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Brigid Bergin: Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian this week. Good morning, everybody. Coming up on today's show, Mehdi Hasan will be one of my guests. The former MSNBC host participated in a YouTube debate, that's if that's even the word for it, with 20 far-right conservatives that went somewhat viral this week. He'll tell us what that was like and what he learned from the experience. Plus, the leader of the Tenement Museum will tell us about their experience hosting a summer program for teachers on teaching Black and immigrant history.

The Atlantic writer Clint Smith will also join that conversation. Teachers, especially history teachers, we're going to want to hear from you, so stay tuned for that. We're going to wrap up today's show by talking about salt, not the tax break, but how restaurants are apparently using a lot of it. Probably your heart doctor would say way too much in each dish. First, it's time for our weekly New York City politics segment with my colleague, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim. Hey, Liz.

Elizabeth Kim: Hey, Bridget. Happy Wednesday.

Brigid Bergin: Happy Wednesday. Now this is coming after a pretty breathless stretch on the primary campaign trail. Candidates are collectively hitting the reset button of the general election. Given how different the candidates are themselves, the way they are resetting looks pretty different as well. There is the Democratic mayoral nominee who is taking a two-week pause from campaigning to visit some family and friends outside the city. Then there's Andrew Cuomo, who's making a few more media appearances than he did during the primary campaign, but continuing to stay very on message.

Then there is Mayor Eric Adams, who seems to have suspended his weekly off-topic press conferences with reporters in lieu of more frequent choreographed public appearances. Everything from senior centers to street corners, apparently. Liz, let's get into it. I'm going to invite our listeners to join us in this conversation early. There's a lot of ways for you to participate. We're talking about how the candidates are resetting in the New York City mayor's race this morning, how they're resetting their language, resetting their communication styles.

I'm just wondering, how do you think they're doing? Have you seen Andrew Cuomo's new videos on social media or any of the many interviews he's been doing? What stands out to you about it? Give us a call, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. How about with Zohran Mamdani? He's traveling at the moment, which we're going to talk about. Even though he's away, the New York Times is writing today about how those in the DSA and the business community are adjusting to his general election campaign, suggesting he's maybe moderating his tone to appeal to a broader audience.

If you're a Mamdani supporter, is there anything he said or done since the primary to change your feelings about him? Has your support for him deepened or has it waned? We want to know why. 212-433-9692 and of course, what about Mayor Adams? What do you make of his decision to suspend those weekly press conferences? Or maybe you're a Jim Walden supporter and you want to make the case for him. Give us a call or text. 212-433-9692. Now with that set up, Liz, let's start with Mamdani's big trip to Uganda. How did you first learn about it?

Elizabeth Kim: The campaign did give me a heads up on Saturday. Now they are generally very tight-lipped when it comes to their candidate's itinerary, and that's because he has received death threats. His location at any point in time has become very sensitive. We were told to expect a video. I was told that the video would be humorous, and sure enough, it was. I think we have some tape to throw to.

Zohran Mamdani: I'm going back to Uganda. I'm headed there in a personal capacity to celebrate Rama and I's marriage with our family and friends. I do want to apologize to the haters, because I will be coming back. Since you will undoubtedly read about this trip in the New York Post-- Insha'Allah, on the front page-- here are a few of my humble suggestions for headlines: MIA? Mamdani in Africa. Uganda miss me. He's Kampala-etely crazy. The Afri-can't be serious. Carl Kampala-nile investigates Mamdani. Zo-running away."

Brigid Bergin: They must have had a lot of fun making that video.

Elizabeth Kim: Yes, and it's pretty smart, because he's anticipating the kind of criticism he's going to get particular from the New York Post. He's like, "Why don't I get ahead of it?" Even in the video, there's a part before he starts talking that I didn't play. He reads some social media messages from right-wing trolls that have told him, "Go back to Africa." He says, "You know what? I'm going back to Africa." Of course, Uganda was the place where he was born. As he says in the video, he is going there to introduce his wife to his family there.

Brigid Bergin: I remember during the primary, Mamdani was asked whether he would travel to Israel as mayor. It's a very common question for candidates for mayor of New York City. He really deflected it by saying he was going to stay focused on what's happening here in the five boroughs. Now, he is obviously not elected yet. Is there anything unusual about this trip?

Elizabeth Kim: That's right. I did see some criticism surface on social media about what he had said during the debate. Was that a promise he made during the debate not to leave the country? Like you said, I think that was a promise that was related to if and when he does become mayor. I think given the intensity of the primary, which you talked about this kind of breathless stretch and his stunning upset, and now this shift reset to the general, I think if there's any moment to take a break, it would be now. Bridget, when I ran this by you, you immediately said, "Oh, he can take a beat."

Brigid Bergin: Yes, absolutely.

Elizabeth Kim: I should say that he's also-- This is not without precedent. Mayor Adams, after winning the primary, went to Monaco for four days. He initially did not tell the press that he was going to Monaco. Politico found out about it and reported it. He got criticized for that, too, because it seemed a little bit at odds with his campaign narrative of becoming the first working-class mayor. I should also say that after Mayor Adams won the general election, he took a trip to Ghana, which he kind of labeled that as a spiritual journey. That visit became one of the international itineraries that was scrutinized by Southern District prosecutors as part of their corruption investigation of Adams. That was a trip that was arranged by Turkish Airlines, and there was a layover in Istanbul, and he did get an upgrade on those flights.

Brigid Bergin: If you are just joining us, you're listening to The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom. My guest is my colleague, WNYC and Gothamist politics reporter Elizabeth Kim. We're talking about the reset of the mayoral race, how candidates are taking a beat as we move towards the general election. I'm going to take a note from a listener who texted me because I did make a mistake, and I forgot to mention one of the candidates, who, of course, is Republican Curtis Sliwa, who we are paying just as much attention to.

Listeners, if you want to call in and talk about how you have seen Sliwa's campaign reset, he was outside of an animal shelter just yesterday, which is actually a very big story right now because the city's animal shelters are so full, they are not able to take in animals the way they have been. We know that Curtis Sliwa is a big animal supporter. Listeners, we want to hear from you on that issue as well. As I mentioned, that New York Times story which touches on some of the adjustments in Mamdani's language as of late.

You reported last week how when he was meeting with business leaders and then again in that New York one interview, that phrase that has become such a lightning rod of conversation for him, globalizing Intifada, he left the door open to discourage people from using it and reconsidering his position on some of his policy proposals, even as, according to the New York Times reporting this morning, telling some business leaders that his proposal to freeze the rent, unstabilized tenants is something that he might consider after a term in office.

Some of this, I think, is probably to be expected. He's trying to court some really important constituencies, broaden his base. He's still meeting with members of the New York congressional delegation, including a meeting last Friday with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in Brooklyn. What do we know about how that went and what's coming next on that front?

Elizabeth Kim: That was a very highly anticipated meeting because Mamdani is, as you said, he's furiously working to build this broader coalition within the party and among its traditional supporters. Unions have, for the most part, come around, but he is yet to receive the backing of some top Democrats, namely the House leader, Hakeem Jeffries. The two met on Friday. According to their spokespeople, they talked about affordability, gentrification, and antisemitism.

As you mentioned, going into the meeting, Mamdani had spoken to business leaders, and he had kind of moderated his position on this phrase, globalizing the Intifada. He had previously said that this is a phrase, it's an Arabic word, and it means different things to different people, and that he doesn't want to police language. Of course, this is a phrase that is used by some pro-Palestinian activists, and there are those in the Jewish community who view it as a threatening call to violence.

I think the main question going into this meeting, because we had already heard Hakeem Jeffrey say that he was concerned about some of this language, the question going into the meeting was, would it be enough for Jeffries that Mamdani is now saying he is going to discourage people from others from using this language? Because this meeting with Jeffries is very much laying the groundwork for winning other Democrats over. I'm specifically thinking of someone like Chuck Schumer, who has been very outspoken about the rise in antisemitism.

We should also mention at the same time, he is a fervent critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That is something that I think him and Mamdani have in common. Coming out of that meeting, I think many people were wondering, does the endorsement come? We didn't hear that. I think what this trip does is it gives both sides sometime a beat. It gives both sides some-- it takes the pressure off both sides because I think there are some differences that they need to reconcile. Mamdani has this pressure to consolidate. The pressure on Jeffries is also, he's getting it from the left to just endorse Mamdani, but he's also getting pressure from other parts of the party, including Jewish Democrats, to get more clarity on these policy differences.

Jeffries himself has said, and I think it's fair, that he doesn't know Mamdani that well. It's very much a getting-to-know-him moment. I think for Mamdani to now take this break, it lets them sort of put a pause on it so that this decision didn't have to come-- they're not going to be questioned about it. Had he been here this week, we would have heard that question put to both of them. Are you going to endorse? Do you expect the congressman to endorse you? Now, there's a two-week pause on that.

Brigid Bergin: It gives some time for both sides to figure out which direction they're going. I want to bring in one of our callers. Let's go to Faye in Chelsea. Faye, you're on WNYC. Okay.

Faye: Hi. Hi, both of you. I read in Hellgate this morning that they took the raw data from the primary and discovered that DREAM, the slogan DREAM worked well, and Cuomo was not on 54% of the ballots, and that the cross endorsement really helped Mamdani as well. I just came up or maybe a new slogan for the November election: DREAM ASAP. Don't re-elect Eric Adams mayor, and send Andy packing. That's it. DREAM ASAP.

Brigid Bergin: Faye, thank you. If anybody steals that, we know they heard it first here on the Brian Lehrer Show. From you, Liz, part of what Faye is talking about there is that the Board of Elections released what's called the cast vote record. It's sort of a technical term for some of the data that is behind our ranked choice voting system. It's what allows us to see how the votes were transferred between candidates. It's the first time we've been able to actually see how many of, say, Brad Lander's votes moved to which candidate.

We are still digging into that data here in our newsroom. There have been some reports, and Hellgate has a great piece in their newsletter today looking at how, in fact, Andrew Cuomo's name on those ballots didn't show up, as Faye mentioned, in the numbers certainly that he needed, and that it looked as though some of the endorsements that we saw really made an impact. It's something that I know people have had a lot of questions about since the primary results were first released.

Elizabeth Kim: Right. It goes to this whole question of New York City ranked choice voting is still relatively new, and are we getting better at it? Are the campaigns and candidates getting better at it? One of the strategies that has long been talked about is the power of teaming up with a candidate that's like-minded, and that team-up can be very instrumental to helping one of those people win.

The other strategy which was also employed was this don't-rank-someone strategy, the DREAM strategy, which in this case applied to Andrew Cuomo. Now we're going to look at the data. You're going to look at the data, Bridget, and you're going to tell us how successful these strategies were. I think it will say something about this learning curve for ranked choice voting, because there had been kind of some criticisms, like do voters even get it? Is it too complicated?

Brigid Bergin: Yes. I think one of the ways we're going to see that is we're going to look for what parts of the city people really use the system, and what places where maybe ballots were exhausted sooner, meaning that they selected neither Mandani nor Cuomo, and how many people just selected a single candidate? There's all these little things that we can pull out of the data. Much more to come there. We're excited to dig into it.

Elizabeth Kim: That will also inform the city about where they need to do more education, right?

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. Let's talk a bit about Andrew Cuomo. For the past week, we've been talking about how he's trying out some new strategies. One of his most recent videos on social media shows him walking through Co-op City up in the Bronx. I want to play about the first 20 seconds of it.

Andrew Cuomo: I'm talking to New Yorkers about our issues. I'm talking about our problems. One of the big ones is affordable housing. You know what? We have to reimagine New York and remember what we are capable of. We can build affordable housing. We're at Co-op City today in the Bronx. 15,000 units, 40,000 people live here. This was done in 1970. If we could do it then, we can do it now.

Brigid Bergin: Liz, that video is about two minutes long, but that's really the only scripted part of it. I don't know, listeners, you can't see me, but I was sort of dancing to that music because it's a little upbeat. It's got a different feel.

Elizabeth Kim: It's a very good dance.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you. The rest of that video, you just see Cuomo walking through Co-op City, shaking hands, taking selfies for a minute and a half. What's he trying to do here?

Elizabeth Kim: I will say that I think people who do social media for a living will say that two minutes is a long time. It's not really, but it is, for someone to get hooked into a video. I mean, I watched it because I'm a reporter, and I have to. I will say the initial opening didn't really hook me, although I was kind of thinking, "Wow, this is a reset from early on in the primary, where he was talking about the chaos and the fear." You can feel it. Remember that, Bridget?

Brigid Bergin: Totally.

Elizabeth Kim: You can feel it, this unease in the city. This one with the upbeat music, and he's kind of talking about possibility. I was like, "Okay, that's different." Then as you start to watch it, like you said, that's the only part where you really hear him talk directly to the camera. Then it becomes this montage of him just pressing the flesh with people who live in Co-op City and people who like him. It's a lot of backslapping. It's a lot of him posing for photos, making jokes--

Brigid Bergin: Humanizing.

Elizabeth Kim: Humanizing him. I think I said to you this is his social media. Charm offensive. Will it work? For me, I thought I did wonder what would have happened if this was the Andrew Cuomo voters saw several months ago when he first launched his campaign. Would that have made the difference? For one thing, he wasn't out enough. I think there still is the question, because this is very much choreographed. I think what reporters really want to see is we want to be able to follow him on the campaign trail. That is not an extraordinary request.

He has been inviting select reporters to come and meet him at these campaign destinations, but he hasn't really opened it up. The way this works is Andrew Cuomo meets and greets voters, and me or you, Bridget, we watch him, we observe him, and we report on that, because that is an unfiltered report of, how is he doing? We interview those voters that he's smiling with, and we get a sense of, what are their concerns? Are they really that into Andrew Cuomo? That's something that I think we are yet to see if his campaign does do that, allow that much broader access.

Brigid Bergin: It really does tell you a lot about the electorate, and I think it can tell the campaigns a lot about how voters are responding to them. There are a couple of texts that I want to read because I think we can clarify them. One listener wrote, "Can you clarify what Zohran said about rent freeze? That's the whole reason I'm voting for him." I think that's a reference to what I mentioned was in the New York Times story this morning.

Elizabeth Kim: Bridget, I did not read all of the New York Times story, but you were saying that he was open to maybe backing off the rent freeze after his first term, assuming he gets a second term.

Brigid Bergin: Also, I think that's important context that it was reported by the New York Times based on some meetings that he had with some business leaders and tech leaders, and some Black business executives. I would be interested to know the full context of a conversation like that, because I think what we have heard from all the candidates is that part of the problem with our city's affordable housing challenge is that there's not enough housing available.

To say that a policy like that would change would make me wonder what the conversation was also about: building affordable housing. Is a change like that being made available because there's an assumption that there will be more housing available at that point? I don't know the answer to that, but we weren't in that meeting, but it's an interesting thing to follow.

Another listener texted, "Will we ever know if Jessica Ramos harmed her ranking due to her endorsement of Cuomo?" That's a question that we can answer. Yes, we do know that there's more information now that they've released the cast vote record about how her votes were distributed after someone who might have ranked her first, who her supporters ranked second. Just in my first glance, first blush of the data, it looked as though she had a high rate of exhausted ballots, meaning people who maybe only voted for her first and then didn't have some of the other candidates on their ballot.

I qualify that statement with we're just looking at the numbers now, but it's an interesting thing to dig into a little bit more. One more question for you, Liz, before we go to a break. I'm wondering, does Cuomo benefit in any way by being almost an underdog in this moment? There are lots of Mamdani voters who are unlikely to vote for him. We see that in the ranked choice results that we're talking about. If he and Mayor Adams are both going for more moderate voters, given what we've just talked about, seeing Cuomo out there a little bit more, do you think this means he's more interested in competing with Adams on the retail front ahead of this general election, which is a tough thing to do because we know Mayor Adams is very good on the stump.

Elizabeth Kim: I think so. I think his campaign should actually view this two-week reprieve by Mamdani as an opportunity, and they should seize it to try to make, not just do these social media videos, but actually make some news. Let's dig into some policies that he thinks should make him a candidate that's worth looking at again, because this won't be the first-- for the general, of course, yes, for people who are not Democrats, but even for Democrats. He is a Democrat, for all intents and purposes.

Yes, this is an opportunity for him. Yes, he is not just going up against Mamdani, who is an incredible, what people say once in a lifetime, retail politician. Mayor Adams is nothing to sneeze at. I've said this before, you can make the argument that Mayor Adams never stopped campaigning after winning that 2021 election. He is so comfortable being in campaign mode, and he has kind of stayed that way. He's campaigning from City Hall. He's campaigning whenever he does a policy announcement, and then he's campaigning with his official campaign.

Brigid Bergin: We're going to talk a lot about that and more after we take a short break. More with my guest, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim. Stay with us.

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It's the Brian Lehrer SHOW on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, filling in for Brian today. My guest is WNYC and Gothamist Politics reporter Elizabeth Kim. We've got a bunch of callers, Liz. Let's bring in Cindy from the Bronx. Cindy, you're on WNYC.

Cindy: Oh, hi, ladies. Thanks for taking my call. I was at in Co-op City for that with Cuomo. I support Mamdani, but I went there because I wanted to see the crowd and who was going to be there. It was mostly people over 40. The elders were out, a lot of people over 40 that I saw. My question was when I was there, we had a group of people that were saying, "Hey, did Mamdani endorse Kamala Harris for president?" I can't find a clear answer. I was wondering if you guys had any an answer for that.

Brigid Bergin: I know that there was a story in the New York Times, Cindy, that said Mr. Mamdani has told reporters that he voted for Kamala Harrison, 2024. He didn't use the sort of social media prowess that we have seen during this campaign to champion her bid. Most of his public involvement in the presidential race was really more critical earlier in the race when he was encouraging New York Democrats to cast ballots against former President Joe Biden during the primary campaign to protest the administration's support for Israel and the war in Gaza. That's from the New York Times. I think that might answer your question. Cindy, I'm curious, while you were at that event, can you tell us, did you interact with Andrew Cuomo, and what was it like? How were people responding to him?

Cindy: Oh, people were really happy to see him. I would say, like I said, it's people over 40 from what I saw. I'm 45 myself. They were really happy to see him. People were patting him on the back. They were telling him they're going to vote for him, and he's the guy that can get the job done. People are really ecstatic for him on that day.

Brigid Bergin: That's interesting. Cindy, thank you so much for calling. I really appreciate it. Liz, let's pivot back a little bit. This became a regular segment because you would come here and tell Brian what happened in the mayor's weekly press conference. It was expanded so we could talk about the mayoral election. When was the last time the mayor had an off-topic press conference?

Elizabeth Kim: Excellent question, Bridget. Reporters kind of started noticing this, and I was looking back, when was the last time he held a specific in-person, off-topic press briefing at City Hall in the blue room? It was like a little over a month ago. Last week I did ask his press secretary what has become of these blue room, we call them blue room pressers. The response I got was the mayor will take off-topic questions whenever he can, which, if you read in between the lines, it basically says they're probably not going to do them the, the in-person, off-topic pressers anymore.

It's interesting because he did get criticism when he started this practice, because usually reporters, we go around, we follow the mayor, and we can ask him questions at any press conference where he appears. The mayor had decided that he didn't want to just take any question at these other press conferences. He wanted to focus them all on one day, take them all on one day, and get it over with and not have to answer any more questions from us. Again, these are so-called off-topic questions. I think he came to see that these press conferences were not serving his interests. It's basically boiled down into an hour where you have this New York City press corps asking him very tough and sharp questions.

He's committed to that format, and he's there, so he's captive. I think lately, he had tried to blend it by blending it with another announcement to sort of give us something else to kind of look at and talk about. I think they felt that it was a strategy that wasn't working. I think for the mayor's campaign interests, this makes sense. This is less time where he's sort of the target for the New York City press corps. I think for the press, it reverts back to tradition. The tradition is wherever the mayor is, we're going to ask him off-topic questions.

Brigid Bergin: Let's talk about something that was another shift in the mayor's relationship, and this time with the Trump administration. He's taking some flak from members of the Trump administration who were in New York City this week after an off-duty Border Patrol agent was shot. For those who missed the story, Liz, can you just catch us up briefly on what happened here?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. This was an off-duty customs officer who was shot inside a park in upper Manhattan on Saturday night, and it was as part of a robbery. The two people who were arrested were people that police said had entered the country illegally. As we know, Trump has justified the immigration crackdown as an effort of going after criminals. Now, should point out, studies have shown that immigrants, including people who are undocumented, commit crimes at lower rates than US-born people. At the same time, the Trump administration has really tried to seize on any crimes where it does, allegedly, involve someone who came here illegally. This is a prime example of that.

Brigid Bergin: What has been the response from the Trump administration? I think we have a little tape, if you could set it up for us.

Elizabeth Kim: US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Holman held a press conference where they basically lashed out at sanctuary cities. Here's some of what they said.

Brigid Bergin: How many more lives will it take? How many more people have to be hurt and victimized before we have public safety be a number one priority in some of our largest cities? When I look at what Mayor Adams has done to New York City, it breaks my heart to see the families that have suffered because of his policies. I'm going to work very hard.

Elizabeth Kim: For Secretary Nolan to keep President Trump's promise and his commitment several weeks ago that sanctuary cities are now our priority. We're going to flood the zone.

Brigid Bergin: Flood the zone.

Elizabeth Kim: That garnered a lot of headlines. He specifically goes on to mention New York. Now, what's very interesting is that they name check Mayor Adams, and it's an example that even as the mayor has gone out of his way to cultivate this relationship with President Trump, even as he has been very muted or silent, really, on any criticism involving Trump's immigration policy, that it doesn't mean that he doesn't get caught in the crosshairs of MAGA. This is an example of that. The mayor was asked about this.

Brigid Bergin: Yes. I was wondering, how did the mayor respond to this?

Elizabeth Kim: He tries to downplay it. He brought up this point that, "If they say something complimentary about me, then it becomes all about acquitting quid pro quo. Now that they're criticizing me, that gets headlines, too." He tried to play it as, "We have real differences," doesn't mean that he's not going to keep working with the Trump administration. The real thing that he needs to come out and refute there, which they're basically saying that he's done a terrible job of keeping New York City safe.

There's something really wrong about their logic there, too, because the mayor himself has come out and criticized aspects of the city's sanctuary policy. In many ways, they're on the same team. Yet, when there's an instance like this, when there's an incident like this, it seems as if these certain Trump administration officials are going to seize an opportunity to hit the mayor.

Brigid Bergin: It's so interesting because in a moment where you know that Mayor Adams is trying to broaden his coalition, reach out to as many people as possible, with public safety really being the underpinning of his mayoralty, the reason he ran in the first place. For these people to be criticizing, I would think, would certainly not be good for his campaign and his ability to broaden that coalition.

Elizabeth Kim: I mean, he has stood and he has had meetings with Homan in which he has come out and said, "We are on the same side here. This is about ee are both about making the city safer.

Brigid Bergin: In a slightly different context. We saw the mayor at a city event this week, official event, and, Liz, the video shows him doing chin-ups on a light pole. Can you tell me what was happening there?

Elizabeth Kim: This is something called, I guess, it's a group called Pull-Up for Peace. They're on a city street corner; there's a traffic light. I'm told that it is meant to evoke a Biggie video in which there was there's a scene in that video, Juicy, where you see someone just jump up on that lamp post and start doing chin-ups. It's called Pull-Up for Peace, but the mayor jumped up and showed his stuff.

Brigid Bergin: Iit is a really interesting moment, a reminder of the way Mayor Adams interacts with people and the way he presents himself to the world. Not everybody could just jump up on a light post and do chin-ups. You see the health angle of his profile coming through, that he has the strength to do this, and certainly projecting that strength in a very literal way in that moment. I'm curious, one of the listeners just texted something.

Elizabeth Kim: He's 64 years old, too. We should remind listeners. He's a little bit younger than Cuomo. It almost seemed a little bit almost like a challenge.

Brigid Bergin: To that point, what this listener texted, "Which campaign has Elizabeth Kim found to be the most accessible? I want a mayor who loves the press because they are so proud of their work." Before you answer that, Liz, I think it's interesting that so much of the way these candidates are presenting themselves in the world right now is largely in these social media clips that we are seeing.

Yes, that was something, that was an official event, and there was a small number of people there. The way that a scene like that gets resonance is because it then goes onto social media, and it goes to this much wider audience. There is a need for the press to be doing accountability reporting and journalism, and to have some access.

Elizabeth Kim: Yes. It's best when those videos come from a reporter and the candidate then recirculates it. We're in a very different momen. I would say during the primary, Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdani's campaign were great in terms of access. When I was talking about reporters asking to be able to follow a candidate on the trail as they meet and greet voters, both of those campaigns let me do that.

I will have to say it's not something that doesn't come with risk because inevitably, they will meet a voter who doesn't like them. You're watching that interaction, and it can be awkward at times. Then you're going up to that voter and asking them, "Why don't you like so and so?" It's about making themselves willing to be vulnerable, right?

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely.

Elizabeth Kim: They did that. I will say that in the general, all the campaigns are undergoing a reset, and Mamdani's campaign has tightened access. It used to be that he would hold a press conference, and he would just take question after question. It would just go on forever. He was an underdog. Now, lately, it's been three questions at most, four questions.

Brigid Bergin: I guess it's a reset for all of us, the campaigns and those of us who cover them. Thank you, Liz, so much for joining me this morning. WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim. Liz, I'll see you back at our desks.

Elizabeth Kim: Great being with you, Bridget. Thank you.

 

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