Front Burner - Zohran Mamdani vs. the Democratic establishment

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Zohran Mamdani’s win in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York is one of the most stunning upsets in the city’s political history. The 33-year-old assemblyman led a campaign focused on affordability, with a platform that included a rent freeze, free public transportation and free child care.Zohran’s win garnered international attention. It also marked the introduction of the first star the Democratic party has produced in many years, appealing to voters that the party has struggled to retain. But since then, political forces - including many from within his own party - have been trying to stop his rise. Why is that? And why is the Democratic Party establishment in particular, hesitating to back him?Errol Louis is a reporter with New York Magazine and a local anchor in New York City. Louis has written a number of pieces about Mamdani, and joins the show to talk about his rapid ascent to stardom, and the identity crisis at the heart of the Democratic Party. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts.

There are two kinds of Canadians. Those who feel something when they hear this music. And those who've been missing out so far. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Nile Coxall. We are the co-hosts of As It Happens. And every day we speak with people at the center of the day's most hard hitting, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious news stories.

Also, we have puns. Here Why As It Happens is one of Canada's longest running and most beloved shows. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi everyone. I'm Jamie Poisson. It's been two weeks now since a previously unknown first generation democratic socialist won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.

And the time since then has really been dominated by the Democratic establishment's reaction to his upset win over former governor Andrew Cuomo. It's hard to capture, but Zoran Mondani is leading a political movement in New York City that the Democratic Party has been unable to organically generate for much of the last decade or so. He's charismatic and telegenic. He's supercharging the youth vote and turning Trump voters blue. Through a carefully tailored online presence, he's managed to build a profile of real star

power nationally in just over 100 days. Many have compared him to a modern day version of Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders. So for a party struggling for cultural relevance and connection, you think that Zoran Mandani would be a gift or at the very least an alternative. But members of his own party don't appear to agree. And frankly, stylistically, I'm not a socialist and I don't associate myself with what he has said about the Jewish people. Well, I think it's incumbent upon my Democratic colleagues to speak up and to say what our

party stands for. We are not socialist. Zorin himself refers to his candidacy as a referendum, or a battle for the future of the Democratic Party. A battle between cosmopolitan finance and the ideals that brought so many to call themselves Democrats in the first place, a commitment to the working class. Errol Lewis is a reporter with New York Magazine and a local anchor in New York City. He's interviewed Zoran Mumdani and wrote a number of pieces about him, including a recent one called Who is Afraid of Zoran Mamdani.

And he joins us today for a conversation about the man at the center of New York City's mayoral race. Errol, hi. Thank you so much for coming on To Frontburner. Great to be with you, Jamie. So before we get into the politics of all of this, I just want to introduce Doren Mamdani as a figure for our listeners. He is of South Asian descent.

He was born and raised in Uganda and lived between there and South Africa until he moved to the US at the age of seven. His mother is a critically acclaimed filmmaker, Miranar, known for movies like Mississippi Masala and Monsoon Wedding. His father is Ugandan scholar and political thinker Mahmoud Mamdani. He is just 33 years old too. And just when did Zoran first get onto your radar? Oh, great question. I first met him. He was one of the pandemic candidates is the way I think of it. We were under full lockdown in 2020 when he first ran for state office and he won.

And by tradition, I ended up interviewing a lot of the people who have won these races. He was a first time candidate. And he really had not much of a political background that had ever come to the attention of most of us who cover city politics. That was really was his first foray. You know, and then just four years later, here he is running for mayor, come to the attention of most of us who cover city politics. That was really was his first foray. You know, and then just four years later, here he is running for mayor, uh, polling at 1%.

He was still relatively unknown. And in one of the more remarkable and dramatic sort of surges that I've ever seen, he went from literally 1% in the polls to winning the Democratic primary for mayor of New York city in what ended up being about a hundred days. I wanna talk to you today about how you think he did that. I know the moment that a lot of people would have first been introduced to him, it came at kind of the very start of his mayoral campaign, this campaign to win the primary.

It was this viral clip of him in the Bronx and Queens talking to voters, all of whom were immigrants or people of color in low income communities that had just voted for Donald Trump. Did you get a chance to vote on Tuesday? Yes. And who did you vote for? Trump. Ah, the million dollar question. Trump.

Ah, Trump. Donald Trump. Well, actually, the early voter, I voted for Trump. And just, I wonder if you were familiar with the clip, and just more generally, how valuable you think it was that he did that kind of outreaching and that kind of messaging. I do remember the clip, and from the start of the campaign, he was unusual, really almost unique, in really making use of the modern media platforms so that he wanted to dramatize

his support for a rent freeze, for example. So one of the first things he did was put on a three-piece suit and run into the freezing water in Coney Island. I'm freezing your rent as the next mayor of New York City. Let's plunge into the details. It was kind of cute, kind of hokey, kind of clever. But in another one of his first ones, he stopped people to interview them on the street in a way that you or I or other journalists would fully recognize.

And he's just interviewing people saying, what would you say to me freezing your rent or lowering the cost of childcare, those kind of things. And I know Canada just came through an election where those kind of daily expenses were front and center in a national campaign. Well, it turns out it's a big, big deal in New York City. There are a lot of people from all communities who are really, really suffering and struggling. And so he honed in on that, that audience. He stayed on that message. He used lots of different kinds of non-traditional media, meaning not

television or radio. And it really paid off. I read too that, that his team hired people from the world of sort of corporate advertising to some of like the largest companies around young people that really understood the internet and the work of like selling and marketing things too. They understand who it was they were trying to reach because many of these ads, uh, really propagated through social media. And to be honest, it was a case of, uh, necessity being the mother of invention. They didn't have a lot of money.

They didn't have a lot of name recognition. And so it would be pointless to go up on television. On the other hand, if you can meet people where they are, and where they are is on a small screen in between doing a thousand other things, that's how you run the kind of insurgent candidacy that really worked for him. Let's walk through some of Zoran's ideas. So he ran on stuff like, as we've talked about, a rent freeze, free public transportation, free childcare, city-owned grocery stores, a $30 minimum wage. He's previously called for defunding the police and he's made clear that he doesn't believe in the concept of billionaires. Can you just

walk me through a little bit more of the progressive vision for the future that he's putting on the table right now? Where have we seen some of these ideas before? I don't know if I'm the only one who sees it this way, but many of the ideas that you just described have already been tried or are already in effect in New York, meaning it's not a terribly radical program for New York City. We have something called the Fair Fairs program

where almost anybody, if they're of a certain income, if you sign up a couple of pieces of paper, you can get half price on all of your rides on the bus or the subway. What he's talking about is making the buses entirely free. That's not that much of a difference. What we've got with the minimum wage, the minimum wage has been increased almost every year for the last decade and now stands in New York at $16.50. If it had been adjusted for inflation, it would be pretty close to $30 at this point. So there again, not super, super radical, radically different from what we're already

doing. The idea of city owned groceries. Well, it's an idea that he's borrowing from some rural areas where there are food deserts in other parts of the country, where the county has created a grocery store just to enable people to have a place to shop. He's talking about on a demonstration basis opening a total of five out of the thousands and thousands that already exist in New York in urban food deserts. He's really just talking about what I consider in some ways, largely symbolic policies that are intended to demonstrate that he's going to use

whatever lever of power he gets his hands on to make life just a little bit better for New Yorkers financially. And I think that's what really voters have been responding to. And yet though, there has been a ton of criticism and pushback of these policies, right? Like I saw him on Aaron Burnett a little while ago.

She was kind of pushing him on the grocery store thing, likening it to a Soviet style project. So you're not looking at some like Soviet Union grocery stores on every corner that are going to be run by the government? No, what I'm looking at is how to solve the very clear twin crises of affordability when you go to the grocery store and food deserts, which disproportionately impact black and brown New Yorkers across the five boroughs. Just like, tell me more about the clapback.

Well, I mean, yeah, it's honestly, it's a little silly. And I've written about this. Those of us who are old enough to remember the old Soviet Union know that this has nothing in common with that. He is not talking about a government takeover of food distribution in New York City. And nobody wants that job, trust me. But, but right now, I will tell you there are an estimated 1 million New York City residents every day who are using what we call food stamps or other similar

government assistance in order to get their meals. So, you know, we're already there. I don't know if, if a lot of his critics fully recognize or realize that. Now, the people who are freaking out are freaking out over the fact that he considers himself a democratic socialist. The president of the United States has had to say, he's had a lot to say about your campaign. He called you a communist because he's the president. I want to give you a chance to respond directly to him. How do you respond? Are you a communist?

No, I am not. And when we talk about my politics, I call myself a democratic socialist in many ways inspired by the words of Dr. King from decades ago, who said, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God's children in this country. And he does drop these little nuggets, like not thinking it's a great idea to have billionaires. Well, you know, there are over a hundred billionaires who live in New York City, more than any other city in the world. And I guess they want to be loved. They don't like people talking trash about them. But as far as an actual policy shift, you know, a term limited New York City mayor has very little power

to affect the life of a billionaire. Just tell me more about why they're so animated by this, right? Like there was a piece in New York Magazine last week titled Inside the Well-Funded, Likely Doomed Plan to Stop Mum Dunny. You know, one source quoted in the story said, I just don't understand it. Here you have all these guys who are worried about what Mamdani would mean for their bottom lines and their business, but they are also just

willing to light money on fire to stop him. The front page of the New York Post earlier this month read the price is white, kind of framing his taxation plan as racist against white people. I mean, certainly, I guess he could tax them, right? Just walk me through a little bit more of the forces trying to stop him, right? There is this freak out, and I don't think it has a rational basis. I think really in a lot of ways,

what happens, Jamie, is people... It is possible to separate yourself from much of the life of New York City if you are wealthy enough. You've got butlers and domestics and other people to just ease your life and you just kind of float from one party to another and maybe stop in an office if you choose. That's very different from the way most of the city is living. And I think a lot of folks don't, a lot of the wealthier folks in particular, don't really

understand that our political system is really geared toward a different kind of leader. We mostly have working class people like our current mayor who's an ex-cop, his predecessor who worked in government his whole life. You know, most people, Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire being a notable exception, most of the people who run this city are people who kind of came up middle class, uh, and who are used to a very different kind of interaction with, with the broad society than a lot of these folks. And so I, I know just from the quotes that people have been saying that they

don't understand how our political system works. They don't understand that you can't just swap out this candidate you don't like for some other person with like 100 days left until election day. It really doesn't work that way. It was the dawn of a new era of spaceflight. Our space program has reached another important milestone. We're going to fly this new rocket, never been flown before, and we've got people on it. You know that there are a lot of things that can go wrong. From the BBC World Service, 13 Minutes presents The Space Shuttle. I think we've got something that's really going to mean something to the country and

the world. Listen on the BBC app or wherever you get your podcasts. What's also been really interesting to me is the kind of pushback that he's been getting from the Democratic Party, right? From inside the Democratic Party. Here you have this guy that has probably, I think it's fair to say, some of the most momentum since the likes of Bernie.

He has been compared to Barack Obama to that kind of like grassroots energy, right? That Obama was able to capture. He in this primary kind of supercharged the youth vote. And yet you have all of these Democratic Party officials quite hostile, right? Yes. So why is it that there are so many establishment Democrats that appear to be so scared of him?

Oh, because he, because he beat them. Because he got record turnout. He, we got the highest turnout in the, in a democratic primary from mayor since 1989. Uh, so, you know, practically since before this kid was born, um, he went ahead and did this and he did it without their help. In fact, he did it in, in opposition to many of their, of the political clubs and political establishment organizations.

So that's one factor. The second factor is that he's from a South Asian community, which is newly, well, fast growing, very much mobilized and organized around him, and is now following its Italian and Irish and Jewish and black and Latino predecessors in claiming a seat at the table of power inside City Hall. So the establishment is never happy about that. His win, it feels like it's happening kind of in the backdrop of a really interesting moment for the Democratic party, right?

One where the old guard is being challenged. 25 year old David Hogg briefly sat as vice chair of the DNC and tried to lead this campaign set on primaring a number of like high profile democratic incumbents that he saw as like old, out of touch, ineffectual. He wanted to specifically target those in quote safe blue districts, right? It's kind of like a bid to inject new progressive energy into the party. There's talk of, for example, replacing Chuck Schumer with someone like AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or the needs of primary like Hakim Jeffries. Nationally, 62% of Democrats say they want to replace their party leaders

compared to 24% who say no. Like, just what do you make of this moment for the Democratic Party? Yeah, if you could just put this in a context, wider context. All of these young people are calling the question of generational succession. And they're calling it in a way that can no longer be ignored. A number of these people, in fact, Mamdani was one of them. Another woman, Jennifer Rajkumar, who became the first Indian American ever elected to the state legislature.

She got elected the same day as Zoran Mamdani. And they both beat incumbents, meaning they're, you know, and so it's both ethnic succession, it's generational succession, it's who's got the energy, who's got the connection to platforms. You know, we're moving on from the baby boomer generation who, you know, in keeping with what baby boomers have done have probably taken too much,

looked at themselves in the mirror for too long and stayed a little bit too long. The rest of us are waiting to get our chance. So yes, it is a long overdue question and you can go office by office. There were a number of people who came in as insurgents in 2018, in 2020, this is just now talking about New York and New York City in particular,

who've basically fought their way into power in part by displacing some of the incumbents. And of course, the establishment, which by definition is made up of incumbents, is not too happy about any of that. They've gotten a little bit apathetic. They got too used to the idea of doing whatever it is they did before.

So that you get somebody like Andrew Cuomo, who if he had, and if he does become elected mayor, would be the oldest mayor in the history of New York City. He's won not one, not two, but seven statewide elections. So he really, really knows this game. He's been involved in political campaigns since 1977. And yeah, voters are increasingly saying enough is enough. Whatever we've had in the past, we've had enough of it.

And we'll even take a chance on somebody who has almost no resume, rather than go one more round with an establishment that has failed us. We talked about a couple of third rail issues that Mamdani represents the intersection of. One that we haven't talked about yet is his position on Israel and the Palestinians. New York City is of course home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel and Zoran has been really

clear and consistent on his position. Through time, he is a defender of Palestinian rights, a big critic of Israel. He is a supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. He uses words like apartheid and now genocide. I'm here at a protest right now because of the fact that a genocide is continuing to take place in Palestine and Israeli bombing has already expanded into Beirut and to other parts of Lebanon. We know that these horrific war crimes are not just ones that we are witnesses to, but they are ones that we are facilitating and we are funding.

Because of this, Andrew Cuomo kind of turned this issue into a big thing during the primary campaign grounds for attack on Zorin, even though, as we've talked about, most of his campaign has been about the cost of living, right? And so what did you make of how this issue came up in the campaign, how Zoran treated it in the campaign? Traditionally, a couple of things that happen in New York politics. Number one is you actually do have to have a foreign policy position. 40% of New York City are foreign born. And for the last 400 years, you've had to have a position about Ireland or Italy or Israel or something like that.

In fact, what they used to say was there were the three I's that every successful mayoral candidate had to visit. You had to visit Ireland, you had to visit Italy, you had to visit Israel. That has changed now. And that has changed in a way that's a little surprising to some of us.

As you say, there's a large Jewish community here. I think it's a little over 1 million, 1.2, 1.3 million. But you know what? This is also the home to the largest Muslim population in America. And that number is put at around 760,000. So it's not like it used to be. And it's not like it used to be even say 25 years ago.

There are probably the biggest difference that Mamdani has made so far is making BDS, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, essentially a mainstream position. This is one of the few surprises in this race for me. I was a little surprised by that, because it used to be almost disqualifying to be that aggressive

in what you think the consequences of Israeli policy should be. I still don't necessarily think it's a great idea because it divides a lot of people here in the city, but that's his position and he's not changing on it. You know, his, and, and he's made that very clear. Now I've talked to a number of Jewish leaders who have said, uh, they're, they're never going to be happy about that, but that there are some things that

he can do to take it off the table as an issue that if, you know, issues of antisemitism and actual safety on the streets of New York are handled properly, they can agree to disagree about foreign policy. I mean, certainly it's become this issue that his opponents or people that are mobilizing against him are seizing on big time, right? Like, without evidence, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that he has praised Hamas in the past, as have others, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has said that he has praised Hamas in

the past as have others. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was on the radio earlier this month where she also said without evidence that he had made previous quote references to global jihad. She has since apologized, but obviously there are real attempts here to try and use this issue. Yeah. Well, here, here, here again, the old politics where if you said anything that was out of line with basic support for Israel as a Jewish state, that is a close ally of America, then we fully support their efforts to defend themselves.

If you said anything other than that, politically you used to get in a lot of trouble. So what you're seeing now is people who are detecting Zoro and Mamdani is not in line with that traditional position. And then they just start making up stuff. Oh, he said this. Oh, he said that. Oh, he's anti-Semitic. But you know, here's the, here's the real bottom line, Jamie, is they tried some of this in the primary and it really just didn't work, you know, and,

and the polling data actually, I think, unlocks the secret to this question. When you ask people, what are you concerned about, affordability outranks even personal safety. I mean, people are more afraid of not being able to pay their rent than they are of being knocked on the head by a mugger. And then foreign policy falls a couple of notches below that. So, you know, you're not going to find the voter who's going to say, hey, I was all prepared to vote for Zoran Mamdani,

but I don't like what he said about Benjamin Netanyahu. I don't think there's a lot of voters like that out there. Just to wrap up this conversation, I wanted to ask you about Donald Trump, who's also talking about this guy, right? He's characterized him as a communist. He has claimed that Momdani is in the United States illegally, or at least suggested that, right? He's also called New York City Mayor Eric Adams a very good person. He has threatened to denaturalize Mamdani, essentially strip his citizenship and

deport him in the event that he wins the mayoral election. Donald Trump said that I should be arrested. He said that I should be deported. He said that I should be denaturalized. And ultimately what I fear for is that if this is what Donald Trump and his administration feel comfortable about saying about the Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City, imagine what they feel comfortable saying and doing about immigrants whose names they don't even know.

And then he's also threatened to like run New York City from Washington, that he will bring New York back. Quote, we have tremendous power at the White House to run places when we have to. What do you make of Trump's reaction? Do you think he's threatened by him? Most of those most of those boats or threats are completely unconstitutional and unlikely to even get started, much less succeed. You cannot just denaturalize somebody just because you don't like their politics. The Supreme Court's been very clear about that.

Donald Trump has a lot of power, but he doesn't get to decide who's an American citizen. The federal government does not have the power, other than in extreme cases of outright insurrection and a complete breakdown of law and order, the federal government does not have the power to send troops in and take over the operation of a city. They just don't. Again, there's some litigation around this. The courts have been pretty clear about this.

Donald Trump has a love-hate relationship with the city of his birth, because he loves New York City, but he lost New York City, not once, not twice, but three times. He lost it badly. In fact, he lost the area right around Trump Tower, meaning his immediate neighbors,

the people who presumably knew him best, all voted against him, you know, three times. So this is somebody who just can't let the city go. A big portion of his fortune is actually still tied up in New York real estate. So he's got a commercial interest in trying to keep track of things here, but he changed his residence so that he's no longer a citizen of New York. He wants to try and impact this election. But I got to tell you, every time he attacks a Democrat in New York, it's almost like he's organizing on their behalf. Nothing will get you a Democratic vote faster than an attack by Donald Trump.

So whether he recognizes it or not, he's actually helping Mom Donnie politically by attacking him. Errol, thank you so much for this. It was such a pleasure to talk to you. Great talking with you, Jamie. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk

to you tomorrow.