The MeidasTouch Podcast - Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Discusses Affordability and Transition

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Starting point is 00:01:11 That's what they're going with. They're too good on affordability, really? That's what you think? Here play this clip. American people. President Trump's going to Pennsylvania Tuesday, I believe, to talk about his economic agenda ahead of the midterms. Do the Republicans have a messaging problem with affordability? No, it's just that we've had so many things to message. I mean, it's a blessing and a curse. The big beautiful bill was aptly named because there was so much in it, so much policy. And there were so many things of message all at once. So you had different Republicans out talking about different things, which they need to do in their districts, but it made it

Starting point is 00:01:41 appear as though the message wasn't unified. We are laser focused on affordability, bringing down the cost of living. Then you've got MAGA Republican Congress member Hardopoulos and this guy's like, of course we're winning this issue. Why do you think Republicans keep on winning? You're not. Okay, here play this clip you know the democrats in california went to the extreme uh we're just trying to keep up with them at this point but that said i'm glad to see the texas maps are finally in place i think that will give an opportunity for us to keep the house but we're going to keep the house in my opinion because we are the ones addressing the issue of affordability the democrats there have answered for affordability is higher taxes and going back to the biden era policies which

Starting point is 00:02:21 completely failed this and so i'm a lot more optimistic about next year than most again we won in Tennessee by a decent margin, but we're going to do much better next fall because people are going to feel the tax cuts that we passed back in July. And you've got MAGA Republican Congress member Jason Smith on CNBC where the MAGA host Joe Kieran, he's like, all right, you guys have like a health care plan. I'm trying to help you here. Do you have a health care plan? And watch what MAGA Republican Congress member Jason Smith says. Play this clip. There's things that was Mike Johnson. Is he saying that they have a plan? Is the speaker? Yesterday he said that we're working on a plan okay i'm one andrew what do you think and you got any you're doing great

Starting point is 00:03:03 really yeah who i'm not i'm trying to be down the middle i see trying to blame both but it is it is blame both sides well okay he's not going to really say and he's just going to say what he said is that what you're saying what he you're looking at me saying what he said exactly okay we got to go uh mr chan we hope we hope you come back yes concepts of a plan folks concepts And then Donald Trump goes on front of the Christmas tree lighting at the White House. He's like, we've done it. Everyone's thriving. Inflation is vanished.

Starting point is 00:03:36 Americans are doing great. Stop saying affordability. Play the clip. Into our country. Nobody. Not one. Our economy is thriving. Inflation is stopped.

Starting point is 00:03:46 Our nation is strong. And America is back bigger and better, stronger, better than ever before. Think of it. And we're making peace all over the world. We're settling wars. at levels that nobody's ever seen before. Eight of them, we're looking for one more. That's Russia, Ukraine, if that's possible.

Starting point is 00:04:04 And I think we'll get there eventually. Next up, you have Donald Trump's National Economic Advisor, Kevin Hassett. And Kevin Hassett's asked by Fox, state regime media. They're like, okay, well, you know, like lots of people view the economy is not doing good right now. What do you say about that Hassett? Here, watch this.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Let's take a look at a couple more polls. This one shows on a scale of excellent, good, only fair or poor, how would you rate economic conditions today? And if you combine only fair and poor, you get 76% on that poll. And then we have who is more responsible for current economic conditions, President Trump or President Biden. And we have Trump at 62%. So, you know, I know that we've heard from you, we've heard from Scott Bassett saying that things are going to feel very different in the beginning of the year. And everybody hopes that that's absolutely accurate, and we look forward to that. But, you know, what would you say to people who are answering the survey that way, Kevin?

Starting point is 00:05:00 Well, one of the things that we've seen and we've studied over the last couple of weeks is that when there's a government shutdown, then the things that we economists call the soft data, the survey data tend to really, really tank because everyone's in a terrible mood because Washington can't work and the government shut down and they're worried about how bad it's going to be. But the hard data are what do people actually do with their lives, with their pocketbooks? And so, for example, we just saw the best Black Friday ever, you know, people went out getting ready for the Christmas holiday shopping season, feeling very, very optimistic about the economy. As we go into next year, don't forget that all the people who have no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, who are going to be able to deduct the interest on their car loan if they buy a car, all those things are kicking in big time as we go into next year. That's why Secretary Vescent and I are both very confident that we're going to be looking at growth in the four numbers for the first half of next year.

Starting point is 00:05:50 keeps pressing him here, and they're like, these are troubling numbers, like jobless claims over 1.1 million in 2025, up 54% since the past year under former President Biden, now up 54%. Do you think that's good? He's like, ah, that's just the Democrat shutdown here, play this clip. With that last number that we just heard from, from Grady Trimble, that says that year-to-date job cuts show an increase of 54%. That seems like a troubling number. What's your take on it? Well, don't don't forget that there's hires and there's fires and there's separations and new jobs. And so net job creation for the year is very positive. But the flow of jobs in it out is a little bit higher. There's a little bit more turnover. A lot of times that could happen because people feel like

Starting point is 00:06:46 they're actually able to get another job if they leave this job. And then even Maria Bartaroma from state regime media. She's perplexed. She's like, how is it that Democrats have been able to take over affordability? How are you guys screwing this up? Anyway, here, play this clip. I just think all of a sudden the Democrats have found a way to get affordability stick to their brand. And Kevin, President Trump came into office with this priority of getting inflation down. Let's not forget, we were at 40-year highs under Joe Biden. How is it possible that the Democrats have been able to rally around this word, affordability, and make people think that that's what they're focused on and not what the Republicans are focused on going into an election year?

Starting point is 00:07:30 Right. You know, it's just what happens sometimes when, you know, one political party has a lot of the media echoing what they're saying. But the bottom line is look back at the thing that you just mentioned, the fuel economy standards, that Joe Biden's team was set to say that it had to be 51 miles per gallon on average for cars in America. We went around D.C. and went to car dealers and said, what's the highest gas mileage car you have? And the most efficient car we found was 36 miles per gallon. It was a Honda. And so that means that under Joe Biden's America, in just a few years, there's no internal combustion engine car that can be produced in America that meets their standards. And so what they did then, when you didn't meet their standards, is they hit the car companies with billion-dollar fines.

Starting point is 00:08:15 And those billion-dollar fines, of course, were passed through as higher prices for cars for Americans. So there's lots of lots of things that we could do to reduce the problem of affordability. But the affordability problem is 100% created by the Biden administration, with their runaway regulation and their runaway inflation. Finally, you have Kevin Hassett saying the following, look, we're making progress, but you just got to give us a little more time. No one ever said that we were going to get this done on day one. Really, that's literally what you all said. You all said you would decrease the prices on day one. That was the promise.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Some might call it fraud. Here, play this clip. Under Joe Biden. And so we're making progress, but it's going to take a little bit more time to get the hole that Biden to be completely filled. But we're going to do it. We're highly confident. we're going to do it. And the numbers that you and I have been talking about this morning highlight why people should be so optimistic that will be successful. Absolutely. And now I want to bring in

Starting point is 00:09:13 New York City, mayor-elect, Zoran, Mom, Donnie. See, all these people are trying to copy him. But, you know, you got to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. And they say imitation is the best form of flattery. But when it comes to these Maga Republicans, it seems that they're just trying to further defraud the American people. This is an interesting. interview that I conducted with Zoran Mamdani, New York City's mayor-elect yesterday. You'll notice I'm at my home yesterday, and right now I brought my family to take a little bit of a break. So that's why there's a different location. But here's the interview I did with New York City, mayor-elect Zoran-Mam-Dani yesterday. They say that imitation is the best form of flattery, but not

Starting point is 00:09:54 all imitation is authentic. A lot of people now using the word affordability, but you got to walk the walk, not just talk to talk in New York City, Mayor-elect, Zoran Mamdani, who we've got here is walking the walk already during this transition period. So I got to ask you, Mayor Elect, awful lot of people talking about affordability right now that we're not talking about it when you started in the primaries, huh? You know, I think it's always something to celebrate. The more that politics becomes about the people that have so often been forgotten, the better that we all are for it. And I think what we've seen is that cost of living as a crisis is not something that's just unique to New Yorkers, though we do live in the most expensive city in America.

Starting point is 00:10:39 It's something that people feel feeling across the country. And I think the question of housing, of groceries, of utilities, of childcare, of even public transit, it's something that people are looking desperately for an answer to. And that's what we're focused on. Look, I want to get into what you're doing already in terms of rent freezes, in terms of making the transition period more transparent, but I'd just, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you at the outset. That photo, you, Donald Trump, FDR, right behind him, it seemed like you got Trump to embrace the legacy of FDR, which is part of the legacy you're bringing to Manhattan. Well, you know, I appreciated when the president offered to give me a tour of the cabinet room and pointed out the portrait of FDR.

Starting point is 00:11:23 I asked if we could take a picture there and explain that this was the legacy of politics. that I was looking to build on in New York City and that my favorite mayor in the history of our city is Fiorella LaGuardia. And you can't tell the story of LaGuardia without the story of FDR and the story of the New Deal. And it is a story of a federal government and a municipal government working together

Starting point is 00:11:44 to deliver on an affordability crisis that was threatening to push people out of their homes. And I see that very much as the lineage of politics that we're looking to belong to. Let's talk about the kind of surgical steps you've taken already during the transition period. Talk to us about the rent freeze announcement, why that's significant and why that's one of the first things rolled out during the transition. Well, the key part is that we have about eight and a half million people who live in New York City.

Starting point is 00:12:11 About two and a half million of those live in what are called rent stabilized units. And the city sets their rent increase or lack thereof every year through a board called the Rent Guidelines Board, has nine members. Each one of them has been appointed by the mayor. And so today we had a hot chocolate rent freeze event where we were telling people that while the temperature is dropping here in New York City, one thing that's been rising over the last four years have been rents and that the current mayoral administration has raised those rents by more than 12%. What we're going to do is freeze those rents. And we're going to do it because the median household income of those tenants is $60,000 a year. The annual profit of those landlords is 12%. There's room for that release. And it's time to actually make politics relevant to working people struggles, this is one of the key places to do it. When do you think people in the boroughs are going to start in Manhattan and the boroughs are going to start feeling it, you know, I mean, so, you know, now this is, you know, you do the hot chocolate, you know, you got to corral the people though and get them to go along with

Starting point is 00:13:12 the, how long does that process take and what does that look like? So the decision around a rent hike or a rent freeze is made every single year on an annual basis. And so the next opportunity will be next year at the Rent Guidelines Board to make that case. confident of our ability to do so. And what New Yorkers will actually be looking forward to is predicting that their rent the year after is the same as their rent this year. And rents are already so expensive, but what adds to so much of people's anxieties in New York City is not even knowing what the rent's going to be and whether they can actually afford to stay in the place

Starting point is 00:13:45 they're currently calling home. No, what's been interesting watching even just the early stages of your transition is that you've opened it up to the public. It's often shrouded in these like transition boards where the billionaires donate the money and they do the big balls and, you know, it's a lavish affair. And you've democratized it. You've brought it to the people. Talk to us about that.

Starting point is 00:14:13 And I think the feedback's been overwhelming in terms of the responsiveness with like, what, 70,000 people have said, can we help? Can we work for you? What can we do? Thank you so much, man. I mean, it's it's all part, as you're saying, of an effort to demystify government. I mean, there are so many New Yorkers who did not even know that there was a transition period that was not publicly funded, because understandably many had expected that there would be public funds for the work of preparing for a public facing administration. And yet what we find is we have to raise this money ourselves. And yet what we're trying to do, though, is as you said, raise it in a very different kind of way.

Starting point is 00:14:50 We are looking to make it just as much of a mass movement as we made our campaigns, whether the primary or the general. I'm proud to say we've raised more than $2.5 million from more than 29,000 donors with an average donation of less than $100. And that's in stark contrast to previous mayoral administrations whose average donations would be something along the lines of $1,000 or $2,000. And it's kind of like you said, so many donations coming from very few people. And we're looking at a very different approach to this. I think the key here is you want to build a city government that is accountable to the people, that is delivering for the people. And like you said, we've already had 70,000 people apply to be a part of that city government. It's an incredible thing to see. And talk generally about this

Starting point is 00:15:33 new model of government. When the transition ends, what should people expect kind of right away that's going to make this look different than any of the mayors who have come before you or build upon some of the things that you liked. I remember your great debate answer where you said, look, I can surgically take the best of different mayorships, but not take the worst, right? We can do that as well. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, showing a little humility that there are those who came before you who have had ideas that you agree with, but it's about building on those and then

Starting point is 00:16:05 delivering the ones that New Yorkers have often been denied. And when the transition ends, the opportunity to deliver begins, where our administration will start to take office on January 1st. the focus is going to be how can we move as quickly as possible to start to fulfill this affordability agenda? And one thing that I've found is people often look at Washington and the speed with it which, you know, it sometimes is taking action on an agenda that many of us have deep criticism and concern about. And sometimes we confuse that speed as if it is only possible with that kind of an agenda. But in fact, you can have that kind of a speed with an agenda that is looking

Starting point is 00:16:41 to fight for working people as well. And that's what we're going to try and show. What can people do who are watching this who want to be helpful right now who how do these 70,000 people get involved or how do these 29,000 people get involved? What can people do who want to embrace this vision and actually get involved and do stuff? Well, I think the key thing is to come to transition 2025.com. It's where you can both submit an application if you're looking to be considered for a job in city government and also where you can donate whatever it is that's possible for you, whether five bucks, 10 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever you have in your pocket that you're, able to give, it is money that hire staff that are able to vet these appointments to make these hiring decisions. It pays for the office space. It pays for the basics such that we can put this next month to use where we are actually interrogating our policy proposals, creating

Starting point is 00:17:31 implementation plans, and ensuring, like you said, we hit the ground running on day one. Anything else you think that's not getting enough attention, either part of the transition or that you're thinking about, that you want people to be more focused on now, especially as we're heading into a new year? You know, I think one thing that I've been reflecting on is that oftentimes when we win elections, we tell people now to go home and just to trust us. And I think the message has to, in fact, be that we want you to come along with us. We want you to be part of this politics beyond just the ballot box.

Starting point is 00:18:04 And that's been something we've been looking to share with New Yorkers, which is that your participation in democracy, it extends beyond election day. And we want to not just win with New Yorkers, but also govern with New Yorkers, and that will mean really infusing city government with a different kind of an outlook and changing what we even think of as public engagement, where we are really trying to ensure that I am not seen as a movement in and of myself. I'm seen as a messenger of a movement that continues to grow across the five boroughs of the city. Well, we appreciate you joining us. It was incredible being with you from the outset in the primaries, seeing you

Starting point is 00:18:40 there, seeing you right before the election. And now as the New York City mayor election, to Zoran, Mom, Doni. Great to be with you again. Thank you so much, my friend. Real pleasure. Everybody, hit subscribe and let's get to 6 million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our substack at Midasplus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at Midasplus.com.

The MeidasTouch Podcast - Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani Discusses Affordability and Transition

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