The Press Box - How Zohran Mamdani Won the Hearts and Minds of the Media (and New York City)

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Bryan and Joel are together in the studio to discuss Zohran Mamdani in the 17th edition of their 25 for 25 series (2:00). They discuss Mamdani as a political phenomenon (6:12), a media phenomenon (21:03), and someone who is signaling generation change (25:55). Later they welcome Eric Lach of The New Yorker, who profiled Mamdani for the magazine. Lach discusses what he learned from Mamdani after speaking with him (34:22). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Guest: Eric Lach Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, my birdie buddies, my car saving pals. My eagle enthusiast, it's Joe House here. Major season is finally upon us. The Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, and Fairway Rowan is here to break down all of the storylines. Offer a little help on those betting cards for every single major this golf season. Join me and our Incom. comparable accomplice our tour boots on the ground.

Nathan Hubbard, as we guide you from Augusta all the way to Northern Ireland. Royal Port Rush, away we go. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. That's right. It's producer Brian Waters, whom Joel insists on calling B-dub.

I mean, the thing is, if you got a B&W initial, man, he just got, And B-dub told us, like people call him that. That's not his preference. But you resurface the name, as they say in journalism. The inevitable happened. The inevitable happened. First of all, it's great to see you. Yeah, man.

We're here in L.A. We're in person. This is very nice. This is my first time at the, you know, these studios here. I'd not been here. They hired me without me ever even seeing anything out here yet. You and I have been doing a press box podcast together for nearly a year. Yeah.

We've done three of these now in person. Oh. Okay, one with Reese, the other, and in your hotel room. That's right. And then this one. Here we are. This is number three. All right.

This is a special episode, Joel. All right. It is part 17 of our 25 for 25 series. And we're going to devote the whole podcast to the most interesting politician who's going to be on the ballot in a couple of weeks. 34-year-old, Zeran Mamdani. Okay. I thought you were going to say, you know, a homeboy that founded the red, the red, The Guardian Angels.

Curtis Lewa? Curtis Lewa. Yeah, I thought that was going to be. He seems very interesting. All right. He's 1B in this election and maybe every election. All right. We're going to talk about various parts of the Mom Dani story.

Mom Dani as a political phenomenon, as a media phenomenon, as a figure signaling generational change. And we're going to chat with one of the people that has tried to get their arms around the mom Dami story, Eric Latch of the New Yorker. But let's start here since you just flew in. Did you visit the Hudson News stand in the airport and find nothing but Mom Donnie profiles on the newsstand? You know, if I'd had time to stop into Hudson and not been an hour late this morning,

then I probably would have stopped in. But I can't imagine because, I mean, every website that I read that is like a serious news outlet has a Mom Donnie profile. Let us count them. We got New Yorker here. Oh, you got print. I got print here. Oh, this is, oh, my gosh.

It's a dog jumping into leaves on the cover, but the lead story is Mom Donnie. Okay. We got the New York Times Magazine. Big handsome photo there, MomDi. That is a great picture. And then we got Vanity Fair. Now, he didn't make the cover. I was going to say what, okay.

That's actually Charlie XEX. Avoided the Better Aurora cover curse. Okay. But the headline here, the only Zeran Mamdani profile you need to read. Okay. You know what? Call your shot, Vanity Fair.

I see you. Okay. I mean, I read the other two, but, you know, just to, I appreciate their optimism. striking, isn't it, to have a politician that literally sells magazines and newspapers? Yeah, man. I mean, it really, it's a, well, I mean, obviously the parallels we're going to be talking about today are Obama.

I don't think Beto O'Rourke sold magazines quite like Mamdani has, but this is a very Beto-esque phenomenon to me. Like, the only thing that makes it not that is that, like, I know that he's not going to break a bunch of people's hearts by losing. like he's going to win. Whereas Bado was kind of like, I don't trust you, Texas. When I see a bunch of covers like this, I see stardom, and I also see a willingness to cooperate with the media.

I love that. To feed their long-form ambitions. And is it just me or having read these through that do you think that Momdani is very available, but maybe doesn't say much that's especially quotable? I think, I mean, I think he's obviously capable of that because he is, you know, so good at social media. But I think given the opportunity to be discursive, he'll lean into it, right? And yeah, but that's also sort of smart because then you can't, there are things that when he wants them to be soundbites, he can make them a soundbite and others when he is very professorial.

I guess that's maybe the way of the way I'm saying. Yes, he talks in parables, one of the writers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is he has, I mean, this is one of the things. that I admire about writers in particular, when they have like a vast library of analogies and comparisons and stuff like that. And he can just pull from a tremendous catalog of speakers and philosophers and politicians. It's really impressive.

Aristotle finds his way into his speeches. Yeah. He's also very good at what New York representative Richie Torres, who instead Herndon cites in the New York Times magazine piece, calls the three threes of modern. political communication. The 30-second social media video. The three-minute conventional media hit.

And then the three-hour-long podcast. Oh, yeah. And he's doing those. But again, I get the sense he's not making much news that he doesn't want to make. Well, I mean, the thing is that the things that stick to him are things that he's already said. And so he's already had a little bit of a lesson of, okay, this is the way, these are the ways in which I have to be very careful and, like, not apologizing for globalized the antifada.

Like, that's the sort of thing that, you know, like, they're going to still hit him with that because he hasn't been making any new gavs. Let's talk about Mamdani, the political phenomenon. If you're new to this story, he is a New York State Assemblyman. He just turned 34 years old, born in Uganda to Mahmood, Mamdani, an academic, an author, and Miran Nair, a filmmaker. What's your favorite Mirren Nair movie, Joel? Oh, really? Mississippi Massala.

We got it. I saw Mississippi Massala as a kid. I mean, it's just funny that that movie, because reading the story is very strange to me, almost surreal to see people talk. I was like, I didn't, can I say this? I guess I'm in L.A. now. I didn't know why people knew about Mississippi Massala. I never heard a white person talk about Mississippi Massala until Maldane.

That was a big deal when that came out. Yeah. Denzel was on the rise, and it was just a huge movie. Yeah, it announced him, and he was like very handsome. We had the interracial romance piece of it. It was just, yeah, it had a lot going for. It was very provocative for the 90s or 80s, I guess, 80s. Zeran Mamdani joins the Democratic Socialist of America.

He works on a number of New York City campaigns, runs for assembly in 2020, beats a Democratic incumbent, and five years later, here we are. Now, part of this story is generational change. Yeah. What do you think reporters love covering generational change in politics? Well, so I think I want to, just for us, second, I say the premise of the question is interesting because I think young reporters like generational change. I think most reporters and outlets, they lean towards like what I call

institutionalism. They don't want to, they don't want a world where their sources ever have to change. So they just keeps on, and it's kind of like the same thing happens in the NFL or the NBA. It's like, all the same GMs and agents talk to the same reporters or whatever. But when a young person gets the opportunity to cover somebody who might be exciting, it might hold power for a time. That's what, I mean, because I mean, it's not, it's not just the cynicism of building a career, but it's also, hey, I'm going to be, when a person looks back at this historical figure, they're going to look for the first stories that were written about them, and I'm going to have my name on it. And I'm going to ride them. Yeah. I'm going to cover them, whether this mayor

royalty works or not, whether I guess whether he wins, we probably will win in a couple of weeks, but whether he's a great mayor, he's a terrible mayor, I will be on, I will be there for every step of that story. You can be the Lynn Sweet or, Or the, there's a good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A boy, a windy, you know, or you can be the windy. Joe Klein with Bill Clinton back in the day. Yeah, absolutely.

You grow with that person. So, yeah. It is interesting, though. But you're right. If you, if you covered politics and you were, let us say, a veteran political reporter, you could have had the same Joe Biden sources for 30 years. Right. 40 years.

Yeah. And not have to change. So maybe you see, I'm Donnie, 34 years old. They're like, oh, this is your chance to get in. And, you know, they don't have any commitment. because they're new people and they're looking for allies in the media, and you're looking for good stories and a person who's going to be in the news a lot. I mean, that would be the exciting thing about it if I was a reporter

and I was covering New York City Hall or whatever. I'd be like, oh, this guy might be in the news for a long time. And when he inevitably needs to level up politically, whatever outlets, there's still a remaining at that time, whatever four are left, they may call me. And, of course, he arrives at a time when people have diagnosed the Democratic Democratic Party's problem as being, or one of their problems as being old people. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. So, you know, it's the Jim Clyburn and the Nancy Pelosi of it all. The Joe Biden of it all. Joe Biden of it all. And here he comes a lot. Yeah. I was thinking about covering this mayor's race.

The restoration of the Cuomo dynasty seems like an incredibly depressing story. If that were to happen or if that happens. Don't you, but wouldn't you be? So it's sad that he's just kind of become who he is now. a punchline. He's like a punchline who's going to get a pretty good number of votes, but still sort of a punchline nationally. Don't you think that would be an interesting story, though? Like, just as a historian, learning about, like, how New York has grown and the different, like, there's a world in which that is an interesting story. People love

comebacks, too. Yeah. They love fresh faces, but they love political comeback. Yeah. And it would be a comeback of sorts if, like I said, a very freighted comeback. Yeah, well, that's the, yeah, I mean, he's going to have to deal with being on the bad men, Oh, my God. And I got to say this, too, when I'm reading all these profiles, I was reminded every few pages that Eric Adams is currently the mayor of New York City and once upon a time was a candidate to be mayor of New York City again. Well, you know, it's interesting, too, because I remember people always hang this around Nate Silver's neck. But when he said that he thought Eric Adams had like a real chance to become a national Democratic star, like a potential presidential contender, and that kind of, it, I mean, the black. cop in the time of George Floyd and everything. Like, there's just a lot that is sort of interesting about Eric Adams. And he's an interesting person.

I mean, that's the least loaded way I can say it. Why didn't people, why, I guess I'm probably, I could answer my own question and I don't want people to get mad at me. But I'm just like, what was it about him that didn't make him catch him nationally like that? Was it just that he seemed like a joke the whole time? Why did the think pieces get three quarters of the way and not get finished? I think he just wasn't a good mayor.

I mean, that was part of it, right? Yeah. I mean, I just thought people like centrists. I thought they like cops, you know, like a guy who's been there. He's sort of funny. You know, I don't, you know, I guess, like, Eric. We can talk about it sometime if you would like to. Yeah, Joe would love to write a piece about you.

Oh, I would. I would. Mom, Donnie announced his candidacy for mayor last October. He's a great speaker. Yeah. He's a good looking guy. He has a style, which is the dark suit and the dark tie. And I love that reading this in the Vanity Fair profile by James Pogue.

Normally a profile like that would mention what brand the celebrity or in this case the politician is wearing. He doesn't in this. He just says that the suit is dark and tailored. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Very.

Well, I mean, it looks just very functional and luxurious as, you know, something like that could look. You don't have to say it, right? Well, do you think Democratic Socialists? Do you think you tell brands to the writer from Vanity Fair? Well, I mean, man. AOC never really kind of lived down that Met Gall address, did she? That's the thing. Like, if you're going to play in that world, it's just then, yeah, it's going to come up, right?

Mom, Donnie keeps going back to three bumper sticker ideas, free buses, rent freezes, and universal childcare. Yeah. We'd also find out a lot of stuff about him during this campaign, that he was a would-be rapper named Young Cardam. How has his songs not come out yet? Because, I mean, there's a, I can't remember was it in the time? Southern New York where he talks about that has been scrubbed off from the streaming services.

We had Spotify. Is anybody, can anybody, you know, bring those back up? But I would, I would love to hear that. Actually, maybe I would not. We're going to talk more about the changing rules of politics, but do you think a regrettable early rap career is going to be a new thing with politicians? We just went through this with Sam Presti. Oh, I forgot about that.

Who runs the OKC Thunder? Remember there was a rap career that was discovered? That's right. That's right. Man, I think isn't the raining New York Luton? Senate governor, didn't he have a rap schedule? It was like Alfonso Dogado, I think is his name. And he had a rap scandal sort of similar to that.

So I would love to hear Young Car, what's your favorite, Young Carter-Mong song? Let me get back to you on that. Before the June 24th primary, and I think you probably had this experience too, my Twitter feed was full of people saying Mom Dani was going to win. Mom Dani's going to win. And I was like, look, I just feel this feed is oversampled with liberals, with Browellon. with Brooklynites and with liberal Brooklynites. I was like, you people were telling me that that Seltzer pole that had Kamala Harris winning Iowa

was a real thing. I don't trust you that this is actually going to happen. That had me feeling. You know, also, too, I think my skepticism, I was like, every time liberals get excited, at least in the last decade, every time they've gotten excited, they've lost. It just, the one time they had no enthusiasm,

Joe Biden and he won. But when they get excited, it just seems like, oh, that's a bad omen. But so far, Mom Dani seems to, you know, be resistant to that. He winds up winning the primary by 12 points after you go through all the rounds of rank choice voting. Yeah.

I did hear that New York Times higher-ups, not the reporters on the ground, but New York Times higher-ups, were caught flat-footed by Mom Dani winning. Isn't that not the most, I mean, that is the most predictable thing, right? Because I, look, I'm not trying to dissent, because I have a lot of friends that work at the New York Times

as higher-ups. Well, not a lot, but some, right? And they're not in the street. You know what I mean? I mean, they live where they live, but they're not going out interviewing people. They're not making sources. Again, it's kind of that thing where I was talking about,

you don't want your sources to change. So you're going to miss a lot of that because they're calling the same old people in and in the same social circles with the same old people. And yeah, they probably were just like, oh, shit, I thought Cuomo was going to take. Why? He's the name that everybody recognizes.

Which leads us to this New York Times story that appeared less than two weeks after the primary. written by Benjamin Ryan, Nicholas Fondos, and Dana Rubinstein. You and I never got to talk about this. They got a hold of Momdani's Columbia application. He was a high school senior in 2009. I'll read from the piece here. Asked to identify his race.

Maldani checked a box that he was Asian, but also black or African American, according to internal data derived from a hack of Columbia University that was shared with the New York Times. later on they know the application allowed students to provide quote more specific information where relevant and mr mom dani said that he wrote in ugandan yeah he would tell the times because of course he cooperated with this piece as well like he does with every piece most college applications don't have a box for indian ugandans so i checked multiple boxes trying to capture the

fullness of my background yeah i mean it just i mean first i mean there is a piece of it that speaks to like just the stupidity of trying to categorize people like this because most people really if you think about it sort of defy conventional description in the ways that we're the very limited ways that we have to describe people the only thing I would say about this and I do think it's sort of like a credible criticism of them is that you knew you weren't black or African-American you know what I mean I mean I'm not I'm not even trying to criticize mom don't for that necessarily, but anybody that would, you could see where somebody really cynical would say, you know what that means and that that's not something that applies to you. So that's, but the issue is,

did he, should he have had to talk about that in the first place? Was that like a story you're saying? Yeah. Like that's sort of my thing. I was like, I don't know that that's, that's just the thing about it that is wrong to me is that white candidates never have to answer that question, man. They never have to answer that question. It's like when they go to an NFL player, an NBA player, and they'll ask them about something about a police violence incident or something. And I'm like, man, why don't try to read Shepard that? You know, he is an American just like I am.

Why can't he, why didn't some other cabs? Zun and Silasquez have to talk about Timil Rice. But anyway, I'm just, I'm ranting. No, and when I read the story the first time, I was like, this feels to me like a data point in a bigger story about, mom donnie's identity or his search for his identity yeah growing up and I don't know if that just got rushed into print because the Times wanted to get on the scoreboard you're right or if it got rushed to the print because it's part of this hack

and the Times doesn't know you know where else this is going to get fed to in the in that moment but it just I mean again the Times in the story admits they couldn't find any other times on the stump or elsewhere where he had identified himself as black or African-Americans Right. So this is kind of the criticism, because I mean, that's usually the standard for publishing a story like that is much higher, right? Like you don't, just from the way that the information was acquired, the person that distributed it, and the idea that you had to have a story about that. I mean, it was smart if the end game is we just want the most people possible to talk about this because they'll yell at us. And I know that internally, that sometimes people actually think that that is a good idea to get yelled at.

Like, it proves something about it. Oh, that's the old thing. Like, if Les and right or mad at us, we're obviously doing it right. It's like, what if people are just mad? Yeah, what you know, he just might have made a bad decision. You know, this is what you need, you know, an ombudsman for. And we should also add this, Joel, this was a Columbia application. He didn't get into Columbia.

That. Despite the fact that his father was a professor at Columbia. See, that is one of the more truly shocking things about the story. is that he did not get into Columbus. His mother is famous. His mother directed Mississippi Missala, and he didn't get in, and yet people still got mad at him.

I was like, if anything should undercut the idea that being black helps you, his dad taught there, okay? His mom is a famous Hollywood director. He said he was black, and black is, you know, that is the credit card to life, man, and you can put that shit in anywhere, and you can get access to anything in the world, apparently.

and yet he did not get into school there. That is shocking to me. It's really, really interesting. Yeah. I mean, he's great. I mean, maybe his grades were shit. Like maybe they were really bad. Bronx science?

Yeah. I don't know about that. Yeah, but it is funny. And, you know, I always come, I said this on podcast before. I always feel when you have politicians, we should know as much about them as humanly possible before people vote for them. Yeah. And if a story is unfair, if a story is flawed, sometimes I'm willing to overlook that because I say,

I'd rather have the information out there than not. This is one of those cases, though. I think you could have played a bigger game here. I think it would have been part of a bigger and more interesting story, that singular data point that they found. Do you think Mom Dani is happy that story came out or not happy that it came out? Because I think it actually made a lot of people, I mean, obviously there were people that were going to use it sort of cynically anyway,

but a lot of people that got mad. This is part of his campaign. I'm against the establishment. Right. The establishment is... Look how what they're doing. New York politics as it's currently practiced and also the New York Times. Right. Yeah, exactly.

How many times does the Cuomo name help Cuomo get things, right? But anyway, so yeah. All right, Joel, that is Mamdani the political phenomenon. I want to talk to you about Mamdani the media phenomenon too. Okay. Because the New York Times said Herndt wrote that Mamdani is a poster. What other major politicians are posters? I mean...

Kind of all of them now, right? But true posters. Not my staff is posting. Who are of it? Yeah. AOC is a poster. Yeah, Marjorie Taylor Green. She's a poster.

Matt Gates is a poster. Matt Gates's poster, yeah. Because I feel like that is the way that I actually become familiar with a lot of people. I don't know if you've ever had this sensation where you'll see somebody that's verified on Twitter

and they have a lot of followers. And they say something sort of like crazy or racist or whatever, and I'll be like, oh, that person is a state senator somewhere. You know? So I feel like that's how posting is now. But yeah, like he's certainly fluent and of the posting culture for sure.

Is Donald Trump count as a poster? Hell yeah, man. Even when you're dictating the post or somebody else to type in and push send on? The one thing you got to, I mean, even the people that don't like Donald Trump have got a sense for a good tweet, man. He really does.

Do journalists have an affinity with Mom Dane because we're also posters at heart? Was all mostly because we're all libs, right? I'm just joking. No, I mean, I think so, okay, I was actually thinking about this. If you treat the media like they're important, they'll love you, man. Absolutely. You know, if you give them time, sometimes whenever I'll see like an athlete or a young athlete, like having a standoff with media, I wish I could just kind of go up to him.

I'm like, bro, just be nice, just a little bit. It'll go a long way for you. And I mean, you hate to admit that, that people are influenced and reporters and media are influenced by people who will give you their time of day and treat you like you matter and are nice. But he really does matter, man. And he seems to have a knack for that.

And it ain't like he lied to these people. Like, we talked to Eric, Eric Latch. He didn't like he said they were friends, but he gave him time and took him seriously. And that can actually, work. Yes. I really think it does. And you can always tell, you know, when you read these profiles. And again, it's not it's not a matter of bias, it's not a better of it, but there's just a sense when the person answers your questions. In Eric's case, when they has him over to his apartment. There's all, there's just these little moments like that. Also, we talked about how the fact that Mom Dani is coming along when the Democrats are old and he's young. Right. It's also coming along when Democrats don't seem to understand social media. He does. Right. I was kind of, I was wondering, I was like, oh, but he also comes from a family of creatives. And imagine just the advantages you have in language and just like literally just telling stories.

And so, like, he grew up with that, like, to the extent that he's a Nepo baby, like, he soaked up, he soaked that talent up from people that are already sort of in, you know, fields that touch on some of these things that would make you a great politician. So, yeah. He made a lot of videos during the campaign, including a famous one where he went around to the halal. trucks in New York City. I remember that. And it was about what he called halal flation. Let's play a little clip from that. New York is suffering from a crisis and it's called halal flation. Today, we're going to get to the bottom of this. How much does the plate of halal cost right now from this truck? Ten dollars. Ten dollars? Ten dollars? When you're a street vendor, you have to pay

for the food, the plates. How much do you have to pay for your permit? Before it was 22K. 2017,000. How much is a license cost if you get it from the city? I think 400. Who are you paying? The permit owner. You're not paying the city.

No, no, no. You pay the permit owner $22,000 just so you can sell this food. Yes. And who is this? Random guy. Funny about that. It's almost like a late night video that's explaining the economics of food truck permitting.

Didn't it look like a Vox video or something? like old school box video or something. It really did. Then you could tell it was Bob Donnie because it came around at the end to, oh, it costs $10. For the delicious meal right now, hey, if we change the permit process,

it'd be like $7 or $8. Yeah. I'm saving you the consumer money. Again, fordability, Fordability, fordability, he always comes back to that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean,

when he addressed Donald Trump on Fox News, he said, if you want to talk about cost of living and how to make New York a more affordable place to live, we can talk about it. Yeah, he knows to always get his shit off. also talk about tweets for a second because as a poster,

there's usually going to be something in your posting history that look at Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate candidate May answering for all those Reddit posts this week. In 2020, around the time of the George Floyd protests, Mom Dani tweeted,

we don't need an investigation to know that the NYPD is racist, anti-queer, and a major threat to public safety. Now, he's walked that back. We saw him on Fox with Martha McCallum apologizing to the New York Police Department. He's talked a lot about safety.

Here's my media question for you. Are we inching into an era where old tweets, old Reddit posts matter less? That is a really good question. Yeah, I think the thing is is that people are sort of starting

to realize that you don't have to have a good reason for why you like the people you politically support anymore. right because like we even i mean we'll we we'll see story after story like that was always the big thing on trump that'd be like well you're a farmer what do you you know don't you have a problem with this tariff on soybeans and it'd be like yeah they're okay you know well like for this reason so we've just kind of been groomed over the last few years and people will probably say that that was true when it was obama right that people just didn't they just like the guy and they didn't

want to have the reasons may seem hypocritical but it doesn't matter and so we've just gotten we've gotten used to the idea that it just doesn't you you tweeted this you said this on reddit yeah but i like that guy and it felt like that was always coming yeah it's just again the world's changed so much yeah it's not like bill clinton once smoked a joint but he didn't inhale or bill clinton once you know had an extramarital relationship you got to learn to people learn to process things a different way now it's like you have a long history online everybody has a long history online. Yeah. And there's going to be something there from mayor of New York.

There's going to be something there that. Oh, look at that. Right. Look at that. You know. Yeah. It's right because, I mean, we used to be so puritan about this. I mean, the only reason I knew who Gary Hart was for most of the years of my life is because he got caught on a boat with another woman. Just imagine how, like, tame

of a political scandal, media scandal that would be today. Like, I was like, oh, I'm sure. So, yeah, I'm you know, I'm I think we're really just sort of beyond all that sort of moralizing. And the media doesn't have the same power that it used to to make a thing a story or make a thing a scandal. Like, what are, it's? Yeah, I think, I think they have a power.

I mean, they have power now to just push it out. Right. I mean, you can really push it out. And there's no, remember the Gary Hart thing was always, can we print this in the newspaper? Right, right. There's no, there's no barrier like that now anymore. Right. And if you don't print in the newspaper or somebody else is just going to tweet it out.

Yeah. they're going to find it right it's like a lot easier to do things like that but for it to be disqualifying or even partially disqualifying it just seems like there's a whole different calculus about that oh you can show me a tweet and it is disqualified or text messages perhaps we're talking about virginia that are very very different than that but something that's an opinion something like this it's just a very again it feels like we're still in the feeling out process yeah of figuring out what voters think about stuff oh yeah right and i wouldn't even out people I hope you give me credit for saying this isn't even necessarily redound the race.

Remember nude Africa, a homeboy nude Africa? Yeah, I mean. Mark Robinson. Yeah, Mark Robinson. Like, it just like some, I'm going to vote for this guy. I don't, I don't need to tell you. I don't care that he, I mean, we really, I mean, given the in light of the last few news cycles, I mean, I guess the real test of this is going to be like if you ever praised Hitler

in a group chat that somehow gets out. Like when if people, we may. Maybe get into the point that even that doesn't matter, but I guess we'll find out. The flare for performance from Mondani is very striking. You mentioned the Fox News interview where he looks into the camera. I'm going to address you directly. This soundbite is one that he dropped on the head of Andrew Cuomo during last week's debate. Sir Mondani would want to respond?

And if we have a health pandemic, then why would New Yorkers turn back to the governor who sent seniors to their death in nursing homes? That's the kind of experience that's on offer here today. What I don't have an experience, I make up for an integrity. And what you don't have an integrity, you could never make up for an experience. It's so funny because when you have those moments in a debate, usually, you can just feel the politicians' gears grinding. Right. I hear is my sound bite.

Now I will deliver the sound bite. This will get applause. And with Mom Donnie, it's almost like that's every single answer. Because he's such a good talker. Yeah. It's almost a string of soundbites rather than, oh, and, and, to, you know, kind of find my way through the other questions, then I'll have a few moments during a debate. Yeah. And I, you know, I haven't seen every time he's ever talked publicly,

but he did, he seems like a guy who doesn't very often stumble when he's talking, right? Like, I'll never see him just have to, okay, like, let me reload that sentence and start all over again. He's very clipped. Again, performance. I mean, he's from a family of people who have talked and, you know, perform in front of people for a long time. So I bet that helps too. And as a journalist, don't you find people like that are harder to enter? view than people who aren't good talkers. So I always think on those stories that it's almost, I remember Ezra Edelman saying that he was kind of hoping

that he would never get the chance to talk to O.J. For that 10-part series, because it would just make it, it would have made it worse. Because now I got to include OJ stuff in it. And so sometimes, like, that's the, you wonder what it would be like if somebody decided to do a mom-dawning profile without talking to mom-digning. It's funny because I will talk to people like that,

And you'll have what you feel is like a really, really productive conversation. Yes. Because the conversation itself goes. The person answers every question. They talk a lot. Oh, yeah. And then you get home and you like have three hours of tape and you're like, wow, do I, how much quotable material do I actually have in here?

Right. We had a great conversation, but does any of this look good in a story? And sometimes you'll have an interview that's like pulling teeth. And it's somebody who's very, very difficult to interview. They challenge the questions. They don't say very much a very clip. But you get home and you realize everything. is usable.

Yep. Because they actually were saying interesting thing. They were addressing your questions head on. To your, I don't remember basic. Very few quotes from these stories that I remember of, are from him now that you mention it. Yeah. Right?

Like, it's usually the people around him. And this is for somebody who's very available. Yeah. Right. Who was around answering questions. Absolutely. We struck in Herndon's piece when he talked about how conciliatory many of Mom Donnie's politics are.

He's got very, very ambitious ideas. Right. But he is very, very quick to wrap that in conciliatory language. It's interesting because later in that story, Ested talks about how he's already being called a sellout on certain parts of the left. And I'm just, I think that's maybe going to be the next story. You know, once he actually comes to power and has to deal with you, I mean, you have this huge army of people that are inclined to not like you. You're going to have to deal with them. Donald Trump is going to make life difficult for you.

And you can imagine that there are going to be these stories, you know, the people that say that he's consideratory now. And then there'll be the Democrats that we told you. We told you that guy. So it's all you can kind of see like what the conflict is going to be coming up. Yeah. It's interesting. Like he has, you know, part of it's a talent too, right? Like he's talking about big companies and whether they'll leave New York.

That's one of the scarce stories. All the capital is going to flee in New York. If he gets elected mayor. There's going to go Cincinnati, man. And he turns it around and says, well, you know, those big companies hire lots of young people. people to come work for them. And if they can't afford to live in New York, then that's going to hurt young companies, then hit the big companies because they're not going to be able to hire the young people that they want. And like, oh, that was an interesting little right turn there.

Yeah. Yeah. He figured it out. Right. But yeah, he's, I mean, he's a very gifted dude, man. You know, just that. But yeah, I could imagine you like spend this time with them and you kind of like, you know, you fall in love with the people that flatter your questions and you talk to him for a long time. and then it's just like, I don't know if I got anything that anybody will care about because the reader doesn't care if we got to be friendly. All right, let's talk to somebody who's actually talked to Momdani for more. All right, Joel, let us bring in our guest. He is Eric Latch.

He is a New Yorker staff writer. He's got a great story in the current issue of the magazine. Ready or not about, wait for it, Zeran Mamdani. Eric, welcome to the press box. Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. We've been talking about Momdani as a media phenomenon. So what stood out to you about the experience of interviewing, Mom Dani?

Yeah. You know, he is, I am not the only person who has interviewed him in the past couple of months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As you may have noticed, there have been a few articles about the guy. And so, you know, I think, I think as anybody who is in that experience of being in the center of the universe and the center of the storm and for him how quickly he has found himself in that position. I mean, I think the thing that stood out interviewing him, talking to him, both before the primary and then since the primary, the summer and fall, it's like discipline.

Like the guy knows how to tell a story, obviously knows how to connect with an audience, but he also has this, you know, he has what he wants to say and sticks to that, you know, kind of, kind of, I mean, you know, politicians, it's, even in the context of politicians, he's careful, he is shrewd, he is on message. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, I'm my takeaway. Joel and I noticed that both with his interview with Martha McCallum on Fox and at the Democratic debate. So when you have a subject who's bringing every single answer back to the subject of affordability, how do you navigate that as an interview? Yeah. You know, I think it becomes just more about the story. You know, my piece is a profile. So, you know,

the premise was to just kind of run the story back from the beginning and just try to think about his life biographically, his life politically, his life in the context of New York City politics, American politics. And so I was trying to think about the things that he is already saying in those contexts. It's not like, you know, I wasn't going to, you know, I wasn't going in like, He invited me over to his apartment for dinner, and we were going to have sort of a conversation, just the two of us. But I didn't imagine that I would get the Barbara Walters moment

of having him, like, cry in front of me. Like, this guy was probably not going to break, you know? So I think that the thing was more just trying to do some reporting and think about some of these stories that I wanted to tell him the piece, and then just bring them to him and see what he, thought of some of these stories, some of these conclusions that I was thinking about, you know, themes that I were coming up, you know, in the reporting and just try to bounce that stuff off and see, see what he made of it. So, you know, and I'm always like this when I start

with the story, I profile. And so I start with just the longest list of people that I could call or would like that call. And it can easily get up to like 200 people, right? Because you're just, Also, because you're kind of looking for obscure but important people in their life. So, like, how did you come up with your source list? And how did you decide who to talk to? Like, how many people did, like, who's somebody that you wish you could have made into the story that didn't? Yeah. So I, you know, I read about New York City and New York City politics for the New Yorker.

So that's, like, my background. And so my, I feel a. I thought that was the sort of way in for me. Like my sources are, you know, I know people who've worked in city halls, you know, have been around city politics. And that's sort of the world that he's navigating and upending and sort of breaking into. And so I, that was like the political aspect, you know, and then thinking about biographical, you know, I just,

I just tried to map the stops that he made along the way. So one thing that happened is that he had had this, he did this podcast that was bouncing around after he won the primary. It was recorded a couple years after he graduated from college. A friend of his did an oral history project about the high school that they had gone to together, Bronx Science, which is a test in public high school in the Bronx. And Zoran, who was like 25, had given this like candid interview to his buddy, like 10, 12 years ago about their like high school hyjinks and like experience of, you know, being teenagers in the city. And he mentioned this favorite teacher that he had who is named Mark Pagan, who taught him social studies, his freshman in senior year.

And I Google Mark Kagan. It turns out he's the brother of Elena Kagan. Oh, man. I know you felt like you struck gold, like when you come to that, yeah. You know, and it was, and so I, I basically,

I, I got in touch with Mark, and then I was sort of talking to Zoran's campaign, and I, I don't think this is speaking too much out of turn. I sort of proposed to them that we all hang out, that Zoran come and hang out with this former teacher, and I'd just be there kind of, like, to listen in.

And my thought was, again, thinking, Brian, your first question about, like, here's a guy who's, like, just completely oversaturated with, like, media interviews right now, you know, and like, what's another reporter going to ask? It's going to get illicit a kind of different sort of, you know, thing from the guy, you know, so I thought, well, maybe I'll just put him in conversation with somebody actually, you know, and just, and just see kind of what comes

in that context of just like observing him talking to somebody who he just knows from life. So we ended up going up to Bronx Science on a Saturday and walking around outside the school campus. And we talked about high school and social studies and, you know, learning history. Well, I just, you also talk to his parents. Was your first idea, can I talk with you and your mom? And then you ended up with Mr. Kagan or like was Mr. Kagan your initial target? You know, as you as you as you as you as you as you do, Joel, I kind of, I do, like, I am a list maker, you know, and I do kind of like try to just like build out this long list.

I ended up just emailing, you know, just just, just I sent a couple of questions and got a couple of responses from Zorn's dad, Mahmood, Mamdani. You know, that came, that came towards the end of the reporting. And it sort of was like something that I, you know, I basically, I was, I was, I was. was quoting from uh... uh... mood lumdani has a book that came out just just a couple weeks ago uh... that's sort of a you know he's he's a he's a academic and scholar of uh...

colonial and post-colonial african politics and and pan-Africanism and sort of geopolitics and he's got this book that just came out that's about um... Ediamine and Uganda and and then sort of his inner, you know, is sort of interspersed in his political analysis of Uganda, of the last half century, is sort of these bursts of memoir and kind of autobiographical writing

that sort of told a little bit of his story and his family's story and a little bit then of Zoron's story as, as consequence. And so I knew I wanted to quote from those. And, you know, because I was going to quote from, you know, it's like I hate to sort of like, you know, just quote somebody or use somebody's story without at least trying to reach out and say, you know, if you want to add something to this, you know, or I have some questions about this, you know, that I'm curious about sort of just an opportunity to just have a conversation about it. So that's how that came about. One of the most striking details in the story, Eric, was when Mom Dani went on Stephen Colbert's show right before the primary. For people who haven't read the piece yet, what happened? And how did you find Mom Dani reacted to that incident? So this was just to set the scene a little bit.

A couple weeks before the primary, you know, Zoran's, he's rising the pulse, right? So it's like, obviously something's happening. But at that point, still, Andrew Cuomo, the first, former governor of New York is still kind of like the frontrunner and like everybody, everybody in New York City politics is like, Cuomo's going to win. I mean, yeah, okay, Mamdani is like surprising everybody and he's got all this momentum. He's got all this excitement. But like the idea that he was actually going to win was really almost up until the primary day

itself kind of like almost unthinkable for lots of people in New York City politics. But a few weeks for the primary as as Momani's momentum is building, he pulls this political maneuver with one of his fellow candidates in the race, the New York City controller, Brad Lander, where they cross-endors. So, pardon the wonkiness, but, like, New York City's got this ranked choice voting system that's sort of newfangled and basically allows people to vote for multiple candidates, sort of in order of preference. And there's all kinds of theories about, like, the different strategy that goes into that

kind of running in elections that use ranked choice voting. And so one of the things that the candidates, not. named Cuomo this time tried to do is basically run as like a united front like kind of like anyone but Cuomo and then sort of as part of that effort sort of in the in the last days of the campaign mom Donnie and Lander cross endorsed each other and said you know vote me number one but vote vote vote the other guy number two and just make sure to get Cuomo down down the list like don't don't vote for Cuomo and you know that was intended I think Um, you know, I, I think it was, it was a gesture, particularly from Lander who was like a long time New York City politician, a very prominent Jewish politician in New York as a kind of gesture of like normalcy about Mundi's sort of a response to kind of the people who are like exotifying or making Mumdani into kind of a boogeyman.

It was sort of like, well, Brad Lander likes the guy, you know, how bad, how bad could he be? Um, and so, and and and and so, you know, like that, that was that the, the, the move the gamble was to kind of. of show everybody feels good can feel good about this and um a few days after they do that um they get like real validation what they think is validation for the maneuver when they get invited basically they get a call from the producers of the late show with stephen colbert and they're going to be uh you know they're invited to come on the program and and basically it's not going to be an endorsement like colbert's not going to endorse but it's going to be basically it's going to air the night before the Tuesday primary, Monday night. It'll be Mombani and Lander

next to Stephen Colbert, like, you know, in this big prominent venue. You know, and Colbert is just like a, you know, he obviously plays a, you know, is a prominent figure in a political way now, you know, in our country. And so a few days before the taping, there's a, you know, this is what I described in the article.

the producers hold a prep call with the candidates with Mumdani and Lander and some of their aides. And the questions are, you know, they do a test run of questions. This is like the way this works. You know, it's like I did a podcast, you know, some, even podcasts do this, right? You know, it's like you get a call from a producer and they kind of go over some sample questions just to get a feel for like what the contours are going to be and make sure that people don't ramble on the way I'm rambling on now. And so everybody leaves this prep call feeling good. And then the day the taping arrives Monday, and they're in the green room at the Ed Sullivan Theater in Midtown Manhattan.

And the producers show up a few minutes before Lander and Mounda are going to go on stage. And they say, we want to go over a couple more prep questions. And that day, the Colbert, you know, that day, the late show had gotten, basically, there had been an open letter from some prominent figures in the Jewish community, sort of demanding that Colbert grill Mamdani about his views on Israel. And sort of did not go easy on him is basically the message that's delivered. And in the green room, basically, the producers say, we've got some more sort of prep questions that we want to go over.

And they say that there's been this idea to do a kind of thumbs up, thumbs down segment. And the sample questions are thumbs up, thumbs down, Hamas, like thumbs up, thumbs down, like, you know, a Palestinian state. And Mamdani and his team are dismayed. Um, you know, there, there, there as, as Mumdani says, you know, I quote in the piece, you know, that he feels like this is, you know, a, he feels like this is a genocide being reduced to a kind of like a late show bit. Um, and it just is kind of like this crystallization of just like, you know, kind of this, all these questions of, of like context and, um, and, and, and, and an audience and like, and like, you know, kind of like, like, you know, kind of like, like, like, kind of like, like, like, politics running into culture and like kind of like how we talk about these things and who gets a chance to ask the questions and which kinds of questions are asked and you know mom dani's team in the in the green room flipped out they were very upset and and ultimately like the

thumbs up thumbs down segment doesn't doesn't happen colbert asks him ask momdani a question that he'd been asked repeatedly during the course of the campaign about whether he believes Israel has a right to exist and Mom Dani offers sort of the version of the answer that he had offered, that he believes it has a right to exist as an equal, as a state with equal rights for all, which implicitly feels like is not the case right now. And it sort of leaves it at that. But it's, it kind of like, you know, I think it was,

to me it was important to include in the piece because I do think it, it a it shines a light back on on on journalists and the way that that we you know kind of approach these questions and frame these questions and and and and and and and sort of what we choose to belabor and what we don't you know and kind of how that plays out um and you know to this question of like how do you get them to talk about something he hasn't talked about you know it's like do you want to ask the question that have been asked over and over again or do you ask a new question how do you how do you move the conversation forward And I think also it sort of illustrates the, you know, one of the key clashes of this election in New York and also sort of its resonance more broadly, which is this like big dispute in the Democratic Party about Israel's war in Gaza and how Democratic Party leaders in particular talk about it and how democratic, how that relates to how lots of Democratic Party voters feel about it, you know, their opinion on it.

and sort of the disconnects between between those things. So that's my, that's my long, that's my long spiel on this. What has the response? Because I'm guessing you probably felt, and I don't want to put words into your mouth, but did you feel pressure to sort of grill him and make him uncomfortable? Right. Because I'm guessing that the temptation is to write something that is overly flowery about the guy, right? Because he's such an impressive person.

and he's really good at like, you know, talking to the camera and talking to people. So did you feel any pressure to be like, do I need to have some sort of conflict here? Because you actually do have like a very, I mean, a great quote from her. With somebody, Jessica Ramos calls him, basically calls him lazy.

I mean, right? But right, but did you have any of that sort of like, do I need, where's the, you know, where's the tension here? I think, you know, and if, you know, people who read the article can tell me if they disagree. I think I you know I look the election the win in the primary is like an astonishing thing and he figured a lot of stuff out and he's had like a lot of real insights into like New York City politics and I think that's first and foremost you know and kind of like what this story is about right now you know when it comes to like what has he done over the course of his career or more importantly I think like how is he going to govern New York City and deal with things like the gigantic New York City police department you know and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and be in charge of that and be the boss of that, those are really worthwhile questions to press on, you know, and worthwhile conversations to have. And it doesn't do anybody any good

to wait on those questions, you know, because it's like come January 1st, if he's the mayor, which is likely to be the case, you know, it's like anything can happen. And those, and these, these things are going to come up in real time, like incredibly quickly, you know. So it's like, it's like there's a, I think, a public interest in, in, pressing on, you know, on, on, on those kinds of things. You were joking about how other people are writing about Mom Dani. I've got a stack here of the three recent profiles, New York, or Vanity Fair.

What's it like to write a profile when you know that other people are writing the same profile or a similar profile at the same time? It's a good story. There's all sorts of stuff going on, you know? It's like, I mean, you know, a buddy of mine, I'm going to give him credit for it, even though he didn't say his buddy of mine, Ben Terrace. who's a writer at New York Magazine now, said to me a long time ago, and this had been something that somebody else had told him.

So, you know, passing on the wisdom, you know, everything's everything has already been written about everywhere. You know, it's like, it's like, it's like, you know, it's, yeah, it's like, this is a big interesting story, you know, it's like, I don't know. You didn't get, you didn't get bummed, though. Did you get bummed when you were like, oh, you gave that guy time to, right? I mean, you didn't ever. Because sometimes like, oh, I.

thought this was going to be a little bit. I mean, you know that there's limitations, right? He's I mean, he's available to the world. He's going to be the, you know. It's competitive. Yeah, right. No doubt it's competitive. You can't, you can't assume exclusivity, but you didn't, you don't, you don't really get pissed. I was like, oh, man, they're really writing about it. You know, like, does that ever kind of, because that, at least that's not great. You know, this, this is a very unique, you know, very unique circumstances for, like, the mayor of New York City to be, like such a media phenomenon, like such a media phenomenon, you know, it's like, it's like the mayor of New York City is often a political celebrity in like lots of

different ways, you know, and people know LaGuardia's name and people remember Ed Koch and David Dinkins, you know, God knows Giuliani, you know, it's like, like, it's not that like, no, this like it's, but still, it's like, this is like a very, very unique and fascinating and, you know, just full, full of stuff. So I just felt like there's just like these stories, you know, it's like, and that stories all ended up being kind of, it's interesting that there's overlap, you know, in sort of ways. They all end up being kind of different stories, you know. So that story in the Times Magazine was good.

James Polk's story in Vanity Fair was good. You know, David Friedlander in New York Magazine's done like a bunch of good stories on this. It's plenty to go around, I think. I got one more for you, Eric. When you turned in this draft, did you know the New York? Did you know the New Yorker capitalized the word heaven? No, I did not. I turned it in.

I turned it in lowercase. That was one of my favorite typographical moment in the story. It really was. They always, the copy desk likes to throw you a curveball. God bless them. Eric's story is in the October 20 issue of the New Yorker, ready or not. Eric, thanks for coming on the press box. Thanks for having me, guys.

That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Produce and Magic by Brian Waters, aka B-dub. B-dub. Wish you were here, man. So much fun to see you, Joel. Hopefully I can buy you some dinner tonight. Oh, look at that.

You already got me these cookies, man. I've been, I'm a middle-aged dad. I've just been eating bullshit for a whole two years. But, I mean, this is the one treat that I've been so excited about. So this is Yoko Bokofloid for food. Yeah, well, it's a little, yes, the food version of the yellow buckle. Yeah, we do that dinner, all that, man. Let's get it.

Let's get it. We meet you up next Thursday with more lukewarm takes about the video. Sounds good.