Pod Save America - Trump Agents Handcuff U.S. Senator

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Federal agents tackle and handcuff Senator Alex Padilla after he shouts a question at Kristi Noem at a public press conference. Trump continues to politicize the military, attacking his political enemies in a speech to troops at Fort Bragg and preparing for his North Korea-style birthday party. New polling shows that Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" is wildly unpopular—and increasingly vulnerable to Democratic attacks. Favreau and Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC's Deadline: White House and the new podcast series The Best People, discuss the latest from occupied LA, check in on the short-lived Trump-Elon feud, and try not to panic over RFK Jr.'s recent firings at the CDC. Then Lovett sits down with Zohran Mamdani to discuss his surging campaign for mayor of New York City.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

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For a limited time only, because you're a Podsave America listener, you can get 35% off Smalls plus an additional 50% off your first order by using our code CROOKED. That's an additional 50% off when you hit to Smalls.com and use promo code CROOKED. Again, that's promo code CROOKED for an additional 50% off your first order plus free shipping at Smalls.com. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. Dan is on vacation, but today I am thrilled to have with me the host of MSNBC's Deadline White House, the one and only Nicole Wallace. Nicole, great to have you on the show.

Such an honor. Thank you so much. And welcome to the world of podcasting. I understand you just launched your very own series called The Best People. Can you tell us a little bit about the project? Well, I thought The Best People was Trump's best inside joke with his voters

in 2015 and 16. I thought it was like the bridge between, I know what you see is not necessarily reassuring. I thought when he promised to bring the best people to the White House, that it was one of the most clever things he did to bridge the gap between the guy from Apprentice and the Commander in Chief. I don't think he's that guy anymore.

Like I think that was like a brand from yesteryear when he was a little bit in on the joke. And when he nominated Matt Gaetz to be AG, I was like, all right, well, we're done with the best people chapter. So I'm going to take that and reappropriate that. And so I thought it was a good umbrella under which to put the actual best people and share them. That's great.

And it's not just political types too. I saw you have like Jason Bateman and some other interesting people on there. Yeah, I mean, everyone though is so captivated by this moment. I mean, Jason Bateman says, you know, I can't look away. And Doc Rivers is the episode that drops on Monday, the last week of the playoffs.

And I talked to him about this moment. And, you know, he lives in a swing state and has a lot of thoughts about the way the campaign was waged. So people come from all different walks of life, but everyone is pretty keyed in on this moment in our politics. Well, congrats on the pod, and everyone is pretty keyed in on this moment in our politics.

Well, congrats on the pod, and everyone should go find it and take a listen. We had a lot to cover today, including the latest with Trump's massively unpopular budget bill, his on again off again bromance with Elon Musk, and RFK Jr. putting some of the internet's worst anti-vax cranks in charge of America's vaccines.

And later, you'll all hear Love It's conversation with New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani, whose late surge in the polls is making it a tight race with Andrew Cuomo. But let's start with the military occupation of Los Angeles, where there are now more US troops deployed than in Iraq and Syria combined. 4,800 federalized Guard and Marines altogether. Trump claims he's militarized the streets of LA to help local law enforcement deal with immigration protests.

But the police have been pretty clear that they don't need the help. LAPD Chief Jim McDonald told CNN on Wednesday night that, quote, we're nowhere near a level where we'd be reaching out to the National Guard. And since Mayor Karen Bass has put in place a curfew for downtown LA earlier in the week, the protests have died down and cops have arrested

dozens of the more violent protesters without any help from the troops. So what are the 4,800 troops doing? Well, they are now accompanying masked federal agents as they conduct massive raids in our neighborhoods, workplaces, outside schools, even churches, rounding up people who they merely suspect of not having proper documentation. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem came to LA on Thursday and held a press conference

where she promised more raids and attacked California's elected officials. But when one of those officials, US Senator Alex Padilla, showed up at the press conference to ask her a question, this is what happened. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city. Senator Alex Padilla, I have a question for the secretary because the fact of the matter is

a half a dozen violent criminals that you're rotating on your head. Oh! How many of our ice capes have been docked? Sorry. On the ground. On the ground. On the ground. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. If you let me, if you let my hands go, I'll put them behind my back.

Alright, alright, alright. Lay flat. Lay flat. Other hand sir. Other hand. If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country. Outrageous, shocking, infuriating.

Nicole, maybe we can start with your reaction to federal agents handcuffing a US Senator who asked a question at a press conference. This was one of the bleakest days of anchoring that I've ever had in the job. I mean, we, I think, were prepared on the losing side of the November contest for Trump to do things that we warned he would do and his embrace of autocracy and Orban and Putin and others. But as your former colleague Ben Rhodes said on my show today, I mean, Orban

hasn't done this. This is, you know, he's to the autocratic, you know, right of Orban. And to be doing what they're doing in full view of the cameras really does make the mind expand in new directions in terms of wondering what they're doing to people who don't have, you know, who aren't one of a body of 100 and where there aren't cameras rolling. I think it's a chilling moment both in the treatment of someone from the other political party, but I think it's also a really ominous sign of what they're willing to use DHS. And those were FBI agents who had the senator on the ground. Dan Bongino confirmed that in a statement.

It's a real, what the fuck are we doing moment, I think for the whole country. I also think it is, what's especially frightening to me is that it goes, it's gone so far beyond Trump now. I was thinking about this when you were talking about him talking about the best people. And I think in the first term, I was most worried about Trump and then held out some hope that some of the more traditional

Republicans that he had in the administration would maybe pull him back from some of his worst impulses, worst instincts. And this time around, I'm almost more worried about some of the people he's put in positions of power. And clearly they feel that they can do these things without impunity. Like you don't have FBI agents or masked federal ICE officers

or Kristi Noem, cabinet secretaries doing this kind of stuff unless they thought that A, Trump wanted it and B, if they go too far, they don't have to worry because he's got the pardon power. Yeah, and he took all this out for a run, the first term, right? Like he, in meetings, it would always leak out that I remember where I was sitting

when the time story broke that he wanted to pardon immigration officials if they broke any laws by being brutal to people entering the country illegally. But what is so different is, you know, John Kelly was the first DHS secretary. You know, Jim Mattis was the first defense secretary. Mark Milley was the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. None of them were for that, which was illegal.

None of those men were for troops roaming the streets. I mean, Kelly breaks his silence politically and warns about this moment. And to see it all come to pass in less than five months is really scary. The incident itself was shocking. What really has bothered me maybe even more is just the reaction from the administration Republicans.

You can see a scenario where the administration comes out and says, DHS, others, you know what? I know he identified himself. We really didn't know who he was. The agents were trying to protect her. They thought there was gonna be threats, but obviously it went too far and we hope we can move on, right?

But instead, DHS lies about what actually happened, which is wild to lie when there's a video that we're all seeing. And then Mike Johnson, speaker of the house, calls for Padilla to be censured. And basically they're all doubling down. All the Republicans, you know, I guess Lisa Murkowski expressed sort of outrage about this,

but right-wing media, everyone on Fox, the administration, they're all just, they're 100% behind it and not only are they behind it, they maybe wanna punish him. I just, it's unbelievable. Well, what's amazing is you don't always get to see the anatomy of the lie and I bemoan the disinformation all the time,

but it was amazing to watch it. It all kind of unfolded while I was of the lie. And I bemoan the disinformation all the time, but it was amazing to watch it. It all kind of unfolded while I was on the air. So the video explodes, but then Noam goes on Fox in the three o'clock hour, I think with Martha McCallum, I might have that wrong, but I think that was the anchor. She was, yeah. And says to the anchor, you know,

he didn't identify himself. The tape is literally like everywhere, on right-hand left-wing sort of accounts, on social media, the anchor doesn't correct her, and Fox, you know, for better or for worse, there's millions of people watching at any given time, so the lie is out there in the three o'clock hour. Before this incident is two hours old,

a lie has been told on Fox News that isn't corrected, he didn't identify himself. It's the first thing he says, while he's still in the room. You've been covering what's been happening here in LA all week and watching it unfold. What's your general reaction to what's been going on here? I think that this was reverse engineered.

I mean, I think that Trump's views about California, Trump's sort of whatever he regrets not getting to do because Milley and Esper got in the way, has all just burst out into full view. And I think that the polling on immigration is really clear. 87% support deporting adjudicated violent criminals and 9% support deporting people working, people married to Americans. It's not like a normal question about policy.

It's like everyone supports one thing, no one supports the other. And they're doing the thing that less than 20% of Americans support, which is a lot of MAGA voters that don't support deporting people who are longstanding members of a community, or have a job, or have kids, or are married to citizens. That's who they're targeting.

So I think that what's happening in LA is a trauma for the community, for the state. I'm from California and it's traumatic to watch. But I also think it's reverse engineered to achieve all of these aims that Trump had in the first term, but wasn't allowed to do because there were people like Millian Esper and others in the way. Yeah, I'm glad you raised the immigration part of this because yes, I saw a headline in Politico this morning at the front page of Politico on the website that sort of drove me nuts,

but it also sort of sums up certain conventional wisdom right now, which is Dem's work to turn LA debate from immigration to Trump's executive powers because it's a winner for him on the immigration front. And I just, I don't think that's true. I get that when you ask people in general, should we deport people who are here illegally?

And you just ask it that way, you get majority support, not too high, but like, as you said, it's 20 or sub 20% approval for deporting people who've lived here for many years without committing a crime, deporting people who came here as children, deporting people who are married to US citizen, deporting people with US citizen children. This is just from a YouGov poll this week, but Pew polls, any poll you name. And Trump's approval on immigration has fallen like six points.

The average approval on all the different polls just this week. Yeah, so Trump beats the Democrats on immigration when he's giving rallies showing footage of violent crimes carried out by immigrants. Trump, even in his first term, loses majority support on immigration when he starts deporting people who aren't the people that he fear mongered about.

And the truth is, the people that he's targeting, I mean, I think even Trump reversed himself on the raids that ICE carried out Tuesday in the agricultural heartland of California. I think up and down the Central Valley, they were raiding farmlands. And I think Trump sent out some bizarre all cap tweet today about our great farmers. They can't lose their workers. They've been here a long time. Find other people. I mean, I wanted to ask you about that because, yeah, so he posts this post on Truth Social and then he gets asked about it at his event today.

And here's what he said. What made you change your mind about targeting in California farmers and people in the hotels and leisure business? Well, we're not targeting. In fact, if you look today, I put out a statement today about farmers. Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know,

they have very good workers. They've worked for them for 20 years. They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great. And we're going to have to do something about that. We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not.

And you know what's going to happen and what is happening? They get rid of some of the people because, you know, you go into a farm and you look and people don't — they've been there for 20, 25 years and they've worked great and the owner of the farm loves them and everything else and then you're supposed to throw them out and you know what happens? They end up hiring the people, the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else.

So we're, we're going to have an order on that pretty soon I think. Do you just come out for comprehensive immigration reform? Like what? I don't, pretty soon, I think. Do you just come out for comprehensive immigration reform? Like what? I don't, it's so weird. So. What do you make of that? Is like, is he for real?

Does he not know what's going on? Is he just bullshitting us? I think this is like, like with the Wall Street folks called whatever taco. I mean, I think this is, this is like a bad good thing about Trump, right? Or a good, bad thing. I mean, when a human face,

or I guess in Trump's view, function, is put on the person who may or may not, what did he say, have all the right things. Oh, and like the leisure world. I want to work in leisure in my next career. But when, I mean, I guess it proves the point about the polling, that even Donald Trump, when the illegal immigrant is humanized and he's told that they're the people who put

food on our tables, who we've seen pictures of him right at the omelet bar at Mar-a-Lago, they're the people that make it possible to feed our families and stock our grocery stores. And a lot of them have been here a really long time, and they're the lifeblood of the agricultural industry. And Trump's like, let me get to the left of anyone on MSNBC. I'm not for sending those people back. And it just shows that the issue has been so cynically politicized and weaponized, unfortunately,

effectively on the right, but that the, it doesn't take much to convert Trump. It doesn't take much to change Trump's mind about not deporting people here, maybe illegally, but who have jobs. Well, you know, and for a while now, back, going back years, he's been for doing something to protect Dreamers and then not for it or just forgotten about it

or doesn't try, you know, briefly during the campaign in 2024, he went on the All In podcast and he talked to them about stapling the green card to the diploma for, you know, international students who are here. So he has had that softer side before, or at least expressed it. But it makes me, what worries me about this is that Stephen Miller

is really running the show here. And I think Donald Trump trusts Stephen Miller implicitly. And, uh, so he thinks that according to Stephen Miller, that all the people that they're deporting are these violent, terrible criminals. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, he just told Jake Tapper back in January. I'm sure it's not your position Jake that we should supply America's food with exploitative illegal alien labor. He wants to deport everyone and he's open about it. And sure enough, after Trump made the comment and put that and

posted that on Truth Social, hours later he has another post on Truth Social that says this tsunami of illegals has destroyed Americans, public schools, hospitals, parks, community resources and living conditions. They have stolen American jobs and turned once idyllic communities into third world nightmares. So I guess, I guess Miller got control of the, the account back and, and I saw him retweeting that.

Well, the thing that we know now, right, it's like year, feels like you're 37, but it's year nine. You're nine to the Trump story. Is that he doesn't tweet about things that he feels good about. He tweets about things he feels insecure about. So someone got to him and he felt insecure or apologetic about the raids.

I mean, the only thing that happened between the raids on Tuesday and California's agricultural part of the state, that's where they were, there's video, and Trump posting that we're not gonna target leisure and whatever he said, hotels, leisure, food, are those raids. It does raise, I mean, I think you're getting

to a scarier point, which is that it was very obvious where his information came from in the first term and traveling, but we knew what he was watching. He watched Morning Joe in the mornings. He watched inordinate amounts of Fox and Friends. And he seemed to stick to the Fox primetime lineup at night. He doesn't seem to be taking in as much news. And he was obsessed with the Washington Post

and the New York Times. And it was never really the sense that I had that he was reading them, but he was watching the cable coverage of their print stories. It's not clear that he's taking in news this time. And so it feels like the things that Stephen Miller says to him have more sway,

just based on what's publicly facing, which are his contradictory and swerving tweets. He also just lost Elon, who seemed to, if nothing else, take up a lot of his bandwidth and time. So it's possible that he's spending more time with Stephen Miller. And these things shouldn't matter to a normal country when the president's normal,

but because he's doing such extraordinary things while he holds all the levers of power, it's really important to try to figure out what his sources of information are. Yeah, I think that's a good point because I do think it's mostly Miller. It reminds me of the Supreme Court case around Venezuela when every single justice,

even if they disagreed on certain things, basically said, yeah, everyone deserves due process. And then Stephen Miller's like, oh no, we won unanimously the other way. And Trump was like, yeah, that Stephen told me that we won the case the other way. So I do think he's just getting a bunch of bullshit from Miller on this, which is quite scary because he has a lot of power, Stephen Miller, in this administration.

One Democrat who doesn't seem concerned about the politics of all this is Gavin Newsom, who is suing the Trump administration over the troop deployment. Federal judge heard arguments in that case this afternoon, said he would have a ruling shortly. Newsom also went pretty hard at Trump in a speech he gave this week. I think we have a clip of that. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.

Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him. What do you make of Newsom's response this week and in this moment? I think he's been great.

I mean, I don't think that it's a California story anymore either. I mean, I think that would happen to Padilla today. And I think sending in the National Guard over his objections makes this a national story whether you think so or not, but I think it'll bear out. And I think everything he said is spot on. They may be the first, but that might be the point

to try these things here where Trump thinks support among his base is the softest for the people living in the biggest state. I think the biggest donor state, right, California. Yep. But I thought that speech that addressed the nation was spot on. tools you need to promote and get paid for your services in one platform, create a professional website to showcase your offerings and attract clients, or if you offer consultations, events, or other experiences, Squarespace can help you grow your business.

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Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash crooked to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash crooked. Speaking of militarized streets, Trump is finally throwing himself the North Korean style birthday party he's wanted for years. Military parade in DC that will cost taxpayers $45 million.

You probably saw the footage of the tanks arriving in Washington. The army says 6,000 troops will be participating in the parade, which was originally supposed to be held in honor of the Army's 250th birthday until Trump hijacked the celebration for his 79th. The president also did a pre-celebration of sorts earlier this week with a speech to US troops at Fort Bragg, which he used to attack Joe Biden, Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, Los Angeles, which he called a trash heap, the media. I think what was most disturbing from that speech though

is that the troops behind him laughed at his attacks, booed the Democrats he called out by name. And according to military.com, the reason why is that apparently the audience was screened for political allegiance to Trump and personal appearance. One unit level message said, quote, no fat soldiers. Trump was later asked about the long plan protests that will take place across the country this weekend and said that he hadn't heard about them, but quote, if there's any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. Lovely.

that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force. Lovely. So DOD rules expressly prohibit active duty personnel from participating in political events while in uniform. But basically no one in the military establishment, current or former, is speaking out against what's happening. Why do you think almost no one,

like even retired generals, like why don't you think we're not hearing from some of these retired generals about this? Well, look, first of all, you and I both wrote speeches for presidents that were delivered in front of troops and you're cognizant that the applause lines don't have anything to do with your president's policies because you don't want them to look like

they have to applaud a policy maker. So you craft the speeches. I mean, I'm sure you did this. All the time. You craft the speeches so that there's only an applause when you're celebrating the men and women of the military, either their current courage or their historic greatness. I mean, it's a point to remind people that this is so perverted from what's normal.

Um, I think it really scares a lot of former military. I think the silence of the generals is, is complicated for said silent generals. But I think that there is a big question mark over what's going to hold. And I think that we probably only see the tip of the iceberg, right? Like that speech we can talk about because it showed, but who else is being asked? Who else is being vetted?

Who else is being staged? Who else is being pushed out of the picture for being fat? I mean, what else is being vetted? Who else is being staged? Who else is being pushed out of the picture for being fat? I mean, what else is really happening there? I actually find the military story in a lot of ways, one of the most frightening and difficult to cover. Because as you said, even the former generals are afraid to speak out or restrained from speaking out.

But to put Hegseth, who was opposed by Democrats and Republicans in charge of the military, and then to see the fruits of that bet, right? To see this event at Fort Bragg and to see the way they are gleefully and brazenly using troops as pawns. The greatest victim of that is the troops, is the military. And I think it's actually shocking

that the Republican senators are complicit. I mean, this is where you'd hope that someone like, I don't even know, I feel stupid even suggesting this. Like, does Tom Cotton care, right? Like who, where are the people who are still willing to sort of put their body between brazen partisanship in the military, in the Republican party, there aren't any. Yeah, it's pretty scary to me too.

I mean, Trump giving a completely partisan, worse than partisan, just like, you know, dishonest, over the top, speech like that at an official, you know, event with military, doesn't surprise me. It's awful, but it doesn't really surprise me. But hearing some of the troops cheer and boo, you know what worries me, and I've been thinking about this ever since

the guard got here. It's like we, and I'm saying this, like we can't, I can't believe we're at this point, but we have to make sure that we are not disparaging or attacking or pushing away men and women in uniform as we resist Trump because we are getting to a point where we do not want a country where we have a bunch of security forces loyal to Donald Trump

with this kind of government. And obviously, you know, we have a bunch of security forces loyal to Donald Trump with this kind of government. And obviously, we have a defense secretary and whoever else he's put in senior leadership that is only loyal to him. But once you get to the rank and file, once you get to sort of the officer class, you really wanna have people there who do not feel like they have to choose between the country and Donald Trump.

Yeah, but I think the story again of nine years of Trump is he makes everyone at one point or another choose, right? Like Bill Barr got to wait until, I don't know, whatever, November of 2020 to choose. Comey had to choose much earlier than that. He didn't make it a month, sessions didn't make it, I don't know, eight weeks. I mean, everyone chooses, everyone, because Trump wants for there to be no national interest, just personal interest, everybody has to choose. And I think the biggest difference between the first term

and the second term is this all out in the open. JD Vance has chosen, he's out there saying that the judges are rogue and they're wrong and they're hemming. He's the guy that called Trump America's Hitler. No one on MSNBC has ever said. The most nasty insult ever levied at Donald Trump that I've ever heard is a tie between JD Vance who called him America's Hitler and Mitch McConnell

who called him a quote, despicable human being. Like I don't know any elected Democrat who said either of those things about Trump. And now they are in service of Trumpism, of Trump sort of collapsing US national security and a national interest and purpose with self enrichment and loyalty to self.

And for those guys to go along with that is the flashing red light. What do you make of the protests that have been planned for this week, long before anything that happened here in LA, they're being called the no Kings protests, the organizers Leah Greenberg, who's one of the leaders of indivisible. You know, she said she wants, we want to create contrast, not conflict. And, you know, to that end, there won't be a protest in DC where the parade is. It's going to be all over the country.

But what do you think of these protests? Good idea? Are you a little, do you have some concern over them? Look, I think that, you know this, you can't manufacture what, you can manufacture what two people do, right? You can hire them to be in an ad. You cannot manufacture what thousands and thousands

of Americans do. And so people are feeling like this isn't who we are. The contrast that Trump has chosen to make are not about Democrats and liberals. They're about things that are, you look around the world, these are not democratic practices. It is not a democratic thing to ignore the Supreme Court. It's not a democratic thing to arrest

democratic elected officials. So I think it's organic. I think it's pent up. And I asked Mikey Sherrill today, are you going to follow the lead of the most energetic parts of the pro-democracy base of voters in democratic parties? And she seemed, I don't know. I don't know, she was insulted, but she said, well, we are, we are.

But I think it's a healthy thing that the American people have decided the moment. They've decided at this point, what is it, five months, they're gonna be out there. And they have a lot of things to, I think, be persuasive about, that they're too far, that they're not the normal debates between Democrats and Republicans, but they're un-American practices that they're opposing.

Yeah, and my take on this is the more people we have out there who are in the streets protesting peacefully, the better it is for the pro-democracy movement, because I think when there isn't that, that in the void, you get some of the more violent protesters that we saw here in LA, and they steal the spotlight along with the rights narrative about the protests. And the best way to counter that is to have an organized, peaceful opposition that is in such great numbers that it can't be ignored, you know? And so I really hope that people get such great numbers that it can't be ignored. And so I really hope that people get out there for that,

but also realize that it's a little bit of a scary time, especially after we saw what happened with Padilla, but I think it's important to get out there. For sure. And I mean, something Mark Elias always says on my show is that, he says, I'm not not scared. I just don't think it makes me safer to be quiet. And I think that's right. I mean, I feel that way as a cable host. I'm not concerned that they're

not looking for anyone in the media to make a mistake and then come after the media. I just don't think it's, I don't think you're in a safer posture in a defensive crouch. Yeah, no, I think that's well said. POD Save America is brought to you by Fatty15. If you've searched for wellness supplements lately, you might have heard about C15. It's an essential fatty acid that's naturally found in whole fat dairy products, but over time our intake of these foods has decreased. Combined with the natural decline of C15 as we age, many of us aren't getting enough of this essential nutrient. That's where fatty 15 comes in. C15 is a groundbreaking essential fatty acid, the first to be discovered in over 90 years.

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their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash crooked and using code CROAKED at checkout. All right, let's talk about what's unexpectedly shaping up to be Trump's biggest weakness, his handling of the economy. The president's been in full retreat from the trade war he launched against the rest of the world. Once he realized it would likely cause a global recession, this week he said his team is close to finalizing a trade deal with China, though I'm not sure anyone thinks a permanent 55% tax on the phones and toys and clothing and and sneakers we buy from China counts as a good deal for Americans. Trump's also

still mad at his Fed chair, Jerome Powell, and he told reporters on Thursday that Powell is quote a numb skull and is threatening to quote force something on the Fed because he wants interest rates lowered and then there's more bad news for Trump's budget bill the one that Elon Musk called a disgusting abomination. Republicans in Congress are fighting over whether the bill should add more to the deficit or kick more people off their health care which is pushing back their self-imposed July 4th deadline.

The bill also appears to be wildly unpopular with 53% of those surveyed for a recent Quinnipiac poll saying they oppose it, only 27% support it. The remainder had not yet formed an opinion, which is important too because this is a story that has not broken through all that much with everything else that's happening. What do you think are the prospects of this bill passing and what it looks like in final form? I don't know why I have all these poll numbers in my brain. 62% of all Democratic households have someone

who has been on or benefited from Medicaid, and 62% of all Republican households have someone who has been on Medicaid benefited from Medicaid and 62% of all Republican households have someone who has been on Medicaid or someone in their house has. So there's no partisan distinction between who's benefit. And I think of independence is actually 69%. So there's no part, like you're hurting the same number of people.

And what is it? 16 million people will lose insurance. Yep. I think this is tied to the Musk-Bannon war that Bannon lost and Musk won, at least the first round. These are the kinds of voters that I think Bannon in his reptilian political survival sense, tried to, I won't say tried to help,

but tried to prevent Trump from hurting flagrantly. And I think it's a huge liability for Republicans. Now, I'm not for them walking off the cliff, even if it's a huge political liability, because of all the people that will suffer. But I just don't know if there are any more pain points in the Republican political psyche. I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. It seems my, it seems messy and it seems like they're not gonna get something done,

but I think for two reasons they will ultimately. One, because this is a cliff and if they don't pass anything, taxes go up on everyone. And so that is quite an incentive to get something done, even if it's not what they originally wanted to pass. And also I just, we have not seen any Republicans of any significant number stand up to Donald Trump and say no to him, whether they are on the far right,

whether they're moderate, whoever they are. And so you could get a few here and there, and obviously the margins are small in both houses, but I don't know, I think failure on this is something that Donald Trump is not gonna accept. And so I imagine he's going to put the screws to these people if it looks like it's getting messy. Yeah, and I don't even know what the,

I mean, their marketing isn't genuine, but I don't even know what the slogan is for this. Do it and lose your seat and kill people. Cause I mean, Joni Ernst is like the perfect encapsulation of how they even know it sucks. Yeah. You know, her defense of the bill is like, well, we're all gonna die.

And then she goes to a cemetery. Like, I mean, it's a real mask off moment for the callousness and the lack of any sort of political strategy in the Republican party other than fealty to Trump. Yeah. And in some ways that other than fealty to Trump. And in some ways that openness about it is easier to cover, but it is a little scarier.

Yeah, it's the we're all gonna die bill. That's, that really sums up the bill quite well, better than that one big, beautiful bill. Speaking of Elon, he tried to patch things up with Trump this week in an early morning apology tweet on Wednesday, he admitted he, quote, went too far with his recent attacks on Trump, like when he accused his former boss, who he spent

a quarter of a trillion dollars electing, of being involved in child sex trafficking, and then called for his impeachment. So the olive branch comes after a series of calls with JD Vance, Susie Wiles, and reportedly Trump himself. How did the calls go? Well, here's Trump speaking about Elon at a press conference on Thursday. But on my first day in office, I ended the Green New Scam and abolished the EV mandate

at the federal level. We abolished it. Now I know why Elon doesn't like me so much, which he does, actually. He does. And he never had a problem. You know, it's very interesting. This is not something new. And that's what he said.

He said, as long as I'm on the same plane as everybody else, we're gonna do good. We make a better product. I said, that's very cool. It's very cool. That was my answer. After that, he got a little bit strange, but I don't know why over much smaller things than that.

Sounds like they're best pals again. Do you think this is the last will here of the great Trump-Musk feud? Or do you think there's another chapter here? Oh no, I think this is, I mean, this is like the breakup story that you stop listening to because it's so stupid and they deserve each other. I mean, they completely deserve each other.

And it's one of those stories that you get to the brink of finding comical because they're both these ridiculous caricatures and characters, but they both done so much damage that you just, there's nobody to root for. I keep calling them tarantulas in a bowl, but that's starting to fill me into tarantulas. You know, it's just, it's sort of like the peak,

you know, Trump year one story, the on again, off again romance with Trump and Musk. I mean, you can't make it up. Yeah, no, it seems like Elon probably needed to back off more than Trump did, but you know, Trump's never one to not hold a grudge. So, which is why even after he has a nice call with them and everyone tries to patch things up,

anytime someone brings up Elon, you know now he's gonna do what he just did there, which is he's got to get a few digs in. Right, and like, I don't think he ever talked to Pence after Pence simply certified in an election that in his more cogent moments, they both know he lost. So the idea that he's gonna let Elon Musk off the hook after accusing him of being in the Epstein files,

I'm sorry, I'm skeptical that has anything to do with anything other than the millions of dollars Musk spent on his campaign. But, you know, I don't know, maybe there was something real between them, I don't know. One last thing before we go to break, RFK Jr. has been wreaking havoc on public health for several months now. We haven't had a chance to talk about it too much on this show because

there's been too many even crazier headlines to discuss. But on Monday, our anti-vax Health and Human Services Secretary abruptly fired all 17 members of the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Panel, formerly known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Just two days later, he named eight new appointees, many of whom became known during the pandemic for questioning vaccine safety and effectiveness. Among them are Robert Malone and Restef Levy, who've pushed wildly discredited claims, like the idea that COVID vaccines are dangerous for people who've already had the virus. They've even called for shutting down mRNA vaccine programs altogether.

What do you think this means for public health? Obviously nothing good, but it's always hard to figure out, A, just how frightened we should be about something like this and the moves that RFK Junior are making, and B, whether, you know, there are other institutionalists, experts, career officials in public health that can sort of pull this back, but I'm not sure right now, it's pretty scary.

I think, I mean, I'm in the same boat you're in. I have not adequately, or I have not done a good job covering RFK. Yeah. Some of it is the things Trump is sort of smashing in full view, democratic norms, rule of law, history of apolitical, you know, these are stories that in our old jobs, you can sort of grab

and understand quickly. It takes longer, you know, I'm not well versed in all the science, but it takes a little bit longer to understand the scale of the damage he's doing at HHS. But I would venture to say that in terms of the numbers of Americans, innocent Americans, regardless of their political affiliation being harmed, RFK is probably threatening more Americans' health

and wellness and lives than anybody else in the administration right now. And I feel like I've got to figure out how to do a better job covering it. And I think for all of the things that we're going to have to just wait and see where we are in three and a half years, I don't think childhood immunizations can wait.

I've got a one and a half year old and that first 18 month vaccine schedule, it's scientific, it's rigorous, and you don't have to take vaccines off the market. You just have to make people wonder, do I really need that second shot? You just have to make them doubt it. And then you've got a kid in critical condition with measles. Yeah.

You know, I mean, it is in a lot of ways, the story I've done the worst job covering, and in a lot of ways, it's probably the most important. Yeah, we have an 18 month old and we reached out to our pediatrician and we were like, what should we do here? Should we move, you know, the MMR vaccine? Should we move up the third shot?

And so, and we asked, I sort of asked her later, like what's this been from your perspective? And she was like, look, you know, we at our practice here in Los Angeles, we make sure that everyone, all the kids are vaccinated. She's like, but the challenge is not, this is not an issue where you can say, well, the people who don't want to get their kids vaccinated

too bad for them, because you need certain herd immunity. And if you start having communities where the number of vaccinated kids goes under, or people goes under a certain percentage, then people are at risk of breakthrough infections for diseases that we haven't had to deal with in forever. I do think that one of the reasons it's, this is my theory on this, untested,

that one of the reasons we're having, all having trouble talking about it and covering it is we all still have a little bit of pandemic PTSD and no one wants to go back to the COVID wars of 2020 and 2021 and I get that, it's not a fun topic. But next time there's an outbreak somewhere or we're going to need a vaccine really quickly for some new disease, we're going to be in real trouble. We're going to be in real trouble. Yeah, and the first part of the population to suffer are the most innocent, the people

who've never voted for anyone, they're babies. And so, you can say, a grown man or woman has a choice now, whether to vaccinate for not just COVID, but the flu or whatever. A baby is totally dependent, not just on their parents' choices, but it would seem now their parents' information bubble. And I think that's really scary. Yeah, it is. Well, I don't think there was any good news today. I'm sorry.

I don't know to end on a high note, but really can't. Nicole, thank you so much for doing this today. This was great. Everyone can catch you on MSNBC's Deadline White House and your new podcast, The Best People. Everyone should go check it out. I believe John Lovett is gonna be on soon as well. So you should check out Lovett on the podcast.

We'd love to have all of you guys on. Anytime, we'd love to do it. Come visit us, thank you so much. Nicole Wallace, thanks for joining Pod Save America. Thank you so much and thanks for what you guys do. Okay, when we come back, you'll hear Lovett's excellent conversation with Zoran Mamdani. But two things before we get to that,

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Articles offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash crooked and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash crooked for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Zahram, I'm Donnie. Welcome to the pod. Good to meet you. Thank you so much for having to the pod. Good to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.

It's great to meet you. So you told the Times that your favorite mayor is Fiora LaGuardia. And I saw that and actually I'd already, I don't know a lot about LaGuardia, so people can correct me. But when I saw your ad where you were just so we're speaking fluently and I'm not even I like what language were you speaking in that ad is it is it in this in this sunny or yeah in it yeah in this time area yeah you speak multiple languages I speak I speak in the I I

can't really speak Spanish which is why that ad starts in the day and ends in the night because it took a lot of takes. Right, because it took a lot of takes. Well, I don't even know if it's apocryphal, but that LaGuardia was half Jewish, half Italian. He would speak Italian in the Italian neighborhoods and he would speak Yiddish in the Jewish neighborhoods. I was like, oh, so that's intentional. Talk to me about basically what kind of coalition you're trying to build right now and what lessons you take from LaGuardia other than how to make an airport

go from being very, very shitty to slightly better. You know, I think about LaGuardia and his ability to fight an anti-immigrant animus at the same time as transforming what was possible for working class New Yorkers and the necessity of doing both things at the same time, having a politics that's against that kind of authoritarianism and also for that kind of economic dignity. And too often as Democrats, I feel that we are only framing ourselves in opposition to a platform that was already written by Republicans a long time ago. And for people who can't afford to even keep calling themselves New Yorkers, they don't hear enough about their own struggles in such an oppositional framing. And I think from LaGuardia to now, there are so many New Yorkers who do not see themselves

in our local politics. Even if they're already registered as Democrats in the last mayoral primary, only 26% actually showed up to vote. And part of that is because they're not even being given the time of day. I mean, if you kind of speak in the language of a consultant and you're framing out who you're going to send your mail to and whose doors you're going to knock, you're going to be told triple prime voters, the people who have already shown up in those primary elections, you keep going back.

And it creates this kind of cycle where if you don't vote, you don't get the time. And if you don't get the time, why do you even vote? So a couple months ago, you were interviewed right when Cuomo jumped in. And the question was, he's got this name ID, he jumps in, in the lead, he was well ahead of you, and you said, just watch, this is going to close. Right? That like people believe the myth of Cuomo,

but once they actually learn more about you and once they learn more about his actual record, you will see a big shift. That is true, that has happened, right? And so I have two questions about that. One is, how have you gotten people to come along, right? But then I want to get at something else, which is clearly even now

you've made so much headway but there's a lot of people who you still haven't reached that clearly want whatever it is that story represents and I'm wondering if you've thought about how to get more of those people on board. Yeah I think the way that we've bridged this gap which was you know a few months ago a 40-point gap in the final round of voting, and it is now down to two points, is that we have made sure that we go everywhere across New York City, and we say the same thing no matter what neighborhood, no matter what room, no matter what street, which is that this is a campaign to make the most expensive city in the United States affordable.

This is a campaign that's going to freeze the rent for millions of tenants, make the slowest buses in the country fast and free, deliver universal childcare, and ultimately one that's willing to work just as hard as New Yorkers. Because what we've also seen from Andrew Cuomo's campaign is an inability to get outside of his $8,000 a month Midtown Manhattan apartment and a desire to instead have this mythology that he used public dollars to burnish speak for itself. The problem with that is that when New Yorkers learn about his actual record, they have more questions than they have answers.

In these next less than two weeks, what's so exciting is that the volunteer operation that we have built up, which in the beginnings we had maybe two people on staff, now we're managing more than 36,000 volunteers. That operation means that where it used to take us months to knock 150,000 doors, now we do that in a single week. And so in these final days, the way that we get to the 30% of New Yorkers who have yet to hear from us is we keep doing the things that got us here. We talk to everyone, we don't lecture, we listen,

and we make sure that wherever there's an event, wherever there's an opportunity, we're there. Yeah, so I was, and by the way, I just want to say that I came in, like I had questions about, oh, how are you going to do free buses? And you have great answers for how, look, it's over a hundred billion dollar budget we can afford the cost of free buses.

You have, I see how you are persuading people. In other words, I kind of see how you win. But I guess my second part of that question is, I also see that there's, I see how you lose, right? And sure, there's a lot of people who are learning about you and being pulled over to your lose, right? And sure, there's a lot of people who are learning about you and being pulled over to your side, right? But clearly there's something about the story

Cuomo is telling that appeals to people, right? And it has to me, it's some intersection between like pragmatism and toughness. And that somehow because you have these ideas like universal childcare, free buses, I think some of your previous comments on Israel factor into this, that somehow you don't represent that kind of practical hard-nosed toughness. Yeah, I think it's very much the story he's trying to tell. And what's allowed us an opportunity to get this close to him and to really be right where we want to win this race is that when we look, especially with regards to concerns around

Donald Trump, we see too many echoes of that same concern pertaining to Andrew Cuomo. When we think about a super PAC that is largely funding his entire campaign, it's in large part bankrolled by the same billionaires who put Donald Trump back in the White House. What I've told New Yorkers time and time again is the best way that we actually take on the authoritarianism coming out of DC is not by someone who has this bully persona, but rather someone who has a complete independence from those very bullies. And I have experience dealing with these kinds of people

because when I was elected as a state assembly member, in my first year, I took on a bully. It happened to be Andrew Cuomo, who didn't want to tax billionaires and corporations, his donors, in order to fund the public schools that he had starved for years. And we overcame his opposition. We raised $4 billion in new revenue for those schools, and corporations, his donors, in order to fund the public schools that he had starved for years. And we overcame his opposition.

We raised $4 billion in new revenue for those schools. And ultimately, it showed me that so much of this is just a mirage. And it's a question of, can we actually have a leader who's willing to fight for something, not just posture about it? So I saw you gave an interview where you talked about your housing plan. I think it might have been the same where you talked about your housing plan. I think it might've been the same where you talked about LaGuardia. And basically you were asked, where's something,

where's an issue where you've been wrong? And you talked about the need, along with investing in public housing to support more private development. And it led many to wonder whether you've been abundance-pilled. And based on how online you are, you know what I mean. Are you abundance-pilled?

Are you somebody who, where are you on abundance? I think that there's a lot that that conversation has brought specifically around how hard or easy are we making it to actually tackle some of these issues. And I think sometimes it gets simplified and caricatured, but fundamentally to me, the thing that's been most interesting is introducing a new lens of analysis around the bureaucracy. And I think oftentimes the very things that we should care about on the left, we have allowed the right to make their own concerns.

Bureaucracy, efficiency, waste. If you care about public goods, public service, these have to be your primary focuses because any evidence of that inefficiency is then a justification for the elimination of the public sector. And I think similarly, you know, if you think about the language of quality of life,

it's often been understood as if it's a conservative concern. But in fact, that's a concern at the bedrock of every working class person's life. It's often been understood as if it's a conservative concern. But in fact, that's a concern at the bedrock of every working class person's life. They want to have a good quality of life. And these are not things intentioned with our principles. In fact, they're the fulfillment of them. And I think abundance is really interesting in, in its really bringing that focus around housing particularly, and even just the whole thinking of single stairwell versus dual stairwell right what are the what are the very details that we often allied over that have a big impact on whether or not something can actually be brought to pencil yeah because when i went and

looked at your platform on housing one thing that jumped out at me is you talked about why we need to invest more in public housing and specifically The ways in which NYCHA which is the New York City Housing Authority for people listening has been underfunded at the local level at the national level But what I didn't see and and look it's a it's a platform on a campaign website. It's it's gonna be a summary is Sure, yes, we need to invest more in that but also also like it was what last year that 70 people at NYCHA were charged with I think fraud and bribery. It's been taken over by the federal government at times because of how poorly run it is.

Even under de Blasio, I believe it was the Inspector General or some watchdog described it as the worst landlord in the city. And so it's like, how do you, you talk about all these, the importance of reinvesting in these institutions and I'm just curious how you think about the need to reform them as well. I think it's critical. I don't think you can do one without the other. And I think that it is tempting at times to think of everything as a funding issue, and

many things are funding issues. And yet we also know that there are a lot of dollars that we're investing that we are not actually seeing the intent with which they were invested being fulfilled. I mean, I know we're talking about NYCHA, but the single largest department in terms of spending within New York City's municipal budget is the Department of Education. And what we know is that too often there are politicians who will point to that scale of investment and say, the answer here is to cut funding for teachers and students. But actually, the answer here is to look at the immense amount of money that is being

spent on duplicative contracts and consulting within the central Department of Education, not actually what's going on in the classroom. And that's also what is of immense interest to me is, how do we standardize so much of which has just been allowed to replicate itself for 60 different contracts for the same very thing that has created some of the waste and inefficiencies that then someone like Elon Musk can point to and say, this is why we have to tackle the very existence of a federal government.

So that was, and to be honest, like that was sort of what I, like, I, I feel like there's, you know, a lot of places have figured out how to do free public transportation, like it just, I see how that makes sense and like, yes, let's have more people taking the bus. If you're going to do congestion pricing, you have to make mass transit much better. We haven't done that, right? We have to deliver services, sure. But then I see you want to do public grocery stores, and I look at how you say you're going to do that, and it's either because they don't pay tax or you get some sort of advantage as a buyer.

And it's like, doesn't New York, you know, my, what I first thought was, okay, two years from now, there's an article in the New York Post that says, Mumdani's Soviet grocery stores two years late and $5 billion over budget. Is this really a city? Right now you're going to have a lot to do. Is it really a time to also be trying to figure out how to compete with, I don't know, Zabars? I don't think we'd be competing with Zabars. But before I even get into groceries, I just have to get a commitment from you that when we make buses for you, you're going to come and ride one with me.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm more of a subway girl, but sure. I'll take a bus. So I think the point around grocery stores is there has to be more room for reasonable policy experimentation in how we're running our cities because we are losing them time and time again and they're under attack every day by a Republican party that doesn't even see the need for cities at all.

And ultimately, my proposal, it won't end up in that billions of dollars late, although it will be in the New York Post because they'll write about me every single day. And the reason it won't is because the proposal is actually $60 million. It's a pilot program for one store in each borough. And the reason I bring up the costing of it is it actually costs less than half of what the city's already set to spend on subsidizing corporate supermarkets. There's this program called City Fresh, where the city will give subsidies and they don't even require these supermarkets to accept SNAP or WIC,

to engage in collective bargaining, to actually have cheaper groceries. It's all just, you know, give the money to corporations and hope and pray. And as we know when any... Well, give the money to people to spend at the grocery store. Right? You're describing it. It's give money to people to suspend at the grocery store. No, no, no. This is subsidies to the supermarket. Oh, it goes to the supermarket? Subsidies to the supermarket. And it has the same intent.

But my point is that with 60 million, what we could see is a different model, basically a public option for produce. And I'm someone who fundamentally, I believe in the possibility of so many of these ways that we can deliver dignity to New Yorkers. And also, if this pilot does not fulfill that same possibility, the one that we've seen born out in feasibility studies in Chicago and evidence in Kansas, then it's something you don't continue.

But if it does succeed in actually guaranteeing cheaper groceries, which I believe it will, then I think that's something to scale. And the reason I think that's important is it's not just a crisis of affordability where New Yorkers will tell you they can't afford the same milk and eggs and bread they used to be able to four years ago. It's also a crisis of food deserts in New York City, especially for black and brown New Yorkers. Because I represent, we were talking about NYCHA, I represent the largest public housing development in North America, Queensbridge Houses.

And I'll have constituents who will ask me, why is it that I can't find a grocery store where I can afford the produce within a five block radius, but I can find six fat food places? And I think this speaks to that as well, where there's a racialized impact to this lack of access that we could be solving for at the same time as actually increasing union density and delivering cheaper groceries. Yeah, I guess like what it's like the goal right is to make sure everybody has access

to affordable housing, affordable food, right? That there's a better standard of living in your quality of life in New York. But then you think, okay, well, we're going to do these kind of public grocery stores, which would be competing with private grocery stores. Does it make life harder for those businesses? If you freeze rent at the stabilized units, doesn't that mean that more people will stay in those units and the people that are looking for them won't have them? Won't it also drive up the rents in the non-stabilized units?

I guess what I'm trying to see is like, some of these seem like responses to a genuine crisis that are, that kind of deal with New York as it is right now in a moment, but don't actually in the long-term lead to the answer, right, which is more grocery stores run that are affordable, more housing everywhere that's affordable. Yeah, I think the, I would share concerns if these were the exclusive answers to those questions.

But to me, I think we we desperately need places where New Yorkers can afford to buy produce. And the beauty of having a program where you pick one location in each borough is that you can solve for many things at the same time. It's not that you will put that grocery store right next to the other one that's already providing somewhat affordable goods. It's that they're, you know, you ask New Yorkers, they can tell you a place where they know I'm not gonna go buy eggs there because that's five or six bucks more

than if I went over there. And I think to freezing the rent, you're exactly right in that the goal here is to keep people in their homes. It is to ensure that tenants are not being pushed out. And I think the focus on rent stabilized units is twofold. One because the mayor actually has the power to do this. We've seen a previous administration freeze the rent three times.

But two, because the median household income in rent stabilized apartments is $60,000. And landlord profits of those very units went up by 12 percent. And freezing the rent would ensure that we return close to seven billion dollars back into the pockets of those working in middle class New Yorkers. And I say all this because as much as we both need to confront the crisis of the present and the future, we also have to understand that our inability to do so will lead us to replicate what we've already seen in the past, which is hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers fleeing the city because they can't afford it.

So to your larger point about housing, the answer to the housing crisis is not more vacancies in rent stabilized units. To me, it is building more housing such that we keep people in their home, have a rapid expansion of housing production that is both private sector and public sector driven. And what makes our campaign unique is that we do believe the public sector has a role, but we also think the private sector, it needs to be easier, as you were talking about with abundance,

for them to actually build. And that's based on regulation and also on processes. So you've talked about 200,000 units of affordable housing, public housing. Cuomo's talked about 200,000 units of affordable housing, public housing. Cuomo's talked about 500,000. Zellner-Meyer has set a million. That's five times as many. Seems better.

What do you think of that plan? Well, I think the other plans that you've mentioned are both building and preserving. The figure that I said is just building, and it's just public sector. And I know that we'll actually surpass the 200,000 because we didn't want to put a number on the private sector. We think we have to change a number of zoning codes, specifically increasing density around mass transit hubs, ending requirements to build parking, up-zoning wealthier neighborhoods that haven't historically produced that kind of housing.

And all of those changes will actually create a significant increase in housing production. But the issue about putting forward a number as it pertains to developers is that I've just seen so many developments that have been stalled for so long. And ultimately, if they don't fulfill that number, the city is restricted in what it can do versus when I say the city is going to build 200,000. I know that's our responsibility.

So we talked about LaGuardia and sort of the sort of multi-ethnic, multiracial coalition. You've been getting, there was a very, I think very stupid moment during the debate where you were pressed, where everyone was saying where they're gonna visit first as mayor And they all said Israel you said you're gonna stick around New York and focus on New York Which makes sense to me. We had a controversy in Los Angeles. Our mayor was abroad I don't understand why anyone gives a fuck where our mayors go abroad stupid to me There was this there somebody posted this video and I wanted you to see it because I thought it was very funny.

Hey Anu, where are we going for dinner? Sushi or? I noticed you didn't say Tel Aviv. Now tell me, do you believe in Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state? What is it like being a raging anti-Semite? Do you plan on visiting Israel anytime in the next few days? So that, I think that's, that is like, that to me captures how dumb a lot of this has become and how much, I think, fear-mongering there is about you and what you would actually do. So can you just talk a little bit about what you actually would do to face anti-semitism in New York?

Yeah, I appreciate this because there's, as you've said, been so many mischaracterizations and misconceptions and frankly they've been fueled by candidates like Andrew Cuomo who just yesterday it was revealed his super PAC had a mailer that artificially lengthened and darkened my beard in sending it out to voters. And it's just blatant Islamophobia and it explains why so many Trump donors are bankrolling that campaign. And these kinds of questions on the debate stage, they pretend as if they are in relation

to the real issue of anti-Semitism in our city and yet they are weaponizing it to score political points. The truth of it is that anti-Semitism is something that has no place in the city, no place in this country, and as the mayor of this city, my responsibility will be to protect Jewish New Yorkers and that is something that I promise to do. And it's something that I know is not just evidenced in the statistics we see, it's also in the fear that is felt by so many Jewish New Yorkers.

I remember after October 7th, a friend of mine was telling me about going to his synagogue for Shabbat services and hearing the door open behind him and the chill that went up his spine as he turned around to see who it was and whether they meant to harm him. And I had a conversation just weeks ago with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that he's now started to lock the same door he had kept open for decades.

And it's this sense of not knowing whether one is safe. And ultimately we need to protect each and every Jewish New Yorker because what they deserve is whatever New Yorker deserves, which is safety. And that's why at the core of our campaign's proposal to create a department of community safety is to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800%, the largest of any campaign in this cycle,

because ultimately we have to be judged by our actions, not just by the endless discourse about it all. Yeah. our actions, not just by the endless discourse about it all. Yeah. So, you know, you mentioned after October 7th and, you know, you put out a statement after October 7th where you talked about mourning the dead in Israel and Palestine, but you also reserved any condemnation in that statement for Israel. It talked about it as an apartheid state. You did not mention Hamas and the brutal terrorist attack.

Like I hate Benjamin Netanyahu. I am disgusted by the atrocities being committed by Israel. But when I saw that statement, it made me worry in two ways One is that you view it as some kind of a concession to be honest about Hamas that it somehow hurts the Palestinian cause the cause of peace and Two you as a politician who wants to lead a city with the largest population of Jewish people outside of Israel Didn't worry enough about their sentiments either morally or just as people you need to be part of your coalition to get done these big and important things.

That you weren't doing the work necessary to build the credibility and trust with that community on this issue or any other issue you're trying to win people over on? I'm just wondering what your reaction is to that. You know, I made clear in the days after October 7th, especially as there was a protest the next day, where I said that I condemned the killing of civilians and I condemned any rhetoric that made light of such killing, because ultimately any cause for freedom and justice and safety is one that has to be universal in its application of those things.

It's why I've called October 7th what it was, which is a horrific war crime. And ultimately, the place from which all of my policies come from is a belief in international law as the foundation of how we can actually chart out a better future. And what you will see from our campaign is that we have in fact been able to build a coalition that reflects the beauty and the breadth of the city, including so many Jewish New Yorkers. And that's not just evidenced by endorsements from Jewish organizations, but also that this plan I was telling you about around hate crimes, the Department of Community Safety, that's a plan that comes

out of so many of those conversations. And I think to be clear, I do not see, I do not think that there is any relationship between condemning Hamas, which I've done time and time again, and believing in the necessity of universal human rights for each and every person and that also including Palestinians. I think in fact, what I've found is that most New Yorkers have that same desire for consistency and applying it to all people and thinking that, you know, in the words of Noy Katzman, whose brother was killed by Hamas on October 7th, that we must never give up on the conviction that all life is equally precious,

Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab, and we must never lose hope of a brighter, more peaceful future. And ultimately that is what underpins this campaign and my politics at large. So I don't want to describe your bagel order as anti-Semitic. I don't want to describe your bagel order as anti-Semitic. I don't think it is. But you said poppy seed bagel, scallion cream cheese, some pulp tropicana on the side and toasted. Now you know we make the bagels in the city.

They're right there. They're made in an oven nearby. They're done. They're cooked. Right? You know that? You don't have to toast them, especially if they're fresh. Right? You know that? You don't have to toast them. I know. Especially if they're fresh. I know. Right?

I know. So what the fuck? Look, I think the thing that New Yorkers hate more than a politician they disagree with is one they can't trust. And I just want to be honest with you. This is what I've been doing. I grew up in Morningside Heights with gold, absolute bagels, rest in peace, best bagel place in New York City. This is what I did. And for that, I hope to repent on this show. And you know that like, they're not like the Entenmanns that are frozen in the freezer.

Like these are made in the oven. They're nice. They're good. They're good out of the, have you had one out of the oven? You know, they're like, this is the whole point of, you're in New York. I don't, I don't like, and by the way, you're not the only one. Oh, and just so we're clear, your answer is bad,

but Cuomo's answer was fucking insane. He ordered a bacon, cheese, and egg on an English muffin, not a bagel. The ingredients were in the wrong order. Any comment? I think a guy who can't even say a bacon, egg, and cheese is someone who's clearly, you know, hasn't been living in the city for more than 30 years. He just moved back here and I think we'd see that in his order. Yeah, it's a lot to think about. It's a lot to think about. What is your... He said he stays away from a bagel to keep his girlish figure.

Well, that was the other thing. He said, I order a bacon, cheese and egg, I think he said. He says he takes the bacon off. Bacon off. What kind of waste is that? What are we doing? You'd think that would be the Muslim candidate saying that but no it's not. No it's not. It's not. What's your uh do you have a bodega order? Yeah it's egg and cheese on a roll with jalapenos. Jalapenos interesting. Come on give me something. No it's okay. I don't

I don't dislike it. I don't dislike it. Is that Islamophobia? We don't have any, but. Oh, no, no, not on my, I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, I, yeah, no, I got to check. I'm, you know, I'm listening and I'm learning. I don't think so, but maybe it is. Maybe it is. Maybe that's something I have to deal with. I'm just opening the door here.

If you don't like spice, what does it say? That's right. That's right. Zoran Mamdani, thank you so much for your time. Really good to meet you. Good luck. Just to be clear, we've asked Andrew Cuomo to come on and he hasn't responded, probably because we'd ask him

a lot of questions about his accusations of sexual harassment. So that's probably why. Like, him and his campaign made the correct assessment a long time ago that the less the less New Yorkers see of him, the better his odds and the more they're seeing of him now, the worse they are. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks so much. It was a pleasure.

That's our show for today. Thanks to Zoran Mamdani for coming on and a huge thanks to Nicole Wallace for joining me for the show. Everyone check out The Best People wherever you get your podcasts. Catch Deadline White House every weekday at 4 p.m. Eastern. I'm going to be back in the feed on Sunday with a special episode talking to Harvard people wherever you get your podcasts, catch Deadline White House every weekday at 4 p.m. Eastern. I'm going to be back in the feed on Sunday with a special episode talking to Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who's done some fantastic research about the most

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