Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Launches “Talk With the People” Streaming Series
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
What's going on, everybody? Ninety-two years ago, Fiorello La Guardia took office as mayor of New York City. Over the years that followed, Mayor La Guardia transformed our city. He built incredible public works and an astounding amount of housing. He protected immigrants and uplifted the poor, and he used the most cutting-edge technology of his time to speak directly to the people of New York. In the 30s and 40s, that was radio. But I like to think that if Twitch existed back then, he would have streamed too. Mayor La Guardia spoke to New Yorkers on the radio on his show called Talk to the People. This is our absolutely shameless homage, Talk with the People. We're live on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and yes, TikTok. If you're watching this on Twitch, drop your questions in the chat and I'll answer as many as I can. We'll also be posting these conversations wherever you listen to podcasts: on your commute, washing dishes, pretending to answer emails. Because government should be accessible. You should hear directly from your city about what we're doing and why we're doing it. So, let's get into it. Here are a few things we did just this week. Today, we were so excited to announce that we were going to be delivering 1,000 $50 tickets to the World Cup just for New Yorkers. Now, last year when I was running for this position, I spoke about how New Yorkers deserved to have cheaper tickets to actually make sure that they could go and see the magic of the World Cup, not just have to feel it in the city that they know as their home. Today, we announced the thanks to a partnership with the New York-New Jersey Host Committee, we're doing exactly that. These 1,000 tickets are going to be sold, $50 a pop, to New York City residents. All you have to be is older than 15 years old and live in our city. And I'm sorry to Philly sports fans, that does not apply to you. Now, the way that you actually enter into this lottery is on Monday, Memorial Day, at 10 a.m., we're gonna open up this lottery from 10 a.m. to midnight. And it's going to open every day for the [following] five days. You can enter into the lottery once a day. We're capping it at 50,000 entries per day. And if you win the chance to get a ticket, you'll also get the chance to buy an additional ticket, either for a family or friend or whomever you'd like. And with that ticket is going to come free bus travel from New York City to the stadium, because we know that just as much as ticket pricing has been a prohibitive part for New Yorkers dreaming about going to the World Cup, so too has transit. And so, this is going to be part of our initiative to make it easier for New Yorkers to actually be a part of this incredible tournament. Now, I want to also shout out something that we did a few days earlier, which is make an announcement that we are extending 100,000 offers of Pre-k and 3K to New Yorkers across the five boroughs. This was part of our announcement that we were adding 2,000 new 3K seats. Now, as part of these invitations that we are sending out to children across the city to be a part of this program, to their parents, we were also really proud of the investments we were actually able to make into these systems, which means that this time around we saw that 85 percent of families received one of their top three 3K choices. And what we saw is that the average commute for families, we cut that by six blocks. Now six blocks may not sound like a lot to you and me, but if you're walking with a toddler, six blocks is quite a bit of time. So, we're very, very excited about this, because we don't just want universal childcare to be something that is remarkable because of the fact that everyone can access it at a technical level. We also want it to be something that is easy for New Yorkers to be a part of, something that's in their own neighborhoods, something that they can look at and marvel at the quality of the instruction and say: “This is a program that I want [for] my three-year-old, my four-year-old.” And this summer, we'll start for the first time ever for your two-year-olds as well with 2K. Now the other thing that I wanted to flag for New Yorkers directly is that there are a number of New Yorkers who are at risk of losing their SNAP benefits. Now, this is going to start on June 1 due to new federal work requirements. In New York City, the group that is facing the highest risk of losing these SNAP benefits are 18- to 24-year-old men. So, you are at highest risk if you are between the ages of 18 and 64 years of age, if you do not have or live with a child who is under the age of 14 and if you do not have a medical exemption from work. This is one of the reasons why we wanna communicate directly to New Yorkers about the fact that here is a moment where your SNAP benefits may be at risk and we're looking to make sure that we're doing everything we can to ensure that you can keep living in this city, that you keep considering this city to actually be your home. Now, I've gone through a number of the things that we've been working through this week, and, as you know, this is the first time that I've ever streamed or whatever it is that we would describe this as. So, I wanted to make sure that we actually brought somebody on who was a little bit more fluent in the language of streaming and Twitch and everything else that comes with it. So, please join me in welcoming New York City's very own Moose.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWell, I actually got a question for you first. When was the first time that you streamed? Is that how you described it?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceHow do you — when you're streaming, are you typically at home?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, this question, at the core of it, is about something that happens every single year in New York City politics. We have to balance our budget. Now, as many of you know, when we came into office, we inherited a $12 billion fiscal deficit. This is a generational fiscal deficit, [and] the reason I describe it like that is because when you look at previous mayors and what they inherited when they came in, it was nowhere near this level. And what we were looking at is a choice: a choice to either try and balance this budget on the backs of working-class New Yorkers who had nothing to do with this deficit or to find a way to balance this by raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, as well as actually having a fair deal with Albany. Now, what that means is Albany is the state capital of our state and New York City is obviously one part of our state, and a lot of our funding comes through Albany and under the previous governor, Andrew Cuomo. A lot of that funding was not actually a fair relationship. The city would bear more of the costs than the state would. There would be agreements about 50-50 cuts of the cost spending that we'd be doing, and then Albany would be paying less, and the city would be paying more. We're very lucky that under this governor, Kathy Hochul, we've developed a partnership where we actually have a lot more fairness in that relationship. And now on the taxation side, another thing that we did is with the governor's leadership, we introduced and are now passing a pied-� -terre tax, which is a reference to non-resident New Yorkers who have a secondary property in New York City that is worth more than $5 million. So, this is not affecting a typical New Yorker. You have to not live in this city. You have [to] own property in the city, and then that property's value has to be more than $5 million. That itself is going to raise half a billion dollars for New York City alone. So, all of these ways of having a fair relationship with Albany, of increasing taxes on the very wealthiest, and of actually finding the savings and the efficiencies in City government that have for a long time just been tolerated because that's how things are; those were the ways in which we actually got to a balanced budget. Albany was a critical partner in that. The governor is a critical partner in that, the Assembly speaker, the Senate majority leader. Another critical partner was all of you, frankly. Because you are the New Yorkers who were calling. You were knocking on doors. You were making your voices heard. Because in another time, when you inherit a deficit, people will say: “Just go to austerity. Just start cutting.” We don't wanna cut services for New York. It's a tough enough city as it is. It's time to actually invest in the people.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceFirst thing I would say is I hear you. It is the most expensive city in the United States of America. You're not imagining the fact that it's difficult. You know, I was sitting with a number of young New Yorkers the other day and they said something that really stuck with me. They said: "There are fewer things worse in life than being young and broke in New York City.” And it hit me, because in that moment, what a young person feels like is they don't have a future here. That the only way they could afford to live here is maybe, continuing to live with their parents for the rest of their lives. Maybe living in that basement for the rest of our lives. And that's not the city that we want to live in. We want to have a city where you can actually dream of your life here beyond the life that you're living right now. So, obviously there's a lot of hard work that is asked of anybody who's trying to make it here, but we also want to make clear that if you work hard in the city, you can find a way in the city. That's why we're investing in childcare. That's why we're investing in housing. That's why we're investing in city-run grocery stores because we want it to be that little bit easier. So, when you're putting in 110 percent, you can look at City government and say, at least somebody's trying to meet me halfway.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceOkay, you know what I love? So, you just said you don't live in the city. You live in Staten Island. No, but here's the thing. It’s like, when you grow up in New York City to me the city is Manhattan. The city is Manhattan, and then everywhere else is everywhere else, right? You got Queens, you got Bronx, you've got Brooklyn, you got Staten Island. So, you grew up in Staten Island.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI got to be honest. I do not, I have not played Minecraft. How do you play Minecraft?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceOkay, I sound so old because to me Minecraft is a movie that I knew was based on a video game. [Crosstalk.] What age group people play Minecraft?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI don't know how to kick you out of the stream, but I think you deserve to be kicked out of this stream. If anybody's listening, they can do that. I think they should do that. Chat, you know what I'm talking about, if I'm using that right. Look, I am proud to be an Arsenal fan. Twenty-two years. Do you watch soccer?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThink about it through the context of the Knicks. How long we've been waiting and every year we think it's our year.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceIt's been 22 years, so I think it was 2004.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI've been a fan since 2000, 2001. My uncle put me on. The short answer is no; we did not cheat our way to this title. We deserved this title. And that's how you know, because we won the title with a game to spare. Shout outs to my man, Woody W. For trying to come at the new Premier League Champions of England. And soon, inshallah, Champions of Europe.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI did watch Game 1. I also have to give a shout out to my friend Nicholas Sharma because the only reason I could watch Game 1 was because he had YouTube TV and he gave me his login. So, a lot of people ask, what's democratic socialism? Sharing YouTube TV with your boys. That's also a little bit of an example of that. Come on, just log in. You know, I got to say, Captain Clutch. Incredible. But that run was incredible.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI'm just saying we want to run back ‘99. Get to the Finals. We got Game 2. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceOkay, all right. That sounds good. I didn't want to offend you. I didn't know if you had a spot. Okay, for me, I think it's tight between — you said Los Tacos? Los Tacos [at] number one, and Taqueria Ramírez. Have you been there? Taqueria Ramírez is in Greenpoint. Fire tacos. Los Tacos [at] number one. Also fire. What's your taco order?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSpeaking of bussin'. It's not too far from the topic. OK, so a few things on this. This continues to be a priority for us because one in five New Yorkers can't afford the cost of public transit in New York City. And that was when it was $2.90. Now it's three bucks. So, this is something that we're going to keep fighting for. And this is something we're going to deliver by the time that I'm done being mayor. We want to make busses free across the city. When I ran for mayor, I talked about making them fast and free. So, what we focused on first is the fast part. Right now, there's some busses that travel at around five miles an hour. So, we're doing everything we can to get more than a million New Yorkers bus rides sped up by up to six minutes. A lot of time. And so, that bus action plan is right now our focus, but we're going to keep working with Albany on how to actually make busses free across New York City while we also make them fast. I want to give one shout out though. There is one free bus in New York city today: Q70. You can take that in Queens. It's a great place to be. And we just opened up a little bit of a busway for the World Cup for the Q70, so it's going to move a little quicker. Brother, I feel like I would be a fool if I made a prediction. Do you have [one]? Portugal has a stacked squad. First of all, host nation, there's always a little bit of magic, right? So, I'm praying for the U.S. Men's National Team. Today, I was standing next to two of our incredible players. We're rooting for them. And then, also, I was born in Uganda, so we have never qualified for the World Cup, which meant I grew up rooting for African teams across the continent. Where's your family from? Oh, let's go. Not in the World Cup. But it's all good. Maybe soon. You never know. We're still rooting for everybody out there. And I think Senegal and Morocco [are] also looking very good.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceFor me, it's the sense of community. That's one thing I love. Especially during Ramadan when you're walking on Steinway at 2 a.m. People are just sitting outside drinking coffee. Uncles are chain smoking and having an espresso, right? And then I think the other thing for me — the food is incredible.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceShout out to laffa, laffa at Zyara. I love Zyara but never order Zyara if you have to run to be somewhere. Like, it's never 30 minutes. With all due respect to Zyara. I'm probably gonna get a phone call about that afterwards.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceYes, so this is actually a very pertinent question because yesterday we had a significant amount of rainfall across New York City. Now, in most parts of New York City, this was, you know, two to two and a half inches maybe. And our storm system is built for two inches of rainwater. As we know now, with the climate crisis, that amount is increasing, and there were parts of New York City where in five minutes there was half an inch of rain that equates to six inches in an hour. Actually, earlier today I was meeting with a number of families in Hollis in Queens. Who not just — it wasn't just that their basements flooded. Even first floor apartments were flooded. And there was a woman who came up to me, and she had tears in her eyes, and she was sharing with me that it wasn't a 2026 problem, it was a 2020 problem, she's been facing this for 34 years. And that to me is an example of a lot of the roots of the climate crisis that we have been ignoring, especially in terms of flood prone areas in our city. So, when it comes to what the city's doing on the short-term basis, we are making sure that we are clearing out catch basins, we are actually investing in cloudburst technology. Have you heard of cloudburst technologies? I'm gonna hit you with what it is. So, there's a basketball court in Queens that is an example of cloudburst technology. Where you have a basketball court with a surface that can absorb excess rainfall, [then] hold it for 24 to 48 hours so the sewage system is not overwhelmed. Then, when the rain has gone — a day later, two days later — then it releases the excess rainfall, and then the system can actually absorb that. So, we have invested, I think, close to $300 million over a 10-year period in additional cloudburst technology. We're also investing multibillion dollars on a longer-term scale to actually address some of the longer-terms sewage issues, both in Southeast Queens as well as in other parts of New York City. Because the videos that a lot of us have seen, especially that I've seen — there's a way in which we've come to accept this as if this is New York City when it rains, and that's unacceptable. And so, we're looking at every single thing that we can do to make sure we actually catch up to the climate crisis.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThis is a great question. So, two ideas that we've put forward is increasing personal income taxes on New Yorkers who make more than a million dollars a year by just two percent. So, if you made a million bucks a year, this would be just an extra $20,000 in taxes. The other thing is to increase taxes on the most profitable corporations. So, this isn't like a mom-and-pop story in your neighborhood that you know these are the most profit corporations doing business in New York. And, to us, the importance of this — it's not just about fixing a broken tax system. It's also about having this revenue to invest back into the working people of the city, which will reap benefits for everyone who calls the city home. I'll give you one example. Childcare right now. Do you have kids? Inshallah. I'm going to make it easier for your mom to nag you about having kids, because we're going to make it easier to have kids in New York City, right? One of the major issues that families face: $20,000 a kid is a good deal in New York City for childcare. And we, with a partnership with the governor, we have $1.2 billion over this year and next year to deliver free childcare for two-year-olds. Our dream is to go beyond just two-year-olds, it's to go to one-year-olds, to children as young as six weeks. That's also going to require revenue. And that's a critical part of the kinds of investments we could be making. So, when your friend tells you that they're settling down, the next sentence doesn't include they're moving to Long Island, or they're going to the suburbs, or they going to Jersey, or they are going to Connecticut, because they can actually envision living in New York City. So, when you have kids, you gotta stay here.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceOkay, up and coming. I feel like I'm a little bit washed now in terms of the rap that I listen to. I feel like I've reached the age where most the rap I listen too is the rap that I used to listen to. But I can tell you when I was in high school in New York City you know who I would actually listen to a lot — okay, he's not quite underground, but I feel like he never really broke through into the mainstream in New York City. There was a Canadian rapper named k-os.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source4-3-2-1, Zamboni, great songs. Now, you know the song Wavin’ Flag by K’naan? When I Get Older. You know that one, right? K’naan actually has a lot of other great songs, and I used to listen to K’naan. That was him, that was him. So, he actually has a bunch of great songs, and I actually went to a few of his concerts when I was in high school. Which was actually before Wavin’ Flag, so I was on that. How about you?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThat's the opposite of an underground rapper. You're naming the most famous people in the world.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWith all due respect to West Village, I have a few additional recommendations. One place I'd recommend, because I was just there meeting with Council Member Carmen de la Rosa, [is] Dyckman Street. You've been to Dyckman? Dyckman is a great time. Dyckman in the summer is a lot of fun. You should check out Dyckman.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceDyckman’s like Steinway. But much better mofongo. So, go to Dyckman, get some of mofongo. I would also say Jackson Heights is a really lovely place to check out. Go to Diversity Plaza. There's a lot of different places you could eat. There's a place called Amdo Momo. You ever had Amdo Momo?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceAmdo Momo, $8 momos, eight momos, pretty great deal. It's a great lunch special. Actually, they offer it all times of day. And then Bay Ridge. Gotta go to Bay Ridge. Gotta go to Ruzana and get some Arabic chicken Shawarma. It's chopped up. It’s incredible.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceFor all of the tourists who are coming to New York City, we want to make sure that they're not just coming to Midtown and just going to the game. We want them to get around the entirety of the five boroughs. So, I wanna hear from you guys. Where should they go on Staten Island?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSoul food. So good. [Crosstalk.] So, to give you a sense, your compost goes to several facilities in the region. We're talking about Staten Island Compost Facility. We got one right there. Some of it also goes to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Plant. Everybody should be composting, though, because that's what we want you guys to do. Please, compost. You going to compost? Okay, I think that's a yes.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI actually really appreciate that question. You know, when we faced this $12 billion fiscal deficit, we were able, through the use of reserves and savings, we were sort of able to start chipping away at it. And then in the middle of February, I had to come forward and present the first version of our budget. They call it preliminary budget. And in that version, I said that we had two paths of how we could get the remaining deficit down to zero. I said there was a path of last resort — and I said that the reason it's last resort is it would mean raising property taxes. And then there was the path that we wanted to pursue, that we would spend every day looking to pursue: raising taxes on the wealthiest and having a fairer relationship with Albany. And I laid out these were the two options and that in our budget, the only thing we could control was the last resort. But the option we were gonna pursue was the higher taxes on wealthiest, the fairer relationship with Albany. And for some people, when they heard that, they thought that that meant we actually wanted to pursue property taxes. And we spent every single day since then pursuing the other option. And we're proud that at the end of this process, we put forward a budget that didn't have to go to the last resort, that was actually able to raise taxes on the wealthiest, to have a fair relationship with Albany, to find those savings, find those efficiencies, and eliminate a $12 billion fiscal deficit. But that's one thing that I think sometimes gets lost in translation. But I appreciate that question because oftentimes in politics, things move so quickly that you're not given much time to reflect. And I think this is an opportunity for that. So, I want to also say thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for joining our inaugural stream.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceHonestly, this is actually quite fun. It's fun. It's nice to not also do this alone. Because it feels like sometimes if I'm — if it's just me, it feels a little stilted, you know, I feel like actually I'm chatting with somebody. I'm chattin’ with the chat as well. We don't say that. Talking with the chat. We don't say “people.” We don't say “ladies and gentlemen.” We say “chat.”
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThank you for being a part of this. To all of you, to the chat, thank you for being part of us. We're gonna come back and do this sometime soon, and we're really looking forward to it, because we wanna make sure that you don't have to go searching anywhere to find out what is City government doing, why are they doing it? We wanna make it easy for you and this is the best way to actually be right there in touch with you. We wanna thank Mayor La Guardia for the inspiration. Thank you guys. ###
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Launches “Talk With the People” Streaming Series.