A sit-down with Zohran Mamdani

0:00Okay, so you may have heard. New York City gets a new mayor this week, 34-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani's election was one of the biggest wins for the left in 2025. But since then, he's been quietly going about a new task, trying to make sure his sweeping campaign promises can actually happen. An agenda that will freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants. Make buses fast and free and deliver universal childcare across our city. I'm a little skeptical about how he's going to get everything done. I think that's what a lot of people are. Promise so many things.

0:38Free buses, you know, housing and all that. Promises, promises. Can this new kind of politics succeed? Or is this from Donnie's high point, the days before he gets into office? On this episode of Today Explained from Vox, we sit down with New York City's Mayor-Elect, and ask him directly, is he for real? Support for Today Explained comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Perhaps you want a deeper, more complex understanding of the world around you. That same instinct is worth protecting when you're using AI, says Anthropic. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, committed to their AI without ads, meaning what you see won't be shaped by what an advertiser paid for.

1:23Claude Says Claude is built to sit with the complicated version of a story, not hand you the tidy one. Try Claude free at claude.ai slash today explained. Adobe Acrobat, your new foundation. Use PDF spaces to generate a presentation. Grab your docs, your permits, your moves. AI levels up your pitch, gets it in a groove. Choose a template with your timeless cool. Come on now, let's flex those tools. Drive, design, deliver, make it sing. AI builds the tech so you can build that thing. Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn more at adobe.com slash do that with Acrobat.

2:09You're listening to Today Explained. We're going to sit down with Zoran Mamdani in a minute. But first, our producer, Peter Balanon-Rosen, is here to tell us about a pretty unique event he went to that the mayor-elect recently held. Peter, hit me. So it was this marathon listening session where over the course of 12 hours, Momdani sat face-to-face with over 140 New Yorkers, three minutes at a time, at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Now this choice of venue, it's pretty notable because this is a museum dedicated to movies, TV, Hollywood, the moving image. It's a place built to pay respects to spectacle.

2:46So I was curious going in, is this Mamdani event just spectacle two, or could it be something more? Inside, we had volunteers checking people in. There were guys giving out chai tea who chugged caffeine to be there real early. Red Bull tea, everything. I'm good to go for three days. Most of the people I ran into, they were Mamdani superfans. There'd been this Instagram post telling people they could sign up for this event, and within 10 minutes, every single spot was full. And for the people here, one-on-one with the next mayor, It was pretty exciting stuff. It felt surreal, honestly. I'd followed his campaign so closely.

3:21I shouted out my wife and my kids, and he wrote down all their names. This is a 12-hour event. I hope he has bathroom breaks. I grabbed Samina Kadir after she left her three-minute sit-down with Mamdani, and she said they spoke in Urdu, her native language. Saying you give us hope, happiness, peace of mind, that is enough. What did he say to you? He cried. Really? I saw he has a good heart. So for Samina and others, it seemed to be about the feeling that they got out of this, the emotional response. It seems as if Mamdani was trying to create a sense of community between campaign and supporters.

3:58Did you talk to anyone who had issues that they wanted addressed from Mamdani? Did you meet anyone who was also wondering whether this was all just spectacle? Yeah, I spoke with Ricky Kadir, no relation to Samina. He was that wife and kids guy from just earlier. And he was here to tell Mamdani that the universal child care that Mamdani campaigned on was going to be crucial. But he did also see the public performance of this event. We're the Museum of Moving Image, right? So, I mean, of course there's some performance of picking this. Mamdani's team says the idea for this did actually come from performance art.

4:32It was inspired by Marina Abramovich, the performance artist. She had this piece where for months she sat at the MoMA from open to close. People could come sit across from her while she just sat there. And the art was the public's reaction to her. Even if it is just performance art and they want to, like, get donations, they put this up on Instagram and get donations, I mean, like, there are worse ways to do it, right? And people definitely brought their concerns. All right, so I got to be honest. You're the only one I've seen here in a suit today. Suit? Because that's the official decorum, I mean.

5:08Journal Abedin was looking pretty official. Bright blue suit, mink green shirt, matching tie. He's a small homeowner and said he's been having issues with his tenants. I know he's not in the office yet. We can just inform him. And at the end of the day, we will give the report card what he did. You're watching? Yes, of course. One-on-one sessions, 142 New Yorkers, 12 hours. It's all pretty remarkable. No one I spoke to had experienced anything like this in local, state, or national politics before. And having that feeling of Mamdani in their corner, open to their concerns, it seemed to be working for folks, at least for now, before he's had any chance to let them down.

5:48Ested, how are you? I'm doing well, Mayor-elect. How are you? Thank you for joining us. I was trying to be the host for a second. My plan with talking to the Mayor-elect was to figure out how he's going to avoid letting New Yorkers down, especially considering how much hope was surrounding his campaign. But I also wanted to figure out how he makes this agenda happen once he's sworn into office three days from now. Well, we're glad to talk to you at this point because, you know, we want to focus on the transition, not only how you all have conducted it, but also how you're thinking about how it informs the term ahead.

6:20We know that kind of mayoral transitions can sometimes be the high watermark for elected officials. I recently saw that you were plus 15 in your own favorability. How do you reverse what has been a historic trend? And how do you make sure that this moment in office, that you're taking office, is not the end of something but the beginning? You know, I think I am aided by the fact that I have not given much weight to polls and favorability in the past, which is part of the reason why I'm sitting in front of you. So I think it comes back to the fact that we ran a race on an affordability agenda. It spoke to New Yorkers living in the most expensive city in the United States.

7:01we have to now deliver on that agenda. I think kind of the premise of your point is that this is the moment of hope and then the question of what comes next. And even beyond the transition as a high watermark, oftentimes campaigns, there's already a temptation of nostalgia for what the campaign was. We have to ensure the campaign is not the story we look back on. It's the path to the story that we've yet to start. And I think that comes back to delivery. That comes back to freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, delivering universal childcare. You have to transform people's lives in a way that they can actually touch and feel and hold on to so that they're not just grasping at the memories of what the struggle was like.

7:42I feel like the first clues of how you all planned to do that came in the transition. You all had some kind of unique moments, putting on these explanatory videos about semi-mundane kind of process things, baseball cards for staff appointments. We were at the event that you all held last week at the Museum of Moving Image. Why do that stuff? What is the goal of those type of events? I think there's a temptation when you win. We've seen it in the past to say, now trust me, you can go home. The point of me winning is that you don't have to worry about politics anymore. The point of me winning is we keep fighting for the same agenda together.

8:17And that means you bring people along with you and you also demystify what it is that you're doing. I mean, this transition period is probably the most opaque period, typically, because it's between a campaign and governance. And most New Yorkers are never brought into it. Yeah, it's usually insiders only. Yeah, and I think that's both in the way that it's funded and it's the way that it's also spoken about. And we wanted New Yorkers to be at the heart of that because most people didn't even know that there's no public funding for transitions. And I've had so many people ask me, what do you mean you have to pay for office space?

8:52What do you mean you have to pay for payroll? healthcare, inauguration, these are often things that are not brought up because you fundraise in the manner of previous administrations whose average donations were north of$1 ,000 per person. And ours, I think more than 95 % of our donations are below$250. And I think that's just, that is one aspect of how you bring people into this. Sounds like the demystifying efforts are connected to what has been described as inside-out strategy, that to the goal of delivering, you feel as if you have to keep the public engaged, you have to keep that public pressure going.

9:28You do. And I think there's often a description as if the campaign ends and governance begins with the implication that you leave people behind. And in many ways, you have to keep going in the same kind of manner. I mean - How does that get harder once you're in office? To your point about the way the campaigns and transitions kind of create a sense of unity, you know, once the inauguration happens, you know, everything becomes Mayor Mamdani's problem. How do you reverse the trend of public disengaging at that moment? I think you have to do the work to create actual opportunities for engagement as opposed to vague invitations.

10:03For 12 hours, I sat at the Museum of the Moving Image, and I listened to New Yorkers. More than 140 New Yorkers came to share their stories with me. And the point of that is not just to say, I listened. It's to actually take what they're saying and then act upon it. And some of the concerns were large. They were the concerns of undocumented New Yorkers sharing with me the immense fear that they live with on a day-to-day basis. And I think this idea that, in fact, governing could be informed by the people you're governing for as opposed to treating New Yorkers as if they're just subjects. And also the understanding that in order for people to act upon something, they have to know about something.

10:43We even take that approach to rights. You know, in this moment when so many New Yorkers are fearful of ICE agents and the potential of immigration enforcement as we've seen it take place across the city, we thought it was important to remind every New Yorker of their own rights. And so that the only way they can exercise them is if they know about them. Yeah. You know, is there any argument, though, that like, you know, this is a little glitz and glamour? I mean, our folks were there. These were largely supporters of yours. I want to hear more about, like, did you hear criticism? Did you hear any critiques of your campaign from some of those New Yorkers you sat down with?

11:19What set with you that wasn't necessarily something that was already part of your agenda? You know, any gathering of New Yorkers has to have some critique. Otherwise, you know, it's not a gathering of New Yorkers. And I think there's critique in a fear of, are you going to be able to deliver on these things? Because there's a fear of, should I have believed in this? And my job and our job in building a team is to showcase the seriousness with which we took those commitments and how we actually deliver them. You know, one New Yorker spoke to me about how their number one concern was about casinos.

11:54And I shared with them that I myself am skeptical of the economic development promises that come with casinos. And I also know that there's a referendum that was passed by voters that creates the citation of three casinos within New York City. And I can't actually change that myself. And the frustration of knowing that this is something that person does not want and you cannot help them. And that's also part of what it looks like is to be honest with people, even when that honesty isn't what they want to hear from you. Part of the reason why so many people are disengaged with our politics is there is a lack of honesty within the way in which we talk about it and the way in which we even explain it.

12:34I know that you have been a legislator but not an executive. And back when I was doing the profile over the summer, I know that you were talking to people about what leadership means, about how to grow as an executive. I wanted to hear, can you share any of that advice with us? What steps did you take to close a gap to feel prepared for stepping into this moment? And do you? I think the key thing that I was told again and again is the importance of the team around you. And I think the other part of the advice that I've received is that you actually listen to people, that you actually bring New Yorkers along with you.

13:08Because our campaign was not just about reaching out to those who haven't voted in a long time. It was also reaching out to those who haven't voted at all. And that's an opportunity to show people that political engagement has to extend beyond the ballot box. It is not just one moment in one year that you come back to every four years. It is something that requires a participation and engagement. And in the same way that New Yorkers won this election, not me, New Yorkers will win this agenda, not just me. I know that you previously have said that you wanted a team that did not have policy litmus tests, that you wanted folks with differing opinions.

13:47Has that transition team, has the staff you put in place lived up to that? Absolutely. I think you'll see that appointments are not simply a reflection of myself. And I think there's a tendency sometimes to just look to reproduce yourself, your ideas, your preferences in each and every person you hire. What you do if you're to do that is create the conditions where everyone in the room is measured by the quickness with which they can say yes to you and yes to any one of your ideas. You need to build a team where people can also say no to you, where people can push you, where you are able to have the debate inside the room as opposed to waiting to have the debate outside the room.

14:22And I think that in the appointments we've made thus far, it's not demanding alignment on each and every issue. It's asking, do you believe in the agenda at hand? And do you believe, do you have a vision for this specific position that shows you can fulfill that? You know, at the same time, there's folks who have been frustrated with that, that thought that some of this coalition building, even among your appointments, has maybe betrayed the movement that got you here. I'm thinking about the appointment of Jessica Tish as police commissioner. I'm thinking about a vocal rejection of a Democratic challenger to Hakeem Jeffries in Brooklyn.

14:55My question is, like, have you had to embrace a different side of yourself? Do you hear any of the critiques that we're seeing inside of Mamdani these days? You know, I think you have to first and foremost take these critiques in good faith. That is how you become removed from the reason you did this in the first place. When you engage with it, you separate from the good faith from the bad faith. And I think taking this at the good faith, I understand the criticism that those have shared. I also think that it is important that it's not just a reproduction of self in every single appointment and that we understand that, for example, with the NYPD, my decision in retaining Commissioner Tish is a decision on the basis of looking at her record of coming into an NYPD that the Adams administration had stacked the upper echelons of with corruption.

15:48and incompetence and starting to root that out while lowering crime across the five boroughs, making this decision not only in recognition of that, but also to fulfill the larger public safety vision that we had laid out over the course of the campaign, which focused on the creation of a department of community safety that will tackle the mental health crisis, the homelessness crisis. This is also a decision that is not one that is in tension with the commitments I've made specific to the NYPD, like the disbanding of the strategic response group. Those things still happen. That still happens. And I think that's what's important to make clear to New Yorkers is that the things that we campaigned on, these are still things that we will fulfill.

16:29We will do so with the teams that we're building around us. One question I have is like, there's so much national and international focus on both campaign and I think your administration going for, but it's such a hyper-local job, you know? How do you balance what will be the intense attention with the reality of who you're serving? You have to remember not just that reality, but the point of this is to serve this city, right? It's not like a reality check. It's the reason why I did this. It's the reason why it was possible to weather difficult moments because it's all in service of a city that I love.

17:03There are some days where it's hard to believe that my job is traveling around New York City and meeting New Yorkers and listening to their concerns and having the opportunity to act upon them. And I also think the greatest thing you can do is the power of example of what you can do, what you can succeed, what you can deliver. Because what we're talking about right now, the growing sense amongst New Yorkers that politics is irrelevant to their day-to-day struggles, the inability for our political system to deliver on crises large and small, these are not uniquely New York issues. These are issues that people feel outside of the city, outside of this country.

17:47And we have an opportunity to show that by serving New Yorkers, we can also showcase a politics that can serve working people wherever they may be.

18:03Coming up, I asked Soran Mamdani about what success or failure looks like in his new administration.

18:28Support for Today Explained comes from Found. Found says managing your finances can be difficult no matter who you are, perhaps much more so if you're running a business that makes things all the more complicated, they say, especially when it comes to figuring out things like taxes and expenses. Found says they bring everything into one place. They help you cut through the clutter, banking, bookkeeping, invoicing, taxes, all in one. That way you have fewer subscriptions, no more struggling with clunky tools. Found focuses on easing the pain of tax season by automating expense tracking and identifying potential write-offs.

19:02On top of that, they say you can send invoices at no cost and pay contractors directly all from the same app. You can take back control of your business today. You can open a Found account for free at found.com. That's F-O-U-N-D dot com. Found is a financial technology company, guys. It's not a bank. Banking services are provided by Lead Bank, member FDIC. You can join the hundreds of thousands who've already streamlined their finances with Found.

19:30Support for today's Blank comes from Prolon. If you're looking for a habit reset, a new routine can help. Prolon says that their five-day fasting mimicking diet can be the reset you need. It's a plant-based nutrition program that they say nourishes the body while keeping it in a fasting state. They say it's a simple, science-backed way to keep track and see your results that you can actually build on. Our Vox colleague, Claire White, has tried Prolon for herself. Here's what she thinks. I love how Prolon packages everything day by day. You get everything you need from breakfast to snacks to supplements to electrolytes to ensure that while your body might be in this fasting mimicking program, you're still getting all of the things you need to have a productive day.

20:16If you're ready for a reset, for a limited time, Prolon is offering our listeners 15 % off site-wide, plus a$40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five-day program. You can go to Prolonglife.com slash Explained. That's P-R-O-L-O-N-L-I-F-E dot com slash Explained to claim your 15 % discount and your bonus gift. Prolonglife.com slash Explained.

20:49Support for Today Explained comes from Vanta. Business owners know, says Vanta, that the landscape is changing. Risk and regulation are rising. Customers expect proof of security before they even consider signing. Earning trust is critical to closing deals, but it's also costly, complex, and time-consuming, says Vanta. Vanta says it's their job to make it easy. Vanta says they can automate your process to bring compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform. They say they automate the process of achieving and maintaining compliance with over 35 security and privacy frameworks, including that SOC 2, that ISO 27001 and HIPAA.

21:29This helps companies get compliant, remain compliant, opening doors to next level growth opportunities, freeing up time instead of getting buried in audits and spreadsheets. Vanta says Vanta gives you a system that runs behind the scenes, minimizing risk and powering your growth with confidence. You can get started at Vanta.com slash explained. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash explained. Vanta.com slash explained.

21:58We're back. It's Today Explained. I'm Estet Herndon, here with Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani. I want to look ahead. You know, how would you define the priorities for your agenda? What would you define as success or failure for the Mamdani administration? It comes back to affordability. The priorities have to be the fulfillment. Are those the three parts? Are we talking about buses, child care? What am I missing? Hit them. Come on. Buses, child care, referees. But what about things like the publicly subsidized grocery stores? Is that priority too? That is a priority as well. So it's all of the above when we think about the campaign promises.

22:32I would say that the first order of priorities, like ranking best friends, the first order of priority are the three that we built the campaign around. There are obviously other commitments we made in addition to that. Five city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough. The fulfillment of these things are not just critically important because you're fulfilling what animated so many to engage with the campaign, to support the campaign, but also because of the impact it can have on a New Yorker's life. There's a lot of politics where it feels like it's a contest around narrative, that when you win something, it's just for the story that you can tell of what you won.

23:05But so many working people can't feel that victory in their lives. The point of a rent freeze is you feel it every first of the month. The point of a fast and free bus is you feel it every day when you're waiting for a bus that sometimes never comes. The point of universal childcare is so that you don't have to pay$22 ,500 a year for a single toddler. These are not things I have to explain the worth of to you or an intellectual victory. It is a material one. And so to me, when we talk about the struggles of our democracy, when we talk about a withering faith in it as a political system, we have to understand that the withering of that faith is intensely connected to the inability of that system to deliver on the needs of the people.

23:48So success is the big three promises. Success is the big three. What about political goals? I mean, I was literally on cable news today and they're talking about the Mamdani wing of the Democratic Party. And they're talking about all, you know, challengers facing incumbents and the goal of spreading kind of progressivism, I think specifically socialism across the country. Is that a goal you share? Like, is that, do you look out at those challengers and say that is the Mamdani wing? I think that anyone fighting for working people and fighting for a politics that doesn't just think of working people but puts them at the heart of what it is that we're doing is critically important anywhere in this country.