Show full transcript 0:30 He's the 112th mayor of New York City, and one of the most talked about figures in politics. 0:36 He's got a lot of big ideas, and we're going to get into it. 0:40 I'm thankful for his time. 0:42 Today's guest is Mr. Zoran Mamdani. 1:02 Ian, if you've got any moves, Zoran, do you prefer Zoran? 1:05 Yeah, I'm fine with that. 1:06 Okay. 1:07 All right. 1:09 Yeah, so Zoran is good. 1:11 I'll deal, I assume, with Zoran. 1:13 Yeah, that's fine man. Thank you so much. No, please. Um, there's a lot of folklore out there about who you are, right? 1:19 Um, and a lot of people have heard your name, but they don't know you. Yeah. Um, you were born in Uganda 1:25 Yeah, you moved to New York at age of seven. Yeah, you were a rapper for a little while who wasn't 1:33 But give me the two minute give me the two minute who is Zoran Mamdani 1:40 Well, I would say it starts and ends with being a New Yorker. 1:43 As you said, I moved to our city when I was seven years old. 1:47 My dad got a job here in New York City at Columbia. 1:50 And so I grew up in the Upper West Side and went to middle school in the neighborhood, 1:54 went to high school in the Bronx at Bronx Science. 1:57 And then I left for college and came back to this city. 2:01 And the thing that has always been a part of my life is this city, no matter what 2:06 stage of my life I'm in. 2:08 And to me right now, I have the greatest job in the world 2:11 because every day I get to wake up, 2:13 serve the same city that I've loved 2:14 since I was seven years old. 2:16 And I think especially with a view of 2:19 how do we make this a city 2:20 that not only everybody can love 2:22 but everybody can live in? 2:23 Because a lot of people love this city 2:25 but not as many of them can live here. 2:27 And that's because this is also 2:28 most expensive city in the United States of America. 2:31 Is that true? 2:31 Yeah. 2:32 It's the third most expensive city in the world. 2:34 Wow. 2:35 What am I talking about? 2:36 but I gotta pay whenever I leave here, yeah. 2:38 And I'm not excited about it. 2:40 It's an expensive place to be. 2:43 What made you wanna be mayor? 2:45 Like, I'm a comedian, right? 2:47 And, you know, self-proclaimed, 2:49 but there's some evidence of it, right? 2:50 Because it's a weird thing to say. 2:52 There's enough evidence of it. 2:53 It's a weird thing to say though sometimes. 2:54 But I'm a comedian because I need, 2:57 like there's something I need people's approval, right? 2:59 There's something I need when I go on stage. 3:02 The laughter, I don't know what it is. 3:03 I need to be seen. 3:04 I don't know what it is. 3:05 But being a mayor just it seems like you know, sometimes the mayor is like, you know 3:09 The the guy in town who like finally wanted to be able to say well everybody picked me or like, you know 3:14 It becomes this sort of I'm the hero kind of thing like what like why yeah, why do you want to be mayor? 3:21 I think 3:22 the thing that pushed me the most to run for this position was 3:28 Both a love of the city 3:29 But also a frustration with the fact that a lot of the leaders of the city 3:33 talked about the problems, like they, 3:35 there was nothing they could do about it. 3:37 It was like, somebody's got to figure this out. 3:39 It's like, you're the mayor. 3:40 You know what I'm like, yeah. 3:42 That's where we are with a lot of, with a lot of. 3:44 That somebody is you. 3:45 Yeah. 3:46 And I think it's not to say these are easy things 3:48 to resolve. 3:49 It's not to say you can snap your fingers 3:51 and people just were refusing to do it. 3:52 But it's that a lot of times it felt like 3:54 people weren't even trying, and if they were, 3:56 they were just trying to make things worse 3:58 because there was money to be made 3:59 when you make things worse. 4:01 Simon, at this flip side of being the most expensive city 4:04 in the world is that a lot of people make a lot of money 4:06 in the city and amidst all of that wealth, 4:09 one in four New Yorkers are living in poverty. 4:11 So to me it was looking at the politics of the city I love 4:16 and seeing a complete abdication of duty, 4:19 just like a sense of somebody else's problem, 4:22 not mine to fix. 4:23 And the thing about being the mayor is yeah, it's tough, 4:26 but also you actually have tools 4:27 that you can use to help people, 4:29 to make people's lives better. 4:31 Is that an honest fact, Mr. Mondani? 4:34 Yes, sir. 4:35 26% of New York, so. 4:38 Your head, your head. 4:39 It's gonna be a tough start to the interview. 4:42 26% of New York City residents, 4:44 totally a record 2.2 million people 4:48 live below the poverty line. 4:51 Once you got in office, was there things like, 4:53 do you get to see what's really going on? 4:55 Like once you're in there, 4:57 Can they keep, like, I don't even know who they are anymore, 5:00 but it's like, are there still secrets kept? 5:02 Are you able to see that, like, okay, 5:05 the way that this is structured isn't for the everyday man, 5:09 that this system here has been built 5:11 like for the elites or to favor the elites? 5:14 Like, what did you see? 5:16 I think one of the major things I saw 5:18 was how deeply mismanaged the city budget was. 5:21 It's not a sexy topic 5:23 or one that most people wake up thinking about, 5:25 but so often in politics, the incentive is just to tell the best possible story of the day 5:31 and not tell the whole truth about what's actually happening. 5:35 And so the prior administration had said, you know, we had a balanced budget, we had, 5:38 I don't know, maybe a $6 billion deficit or so in the year to come. 5:43 And then we came in, we looked through all the books, and we found that at a best case 5:49 scenario we were at a $12 billion deficit. In the city? In the city. And the last time 5:56 we had deficits like that, there was a major global event. Something had happened to cause 6:00 the deficit. It was, you know, it was tough when it was the peak of the pandemic. It 6:05 was tough when it was the global financial crisis. There was no event around this that 6:10 could explain this much of a deficit. So what do you think is going on? Is it 6:13 just greed? Like, I think it's, I mean, look, like, what did you notice? Like, 6:18 What were some of the like? 6:19 I think a lot of it is incompetence 6:20 and a lack of interest in resolving it, 6:24 a sense that you could just keep pushing it 6:26 until it was somebody else's problem. 6:28 And that to me is like, yeah, look, 6:30 I want to do a good job while I'm the mayor. 6:33 I also want to leave the city in a good standing 6:36 for whoever comes next 6:37 because it's still the same city, whoever's the mayor. 6:40 We still live in the city, we still love the city. 6:42 And so when you come in and you're like, 6:43 actually the deficit is twice as large, 6:46 there's nothing you can pin it to 6:48 besides internal mismanagement, 6:50 it also just begs the question of what is going on 6:53 and what have been the decision making points 7:00 over the course of the prior administration 7:02 that led to this point. 7:03 So I think that was one of the big things 7:04 where you look under the hood 7:06 and it is way worse than what you would have imagined. 7:09 And you also realize how so much of the government 7:11 is built with a short term in mind. 7:13 I'll give you an example. 7:15 I come in we start to see the most serious snowfall. We've seen in New York City for a while 7:20 We haven't really had winters with a lot of snow recently. Oh, that's nice. I like snow 7:25 Yeah, you know, I used to like snow until I came to bear and I thought about snow as a structural problem 7:31 Well, we're probably overpaying for it from somebody. Well, I mean the big thing is that we I 7:35 Found out that the way we budget for snow removal services is as an average of the recent year's cost of snow removal 7:42 So if you haven't had snow for the last few years, you're not gonna have any money really set aside for that snow removal 7:49 Got it 7:50 And so I think having to reallocate that funding deal with the first blizzard in ten years 7:54 These are the kinds of things that are some of the ones that they shock you when you get in there 7:58 So it's fair to say then you just saw a lot of mismanagement mismanagement. There was waste 8:02 There's also this addiction to consulting a sense that you know 8:06 Well, for years we've been told that if you contract something out of government, you will 8:12 save money by bringing in kind of specialized consultants. 8:16 When we looked at the city budget, when we looked at different departments, we realized 8:21 we had to save a lot of money through efficiency as well. 8:24 We couldn't just look for help from elsewhere. 8:27 So we set up something called Chief Savings Officers in every department. 8:31 And their remit was how can you save this percentage 8:35 in your department without cutting services? 8:38 We do not wanna cut services. 8:40 So we saved $94 million just by renegotiating contracts 8:44 to a better rate. 8:46 We saved $24 million just by letting go 8:49 of unused office space. 8:52 These are the kinds of things 8:53 where you can actually save more than a billion dollars 8:57 without affecting the services you're delivering to people. 9:00 And that to me is like, look, I'm a socialist. 9:02 I believe in the importance of government 9:04 to deliver for working people. 9:06 I also believe that that government 9:08 has to be the most excellent, efficient version of itself 9:11 to be worthy of people's trust. 9:13 And when I came in, the government that we saw 9:17 was powered by incredible city workers 9:19 but mismanaged at the top where waste 9:22 was just an accepted part of doing business. 9:24 And that can't be. 9:26 Every time you waste, you tell somebody 9:28 Don't believe in government. You give them a reason. Yeah, that's a good point actually. Yeah, it's true 9:34 You're like, why would I even yeah, why would I want to pay my taxes? 9:37 Somebody's just gonna somebody's just gonna misappropriate it 9:40 But did you notice did you notice a lot of fraud like was it fraudulent? 9:44 Do you think it seemed or was it just or is it even worth figuring that out? 9:47 I think it's it's if you if you find an evidence of fraud 9:50 There's always worth figuring it out if that's actually the case what I will say is from what we've seen 9:54 It's more to do with mismanagement. It's more to do 9:59 with just kind of fiscal impropriety I would say, 10:02 like moving money around 10:03 to make it look like things are better than they are. 10:06 There are some people in the past administration 10:08 who've been investigated for fraud, 10:10 that definitely did happen. 10:12 It's not, I'm trying to think, I don't even know, 10:14 maybe it's Eric Adams. 10:15 I don't know if it's him or not, is it? 10:17 He was the previous mayor. 10:20 He had a number of his- 10:21 Oh yeah, he was bonkers, dude. 10:22 Remember when he was looking for those guns 10:23 and those care bears or whatever? 10:24 Do remember, yeah, check your backpacks. 10:26 Yeah, that's crazy, that's crazy. 10:31 And they had drugs or whatever in that little, 10:33 they had like one of those little baby, 10:35 it was like a little baby stroller. 10:37 It was a fake one though for kids when they have a baby, 10:39 like a pretend baby or whatever to practice 10:41 for like mother, for being a mother one day or something. 10:44 And then they found like a little bag of dope 10:47 on the side of it. 10:48 You know, I was like, what is this about? 10:50 But anyway, that's fraudulent to me. 10:52 He had a number of top aides who were investigated. 10:55 Yeah, one of them memorably said when speaking to a contractor where are my crumbs? 11:02 Oh, yeah, where's my money as part of a steal? Oh, it sounds like a that's a bar though to be honest 11:07 If you're gonna be corrupt those are the best words to use 11:10 Yeah, at least at least they were like kind of poetic of being corrupt. You got to say that 11:15 But I think that to me is an example of why people have lost faith and people people look at it 11:20 And they're like I'm already giving you my money. Why should I give you my time? 11:24 Why should I give you my care? 11:27 And I don't ever want to lecture somebody 11:29 that they're wrong to feel that way. 11:30 I want to prove to them that it can be different. 11:33 And then from there, hope that they can believe. 11:36 I know that, and thanks for talking with me today, man. 11:39 Please, that's awesome. 11:40 I know one thing that you champion is rank control, right? 11:43 And that you worked in the housing, 11:45 as a housing counselor, what's the term? 11:48 So I worked as a foreclosure prevention housing counselor. 11:51 And I'll say that in English. 11:52 that is me working for homeowners 11:56 who are on the brink of foreclosure. 11:59 They would come in and I would negotiate 12:01 with their bank on their behalf. 12:03 And was that private or was that was a public service? 12:05 That was working for a nonprofit. 12:07 Okay, got it. 12:07 So I would work for a nonprofit in Jackson Heights 12:10 and Richmond Hill in Queens. 12:12 And these would be middle-class homeowners. 12:14 They were, you know, what I would find is 12:16 these are people who we would describe 12:18 as having a successful middle-class life. 12:20 They had a union job. 12:21 They had a home that they owned and it was just one emergency often that would throw them out of 12:27 Being on time with their payments. Oh, yeah, and it would be a medical visit 12:31 They hadn't planned for an illness of a family member, you know, they had a car, you know 12:37 some kind of a car accident and 12:39 Yeah, I've been there 12:40 I mean I've been on the edge of where it's like you have to call and you're trying to figure out refinancing and that 12:43 Takes so much of your time and then you have to go to a public service to get some help 12:47 It's a nightmare it is and I think 12:50 it was one of the more fulfilling things 12:53 I've ever done in my life 12:55 because I could help someone stay in their home. 12:58 The more depressing part of it 13:00 is no matter how many clients I helped, 13:02 there would always be another client. 13:04 And it doesn't take away from the people that you helped, 13:07 but it makes you realize that this is a systemic issue. 13:10 There is no amount of individual assistance I can provide 13:14 that will stop this. 13:16 And that's then what made me think about running for office 13:21 was understanding that actually if you want to resolve this, 13:24 you have to get into the systems and the structures 13:27 that create these kinds of conditions 13:29 because there are so many people who you'd think 13:33 are living a successful middle-class life 13:34 and they're, like you said, they're on the brink. 13:37 And they shouldn't need some intervention from one person 13:41 to be able to survive. 13:43 That shouldn't be based on whether or not 13:44 that person does their job. 13:46 And in that case, that person was me. 13:48 Where does rent increase, the cost of living has gone up? 13:52 We live in a time, it's really, really tough, right? 13:54 You talked about a middle-class worker 13:56 who's just trying to keep his home. 13:58 Do you think that the American dream is still alive even? 14:02 But bring up what is the American dream? 14:04 People of shit, damn forgot what it is. 14:08 The American dream is the belief 14:11 that anyone in the United States, 14:12 regardless of where they started, 14:13 should have a fair chance to build a better, freer, and more fulfilling life through ability, 14:18 effort, and opportunity. It's an ideal, not a guarantee. 14:22 I mean, look at that second sentence. I think in many ways that is the issue. 14:27 A fair chance. 14:28 No. It is an ideal, not a guarantee. 14:31 Right. It's not okay. So I see what you're saying. So it's not something that's guaranteed 14:34 to you, but it should be something that we can feel. And I think it's something that it's 14:39 kind of like this tone that resonates inside of everybody here 14:42 that I have a chance, if I show up for myself, 14:45 if I do my best, you may need a little bit of luck 14:48 or a little bit of good fortune along the way. 14:50 I feel like that's always felt like it's been the case, 14:53 but I feel like that that that's starting to dissolve. 14:56 It's slipping away. 14:57 And it doesn't feel real anymore. 14:59 It feels like a thing you can believe 15:01 and not a thing you can live. 15:03 And it needs to be, it needs to be a guarantee. 15:08 If something is just an ideal, it starts to lose its worth. 15:12 I mean, think about democracy. 15:13 A lot of people talk about democracy now 15:15 as an ideal or as a value. 15:17 And to somebody who can't afford their groceries, 15:19 they're like, what do I care about a value? 15:21 What do I care about an ideal? 15:23 Like, I'll give you an example. 15:25 To me, the greatest mayor in New York City history, 15:27 Mayor Phyrrell LaGuardia. 15:29 And when he was the mayor about 100 years ago, 15:32 he was looking at the fall of democracies in Europe. 15:34 And he was saying, 15:35 I mean, people are not turning away from democracy 15:38 because they're tired of liberty. 15:39 They're turning away because they're tired of being hungry. 15:43 They're tired of not being able to feed their family. 15:46 So if democracy doesn't mean the better life 15:48 that it has to, it'll lose its worth. 15:50 And the same thing with the American dream. 15:51 If it's something you can only see 15:53 when you turn on your TV 15:55 or you hear about that one guy you grew up with 15:57 who made it, that doesn't mean enough. 15:59 And so to me, it's like in this city, 16:02 The reason I'm focused on housing and childcare and groceries, 16:06 it's like these are the basic aspects 16:08 of a good dignified life and people can't afford them. 16:12 I mean. 16:12 Yeah, oh yeah. 16:13 Well, I've seen some of the stuff that you've done. 16:15 You know, I know that you were offering like 16:16 a night out for parents, you know, 16:18 the opportunity to go have a night out for themselves 16:20 and to offer childcare to help with that. 16:23 Tickets for the opera, which is just a chance 16:25 for somebody to have a new experience. 16:27 That's all that's pretty cool, right? 16:28 Like a lot of quality of life sort of things. 16:29 I think there's oh, I know you're working with the stabilization of rent control, right? 16:37 And a two-year moratorium on an increase. Yeah, that's what the independent rent guidelines board 16:41 They came out they said for the next year and the year after that no rent increase for more than two million New Yorkers 16:46 Right and it sounds like to me it sounds like you're just trying to give people a chance to take a breath 16:50 Right, that sounds like I mean all those things kind of like you know 16:54 I can have a night out right I can listen to a music that gives me a bit of peace, right? 16:59 I can know for a couple years that the job that I have 17:03 is going to equate with the costs 17:05 that are going to be going out, right? 17:07 That is such a beautiful way of describing it, 17:10 is to take a breath. 17:13 Because when we talk to parents and we ask them, 17:16 what are the two most important things 17:18 that could make a difference in your life? 17:20 It's time and money. 17:21 And you give them the time of a night out, 17:24 you take care of the cost of child care. 17:25 Oh yeah, and it keeps the love going. 17:28 If you got to take your lady out, you know go out for a dinner. Yeah, go out for a fish dinner 17:32 If you got a little couple extra bucks if it's fried that's fish dinner. Yeah, that's if somebody loves y'all 17:38 I think they buy you fish but what kind of fish is your favorite, huh? 17:42 You know, there's one I don't like but it smells really bad, but I can never remember which one it is 17:45 Okay, I'm gonna hit you with a couple. All right. Is it brand Zeno? 17:48 I feel like it brand Zeno is the one that was in the mob or something. I don't eat that one 17:52 Was it? 17:52 Huh, yeah, Branzino? 17:54 Was that in the mouth? 17:55 He probably was. 17:56 What are you even talking about? 17:58 You're gonna tell me Branzino 17:59 wasn't friggin' involved in some fishy business 18:02 or whatever? 18:03 All I'm saying is if you want some good fish, 18:06 31st Street in Broadway, Astoria, Bahari, Estatorio, 18:10 great Greek seafood. 18:12 Bahari? 18:12 Bahari. 18:13 Bahari? 18:14 Yeah. 18:14 Estatorio? 18:15 Estatorio. 18:15 Okay. 18:16 Branzino. 18:17 Okay. 18:17 Don't ask, he's not a guy there. 18:19 Okay, okay. 18:20 Is the fish. 18:20 Okay, got it. I got it. Okay. Yeah, I think but there's they missed they did 18:24 There's a lot of misguidance with the fish because they'll come in with like every year 18:27 Like a new fish comes out like bear a Monday. Where was that? My whole life didn't exist. Bam. So who is that? 18:32 That's what I'm saying. It's on the menus. But yeah, he's not running against you. You know what I'm saying? 18:36 But bear a Monday. Who is he? Yeah, bear a Monday sounds like I thought we dealt with them 18:40 But but still then they come in with tilapia like they come in with tilapia is a classic 18:45 But has it always been there like it came out probably 16 years ago people started talking about tilapia 18:50 Then they come in with white fish and then a lot of American catfish got replaced with this thing 18:54 I think it was called we fish. Can you look it up this Vietnamese? We fish they snuck it in they snuck it in, you know 19:03 Vietnamese fish dishes commonly feature. No, it's called we fish. No, you Q you e maybe 19:10 Q you e we fish we well 19:14 That's not the clip we need out there 19:18 I was repeating what you said well I look I do not never repeat after me sir 19:24 I'll tell you that straight up. Yeah, but when you look it up 19:27 It was a fish that replaced catfish in Louisiana in a lot of restaurants. I think you know 19:34 It's funny because I was born in Uganda. Mm-hmm and 19:37 In in Kampala were by Lake Victoria. Oh, listen. Oh, so why the fish you're thinking of is usually 19:43 Actually SWAI, a Vietnamese farm-raised Pangasius fish often used as a cheaper substitute for 19:51 Louisiana US catfish. 19:52 Is this the one you were thinking of? 19:53 Yeah, they snuck it in a while back. 19:55 I don't know what happened. 19:57 Swyphalets are mild white boneless and usually inexpensive properties that make them suitable 20:03 for fried fish plates. 20:05 Anyway, there was a time when they were gaslighting a lot of fish plates with using 20:10 this or whatever. 20:10 I don't know if gaslighting is a term, but they were tricking people. 20:13 Well, they didn't tell you, 20:14 but you just knew something was off, you know? 20:16 Swy. 20:16 Yeah, Swy. 20:17 It was just a fish that had happened. 20:20 Anyway. 20:20 Do you like it? 20:21 I didn't like it and I knew something was wrong. 20:24 And you wasn't catfish. 20:26 I just knew, yeah, I just knew something was wrong 20:28 and I'd ask and nobody would, 20:29 you couldn't get any real information, you know? 20:31 It's kind of like government, you know? 20:33 I think it's probably like that. 20:35 Like you think you have, 20:36 you think you have this like democracy, 20:38 but then you start realizing like, 20:39 something's wrong here, right? 20:41 Something's a little off, you know? 20:42 there's some bad fish in here, you know. 20:45 And that's, I don't even know if that was a good comparison. 20:48 But I actually think, have you heard of the term 20:51 in shitification? 20:52 In shitification? 20:53 Yeah. 20:54 I haven't. 20:55 I might, I might screw this up a little bit, 20:57 but my sense of it is that it's a description of 21:00 how something that is initially successful 21:03 is then made worse, 21:05 oftentimes in a pursuit of greater profit, 21:07 the quality gets worse. 21:08 Oh yeah. 21:09 And profit gets greater. 21:10 Yeah. 21:10 a Stant Sox, there was a company called Stant Sox 21:12 and this is just my judgment, they had the best Sox 21:16 and then they started getting them, I think, outsourced. 21:18 Something happened, they started just wanting 21:20 to make a higher level of money. 21:22 And it's fair, that's their business, you know? 21:25 But in shitification, the process 21:27 where online platforms or digital services 21:29 progressively degrade in quality over time 21:31 as they chase maximum profits. 21:35 Well, that was gonna be one of my next questions for you 21:37 Is yeah, like do you think that the American dream is still alive, you know 21:42 Um, I don't know it used to feel like you did enough work 21:45 You did this and you did these things and you could have this you could have a life, right? 21:49 You could have an existence 21:50 What's that graph we were looking at earlier Nick if you had that it was about? 21:55 Yeah, US rent prices versus income since 1986 and you can see that rent prices are up a hundred and fifty percent 22:03 whereas 22:03 as income is up on average 25%. 22:07 It's unbelievable. 22:09 It's unbelievable. 22:09 I mean, it's, right, you're putting people, 22:11 this is just a slow boiling of people's ability 22:15 to at some point even have peace. 22:18 Because if you don't have peace, 22:19 if you can't like catch your breath, 22:21 like you're saying, it's like, 22:22 you just can't operate, you know? 22:24 Like you can't live the American dream 22:25 if you can't get a good night's sleep. 22:27 Yeah. 22:28 You know? 22:28 Like if you're stressed out, it's like, you know, 22:31 and I just think that that's a place 22:32 where a lot of people are they internally they still have that thing that wants them 22:39 to be able to do it right they're striving but the external isn't meeting them halfway 22:44 or even a third of the way anymore like I feel like it used to it feels like you have to 22:48 luck out in some big way yeah I mean in many ways I feel like it's why a lot of people 22:55 play the lottery that's for many it feels like their only chance would you feel 23:01 Like people think that they have better odds 23:08 playing the lottery than making it in their own life. 23:10 What does that say about the country that we live in? 23:13 Well, it just feels, now it feels like 23:15 if you were born in a certain circles, 23:17 if you have certain DNA, 23:19 if you have that there's kind of like a, 23:22 you do the work and I'll earn the wages, 23:26 I'll earn the money. 23:27 It feels that severely, 23:28 like there's like a trafficking of opportunity. 23:30 that's what I would say it feels like to me a lot of times. 23:33 And to me, one of the greatest things about this country 23:36 is that the American dream wasn't just held up 23:39 as an ideal for someone else. 23:41 It was that you thought it was for you too. 23:44 And the problem is that people, like you're saying, 23:48 people feel like no matter how hard they work, 23:51 it's just as far away. 23:52 They're not getting any closer to it. 23:55 Well, they're the only ones holding up 23:56 there into the bargain, that's what it feels like. 23:58 America isn't holding up its end of the bargain anymore. 24:01 And I think the tough part of this, 24:02 if I'm thinking about it from a city level as a mayor. 24:05 Yeah, that's what I was going to say. 24:05 It's not really your responsibility 24:06 because you're a city guy, 24:08 but it is a bigger picture thing. 24:09 The city is a microcosm of the country. 24:11 Yeah, and it's our biggest microcosm. 24:13 Exactly, and if you look at it at the city, 24:16 it's not even like people are struggling and it's everybody. 24:21 It's that we're also the wealthiest city in the world. 24:25 There's never been a wealthier city than this. 24:28 So imagine you're living that graph 24:31 and then you look outside in your city 24:34 and you see the kind of wealth that exists here. 24:36 You realize that it's not for a lack of opportunity 24:39 being created, it's that that opportunity 24:42 is being consolidated. 24:44 And that's why for me, one of the things 24:47 that I speak about so often is we have to make this 24:51 a place where everyone can afford it. 24:52 because right now it feels like the city 24:54 is becoming a museum. 24:56 Something a middle-class family can afford to visit 24:58 once a month, maybe on the weekends. 25:01 We want people to live here, 25:02 and there's more than enough money 25:04 for everyone to be able to. 25:06 Well, where does greed come into play then? 25:08 Because that seems like a word 25:09 that's not maybe spoken about. 25:11 Sometimes I don't know. 25:12 It just seems like then at that point, 25:13 it would seem like some people are just being really greedy. 25:16 I think that greed is baked in 25:18 to a lot of this economy. 25:19 I think that just last week, we held DoorDash to account. 25:26 Yeah, congratulations, dude. 25:27 Thank you, man. 25:28 That was cool. 25:29 I mean, I know there were other people that were involved. 25:30 Who was involved? 25:32 I would say the first person I wanna give credit to 25:33 is the commissioner of that agency, the agency's DCWP. 25:38 Commissioner's name is Sam Levine. 25:39 Nice. 25:40 Does a great job. 25:41 Thank you, Sam. 25:41 And the people at DCWP, they are doing great work. 25:45 What they did, they poured through 25:47 to terabytes of DoorDash data. 25:50 And they found that DoorDash was underpaying 25:53 or not paying at all, more than 260,000 workers. 25:57 Damn. 25:59 For $131 and a half million dollars. 26:02 This is the largest labor settlement in New York City. 26:04 Wait, how much was it? 26:05 $131 million and a half dollars. 26:07 That's a lot. 26:08 That's as much as you can have. 26:10 That's a lot of money. 26:11 Yeah. 26:12 And the thing that I so appreciate about 26:13 about Sam and DCWP is that they're not now gonna make 26:17 those delivery workers jump through a hoop. 26:20 That money. 26:21 They're gonna hit them with it? 26:22 They're going to the same email 26:23 that they were registered with with DoorDash. 26:25 They have a choice. 26:26 Do you want it as a check? 26:27 Do you want it as direct deposit? 26:29 Dang! 26:29 And if you don't respond, just send in the check. 26:32 Wow. 26:33 And that to me is you have to make it easy. 26:36 You have to make justice easy. 26:37 Yeah, they made it too hard. 26:38 If you make justice hard, 26:39 then we're gonna end up with cruelty. 26:41 Everything's big. 26:42 Well, not everything. 26:43 and I don't want this to be a dour conversation. 26:45 Sometimes I can get a little bit dour. 26:47 So. 26:47 We're not getting dour. 26:48 So, but that's awesome, dude. 26:50 Oh, God, I should have done fricking Door Dash. 26:54 But, I think you do it all right. 26:57 Dude, you gotta go after some other companies. 26:59 I have a list of companies I've worked for 27:00 that I want you guys to look into. 27:01 Who's the sock one? 27:02 Huh? 27:02 Tans? 27:03 Tans? 27:04 No, I never worked for them. 27:05 I've worked at Cold Stone Creamers though 27:07 for almost 11 months. 27:08 Like it, love it, gotta have it. 27:09 I did lie, seven months. 27:11 Where did you work from? 27:12 I worked at location 1171 where would I know 1172 so I'm not as familiar. Oh, yeah 27:17 We're it was I was outside of Baton Rouge 27:19 So yeah, and people let you know they like ice cream, but did you have to do the singing? 27:24 I would do it sometimes but also sometimes I would send once I was kind of a little bit of seniority 27:28 Which only took one month because we had a lot of turnover and we had and we had layoffs, but um 27:34 Once I had seniority. I would make the like like I don't say lower level employees. It was just me and one other guy, but 27:42 I'd make I'd make Danny go up there 27:45 What was he singing? Huh? He just sing happy birthday song, but anyway, we got more important 27:50 I'm sorry. Shout out to Danny though. I hope he's well 27:53 I think he's okay, dude 27:54 Actually, I will rat him out a little bit because he had this like he kind of this another problem 27:59 Is some people want to take it too easy his arms would get too cold from being in the in the in where the ice cream was 28:05 I get the ice cream aquarium or whatever and he'd have to ice cream aquarium or like whatever you put the ice cream in the 28:10 I've never heard it described. 28:12 You know what I'm saying, 28:12 like the thing where the ice cream's in? 28:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 28:14 He'd start complaining his arms were too cold 28:16 and he'd have to go sit on the side 28:17 and rep a towel around each arm. 28:19 So I'm gonna rat him out, Danny. 28:20 You little frickin' cold-art monkey. 28:23 Anyway, moving on, sir. 28:26 Finding a doctor is hard enough. 28:28 Finding the right doctor, even harder. 28:31 Someone who takes your insurance 28:32 has an available appointment when you need one 28:34 and feels like someone you can actually open up to. 28:37 That's where ZockDot comes in. 28:39 Download the ZockDoc app to search and compare doctors by specialty, insurance, and availability. 28:45 Read real patient reviews, find the right fit for you, and book instantly because getting 28:49 seen by the right doctor matters. 28:52 ZockDoc, ready to be seen? 28:54 Download the ZockDoc app today. 28:57 Sports betting has become impossible to ignore this season. 29:01 It's in every app, every broadcast, every group chat. 29:05 You get it. 29:06 Maybe you've even been there. 29:07 But at some point you start doing the math on what all those small bets actually add up to. 29:14 Acorns gets it too, and this season they're offering something better than a parlay. 29:20 Acorns is the saving and investing app that cares about your money habits, and they're stepping in with a new alternative. 29:28 If you've recently lost a bet, Acorns will match that loss up to $50 and turn it into your first investment deposit. 29:36 it. 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Investment results 30:23 Investing in Bulge Risk, Acorns Advisor, LLC, 30:25 and ICC Registered Investment Advisor, 30:26 view importance, click on Acorns.com, slash the O. 30:29 Yeah, well, it just feels like, yeah, like, yeah, like, 30:31 how does greed, like, how do you battle greed? 30:34 Like, how do you battle it? 30:35 Like, is that even a real thing that can happen? 30:37 Yes, yes it is. 30:39 And I think the reason I even was bringing up DoorDash 30:42 is that the CEO of DoorDash spoke openly 30:46 about needing to use the greedy algorithm, right? 30:50 Needing to pursue, like we were talking about 30:52 and certification needing to pursue whatever the path was 30:56 to highest maximum profit. 30:57 And why did he say he did? 30:59 Because to shareholders profit is all that matters. 31:03 Dude, I'd rather lose money on the stock 31:04 that I invested in and everybody make a fair wage. 31:08 That's what I'm saying. 31:09 And I think the problem is we start to think about 31:11 everything from the perspective of a shareholder 31:15 that people have to make more and more and more money 31:18 and these companies look at the products they have 31:20 and they say, how can I create more money? 31:22 I have to drive up the margin. 31:24 And I can only do that by breaking the law, 31:28 driving down the quality, whatever it may be. 31:30 And I think to your question, can you hold greed to account? 31:33 I believe you can, you just have to be willing 31:35 because it's not an easy thing. 31:37 And the funny thing is when you do it, 31:40 the people you're holding to account 31:42 will pretend like they were gonna get there anyway. 31:44 Door dash, morning of the announcement 31:46 puts out like a notes apology. 31:48 It's like a hey guys we just found out a long night over here, you know, we just we mistreated some dashers 31:55 It sounds like they're talking about like the reindeers that you love. Yeah, it's like you don't care about these guys 32:01 But they're like we just mistreated some dashers to the tune of a hundred and thirty one and a half million dollars 32:07 Just like a post so sorry never gonna do it again. It's like 32:12 Do you, is your government, your state, 32:16 is your city government equipped well enough 32:19 to battle some of those algorithms? 32:21 Like, do you guys have a technical group 32:22 that's capable enough? 32:24 Cause that seems like a place 32:26 where a lot of these companies sort of are hiding 32:28 in sort of this place that's not as brook and mortar 32:31 where you can't send like a, you know, 32:33 an employee to go over there and just be a surveyor 32:36 or be like a- 32:38 Inspector. 32:39 Inspector, yeah. 32:39 Yeah, I think that's the only reason we were able to hold them to this account was because 32:44 again, Sam Levine DCWP, they have incredible city workers at DCWP who literally pour through 32:51 terabytes of data. 32:53 And one of the things that's so exciting is this isn't just a settlement where DoorDash 32:57 delivery workers will get money, 15 million of this roughly around 500, I think about 33:02 16 and a half million is civil penalties and fines. 33:05 from that money we're developing our own app 33:09 that the DoorDash delivery workers can use 33:12 to record their use of the DoorDash app. 33:16 So when DoorDash gives us its data, 33:17 we will also have the same, the workers who worked 33:20 giving us their version of the data to cross-reference it. 33:23 Man, that seems like so much extra work 33:26 just cause somebody doesn't wanna be honest though. 33:28 You gotta plan for a lack of compliance 33:32 as opposed to expect that you'll get it. 33:34 Who was the company who owned that company that was doing that like who was allowing that to happen on their watch and that's door 33:39 Dash, but who's the owner of it? 33:41 Who's owner of door dash about to find out 33:45 But who's a CEO of it? 33:49 Chief executive officer and co-founder of door dash is Tony shoe Tony shoe 33:55 Hey, Tony 33:57 What's up with shoe bro? 33:58 Oh, pay up, dawg. 34:01 Come on, bro, and Tony, he knows what's popping. 34:05 Tony, what's going on? 34:06 And that's allegedly Tony's shoe. 34:08 We don't know, we don't have an attorney. 34:09 So that's just allegedly him. 34:12 And that's allegedly how you even pronounce his name. 34:15 But yeah, don't dash on your workers like that, Tony. 34:17 That didn't seem cool. 34:20 So, Ron, let's go into a common ground, 34:22 actually, that both of us had. 34:23 Please. 34:24 We both went to the nurses' strike. 34:26 Can I reach over and tap you up? 34:27 Yeah, I'll do it 34:30 Shit we both 34:34 We need a tight shit at this point dude just for even being alive, bro 34:38 We should have a tight shit day for the entire country where everybody's actually what I'm here to announce 34:45 Didn't know that you were gonna join me 34:47 Just because we're go people are going through it, bro 34:50 Yeah, and we're able to feed and house ourselves man and people are really going through it 34:54 You know when the parents drop their kids off 34:57 for that night? 34:58 For the night of what? 34:59 For the parents night out when we're doing the child care 35:03 for the kids. 35:04 Everybody just says it right after they drop the kids off. 35:07 That's it. 35:08 Now once the kids are out of earshot, 35:09 the kids do not need to be hearing this. 35:11 Do not need to hear this. 35:12 No, but once they're out, I want 35:13 to see parents high fiving with a T-S between them, 35:16 brother, how are you? 35:19 One thing that we have in common is the nurses strike. 35:21 We both went out. 35:22 My sister's a nurse, right? 35:23 That's awesome. 35:23 Yeah, it's just got a soft spot in my heart. 35:25 And it's probably the job that I admire the most 35:30 because it feels like it's one of the places 35:32 that it's very obvious that someone is putting in their care. 35:35 Right? 35:35 I mean, they're genuine care. 35:37 They're taking time, and these are mothers, a lot of them. 35:40 And so they're taking time away from their own children 35:41 and their own family members 35:43 to be there for someone else's, right? 35:45 Which is, it's almost the biggest sacrifice you could do. 35:50 Would be to love someone, 35:51 to love someone else solely for their own wellness, right? 35:57 But that's a beautiful way of putting it. 35:59 I saw a fact that those nurses would have to work 36:01 200 years full time to make some of the same salaries 36:06 that some of these CEOs make 36:08 in just one year at those hospitals. 36:11 I mean, that- 36:12 What are we doing? 36:13 It gets back to the lottery thing. 36:15 It's like, you don't even have that shot. 36:17 And it's not that people need to make 36:19 what that CEO is making, right? 36:20 like we're talking about astronomical figures. 36:22 But again, to what you were saying earlier, 36:26 labor is what is creating the value. 36:29 And you have nurses who are pouring 36:32 everything into their job. 36:34 Like sometimes it's hyperbolic when people describe things 36:37 as life or death or lifesaving. 36:39 This is literal. 36:40 This is literal when we describe this as lifesaving. 36:42 It's a great point. 36:44 And we can't even pay them. 36:45 We can't, and when you go to the picket line 36:48 and you hear from these nurses, what are they asking for? 36:51 They're asking for safe staffing. 36:53 They're asking for better ratios between nurses and patients 36:56 so they can take care of the patients. 36:58 Yes, some of them had an insane, 36:59 like people don't understand the nurse ratio. 37:01 Some of it, it's like, yeah, how many patients 37:03 are they responsible for for each nurse? 37:04 They simply cannot take care of that many patients. 37:07 And yet that's what they're asked, 37:08 that's what they're being asked to do. 37:09 Yeah, and safe conditions. 37:11 They wanted security around some of their parking lots 37:13 and around some of the hospitals 37:14 so they could walk safely to their car 37:16 or after work so they don't end up hurt 37:19 and in the hospital that they work at. 37:21 Does this sound like a nursery? 37:23 One nurse got hurt after work, 37:25 they put her in the hospital, 37:26 then they put her on her own chart. 37:27 So she had to be the patient 37:28 and then come and take care of herself. 37:31 That's insane. 37:32 What the heck, dude? 37:34 That's impossible. 37:35 And I think- 37:36 And they won't give some of them adequate healthcare. 37:39 And what are we, that's, 37:41 it's like, it's almost at the point now 37:43 where it's like you have to laugh at sometimes. 37:45 because like they say that police officers, 37:47 sometimes you'll see them laughing outside of something 37:49 that like a murder scene or something very sad 37:51 and it's because it's a body's natural way of handling it. 37:54 And it's just like- 37:55 I mean, see them laugh or cry. 37:56 And I think what's, you know, I remember meeting a nurse. 38:02 I asked her, you know, she let out a big sigh. 38:05 We were in the elevator together. 38:06 She let out a big sigh. 38:07 I was like, how's your day going? 38:08 She was like, ah, it's going okay. 38:10 I got to go home after this. 38:11 I was like, oh, where's that? 38:12 She said, I have to drive for two hours. 38:14 because she couldn't afford to live in this city 38:17 that she's working. 38:19 And like beyond what that does for her quality of life, 38:22 beyond what that means about the city, 38:25 also in terms of safety, 38:26 you have nurses pouring everything they have 38:28 into their shift. 38:29 And then you want that person to get on the road 38:31 for two hours at night. 38:33 It's fucking unreal. 38:33 And it's the same city that like that would spend 38:36 all the money on the commercial. 38:38 Let's applaud our COVID nurses, be in the front lines. 38:40 And now they can't even like, 38:42 They can't, where are those commercials now 38:44 when you wanna take care of your nurses? 38:46 Where is that same energy? 38:47 This goes back to what we were saying earlier, 38:49 which is the difference between a value 38:51 and something that's material. 38:52 It's like we were there to clap. 38:55 Now we have to actually take care of these people 38:57 in a way that isn't just seven PM 38:59 clapping outside of our window. 39:00 Is there a, go on, I'm sorry. 39:02 Well, I think that was one of the reasons 39:04 that I went out on the picket line. 39:06 And there were these articles written about mayors 39:08 don't stand on picket lines. 39:10 It's mayors have to remain neutral in a negotiation 39:12 between workers and management. 39:14 And Desmond Tutu spoke about a long time ago 39:17 that neutrality in the face of oppression 39:19 is choosing injustice. 39:21 Amen. 39:22 How am I gonna be the mayor 39:24 who ran on a platform of making the city affordable 39:27 and then just sit in my office and watch nurses 39:30 rally for the basics and say, not my fight. 39:33 The basics, agreed. 39:34 Dude, if you're not fighting for the underdog anymore, 39:36 who the fuck are you even fighting for, bro? 39:39 That's my question and Desmond Tutu came and spoke to us when I was a student. I was a student on semester at sea 39:43 I worked in the bookstore there and they gave us a chance to go like on this cruise ship 39:48 It was like a cruise ship around the world and I got a scholarship whatever and I got to go 39:51 But he came and spoke to us on our on our boat one day. It's pretty cool. Anyway, that's bragging 39:55 But that's awesome. That's not bragging. It's facts. It was pretty cool 39:58 You're right, but I mean to your question if you're now room for the underdog who you're rooting for 40:02 You're rooting for the favorite and you're telling yourself. They're the underdog 40:06 That's the funny thing is when you talk to people, 40:08 nobody thinks that they're rooting for the system. 40:12 They think that they're, 40:12 everyone thinks they're aggrieved by the system, 40:14 but we have to actually address the problems of it. 40:17 Do you think you can do that? 40:18 I think so. 40:19 You do? 40:20 I don't think it's easy. 40:21 I don't think it can happen. 40:22 I don't think we've solved it in nine months, 40:25 but I think in nine months, 40:27 we've started to deliver universal childcare for families. 40:30 There's 2,000 families in the city 40:31 that are now saving 20K that they would have otherwise spent. 40:35 We've shown that we can do the big things, 40:37 the little things, we've paved 200,000 potholes. 40:40 We've won this 131 and a half million dollars 40:42 back for the working class people 40:44 who deliver the food that people need to stay full. 40:48 And this, while also saying that so many of the things 40:52 that annoy so many people, 40:54 they're gonna be our problem too. 40:56 I mean, coming up in October, 40:58 We're launching the nation's first municipal click to cancel rule 41:01 So what that means is we're gonna have a portal where you can submit any of the subscriptions 41:07 You have like if it's like a planet fitness or peacock or whatever it may be and you guys will cancel it for them 41:13 That's what we're gonna go bro. You're gonna do that 41:15 And then that's the thing is that they it has to be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up 41:20 Yeah, cuz it's not fair because they trap you bro when you call in somebody 41:23 Then they'll like meet me under a bridge 41:24 if you want to cancel it. 41:25 They're like, what? 41:26 Our town doesn't even have a river in it. 41:28 Like what bridge? 41:29 Like it's all bro, it's a lot of just a shell game 41:32 to steal people's money and then your time 41:34 and then your stress goes up and then you get inflamed 41:37 and then you have to go to the hospital. 41:39 You know, that's where it's at. 41:40 It's like, it's just like, yeah, 41:42 it feels like kind of a dark game sometimes. 41:44 It starts small though, 41:45 but all those little small things 41:46 are really starting to add up for people. 41:48 They built. 41:50 Some people, and yeah, shout out nurses, man. 41:52 Shout out nurses. 41:53 Yeah, maybe I'll marry a nurse one day. 41:54 I don't know. 41:55 Gotta meet one. 41:56 Insha'Allah. 41:57 Single. 41:59 But TBD, right? 42:01 TBD, you know. 42:03 You on the apps? 42:04 No, I'm not on the apps. 42:05 I don't, you know what I don't like? 42:07 What? 42:07 I don't like. 42:08 Were you ever on the apps? 42:09 I was. 42:10 You are? 42:10 No, not now. 42:11 I was back then. 42:13 I met my wife on hinge. 42:15 Nice, bro. 42:16 But it's also, it's not easy. 42:18 Oh dude, I don't, oh no, I know it's not. 42:20 I know it takes a lot of work for people in there just the and that's a level of like, you know, you know 42:27 Congratulations, that's cool. Thank you. Yeah, and you're still married. Yes. Yes. Okay great. Oh, yeah, I didn't see that 42:32 I'm sorry 42:33 Let me ask you but I do want to answer the reason why I didn't like it 42:37 I don't like somebody being able to tell me no when they're not in front of me 42:40 Hmm, like you can look at me and tell me no because I do that every day kind of like somewhere the dark recesses in 42:45 My head, you know, but you're not gonna do it from the comfort of your own home 42:49 You know, you gotta you gotta see me. Yeah, you at least show up because if you show up and tell me no 42:55 It's like I that's fair, you know, like you come you've looked in the window. You've been like dear. Give me a shot 43:00 Yeah, yes. Yeah, you just said even you just came over. Yeah, take a gander, you know, look, you know filter filter 43:06 I know it's a bit of a sale record here, but filter through, you know 43:10 So I think that's why I'm not on them. Um, I want to talk a little bit about socialism, right? 43:15 because it's a buzzword, right? 43:18 Because socialism, will you define socialism for us? 43:21 Because people say it a lot and don't know what it is. 43:23 And sometimes those people are me. 43:27 I'm so happy to be with those people right now. 43:31 Socialism to me, it means that you will have 43:37 whatever you need to live a dignified life 43:39 and that it is the government's job to deliver on that. 43:45 It's a belief that you shouldn't live in a place 43:49 where all you can do is pick your own leaders. 43:52 You should also be able to have that power 43:54 in the rest of your life. 43:56 People talk about it as the extension of democracy 43:59 from the ballot box to the rest of your life. 44:01 What do people mean by the rest of your life? 44:02 They mean your workplace, your home, things like that. 44:06 So when people say dignity, I wanna be very clear, 44:09 We're talking about the things that allow you to take a breath. 44:13 Housing, child care, right, public transit. 44:17 No one should be priced out of these things. 44:20 These are non-negotiables. 44:21 You need these to live. 44:23 And what I think is so confusing 44:24 is there's parts of life in our country 44:27 that line up with this belief, right, public education. 44:32 We believe that everyone should be able to go K through 12 for free. 44:36 And they do. 44:39 So libraries, we believe that everybody should be able 44:41 to read a book that they'd like to for free, and they do. 44:46 But when it comes to early childhood education, right, 44:50 before kindergarten, we're comfortable 44:52 with people paying $20,000 a year to afford it. 44:55 Because that's what the average cost in New York City? 44:57 In New York City right now. 44:58 That's a good deal. 44:59 They did a study that found that for a family 45:01 of three to afford childcare, 45:03 they had to make $330,000 a year. 45:07 To live in the city and afford childcare. 45:08 in the city and afford childcare. 45:10 A family of three? 45:11 Of three. 45:12 So that means only one child? 45:13 One child. 45:13 Okay. 45:14 And to me, that's kind of, 45:16 even what used to be enough money 10 years ago 45:19 is not enough money. 45:21 The struggles of affordability, 45:23 they apply to a lot more people 45:25 than people typically think. 45:27 And to me, as a socialist, what I'm fighting for 45:31 is that nobody is priced out of dignity. 45:35 And there's just a comfort right now 45:39 with living in a country where the market gets 45:41 to determine everything, not just luxury, but dignity too. 45:46 We say, oh, I'm sorry, 45:47 I don't have enough money to afford a home. 45:48 It makes you feel like, yeah, there's something. 45:50 To afford food. 45:51 Yeah. 45:52 It's like, it's, it's. 45:53 Oh, I can't imagine, yeah. 45:55 A dad that is like having to maybe watch his kids 45:57 eat something that he wishes they could eat something 45:59 better because he can't afford to eat him 46:00 and he worked all day. 46:02 Like, there's a thing is. 46:03 So what do you want him to do? 46:03 Yeah, right. 46:04 What do you want him to do? 46:05 Where is he supposed to go? 46:06 Right at that point. It's a level of you're just create you're creating a level of suffering, right and people like we'll say like 46:14 Okay, some of this stuff I don't know exactly about but I'm just thinking the best that I can and our listeners know that 46:19 I don't know about this so it's like I'm not gonna pretend that I know a lot about some things about socialism 46:26 Democracy communism, it's right at home in politics. Yeah 46:29 I mean you do you explain socialism like I kind of thought it was right 46:34 That's what I've thought it was. 46:36 It feels to me like we're in this kind of privatized 46:38 communism right now that people don't want to admit 46:41 to a little bit. 46:42 Like it feels definitely like the government, 46:46 like it's basically businesses that are running 46:48 how we operate. 46:50 It's businesses that are even puppeteering our government. 46:53 I mean, it seems like that at a very high level, 46:55 especially like when you get into like, 46:58 you know, lobbies and some of these tech industries 47:00 and stuff like that. 47:01 I mean, and I think that's obvious to me 47:02 by you have people that were like heads of large companies, 47:07 especially in the tech sector, 47:09 who were Democrats last time, 47:10 but now they're Republican suddenly, 47:12 and people like, oh, that's just odd, you know? 47:14 It's not odd, it's just because of the opportunity 47:16 that I feel like to be some sort of a puppeteer, right? 47:19 But outside of that, like, people wanna, 47:23 there's this desire inside of us, 47:25 I feel like as just an American person 47:28 that you want to believe in capitalism, right? 47:30 You wanna fight for capitalism, 47:31 because that feels like what's fair. 47:34 That feels like what's always been there. 47:36 But now it feels like so much is owned by just a 1%, right? 47:41 That's like, like, how can you believe in, 47:44 if there's no capital to ism, you know, 47:48 what are you still fighting for, right? 47:50 And I do understand though that people, 47:52 I understand when people like socialism, 47:54 you can't put the government in charge of everything. 47:56 But at a certain point, 47:58 if capitalism is not working for everybody, 48:00 If it's only working in theory and every and one percent own everything and have just monopolized everything is squeezed it into 48:08 You know just into themselves and into their own chest if there's a level of greed that's that big 48:13 Then you have to do something to take care of people. Yeah at that point 48:18 It's not humane to still believe in something that doesn't seem like it's working 48:22 I'm not saying I know everything about capitalism. I don't and I don't even know why I'm kind of agitated 48:26 But you don't you don't need but it's not but if it's not working then something has to be done 48:31 And so that's like but when people hear socialism, they get very scared, right? 48:36 So is it like kind of a new idea of socialism that you're pitching or is it just that? 48:42 That there's no other way out because for me. I don't know I 48:47 Wouldn't describe myself as a socialist. I believe in democracy. That's sort of like I think that's the that's the building block of socialism 48:53 Okay, and I would say is that you don't need to have a PhD in this okay 48:57 You just need to walk outside 48:59 Look at the world that you live in and ask yourself. Is this enough? What is this working also too? 49:04 It's like how long do we want to keep like you know I'm saying like it's like putting your fantasy team out there every week 49:10 You're like they fuck they've been bad for like one guy's a hundred one guy's 77 one guy's Mitch McConnell 49:16 Who doesn't even know he's a guy anymore? It just like you know you start to look at like if something isn't working 49:22 then even if there's a guy who will come in 49:25 and has a sort of a Hail Mary idea, 49:28 even if it is a Hail Mary idea to some people, right? 49:31 I would, there's something about, 49:33 at least that's something different, right? 49:36 Like, that's the part of me that like, 49:38 I'm not saying that I'm a socialist 49:40 or that I'm, you know, I'm a capitalist. 49:42 Shit, I practice capitalism, I work in it. 49:44 You know, there's things I don't like about it 49:46 but I still take part in it. 49:47 So it's tough for me to be angry at a system 49:49 that I also cooperate with and work in. 49:52 But I think the other thing is- 49:53 Am I making any sense? 49:54 You're making a lot of sense. 49:56 But yeah, just like, what else can we, 49:57 I feel like we're at a point where you have to do something. 50:00 And I think that the contradictions 50:03 that you're talking about, 50:04 those are the ones that everyone is living through. 50:06 We're all living through capitalism. 50:09 And you might be doing well. 50:11 And at the same time, 50:12 you can still feel anguished about the fact 50:14 that there are other people working just as hard 50:16 who aren't, and they never will 50:18 because they don't have a shot. 50:20 And the only thing, like if we keep going, 50:22 I keep going back to this thing of the lottery, 50:25 it's like the chances of hitting it are so low 50:27 and yet people see it as higher 50:29 what the chance is in their own life 50:30 and it effectively ends up becoming a tax on the poor. 50:35 And what we're talking about is how do you bring 50:38 some humanity back into what you guarantee to everyone? 50:43 And oftentimes people will say it's idealistic 50:46 and I just go back to LaGuardia, 50:47 The the mayor of about a hundred years ago, and he said I'm gonna go right on with my idealism because 50:54 It is an idealism that delivers for everyone who lives here 50:57 And that to me is is if you're if you're not fighting for them, then what are you doing? 51:02 Mm-hmm if you're fighting to just keep this system 51:05 Yeah, what that that's yeah, that's crazy 51:07 You know and we don't we don't want the same thing with a different face and a different name and a different 51:13 We want something different. I think it's like fucking this has been a long 51:17 Halloween, bro, this system that we've been living in. It's been a fucking, it's been 51:22 a long Halloween for a lot of people. 51:24 You were saying earlier, you know, what do you do, right? I think implicit in that is like, 51:29 you feel this, then what do you do? I mean, the place that I found as my political home 51:33 was an organization called the Democratic Socialists of America. And this was a place where 51:38 I would just go for meetings. I would meet people who felt the same way. And first 51:44 you would realize that you're not alone, you're not nuts. 51:47 You are actually part of something much bigger than yourself 51:51 and you can be as well. 51:53 And it feels like when people go through life, 51:56 the further they get away from school, 51:58 the more isolated they start to become 52:00 from the world around them. 52:01 And that is also a function of a society 52:06 where people are what they call increasingly atomized, 52:09 just separated out. 52:11 And so much of the fabric that we used to have, 52:13 if it started to come apart at the seams. 52:16 And for me, being a member of this organization, 52:19 it was something that opened my eyes 52:20 to how to make sense of it 52:22 and also what I could do to change it. 52:24 And that was something that, 52:26 it didn't just help me with my anxiety, 52:27 it also just helped me with my sense 52:28 of my place in the world where I was like, 52:30 okay, I feel this way, here's a candidate 52:33 that feels the same, I'm gonna go 52:35 and knock on doors for them. 52:36 And that's what I did for a lot of years. 52:38 I would just go out there, 52:39 I would knock on doors, door after door after door. 52:43 and one of the most radicalizing things 52:46 is when you knock on somebody's door, 52:49 they open their door, they invite you into their home, 52:52 and you see the life that they live, 52:55 and you ask yourself, how can this be okay 52:58 in a city this wealthy? 53:00 You knock on a door, you're there to ask them, 53:02 are they gonna vote in an election in three weeks? 53:04 And it's an older man in Bay Ridge, 53:07 and he says, come into my apartment, 53:09 and he's proud and he's welcoming you, 53:11 and you look at this man, he's north of 80 years old, 53:13 he's alone, how is this life? 53:18 This man has worked his whole life. 53:20 And how is this how we treat him? 53:24 Yeah. 53:25 Sorry, I know you said you didn't wanna be Dower. 53:27 I don't think that's how you treat Dower though. 53:28 But yeah, so does our government 53:30 already kinda practice socialism 53:31 with some of their policies? 53:33 A lot of the things, or a lot of the programs 53:34 that they're supposed to have 53:35 are already a form of socialism, isn't it? 53:37 Yes, there are socialistic policies we have. 53:40 The point is how do we actually expand that 53:43 so that everyone gets to benefit from it. 53:46 And you think about whenever people come forward 53:48 with an idea of taking care of working people, 53:51 it is slammed with the most kind of fear-mongering tactics 53:55 you can think. 53:57 When the idea of social security was introduced, 54:00 it was described as trying to Sovietize the Republic. 54:03 That's how people talked about it. 54:05 And now social security is the most normal thing 54:06 you could think of in this country. 54:08 And right now we're trying to build 54:11 five city-run grocery stores. 54:14 Why? 54:14 Because the cost of groceries has gone up 30% 54:17 since the pandemic. 54:18 People can't afford their groceries. 54:21 And we're gonna have one city-run grocery store 54:24 in each borough, and there's gonna be a 30% discount 54:27 on the essential items. 54:29 The idea is so that people can afford 54:31 to go to the grocery store 54:32 they can afford to feed their families. 54:34 And you'll hear a lot of fear-mongering around it, 54:36 but the basic question to me is, 54:38 what's the point of government 54:40 and if not delivering for people 54:41 who are being priced out of the essentials, 54:43 that's a key part of it. 54:45 Well, government's been working for the elite 54:46 for a long time, it feels like, 54:48 or it feels like that certainly feels 54:49 like what's happening more than ever. 54:51 And now it feels very exposed. 54:53 It feels very out in the open, 54:54 especially when there's like a trove of emails 54:56 like connecting a lot of them, 54:58 involving certain crimes or alleged crimes. 55:01 Whenever you ran for office, 55:03 some of your campaigning was calling out Trump 55:06 for his broken promises, right? 55:09 that that he campaigned on, right? Cheaper groceries from day one, no forever wars, 55:15 and helping the working class, right? How do you work together with someone 55:22 that you've had so many public disagreements with, but then keep that energy when you have to go 55:27 into a meeting in order to like make deals so you can get done what you do need done for 55:34 for yourself. 55:35 I think. 55:36 Sorry, God, do you think it would be easier for me? 55:38 No, please, I understood what you were saying. 55:40 Okay. 55:41 I think. 55:41 If you knew earlier, you should have cut me off, dude, 55:43 because I'm freaking, what are you doing out there? 55:46 You think I'm gonna be like, I got you, man, I got you. 55:49 No, I'm gonna let you finish your question. 55:51 Please, and also another thing I'm lobbying for, 55:53 word lifeguards. 55:54 I want them in the streets 55:54 when somebody can't get through a sentence. 55:56 A word lifeguard. 55:57 What do you want them to do? 55:58 Come up and just help you get there. 55:59 That's what I need. 55:59 Do they stop you or do they give you the word? 56:01 Whatever, just put a little buoy on you 56:03 and help you get to the end of the sentence sometimes. 56:05 Don't worry, brother, this is how it ends. 56:07 Okay, there we go, yeah, that's it. 56:10 Anyway, if you can answer that question. 56:11 Word, lifeguards. 56:13 Sorry, yes. 56:14 Because you've had to make, 56:15 because you needed federal funding, right? 56:17 For some, you have to maintain 56:19 that you keep your federal funding in the city. 56:20 I got you. 56:21 Okay, good, thank you. 56:22 All right, a couple of things. 56:25 First is you have to be honest 56:29 about the fact that you still have disagreements. 56:31 If you campaign saying you have disagreements, 56:34 then you get elected and then you're like, 56:35 actually, we're all good. 56:36 It's like you're just a part of the problem. 56:38 You're part of why people don't believe in politics anymore. 56:40 And so the president and I still have disagreements. 56:43 We talk about them whenever we meet. 56:46 And also the point of those meetings 56:48 is not just to say, I believe this, you believe that. 56:51 It's also, okay, where's there a place 56:53 where we could work together to deliver on something? 56:56 And so when we met recently at Gracie Mansion, 56:59 and I brought up this idea we talked about 57:02 in the White House called Sunnyside Yard. 57:04 It's a rail yard in Queens in a neighborhood called Sunnyside 57:08 where you could build a platform over the rail yard 57:10 and then you could build housing on the platform. 57:12 And in this city, the number one driver 57:14 of the cost of living crisis 57:16 is a lack of affordable housing. 57:17 So this project would create 12,000 homes, 57:21 30,000 jobs, would be the most homes 57:23 in a single project since the early 1970s. 57:25 You can only do it with the federal government. 57:28 So the president and I, we spoke about this, 57:30 I pitched it to the president. 57:31 Why you can only do it federal government 57:32 because they own the rail yards? 57:33 And track federal authorization 57:35 and also the scale of funding required. 57:37 Okay, got it. 57:37 And so when I went to the White House the last time 57:40 I pitched it to him, 57:41 I brought him a mock up of a newspaper. 57:45 There was a famous daily news newspaper headline. 57:48 The president Ford said, 57:50 it said Ford to New York dropped dead. 57:52 And I brought him that 57:54 and I brought him a mocked up version 57:55 where it says, Trump to New York, let's build. 57:58 Like this is what the future could look like. 58:00 And then in this last meeting Grace, he mentioned, 58:02 he agreed, okay, let's set up high level meetings 58:04 between your housing and operations team 58:06 and our White House about how we can move forward on this. 58:10 And that doesn't mean we don't have disagreements 58:12 on other issues. 58:13 We talked about them in that meeting, 58:14 we talked about them before, 58:16 but it also means if there's an opportunity, 58:18 take it to deliver for people 58:20 because that's also my job. 58:22 I don't just wanna be a person 58:23 and who tells you about what I think, 58:26 I wanna also be a person who proves to you 58:27 that you can trust and believe in government. 58:30 And to the point of the way that you were describing 58:32 some of the president's early platform, 58:36 when we were talking about cheaper groceries, 58:38 we were talking about working class, 58:40 we were talking about making for a city you can afford, 58:43 about 60,000 New Yorkers who voted for the president 58:46 voted for us in the election. 58:49 And that to me shows that for all of this impetus 58:54 in politics where you wanna judge someone 58:56 and you wanna cast them off as if, 58:59 oh, they voted for them, 58:59 you could never talk to them or things like that, 59:01 there are a lot of people who are just looking 59:04 for someone to change their material reality. 59:08 And your time is better spent listening to them 59:11 than lecturing them. 59:12 I mean, that's the point of political office 59:14 should be to listen to people 59:16 and then work on what they've told you. 59:17 Yeah, I think we keep getting all these questions of like, you know, what is the Democratic Party? 59:22 Where is it headed this that and the other? What does this consultant think? What does this ex-democrat think to me? 59:28 It's like, what is the Democratic Party if not its voters and you're hearing from Democratic voters across the country 59:34 They want change you even heard it from Republican voters. Well, they're all the same voter these days 59:39 people would try to pigeonhole like yeah when pigeonholings kind of bizarre like people would pigeonhole me as like this sort of 59:44 a MAGA guy, like sometimes. 59:46 Do you know where the term pigeonhole comes from? 59:49 No, let's look it up. 59:51 I don't. 59:52 I hope it's not a sexual thing. 59:53 I pray to God. 59:57 If it is, probably. 59:58 If it is, you're reading it. 59:59 Well, if it is someone in your line of work 60:02 who's been involved in it, I'll say that. 60:04 The phrase pigeonhole originated in the 1500s 60:08 as a literal term for a small nest. 60:10 recess are opening in a dove coat where domesticated pigeons live or a dove 60:16 a soat what's a dove a soat in a dove a soat or is it dove dove coat can you 60:23 look up dove a soat for me column barium oh gosh it's taking us this is 60:29 what it's doing see this is how it happens this is politics on barium 60:33 TSTS is a column barium is a structure intended to house pigeons or 60:39 doves. Um, so just sorry. It's okay. No, it's good. What are you talking about? Um, but 60:48 yeah, people try to people try to pigeonhole. They try to pigeonhole voters. I don't think 60:52 voters are think that they're Democrat or Republican anymore. Everybody I talked to 60:56 is like, there's not a side anymore. All of this is run. It feels like by a higher 61:00 cabal. That's every because it doesn't feel real anymore. It feels like Bernie got 61:05 railroaded by his party. They never even had a primary. We tried to have Camel 61:08 on our podcast, she didn't want to come on, right? 61:11 So Trump would come on. 61:13 But everybody does want to pigeonhole. 61:15 I guess it makes it easier for us. 61:16 I mean, I probably do it too. 61:18 I'm sure, you know, I'll have to read up and look on it. 61:20 Well, it's easier to categorize 61:22 if you put everybody in a box. 61:23 It's easier to categorize. 61:24 And it also absolves you of responsibility. 61:28 What responsibility does it absolve you of? 61:30 If you're a politician and you look at a voter 61:34 and you say, well, they're in that box. 61:36 It means that you don't have to try anymore. 61:39 Oh, I see. 61:39 You don't have to reckon 61:41 with why they might have chosen that box. 61:43 Got it. 61:44 Right? 61:45 So often people talk about this, like it's faded, 61:47 like people are forever that thing. 61:51 And to me, it's like every day is an opportunity 61:53 to win someone over. 61:55 And if you're just caught up in the fact 61:58 that someone wasn't always with you, 62:00 then you're never going to actually build 62:02 something bigger than yourself. 62:03 If you just want day ones all the time, 62:07 then it's like, well, how many people were your day ones? 62:10 Like shout outs to your day ones, 62:12 but you also need to build a coalition 62:14 that goes beyond that. 62:15 Yeah. 62:17 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. 62:18 And some of it is just for safety. 62:20 It's some of it is operating systems 62:21 that we just use for safety 62:23 and because it's been what's always been done, you know? 62:27 And some of it is familial as well. 62:29 You, your parents were this and so you're that. 62:31 But I think people believe that these walls have dissolved that there isn't really that there's not really two sides anymore 62:37 It's from what I gather just is I'm a pretty I feel like I'm a pretty regular guy 62:43 That and that's a crazy thing to say that sounds crazy for even a guy to say that so I'm probably not but it seems like 62:49 People don't believe that there's any side anymore. Can I just so you know and it doesn't matter 62:54 What I'm saying just so you know fuck. I don't know 62:56 No, but what I'm saying is, it seems like that. 63:00 Like people don't believe either one of these sides anymore 63:02 is like a real side. 63:03 Can I ask a question? 63:04 Yes. 63:05 How many people voted in the last presidential election? 63:11 Yep, at PS41. 63:13 Two? 63:14 Two of five? 63:15 Oh no, no, sorry. 63:16 I didn't mean how many people in here. 63:18 I mean, how many people in the United States of America? 63:20 I'm missing the deal, good boy. 63:22 And voters didn't even vote. 63:24 I was like, PS41, what does that have to do with this? 63:27 So what is happening here in the 2024 presidential election, 73.6% of the city voting age population 63:36 was registered to vote and 65.3 voted according to new voting and registration tables. 63:41 So 65.3% voted in the 2024 presidential election. 63:48 So almost about a third did not vote. 63:53 Yeah. 63:54 And I mean, I think the reason I asked that was 63:58 could be disinterest. 63:59 When you're talking about people don't see themselves 64:02 as part of a side, people are choosing a new side, 64:05 which is to be uninvolved. 64:08 You know, it goes back to that early thing of like, 64:10 you get my money, you don't get my time. 64:13 And I think that there's a lot of times 64:15 when you get closer and closer to election day 64:17 where it feels like a politician is lecturing you 64:21 like why you need to vote. 64:22 And it's like, actually, I need to convince you 64:24 that this is worth your time 64:25 because time is the most precious thing you have. 64:28 I need to show you that this is relevant to your life. 64:31 A lot of people look at the struggles in their life 64:33 and then they look at the politics they're offered 64:34 and they're like, this has nothing to do with me. 64:36 Yeah. 64:37 And to me, it's how do we, 64:39 how do we eliminate the distance between the two? 64:41 So that's why we're just as focused on a pothole 64:44 as we are on universal childcare 64:46 because you look outside your window, 64:48 you see a pothole, you're like, 64:49 how could I believe that that same government 64:51 that can't fix this, could do that. 64:54 It has to be one that does both. 64:57 And then you will slowly start to get people to believe again. 65:01 But they don't owe you that belief. 65:03 Yeah, I mean, look, I love hearing it. 65:05 And I'm hopeful that, yeah, that anybody 65:07 can do something different. 65:08 I think that's what people were like. 65:09 People at this point would be shocked 65:11 if somebody can do something different, you know? 65:13 I feel like that that's how kind of in a place 65:15 that people are. 65:16 And I don't think they're in a place of disarray 65:18 I feel like hopelessness for themselves entirely, 65:21 but I do feel like there's a hopeless malaise. 65:24 There's somewhat of a hopelessness sometimes 65:26 for our society and the democracy that we have. 65:29 That's what I feel like. 65:30 And also, who gives a shit what I think? 65:32 But I'll say- 65:33 I do, I mean people do, but also what you're describing 65:35 is what a lot of people share. 65:37 Yeah. 65:38 Like a lot of people have shared a sense of hopelessness 65:43 and we have to remember that there's this, 65:46 a writer and organizer, her name is Mariam Kaba, 65:50 she talks about hope is a discipline. 65:52 You have to practice hope. 65:54 And you won't just wake up one morning 65:56 and naturally feel it, it comes from what you do. 66:00 And to me, it's also, we have to make it easy 66:02 for people to hope, and that comes from our work. 66:05 That's our job. 66:08 Recently they had Netanyahu was in town, right? 66:12 The big dog or some people call him or the genocider. 66:14 That's kind of that's one of the terms I'll loosely use a lot of times when we're referring to him 66:20 But he was in town and you would you guys had talked about you guys had talked about 66:25 Having to arrest him when he came in a town originally 66:27 But that wasn't something that you actually had a jurisdiction that could do or try to keep him out of New York City 66:33 Was that the case that it wasn't like a it was it when we 66:38 You assess all of the the legal framework that you have 66:42 it is the federal government that if they were to join 66:45 the international criminal court, 66:46 they could enforce a warrant. 66:48 So just to the point here. 66:49 The ICC, right? 66:50 That people talk about. 66:51 But we're not a member of that. 66:52 We're not. 66:53 But I believe that we should become a member, 66:55 that we should enforce its warrants 66:57 because I think this gets back to the question of, 67:00 you know, when you're asking, 67:00 can you hold greed to account? 67:02 Can you hold impunity to account? 67:04 And the more people see someone break a rule or a law 67:08 And it is there is no accountability for that or a morale or a thing of moral conscience 67:13 Maybe I don't know it calls into question whether that has any worth anymore 67:18 And we always speak about the laws 67:21 the international laws of the world the things that start to be created after World War two the United Nations 67:28 The idea of multilateralism and the lack of enforcement of it also calls it into question 67:34 So, that's what I believe that the U.S. government should join the ICC. 67:38 It should enforce its warrants for everyone that has been issued. 67:40 And when it comes to the Prime Minister, it's been issued for alleged crimes against humanity 67:46 and war crimes. 67:48 A lot of people are upset about what's going on in Gaza, right? 67:51 And I think specifically because it's been one of the most, it's been the first genocide 67:55 that's been heavily kind of televised, I'll say, like on our phones and in social 67:58 media. 67:59 How do you keep people from like mis-directing energy 68:02 that's against Israel towards like their Jewish friends, right? 68:06 Cause I'll talk about it with my Jewish friends. 68:08 So we have like a good relationship about it. 68:09 Like they know how I feel and I know how they feel. 68:12 And so it's like a comfortable like existence. 68:14 But I think some people maybe don't have 68:17 some of those conversations and they don't know 68:19 if it's okay to maybe bring them up or they don't know 68:22 or sometimes it's their boss 68:24 and they don't know if they can talk about it. 68:25 So how would you manage some of that because you also have to manage it on an even larger 68:31 kind of scale because you're the mayor in a city that has a large Jewish population? 68:40 And that's one of the things that I'm proud of is that we live in the most Jewish city 68:44 in the United States of America. 68:45 And to me, it's being very clear. 68:48 One that no Jewish person in New York City is responsible for the actions of the 68:54 of Israel. And if you want to hold anybody accountable, it's the people who are making 68:59 those decisions. The prime minister of the state of Israel, also our complicity as American 69:04 taxpayers given that we know how many billions of dollars we have sent in bombs and continue 69:10 to send. And then I think it's also being very clear about actually just today we released 69:16 the first plan at a municipal level anywhere in the country to combat antisemitism and 69:22 and listing out the ways that we would do so. 69:24 And one of the things is not only ensuring 69:27 that when anti-Semitism takes place, that you condemn it, 69:31 but also that you do the work to prevent it. 69:34 And also being very clear that critique 69:37 of the state of Israel, the policy actions, the genocide, 69:41 that in and of itself is not anti-Semitism. 69:43 Yeah, I agree, speak up about it. 69:45 If you feel something, 69:46 you should be able to say something, we're alive. 69:48 This is our only chance to be alive. 69:50 And we're talking about when you asked me about the Prime Minister we're talking about the architect of a horrific genocide 69:56 And I think what's so 69:57 There have been all these attempts to you know, people talk about a ceasefire 70:02 Just last week the Israeli military killed an 11 year old boy Palestinian boy in Gaza 70:08 In a section that's considered to be a safe zone. Hmm. This is continuing and oh, it's unbelievable man 70:14 And and last week I had a number of Palestinian families from Gaza 70:18 a, come to Gracie Mansion, where I live as, as the mayor of New York City, and to hear 70:24 from them about the way that their lives have been shattered, you know, you, you meet two 70:31 sisters and their mother and they tell you that the same airstrike that injured one 70:38 of them ended up killing two of their brothers that, that they lived in a tent that they're 70:44 that the father in that family is still there. 70:47 You speak to an older grandmother 70:49 and at the end of the meeting, she just comes up 70:52 and says, like, can you bring my son here? 70:55 And having to tell her like, I will try, 70:58 but as the mayor, I can't promise you that. 71:01 And all these people want is what everybody wants. 71:04 They just want their family, they want safety, 71:06 they want dignity. 71:08 And to know that not only have we watched 71:13 as that has been stripped from them, 71:15 but that we're financing it. 71:17 It is this conversation that you and I are having 71:20 about faith in government. 71:22 One of the reasons people don't have faith 71:24 is they look at the kinds of things that governments do. 71:28 They say, why would I believe in that? 71:30 Yeah, why would I even associate myself with it at times? 71:33 And so you have to stop those things 71:35 if you ever want anyone to believe 71:37 and you stop them also for the morality of it. 71:40 Do you think, what do you think is a sort like, 71:42 Like, yeah, how do we move forward from that? 71:44 Like this as a regular citizens, like. 71:46 Well, I think I've been asked about 71:52 where do we go from here? 71:55 And, you know, we have 2028 coming up 72:00 in a big question of what happens 72:02 after this administration. 72:04 And I think that there has to be a commitment 72:08 to a different kind of future. 72:09 There has to be, you know, if we're talking about reckoning with this, what will you do 72:16 that's different? 72:17 How will you deliver something else other than thousand-pound bombs? 72:21 And I hear that from New Yorkers all the time, and I hear it from a wide variety of 72:28 New Yorkers. 72:29 And I think it has to be a big part of what comes next is a politics of humanity, not 72:36 not just for the people that we represented at home, 72:38 but also the people that were bombing abroad. 72:43 But if you had, you're saying we would have rested 72:45 the guy you think? 72:46 If I had my say, the US government would have joined 72:48 the ICC, honored every single warrant that they've issued. 72:51 Fuck yeah. 72:52 Sorry to say it like that, but yeah, I don't know. 72:56 It's just crazy to see that guy speaking 72:57 on our country. 72:59 It's almost unbelievable. 73:00 I was, I mean, he... 73:02 And he called you out too? 73:03 Yeah. 73:04 Was that weird? 73:04 Was that scary? 73:05 It was strange. 73:06 I mean, I was I was having a meeting with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands at the LGBTQ Center in 73:14 downtown Manhattan, and then I 73:15 And he's a gay guy the Prime Minister. Yeah. Yeah, I've never seen him before. He's very handsome. He is okay 73:22 I don't know. I don't yeah. I'm trying to be yeah 73:25 Hello, sir. Very nice guy. Yeah, good guy 73:27 But it's so yours you were meeting with him and I was meeting with him and and the director of the LGBTQ Center and a 73:33 number of younger queer New Yorkers, 73:35 they were talking about what that center meant to them 73:37 to have a place where they could go and be themselves 73:40 and learn about history of the queer community 73:43 in New York City. 73:43 And then I get back from that meeting 73:45 and it's like, oh, by the way, 73:47 here's what he was saying at the UN. 73:50 All right. 73:51 It's so bizarre. 73:52 Yeah. 73:53 Did it feel personal then? 73:55 I mean, all of this is an attempt to distract 74:01 from responsibility. 74:03 name as many people as possible, 74:04 try and make it into a back and forth. 74:06 It's not about me and him. 74:08 It's about the fact that he's the architect of a genocide. 74:11 And it's like, yeah, if I was the architect of a genocide, 74:13 I would probably talk about anything but that. 74:17 That's a good point. 74:19 Yeah, it's just, yeah, I don't know. 74:21 It's an interesting time to be alive. 74:23 I think it's probably an interesting time 74:24 to be going further into politics, 74:28 a position that a lot of people don't trust these days. 74:31 Understand and yeah, I don't know exactly where all my laurels lie, but I do love getting to learn about it, you know and 74:39 Yeah, and thanks for just thanks for talking about the about a little bit about the genocide 74:43 Yeah, and just what's going on over there. I do feel like it's okay to speak about it and and then it's gotten people have been 74:50 more comfortable with speaking about it and 74:53 Yeah, and a lot of people are afraid to speak about it in politics and I think 74:58 one thing I would just say is 75:00 your curiosity is a beautiful thing. 75:03 It is because that is also how you understand the world. 75:07 And none of us are experts on any of these things. 75:10 Yeah, it's our first time being alive. 75:11 You know, so people try to shame others 75:15 for not knowing the answer when they're asking 75:18 the question, but there's a beauty in asking the question. 75:21 Yeah. 75:22 The question is also such a critical part of it. 75:24 And then listening to someone else for the answer. 75:27 And I think to your point, the reaction that we're talking about is also a human reaction 75:34 to watching something horrific, seeing it, knowing that we're complicit in it and asking 75:41 ourselves what is there to do. 75:43 And I think raising your voice is one thing. 75:46 And I think understanding that no matter what box you put yourself in, that there's 75:50 a complicity across both parties when it comes to this. 75:55 And to me, you know, I think about, 75:57 there's a book that came out by a writer named Omar Alakad. 76:01 One day, everyone will always have been against this. 76:05 And the reason that stays in my head 76:08 is it's such a succinct way of describing the fact 76:13 that the more years pass, 76:16 the more people will feel comfortable coming forward 76:19 and saying, that was horrible. 76:20 And we'll eventually get to a point 76:22 where some of the people responsible will start to say, 76:24 that was horrible. 76:27 And just know that you are not crazy 76:30 in thinking these things. 76:32 And our job is not to pat ourselves on the back 76:35 for when we got to it. 76:36 It's about to do everything that we can 76:38 to bring an end to it. 76:40 And bring an end to this and make it easier 76:43 for people to hope again. 76:45 That's the work. 76:46 Cool, man. 76:47 Well, yeah, thanks for thinking about it. 76:49 Absolutely. 76:50 And yeah, that is hope. 76:50 And you have to you have to stay hopeful. That's a thing that I just said won't disappear from us for some reason 76:55 That's something pretty special. It's gotta believe that. Yeah, that somehow we always are able to keep some hope 77:00 That's exciting. That makes me think yeah that yeah, that's exciting. Thanks. Yeah, mr. Mom 77:06 Donnie, thanks for your time. Good luck in politics. Mr. Vaughn. Yeah. Thank you, sir 77:09 And yeah, yes, yes, yes 77:41 At ZocDoc, we know you care about your health. 77:44 You wouldn't do that early morning cardio if you didn't. 77:47 So the fact that your annual physical is overdue just shows how hard it can be to get seen by 77:52 a doctor. 77:52 Sorry, that doctor's not a network. 77:55 Press 1 for more options. 77:57 You've reached us outside normal business hours. 77:59 The next availability is in 3 months. 78:01 But ZocDoc makes finding the right doctor easy. 78:03 Download the app and search by Specialty, Insurance, and Availability, read real-patient 78:08 reviews, then book instantly. 78:10 ZocDoc, ready to be seen?
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