Mamdani REACTS after stunning primary wins rattle New York

[0:00] there's a lot of people that have a lot of negative stuff to say there's a lot of people [0:06] who have a lot of opinions but when you prove them wrong you really don't have to say to them [0:18] that video clip is what new york city mayor zorn mamdani posted in the wake of a stunningly [0:23] successful primary night for a slate of candidates he endorsed in the lead up the primary the mayor [0:28] made a risky move backing three congressional candidates against the pull power of not just the [0:33] democratic party but really institutional progressive movement of new york city two of the [0:37] candidates primaried sitting democratic incumbents which is risky last night all three of those [0:44] candidates won as the new york times put it in sunday's headline quote mamdani burns allies in [0:49] making a big bet for congress on the left but as of this morning it looks like the bet paid off [0:55] joining me now is new york city mayor zora mamdani who will be speaking with house democratic leader [1:00] hakeem jeffries later tonight mayor congrats i know my colleague jensaki has leader jeffries on [1:04] the next hour to discuss what's going on um what are you looking for in your conversation with leader [1:10] jeffries tonight you know i i appreciate the relationship that i have with with leader jeffries [1:16] and it's one where we're united and looking to deliver for the people of the city and as you heard [1:20] from him we we have disagreements about endorsements and i think you mentioned a number of those [1:25] candidates that i was proud to endorse and daria lisa avila chevalier and claire valdez and brad lander [1:31] and also at the end of the day what we're looking to do is to deliver for the working people of new [1:35] york city and i think last night we heard from new yorkers a hunger for exactly that kind of work being [1:40] done here in our city you know i obviously i'm a lifelong new yorker no new york politics well um i [1:46] should disclose that my brother actually worked on the on the lander campaign um which i i basically [1:51] didn't cover for that reason this entire entire race um you know when you're in your race i think [1:58] you really say like you had a laser focus on affordability you really did you were very on [2:01] message interviews where i tried to push you off the message you kept coming back to it you know [2:05] what you're doing i think it's much harder to make that argument about these wins last night [2:10] i covered these races pretty closely i mean i follow them they weren't really about affordability i don't [2:15] think you can say there was some big difference between claire valdez and antonio reynoso so what [2:19] were they about from your perspective no i think they were about clarity they were about conscience [2:26] they're about conviction and and what i mean by that is when you're walking the streets with claire [2:32] one of the things that she speaks often about is the importance of fighting income inequality and [2:38] how the most effective tool to do so is increasing union density and she knows that because she's [2:42] somebody who rose through the union movement rose through uaw and this is somebody who has also made [2:48] clear time and time again that we need to have a foreign policy that is not as daria lisa would put [2:55] it investing in bombs as opposed to in babies and i think what you've seen from new yorkers whether it's in [3:00] brad's race daria lisa's race or claire's race is an exhaustion with status quo politics and a desire [3:06] for something that actually responds to the needs that they have in their own districts in some of [3:10] these districts we're talking about you know especially in daria lisa's case this is one of [3:15] the poorest congressional districts in the united states of america the other night when i was walking [3:19] with her uh through harlem we met a man coming out of a bodega who had his hands full with huggies that [3:24] he just bought and in that same moment she and i are having a conversation about how our government [3:29] has sent more than 30 billion dollars in bombs for the israeli military to kill civilians whether [3:34] in palestine or in lebanon and it just speaks to what new yorkers are tired of and what they want [3:39] to see they want to see people who are willing to not just stand up to the federal administration [3:44] but also stand for a vision of working people at the heart of it there's a lot of folks i would say [3:51] in new york who let's say broadly in sort of pro-israel coalition i think that's how they [3:55] would describe themselves um who who view last night as about that single issue basically they're [4:00] what they will say is particularly if you look at goldman and lander like this was really about [4:05] israel and it was it was it was motivated by people's feelings about israel and i think the [4:09] pro-israel folks would say you know their anger their rage some even say it's anti-semitism i don't [4:14] necessarily sign on to that but do you think it was like fundamentally is that what it was about [4:19] it the people and the democratic party supporting fundamentally or not doing enough to oppose [4:25] the actions of the israeli government over the last several years and continuing actions in in gaza [4:29] i think that that played a major role and it played a major role because new yorkers have had to watch [4:37] as tens of billions of our tax dollars have been spent on bombs that not only shred international law [4:45] but also the lives of civilians and what they've seen is that while it is a republican administration [4:51] that is doing it now it was also something that was bipartisan and continues to be and i think there [4:56] is a desire to see a politics of life be at the center of what we are fighting for and you know i think if [5:04] you're looking at brad and his race and his candidacy he led with such a humanity and in many ways an [5:10] embodiment of what mr rogers would speak about in the actions of a good neighbor and he would speak [5:14] about the fact that he is going to congress not only to fight against bigotry whether it be [5:20] anti-semitism or islamophobia but also to make clear that he is going to fight against the occupation [5:25] against the genocide he's going to co-sponsor as well as claire valdez and daria lisa will the block [5:31] the bombs act to stop our federal government from sending those kinds of shipments to the israeli [5:35] military and i think that's what's in line with what so many new yorkers are desperate to see [5:40] and all of this is all the more difficult for a new yorker to accept when at the same time they're [5:46] having trouble affording life in the nation's most expensive city at the same time as we're [5:50] green lighting tens of billions of dollars for netanyahu's wars we're being told sorry we just [5:55] can't help you make it a little bit easier to afford your rent check or your groceries or your [5:59] child care or even your public transit and i think that what we saw is that new yorkers were fed up [6:04] with a status quo of our politics where we're stuck explaining why this is the best we're going [6:08] to have as opposed to advocating for the working person who's being left behind by that same status [6:13] quo i just feel duty-bound to point out the federal government budget is like trillions of dollars [6:18] depending whether you in council or security so in the grand scheme of things i mean you're right [6:23] there's been about 30 billion dollars to israel there's lots and lots of billions of dollars that [6:27] could be found for those things even if we were to continue you in in doing this you you clearly [6:34] ticked off a bunch of people you knew that i mean you they were they weren't like shy about saying it [6:39] because generally the way it goes is you don't endorse against incumbents yeah it really is kind [6:44] of the unwritten rule in this um tish james who was a very vocal backer of your way yours when you're [6:49] running for mayor and even a backer of yours when i think it was pretty politically controversial to [6:55] be so um had this to say she said she and other political leaders you've spoken to are disappointed [7:00] in zaramam dani all of us are a little frustrated with the democratic party but you don't [7:05] blow it up that's what maga has done what do you say to that i think what is the democratic party if [7:11] not its voters and what we saw yesterday evening were democrats across the city turning out and voting [7:18] for a new kind of politics and i've been clear time and time again that i believe the only majority in [7:23] our country is that of the working class and what we saw is that a focus on the working class whether [7:28] it's from claire whether it's from daria lisa whether it's from brad is the kind of focus that new [7:33] yorkers want to see and i have a deep amount of respect for for my friend attorney general james [7:38] and i also believe that these are the kinds of candidates that we need to see in congress as [7:43] well as the five state legislative candidates that i endorsed that also won yesterday evening [7:48] if we want to truly fulfill the affordability agenda and you know as i'm speaking to you chris [7:52] it marks one year since i won the nomination to become the democratic nominee for mayor of our city [7:58] and i made a promise to new yorkers that i'd use every tool at my disposal to actually transform [8:04] the city into one that they could afford and one of those tools is using your political capital [8:09] to ensure that the people who will fight hardest for that same agenda are going to be there whether [8:13] it's in albany or whether it's in dc and i'm so excited to say that in yesterday's eight different [8:18] campaigns that we endorsed we saw eight different victories for exactly that same message on that [8:23] point about the working class and and i just want to be clear here like you win you win right like [8:27] these were winning like all eight one and different winning candidates assemble different winning [8:32] coalitions particularly in primaries but it also is the case and you can go down to the census track [8:36] level or you can look at the you know the different parts where there is a correlation between the [8:42] success of the candidates you backed and higher degrees of college education attainment and even [8:47] higher degrees of household income in those areas right i mean you can run the numbers the times had [8:52] them today in the bronx which i know pretty well my home borough um daddy elisa was lost by [8:57] 30 points to the incumbent adrian espayat in that part of the borough which is a very poor part of [9:01] the borough what do you say to people who say this is fundamentally democratic socialism a kind of [9:07] college affectation that basically like you talk about the working class but really it's just a bunch [9:13] of people who just got out of some college seminar who like to talk socialism well i i think that [9:20] everyone has their narratives what i'll tell you is i i'm excited to be able to speak to you as someone [9:25] who won more than a million votes in in last year's election here in new york city and what we saw is [9:30] that we got those votes across new york city and across so many of the different demographics that [9:35] make up our city and when we're speaking about daddy elisa who will be the first afro dominican [9:42] afro latina dominican woman to represent that district she would not be able to win that [9:46] nomination without the support of communities of color and the same thing with claire valdez who will be [9:52] the first mexican american indigenous woman to represent that district she would not be there [9:56] winning by 20 points if it was not also for the support of voters of color and i think too often [10:02] what happens after a race is an attempt to explain why that result happened as opposed to listen to the [10:09] voters who cast their ballot in that way and what i heard from many voters is they do want a different [10:14] kind of politics and especially for all of the conversation of 2028 and where this party should go i think [10:19] it's wise to listen to voters about exactly what kind of politics they want to see it's one that is [10:24] much closer to what we used to see from our party in the days of fdr than what we've seen in a time [10:29] when our only vision seems to be a responsive one to trump as opposed to one that goes beyond that fdr [10:37] if you ever read a biography both charming and ruthless an interesting combination new york city [10:41] mayor zoran mandani thank you very much mr mayor thank you for having me