Shownotes Transcript
When he announced his candidacy for New York City mayor last year, it's fair to say a lot of people had no clue who Zohran Mamdani was and didn't think he had a chance of winning. But the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist is now the Democratic nominee in New York City's mayor's race. It sent a shockwave through our politics. He's out down with him on Monday, one-on-one for this special episode of Up First from NPR News. ♪
Coming up, Zohran Mamdani speaks about what the Democratic Party can learn from his campaign. For far too long, we've thought of politics as removed from people. He also talks about the barrage of bigotry he's been getting while running for office. It's been very difficult to see just how much of this hatred has been normalized. And I ask him how his faith informs his politics.
Thank you for coming in. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure. So I really want to start with how you did this. I mean, you were a person that most people didn't know your name. They still can't pronounce your name. It's spelled like it sounds. You did not have the establishment of your party behind you. The paper of record in New York City, the editorial board of that paper, actually asked voters not to rank you at all, and yet you won. How did you do that? And why did voters choose you?
From the beginning, we wanted to break out of the bubble of New York City politics and into the world of New York City itself. This is a city that I moved to when I was seven years old. It's where I've grown up. It's where I got my citizenship, where I got married. It's a city that I love. And I've been frustrated over many years to see how separate often our politics is from our place.
And we sought especially to increase turnout amongst New Yorkers who hadn't been participating and to register new voters. And we said that we would do this by espousing a politics of no translation, by speaking directly to the crisis that working people were facing in the city, which is ultimately a crisis of affordability.
Because no matter how many politicians try to make it about something else, what we see when we speak to New Yorkers, no matter where they live, no matter who they are, is that they are being pushed out of the city that they love because it's the most expensive city in the United States of America.
After your win, which really stunned a lot of people, the establishment of your party still hasn't really come behind you. Leaders in your party not endorsing you yet. I mean, what needs to happen for you to get them on side at this point? And why haven't they? You know, I approach coalition building the way that we've approached every day of this campaign. We have to earn support. We have to earn endorsements. And ultimately, it's been very exciting to see that since Tuesday, even before these results have been certified,
We've received the endorsements of Congressman Nadler, of Senator Elizabeth Warren, of State Senator Brad Hoyleman Siegel will be the next borough president of Manhattan. The current borough president, Mark Levine, will be the next city controller. We're seeing our coalition expand. And a lot of it is a reflection of the fact that our victory on Tuesday was a decisive victory.
We won with a vision that spoke to every single New Yorker. And ultimately what I think binds us together, both the endorsers who began this campaign with us and the ones who are joining us now, is that shared belief that this is a city that should be affordable. And by building a tent around that affordability, we saw that in the first round of Ranked Choice Voting, we got more votes than Eric Adams did after seven rounds in 2021. Right.
And we didn't just win places that were considered to be progressive. We won neighborhoods that voted for Donald Trump. We won neighborhoods that voted for Eric Adams. And we did so because ultimately you can actually win people back if you offer them a vision to vote for, not just something to vote against. Now, the names you just mentioned, some of them were people –
that Americans would expect to endorse you within your party. But there are leaders in your party who have been asked directly. Chuck Schumer, Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, both from New York, who were asked directly and still didn't endorse you.
So what needs to happen for them to come on side? Have you met with them? I've appreciated the conversations I've had with them and the recognition of our campaign's focus on that affordability as being something that is meeting this moment in time. And I'm looking forward to sitting down with both of them because ultimately what we see in this conversation,
primary election is an example of how we can also start to unite our party and build our party such that we can take on and defeat this right-wing authoritarianism we're seeing in Washington, D.C. And I give you that as an analysis because of the fact that in November, New York was the state that swung most towards Donald Trump, 11 and a half point.
And that swing happened far from the caricatures of Trump voters. It happened in the hearts of immigrant New York City. And when I went to Fordham Road in the Bronx, when I went to Hillside Avenue in Queens a few days after that election, and I asked Democrats, who did you vote for and why? They told me again and again, they voted for Donald Trump because they remembered being able to afford their life four years ago more than they could today. They cited their rent, their groceries, their childcare. And I asked them, what would it take to bring you back?
And they said a relentless focus on an economic agenda. And that's what we've led with, with freezing the rent for more than two million rent-stabilized tenants, taking the slowest buses in the nation, making them fast and free, and delivering universal child care. And showing that voters in the same places that had been written about as being lost to the Democrats forever, in places like Diker Heights and Bath Beach and Bensonhurst and College Point, across the city, are voters that can still come back if you offer them a vision that they see themselves in.
Let's talk about your policies, because one of the criticisms that your detractors have is that they sound great. It sounds great to have free child care and free buses and children.
groceries that you can afford. But a lot of what you're promising is out of the mayor's hand. It's something that will have to happen at the state level. It will have to happen, as you mentioned, with other actors. So how can you actually fulfill any of these promises? Absolutely. What we've seen in our history of our city is, especially since the fiscal crisis, the city is a creature of the state.
Any mayor that has an ambition that meets the scale of the crisis of the people that they're seeking to represent will have to work with Albany. And the reason that I put forward this agenda is not only because it's urgent, but because it's feasible. And it's just a question of putting in the work and building the coalition. The same people who will tell you that making every bus free in New York City is a non-starter are the ones who would have described my campaign eight months ago as a non-starter.
And what we've shown is that we can build a new kind of politics. We can build a new kind of coalition and we can deliver actual results. One of the ways or the way that you say you're going to pay for these programs is by increasing the corporate taxes on corporations. By matching New York State's top corporate tax rate to that of New Jersey. So we are at 7.25 percent. They are at 11.5 percent.
OK. And then also an income tax on anybody who makes over a million dollars, right? Two percent. The top one percent of New Yorkers. So again, that's a nonstarter for the governor, Kathy Hochul. She said that. So how are you going to pay for it? And how are you going to get people like Kathy Hochul and others on side to give you the money or do the thing that you think needs to happen for you to get the money for these programs? Well, I've appreciated my conversations with the governor and I'm excited to work together because ultimately we haven't seen enough of that.
between city and state over many years, especially when former Governor Cuomo was leading the state. It was often a relationship of animosity and one where New Yorkers didn't even have clarity as to what was a state function or a city function. Some may remember the fact that the former governor refused to acknowledge that the MTA was actually something that the state was ultimately responsible for.
But I am confident of building that coalition. And the reason is also my own experience as an assembly member. When I went into Albany in 2021 representing Astoria and Long Island City –
I found a different governor there, Andrew Cuomo, and he did not want to raise taxes on billionaires and corporations, the very people who funded his campaigns over the years, to fully fund the public schools that he had starved. And through the coalition that we built, of which I was one part, we were able to overcome his objections and raise $4 billion in new taxes that would then fund those schools.
And one thing that I really appreciate about our current governor, Kathy Hochul, is she is laser focused on affordability. And what we've seen is that these policies I'm speaking to you about, they are not just policies that people are voting for incidentally while they're voting for me. They're voting for this platform. I go around New York City. If I'm at events, I start saying the platform and people finish my sentence. I say we're going to freeze the rent, make buses fast and free, deliver universal child care.
And that's because people know what exactly it is that they deserve. And I'm confident of being able to deliver on that agenda. But again, what makes you confident about the coalition building when you're hearing the governor say it's a nonstarter? She hasn't also endorsed you yet, as these other leaders within your party have not done. What gives you that confidence that you can overcome that if you become mayor? The experience that I've had, you know, over this campaign campaign.
There was a time when many of the ideas we were putting forward were considered to be distinct to our campaign. And yet as we built it, more and more candidates started to embrace those same policies. And I am confident of seeing that happen across the political spectrum. Even Andrew Cuomo in his own transportation plan said that he wanted to explore making buses free. That wasn't a recognition of me as an individual. That was a recognition of the popularity of that as a proportionality.
And when you look at the polling, whether it's for making buses free, whether it's for freezing the rent for unstabilized tenants, whether it's even for a network of municipal-owned grocery stores, you see that it has support not just among Democrats, but oftentimes even among independents and Republicans. And that's what's so exciting about this moment is that we're reshaping the political map.
And we're showcasing a way that we fight for our democracy, not just in opposition to authoritarianism, but also by increasing New Yorkers' faith in the ability of that same democracy to deliver to the problems that they're facing on a daily basis. Do you have a plan B to pay for your policies? I mean, a state cannot go into debt. You have to be able to pay for what you've promised. Again, Governor Hochul has said raising taxes is a non-starter. So do you have a plan B?
I am wedded to the outcomes that I've spoken about. The first things that we launched this campaign on October 23rd was how we would make this city more affordable. Freezing the rent, making buses fast and free, delivering universal childcare. If there are other means by which you can pay for that beyond the taxes we've proposed, by all means, I am ready for that discussion. But ultimately, what I will be judged by is the delivery of these commitments to making the city affordable.
And to me, there are other means by which you can raise revenue. We have looked at a number of different things at city and at state level.
But ultimately, the ones that I think make the most sense are by matching the corporate tax rate of our regional neighbor and by increasing income taxes on the top 1%, in part because even after you accomplish those things, both of those groups of New Yorkers who make a million dollars or more a year or corporations that make millions in profits would still pay less in taxes than they did before Trump's tax cuts in his first administration. And I say that because
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You describe yourself as a democratic socialist. You embrace that label wholeheartedly. And I think that scares some of the people within your own party. And I think it scares some American voters. How would you explain democratic socialism to American voters? You know, as a Muslim democratic socialist, I am no stranger to bad PR and having to explain these labels and terms, which many have been taught to fear for many years. You know, this is a language that I learned from Bernie Sanders' 2016 run.
when he ran for president, and I understood, in fact, that this was what described my politics. And ultimately, his focus in that time was on income inequality, and that is my focus in this time. And I think about the words of Dr. King decades ago, who said, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God's children in this country. And I find that when I speak to New Yorkers,
No matter how they may describe themselves or their politics, they do believe that dignity should be a reality for each and every person that calls this city home. And sometimes when we just break it down into the ways we interact with our city, libraries and sanitation and public schools, then you realize that in fact those are necessary for a dignified life. So is public transit.
So is housing. So is child care. These are not negotiable things or luxury items. They are the building blocks of any person's life in this city. And even with public transit, for example, $2.90 may not seem like a lot to many who are listening. It's out of reach for one in five New Yorkers. And if it's out of reach for the very New Yorkers for whom we are intending to lift up with so much of our social programs, then we have to interrogate whether this current model is serving that intent.
You made some waves this weekend when you said that you didn't believe that billionaires had the right to exist. What does that mean exactly? I mean, are you talking about redistribution of wealth where you take money from these billionaires and give them to Americans who make less? I was speaking about the stark nature of income inequality in this city and in this country. And ultimately, I think the better question is,
whether working people have the right to exist. Because what we've seen in this city is that
that more and more working people are being pushed out. And the vision that I'm speaking about, it's a vision that I want everyone to enjoy and benefit from, including billionaires. And I say this often, both in meetings and also in conversations, that though my taxes that I'm proposing are ones that would be on the top 1% of New Yorkers, on the most profitable corporations, it's not taxes that will detract from their life. It's in fact taxes that will benefit everyone across the city, including those who are being taxed.
And we need a better quality of life for all New Yorkers. And ultimately, this is not an interest in taxation in and of itself. It's an interest in finding revenue to pay for something that will transform life in the city. So you weren't proposing that your policies would ultimately lead to a New York with no. No, that's not what I was proposing.
Do you think your views as a democratic socialist is why some of your own party is distancing itself from you despite this win that you had in New York City? I think people are catching up to Tuesday and it may take some people time.
Because what we saw on Tuesday is in many ways in tension with what we've been told about politics for a long time in this city and even in this country. You know, the general conventional wisdom is that the left can only win low turnout elections. We saw that the top three ages that turned out were 18 to 24, 25 to 29, 30 to 34. That is unlike anything we've seen in this city and in this country. And coming to terms with something that
really reshapes what's possible and what a coalition looks like, it may take some people time. And what's so exciting to me is that this was a campaign that was laser focused on an economic agenda and on making clear that every New Yorker belongs in this city. They deserve the same respect, the same recognition. And ultimately, what good is it if we call this the greatest city in the world if the people who built it can't afford to live here?
And the increased turnout, it's not just generational. I also say this as the first South Asian elected official, the first Muslim elected official to ever run for mayor. The turnout in those same communities has been incredible to see. Is your party maybe refusing to learn any lessons from your win? I mean, are you frustrated at all with your party in the sense that you did something that a lot of people thought was impossible, whether they like your candidacy or not?
And yet here we are where you are convincing part of it to get behind you. I'm not frustrated. I think that what we're seeing now is less than a week since those results. And it sent a shockwave through our politics. And I think that it will take people time to digest those results. And the fact that so much of this analysis that we have treated as fact is
is actually out of step with where New Yorkers are. And I'm excited to earn the support of those that I have spoken to and those that I haven't even met yet. And I think that that's at the core of my desire is not to win an argument or represent the people who've already voted for me, but rather to lead this entire city. That's eight and a half million people. And I know that I could, you know,
You can win this general election with the same number of voters that we had in the primary. But that's not the way that you govern. You govern by ensuring that you look to every New Yorker, especially the ones who had questions or doubts or suspicions, and you give them the time to actually speak to them. Because I think for far too long, we've thought of politics as removed from people. And I believe New Yorkers deserve a mayor that they can see, that they can talk to, that they can ask questions of, even one that they can yell at. Because what's more New York City than that? You know, I was...
I was having an appreciation dinner for our team.
I was in a backyard giving a speech about the incredible work that so many of our team members made. And then there was a guy who put his head out the window. He said, shut up. It's like this is New York City. I'm likely going to be the Democratic nominee of this city. And I'm appreciating the work that changed politics in this city for a long, long time. And this guy just doesn't have the time for it. And that's the place that I love. Let's talk about that broader appeal because your campaign appealed –
to voters who are registered as Democrats. Now you are going to appeal to a larger city, independents, Republicans, and you struggled in places to get older black voters. You struggled with lower income voters during the primary. How are you going to appeal to those voters and that broader, the broader political landscape?
You know, I had a young man who came up to me with about an hour left before election day. He was on his motorcycle, came up with his helmet. He took it off and he said, I want to vote for you, but I don't know if I can. And we pulled out his phone. We found his voter registration. I was ready to get on the back of his motorbike and go to a poll site with him. And we found out that he was a Republican. And to me, it was just one example of how
If you keep that door open to each and every New Yorker and you ask them for one thing, which is to believe in a city that everyone can afford, you will find far more interest than just those who belong to one party. And there are so many New Yorkers who I heard of who went to vote for
into the polls and were turned away because they didn't know that they were an independent. They didn't know that they were unaffiliated. They didn't know that they weren't able to be part of that political process. And I'm excited that in November, they will have a chance to cast that same vote. And ultimately, what we saw, for example, with black voters in New York City, you know, Andrew Cuomo had
sizable advantage from the beginning of this race. At some points, we managed to close that gap immensely and we managed to win young black New Yorkers who were a real core part of our campaign. Now, my job is to earn the trust and support of older black New Yorkers and I'm going to do that by respecting them and the work that they have done and going to meet with them. And what I'm excited by is that whereas for the first three, four months of this campaign, I couldn't get into a church because nobody knew who I was. You know, I began this campaign at
at 1% name recognition, and that's being charitable to myself. And then by the end of it, I was double booked on Sundays. And now we have more months to have those same kinds of visits, to introduce myself again and again. And I know that in this last race, I wasn't just running against Andrew Cuomo. I was also running against the legacy of Mario Cuomo, because so many voters told me, I'm voting for Mario's son. And ultimately, there's only so much you can do over eight months, and I'm excited to have more time to talk about how this agenda is
that I am so excited by is one that actually speaks to the very reason that this city has been pushing black New Yorkers out for decades. Eric Adams says you could have fixed these things as an assembly member, and now you're running for mayor, which doesn't have the ability to increase taxes like Albany does.
What do you say to that? It's funny. I feel like you could ask Eric Adams that question when he was running for mayor after having also served in Albany. I think ultimately he's trying to distract from his own record. You know, when I began this campaign, I began it running to defeat Eric Adams' second term. And then after he worked so closely with Donald Trump that he realized he could not win a Democratic primary and dropped out of it, the inheritor of that second term was Andrew Cuomo with the same donors, the same corruption, the same agenda. And now I'm back to that original architect.
And ultimately what Eric Adams' record has been is raising the rent on more than 2 million New Yorkers by more than 9 percent, on increasing the water bill to the highest it's been in 13 years, siding with Con Edison when they wanted to increase gas and electric bills by $65 a month, and promising to fight for the very working class New Yorkers that voted for him and instead betraying them themselves.
to instead cater to the donors that put him there. And my track record in Albany is one where I've shown the possibility of this very work that I want to deliver as the next mayor. I'm fighting to make every bus free because I won the first free bus pilot where we saw those exact results. I'm fighting for dignity for working class New Yorkers because I won nearly half a billion dollars in debt relief for working class taxi drivers.
These are the ingredients of the exact agenda that I'm looking to deliver. Another criticism from Eric Adams is that actually you speak as a man of the people, but you were raised by a very famous film director and a well-known academic that you don't know what it is not to have. I mean, do you know what New Yorkers go through who didn't grow up with what you had? And do you know how to serve them?
I have always been honest to the fact of how I grew up in this city and the fact that the childhood that I had was one that I believe every New Yorker should have, one that is sadly out of reach for so many. And what we've seen is that we deserve a mayor who puts –
every single tool at our disposal to use in delivering working people a life that they can afford. And ultimately, what we've seen is there's no doubting the struggles that Eric Adams has gone through over the course of his life. But there's also no doubting the record that he has as leading the city, a record where he has betrayed those very working class New Yorkers time and again. And ultimately, I am not going to subscribe to a politics where I'm
The only people that I can fight for are the ones that I see exactly my whole life in. It has to be a politics where you can fight for every New Yorker, those that you can see yourself in and those that you've never even met, those that you have disagreements with. Because ultimately, leadership is not about remaking a city in your image. It's about remaking the city in the image of every New Yorker who struggles day after day. You are going to have what looks like a tough race in November.
You already have people like billionaire Bill Ackman saying he'll give hundreds of millions of dollars to anybody who runs against you. I think he also said some nice things about me as well. What else did he say? I think he said that I was smart, which I appreciate it. Oh, did he say that? Thank you, Bill. Okay. Well, okay. But he also doesn't want you to be mayor of New York City. You know, and there are other corporations, wealthy New Yorkers who feel the same way.
And there are some people who fear your candidacy. You have support among some Jewish voters and you have some Jewish voters who are extremely skeptical of you and afraid of your candidacy. My job is to lead this entire city. My job is to address those very concerns that New Yorkers may have, be it for whatever basis. And ultimately, this is something that I said on Tuesday night that
Wherever there may be disagreements, my commitment is now to reach further, to understand those disagreements, to wrestle with the complexities of those disagreements. And that means taking the time to have meetings with New Yorkers who may be concerned. Maybe it's
You know, a business leader who is worried about the impact of my tax proposals and I get to share the fact that these are proposals that will make it easier for them to attract and retain talent in the city that so often the success of a business is based upon its ability for young people to be able to live here and actually raise a family here.
If I can speak with a Jewish New Yorker who's concerned about the issue of anti-Semitism and I can share the fact that this is a real crisis that we have to tackle and one that I'm committed to doing so through increased funding for actually preventing hate crimes across the city, an increase in about 800 percent to do so.
and make it clear time and again that my commitment is to protect Jewish New Yorkers and that I will live up to that commitment through my actions. And that's what these next many months are about. It's not simply about winning an election. It's about ensuring that every New Yorker knows that even where they disagree with me, there will always be a shared sense of humanity. And I will always still represent them. Where they feel misunderstood, I will look to understand them. Where they feel hurt, I will look to heal them. And I think that that is at the core where, you know, even Bill Ackman,
whomever it is, I want them to stay in the city. I want everyone to stay here. Our point of disagreement is not whether or not they should be here. It's how do we make this a city where everyone can afford to stay. But what do you say to people who say, if Zohran Mamdani wins, I'm leaving this city, whether it's corporations, wealthy New Yorkers,
Or New Yorkers who feel like you won't make them more safe?
that paints me in that manner, that smears and slanders me, that artificially lengthens the color and the length of my beard, that calls me a monster and describes me at the gates. If I was someone who knew nothing about myself and that was the only way that I was introduced to a campaign, I too might have concerns. And that's the exciting opportunity that both this general election and these next few months present is to live up to the words of another famous New Yorker, to reintroduce myself.
And it's an introduction that will showcase my focus on these five boroughs, on protecting each and every New Yorker, and on delivering them a life that they can afford so that they can do more than just struggle in the city, but actually live out the dreams that brought them here.
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Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or DSW.com. You know, the thing that was very clear in the weeks before and the days after the primary was the spirage of racist anti-Muslim attacks on you, equating you to a terrorist, saying you're a danger to the safety of Americans, especially Jewish Americans. And I'm going to repeat some of the attacks, not because I think they're okay to say, but I want listeners to understand what's being said.
And it's not just from the right wing and Republicans in office. It's also from other influential figures. Deborah Messing of Will and Grace posted online that you sided with terrorists and you celebrated 9-11. You were nine when that happened. Republican Representative Nancy Mace posted a picture of you in your Eid outfit and wrote, after 9-11, we said, never forget. I think we sadly have forgotten.
Republican Representative Andy Ogle called you Little Muhammad and said you need to be deported and is calling for your denaturalization. Were you prepared for this level of bigotry? It's unsurprising, and yet it's still deeply saddening. And it's unsurprising because, as many Muslims in this country know, to exist in public life is to have to deal with this kind of slander at a different scale. And it's part of why so many...
have thought that the safest place to live is in the shadows. And so much of my hope for this campaign was to bring the margins of our city into the mainstream. It's been very difficult to see just how much of this hatred has been normalized. And as you've said, it's not just Republican congresspeople, it's an actress of a show that I used to watch as a kid. And I think that ultimately my responsibility is to show that our vision for this city is
It's a vision that is universal. It's a vision that wants to recognize the belonging of each and every New Yorker. And it's in stark contrast to this exclusionary vision that we see from so many. One that seeks to distract people from an inability to take care of working people by designating the enemies as the other. And one of the most difficult parts of this, however, have been that the threats that have been made on my life and on people that I love have
are ones that fundamentally transform how you can live. So it's changed how you can live? It has. It has. I mean, the amount of people that reach out to me filled with anxiety about my own safety, the fact that I now have to have security at all times, it's a different way of engaging with the world. But my responsibility is to showcase that this is but a
drop in the bucket of how people actually feel in the city. You know, just a few days after I received a number of death threats and someone who said that he was going to blow up my car,
which was news to me because I don't own a car, but he clearly had a vision for what he would do to me and to my family. I walked the length of Manhattan to speak to New Yorkers. And I did it because I think that the way that we defeat this bigotry is by showcasing just how small of a minority it actually represents. And
I'm excited by the fact that this election has had meaning not just for those that share my identities, but for those that had lost faith in politics at large. And our vision moving forward is one that speaks to all of them. Do you think the attacks work, though, that there are people who are now afraid of you because of your faith? I think that there are some. I think that it's hard not to believe so much of what you're told and understand.
What I've really appreciated, however, is that New Yorkers have still been able to give me a chance when I meet them, no matter what they have heard on a 30-second ad or a mailer in their mailbox.
And ultimately, there's still an interest in building a city that can navigate whatever disagreement there may be, but always going back to that shared humanity. And it's a very New York thing. I mean, I think about Mayor Koch, who told New Yorkers, if you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. 12 out of 12, see a psychiatrist. I've shared this over the campaign. There was a kid that came up to me in Washington Square Park. He was like, I agree with 12 out of 12. Send me away. I was like,
I appreciate the sentiment, brother. But I think it's the city that I love, the city that I grew up in, where there are moments when there's a video of two New Yorkers and they're yelling at each other and people will be commenting, are they having an argument? And someone will just say, no, no, these are just two New Yorkers showing each other love. And that's the city that I want to represent. So much about
Your faith and being Muslim, people are talking about it and talking about you and what kind of Muslim are you and that kind of thing. But I want to ask you, yeah, I mean, what about your faith? What do you draw on in your faith that informs you as a New Yorker, as a politician, as a person who's trying to become mayor of this city? You know, my grandparents, Yusuf and Kulsem, were the ones that taught me about Islam at a young age.
And one of the lessons that I always held with me was an understanding that to be a good Muslim, you had to be a good person. You had to help those in need and harm no one. And my favorite month of the year is Ramadan. And it's a month that I've loved because as I grew up, it was one where I started to learn what it meant to be in solidarity with people that you never even met. You know, when we were having iftar or we were, you know, Eid, it was a month where I started to learn what it meant to be in solidarity with people that you never even met.
You would not ask who someone was before you pass them a plate of food. You would not ask who someone was before you helped them. It was a month where you saw yourself in others, no matter if you knew their name or not. And so much of that has been at the foundation of my politics, this belief that solidarity has to be at the core of what we do, and that it's not just something that is an ideal, but it's something that has to be practiced. And I think that
This is, for me, what it means in many ways to be the first Muslim mayor is to live up to those same ideals and to take care of this entire city. And it was my grandmother who told me at a young age that one of the ways to follow the example of the Prophet was to smile. And that's something that she told me I should do each and every day. And I think I share that because
Oftentimes when we discuss religion, it's discussed in a very specific way. And yet for me, it has always been in these kinds of stories that have been imparted upon me. Really quick on the attacks that you've been receiving. Do you feel like you've gotten enough defense from your party? I've appreciated a number of leaders across our party and the country who've spoken up about this very clear anti-Muslim bigotry and this Islamophobia. And it's meant the world to me to see that.
senators, congresspeople, who I have never met, who I have never spoken to, being willing to stand up and call this what it is. Because ultimately, there is an attempt to redefine this country as if it is beyond the reach of so many who are proud to call themselves Americans. Your campaign started with two employees, you said, and you grew to 50,000 volunteers. You talked about the 1% name recognition that you had. You were an assemblyman in
But do you have the experience to run a city government, arguably one of the most, if not the most powerful city in this country?
I believe that I do. And I believe that New Yorkers have made their decision as to what kind of experience matters in this moment. They had a choice between two politicians, one of whom had the experience of leading the state that also came with the experience of resigning in disgrace and cutting Medicaid and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA and hounding the more than 12 women who had credibly accused him of sexual harassment.
And they chose the experience of myself, an assembly member who won half a billion dollars in debt relief for the very taxi drivers who had been sold a promise by the city of a ticket to the middle class and then had that promise pulled out from under them of someone who has –
taken on the eighth largest carbon emitter in the country and defeated a proposal for a frack gas power plant. And ultimately, what I tell New Yorkers is that a campaign is a glimpse of the way in which you would run a city. And in this campaign, we have shown ourselves able to meet the moment every single day. And that means scaling up an operation from those two full-time employees to one that now manages over 52,000 volunteers. But also, it's a twin-
understanding of the fact that ultimately I am responsible at the end of the day for the work of this campaign and that the way that we will execute our vision is by empowering a team of the best and the brightest. We won this campaign thanks to the incredible work done by people around me who set up this apparatus that could not only inspire New Yorkers but absorb that inspiration and build a new kind of politics.
And the way that I will run our city will be by building a similar team that is united not by ideology, not by how long they've known me, but by a track record of excellence and an ability to execute on this agenda that we saw more than 400,000 New Yorkers vote for in the very places that we had been told we had lost the Republican Party for years. Zahran Mamdani, Democratic nominee for mayor in New York City. Thank you for sitting down with us. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
This has been a special episode of Up First from NPR News. It was produced by Mansi Khurana and edited by Arzu Razvani. Our executive producer is Jay Shaler.
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