Roland S. Martin: Mayor Mamdani, glad to have you back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. It has been half a year, if you will, since [becoming] mayor. How has it been thus far?
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: First of all, I have to say just thank you for having me back. It's a real pleasure to be back on the show and it's been going well. It's been about six months, as you said, and it has been six months of putting our city on a path to universal childcare; saving parents more than $20,000 a year for each two-year-old that enrolls into this program; and paving 175,000 potholes across the city at the same time. All of this comes back from the belief that there has to be no problem too big, no task too small for City government and whether it's childcare, potholes, restitution for workers who have been denied that by businesses that took advantage of them or even small businesses that were taken advantage of by larger corporations, we will be there. We will be fighting back. And most importantly for New Yorkers, we'll be delivering.
Martin: You talked about childcare. Obviously, that appeals to a lot of parents. And the reality is that you have seen significant erosion of your Black population. New York City used to have the largest Black population in the country and Chicago was second. Atlanta was third. You've been losing. What are you going to do to stem that tide? What I keep hearing from my listeners and viewers is that they simply cannot afford to stay in New York City.
Mayor Mamdani: And that's what we've heard - the same thing - and we've heard it for years. And as you know, any time we talk about increasing taxes on the wealthiest or the most profitable corporations, there'll be talk of a fear of a capital flight. But there's a real flight that's already been happening for years, and that is the flight of Black New Yorkers out of this city because they can't afford the ever-increasing cost of the city. And just to put a number on it, we're talking about more than 200,000 Black New Yorkers having left this city in the last few decades alone. And from 2010 to 2019, our city saw a decline in the population of Black children and teenagers by 19 percent. So, our focus here is how do we make it easier to stay in New York, because we don't want to be an administration that presides over what has effectively become a reverse Great Migration. We want to be the administration that brings that to an end and instead says that this is a city that doesn't just celebrate Black history, but it's a city that allows Black history to keep being written.
And so, what we have seen is the number one cost is housing. So, we have committed to building 200,000 new affordable homes as well as preserving 200,000 existing affordable homes over the next 10 years. We're doing this while also focusing on homeowners because we know that for many Black New Yorkers, homeownership has been that path to stability. And what that has meant is creating the city's first-ever Office of Deed Theft Prevention so we can bring an end to the scourge of especially older Black New Yorkers being taken advantage of under the guise of refinancing or planning out the shift of possession of the property to the next generation and instead protect their rights as homeowners. And we do this as well as delivering on childcare because when it comes to the cost of living, childcare is the second-most-expensive thing and it's considered a good deal in our city today if you can get childcare for $20,000 a year. And that's just something that we can't accept.
Martin: On the point, you talked about paying for a lot of this by increasing taxes. What is going to be the burden on homeowners, because again, you talk about those older homeowners, many of them fixed income. If you all of a sudden have an increase in property taxes, that's going to make it very difficult for those single-family homeowners on fixed income.
Mayor Mamdani: We're not talking about any burden on a fixed income homeowner. What we're talking about is a burden on non-resident New Yorker who owns a secondary home that's worth more than $5 million. And that is very few and far between in this city. And yet what we've seen is that a city where, as you said, a homeowner on fixed income is struggling to make ends meet, it's also the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. And our job is to ensure that that wealth, it reaches the struggles also that New Yorkers they're facing in affording life in this city. That's why we've been focused on increasing taxes only for the wealthiest New Yorkers, the most profitable corporations. And when it comes to those who are struggling in this City, it's: "How do we deliver for them each and every day?"
I'll give you one example. When it comes homeowners, we saw that Rudy Giuliani policy called the "Tax Lien Sale." The city was selling tax liens in Black neighborhoods at six times the rate it was selling them in white neighborhoods. And I used to be a foreclosure prevention housing counselor before I was an elected official, I would see up close what it meant when that lien was sold; it meant you were on a fast track to foreclosure. So, what we did, one of the first things we did was coming in, we said: "Look, it's not worth the amount of money this is bringing into the city if it means it's at the expense of homeownership." And so, we put a pause on that lien sale for the first six months with a study instead to look at, yes, how can we make sure that everyone is paying what they owe the city, but also, how could we make it's not happening at the expense of their ability to stay in this city?
Martin: One of the things that you had to deal with early on was a lack of a senior African American leadership. How have you fixed that problem?
Mayor Mamdani: So, I'm proud to say that we have a deputy mayor for community safety, the first ever deputy mayor in that position with Renita Francois, who is leading the work of ensuring that we all have an all-of-government approach to public safety and understand that we don't just respond to crime, we also do the work to prevent crime. And what she's been able to do has already had tangible results, especially for young people across the city, and it's a lot of work that needs to be built on. And I think this gets back to the point that I've been sharing over the course of the campaign, which is that not only do we want a City government that is delivering for New Yorkers, we also want one that looks like New Yorkers. And so, we can see that, whether it's in a deputy mayor or a chancellor or commissioners all across this administration, it's a reflection of what the first democratic socialist Mayor David Dinkins once described the city as, which is a "gorgeous mosaic."
Martin: Speaking on that, so you call David Dinkins a democratic socialist mayor?
Mayor Mamdani: Yes, yes, he identified himself as a democratic socialist. He was also our first Black mayor. And in many ways, he was an inspiration, not just for me, but for so many New Yorkers with his vision of what the city could be. And even just recently, I was celebrating Mandela Day, and I was looking back at images of how David Dinkins welcomed Mandela to this city and what it looked like to actually be a mayor with humanity at the core of the agenda.
Martin: So, how do you, so right now you have this raging debate. First of all, I don't necessarily believe that it is, I believe it is a raging debate in New York media circles as opposed to what's happening all across the country in terms of DSA candidates winning in New York, mayor of D.C. and a couple of other places. And one of the things that I've said is that the reality is Democratic Socialism America policies play well in very blue districts. Reality is that for Democrats nationally, especially in Congress, in order for them to, in order them to let's say win the House, you're gonna have to win in places that are purple, places that might lean red. And so, how do you respond to folks who say that, "oh my God, these DSA folks are taking over the party, that they're going to destroy the party, and we're not going to be able to win because we're going to get branded as, as socialists and communists."
Mayor Mamdani: Well, you know Democrats have been branded as "socialists" for longer than I can remember. I remember President Obama being called a socialist almost every single day by Republicans across this country. And it didn't stop him from delivering not just on a first term, but a second term and things that we still talk about to this day. And I do have to push a little bit on the premise around blue and red and purple, because I believe what's at the heart of this agenda is the struggle of the working person. And as much as we believe ourselves in New York to be exceptional, we also know that working people aren't just struggling in New York City, they're struggling everywhere across the country. And this message is about, "How can we ensure that when you work every single day, that you come home at the end of the day, and you can actually afford to pay those bills for your housing, for your childcare, for your groceries? How do we reduce the distance between those two things?"
And here in New York City, we've talked about building more affordable housing, universal childcare, city run grocery stores, real tangible things. I think that these have the potential to connect with any working person that's struggling anywhere. And I think for those who are concerned about "what is this party?" my answer would be that, you know, what is the Democratic Party if not its voters? And what we've seen from its voters is that people are hungry for a vision of the Democratic Party that has more to do with the New Deal than with the "raw deal" that so many Americans have been forced to accept over these last few years.
Martin: So, on that particular point there, so what do you say to Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, DNC leader Ken Martin and others in terms of messaging? Because again, when I sort of see this landscape, when I see this conversation taking place, there's a different conversation that's taking place on CNBC, on Fox News - they almost are the same - than what's happening in living room. And so, are you telling Democratic leadership, lead with policies and not labels, because if you lead with a label, people automatically start thinking something totally different?
Mayor Mamdani: But what I would say is not to listen to me, but to listen the voters themselves, because when those voters have spoken, us listening to them is what has been the premise of us being able to deliver for them. And I think you're onto something in the focus of the agenda not being how you describe it, but in fact what it's delivering for people. You know, I'll tell you, as a democratic socialist, oftentimes I'm asked what has it meant in my conversations with New Yorkers, and most often when I've knocked on a door when I was running to be mayor, people didn't ask me how I describe my politics, they just asked if there was room in my politics for them. And there was a time when we were very clear as to what this politics meant. You know, you think about freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of worship - these are the kinds of things, the ways that we would describe what this could mean. Today, for a lot of Americans, it feels like politics is irrelevant to their struggles. It feels like it's something that the less time they spend on it, the better that they feel, and we want politics to be something that not only a few people can afford to think about but rather something that can deliver the many the dignity that they have long been denied.
Martin: We talked about education; we talked about charter schools. Listen, you spend a ton of money in New York City on schools. There are parents who are not happy with the education their kids are getting. And so, how do you make that quick turnaround? If a parent's got a kid in ninth grade, they can't wait for a four- or five-year plan to finish. Their kid is gone.
Mayor Mamdani: I think first and foremost, you have to actually listen to parents and understand what kind of obstacles they're facing in their child receiving the world-class public education that they deserve. Too often, what we do is explain away the problem, then actually recognize it and start to plan how do we respond to it. One of the first things that I did was bring in Chancellor Kamar Samuels, who has been doing a very good job in the work of leading what is the nation's largest public school system. And one thing that truly appealed to me when I was considering him and continues to [appeal to] me as he has led this public school system, has been his insistence on the importance of both rigor and an integrated school system. Too often what you will find is that these two words are posed as if they are somehow at odds, when in reality they are both reflections of a functioning and successful school system. And so, what our focus has been is - how do we put the investments into our school system that are necessary?
A lot of them - you know, you were bringing up a student in ninth grade who can't afford to wait four years - a lot of it has to do with how do we bring in the investment before they're in ninth grade, so that we're not trying to catch up after the fact. So, a lot of our work has been that $1.2 billion agreement with the governor to deliver universal childcare for two-year-olds for the first time, to fix the system for three-year olds because too many parents were saying, "Okay, I've got a seat, but I have to walk two, three, four miles in order to drop my child off there. How do we bring that closer to home?" And then how do we also pour in the investments to ensure that children who require a specialized program, that those children and those parents are actually receiving the support that they need so their children can flourish in these educational settings. Because for a long time what we've seen is the city's inability to provide that kind of support to children of special needs, it then pushes those families out of the public school system and it fails in the spirit of what this system should be.
[Crosstalk.]
Martin: It's three months left, three months before the election. And I believe one of the greatest mistakes that politicians keep making, or even groups, they say: "We need you to vote." Well, I can't get somebody to vote unless they're registered. I can get them registered unless I'm really explaining to them why public policy matters and why they actually have to vote. What are you telling these candidates how they have to communicate and how do they appeal to low propensity voters or voters who have checked out of this process, because 90 million people did not vote in the 2024 election. Move a 5 percent, Kamala Harris is sitting in the Oval Office. And I just fundamentally believe, especially for African Americans, Democrats are not spending enough money, enough time, that they're using an old playbook. Your campaign, I believe, showed people how you should be running in 2025, 2026. What are you telling other Democrats nationally in terms of what they should be doing?
Mayor Mamdani: First, I just want to say thank you for the kind words, and I think to your point, we have to stop lecturing voters as to why this election is important, and we have to start earning their interest and their support, and the quickest way to do that is by speaking to them about a political agenda that they understand as relevant to their struggles. Too often it sounds like we're putting forward a policy where a voter is spending more time trying to decide if they're eligible for that policy than whether it's going motivate them to actually vote for that policy. And to me, I think about the early days of the Democratic Party, some of the slogans and phrases that came out of it - "a chicken in every pot." These are the kinds of things where you didn't have to think and wonder what that meant and who it was for. It was a universal message as to what that politics would deliver for you. We need to be able to deliver on that kind of universalism and have it direct to the working-class voters across this country who have for a long time not seen themselves in our politics.
Martin: All right, Mayor Mamdani, I truly appreciate it. Look forward to seeing you when you come through Washington, D.C.
Mayor Mamdani: I look forward to it. Thank you so much.
Martin: All right, thanks a lot.
