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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC. If you were listening last week, you heard us kick off our coverage of the New York City mayoral race with a general overview of the race as it stands. The primary will be in June, and it's time now to start meeting the candidates. Up first, we have New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. He currently represents District 36 from Queens, up in Albany. It encompasses Astoria and the neighborhoods of Ditmars and Astoria Heights as well, around there, in Northwest Queens.

He's with us now to mostly share why he believes he should be the next mayor of New York City. We'll also cover some of the big news coming out of Albany. The new session is just beginning there, with a lot at stake for the city, and elsewhere around the state. Assemblymember Mamdani, welcome back to WNYC.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: Thank you so much for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure.

Brian Lehrer: Introduce yourself to New Yorkers who might be meeting you here for the first time. What should they know about you? Why would you like to be their next mayor?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: I was born in Uganda, in East Africa, and immigrated to the city with my parents when I was 7 years old. Spent the rest of my youth in Morningside Heights, and as a Muslim kid, in the aftermath of 9/11, I was looked after by my teachers, in another moment of xenophobic panic. I benefited from a great public high school education. I became a citizen seven years ago.

Soon after that, I was elected to the assembly as the first South Asian man and only third Muslim to have ever served in that body, representing the very New Yorkers on Steinway, and Astoria, that had been illegally surveilled and profiled by the NYPD on the basis of their faith. It's not my biography that makes me different. It's not my biography that is the reason why I should be the next mayor of this city. It's the working people that I put at the center of my politics in the Assembly.

I have gone on hunger strike to win more than $450 million in debt relief for taxi drivers. I've organized neighbors against con ed rate hikes and defeated a dirty frack gas power plant. I've led a campaign to fix the MTA that delivered more than $100 million for better bus and subway service, and did this while winning New York City's first free bus pilot, which brought economic relief to thousands of people making less than $28,000 a year, increased ridership by over 30%, and reduced assaults on bus drivers by close to 40%.

All of this, while we call this city our home, the wealthiest city in the richest country in the history of the world, that is instead becoming unlivable for the working class who built it. I am running on a very simple premise that life in this city doesn't need to be as hard as it is today, that we can use the power of city government to lower the cost of living, and make New York City more affordable.

Brian Lehrer: You're 33 years old. You're a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Despite our city's TrueBlue reputation on the national stage, you well know New York has rejected well-known progressive candidates for mayor in almost every election since 1993. New Yorkers elected Giuliani twice, Bloomberg three times, now Eric Adams. What makes you believe New Yorkers are ready for a young socialist to lead them?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: There was a lot of discourse on this same topic, Brian, after the presidential election when we saw New York have an 11.5% swing towards Trump. I went to many of the neighborhoods across our city that saw the biggest increase in votes for Trump, and even larger drop-offs in voting, overall. I asked New Yorkers on Fordham Road, in the Bronx, and on Hillside Avenue, in Queens, why they voted for Trump, or why they didn't vote at all.

What I heard from so many of them is that they recalled having more money in their pocket four years ago, and when I told them about my platform, a platform that calls for freezing the rent on more than 2 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized units, on making the slowest buses in the nation fast and free, and on making universal childcare a reality for children from the ages of six weeks to five years, those same voters who had voted for Trump, and had likely voted for some of the very people that you've just mentioned, told me that they would be willing to vote for me, because ultimately, what they cared about is an economic agenda that would empower working-class New Yorkers across the city.

I do believe that we have a majority of New Yorkers who are ready and are hungry for that vision.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you want to ask a candidate question to Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, now running in the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. We will be interviewing each of the candidates who has declared for the primary, as we will be interviewing each of the candidates running in the New Jersey gubernatorial primary.

It's also an election year for governor of New Jersey, so on both sides of the aisle, for that matter. Today, starting on the New York side, with Assemblymember Mamdani. Who has a question for him? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Continuing down that track that we started on, looking at the slate of candidates running in this primary, the progressive lane is pretty crowded. We've got Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie, Brad Lander, Scott Stringer.

What would you start to argue sets you apart from your competitors, who are not Eric Adams? How are you ensuring that you don't all cannibalize the progressive energy by dividing it up?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: The first thing I would say that separates me is that I am running the only campaign that has proudly identified itself as a progressive campaign. My campaign is also very explicit about the promises that we are making to New Yorkers. I've mentioned the three platform issues, but I've also introduced a new proposal that would create a pilot program of city- run grocery stores, one in each borough of New York City, that would guarantee lower prices to New Yorkers.

It's these kinds of policies that show New Yorkers exactly how my administration would make their lives more affordable, that sets us apart. I also believe that due to the ranked choice voting system that we have in New York City, we do not have to worry as much about the potential cannibalization of a progressive vote, or a left vote, if, in fact, we are instructing our voters, as I will be doing, to ensure that they fill their ballot and they do not pick Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo as any one of those five options.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a short break before we continue. Our lines are completely full with people from around New York City who want to ask you questions. We're not going to be able to get to all of you, callers, but we'll take some questions for, now, mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani, member of the New York State Assembly. We will also get to some things likely to come out of Albany.

Governor Hochul just made news with some things that she already, in the last days of 2024, signed or vetoed, that the legislature had passed, and a lot on the agenda for this coming session, which is just about to start. When we come back from the break, we're going to invite Assembly Mamdani to announce, as I understand he is prepared to announce on this show, for the first time, a new policy proposal that he's using in his campaign for mayor. We'll find out what that is right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, on WNYC with Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, from Northwest Queens. He's now running in the New York City mayoral primary as well, the first of our series of interviews with all the candidates in the New York and New Jersey election primaries for mayor of New York and governor of New Jersey. I understand you have a new policy proposal that you would like to share with listeners and with the public, for the first time, right now. Want to do that?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: Absolutely, Brian. I'm incredibly excited to announce a new policy proposal. It is a new year, after all, and a good time to talk about new beginnings in our city. About 125,000 New Yorkers are born across our city every year, and as mayor, we are going to provide every new family with what we're calling baby baskets. It's a collection of essential goods and resources for new parents, free of charge, including items like diapers, baby wipes, nursing pads, postpartum pads, swaddles, books, and more.

Each of these baskets will also include a resource guide of information on the city's newborn home visiting program, breastfeeding, postpartum depression, and more. These are all critical resources, frankly, for combating postpartum maternal mortality as well. What I'm talking about is a relatively small investment. We estimate just shy of $19 million a year, with potentially huge rewards for healthy development and family stability.

Rewards that we've seen play out in more than 91 examples across the world, whether it be Scotland, or whether it be here in the United States, where a federal government pilot showed that 64% of moms in a baby box model initiative reported improved mental health, 63% reported a decrease in final stress, and the program doubled participants' trust in government.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say to somebody who might have just heard that for the first time, and think, "Well, sounds nice, but it's kind of a small deal compared to what's really needed," like when we talk about inequality, writ large in the United States? Your baby basket reminds me that Senator Cory Booker, from New Jersey, for a while, had a proposal for what he called baby bonds, right?

Which is putting a certain amount of money into a bond fund for each newborn in the United States so that when they get to age 18, there isn't the disparity in terms of money available to go to college, or start a career. Talk about the smallness, or if it isn't really smallness, in your view, of a baby basket.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: I think you're right, Brian, that each and any one of these initiatives, in and of themselves, is not going to be sufficient to answer the larger questions of economic inequality across this country, or even across the city, but this proposal is just one part of a larger family initiative that we are rolling out, whether it be our agenda that includes universal childcare, or providing those same families, many of whom are working, actually, in the childcare system, with pay parity, with teachers, so that they can actually earn enough to stay in this city.

All of these things together create a fabric of ways in which we are actually going to keep New Yorkers in the city that they love. The city that they want to stay in, but that they are too often being priced out of. This idea that I'm putting forward, it also builds on work that's already happening here in New York City. I want to shout out Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso here, who worked with the Met Council to provide baby boxes to 500 expectant mothers as part of his focus on maternal mortality, as well as an initiative led by Council member Jen Gutierrez through her legislation, that requires the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to develop materials just like these, that point new parents to resources provided through the city.

All of those things together with this kind of a program, could actually bring the intended results to each and every single mother and father across New York City, and ensure that we tackle so many of the crises that are so stubborn in actually being resolved in the lives of New Yorkers who are bringing children into this world.

Brian Lehrer: You're proposing universal baby baskets. I see you're also proposing universal free buses in New York City, and universal free childcare for all children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old in New York City. I think Jose, in Woodside, either in or near your district, has a question about all that. Jose, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jose: Well, I am a lifelong socialist and a lifelong progressive. I believe that we have progressed to where we are today because progress is written into the human genotype, but at the same time, even crisis, you will always have the poor with you. Politicians come into office and they say, "I will promise you this," and it's always housing, jobs, economics. It's always about making your life better.

Yet, there are ways that we can make people's lives better, realistic ways, rather than saying it, and then saying, "Oh, well, we'll tax the rich," or, "We will put some more-- new taxes on traffic coming into New York," or however you want to fund it. It's not realistic. Realism is dealing with the fact that economics in New York is a capitalist situation, and it's not going away. Socialists can come in and say, "We're going to do away with capitalism." They did that. They said that in the 60s.

The hippies, everybody said that in the 60s, "We are going to do away with capitalism. We're going to have communes," and all this, and all that. Look where we are today.

Brian Lehrer: Jose, thank you very much. Assemblymember Mamdani, for you, as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Jose is asking, I guess, on one level, are you saying that you want to do away with capitalism, but beyond that, just the particular universal free service proposals that you're making, how are you going to pay for them?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: Look, I understand where he's coming from, because he has seen what many New Yorkers have seen, which is, politicians come and go, make promises that they have no interest in actually being held accountable to. Part of the reason that I'm running a campaign with very explicit policy proposals is that I want to be held accountable to those very proposals. I'm not running on vague concepts or lofty principles.

I'm running on a concrete agenda so that when I am the mayor of this city, New Yorkers come up to me and they say, "I voted for you to make my bus free. I voted for you to actually be able to have a child in this city. What are you doing to fulfill that promise?" I want to be able to answer them with the hard work that I will do every single day, as the mayor, and in one of those ways that I'm going to be accountable, Brian, I'm also very excited, as the next mayor of the city, to show up once again, every week, on your program, for Ask the Mayor.

I think it's a critically important way for a mayor to be both accessible and accountable to the very people that they represent.

Brian Lehrer: How are you going to pay for all those things?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: There are a number of ways. I want to be very clear. I have said this since I was elected as an assembly member. I am going to pay for many of these programs that will transform working-class people's lives by taxing the very wealthiest New Yorkers, and the most profitable corporations that do business across this state. We are currently losing billions of dollars a year in economic activity because of the working families that are moving out of our state in the interest of finding cheaper housing and cheaper childcare.

The ideas I'm putting forward, Brian, you're talking about-- there's also the New Jersey gubernatorial race coming. The ideas I'm putting forward actually have found a home in New Jersey, where while we have one of the lower corporate tax rates in the nation, just across the water, we can see New Jersey has one that, if we matched them, we would raise billions of dollars to pay for this entire policy agenda.

That would just mean increasing our corporate tax rate by a few percentage points, and increasing income taxes on people who make more than $5 million a year, all so that we can invest in affordable housing, healthcare, and in education. I say that as well in a city where we have left so much money on the table from the wealthiest institutions. I have introduced legislation that I spoke with you about on this show, to end Columbia and NYU's property tax exemption, which currently costs the city more than $320 million a year.

All while we also have Madison Square Garden, with a property tax exemption for James Dolan for more than $40 million a year, and he doesn't even want to deliver us a championship.

Brian Lehrer: Ha. We could have the sports conversation another day. Ben, in Manhattan, you're on WNYC, with Assemblymember Mamdani. Hi, Ben.

Ben: Hi, Brian. Hi, Assemblymember Mamdani. Good morning to you both. I just wanted to call and ask-- I love Assemblymember Mamdani's entire platform. I think it's amazing that he's promoting and running on a platform of rent freeze for New Yorkers living within rent-stabilized apartments, but I just want to ask for those of us that don't currently live in rent-stabilized apartments. I was born and raised in a Mitchell-Lama apartment.

State Senator Zellnor Myrie has put forth a plan to build over a million new homes in New York City to try and ease this affordability crisis that many working-class New Yorkers are facing. Assemblymember Mamdani, do you have any other plans for those of us that don't live within rent-stabilized apartments to ease this housing affordability crisis somewhat, and to make it so that I'm able to stay in the city that I grew up in, potentially raise my kids here, be close to my family, and enjoy, hopefully, a city that's more equitable for working-class New Yorkers? Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Ben.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: Absolutely. This is only the beginning of our housing policy. Rent stabilization policies, they are impacting close to two and a half million New Yorkers, but we're a city of 8.3 million, and we're going to be rolling out a housing platform that will bring affordability to every single New Yorker, no matter what kind of housing they live in.

I think that that will come from ensuring that we are actually fighting for affordability and we are fighting to construct the new housing that we need across the city, all with a view to exactly callers like this, who are struggling to imagine if they can stay in this city, as well as New Yorkers who are currently living in shelters and cannot find a place to live, or New Yorkers who are living on subway platforms and cannot find a place to be.

This is all happening at a time of major crisis for tenants, because we've seen the vacancy rate at nearly the lowest it's been in 50 years, and the workers that are running the city being unable to afford to stay here, if they're even lucky to find an apartment at all. There are, put simply, not enough affordable homes here. We are going to direct more city capital resources to housing, and expand the capacity of HPD, DCP, and NYCHA so that we are truly able to provide enough safe and affordable homes for every single person that wants to live in this city.

Brian Lehrer: Ben, thank you. If you're running for mayor as a DSA candidate, one thing you'll have to do is convince enough people that your approach to crime can be more effective than Mayor Adams' approach, assuming he's still in the race, because whether you think it's overblown or not, it's a top concern of many voters now, as it was when Adams was elected.

Let me play a couple of clips for you, from the Mayor and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, from their news conference just yesterday, about the 2024 crime stats, and get your reactions. First, here's the Commissioner.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: Last month, a career criminal robbed a Queen's Deli at gunpoint before shooting and injuring a responding NYPD officer and a 26-year-old innocent bystander. The shooter had 17 prior arrests, 17 of which had happened while he was out on lifetime parole, including arrests for robbery, burglary, and menacing within the past year. Let me repeat that.

He was arrested and then released, over and over again, while on lifetime parole. This is evidence of a broken system, one that doesn't put the rights and needs of victims first.

Brian Lehrer: The commissioner is talking about recidivism, and she continued with this.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch: The problem is compounded when you look at misdemeanors. They are up 20%, compared to 2018. Importantly, at the same time, for these very same crimes, the rates of decline to prosecute are up a staggering 31%, and the rates of bail set are down 54%. Imagine how disheartened it is for our cops to be out there arresting the same people, for the same crimes, in the same neighborhoods, day after day.

How scary it is for New Yorkers to see the same person who victimized them one day, walking the streets the next.

Brian Lehrer: Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, yesterday. Assemblyman, I'm guessing that you have a different take on the increase in declining to prosecute misdemeanors that she cited there, that she says contributes to recidivism, and the same people victimized or living in fear of that over and over again, as she put it. Your reaction?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: I actually do agree with Commissioner Tisch on one fact, which is that it is a broken system. Where I find myself in disagreement is the proposal that keeping people on Rikers is what is going to break that cycle. We see the opposite of that. We see so many of these same New Yorkers coming out of these facilities more traumatized, more prone to committing these same acts of violence. Look, at its core, every New Yorker deserves to feel and be safe.

There should not be no violent incidents across our city, but specifically, the subtext of this entire press conference is also on our public transit system. What is difficult about so many of these press conferences, and about Mayor Adams's Albany agenda, once again, is that it is the same one we have heard last year, the year before that, the year before that, where we have been told that this tweak or this change to our criminal legal system is going to finally deliver us completely different outcomes.

We are seeing that these strategies are not solving the problem, we need new ones, and as the next mayor of this city, I am going to transform our current reality, which is New York City having a patchwork of programs dealing with issues from gun violence, to homelessness, to victim services, to mental health crises, all without any coordination of sufficient level or funding, as it should be, or any kind of prioritization, and instead develop a massive expansion of peer-based street and subway outreach teams who develop relationships and trust with individuals, and are able to identify deteriorating mental health crises, as well as direct people to services.

Doing all of this by that provision of those services, through the vacant commercial units that we currently see plaguing our transit system. These are ideas that I'm telling you, Brian, that are based on proven models that we've seen work, whether it's in Eugene, Oregon, or it's in Olympia, Washington. It's time that New Yorkers are actually given a model other than what we have been told every single year will actually be the answer, when we are left in the same position, time and again.

Brian Lehrer: You anticipated this last clip that I was going to play, but I'll play it anyway. It's the mayor. Yesterday, after being asked by a reporter if he has a specific legislative plan to go after recidivism in 2025, this was his response.

Mayor Eric Adams: Those are the conversations. Our team is going to Albany. When we go to Albany, we're going to sit down. We did a proposal last year and the year before, that specifically talked about those repeated violent offenders. We're going to present that proposal again, and show these numbers. These numbers don't lie. They're very clear. We're going to show these numbers, and we're hoping that we can see that this is about recidivism that we're talking about.

Brian Lehrer: For you, as a member of the legislature in Albany, what is it that you referred to a minute ago as the same proposal coming from the mayor, year after year, that you want to reject again this year?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: It's these proposals that the mayor has been pushing, with the support of the governor, to make changes to the state's criminal codes and bail laws. These are fights that both of them have largely won in previous sessions, but each time, we are told this will be the last time we address this issue, and each time, we are told that the changes that they have won will deliver different outcomes.

Then, each year, we go back to Albany and we are told, in fact, there are more changes required. I think it is indicative of a failed approach to creating true public safety. Brian, we were talking earlier about free buses and my proposal. While it may not sound as if it's related to public safety, in our pilot program where we made one bus free in each borough of New York City, we saw that assaults on bus drivers dropped by 38.9%, over that year.

I cannot think of another policy in recent history, from this mayor or others, that dropped a single category of crime that much, that fast. Yet, all we hear from the executives that we have across the city and the state, is, "We need more National Guard, we need more police, we need more changes to bail laws," and we get that every year. Still, New Yorkers do not feel safer when they are going around their city, as is their right.

Brian Lehrer: Before you go, I want to turn from your mayoral campaign to your role as a state legislator. I guess what we were just talking about kind of combines the two. Governor Hochul issued a collection of vetoes and bill signings just before the end of the year, which was her deadline after the legislative session. I see that, of primary interest to you, one new law signed by the governor has to do with MTA fare evasion fines. What's changed?

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: The changes are generally making this system fairer. Much of my work on the MTA has been with an understanding that fair evasion ultimately points to a larger economic problem. I say this because of the data that we have seen in surveys of riders, that have found that, as of two years ago, one in five New Yorkers were struggling to afford subway and bus fares.

That's even before we are looking at the proposal to increase that fare to $3. When the MTA commissioned a blue ribbon panel, they found that there was higher amounts of fare evasion in neighborhoods with higher amounts of poverty. That's part and parcel of why Senator Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris and I championed a free bus pilot, which wanted to address those very neighborhoods at the core issue that they were facing, which is economic.

What we saw is that when we created a universal program, we increased ridership up to 38%. We saw that of these new riders, the majority were making $28,000 a year or less.

Brian Lehrer: And briefly, two bills that the governor vetoed were both about the child care assistance expansion program. Explain why you were for those, and why you understand the governor rejected them.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: To be honest with you, Brian, I cannot give you an understanding as to why she rejected them, because this veto, it stands at odds with her stated goals of reducing cost burdens on parents. In New York city alone, about 10,000 families do not earn enough money to qualify for child care assistance. It's frankly absurd. It is quite frustrating to have seen that veto.

Brian Lehrer: I want to get your quick take on an issue that I think has yet to come to a head. I've been reading about this and seeing TV commercials, and now I have a flyer in the mail. It's the state's home health aid contract for people on Medicaid. I'm going to read from this flyer that says Governor Hochul is handing New York's entire home care program to an out-of-state company backed by private equity. It says-- Well, it goes on from there.

I'll just ask you your reaction to what's going on there, and what you think is in the interest of both the providers and the patients.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: I've been very concerned about this proposal. It's one that we litigated for much of the last legislative session. I've received those same mailers, Brian. More than that is, I have received a lot of outreach from constituents across my district, as well as New Yorkers across the five boroughs, while I've been running for mayor, in their concerns that the care that they receive is now going to be jeopardized.

Especially for New Yorkers for whom English is not their native language, and the care that's been provided to them has been in line with the language that they actually understand.

Brian Lehrer: Why would that change? The governor says the state is spending-- I think the figure is $9 billion a year on Medicaid, home health aids, and this could provide the same services for less.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: There's no doubt there are issues in the CDPAP system, but the way that the governor handled this does not instill trust for New Yorkers who are using that. What we need is a transparent process that preserves and guarantees language access to care, and instead, what we are getting is a single entity that has been shown to have a number of issues whenever they've been given this kind of power and administrative position in other states across the country.

What New Yorkers deserve is cost savings, yes, and also the same kind of care. That can be done when we're focusing on the issue of profit, not on how we can actually give this to private equity.

Brian Lehrer: Zohran Mamdani, Democratic member of the New York State Assembly, representing Astoria and around there, in Northwest Queens, and a candidate in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York. He's the first candidate we're interviewing, as we will get to all the candidates in the mayoral and New Jersey gubernatorial primaries. Both primaries are in June this year.

We'll probably be back to you, Assemblymember, because I think we'll have time between now and June for at least two passes with each of the hopefuls. Thank you for joining us today, and we will talk again.

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani: Thank you so much. I look forward to it.

 

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