? And he's like, yeah, he took a shot at me on Venezuela, this guy here playing this clip. They were against Jewish people. Well, Momdani. Your favorite mayor. Well, I have a very nice relationship, but I thought it would take at least maybe a month or two months before he went after me. He hit me on the attack on Venezuela, which is pretty unusual because not too many people have hit us. That was a perfect attack. I want to bring in, it's a special guest, New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani. Mayor Mamdani, it is great to see you.

6:44Ben Meiselas:I was just talking about all of the weirdness, the distractions, the ballrooms, the chaos, the utilizing government to attack the people that we've been seeing in this Trump regime. And you, Mayor, in a very short period of time, you've kept to your word and you've delivered for the people of New York, childcare, right? What is the cost of childcare? $22 ,000,$25 ,000 per family. You layer on top of that healthcare cost, $22 ,000 to$25 ,000. Childcare, healthcare alone, $50 ,000,$60 ,000. Who can afford that? Who can afford that? So Mayor Mamdani, talk to us about what you and Governor Hochul did.

7:29Ben Meiselas:Now, Governor Hochul is often viewed more. I mean, this is how she's talked about. She's viewed more as kind of a center left. You're viewed, obviously, more progressive, democratic, socialist, coming together, though, for the common good. This is what people want to see. So while it seems like Trump and the federal government are focused on $100 billion in subsidies for oil companies and unlawful invasions of Venezuela. If you look at New York, it's actually delivering for the people and right away in New York City, a big announcement from the mayor Zoran Mamdani and Governor Kathy Hochul in this joint press conference.

8:04Ben Meiselas:We started seeing posts from Governor Hochul, universal childcare is coming to New York. That's refreshing to hear right there from the governor of New York. And then she posted it again, universal childcare is coming. Universal child care. The big announcement today, moving New York City closer to Zoran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City's vision for universal child care. So it just seems that in all this bad news, the deluge of it, that seems to be just kind of flooding the news cycle. You are keeping your word and you are doing things for the people of New York City and joining forces with the governor.

8:43Ben Meiselas:And, you know, it's an interesting thing, pulling people from different sides of the left and progressives, joining forces for something that benefits the people. Tell us about it, Mayor. Well, it's truly lovely to be back on here with you. And what I would say is that it is, as you've said, today's an incredible win for working people. We're talking about a$1.2 billion commitment from the state of New York to the city of New York to make universal childcare reality. This is money that will mean that we can fix childcare for three-year-olds across the city, and we can start to deliver childcare for every two-year-old across the city.

9:16And after housing, childcare is the number one crisis facing working families in the city. It's the number one reason that they're leaving the city. And that's because the average cost of childcare is$22 ,500 a year. And so what today's commitment and today's partnership between the governor and myself shows is that working families are not going to have to make the choice any longer between the city they love and the family they want to actually raise.

9:39Ben Meiselas:I alluded to this in my intro that you and Governor Hochul are perceived as very different kind of Democrats, but you're delivering this together and joining forces on this together. And so can you speak to that also? Because I know there are lots of people who like to kind of push the divisions, but there are ways to work together for the greater good of the people. Absolutely. And I think what we have found is that the same thing that we see in conversations with the New Yorkers, New Yorkers rarely ask me how to describe my politics. More often, they ask me if my politics includes them. And what we're seeing from both the governor and myself is a focus on the outcome of actually delivering for working families.

10:21The governor had said that 2026 would be the year of child care. We ran a campaign 14 months speaking about the importance of delivering universal child care. And now together, the two of us are showing, in her words, that the era of empty promises is over. And what we are doing is delivering for the very families who had been considering leaving the city and showing them that it's actually going to be easier to raise their kids right here across the five boroughs.

10:44Ben Meiselas:You know, and this is eight days right into the administration. And, you know, there were lots of people who were saying this couldn't be done after the first year or two years or this. So I think you're also sending a message for all the people who were saying, well, you know, progress is going to be slow and it's not it's not going to this stuff wasn't feasible that he said this was just campaign stuff. What do you say to them? I think we are showing them that politics can be different than what it has been. We are showing them that when we dare to dream of a world that is better than this, that's the first step in not just fighting for it, but winning it.

11:20And today's victory is frankly a testament to the more than 100 ,000 people who made millions of phone calls over the course of that campaign, who knocked on millions of doors and spoke to so many New Yorkers about their dream of a city that they deserved. They willed this day into existence because, as you said, there were so many who told us that we could never get here. But in the words of Nelson Mandela, it always seems impossible until it's done. And today is that first step to ensuring that we deliver universal child care for each and every New Yorker.

11:47Ben Meiselas:You know, 2026 midterms are on the mind of people. I mean, not on your your minds run in New York City, but there are lessons I think that can be learned. I mean, do you think that Democrats looking at 2026 should be taking lessons from the fact that you ran on a big plan and now in week one you're delivering on a big plan and your intentions to keep on doing that? You know, I think there is something to say that a lot of New Yorkers have lost faith in democracy, not because of losing faith in the ideal of it, but rather losing faith in its ability to deliver on their material needs as working class individuals.

12:23And what we're seeing right now is that if you lay out a vision that matches the scale of the crisis at hand and then you deliver on that vision, you will see far more New Yorkers looking at politics as something that is relevant to their day to day lives, as opposed to something that they should take as much distance as they can from. And I think that's the case across this country where so many are asking themselves, is there an answer to the struggles that they're living through? And what we're showing here in New York City is when it comes to child care, there is. And now the agenda continues, the work continues, because each and every day is going to be focused on how can we take on the cost of living crisis that has made this the most expensive city in the United States of America.

12:57Ben Meiselas:Is there anything in the first eight days that you didn't expect that you've said, wow, that's something that, you know, or is there anything like that that you just reflect on now eight days in that may be intriguing or that people aren't thinking about? Well, you know, I think especially speaking to you today, when we've accomplished such a significant part of what was one of the cornerstones of our campaign, there's a temptation to think that governance is only about the issues that are as large as our city, when in fact, governance is also about showing that there's no issue too small. And a few days ago, I was sitting around our conference table with our cabinet, and we were talking about the different things that we could be doing in our first 100 days.

13:40And I brought up an example of something that has afflicted a lot of New Yorkers, especially cyclists, when they're biking over the Williamsburg Bridge and they come into Manhattan. There tends to be this drop that they experience, and I've experienced it myself as a cyclist every now and then. And I asked, you know, how can we fix this? What can we do? And the answer was, well, we could just do that tomorrow. So why don't we? And I think that's what we're showing is, in fact, if you care about working class New Yorkers, if you care about their needs, whether big or small, you can start to deliver on them.

14:08And that's been something that's been so exciting about governing is that we are now in a position to deliver for New Yorkers, not just to deliberate around what we would do if we had that power.

14:16Ben Meiselas:Well, Mayor Mamdani, in a 2026 where we keep hearing stories about threats of invading Greenland or buying people off for$10 ,000 or$100 ,000 in Greenland or invasions of the Western Hemisphere and this regime bragging about being a predator in the Western Hemisphere. I think the American people just want to be like, what are you doing for us? Like, what are you doing for the American people? Enough about 40 billion to Argentina and this. Like, what are you doing for us? I'll just give you the final I give you the final word to just reflect on this moment. But I think the people are like, hey, America, us here, we want to live in homes and afford rent.

14:57Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's the question that most people will ask you is, you know, are my struggles actually a part of your politics? Are my day-to-day realities reflected in what you are working on? And too often, politics doesn't feel like a reflection. It feels as if it is an inverse of what people are living through. And what we found is that the best way to deliver for New Yorkers is to start by listening to them. And after the housing crisis, New Yorkers will tell you it's the child care crisis. It's a crisis where in a city, it's cheaper to send your kid to college at the City University of New York than it is to find child care for that same child.

15:30And today we are showing that we are actually going to deliver the city that New Yorkers deserve. And we're going to do that by making it easier, making it more affordable to keep calling the city your home. And it's truly an honor to be a part of this movement. It's truly an honor to be leading this fight to ensure that our neighbors can keep calling themselves exactly that.

15:48Ben Meiselas:New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani, great to see you. Great to have you as the mayor of New York. Thank you so much, my friend. All the best. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, ad-free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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