Title: City Politics: Mamdani's Emerging Opposition; Lander Announces Congressional Bid and More

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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Today, Elie Mystal will join us, justice correspondent for The Nation magazine, always a spicy guest. He will critique the Supreme Court for the latest winning streak they've given or seem about to give President Trump and the authors of Project 2025. Some of these cases you know about, some you may not. Elie Mystal in our second segment today. Also, the emerging strange bedfellows politics of AI.

President Trump, you've probably heard this, wants to ban states from having their own AI regulations, but approximately 50 states seem to want that, and your stories and feelings about self-checkout. An article in The Atlantic asks why some people use it even when the line for human cashiers is shorter. Are you one of those people? We'll talk about self-checkout near the end of the show.

We begin with our weekly Wednesday check-in for this month on the Mamdani transition, plus some other local politics with WNYC and Gothamist political reporter, Elizabeth Kim. There are so many stories we could get to. We'll see how many we can. The mayor-elect further clarifying his position on homeless encampments, his decision to actually move into Gracie Mansion, not every mayor does, his meeting this week with real estate executives about affordable housing that may have been more friendly than you might have imagined.

Why his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, apologized for something her brother said about Mayor-elect Mamdani and more. If he was saying something not nice, we have Vice President JD Vance complimenting Mamdani, really, in an NBC News interview last week. This hasn't gotten as much press as when Trump had the very friendly news conference. Vance said Mamdani is fascinating, used the word "fascinating," and while he might consider Mamdani a communist, he used the word "communist," he said at least Mamdani is actually listening to people, actually listening to people, which many politicians don't.

Vance said that's also true of Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna, another progressive Democrat. Interesting considering the source, and after Trump had that friendly news conference with Mamdani, here comes JD Vance on the heels of that. Inscrutable, perhaps, I can't figure it out, but interesting. Anyway. Hi, Liz. Happy Wednesday.

Liz: Happy Wednesday, Brian.

Brian: Before we even get to the mayor this week, you have some breaking news about Comptroller Brad Lander, I see. Want to share it with the listeners?

Liz: That's right. Brad Lander announced early this morning that he is running for Congress. He is running for Congress in a district that is the 10th congressional district. This is a district that covers lower Manhattan and parts of northwest Brooklyn. It's not really a surprise. There's been a lot of speculation that he was going to launch a run. He himself has said that he was interested in possibly exploring a run. This sets up a matchup that progressives have really been anticipating and wanting, and that's a matchup or a primary against Dan Goldman.

He is a moderate Democrat who's been critical of Zohran Mamdani over Israel and antisemitism. Just hours before, and I would just say yesterday evening, the Working Families Party held a vote to endorse Brad Lander. This was kind of setting up Brad's announcement this morning. This is going to test progressive momentum in a post-Mamdani world.

Brian: I see you have two clips. You have one of Brad Lander's announcement video this morning and one of the Working Families Party co-chair. We'll do the Brad Lander first. Does it need any more setup? You want to say anything else before we play that?

Liz: What I will say is, and I thought this was interesting, I read on social media this morning, Sally Goldenberg of POLITICO said that it was one of Mamdani's media strategists who helped Brad come out with this ad. I don't know if you'll get to it, but there's a Mister Rogers theme in it.

Brad Lander: I'm running for Congress because the challenges we face can't be solved with strongly worded letters or high-dollar fundraisers, and not by doing Apex bidding in a district that knows our safety, our freedom, our thriving is bound up together. Our mayor can have an ally in Washington instead of an adversary in his own backyard. At a moment of dark oppression, we can shine by fighting back together. While the oligarchy drives an affordability crisis, they shouldn't be able to buy a seat in Congress. While our neighbors are being demonized and attacked, we can put our bodies on the line to protect them. New York is for everyone.

Brian: That's all of that announcement that we have, but then he goes on to saying, "Won't you be my neighbor?" Something like that?

Liz: Yes. Listening to it, it sounds really slow, but if you actually watch the video, what you see is you see much in the style of Mamdani. You see Brad Lander moving through basically his neighborhood, fist-pumping someone working at a deli. Visually, it's an interesting ad. What I would also point out, and he kind of references in that ad by saying what New Yorkers need is they need someone who will be an ally to the mayor, not an adversary. Now, in the press release that he put out following that video, he does say that he has the endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, as well as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Brian: Will he have the endorsement of the Working Families Party? Here's María Archila, co-chair of the WFP, on why a progressive challenge to Congressman Goldman in the first place. Here's that.

María Archila: I would say that the policy difference that is most visible and that has created the most frustration is Congressman Goldman's rigidity around being able to listen to the voices in his district and across the country that were calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. He ultimately moved, but it took several months, over a year of a very active destruction and carnage in Gaza, for him to acknowledge the necessity of a ceasefire.

Brian: María Archila from the Working Families Party. Liz, clarify, did they formally endorse Lander's bid last night?

Liz: They did. I spoke to her prior to the vote, and then we spoke again after the vote, in which she confirmed that the members did, in fact, vote to endorse Brad Lander. Not only did they vote to endorse him, she told me it was overwhelmingly in favor of Brad Lander. I think what's interesting about her answer is she wastes no time in getting to Israel. In Brad's video himself, he also refers to Goldman's stance on Israel, and there's a little snippet of Brad holding a ceasefire sign. I think that it's very interesting that these two candidates and their stance on Israel is going to be a focal point of this race.

I do want to point out that there were other people weighing whether to enter the contest. That was Brooklyn City Council member Alexa Avilés, she is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and Yuh-Line Niou, the former state assembly member from Manhattan who nearly beat Goldman in 2022. Now, Yuh-Line Niou, late yesterday afternoon, actually said that she was not going to pursue a run. What she said it's interesting because she said that she had seen basically firsthand the damage that is caused by a fractured left. She, of course, is referring to the race in 2022 when it was a newly created seat. Because of redistricting, there were 13 candidates in that race, including former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

There were so many progressives in that race that they ate each other's support. Yet despite that, she came within three percentage points of coming close of beating Dan Goldman. This is one of the reasons why the Working Families Party has really been eyeing this seat. I think going back to 2022 and talking to progressives after her loss, they really saw this as a missed opportunity for them. There's a lot of meaning in this district for the Working Families Party. They consider this their stronghold, they consider this the birthplace of the WFP, and that's because a lot of their members live in this district, but especially the founders came from this district.

Brian: Avilés, too, says she will not run and potentially split the progressive vote with Lander against Goldman.

Liz: She has not said anything yet. There have been some reports that she is considering not entering the race after all. I do want to read a statement. I did get a text early this morning from a spokesperson for Dan Goldman. What he told me was that he objected to-- I wrote a story in which, at the top of the segment, I described Goldman as a moderate, but what he told me is he doesn't think that Goldman is remotely close to being a moderate by any definition of the word.

He's an original co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, universal child care, the Green New Deal for Public Schools, and has been pushing bills to tax millionaires and billionaires since the day he got to Congress. I think that will also be something that gets debated in this race. What defines a progressive in this moment?

Brian: He was a lead prosecutor, I think prosecutor is the right word, lawyer for the Democrats in the first Trump impeachment. He was on national television a lot in that context, in those congressional hearings.

Liz: That's really how he rode to victory in that 2022 race. He framed himself as someone who would stand up to Donald Trump. I asked Ana María Archila about that: "Do you not feel that he has lived up to that promise?" Her response was that he does have a respectable record on that, but that progressives want more from a representative in this district. She spoke to me about she feels he has not done enough to cultivate closer ties with labor unions and also community groups.

That will be something that I think gets talked about as well. When it comes to tackling the affordability crisis, now, you saw in that statement from Goldman, his spokesperson does mention that he has been fighting for a tax on the ultra-wealthy. I think in Archila's eyes, she says that it was only recently, and she doesn't think that in order to have someone who is laser-focused on the affordability crisis, they want someone in that position to really stridently lobby for a tax on the ultra-wealthy.

Now, important context here is Dan Goldman. He's an heir of the Levi Strauss family fortune. He used nearly $5 million of his own personal wealth in that 2022 race. He's going to be cast by progressives as a billionaire as part of that class. I don't know how he successfully breaks out of that. Perhaps he does point to his bills and the kind of lobbying he's done, but I don't know that he is seen as the vocal advocate or that he even is the best spokesperson for taxing the rich.

Brian: All right. Race engaged. Brad Lander versus Dan Goldman for the seat from Brooklyn that Goldman currently holds in Congress. I guess even with the Working Families Party endorsement of Lander last night, yet to be determined for sure anyway, if there are going to be any other progressive challengers to Goldman. On to the Mamdani transition, and let's start with homeless people encampments.

Mayor Adams has been doing sweeps. As many of our listeners know, Mayor-elect Mamdani said he would end those sweeps of tents, encampments, whatever you want to call them, that homeless people have set up around the city. We talked about this on yesterday's show, but then yesterday, after the show, Mamdani went into more detail about what he has in mind, and you brought a clip of that. Want to set it up?

Liz: Sure. Mamdani held a press conference yesterday ostensibly to talk about his meeting with business and real estate executives about building more affordable housing. What are the things that government can do to facilitate that? As anticipated, he was asked about his statements last week, which he made more than once, that he would end Adams's practice. I should actually clarify, it was not just Adams's practice. It was also the prior mayor, Bill de Blasio's practice of these homeless encampment sweeps, because it prompted a lot of criticism from not just, as you would expect, Mayor Adams, but it was really across the ideological spectrum.

The Daily News came out with an editorial, and even Vital City, which is this policy think tank and publication, came out with a little social media tweet that made the point, rightly so, I think, that homeless encampment sweeps can also connect people to services and/or housing, that it doesn't have to be just one thing. As we expected, he was asked about it and whether he wanted to maybe expand on what he meant by it.

Brian: Here we go.

Henry Rosoff: Where do you draw the line with ending sweeps? For example, if someone takes over a subway car or obstructs the entirety of a sidewalk, even then, are you opposed to an encampment sweep?

Zohran Mamdani: What I'm opposed to is the failure that we've seen to characterize the Adams administration's approach to this. What I'm opposed to is looking at an entire calendar year and seeing the Adams administration be unable to connect a single homeless New Yorker that was affected by those sweeps to permanent housing. In this conversation, what I spoke about with leaders within the real estate industry was the importance of us reducing the timeline of getting New Yorkers into affordable housing, because we cannot actually disentangle the question that we are speaking about right now with the 252 days that it takes to fill one of those units.

The quicker we can fill those units, the fewer New Yorkers we will have living outside. There is no question that these are not conditions that we are standing in right now that any New Yorker should be living in. The question, however, is whether we will be satisfied by just shuttling those New Yorkers to another equally cold place in our city or whether we want to connect them to housing.

Brian: Mayor-elect Mamdani yesterday. The reporter, by the way, who asked the question was Henry Rosoff from PIX11. Liz, there was a lot in that about what he's against from the Adams policy. How specific did he get about how he will try to connect people who are unhoused more effectively with housing than Adams did?

Liz: That was where he did not get into details. It's a little bit surprising because I think part of what he said about creating this new agency called the Department of Community Safety is he wanted a civilian agency to address homelessness in the subways and also mental illness, which they're often overlapping crises. It was a little surprising that he did not bring that up. I thought what he was doing was he was really focusing in on the criticism of what the sweeps have failed to do, which is what the Vital City point made, which was encampment sweeps can connect people to services and housing. What Mamdani is arguing is that under Adams, it has failed to do so.

Now, I was going through some of the reporting of my colleague, Karen Yi, who has done a lot of work on encampment sweeps under Adams. You can see from her reporting is that at one point, the city was averaging as much as 500 sweeps a month. They've been very dodgy on giving handing over the details to the city council. The city council has really been pushing them through legislation to be more transparent about how many sweeps they're doing and how many of the people who are removed from these encampments are actually connected to services.

What we do know from the reporting that Karen has done, and she's been able to get this information by filing freedom of information requests, is it's actually very little, of only a small fraction of the people have been connected to temporary housing. Now, the administration says you're not looking at the full picture and that it takes time. It takes time and maybe multiple sweeps and maybe multiple contacts with individuals to actually convince them to seek help either through a shelter or some other kind of service.

I think what Mamdani says is true, but it still does open up this debate is that is it okay for people to occupy areas that are either public or private property in these conditions that to some may look unsanitary, possibly dangerous? Is that okay? I think that that is something that he did not quite answer in that question, right?

Brian: Yes. I know it was faint in the audio, but the actual question was whether he would include subway cars where there's a concentration of apparently homeless people sleeping in one particular subway car that renders that car sort of an encampment. What would he do in that case? Would he let them just stay there? He didn't answer that [crosstalk].

Liz: No, because he is answering the question from the perspective of someone who is homeless or is housing-insecure. He is not answering the question from the perspective of someone who is sitting on a subway car where there are one or two people, as we do see, set up and sleeping in the subway. He's not answering the question from the perspective of the business owner who is operating a business and sees an encampment in front of him. This is definitely going to be an interesting area of policy to watch to see how he manages it.

I did ask, Kathy Wylde was at the meeting with Mamdani and the housing and business leaders, whether this came up during their conversation, and she actually told me it did not. She told me that she, over the weekend, had a conversation with, I don't know if it was Mamdani himself or maybe his team, about what his comment meant, because it was her understanding is that he would use this proposed Department of Community Safety to instead do the interactions rather than the NYPD, which is what is being done currently.

Brian: We have some calls coming in from people who want to comment or ask something on Brad Lander primarying Congressman Dan Goldman. Listeners, we'll open up the phones for anyone else, too. Questions or comments for Liz Kim on the Mamdani transition, Lander versus Goldman, or anything else relevant, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text. Jean in Brooklyn, you are on WNYC. Hi, Jean.

Jean: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I guess this is actually a very painful call for me to make because I've known Brad for 40 years. I like him very much. I think he would have made a great mayor. I voted for him for mayor and held fundraisers for him, but I'm very upset about his decision to run against Dan Goldman. Right now, our country is in crisis. We need to keep every strong anti-Trump Democrat in Congress, and we need to spend all of our money and all of our time trying to flip those few Republican seats that may be flipped and to protect the Democrats who are threatened.

I think this is just not the right decision. Dan Goldman is a perfectly fine congressperson. He's not a Working Families guy, but he's been on the right side of almost everything. We can't start having people arguing over. You have to be on the right side of everything to be elected. That's my view, and I have to say, share it

Brian: Let me follow up. I imagine Lander or the Working Families Party might say these are not mutually exclusive. They can fight against Republicans and swing districts, all that would be required, and still there's room for a Democrat to challenge another Democrat who they think is not right on enough issues or not aggressive enough on issues, and those two things are not mutually exclusive. What would you say to that?

Jean: I say in a way they are. Most of us don't have a lot of money to give out to candidates running for office. A lot of us don't have a lot of time. We have limited time and limited money, and we should be focusing on it, and that's for both the rich and the middle class who are able to give money to candidates. We should be focusing on those Democrats who are threatened or those Republicans who can be flipped this year.

This is the most important thing to do this year, and I'm very, frankly, surprised at Brad's decision. Also, Israel. I'm Jewish. I care a lot about antisemitism, et cetera. I care a lot about what Israel is doing in Gaza. I'm totally opposed to it, but this is not the major issue for us right now. We need to preserve our democracy if we have any hope of changing anything in Israel.

Brian: Jean, thank you very much for your call. It is interesting, Liz, that the challenger to Goldman, if issue number one is going to be his position toward Israel and US support of Israel with respect to Gaza, that Lander is Jewish. We should say that out loud. This is going to represent, I guess, the divide, and there is a divide. There are multiple positions, certainly, among various Jewish communities on policy toward the Middle East.

Liz: That's right, Brian. We saw this issue play out also in the mayoral race, where we had different candidates who were debating the definition of antisemitism. You're right, Brad Lander is--

Brian: Mamdani is a Muslim and didn't support Israel's right to exist. I don't think Lander takes that position, exist as a Jewish state.

Liz: Right, not to exist as a Jewish state.

Brian: The dynamic is going to be pretty different, I would think.

Liz: Yes, it will be different, but I think that that's what's interesting about this race, is how much is this still an animating issue? It will be an animating issue in this case, if it is just a head-to-head matchup between two Jewish New Yorkers who do have different stances on Israel, on the Gaza war. This question that Ana María Archila of the Working Families Party brought up, I thought was interesting, is the timeline of when Dan Goldman called for a ceasefire to her was important. I think her words were something-- His rigidity on this issue bothered her.

Brian: That it took him too long-

Liz: Exactly.

Brian: -to get into the ceasefire camp.

Liz: Yes, and will voters agree with that? He ultimately did come around. I was looking for his statement on that, and he did issue one, but will that matter to voters, that it took him a long time to come around on this?

Brian: Another caller on Lander challenging Goldman and the Working Families Party, immediately getting behind Lander from a different perspective, I think. David in Windsor Terrace, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi. Good morning. It's too bad for Brad that Mandani didn't choose him for his administration. In my opinion, the consolation prize shouldn't have been just total support for a congressional run against a popular and progressive candidate like City Councilwoman Alexa Avilés. I say that because, for instance, she already had to secure the all-important right now, it seems, DSA endorsement. There was a poll of young people that were major players in Mamdani getting elected that supported Alexa as well.

I feel with the retirement of La Luchadora, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, that Latinx communities, especially those in Sunset Park and the Lower East Side, the significant parts of New York, really need a strong champion now more than ever in Congress. Alexa has done a stellar job as chairwoman of the Immigration Committee. She's been against the genocide from the get. She's pro-ceasire also from the start.

If Palestine is going to be used as some kind of barometer or measure as to whether to support or oppose a candidate, it should be noted that Brad continues to oppose BDS and supported a resolution saying as such, opposing BDS while he was in the council. We're just wondering, is this a choice between an unrepentant Zionist and Zionist light?

Brian: David, thank you very much. No matter what anybody thinks about his positions on the issues or his use of the word genocide, it certainly lays out that there is still a spectrum, even among progressive Democrats, on how to view Israel and US policy toward Israel, right?

Liz: Exactly, Brian. There you have it. You have an example of someone who feels that Brad Lander's stance on Israel is not sufficient. I think what is important to point out is that he does raise that as an issue and as a reason why he would support Alexa Avilés, because she is to the left of Brad Lander on Israel. Again, how much will Israel be the animating issue of this race?

Brian: This takes us back to one other issue before we move on to Mamdani and real estate developers in an interesting meeting that they had. Commissioner Tisch, police commissioner under Adams, who Mamdani is retaining, apologized to Mamdani, and it was for something her brother said that, again, relates to Mamdani and the Jewish community. You brought a clip of Mamdani, but you want to set up what happened?

Liz: Sure. There was a Met Council benefit last week. It was a very well-attended event. There were elected officials in the room. There were even at least two members of Mamdani's transition team there. Commissioner Tisch has a younger brother named Ben Tisch, who is also the CEO of their family conglomerate, which is called the Loews Corporation. He was one of the speakers that night. According to a Daily News article, when he spoke, at one point, he referred to Mamdani and called him the enemy of the Jewish people. The following day, but it was hours after that story had appeared, Mamdani was already having a presser scheduled, and he was asked about it. This is what he said.

Zohran Mamdani: The commissioner apologized to my team for those remarks, and I look forward to being a mayor for each and every New Yorker, including Jewish New Yorkers.

Brian: On he goes with all these issues relating to Jewish New Yorkers, relating to Israel, swirling around him to demonstrate, he'll have to demonstrate, like any mayor has to demonstrate his campaign promises, that he will be a mayor for all New Yorkers, as perceived by New York Jews, as well as anyone else, right?

Liz: That's right, Brian. This incident was quite astonishing, I think, for two reasons. We are always, and when I say we, I think political observers, the press, we're always going to pay attention to the relationship between a mayor and his or her NYPD commissioner because of how important public safety is to a mayor's perceived success. The relationship between Tisch and Mamdani is going to be especially scrutinized because they are different ideologically, they have openly differed on policing policy. Here is another example of where they also disagree. Again, we are back to Israel.

Now, Tisch has been described, I've seen reports where she's been described as very strongly or staunchly pro-Israel. I've not really heard her offer extended comments on that, but she does travel in circles, and we see that, including in her own family, that does seem to be pro-Israel, not just pro-Israel, but also it seems anti-Mamdani, and you have to remember that Mamdani is her boss. The second thing I would point out that this incident illustrates is that it shows that this relationship between Mamdani and influential individuals like Ben Tisch, but also organizations like the United Jewish Association.

Ben Tisch's remarks came on the heels of another high-profile Jewish New Yorker, also echoing almost exactly the same sentiment, calling him an enemy of the Jewish people, and that was Marc Rowan. Now, he is this private equity titan, but he's also the chair of the United Jewish Association. He said those remarks, I think it came not long, probably days before Ben Tisch made his remarks, also at a benefit or gala in front of a lot of influential people. What does this mean? If this is an irreconcilable difference between Mamdani and certain circles of Jewish New Yorkers, what does that mean about for him and his ability to govern? I think that's something we're going to see play out.

Brian: We'll continue in a minute with our political reporter, Liz Kim, on the Mamdani transition and discuss one group he may be having fewer problems with so far than expected, real estate developers. Liz, we'll see if your reporting bears out that way, that it looks to me from reading some articles. Folks, stay with us.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue to talk about the Mamdani transition with WNYC and Gothamist political reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Liz, he met with real estate executives this week, or were they specifically affordable housing developers? What was that meeting?

Liz: No, it was across the board, Brian. I would say it was not just real estate, but it was also just members of the business community. Like I said earlier, I had called Kathy Wylde yesterday to get a readout from the meeting. She has served as his liaison to the city's business community, really, since he won the primary. Kathy Wylde is, of course, the outgoing head of the Partnership for New York City. That is an advocacy group for the city's business community.

It was both herself and also members of Association for a Better New York. That's also a high-profile civic group in New York City. She told me it was real estate developers, but also bankers. There were representatives from Goldman Sachs there, from Chase, from Deutsche Bank. One high-profile developer who is the head of Wylde's board was Rob Speyer. He is a developer. There was the former CEO of Fannie Mae, a woman by the name of Priscilla Almodovar. In total, it was about 20 experts, she said. She said that the meeting was very good.

She said it was a very engaged conversation. Many people had not met Mamdani before, and they were really interested in getting his ear and getting his support on what they think are things that the city can do to help speed up the delivery of housing in New York. There's been a lot of talk for decades about all the bureaucratic red tape. There was also talk, too, is there some kind of assistance that the city can provide in the form of a tax abatement program that the city is in control of. This is very much also similar to his relationship with the city's Jewish community.

This is a key relationship for the mayor, because if he does want to deliver on his promise of affordability, what's key to that is the cost of housing, and he has to bring up production. He needs to have some kind of collaboration with the real estate community to get that done. You can also argue that because of all of the City of Yes changes that Mayor Adams ushered, and I'm including those ballot proposals that did get passed, that he's coming in with really more executive power to build housing than any other mayor before him.

Brian: Before you go, actually, as an addendum to that, I saw an article on Crain's, which, of course, a business magazine fairly sympathetic toward business, that was quoting somebody from the real estate community saying, "Businesses are not rushing to leave New York just because Mamdani was elected, as some of the anti-Mamdani people warned during the campaign." Have you seen that or any indication that this, oh, everybody's going to move out or everybody with money is going to move out, just on the basis of fear of Mamdani? Anything?

Liz: I have seen those stories, too, Brian. I think there was a Bloomberg story recently that said that the luxury market is doing quite well in the wake of Mamdani's election, and I think it kind of points to this. I think there is a sort of disconnect, maybe, to the outcome of the election and how popular and desirable it is to live in New York City. That was a point that Wylde made to me in our conversation yesterday, was that a lot of people who met with Mamdani, they were really urging him to keep in mind that the mayor can do a lot to be a cheerleader for the city and to encourage investment in the city and that his rhetoric can actually be very helpful in luring talent and in luring money to the city.

Brian: We leave it there for today with WNYC political reporter, Liz Kim. You can also read her stuff on Gothamist. Liz, thanks as always.

Liz: Thanks, Brian.

 

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