Chapo Trap House - BONUS - I Want My M(amdani)TV

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Over the holiday, Will and Chris caught up with Donald Borenstein, Andrew Epstein and Debbie Saslaw of the Mamdani media team to discuss how their video and online strategy helped win the campaign’s stunning victory. We look at their team’s success as the result of years of NYC organizing, how the candidate’s principles and policy informed the media strategy, the right and wrong lessons on political communication from their campaign, and the bizarre outsider art of Adams & Cuomo’s video output. PLUS: production, editing, color grading & gear talk for all you A/V heads.

Hello, everybody. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. And before the new year, although you'll probably be listening to this in the new year, Chris and I have some bonus trappo content for you today. On today's episode, we are joined by three of the minds behind New York City Mayor Zeran Mandani's successful propaganda apparatus. You probably saw the videos that were credited to a great degree with his stunning upset victory in New York's mayoral election.

he is set to be inaugurated in just a few days. So before we bring in the new year, we wanted to talk to three of the people who helped run, like I said, this stunningly successful propaganda slash media arm of the Mondani campaign. Joining Chris and I on the show are Andrew Epstein, Donald Boringstein, and Debbie Sazlov. Guys, welcome. Thank you. At the double steins, double steins, Bowen and Ep. guys like obviously big upset victory i mean it has like national ramifications this is technically at least from my perspective this is technically the first dub i've ever racked up

based on candidates i've loudly supported using the platform of the show and it is largely due to your fine efforts uh i want to talk about the videos what makes them work uh how you guys did them but like the first question i want to ask all three of you is uh sort of a big picture question, which is like, winning the election, that grants you entrance to the game. It's not like winning the election was the game. Like, you win the election and then you get to play the game. Now the stakes are real to a certain degree. So I just want to ask all three of you, like, as we look at the dawn of Zoron's first term in office, what to you would be a successful first term for Zoron? Or just like, is there a policy? Like, how will you be looking at Zoron's first

term in office and like what are you hoping to see him get done. Andrew, let's begin with you. Yeah, I mean, this might sound kind of cheap and obvious, but it's related to the success, I think, of the video, which is the clarity and repetition of the headline agenda items. And I think success at the end of the first term is four years of a rent freeze for, you know, more than two million rent stabilized tenants, it's universal child care, its buses that are fast and free. There's obviously a lot more that this administration needs. to do and will do, and success will be argued over and debated in a number of different arenas. But I think both the success of the campaign and what sets us up, I think, for sustaining the

pressure and movement that will be necessary to win the agenda is people being very, very clear on what they voted for. And most especially those top three policy items. So those are the main metrics of success, I would say. Donald, how about you? I mean, Andrew took the words out of my mouth to the most part, but I do want to hit the, you know, the engagement aspect of that, because it's not just the clarity of the goals, but also how much of everything about this campaign from our videos, the feel operation to the policies

themselves are about getting the people of New York actually engage as active citizens in this effort. Like, you know, it's not just getting these policy wins, but getting people mobilized to actually push for these wins to actually, you know, utilize these new gains, these new, you know, to get by bus ridership up, to get people taking these wins opportunities to see what else we can build on that with. So it's like, I think really just not just the wins themselves, but actually mobilizing the city and like getting people to be engaged with civic politics in a way they really haven't been before on such a mass level. And Debbie? I'm not going to be involved in in the administration. I'm actually going to take the operation

that we had built in the beginning of the campaign nationally. We've overreacted. We've over already started with a few different, not just candidates, but people who are doing listening tours. And what we are looking to do is do the same thing we had done with Zoran is talking to low propensity voters and even Trump voters about what they are looking in a candidate to try to take back the House in 2026. Okay. I mean, obviously, the Zoran's media strategy and the videos in particular, we're so successful. We've already seen like every other Democratic politician in the country immediately begin ripping them off to, you know, to mixed results, I would say. But like, the difference in your videos, I'm interested in where that comes from. And to get to that,

I'm interested in where you three came from. Like, how did you get involved in the campaign? And more specifically, where does your background, like, how did that contribute to the content and the quality of the videos that you guys produced? And I just want to interject here to shout out Donald specifically, because I've known Donald for a long time because we both kind of came out of the similar New York City media freelancing hell grind. And Donald has been a long time Chapo ringer in the media sphere. Donald has recorded many live shows in New York for Chapo that I have not been able to attend. He's videotaped for us.

He directed the excellent 2016 election night. Chapo. I didn't even know all this. Video, video thing. So, you know, that's how I always have known Donald's background. and it was so delightful. And I mean, many people online were singing out Donald's praises because he's been in the mix for a long time. And to see, watch him elevate to this platform and then do it so successfully has been a big, you know, a big inspiration.

But, you know, I'll tee you up, Donald, because I know that that world is a very difficult work world. And I imagine that it affected how you approach this. Yeah. I mean, like, first, like, I guess it's like I was the latest comer of the three of us here for sure. you know, and I'll let Andrew and Debbie speak to their, to their background on this. But like, I, you know, I largely didn't really, I did, you know, after after the work I did with some of the things, I also started doing a little more like, you know, political work, but more, you know, in the, in the media and like non-profits sphere.

As the, you know, as the content economy kind of dried up towards the end of the 2010s, especially. It's, which I think we all obviously familiar with. But I think the really big, the sort of trajectory there, like largely was like, I did some work for a while with, you know, with Michael Moore for a while. But then I also started to get involved a little more actively with DSA and doing video with them largely to just on a volunteer basis. And I started getting a little more involved with New York City candidates that way, which led to working a little bit towards the end of Jamal Bowman's 24 campaign. And then with public power in New York, which is.

how I stumbled into this guy right here, Andrew. I think quite literally the first time I actually interacted with you was getting in the way of your shot at one of the public power rallies, which is very, very on brand. And then from there, thanks to our dear shared friend, Ramka Hugertz, who sort of like connected the two of us. Love you. I stumbled in doing a little bit of, you know,

work with the campaign early on. And I don't know, I guess you guys thought it was all right. And the big shift from, from like, the media world to that is just like the cycling of the actual workflow and deliverables is so different. It's just like it's almost extreme of consciousness. Like there's not, there's not as much time for rounds and feedback and middle steps, which can be chaotic at times. That seems liberating, though. Yeah, no, it's nice. It works very well for me as just kind of like a constantly, you know, five minutes late, you know, chaotic kind of a sleep deprived mess.

It's a perfect workflow for me. Oh, God. I am exactly the opposite. All I did was work with middlemen and came from the same media hellscape from like, you know, Vice to Gawker to Showtime and HBO. And I came from traditional, like traditional advertising. And then when Trump won, and Congressman Ocasio-Cortez came out with that one viral video that went all over the place. My creative partner, Anthony Demer, and I were saying, you know, they had their production company was from Detroit. And we said, nobody's doing this in New York.

So we decided to do it here. And we actually worked on Jamal Bowman's first video ever for his launch. And there, you know, we had had six. city council campaigns. I met Zoran actually canvassing for Tiffany Caban when she ran for Queen's District Attorney and he was the field lead. And I had said, I like, I love being in DSA, but I'm not so sure about the meetings and things like that. I loved canvassing. And I just encourage everybody throughout 2026, you know, go out and canvas for local candidates because you never know who you're going to meet. I mean, I don't know if you're going to meet the mayor of New York,

But I thought Zeran was extremely kind and brought me into a world of lifelong friends. And when he ran for assembly, we worked and did videos for him then in 2022. And then when he was running for mayor, he came to us and said, give me some digital ideas. We gave him like 40. And one of them was him jumping into the ocean on January 1st, which Andrew brilliantly wrote and executed. And I edited in like maybe three hours. or something. I remember that one. And I remember immediately the bad, like the, the sort of

canned, very half-assed backlash to it was like someone saying, oh, uh, socialist, but he's ruining a good suit. That was going to do with the finances of this city. Yeah. That actually, the guy who said that on Twitter was like a long time known hater and troll to me because he was kind of a

micro-hater in Williamsburg and Greenpoint where I had worked for many years. We love a, a, a, a, a, local, locally focused backyard hater. You want to shout him out? I don't even really, I think Ken or something, Kenneth? I don't know, he's like a lawyer guy on Twitter. A himby, a hate in my backyard.

Yeah, exactly. Which I guess lends to what I was doing before. I was, I spent, I met Zeran first when I was managing the campaign for New York State Assembly of Emily Gallagher, who was a long time, like, Greenpoint, lefty activist, organizer, who ran for assembly. I joined her campaign about like a week. or two weeks before New York City DSA declined to endorse in that race. So I thought I was getting into this like NYC DSA slate thing.

Turns out we were kind of on our own. But we had Debbie and Anthony actually who cut for free, I think, which they don't do anymore, a very short launch video for us that it's funny to look back at because it's really quick. It's just like Emily at Pete's candy store like reading her speech off the phone. And it was at the height of COVID. So we couldn't shoot anything. No, no, no. This was this was September 20th.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get to COVID later in that campaign. But I was like, this is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen in life. This is incredible. So I was her campaign manager. I got to know Zeran, even though we weren't part of the DSA slate, we shared the same election lawyer. And when Emily won, I became her chief of staff in the New York State Assembly. And then we joined the Socialist and Office Committee.

And so we're part for the, for basically the entire time that both Emily and Zeran, others were in the state assembly. we were all meeting once a week, coordinating strategy, sharing analysis, trying to figure out how to move together in a different kind of hellscape, which is Albany, New York. So that was I was doing up until then I joined as comms director. Before that, I had spent my whole 20s basically where many, many an itinerant leftists hides from the job market, just being in grad school, basically. I was a teaching assistant at the University of Georgia. Then I went to Yale University.

was a PhD student, got too involved in my union, didn't do any work, dropped out at the end of 2016, which is right when I started listening to Chapo, I remember moving back to New York City and like, I just, I remember the episode right after Trump won. That was like my Chapo lock-in moment.

I may not be the old Earnhardt. Yes, yes, exactly, but I don't know how to turn left or something, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is already like very, I think, instructive of the whole campaign because it really shows this all three of you in these different threads of building capacity

through DSA and DSA adjacent projects over the last seven or eight years and like figuring out all these threads on your own that then come together to this one, when there's the opportunity is right, this one tremendously successful moment. Just, you know, through all these like little tendrils of organizing and activism and media work, you know?

People sometimes feel like this came out of nowhere. It didn't. This is years and years of building power and learning from campaigns that may have won and may have not been as successful. I mean, I think about our field lead, Tasha, who I've known since 2018 and canvassed with her. We really, within DSA, within union organizing, we have all worked together for a long time. And some brilliant minds came together, not just in media, but event planning from field. work. It really has been a collective effort over the past few years within New York, and I hope it's going to be later. I just want to shout out. I've known Anthony Demiri going back in Debbie's business

partner, Melty Solid, since 2008 when I was planning the SUNY social justice conference, and Anthony was an intern at Democracy Now, and we tried to get the video of Howard Zinn speaking at Sunni Binghamton to Anthony to get on Democracy Now. We were Facebook friends for many, many years before. IRL. An aspect of like the coverage of the campaign success and coverage that the credits, like the media work and the videos in particular, there's been like a certain focus on like both the medium and the message, right?

And I think like, you know, obviously like what unites all three of you guys and what's made the campaign successful is obviously the message in that like you're all people who are interested in the DSA involved in one way or the other. but more than anything, wanting to be supportive of a political movement that stands for something a little bit sterner than the warmed over, like, neoliberal bullshit of the last 20 or 30 years, right? But that being said, like, the difference in the message that Zeran was running on, but, like, in terms of, like, how you made these videos and how you, like, came up with the ideas for them, do you, like, what did you see differently in the medium of, like, how you were presenting these messages

that made them stand out from, like, other forms of, like, online, like, digital strategy or communications that you've seen or experienced from other political campaigns. I mean, I feel like, Debbie, you should probably start. Because when I was hired as comms director, Melted Solid was already on for two videos a month. I don't think I didn't know yet how that video was going to be the most successful medium for this message. But I think, Debbie, you and Anthony kind of already suspected it and had pitched it. What I told Zoran is that I wanted to make him a national political figure, whether he won or not.

I think that he was a brilliant voice on Gaza, on policy in New York, policy worldwide. I truly believed that. And because we had done videos with Zoran where he had just been riffing on several concepts off the cuff. And also because we had done these scripted videos for a package of legislation surrounding the MTA, we had done videos where he's on a bus and he's speaking directly to camera. There are 90 seconds. They have a lot of animated elements and they explained something that was pretty lofty very quickly. And they didn't travel extremely well because he didn't have as much of a social following.

But there were some prominent legislators who actually told me that that whipped votes within the New York State legislator. because it explained exactly why free buses would work. And I knew that Zoran can do that throughout his mayoral campaign. And I just thought that he was the conduit for a new kind of politics and a new kind of messaging, new kind of, I don't know, McLuhanism that would spread. I didn't realize how many parodies there would end up becoming, but I believed that Zoran was the correct message. and I'm thrilled that I felt that I was right, I guess, but thrilled that he was the person. Yeah, I mean, like, sort of, Debbie, a little earlier you said something about, like, you know, how many, you know, people were on this campaign or adjacent to it just from, like, you know, just knowing Zaron over the years. And, like, I think that's, like, actually a huge factor as to why our messaging worked, both in the literal sense and in the abstract one.

more than anything else, Zeron's a guy who, for his entire career, has shown up. He has shown up, you know, whether it's on a picket line or, you know, or the tactic hunger strike or any kind of community event. And he built all these relationships

in earnest and meaningfully, not as a show, but like in actual solidarity. And it built this, first of all, this literal network of people who were ready and willing to help. But it also created this mentality that when we were making these videos where we're trying to be so direct in this messaging, it was really easy to authentically sell the idea

that he was out there and participating as a citizen of the city just like everybody else. It's easy to make it land when it's real, you know? Well, during the taxi strike, which obviously was something that put Zeran on the stage in New York, I remember him calling me while I was on the treadmill and he said, do you want to do some videos for, you know,

the taxi workers union? And at the time, I was working on some other stuff, some corporate work. And I tried. I did some, you know, volunteer photography. But I remember being like, this is an extremely funny conversation to be having on a treadmill. The only thing I'd add to all that is like the person who's not actually the filmmaker here, but the, you know, producer guy. It's just like how important it was. And the difference it means to have people who are like how much ideology and artistry matters in the same.

success of these videos. Like the fact that everybody making them are both extremely talented filmmakers and socialists and have been on the political left for a very long time. And I think came to this like just the style being kind of downstream of the substance of it. Absolutely. Plus like launching this campaign with a very clear mandate and agenda that was focused on shifting the narrative about what this race was going to be about, which at the time we launched was supposed to be a kind of like Eric Adams style law and order politics or maybe about the corruption in city hall and just stepping into that race, which at the time did not really have a strong left wing pole in it and saying, no, this is going to be a race about the crushing

cost of living that's driving working class people out of the city. And here is exactly what we proposed to do about it. And then taking that agenda and thesis all over the city in a million different contexts and just like running like hell at it from day one. I want to push back on you as a filmmaker too because actually when I came on I obviously like a lot of it was like watching debby and anthony's videos and like thinking like how I could be in conversation with those but like also Andrew a lot of the early videos of just you know the cell phone videos that are just like you know the early direct to camera stuff like there's a lot of fun and energy in those that you like specifically pioneered and like I think gave me space at least okay we can we can kind of play around with this so it's like don't sell yourself short there in my

I appreciate. I do miss those early days of the campaign. It would be impossible now to move around the city the way Zoran and I were in the early months of this campaign. And remember when I- A level of a celebrity. Remember when I decided to coax the police and at the New York City Marathon to let us through the barricades because I said, oh, I lost my media pass. Oh my gosh. And I decided to get us all through to get Zeran at the finish line. And, you know, that is one of the top ten craziest things I've done for this campaign. You've heard here first on this podcast, folks. Evidence of the lies and corruption in the incoming Mondani administration. No, no, no.

And there's favoritism being displayed. Yeah. We were extremely polite about it. And I did have a media pass. Whether you're talking about the style or the substance. Like, you're dealing in a visual medium. and it's a visual medium focused on a subject. This may sound like a half-joking question, but it's not.

How much easier is the style and the substance to portray when your subject is good-looking and capable of being personable on camera? Because I think that's a huge factor in the success of these videos. Debbie and Melted Salts are about to find out as they fan out across the country on congressional ways to us. Okay. I mean, obviously it is. We're working with good talent here, you know.

Just an incredible level of Riz and an ability to be comfortable, not just on camera, but comfortable in New York City. He's comfortable. And that to me is the thing that really struck me the most about these videos as the campaign picked up some momentum. And I've told Donald before, the video right before the primary, where he walks from Inwood to Battery Park, where he walks the entire distance of Manhattan, was probably the most effective. political campaign ad I've ever seen. And it was effective because, both because, like, it speaks to what the campaign's about, like, feet on the ground canvassing in the city, but just being on the streets of New York City. And the fact that he went the entire length of Manhattan and, like, people were showing love to him at every point on the, on the, and like,

certainly in contrast to Andrew Como, who was like, not to be seen or heard from for the entire kid. I mean, he was running it out of, like, you know, your first inclination is to run away. Yeah. If you, if you see him in public, it's already too late. but yeah it's that sense of being comfortable and being just being a new yorker right like just feeling comfortable and at ease with the people of new york on the streets on the subways so i don't want to like fill in your answers too much but you know people tried to like clown or make it like a hippies to bring up his old mr cardamom stuff uh and his like former hip hop aspirations but hey it shows that he's a guy who likes being a performer and has put some thought in how to

present yourself that way which i think in the end is is a total asset. So I guess my recommendation for DSA recruiting people is find very earnest involved in politics people who used to have SoundCloud pages. And also, Mr. Cardamom was the top two of my Spotify wrapped. But we got to give props to Olivia Becker for that video for the walk across and Donald for producing it. Olivia for editing it. I'll let Tom speak to that. Olivia edited it in 36 hours, which is I think we had. So what happened was we were back and forth on the idea. which our incredible speechwriter Julian Gerson proposed and then everyone kind of waffled on it as including Julian and I got higher including Julian and I um I think close the idea and tried to talk

him out of it to be a close full of disclosure at one point um uh campaign photographer the legendary Kara McCurdy and I both collaborate on like how we could try to convince him to not do it the day before um and very glad we didn't because he he stuck with it because like obviously it was a beautiful moment, but like, what was going to happen, I woke up up from an all-nighter at like 2 p.m. It's like, okay, shit. So I called Olivia and then I then just like started texting every DSA filmmaker.

I knew like, hey, can you show up with a camera at this place? And then Romka himself, I mentioned earlier, like raced up to the top Manhattan to get the start of it. Olivia followed along for like three quarters of it. We had like a whole bunch of other people, incredible volunteers who came in and filmed. I think eight cameras total, I want to say, including Ted who's worked with Devin Anthony a bunch

and Olivia again edited that all in 36 hours and I think what like one draft I want to say yeah we were all crying you literally published it at underscore V1 you know outside the content of the video I thought like whether intentionally or not one of the most effective means of like political communication in that video

was that I felt like I said I don't know if this is intentional or not I thought that this was an absolute broadside against the gerontocracy that runs the Democratic Party and politics in this country in general. Because it's just like the answer is, find me any Democratic candidate who can walk 12 miles. Senator Chris Murphy walks across the state every year. Nancy Pelosi walks across California. Directed by Love Diaz. Yeah. He's going to be like 12 hours.

But like, When this campaign started, I mean, like, you know, with hindsight, it's easy to forget that Mamdani's campaign was a long shot. He was a hard underdog. And this was even before Cuomo entered the race. Do you remember, like, which one of the videos that you guys did? Do you remember which one, like, landed in a way that made you think, hmm, like, we got something here. We got some, like, there are evidence of some kind of momentum that this wasn't just going to be like, you know, a symbolic campaign to like raise awareness about issues or sort of like get get your voice out there do you remember a moment when you thought hey like we could win this or like you know there's something going on here

that that like the media or the public hasn't caught up to yet but like do you remember like a response or like a video that made you think that way yeah you know we were such a long shot that I remembered recently at the hellgate party last week that it was one year ago that I chased you down at the hellgate party well to demand that you interviews are on and you spun around being like who the fuck is it? Being pleading with you to bring Zaron, which was incidentally the very same day that we had filmed the halal-flation video with Deb and Anthony, coldest day of the year, and then ran to the Hellgate parties just so I could corner Will Menaker to try to get that vaunted Chapo bump.

But no, I think the first video, I'm curious if you agree, Deb, I mean, you know, obviously the marathon video did well, the launch video did well, but it really was the video where Zeran went out to the Bronx and Queens to talk to Trump voters on the street, especially in that moment where certainly the mainstream Democratic Party had like nothing but kind of nihilism and contempt for what had happened in the election. And like, you know, 2024 was so different because it was not it was not a election that was a result of all the undemocratic features of our system. It was like a popular vote mandate. And New York City itself had swung dramatically towards Trump, which gave us also the opportunity to not have to travel very far to talk to working

class voters who had been Democrats and had either not voted at all, which was even the bigger story that we were constantly being like, it's not just a swing to Trump. It's like hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who said, fuck this, like, I'm not voting at all. And going out there with like a sense of curiosity with already the thesis that we were going to run on the cost of living crisis, but just kind of asking people, you know, who did you vote for? Did you not vote? And hearing again, like, shit was really. I saw a Democratic campaign that was trying to tell us the economy was great and putting celebrities in front of our face.

And there's been a genocide going on supported by a Democratic administration that the campaign seems to not want to acknowledge talk about complicity anything. And like that just having people tune out or tune towards Trump. And I think that video, dropping that video is just kind of some intervention in this moment where like somebody who's actually trying to learn and also show leadership about where we might move, open the doors that then move to the next phase and the next phase and the next phase. It was absolutely shocking the way that went viral. And the stories behind that video are hilarious. Like I, Anthony and I couldn't afford real mic. So we were charging a lov mic

in an IHop outside of an IHop in my car because I had just bought them. And, you know, we went out there, Andrew, how many people walked past us? So many. I think about that video, and I can't believe there's at least one person who's not on Twitter or some form of social media who remembers being in that video because it was everywhere. And I really truly was shocked and thrilled because people need to listen to voters who may not agree with them. And hearing Zeran talk about the fact that we met someone who was Fred Trump's pharmacist out in Jamaica Heights when he moved his pharmacy to Hillside Avenue was absolutely wild like in the old when he was in the Oval Office. It was something where, you know, the group chat's blowing up. I'm like, I can't believe he's

telling the story. It was so funny. And that video, the, there was a definite point where I knew Zeran was going to win. And, and Olivia and I both agreed where we went to Washington Heights. and interviewed people, and people were jumping out of their cars and stopping their bikes. And a guy had us take a picture with his, you know, 11-month-old son saying, this is going to be historic. He's going to look back on this. And it was Father's Day. And Andrew came up with, you know, Andrew's orchestrating the whole thing. And we...

Is this the Miro video? The Mero video with Camero. And I said, oh, my God, he's going to win. And Olivia, when we had brought her on, looked at that raw footage. And she said, oh, my God, people are absolutely so into them. People were, you know, a guy in a gym was sitting there doing a handstand for us. It was crazy. And I was thrilled to see that reaction in Washington Heights.

I kept telling myself, there must be something I was missing in the final weeks of the campaign. I'm like, there must be some pocket of like Cuomo diehards out there that I'm just not seeing. because I can't believe we're about to win as big as we are. But they weren't out there. Yeah, it was, it was, I feel like, so, like, for, for the, for the Fordham Road video, like, I remember seeing that and being so blown away. But at that time, like, I wanted to make, I want to see if I can pitch making videos for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for, and I was, like, working on, like, a pitch proposal.

And I saw them like, oh, oh, they don't need me. It's fine. It's, and it's like, but, like, I, I, that was the first time. That for me, as an outsider at that point, I'm like, this is incredible. But, um, there were two moments, I think. for me along the way that were really like, oh shit, and like even before that moment of complete clarity. The first

actually was Andrew, the video of him confronting Tom Honen in Albany. And the way people reacted to that on a global level was just sort of like stunning. I think after that was when people actually started showing up at press conferences.

It's for at first when I was first on, like one of my main roles was being a camera at the press conference So there was a camera. It looked like we were having a real press conference. And then, like, after, there's a video that's actually, like, I wouldn't say it's like even like a seismic thing per se in like how the reaction I think that.

Like, there was a day in March where I follow along, or it's April, I can't remember, where we follow along for all of Ead from like early morning in like, you know, Jamaica Bay and then all the way through a thing at City Hall of WFP. and like it wasn't like huge or anything like that the video can explode but the entire day the energy and excitement and joy around him

from the Muslim community because so much the strategy was like mobilizing Muslim voters South Asian voters and creating this new electorate base and that was where I'm like oh this is working this is actually working because yeah yeah I mean like because you know like the knock on like the Bernie campaign

was like oh like his support he's going crazy among supporters who look and think exactly like me, you know? And like, I guess that was the ceiling. But yeah, like, look at Zoran's numbers in New York City among like Asian grandmothers. And like I said, he did Assad numbers. He was putting up Assad numbers. And like in communities outside of, shall be honest, 30 something, 40 something,

Brooklyn Beardot Socialists. The comic corridor. There was a moment where we drove to Parkchester in the Bronx and a labor leader from Assal, which is one of the big South Asian unions. He had set up a couple of folding chairs outside of a barbershop, and Anthony and I drove there from another shoot. It was an insane day, and the people were crowding him with, you know, selfie mics and, you know,

selfie cameras and the enthusiasm and the pride that these men had and women of this young Muslim man running for mayor was emotional to see. And then Zoran pulls Anthony aside and said, hey, can you interview some of these people? It was absolutely beautiful. When I think about the biggest thing that differentiated, Zoran's like online digital strategy

or his videos or anything from anything else I've seen from other particularly democratic politicians or specifically politicians who were trying to cater to young people or juice youth turnout. is that like the complete lack of memes in your campaign. And by that, I mean like every one of your videos, even though they were short,

they treated their intended audience like they had intelligence. And like I'm wondering, like, was this a conscious strategy about being like none of this meme bullshit or did it not even occur to you because that's just like not how normal people communicate with one another? I don't think it even really occurred to us. Certainly, like, the attitude throughout the whole campaign was to avoid condescension of any kind and to engage genuinely with people. It was also funny how when we started having success online, they would call us like a TikTok campaign.

You know, the New York Times to do this all the time. It's like, I don't, I had never been on TikTok before this campaign started. And even throughout the whole campaign, it was like a secondary. I'd like, oh, shit, I have this video we just posted on Instagram. I'm supposed to post it on TikTok. I mean, the real heart and soul of this is the, true millennial poster. That is the soul of this campaign.

And we're all posters. We are, and we are all fucking millennials. And I'm glad Gen Z was able to experience in this new form, the true vanguard here. We showed Gen Z what happens we can turn your phone on its side sometimes. I love

all the discussions of a vertical video because I think every single video we cut it horizontally first and then like cut the vertical version in like an hour afterwards when it's... We posted the long... I remember I remember posting the launch. This is actually really just sad and serves how little I actually knew how to do this job at the beginning. But I remember being on the subway at like 5.30 a.m. waiting to, so I live at one subway stops or on Lid lives a few stops down. We'd meet on the same subway car. I'd get on the front car. So we'd get on the next car. There's like 5.30 a.m. on the day we launched on our way to Pix 11 for the first interview. And I'm posting the launch video, which was on my phone, on the way, like kind of live fixing the captions in the auto-generating. Instagram things and it was horizontal. We didn't even post a vertical video until months later of the launch video basically.

Thanks, Andrew, for not, we did what we did one. Yes, that's true. That's true. But I mean, I mean that launch video, we didn't even get a vertical cut from Morris. Oh, from fight. Two months later from fight. I'm talking about the launch video. I love that video.

Yeah, it's a great video, but he was not delivering us on a vertical cut. Well, on some of that. your formalism or formalist ideas. I'd love to ask a little bit about how you landed on some of your style. Starting with the particular and off commented on color grading. I mean, we can start there, but I'm just curious of how you landed on the almost immediately

signature Zoron post-production flourish, not even just like his, you know, the style of his two cameras. videos and stuff, but like, how did you end up on the look and what influenced you to get there? Go get it, Donald. Go get it. So it was a combination of conscious... Lutz for lots. Yes.

It was a combination of conscious choice and necessity. Like, when I started on the campaign, I was really broke. I had had personal projects really flame out that they put too much money into. And I was shooting on like an eight-year-old, or a seven-year-old camera at that point early on, a lot, it's like a kind of tinny image. A shout out to the Panasonic GH5. But it's, and I'm like, okay, how do I make this not look like shit? And like, especially like the very first video I actually did,

officially for the campaign, was on this freezing cold day at this kickoff canvassing rally by Grand Area Plaza. And I get back and I look at the footage and my, my filter must have been smeared or something like that because it's all, it all looks so hazy. and dreamlike and like all the colors are weird are like I kind of shifted a little bit and at first I'm like oh fuck oh fuck I'm I'm toast I'm done and I but I I already like

it's in my past work political work I'd been sort of pushing it on color but I'm always been very sixated on color because I'm a very shallow person and I uh it's it's um more identity politics exactly yes and I uh I just I I I like I think it is in this past 10 years of digital video

become this weird in this weird nebulous afterside area where it's either like completely an afterthought and everything looks kind of muddled and washed out in that Netflix way or it's you know these cinematic looks that all look kind of like

fake in their own way and I'm like I think a lot of inspiration from like 70s and 80s independent New York cinema and like also a lot of a lot of his mother the great Mirren Nyer's work and the color palettes in that. And I combine that with just like my own,

my own entertainment value. Like I wanted to make sure of two things. One, I wanted to make the city feel vibrant and alive as with everything else about the visual direction of it. But I also just like, and I wanted to make sure it felt welcoming. That's why I, we're going towards the sort of warmer tones and, you know, that's kind of like almost like heightened semi-cartoonish reality at points It's like with such as you with the whip pans and goofy transitions that I came to embrace.

I'm like, you know what? Like this is, there's a performance to this, you know. Let's just embrace it. It doesn't make it any less sincere. In fact, it makes it more sincere to be like, we are putting on, we are putting on a show for you because we want you to pay attention. And we want you to listen. And we were so grateful. Everybody was so grateful when that happened.

And there's a really funny story about Donald's Lutz, which is what, you know, translates to color correction when you're working off. different camera angles where when we interviewed Bernie Sanders, which was probably, I guess, one of the best days of the campaign, there was a huge rainstorm. And we were working with four cameras. And Donald had made like 16 different, you know, luts in order to match the color correction. They were like pre-rainstorm during the rainstorm, post-rainstorm for all of us. And I'm not sure if I completely did a write or I think Olivia did a better job than I did, but to match all of that. But the attention that they pay to color has always been so. I've always been in awe of that because I'm more of a narrative person and less of a visual person.

And, you know, it was really truly remarkable when you had a style shift, you had a narrative shift. you had a narrative style that was one thing and then you had a visual style that was just yeah truly making New York warm we had a whole term for Donald's signature style we called it an ADB another Donald Banger and it became the genre of the video it's time for an ADB

I think and a lot of that also emerged from the fact that I can't do any kind of like real graphic Debbie is an absolute genius when it comes to like graphical elements and like animations and I can't do any of that shit So I'm like, well, how do I make this engaging with nothing but him on the screen? I mean, like, when I'm listening to you guys, like, talk about the sort of both the process, like, the formal style, but also, like, the care with which you present the message of this campaign. I guess I'm struck that, like, I guess the main thing that separates this from, like, other forms of political advertising or political communication I've seen is that I think most politicians, particularly Democratic politicians, view. whatever you have to campaign on or whatever your message is to get in office as essentially

totally ancillary to like the goal of being in office. It's just so whatever dumb shit you have to get out there to get these stupid hogs to vote for you, which, but you know, you can't overpromise too much, but you can't, but you have to tell them something. But it's all just kind of an afterthought. And I think like the thing that caught, you know, the thing that like, you know, the thing that like Democrats are getting caught off guard now is that like they don't seem to be able to talk off the cuff or communicate in any medium about. about what they believe in because essentially they don't believe in anything or the things that they do stand for are so dreadfully unpopular to their voters that they know they can't say it.

So the cases when it comes down to communicate, oh, who am I? What do I believe in? Why should you vote for me? You get just drivel. You get nonsense because there's nothing there to say. I mean, do you see that as well? I mean, I'm going to plug Anailea Miaja in New Jersey 11 because she is off the cuff and we're shooting with our tomorrow and it i'm sure to get some incredible stuff because the we oh as melted solids we've always given people prompts and not scripts and we've i mean we have done a lot of scripted content but we've also given people hey you know rant on housing for one minute or three minutes and that's where we always feel we get true content where people are voicing their objections to what policy is and what policy should be.

Yeah, another opportunity to shout out Olivia here. We were, and related to what you're saying, like we were trying to figure out for a long time what to do is the kind of final piece of the general election. And we had toyed around with a bunch of ideas, scripted something, shot something, it didn't quite work. We were running out of time. And Olivia said, why don't we just get Zerran in a room and set up a like make-shape studio, let's just talk for a couple hours and see what comes out of it. And I ended up serving as kind of a narrative structure

for the final video, which may still be the pinned tweet. I don't know. It is. I cried the other day watching it, honestly. It's so incredible. But again, like, that's not something any politician can do because they don't have much to say, or they are structurally

inhibited by the people paying them and the people that they are expected to work for when they are in office. And so it all combines both singularly in Zeran, but also the movement he comes out of the public financing matching fund system that we have, years of being part of the DSA Socialist and Office project. Like ideology really matters. You cannot replicate the shit we were doing if you believe in nothing, full stop.

Well, like you mentioned that like the New York Times or others, like when they would have to discuss the potential viability of him as a candidate or his support among young people, they would say things like, oh, it's the TikTok videos. He's a TikTok candidate. Well, like, anyone can put shit out on TikTok. But, like, the idea is, like, I think they feel entitled to the votes of all young people. And then when that doesn't manifest, they blame young people.

And then, like, when someone does find success with young people, they're like, oh, they only like him because he's on TikTok. Because they refuse to either consciously or unconsciously to engage with the platform, the message, which is to say some form of democratic socialism, something that cuts against the market domination of, like, you know, of a capitalist imperialist. imperialist society. They don't want to touch. Have they talked to voters? Because Andrew and Donald and I and Anthony, we've all, I think over the course of this campaign, I've talked to over 100 different voters, canvassers.

And of all races and ages, have they really discussed what they want? And Zeran has a brilliant quote in Olivia's, the video that Olivia cut that says, Politics is something that you do. It's a lifelong struggle. And I think about that all the time because the people who are canvassing for this campaign, new canvassers, truly believed, and most importantly, in universal child care, because there were a lot of women that we interviewed who said, you know, I would love to start families, but it is so expensive. And that's why this is, this is life for them. These are the high stakes. And a lot of, I have not seen enough people going out and talking to others about what they want.

I want to add also the ability to break through on our agenda to especially younger voters, but not exclusively. Also tons of voters who tuned out or voted for Trump was also credibility and courage on Palestine and genocide, which while not like a core campaign platform, it's not in the kind of ambit of the war. work of a New York City mayor. Like, I feel like for a lot of people, especially coming after that presidential election, they weren't even going to, like, hear your next thing or believe that you gave a shit really about the shit you were running on if you were a coward or an apologist for genocide. Well, it's a stand in for so much else, right? Because like, well, A, there's just like the morality of it, but I can't vote for someone that supports this shit, period. Point blank. That's my red line. Sorry. But also. But also.

it's just like if you're willing to stand up on the issue of Palestine and like the solidarity with the the self-determination of Palestinian people to not be slaughtered and ethnically cleansed from their own country and like the amount of shit that you will take from like the entire establishment media and the pressure that you will be under to fold or capitulate in some way on this issue the fact that like he didn't do that shows that like and then not only like didn't suffer for it he as I've said many times, I think it was the thing

that energized the campaign. I think he was greatly successful because of that. But what I mean is that it's a stand-in because if you're willing to stand on that, given how intense the opposition is even saying the word Palestine, I think people think there's a credibility there

because if you're willing to withstand, you know, the attacks or, you know, the pressure that's going to come to you for taking a moral stand on that issue, well, then, like, we can be pretty reasonably assured that you're going to, you know, stand for something like, you know, free buses. you know, when the token lobby comes for you.

Even people who were not totally in agreement. Like, I remember talking to one of my close friends, Jewish grandmother in Bayside Queens, who like, you know, just kind of grew up a Zionist in that world where she's in her 80s. And she was like, but you know what? I really respect that Zeran stuck with his principles on that one. You know what I mean?

She was like, I don't agree. I don't like it. But I voted for him. She's a big union person. But she was like, it was a credibility of, ofwithstanding that pressure. I mean, the New York Times had said they were not going to involve themselves in local races and then wrote a unsigned editorial a week before the election thing.

Under no circumstances, rank Zoran Mamdani. And we won by 13 points. That was like when they endorsed Amy Klobuchar. And we beat $31 million. That was like when they endorsed Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary. Play both sides. Always come out on top. And then there's that moment during the debate where they ask everybody, you know, what's your first trip?

and they're Israel, Israel, of course. That was the kill shot in this campaign. That was his best moment and that was when I, I thought someone I was like knew he was going to win. Was that debate where they're like every, both his, the opponents who he was running against, the moderators and everyone in the media were like, this is the chance.

We're going to like open the door. The trap is laid and he's going to blunder right into it. And when they get, when he answered that question about just being like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm mayor of New York. I'm going to stay here. And it was just like, done. headshot over.

And you could see that everyone, there was just like, you could see the anticipation about there were like, ooh, he said he wasn't going to visit Israel. And the way that landed, you could tell just how utterly dumbstruck everyone was by it. And I was just like, it's a rap. Sorry, it's a wrap. I kept having this fantasy of Zoran actually being on a debate stage with Curtis Slewa and Curtis Slewa repeatedly asking Zoran if Poland had a right to exist.

Well, we do have a certified Curtis Llewa expert. here, Andrew, who played him in the mock debates. There were many photos of him rocking the beret just as well. I will say, Donald, that is a detail that has never been publicly revealed. It's totally fine.

We can slice that one out. Sorry. I don't think it's a big deal. Can you do the impression? Can you do the impression? No, no, no. Okay. But I was going to say, in earnest, like, back to that point of credibility, like, it was such a clarifying moment for people, I think, to realize,

Oh, wait. Why are we talking about something that's not about being the, like, yes, he's principal on Gaza, and he is stuck to his principles and rooted in his concern for the welfare of people everywhere. But, like, it's also like, why is the New York City mayor's race, why are they trying to make it about this and not living in New York City? Like, you know, it did try to make it about it. Yeah. And he was like, okay, you're going to make it about it? Like, I'll respond. Like, I'm not going to Israel. Even parades have a right to exist.

That was something, Will, that you mentioned a while ago. They were trying to corner him on Israel. Would you go to the Israel parade? I remember you saying that. Well, also, like his response about, like, of course it has a right to exist, as a nation with equal rights for everyone. And then they were like, because, like, you know that pissed him off so much because, like, you know that they wanted to immediately say,

he said Israel doesn't have a right to exist. Then he was like, of course it should have a right to exist. Just like America and every other decent Democratic country that ensures equal rights for all everyone under its authority. And then they were like, you know that pissed them off so bad because they knew they just wanted to say, how dare you imply that Israel should give rights to Palestinians? But they can't because they knew the game was up at that point. You can't say that out loud anymore.

It's the reason I started working for him. I mean, not started, but during this mayoral campaign, that was. It was definitely mobilizing for me wanting to get involved in the campaign as well, like really significant, especially coming off of Bowman's campaign. And like, in addition to all the, like, all the show, you know, everything since since the genocide started, like, just like showing up for that. Like, watching how that played out was very demoralizing for a while. And then, you know, so it felt, I always knew that more people than were thought to, were, we're sympathetic to what the people of gods were, were, were, the horrors they were experiencing. but like seeing a campaign that actually got people ready to listen and emboldened felt

really good. Yeah. You know, I mean, I talked about this a little bit on the dig, too. It's funny when like, because beyond the moral correctness of it that he would have done no matter what the poll said, it was just a fact that like certainly by the time this Democratic primary came around, polls were consistently showing supermajorities of Democrats who believed it was a genocide and the U.S. should stop arming it. And that was just discounted somehow or ignored.

At the same time, I'm looking at these polls showing like 70, 80% support for that view. Andrew, they're just not mentioned. There's no way. Those polls are never mentioned for obvious reasons. I guess I have a question on that. As the kind of the popularity of the videos, even as the campaign was gaining steam, was kind of a legitimizing and substantiating factor to the whole campaign. And then because of that, you know, the Zoron started getting national attention.

and suddenly, you know, with each new video that you're getting, you're not just making a statement about what you're trying to get across in the race or the next point that you're trying to make or advance a campaign issue, but you are entering something into national political discourse. Did that affect you guys at all? And like how you, your content strategy, how you were thinking about videos. You've gone to be kidding me. That was my favorite shoot days of the entire campaign, honestly.

Yeah. I tuned it. I don't know about you. I tuned it out in the primary for sure. I mean, and by the end of the primary, you were starting to get that a little bit, the national reverberation. But I was, did not think about anything outside the five boroughs until like, you know, 10 p.m. on the night of the primary. But the very next day, it was like, it was like stepping and sit through the look. I mean, like, first of all, Mike just phone number got circulated among like journalists around the world to the point where it remains unusable.

But also just like everything that we did, everything that we, like, like, like things that I'm trying to think of a good example. Maybe you can think of one Donald. Like we think we're making a very narrow video about a specific thing. And it is then talked about as if like, is this the path forward for the Democrats? Is this not the path forward? Blah, blah, blah. And that was annoying and way more, I was way more conscious of it during the, to the point

of I'm like, people are really like over and, like, hyping. Like, this is the greatest takedown I've ever seen. Like, I'm very proud of the Cuomo files video that we did that Debbie edited and Donald's shot. and release the release the Epstein files, you know, or the Cuomo files. But I did not, like, that was discussed repeat, like on cable news a lot in the following days. Got to fill those hours. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, people started to pick up on details that were more incidental. I feel like I am trying to think it was discrete examples. But like, yeah, they were dissecting the videos. And it's like, well, no, we had half an hour to shoot it. Which is the other, for me, that was the more immediate thing was all of a sudden, like, we could, I mean, especially right after the primary, it did feel like Beatlemania a little bit. Like there was, of course, that one video where we were filming the busways video, but like we ended up literally having, I think, only 10 total minutes of shoot time on the street

because the rest of it was just getting constantly interrupted for people like wanting to like, you know, meet him and talk to him, which became its own fun thing. Getting chased through the streets by hundreds of, hundreds of young women with like nose rings, like hard days night or something. No, literally, no, full coalition. Like everybody across the board, that was the really beautiful thing. Like no matter where we went in the city, everyone was excited. It felt like energizing.

Like New York had never been so back, to be quite honest, like since that summer. Like, it was like the most energized the city has ever felt. And then the other hand, every press conference we shot became a act of physical survival for me. Just like squeezing in like this. Oh, my God. We all sort of took turns Trying to pee in there and just like contorting ourselves Because we're following him getting up there

So we can't get a good spot All these broadcast cameras from Long Island got there two hours ago And it's just like I'm just getting the shit beaten out of me every time I'm kneeling on the pavement I'm like just like And I don't want to throw elbows or anything Because like I want to think no I'm just like like water here

But Very physical job for Donald I just out to Donald because I, like, I did one press conference and I said I'm having an anxiety attack. There was a moment, Andrew, I don't know if you remember it when we were shooting the Department of Community Safety video. We're in Union Square. And the guy, like, walks, there's a guy who walks in. He's like, don't vote for this guy. And then another guy, like, another guy, and he's wearing a Yankees hat.

And the other guy walks in and he said, no, thank you, his friend. Thank you so much for running. I really appreciate what you're doing. Thank you so much. And Zerang goes, oh, Yankees guy. So shout out to the Mets. I mean, I'm a Red Sucks fan, but, you know. Somehow he still got my vote.

Shout out to the Mets. Well, actually, like, speaking of opponents of the campaign, I wanted to ask you guys, do you have a favorite, like, anti-Zerun, like, from the people who have your jobs in the opposition, do you have a favorite, like, anti-Zerun, pseudo-viral video, or do you have a favorite rip-up?

of your guy's stuff. Because I noticed, like, the day after the primary, Richie Torres was like, I'm Richie Torres walking along a street in the Bronx. I'd like to talk to you about trash collection.

And I'm like, do you have any of your imitators or any of your haters? Do you have specifically a favorite one or one that sticks out in your mind? I mean, there was that brief moment when Cuomo relaunched, when for like,

before he just devolved into the most insane AI slop, there was like three weeks where he's like, I'm a cool dude out here on the upper east side. The one we was fixing his fucking car. I was going to say that one. Or saying that the car is like,

a lot of people think this is OJ's Bronco, but it's not. I have a different car than O.J. Simpson. That was his closing video. It's unbelievable. His relaunch video where the boom mic pops in, which already differentiator, because we never had a boom operator.

Come on. We always had the worst Mike's money could buy. It's, but like, or another one I really enjoyed of his, was the one where it goes to Staten Island and the voices are so layered it almost comes to outsider art

I guess this weird like sound like kind of like a best show sound collage kind of vibe almost and like it's just it's just completely disorienting and then from ripoffs actually today there's ripoff I saw that oh yeah that girl the NDP person in Canada

I can't remember her name where she's supposed to like I'm ripping off Zeran's videos for fundraising and it's like she did the research she she got the It looks like a Donald Banger. No, it's really scrupulous. It's, I'm impressed. I'll also say, I mean, without naming names of our beloved primary opponents besides

Andrew Cuomo in the now Big Ten Democratic Coalition. It was amazing. Like, our videos obviously were great. I'm very proud of them. Amazing filmmakers. But there was also just like, the bar was so low. Like, you'd be watching these other videos that these other campaigns would make. There'd be like no, not even the cheap,

that you can buy for $40 anywhere. Or like, it would be so grainy and weirdly shot. I'm just like, there was just like not even the baseline level of like, is this going to look halfway decent going online? Yeah. Who would make a grainy and weirdly shot video? It's like, however, Chris and I were talking about this earlier, Eric Adams really produced some top tier content.

He was able to tap in on another level entirely. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great online character. There's no doubt about it. I'm going to make a smoothie. out of lettuce I am going to tell people that

you know it's snowing go have sex yeah that was just this weekend I mean a long time ago the walking through the the dare room and finding drugs and guns behind everything that would have been the one break on our reference rule but like

so many people asked for us to do that to be like hundreds of people and it's like well now we can't like it's it's I was going to be a popular nap sack for Halloween I didn't get that in time. I was just about to say, the phrase popular knapsack. And also, you can never tell which one of the pockets may be secreting drugs.

That was great. And also when he finds a single bullet behind a frame photo and goes, when you find a bullet, there's often a gun nearby. Look, you always have to inspect what to expect. Or maybe that's vice versa. Have you seen the genre of videos where it's an AI voice, it's his AI voice, like, Oh, my God. ...stranging strange social media videos from other countries. It's an incredible...

I have not seen that. Oh, my God. Oh, you're not... I'm going to DM it to you. The only AI that gets to stay after the, um, after what's the Dune thing again? Oh, yeah, the... Butlerian jihad. Yes.

Okay, wait. We're in this, like, silly portion of the interview. I do have one, like, somewhat serious question, uh, before we get to wrapping up. As we discussed, like, the focus of this campaign and, and what makes your job easy is the, the relentless and earnest directedness of your candidate, Zoran's messaging. And your videos, your content, all stems from that. Do you think there's ever in a good campaign any place for a somewhat cynical case to be made for like directly manipulative messaging or, you know, trying to be somewhat underhanded

or mean or with campaign videos? or is the feeling that you want to get off only a one of positivity, only one of earnestness? We actually had debates about this in our content dungeon, as we like to call it, throughout the election, I feel like, honestly. Like, but she has Cuomo really ramped up how truly vicious. Yes. And outright hateful his attacks on Zeran became, which I really can't underscore enough how, I think when that one they pulled during the debate, the AI one that was just like just outright,

this is truly disgusting. That was like, I think that was one of the way. I believe there was an AI generated pimp in that video. Yeah. But like I think, I think first of all, like in terms of manipulation itself, like all messaging is manipulation.

Not to get to Marshall McLuhan again on it all. But like it's, it's, I think it really just like depends on what you're trying to say. And I think more so than like cynicism or like meanness or framing it in that terms, I think it's directness is the question you need to ask about. And like, what's the most direct path to what you're trying to say?

Because I think voter, I won't say voters will never respond to cruelty. We've seen twice over they will. But, um, but like it's, it's, I still think that especially if you are building a platform on certain values, there's certain things you cannot cave on without undermining your own credibility. Um, it doesn't mean you can't, you don't throw punches. We threw plenty of punches. But you have to stay true to the candidate, your, messaging for and what they represent. And that's really, I'd have to cop out answer a little bit,

but like it's, it's the only real one. I think maybe this is not exactly the question you're asking, but I do think when you are interviewing and doing man on the street stuff and talking to working class voters, right? Working class America, you're going to get a range of views, right? Some of them are going to be incredibly incisive and interesting and some of them are going to be very reactionary. They're going to be all over the place because everybody's ideology is all over the place and all the rest of it. And I think, I think it is okay in editing and telling those stories, frankly, to not, like sometimes you want to air all the reactionary stuff, right? But, and I think in other cases you don't, because you actually want to raise the salience of other issues. Like,

and I, and I think like that was a related to like our agenda, our campaign was this economic message, right, that like the vast majority could find themselves in. And I, and I, and I think like, that was a, Not every one of those people had the same views on every issue. And Zoran and we never compromised our principles on like trans issues or palis, whatever it may be. But I do think, I don't know if this is making sense. Maybe I'll be more explicit. But the context of the, yeah. If you talk to someone who's like, yeah, I can't afford to live in this city anymore.

Billionaires have too much fucking money. And like, but also like teachers are turning our kids trans and like immigrants stole my job. Or, you know, like, or just like that kind of thing where it's just like, yeah, like the message here is that the city's too fucking expensive to live in. And like there's a huge number of people. Yes, exactly right. The teachers are unavailable because people have to move out of New York City because they're not allowed to afford schools here.

I mean, I think that that's, again, as Andrew said, that's the salience of the campaign. It's that people do not trust either party right now. And it's been like that for a long time. Those were the people we were trying to speak to. And that's what we're going to try to speak to in the future. And the point being, you can speak to people who have maybe reactionary views or, you know, who's, you know, doesn't align perfectly with the message of the campaign, provided that you are not tailoring the message of the campaign to those people and those particular reactionary bugaboos or boogiemen that they have in like that the breaks up their ideology or political worldview.

where you just say like, hey, what we can agree on is like you're, you pay too much of rent, like the buses should be free and you deserve free child care. You know, like the city's too expensive and the billionaires have too much money. Like I think whereas the Democrats, like every time they lose an election, they're like, oh, we need to start catering our message and placating the views of only the reactionary tendencies of people who can't afford month to month week to week to live in this country. Right. Or the previous iteration, like before the death of quote unquote woke, right, was that You have to immediately and exclusively confront all of the reactionary views of somebody,

or otherwise they would have no room in your coalition. It's like neither of those things, right? Right. I mean, to bring it back to the one time I'll do this, they'll bring it back to the 2016 election night with you guys. The thing that stuck in my mind throughout this campaign I kept coming back to was when Matt, speaking directly to camera, filmed by our DP on that, the great Alex McGarrow,

who actually has a really incredible doc WTO. 99 right now. But Matt's speaking directly to him, you know, saying, I can't believe I'm blanking on the actual wording, but like, you know, why would you speak to people's hope and dreams when you can just whip a nay-nay instead because it was 2016? You know? And, like,

that's what it comes down to. It is this full circle moment for that. It's like, this is a campaign that was built on the back of many other campaigns that tried and both succeeded and failed to do the same thing on just actually speaking to people's hope. dreams,

and fears without compromise, without 20 people out, but while still being clear on what we're offering. Personally, I fear a Pokemon go to the pole. That's a giant fear of mine. I also want to shout out Matt Honor

my co-director on that as well. Wonderful filmmaker and organizer, in 20226, can we get Zoran to say 6-7 and do that? That's over already. According to my nine-year-old, according to my nine-year-old cousin, then that's over.

Alice Jones has claimed that from the globalists. Very recently, I thought that was a reference to the like 2008 Lil Wayne song or 2010 Lil Wayne song. Six foot seven? Yeah. It's not a little weight on this campaign. A lot of little way. We're probably wrapped up.

I mean, we've kind of already covered this, but like, I know that you guys are now equal partners in the trademark big tent coalition of Democratic Party. The party. I'm just wondering, do you guys? see the Democratic Party taking a lot of good lessons from you, or are they going to steal stuff from you and fuck it all up? If they want to win, they have to. Like, it's a buyer's market right now. I mean, like, if they don't, they will lose. It's as simple as that. And, like, we'll see what they end up actually doing. But, like, the results are going to bear that out quite clearly,

I think. The candidates that do succeed are the ones who actually learn from this. I will say I am both, I think it's awesome and important that we made cost of living and affordability. We're a key part of bringing that back into the center of politics. I am, I do have some worries that like affordability gets severed from redistribution. And, you know, and I think that like, there's definitely going to be an attempt to do that. And there are parts of the economy where you're called the abundance agenda. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. There are, there are, yeah, no, I mean, yes, that's right. I've given this talking point.

Yes. I've given a talking point a bunch of times and I said, there are people who are talking about the oligarchy in Texas who are Republicans who voted for Trump, who I've spoken to, and are frustrated with corporations consolidating power. Sorry to have interrupted you, Andrew. I've only been to a few states, but there are people who are frustrated with the oligarchy. and it's not just the people you would think. Absolutely. Absolutely. I also like, you know, the abundant, like I want government to do big things and build things and all that.

I do think that's going to require a confrontation with concentrated economic and political power that as far as I can tell is pretty absent from the abundance. If we want all this abundance shit and like more productivity, if you want that to translate into a shorter work week or more free time or, you know, democratic input from people, then I think that's where the abundance agenda begins to,

run into its own phase. Well, as Marks was talking about, it's the division of labor versus work. You know, there's labor where people have their own, you know, agency over the work that they do. And then there's work where you have one job and it's monotonous and, you know, people have no control at all. All right, Chris, you want to be there to end the episode. Yeah, agree. Sorry about that. Yeah. Donald, what's your favorite camera?

My favorite, it's like asking. In your arsenal. In my arsenal. I mean, so the workhorse that got me through this whole campaign was the Panasonic GH7, a nice crop sensor micro four-thirds camera because I think that shallow focus is for cowards. And I also, it's just like, it's lightweight. The lens are good. The colors are great. And it's just like, it's a camera you can forget you're using, which I think is the platonic ideal of a camera.

One where it's stuck in a barrier. Your lenses are what... Yeah, I'm a big, big fan of 28 and 40, personally. But those are, you know, at 85. But yeah, it's like, it's just, I think, above all else, though, it's just getting rid of the obstacle, honestly. Best camera's the one in my hand. It's his eye right here.

Shit. All right, that's my last question. Yeah. It's Donald's Meta-frame. That's what Donald's going to fill. Yeah. Shout to the FX-3. Yeah.

Everything from now. on is going to be entirely 360 cameras rigged sort of like in the Connor O'Malley video. Oh, yeah. Donald and I through the whole campaign we're trying to convince her on to do the, or maybe that's exactly the camera you're talking about. I think of it as the recording for a dream camera. Oh, yeah. Yes, the snoring cam, yes.

Where it's like pointed back at your face. You know, it's like on a rig on your chest. Yes. We want to do the whole first year of the Mdani administration live stream just right at Leon's face. Olivia had that great video of him on the city bike, which was wonderful. But I was a little jealous. because I wanted to have him doing that on a city bike the entire time.

Like, I'm saying, come on. I'm sure the re-election campaign will be shot exclusively in VistaVision. That's right. I'm actually using a little VistaVision in the video I'm working on right now, actually. It's fake Vist Division, but it's it. Donald can do everything. Except for me to deadline. Well, we're going to wrap it up there for today.

I really want to thank Andrew, Donald, and Debbie. thanks for joining us and thanks for all the great work you did. I've long said there is nothing more admirable than propaganda provided it's for a good cause. So once again, to the three of you, thank you so much for your work and for talking to us today. Thank you so much.

And shout out to the Kush blogs, which were a huge source of political analysis, I think, for all of us. And the YouTube channel. We love it. Thank you for years of parisocial and social friendship. Yes. All right. I think we're over the parra part.

And, you know, from my... Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I want to thank Donald. He did run the boards. He did produce my recent screening of Death Wish 3 at Littlefield. And I would like to recommend anyone who wants to understand what Zeron's New York is going to be like should watch that movie.

It all starts this week. It all starts this week. From Michael Winner. That's right. All right. Thanks again, guys. Till next time. Bye.

And happy New Year, everyone. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.