Today, Explained - A sit-down with Zohran Mamdani

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

New York City's Democratic socialist mayor takes office on January 1. Can he follow through on all those campaign promises? We ask him. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru and Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Danielle Hewitt and Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Astead Herndon.
 Photo of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani by Spencer Platt/Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. You will get access to Vox's Patreon account where you can get watch the full video of the interview with Mayor-elect Mamdani right now. If you’re already a Vox Member, check your email to set up your complimentary Patreon account. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, so you may have heard. New York City gets a new mayor this week, 34-year-old Democratic Socialist, Zoran Mamdani. Mamdani's election was one of the biggest wins for the left in 2025. But since then, he's been quietly going about a new task, trying to make sure his sweeping campaign promises can actually happen. An agenda that will freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants. Make buses fast and free.

and deliver universal child care across our city. I'm a little skeptical about how he's going to get everything done. I think that's what a lot of people are. Promise so many things. Yeah, like free buses and housing and all that. Promises, promises. Can this new kind of politics succeed? Or is this from Donnie's high point, the days before he gets into office?

On this episode of Today Explained from Box, we sit down with New York City's mayor-elect and ask him directly. Is he for real? You're listening to Today Explained. We're going to sit down with Zoramam Dani in a minute. But first, our producer, Peter Balan-Rosen, is here to tell us about a pretty unique event he went to that the mayor-elect recently held.

Peter, hit me. So it was this marathon listening session where over the course of 12 hours, Mom-Dani sat face-to-face with over our 140 New Yorkers, three minutes at a time, at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Now, this choice of venue, it's pretty notable because this is a museum dedicated to movies, TV, Hollywood, the moving image. It's a place built to pay respects to spectacle. So I was curious going in, is this Mamdani event just spectacle too, or could it be something more?

Inside, we had volunteers checking people in. There were guys giving out chai tea who chugged caffeine to be there real early. Red Bull tea, everything. I'm good to go for three days. Most of the people I ran into, they were Mamdani super fans. There had been this Instagram post telling people they could sign up for this event, and within 10 minutes, every single spot was full. And for the people here, one-on-one with the next mayor, it was pretty exciting stuff. Oh, it's surreal, honestly. I'd followed his campaign so closely.

I shouted on my wife and my kids, and he wrote down all their names. This is a 12-hour event. I hope he has bathroom breaks. I grabbed Samina Kadir after she left her three minutes sit down with Mom And she said they spoke in Urdu, her native language. Saying you give us hope, happiness, peace of mind, that is enough. What did he say to you? He cried. Really?

I saw he has a good heart. That's enough for me. So for Samina and others, it seemed to be about the feeling that they got out of this, the emotional response. It seems as if Mamdani was trying to create a sense of community between campaign and supporters. Did you talk to anyone who had issues? that they wanted addressed for Mamdani. Did you meet anyone who was also wondering whether this was all just spectacle?

Yeah, I spoke with Ricky Kadir, no relation to Samina. He was that wife and kids guy from just earlier. And he was here to tell Mom Doni that the universal child care that Mom Dani campaigned on was going to be crucial. But he did also see the public performance of this event. We're at the Museum of Moving Image, right? So, I mean, of course, there's some performance of picking this. Mom, Doni's team says the idea for this did actually come from performance art. It was inspired by Marina Abramovich, the performance artist.

She had this piece where for months she sat at the MoMA, from open to close. People could come sit across from her while she just sat there. And the art was the public's reaction to her. Even if it is just performance art and they want to, like, get donations. They put this up on Instagram and get donations. I mean, like, there are worse ways to do it, right? And people definitely brought their concerns. All right, so I got to be honest.

You're the only one I've seen here in a suit today. Suit, because there's the official decorum, I mean. Journal Abedon was looking pretty official, bright blue suit, mint green shirt, matching tie. He's a small homeowner and said he's been having issues with his tenants. I know he's not in the office yet. We can just inform him. And the end of the day, we will give the report card what he did.

You're watching? Yes, of course. one-on-one sessions, 142 New Yorkers, 12 hours, it's all pretty remarkable. No one I spoke to had experienced anything like this in local, state, or national politics before. And having that feeling of Mom Dani, in their corner, open to their concerns, it seemed to be working for folks. At least for now, before he's had any chance to let them down. Instead, how are you? I'm doing well, Mayor Elect. How are you? Thank you for joining us.

I was trying to be the host for a second. My plan with talking to the Mayor-elect was to figure, out how he's going to avoid letting New Yorkers down, especially considering how much hope was surrounding his campaign. But I also wanted to figure out how he makes this agenda happen once he's sworn into office three days from now. Well, we're glad to talk to you at this point because, you know, we want to focus on the transition, not only how you all have conducted it, but also you're thinking about how it informs the term ahead. We know that kind of mayoral transitions can sometimes be the high watermark for elected officials. I recently saw that you

or plus 15 in your own favorability? How do you reverse what has been a historic trend? How do you make sure that this moment in office, that you're taking office, is not the end of something but the beginning? You know, I think I am aided by the fact that I have not given much weight to polls and favorability in the past, which is part of the reason why I'm sitting in front of you.

So I think it comes back to the fact that we ran a race on an affordability agenda. It spoke to New Yorkers living in the most expensive city in the United States. We have to now deliver on that agenda. I think kind of the premise of your point is that this is the moment of hope and then the question of what comes next. And even beyond the transition as a high watermark, oftentimes campaigns, there's already a temptation of nostalgia for what the campaign was. We have to ensure the campaign is not the story we look back on. It's the path to the story that we've yet to start.

And I think that comes back to delivery. That comes back to freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, delivering universal childcare. You have to transform people's lives in a way that they can actually touch and feel and hold on to so that they're not just grasping at the memories of what the struggle was like. I feel like the first clues of how you all plan to do that came in the transition. You all had some unique moments putting on these explanatory videos about semi-mundane, kind of process things, baseball cards for staff appointments.

We were at the event that you all held last week at the Museum of Moving Image. Why do that stuff? What is the goal of those type of events? I think there's a temptation when you win. We've seen it in the past to say, now trust me, you can go home. The point of me winning is that you don't have to worry about politics anymore. The point of me winning is we keep fighting for the same agenda together. And that means you bring people along with you and you also demystify what it is that you're

doing. I mean, this transition period is probably the most opaque period, typically, because it's between a campaign and governance, and most New Yorkers are never brought into it. Yeah, it's usually insiders only. Yeah, and I think that's both in the way that it's funded, and it's the way that it's also spoken about. And we wanted New Yorkers to be at the heart of that because most people didn't even know that there's no public funding for transitions. And I've had so many people ask me, what do you mean you have to pay for office space? What do you mean you have to pay for payroll, health care, inauguration. These are often things that are not brought up because you fundraise in the manner of previous administrations whose average donations were north of $1,000

per person. And ours, you know, I think more than 95% of our donations are below $250. And I think that's just, that is one aspect of how you bring people into this. Sounds like the demystifying efforts are connected to what, you know, has been described as inside out strategy that, to the goal of delivering, you feel as if you have to keep the public engaged, you have to keep that public pressure going. You do. And I think there's often a description as if the campaign ends and governance begins with the implication that you leave people behind. And in many ways, you have to keep going in the same kind of manner. I mean, how does that get harder once you're in office? Do your point about the way that the campaigns and transitions kind of create a sense of unity,

you know, once the inauguration happens, you know, everything becomes Mayor Mumdani's problem. How do you make sure how do you reverse the trend of public disengaging at that moment? I think you have to do the work to create actual opportunities for engagement as opposed to vague invitations. For 12 hours, I sat at the Museum of the Moving Image and I listened to New Yorkers. More than 140 New Yorkers came to share their stories with me. And the point of that is not just to say, I listened. It's to actually take what they're saying and then act upon it. And some of the concerns were large. They were the concerns. They were the concerns. of undocumented New Yorkers sharing with me

the immense fear that they live with on a day-to-day basis. And I think this idea that, in fact, governing could be informed by the people you're governing for as opposed to treating New Yorkers as if they're just subjects. And also the understanding that in order for people to act upon something, they have to know about something. We even take that approach to rights. You know, in this moment when so many New Yorkers

are fearful of ICE agents and the potential of immigration enforcement as we've seen it take place across the city, we thought it was important to remind every New Yorker of their own rights. And so that the only way they can exercise them is if they know about them. Yeah.

You know, is there any argument, though, that like, you know, this is a little glitz and glamour. I mean, our folks were there. These were largely supporters of yours. I want to hear more about, like, did you hear criticism? Did you hear any critiques of your campaign from some of those New Yorkers you set down with?

What's set with you that wasn't necessarily something that was already part of your agenda. You know, any gathering of New Yorkers has to have some critique. Otherwise, you know, it's not a gathering of New Yorkers. And I think there's critique in a fear of, are you going to be able to deliver on these things?

Because there's a fear of, should I have believed in this? And my job, and our job in building a team, is to showcase the seriousness with which we took those commitments and how we actually deliver them. You know, one New Yorker spoke to me about how their number one concern was about casinos, you know, and I shared with them that I myself am skeptical of the economic development promises that come with casinos. And I also know that

there's a referendum that was passed by voters that creates the citation of three casinos within New York City. And I can't actually change that myself. And the frustration of knowing that this is something that person does not want and you cannot help them. And that's also part of what it looks like is to be honest with people, even when that honesty isn't what they want to hear from you, you, part of the reason why so many people are disengaged with our politics is there is a lack of honesty within the way in which we talk about it and the way in which we even explain it. I know that you have been a legislator but not an executive and back when I was doing the profile over the summer, I know that you were talking to people

about what leadership means, about how to grow as an executive. I wanted to hear, can you sharing that advice with us? What steps did you take to close a gap to feel prepared for stepping into his moment, and do you? I think the key thing that I was told again and again is the importance of the team around you. And I think the other part of the advice that I've received is that you actually listen to people, that you actually bring New Yorkers along with you.

Because our campaign was not just about reaching out to those who haven't voted in a long time. It was also reaching out to those who haven't voted at all. And that's an opportunity to show people that political engagement has to extend beyond the ballot box. It is not just one moment in one year that you come back to every four years. It is something that requires a participation and engagement.

And in the same way that New Yorkers won this election, not me, New Yorkers will win this agenda, not just me. I know that you previously had said that you wanted a team that did not have policy litmus test, that you wanted folks with differing opinions. Has that transition team, has the staff you put in place lived up to that? Absolutely. I think you'll see that appointments are not simply a reflection of myself. And I think there's a tendency sometimes to just look to reproduce yourself, your ideas, your preferences in each and every person you hire. What you do if you're to do that is create the conditions where everyone in the room is measured by the quickness with which they can say yes to you and yes to any one of your ideas. You need to build a team where people can also say no to you, where people can push you, where you are able to have the debate inside the room.

as opposed to waiting to have the debate outside the room. And I think that in the appointments we've made thus far, it's not demanding alignment on each and every issue. It's asking, do you believe in the agenda at hand? And do you believe, do you have a vision for this specific position that shows you can fulfill that? You know, at the same time, there's folks who have been frustrated with that

that's thought that some of this coalition building, even among your appointments, has maybe betrayed the movement that got you here. I'm thinking about the appointment of Jessica Tisch's police commissioner. I'm thinking about a vocal, a rejection of a Democratic challenger to Hakeem Jeffries in Brooklyn. My question is, like, have you had to embrace a different side of yourself? Do you hear any of the critiques that we're seeing insider Mamdani these days? You know, I think you have to first and foremost take these critiques in good faith. That is how you become removed from the reason you did this in the first place.

When you engage with it, you separate and from the good faith from the bad faith. And I think taking this at the good faith, I understand the criticism that those have shared. I also think that it is important that it's not just a reproduction of self in every single appointment and that we understand that, for example, with the NYPD, my decision in retaining Commissioner Tish is a decision on the basis of looking at her record, of coming into an NYPD that the Adams administration had stacked the upper echelons of with corruption. and incompetence and starting to root that out while lowering crime across the five boroughs, making this decision not only in recognition of that, but also to fulfill the larger public safety vision that we had laid out over the course of the campaign, which focused on the creation of a department of community safety that will tackle the mental health crisis, the homelessness crisis. This is also a decision that is not one that is in tension with the

commitments I've made specific to the NYPD, like the disbanding of the strategic response group. Those things still happen. That still happens. And I think that's what's important to make clear to New Yorkers is that the things that we campaigned on, these are still things that we will fulfill. We will do so with the teams that we're building around us. One question I had is like, there's so much national and international focus on both campaign and I think your administration going for, but it's such a hyper-local job, you know? how do you balance what will be the intense attention with the reality of who you're serving?

You have to remember not just that reality, but the point of this is to serve this city, right? It's not like a reality check. It's the reason why I did this. It's the reason why it was possible to weather difficult moments because it's all in service of a city that I love. There's some days where it's hard to believe that my job is traveling around New York City and meeting New Yorkers and listening to their concerns and having the opportunity to act upon them. And I also think the greatest thing you can do is the power of example

of what you can do, what you can succeed, what you can deliver. Because what we're talking about right now, the growing sense amongst New Yorkers that politics is irrelevant to their day-to-day struggles, the inability for our political system

to deliver on crises large and small, These are not uniquely New York issues. These are issues that people feel outside of the city, outside of this country, and we have an opportunity to show that by serving New Yorkers, we can also showcase a politics that can serve working people wherever they may be. Coming up, I asked Soramam Dani about what success or failure looks like in his new administration. We're back. We're back. It's today explained. I'm Aestead Herndon, here with Mayor-elect Zora Mamdani. I want to look ahead.

You know, how would you define the priorities for your agenda, what would you define a success or failure for the Mamdani administration? It comes back to affordability. The priorities have to be the fulfillment. Are those the three parts? Are we talking about buses, child care? What am I missing? Hit them, come on. Buses, child care, rent freeze. But what about things like the publicly subsidized grocery stores? Is that priority too? That is a priority. So it's all of the above when we think about the campaign promises.

I would say that the first order of priorities, like ranking best friends. The first order of priority are the three that we built the campaign around. Okay. There are obviously other commitments we made in addition to that. You know, five city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough. The fulfillment of these things are not just critically important because you're fulfilling what animated so many to engage with the campaign to support the campaign, but also because of the impact it can have on New Yorker's life. There's a lot of politics where it feels like it's a contest around narrative. That when you win something, it's just for the story that you can tell of what you won, but so many working people can't feel that victory in their lives. The point of a rent freeze is you

feel it every first of the month. The point of a fast and free bus is you feel it every day when you're waiting for a bus that sometimes never comes. The point of universal child care is so that you don't have to pay $22,500 a year for a single toddler. These are not things I have to explain the worth of to you or an intellectual victory. It is a material one. And so to me, when we talk about the struggles of our democracy, when we talk about a withering faith in it as a political system, we have to understand that the withering of that faith

is intensely connected to the inability of that system to deliver on the needs of the people of it. So success is the big three promises. Success is the big three. What about political goals? I mean, I was Lily on cable news today and they're talking about the Mundi Wing

of the Democratic Party and they're talking about all, you know, challengers facing incumbents and the goal of spreading kind of progressivism, I think specifically socialism across the country. Is that a goal you share? Like, do you look out at those challengers and say that is the Mumdani Wing? I think that anyone fighting for working people and fighting for a politics that doesn't just

think of working people but puts them at the heart of what it is that we're doing is critically important anywhere in this country. I think that for me, this is a moment in time where we have to reckon with why people feel this way about politics. and there is oftentimes an inability to reckon with the failures that have come before us because they implicate a lot of what we're doing right now. But the implication is that part of your political project

is to spread across the country and to Congress, is that? I mean, part of my political project is to spread the fight for working people everywhere. And I think that can mean new candidates. It can also mean a renewed belief amongst those who are already there to fight. You know, one of the things I also wanted to ask is like it feels like core to the kind of democratic parties

questions of moving forward has been to what to take from your campaign. I have heard people say everything from it's all about social media to kind of separate from the substance. I actually want to read you a quote and have you respond to it. Is this mean tweets or good tweets? No, no, no, not tweets at all.

People who just said... I think if my party wants to learn lessons from Mamdani's success that are portable to a place like Michigan where I live, it's less about the ideology and more about the message discipline of focusing on what people care about

and the tactical wisdom of getting out there and talking to everybody. I wanted to know, do you think this is true? Like, when we get outside of New York, are we thinking that it's less about substance of campaign than tactics? Or can we separate those things? I don't think you can fully separate the medium

and the message. I think that that person is correct that you have to have a politics that relates to working people's lives and their struggles. It can't be one that needs to be translated. I would also say that, yes, there are far more New Yorkers who do not ask me about how I describe my politics and more they ask me, do I fit in that politics? I also think, however, that if all we did was make videos without a vision, an affirmative vision of how working class New Yorkers could afford

this city, then I wouldn't be seated across from you right now. There are aspects of this campaign that are very much focused on New York City, right? I don't know if there's a rent guidelines board anywhere else in this country that can freeze the rent for more than 2 million tenants. We do have these slowest buses in the country. We do have child care at costs that are astronomical. But the struggle for working people to afford day-to-day life,

to afford dignity in the city they call home, that's not New York City specific. And what I would say is, wherever anyone is, to ask the people around them, what is the example of that struggle in your life? and what are the tools, and then for you as the candidate to think about, what are the tools that government has to intervene in that, to actually provide relief to that? Because so often politics feels like an exercise in language and ideas that you need to have been at the last meeting to understand this meeting. And you actually need to meet people wherever they are and not explain to them why they should listen to you, but to actually have a vision that is intuitive for the struggles of their lives.

living through. I appreciate your time, and thank you for making time for us. You were very welcome. It was a pleasure to be here. This episode was produced by Ariana Osbadu and Peter Balinan Rosen, edited by Miranda Kennedy, fact-checked by Danielle Hewitt and Laura Bullard. And our engineers are Patrick Boyd and David Tadishore. You can get early access to the full video version of my interview with Mayor-elect

Mamdani right now over Patreon. go to patreon.com slash Fox to get access to this video and other exclusive reporting from Box. I'm a Stead Herndon, and this is today explained. this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu, it's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odu replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.

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