NPR’s Leila Fadel speaks with Mayor Zohran Mamdani about New York City, President Trump and the future of the Democratic Party.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani still tries to keep a semblance of his old life, when he lived in a one-bedroom in Queens just a few months ago. He prefers to walk, bike or take a train to get around his city.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Because so much of how you see the world is informed by who you’re seeing it with and how you’re living in that world. So if you spend every single day driving around in a tinted-window security detail, you will have a very specific view of the city.
FADEL: And that’s on principle.
MAMDANI: You break out of the bubble that so many have come to expect of politics, where politicians only seem to be spending time with other politicians or the people who donated to make them politicians.
FADEL: I sat down at City Hall with Mamdani just after he marked his first 100 days in office. Under a portrait of Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the nation, he ticked through all his administration has accomplished so far with what he calls pothole politics.
MAMDANI: Just on Day 8, we delivered $1.2 billion to make universal child care a reality across our city. This is a time where we secured more than $30 million in settlements with bad landlords, repaired more than 6,069 apartments.
FADEL: He noted, though, there’s still a lot of work to be done, like on his promise of police reform.
MAMDANI: I’m committed to disbanding the Strategic Response Group and decoupling our city’s response to protests versus threats of terrorism.
FADEL: Mamdani was swept into office with a message to New Yorkers – you should be able to afford your life. But the political establishment was beyond skeptical. They called him naive, Pollyannaish, radical. But he says these first few months are proof that his approach is working.
MAMDANI: It shows people that the very things they were told they would be wrong to believe in are, in fact, the ones that we can deliver on.
FADEL: You’re a proud democratic socialist. It’s clear Republicans plan to use you in that platform as an attack point come the midterms. Do you feel pressure to prove that your brand of democratic socialism works before the midterms?
MAMDANI: I feel pressure from New Yorkers to deliver for them on their day-to-day needs. If Republicans want to attack a record of making it easier for families to raise their kids in this city, of workers to get paid what they’re owed, of New Yorkers to get around the five boroughs, they can feel free to attack that.
FADEL: What I’m asking is – whether you like it or not, you have been made to seem like a boogeyman of some kind – right? – from the Republicans, especially when you were running. So do you feel an added sense of pressure nationally because of the face you’ve become of the Democratic Party, and specifically the progressive part of this party?
MAMDANI: I’ll be honest with you. I don’t let myself think too much about what Republicans seek to portray me as. I think about the fact that the power of an ideology is judged in the worth of its delivery. Because for a long time, Republicans have sought to describe themselves as being driven by the needs of working people when, in reality, we’ve seen a chasm in what they’ve actually delivered for those people. I mean, look at the war in Iran today. We’re talking about a federal administration that has spent close to $30 billion, killing thousands of people, at a time when working-class people across this country cannot afford the bare minimum. And to be told that a city-run grocery store is implausible, but spending more than $500 million a day to kill people in Iran and Lebanon is not only plausible but necessary – it speaks to a broken kind of politics.
FADEL: Has the war in Iran had an outsized impact specifically on the economy of this city?
MAMDANI: Yes. And even more than the economy, it’s had an impact on the people of this city and across this country. At the core of any war is a dehumanization that takes place, and that dehumanization is not limited to any battlefield. It extends into the lives of people across this country. And, you know, I spoke to a young Muslim woman who I had called after seeing the news that she had been thrown to the ground at a subway stop. She told me that the first thing her attacker said to her before he attacked her was, I wonder how many Iranians we killed today. That is what we are allowing to take hold in our politics.
FADEL: I know you’ve spoken publicly about your concerns about this war, but have you shared those directly with President Trump?
MAMDANI: I’ll keep the nature of the conversations with the president between the two of us. What I will tell you is that it is no secret – not my concerns. I would describe it more as a deep opposition to this war.
FADEL: So I know you said, I’ll keep the contents of those conversations between us. But when you were campaigning, President Trump did have names for you. He called you a communist lunatic. And you had names for him. You called him a fascist. Now that you’ve met with him, that you’ve spoken with him multiple times, do you still think he’s a fascist?
MAMDANI: Yes.
FADEL: And do you tell him that?
MAMDANI: Yes.
FADEL: What about your impressions? I mean, given the questions that have been raised, including on the right, about his mental acuity in this moment – posting online that he would end a civilization, recently posting an image, AI-generated, of himself that seemed to depict him as Jesus and then deleting it – how do you assess that as somebody who has met with him, spoken with him?
MAMDANI: You know, I’ve been quite clear with the president and also with the public of my deep disagreement and opposition to so many of these policies. And I think that one of the few things that we have in common is that we are both New Yorkers. And I think one part of being a New Yorker is both to be honest and to be direct. And when I’m sitting with the president, we talk about places of potential collaboration, but we’re also very clear about places of disagreement.
And one place that I mentioned to the president was on my views around ICE. I believe that ICE raids are cruel and inhumane. And in the previous meeting that I had with the president, I mentioned that just that morning, a Columbia student had been detained by ICE. And I said that this was actually part of a larger pattern of five individuals who had been detained in or around Columbia University. I gave him that list. About 30 minutes after the meeting, he called me and said that he had now made the decision that he was going to release that Columbia student. And to me, it also showcases the importance of continuing to make the case for our city and its people, no matter if you agree or disagree with the person that you’re speaking with.
FADEL: You are a leading voice in your party. You’re the mayor of New York, but you are also a national figure. Are you included in these conversations about the future of the party and what Americans writ large want from this party?
MAMDANI: In a group chat? Or you think, like, a…
FADEL: I don’t know. Do you have a WhatsApp chat?
MAMDANI: (Laughter) Yeah, I don’t. I don’t have one.
FADEL: (Laughter) Is there a group chat?
(LAUGHTER)
MAMDANI: I was going to say, I’m not in a group chat. I don’t know if they have it. You know, I think what has been really exciting is that the hunger that I speak about for a new kind of politics – it doesn’t feel specific to New York City. It feels broader than that. And I think Americans across the country are fed up with what politics has come to mean over these last few years. And I think what they show is the very kind of politics that people have been eager to see on the national stage – a politics that understands not only will we push back against the bigotry and cruelty that we’ve seen in so much of these last few years, but also push for a dignity that too often it seems like we have to look for in the history books of the Democratic Party and not in the present day.
FADEL: Mayor Mamdani, thank you for taking the time.
MAMDANI: Thank you.
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