Zohran Mamdani OUTPLAY Fox News...

[0:00] Continuing our theme of Fox News interviews, Fox News host Shannon Bream sat down with New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani to discuss the aftermath of the blue tsunami which swept the midterms. [0:11] And it was an amazing interview, a masterclass in how Mamdani is good at disarming MAGA talking points even from within the belly of the beast and also very instructive about the difference between political activism from the outside to the much more difficult, much more challenging realities of governing either as a mayor or a president or somebody who is actually an office holder. [0:32] And we have to talk about this. [0:33] But before we do, if you end up liking this video and you want to support the channel, please be sure to hit the like, subscribe, and notification bells before you go. [0:41] All right, folks, we have two clip – well, three clips here. [0:44] The two are good, but the third one is really kind of the meat of the matter, so to speak. [0:48] But I want to start with this right here. [0:51] Pleasure. [0:51] So let's start here. [0:52] You are a self-described democratic socialist. [0:54] Yes, I am. [0:54] And the DSA – [0:55] You're on Fox. [0:56] Yes, welcome. [0:57] We welcome all. [0:58] And we're glad that you accepted our invitation. [0:59] We're glad to have you. [1:00] Absolutely. [1:00] The DSA had a really good night on election night this week. [1:04] But Third Way, which is a center-left Democrat group, has cautioned against reading too much into that. [1:09] They say this. [1:10] I'm sure they have. [1:10] Mom, Donnie's policy ideas and the platform of the DSA, which he has failed to repudiate, were drawn from the far left and are deeply unpopular in the red and purple places Democrats must win. [1:21] We therefore urge Democrats at all levels to resist the pressure to align with Mom Donnie's politics and agenda. [1:26] I had the DSA co-chair on. [1:28] We talked about the platform getting rid of SCOTUS and borders and jails and ICE and all of those things. [1:34] What part of that do you repudiate? [1:36] Do you think is acceptable to mainstream America? [1:38] Look, I think the thing that is most acceptable to mainstream America is abolishing ICE and making sure we have humanity back in our immigration enforcement. [1:46] And the thing that has been offered as a part of a litany of policy platforms that I would reject is, you know, after last night, why would we abolish the Senate? [1:54] And I think what we're seeing is that Americans across this country are facing a cost of living crisis. [2:01] And last night's results show us that Americans are tired of waiting. [2:05] They are tired of being told that their needs are unrealistic by the very politicians who've been bought by the wealthiest people in the country. [2:13] What we saw last night are candidates across the country, no matter how they describe themselves, running on policies that would transform working people's lives. [2:21] James Tallarico ran on universal pre-K. [2:24] Annie Andrews ran on ending endless wars. [2:27] Keisha Lance Bottoms ran on streamlining the production of affordable housing. [2:31] Jocelyn Benson ran on a data center moratorium. [2:33] These are the kinds of things that also characterize what we've been doing right here in New York City. [2:38] And, yes, I'm proud to be doing so as a mayor who's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. [2:42] OK, so a couple of things. [2:43] We're going to play another clip in just a moment. [2:45] So Mayor Mamdani is very, very popular in New York City. [2:49] There's no question about it. [2:50] So typically polls measure two things. [2:52] You have the approval rating and almost said affordability rating and favorability rating. [2:58] You have approval rating and you have favorability rating. [3:01] Favorability is basically do you like this person? [3:03] Like do you – or do you find them favorable? [3:05] Do you like them? [3:06] Approval rating is do you like the job that they're doing in their official role? [3:10] So you could theoretically have somebody with a high approval or high favorability rating but a low approval rating and vice versa, right? [3:18] So for instance, Donald Trump has always had historically a very low favorability rating with the American people because most Americans think he's a prick, that he's an asshole, that he's corrupt, that he's a liar. [3:27] They basically think he's just a terrible person, which, spoiler alert, he is. [3:32] And yet at times his approval rating has been relatively high in the 40s, in the high 40s. [3:38] As a matter of fact, when he was inaugurated at the beginning of his second term, he actually had a net positive approval rating, which is the first time that's basically ever happened. [3:45] And it's stunning. [3:46] It's remarkable given how bad of a president he was and given that he is just a monstrous piece of shit. [3:52] But the point is that these two are not necessarily correlated. [3:55] With Mamdani, he has both a very high favorability rating in that most people like him. [4:00] I think some polls have it between like 65% and 70%. [4:03] So most people are like, I just like the guy. [4:05] He's charming and it's hard not to. [4:08] I mean, like he's very good here at disarming Shane and Bream and others. [4:11] Like he disarms Trump, which is something I think that comes up later on in the conversation we'll discuss. [4:16] But he also has a high approval rating as well. [4:19] It's also like a 60 plus, meaning that a decisive majority of New Yorkers and sometimes a super majority, depending on the poll, like the job he's doing as mayor. [4:28] They don't just like him as a person. [4:29] They like the job he's doing as a mayor. [4:31] He's a unique generational talent. [4:33] And again, in later clips, we'll get into why that is, what he's doing here. [4:37] I will say, as somebody who dislikes much of the DSA national platform, like abolish jails, just as an example, right? [4:44] Which Mamdani addressed briefly here. [4:46] Shane and Bream will touch on that later on. [4:48] And you'll see Mamdani has to distance himself from the DSA national platform, or at least elements of the DSA national platform, like abolish prisons and things of that nature, because those are very unpopular with the American people. [5:00] So as somebody who is a proud Democrat who is part of the tent who includes both center-left Democrats like Jared Moskowitz and people as far to the left as like AOC and Bernie Sanders, people who want that entire coalition to succeed. [5:13] If you're a member of the DSA, like you're a chairperson of the DSA, and you don't have the ability to separate yourself from like the unpopular elements of the DSA national platform, please, for the love of God, do not go on Fox News because you're going to hurt the Democratic Party. [5:29] Not just the center-left corporate shill Democrats that you don't like, but also the Zoran Mamdani's and the AOC's and the others. [5:37] You're going to make their job a hell of a lot harder, and that's why he is uniquely positioned to do what he does here. [5:42] So let's play the second clip where she tries to press him more, and she actually says, okay, what about this, this, this, and this? [5:46] Data center moratorium. These are the kinds of things that also characterize what we've been doing right here in New York City, and yes, I'm proud to be doing so as a mayor who's a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. [5:56] Okay, get rid of borders? [5:57] No. [5:58] Get rid of SCOTUS? [5:59] No. [6:00] Get rid of jails? [6:01] No. [6:01] So do you think DSA is going to kick you out? [6:04] No. [6:04] It sounds like you're not aligned with some of the core things they really want to get done. [6:07] You know, when you go into a room and there are more than one socialist in the room, you will often find disagreement in that room. [6:13] And what unites members of the Democratic Socialists of America is, in many ways, what has brought people into politics over the years, a belief in the dignity of working class people and the dignity that has to be a characteristic of their lives and an understanding that democracy, for it to be meaningful, can't just be at the ballot box. [6:30] It has to be in the rest of our lives from the workplace to every other aspect of it, and that's why I'm excited to be a member, and that's why I've been excited also to deliver for a New Yorker. [6:40] So this is where it gets interesting, okay? [6:42] So let's address the first part. [6:44] She asked some specific policy areas which are unpopular with the vast majority of Americans. [6:48] The vast majority of Americans do not want to abolish borders, and it's kind of a fringe position even within the Democratic Party. [6:54] Like it's a rounding error, I suspect, of the people who are like, you know what? [6:57] Let's just totally get rid of borders and let anybody cross in. [6:59] That's a Republican boogeyman. [7:00] So, of course, Mamdani is correct to say no. [7:03] Any politician who is sane would say, hell no. [7:05] Of course, we don't want to abolish borders. [7:07] What we do want is safe, humane border enforcement, which is something that we do not have under the Trump administration. [7:14] He said in the previous clip, for example, that ICE, abolishing ICE, is something that he supports. [7:19] This one is a lot less risky. [7:20] I support abolishing ICE too. [7:21] You know who else supports abolishing ICE? [7:23] It's not just people on, quote, unquote, the far left like Mamdani. [7:26] It's not just people who are progressive liberals such as myself. [7:29] It's also people like Bill fucking Kristol of the Bulwark, never Trump Republican, former like deputy White House chief of staff. [7:35] I think it was under President – the first President Bush. [7:37] He's Republican. [7:38] He's conservative. [7:39] And if you go to Bill Kristol's social media page, abolish ICE are like – it's like the most common phrase that he deploys on social media. [7:47] He says it all the time. [7:48] We had border enforcement before ICE. [7:51] It was INS. [7:52] You need border enforcement. [7:54] But ICE as an agency needs to be deleted, right? [7:57] There's just no redemption for this agency. [8:00] It's also – support for abolishing ICE has also surged in the past few years, particularly after the civil rights and human rights violations by mass ICE agents under the Trump administration as well as the cold-blooded murders of Rene Good and Alex Preddy. [8:13] I think now like it's calmed down a bit and it's about 50-50 basically people abolish ICE versus supporting ICE. [8:20] But there's a case to be made, the political capital there. [8:23] But getting rid of borders, Mamdani is smart to distance himself from there and disarm that MAGA talking point. [8:27] I don't believe that. [8:28] And I suspect actually if you polled most, certainly most Democrats and certainly most people on the quote-unquote left and probably – I mean I don't know. [8:38] I suspect if you polled the 100,000 members of DSA, people who consider themselves DSA, I suspect most of them would also say we don't want to get rid of borders either. [8:48] But again, it's a talking point because of DSA leadership like at the highest level. [8:53] So stop doing that, right? [8:55] Abolish SCOTUS. [8:56] No, I don't support abolishing the Supreme Court of the United States. [8:59] I do support expanding the shit out of it, right? [9:01] So giving a liberal majority, which we have every right to do, of course, has been expanded multiple times. [9:05] Now, Mamdani didn't mention court expansion, and he was right not to because it's like don't offer any more information that could be used against you by a Fox News host than what they ask. [9:15] If they just ask, do you support abolishing the Supreme Court of the United States? [9:19] I would have said no, but I also support expanding it. [9:21] But that's because I'm a Rottweiler on that issue, and I do think we need to put it front and center and make it a more salient issue. [9:27] Mamdani was wise to just say no and not offer anything else. [9:30] You do need a court of last resort. [9:32] Every country, every advanced democracy in the world has a court of last resort, like a high court, so you can't just not have a Supreme Court. [9:40] What we can do is expand the Supreme Court. [9:42] We can impose massive, massive ethics requirements with teeth on the Supreme Court in addition to other forms, other reforms like term limits and age limits and maybe supermajority requirements. [9:52] So if you're going to strike down a law as unconstitutional, you need a supermajority to do it. [9:57] So you could do that. [9:58] But again, I understand why he didn't go into that shit. [10:00] And also he's not a member of the Congress, right? [10:02] So it's not something that the mayor of New York, however powerful, really has his hands in, right? [10:09] And then the Senate. [10:10] Here's the interesting thing about the Senate. [10:12] I actually wouldn't mind abolishing this. [10:13] I mean I'm glad we won the Senate. [10:14] I don't want to abolish it anytime soon. [10:16] We won, and it's another chamber we can use against Trump. [10:18] But we don't – there's actually nothing like particularly important or noble about a bicameral legislatures. [10:26] Other democracies have unicameral legislatures. [10:29] Like you don't need a House and a Senate. [10:31] Like the UK. [10:32] The UK is an advanced democracy. [10:33] They technically have a bicameral legislature too, but it's a House of Commons and the House of Lords. [10:38] And the House of Lords is basically a rubber stamp. [10:41] It's basically ceremonial, kind of like the king, right? [10:43] Kind of like the monarchy, right? [10:44] There's actually no real power in the House of Lords. [10:47] The House of Commons is where everything gets done. [10:51] It's for all intents and purposes a unicameral legislature, and there are others as well. [10:55] So I wouldn't mind getting rid of the Senate too because it's less democratic than – and I don't mean just like big D party democratic. [11:02] It's just less small d democratic period. [11:05] It's much more malapportioned than the House of Representatives. [11:08] And it's basically like political affirmative action for low-population red states too. [11:13] I wouldn't mind a unicameral legislature, but again, I know that that is a pipe dream, and that is probably not supported, and it's not something that you should crusade on. [11:22] So good on Mondani for just saying no, no, no, no, no, and doing it with a smile on his face. [11:26] And then when asked the question, won't they kick you out? [11:30] That's interesting because DSA has, I think, expelled AOC in the past because of a position she took. [11:37] I want to say it had to do with some of her stance on foreign aid for Israel. [11:44] She opposed offensive weapons but voted present on Iron Dome funding. [11:49] I want to say that was what she did, and it pissed off DSA, and then they eventually, I think, right before this election cycle, they let her back into the fold. [11:58] So there is a risk that the elements of the DSA national leadership could eventually be so upset with Zora and Mondani for compromising too much, for forging an alliance with neoliberal shill Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul of California – or California, New York. [12:17] Which, by the way, has been very, very, very beneficial for both Governor Hochul and Mayor Mondani, very smart of Mondani to do. [12:26] It's possible that they do punish him eventually in the future, but I think he's right to basically – what he's implying there is it would be really stupid of DSA's national leadership to try to kick him out of DSA, [12:39] or the New York leadership of DSA to try to kick him out, given that alongside AOC, he's the most popular, most high-profile, and most influential DSA member in the country. [12:51] It would basically be political suicide for that particular organization if they want to actually wield power. [12:56] So it's good that he's putting distance between himself and just – and not actually just distancing, but just disavowing those unpopular policy platforms, [13:03] which will almost certainly never take effect and can only hurt the Democratic Party collectively. [13:09] So I appreciate Mayor Mondani doing what he's doing here. [13:12] And then it turns to kind of the broader topic, which is the difference between activism from the outside, [13:20] so being a civilian, putting pressure on government actors, local, state, and federal, [13:25] versus actually being a government actor, making the sausage. [13:30] Activism is extremely important. [13:31] Like, you look at the civil rights movement. [13:33] You know, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an activist. [13:35] He was not a politician per se. [13:36] He didn't hold political office. [13:38] His activism was profoundly important. [13:40] But I've said it before, and I'll say it again. [13:41] It doesn't matter what social movement it is, civil rights, women's suffrage, you know, ending slavery during the time of the Civil War. [13:50] Activism is extremely important. [13:52] But if you don't have the representation in government, it's ultimately meaningless, right? [13:58] It is – activism is almost always necessary, but it is always insufficient. [14:03] You need the government. [14:04] You need people to get elected and wield power. [14:08] That is even more important. [14:10] And Mamdani basically makes the case here, and this is kind of what the rest of this conversation teases out. [14:15] What Mamdani is doing now as mayor of New York City is infinitely harder than what he was doing before he was mayor of New York City, [14:22] and it's resulted in compromise. [14:24] It's resulted in saying, you know what? [14:25] I said I could get this done, but actually I can't get this done, and I can get this other stuff done. [14:30] I can do this stuff instead. [14:31] It's a really fascinating conversation that I think it's important for everybody, not just my audience, but everybody in general to understand between these two distinctions. [14:38] How hard they work. [14:39] You talk about action, and Democrats, just like Republicans, it's easy to make promises when you're campaigning. [14:46] You have a number that you are still working on, have not come to fruition, $30 an hour for minimum wage, free buses for everybody. [14:52] That's the one that everyone, when I said I was going to talk to you, they'd like, ask him about my free bus. [14:56] Arresting Bibi Netanyahu, disbanding parts of the NYPD, those things haven't happened. [15:01] So do you run up against the reality of actually governing a city like this? [15:05] What's your caution to Democrats who now head to Capitol Hill with some pretty sweeping promises? [15:10] Well, I would say is now is the time to fulfill those promises, because in the same 10 months that we've been in office. [15:14] But not easy to do, as you found out. [15:15] It's difficult, but that doesn't mean you shirk away from it. [15:18] And in these same 10 months, what we have done is deliver on universal child care. [15:23] We have done so. [15:23] But wait a minute, for 2K, but not infant to 5, that's a huge promise. [15:30] We've done 5, we've done 4, we've done 3, and now we're doing 2 for the first time. [15:34] In part, there are slots. [15:35] There's 2,000 slots. [15:36] I mean, that's improving, but. [15:37] After getting $1.2 billion, next year it's $12,000, and the governor has said herself, we're going to expand this program. [15:43] And that, to me, is you have 10 months in a four-year term, you've got to move as quick as the city does. [15:47] And when you get $1.2 billion on your eighth day in office, you use that to actually make what was $20,000 a year into something that's now free for thousands of New Yorkers. [15:58] And you do these things while also doing the basics, you pave 220,000 potholes in this city, you deliver the largest labor enforcement action in New York City history, $130 million from DoorDash back to 260,000 New Yorkers. [16:11] And then you keep working on everything else because a promise isn't something to intimidate you. [16:16] A promise is something that you should meet. [16:18] Some promises you do day one, some of them day 365, some of them year three. [16:22] You keep going. [16:23] So we're going to play one last part of this because then the topic turns to his relationship with Donald Trump, which is a source of endless fascination and conversation, including to me. [16:33] But I just want to close the loop on this. [16:36] This was a brilliant deep dive, again, into the challenges of – well, actually, let me do one more thing. [16:43] Okay, let's talk about your relationship. [16:44] Okay, okay. [16:45] I want to make sure I wasn't hallucinating here. [16:47] Okay, I want to make sure that there wasn't more to that before I discuss this, which is Mamdani now has to govern as an executive, but also as somebody who has to work with the Democratic governor of the state who's more powerful than he is, but who also needs his support. [17:08] She just had a reelection bid, right? [17:09] She needed his support, so they needed each other. [17:12] And he also has to work with Donald Trump. [17:14] We'll get to the Donald Trump of it all in just a moment. [17:15] Governing is a lot harder than just engaging in activism precisely because there are political realities that you just can't snap your fingers and eliminate. [17:25] So the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu is a good example. [17:29] He did campaign in part on arresting Benjamin Netanyahu. [17:33] He couldn't do it. [17:33] He does not have the legal authority to do it. [17:35] He admitted that. [17:37] He did a video address like, hey, listen, I know I promise this, and my staff did everything in our power to see if we could effectuate this campaign promise. [17:44] We've concluded we do not have the legal power to do this. [17:48] I can't fill this promise, and I know it's extremely important, but there are limits to my power, limits I did not anticipate. [17:54] I can't do it. [17:55] He was very candid. [17:56] He still called for Netanyahu to be arrested by federal agencies and whatnot, which obviously the Trump administration will not do. [18:03] But he was candid. [18:04] There are limits to his power. [18:05] And he has to make alliances with people that his staunchest supporters do not support, like, again, Kathy Hochul. [18:13] He needs to do it. [18:15] Kathy Hochul can fuck Mumdani's agenda. [18:18] He would be an idiot to make her an enemy unnecessarily. [18:22] So instead, what he's like is, listen, I need stuff from you, Governor Hochul, and you need stuff from me. [18:27] So we'll work together. [18:28] I will lend you my imprimatur, my credibility with New Yorkers, the popularity I can offer, and you work with me. [18:36] You give me the support I need to at least make serious progress on a number of my campaign promises. [18:41] It's a mutually beneficial relationship, and it's been amazing. [18:45] That's what good governance looks like. [18:47] Good governance is also filling potholes, which may not seem like a grand thing in the grand scheme of things, but I'm sure to people who live in the Big Apple, it's extremely important. [18:56] So he pairs basic good governance with making these crucial compromises and alliances and works within the system. [19:05] This is what AOC does on the legislative side of things. [19:10] Bernie Sanders did it after President Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary. [19:17] Bernie's like, okay, Biden, you won, but you also need my block of support because you can't just win with just the Biden fans. [19:24] You need the progressive left to win. [19:26] So we have to form like a coalition, and that's part of the reason why Biden was the best president in my lifetime when it comes to domestic policy and the best president I would argue on domestic policy. [19:39] You'd easily make the argument going all the way back to LBJ. [19:42] And President Biden's former White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, said that in many ways it was the progressive caucus in both the House and the Senate who were bigger champions of Biden's domestic agenda than the center-left part of the party, like particularly Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. [19:55] The reason I'm bringing this up is because now that we've won the midterms, there's a lot of debate going on right now about how the Democrats can, quote-unquote, govern in the final two years of the Trump administration. [20:10] And the truth is you can't totally govern because Trump is president. [20:12] To really, really govern, you need all of it. [20:14] You need the legislature and the executive branch, and ideally you would get the Supreme Court as well. [20:19] We have divided government. [20:20] There are limits to what Democrats can do, not just with Trump, obviously, the most corrupt fascistic president in American history, but also with each other. [20:29] There are moderates within the Democratic Party. [20:31] There are progressives within the Democratic Party. [20:33] And right now there's an ongoing discussion. [20:34] Should Hakeem Jeffries be Speaker of the House? [20:36] Should Chuck Schumer be Senate Majority Leader? [20:39] And what I'm trying to get you to understand because I know a lot of my audience – I mean, obviously, like a lot of my audience really like the moderates, but some of my audience also too like the more progressive side of things. [20:49] And what I'm trying to get everybody to realize is there's going to have to be compromise. [20:54] Progressives are not going to get everything they want. [20:56] They are going to have to give the moderates stuff that they want and vice versa, and Mamdani is a good example of this, right? [21:03] Look to those in my audience who love Mamdani. [21:05] We all love Mamdani here. [21:07] He's kind of the gold standard model here. [21:10] So let's set that expectation. [21:13] Let's say to Democrats of all stripes, do what you can. [21:17] Make the compromises you have to in order to get shit done. [21:20] And we'll close out with this because then it turns to his relationship with Trump. [21:24] Some of them day 365, some of them year three. [21:26] You keep going. [21:27] Okay, let's talk about your relationship with President Trump. [21:29] You obviously have to work together for the benefit of New York City. [21:33] He has a great love and affection for this, his hometown as well. [21:36] You've been to the White House. [21:38] We're going to be helping him to make everybody's dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York. [21:44] You guys text each other. [21:45] You talk to each other. [21:46] How would you describe your relationship? [21:48] And what's been your most recent conversation? [21:51] I would describe it as a productive relationship. [21:52] It is not news to you or anyone watching that the president and I have significant policy disagreements across many different issues. [22:01] And also, we have sought to spend those meetings, those conversations focused on the places where we have common interest, common cause. [22:08] And as you've said, the president cares deeply about New York City. [22:11] As the mayor of New York City, so do I. [22:13] And over the course of these conversations, we've been able to free a New Yorker from ICE detention. [22:18] We've been able to secure a visa for a grieving mother who would otherwise have to watch her son be buried from thousands of miles away. [22:24] We've been able to start to take steps to build the most amount of housing in a single development since the early 1970s. [22:30] And that, to me, speaks to the fact that my job is to deliver for New Yorkers. [22:35] And I have to work with whomever it is, wherever they are, so long as they have the power to do that. [22:39] So I think it's important to wrap up with that. [22:42] Donald Trump is a fascist. [22:43] He's a corrupt fascist. [22:44] He's the worst president in American history. [22:46] Mayor Mamdani agrees. [22:47] He still refers to Trump as a fascist. [22:49] They were side by side in the Oval Office during that first meeting where Trump was basically in love with Mamdani. [22:54] And Mamdani was asked about that. [22:56] And he tried to be polite but was like, yeah, my opinion hasn't changed. [22:59] And Trump said, it's OK. [23:01] You can say it. [23:02] And they have continued to work together cooperatively over the past year or so. [23:06] And Mayor Mamdani gives tangible results and successes of that relationship, whether it's Mayor Mamdani in New York City, Governor Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, or governors-elect Klobuchar and Hinojosa in Minnesota or Texas, or House and Senate Democrats as well at the federal level. [23:26] You have to work with Trump when and where you can in order to deliver results for the American people, while at the same time, especially if you have the power to do so, like state governors and like federal Democrats in the House and the Senate, you also have to push back on him and hold him accountable when and where you can as well. [23:44] So it's a tightrope. [23:45] It's a tough road to navigate. [23:48] Mamdani is kind of setting the standard there for how to have a productive relationship with Trump while also opposing him when and where you can. [23:53] We have to allow Democrats at every level, local, state, and federal, to do the same. [23:59] Work with him when you can. [24:00] Hold him accountable where you must. [24:02] So hopefully that's what we see for the remaining two years of the Trump administration. [24:06] In the meantime, let me know what you think in the comments.