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Whoopi Goldberg: So that was New York [City] mayor Zohran Mamdani [on] his inauguration on New Year's day announcing a new generation of leadership for America's biggest city. He ran a historic campaign with big promises that caught the attention of the entire nation and you-know-who. So here to tell us how he plans to deliver, please welcome back the- we can say it now. He is the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.
So how are you doing? Long time no see. What's up? Anything new going on in your life?
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: I'm pretty slow going. Just clock in, clock out. It is lovely to be back.
Goldberg: So you've been on the job, you know, for three weeks. So, what's it feeling like?
Mayor Mamdani: I'll be honest, it feels incredible. You know, this is the dream of a lifetime. And we've always wanted to build a city government that moves as fast as New Yorkers do. You know, when a New Yorker's trying to walk somewhere, you don't get in their way. But, you know, with a city government, it hasn't felt like that for a long time.
So we've wanted to say that there's not gonna be any problem too big or too small for us to address. So, day one, we put bad landlords on notice right after that inauguration speech. You know, day six, we fixed a bump on the Williamsburg Bridge. Day eight, we announced more than a billion dollars in funding for universal child care.
Sunny Hostin: That was a huge bump, by the way.
Joy Behar: Where's that money coming from?
Mayor Mamdani: That's coming from the state.
Behar: Oh, wow.
Mayor Mamdani: And what that does is it allows us to fix universal child care for 3-year-olds and deliver it for 2-year-olds. We actually have a mother in the audience, Mallory, who is here with us and who, when the announcement was made, texted her husband to say, "It might be time for a second kid."
And I think so often we think that these are decisions families are making on their own, but really we're giving them no choice when we say that child care costs $25,000, $26,000 a year. Now it's something that they can actually get for free.
Behar: Good for you. So, Mr. Mayor, we all know you're a charm. But you are totally filled with charm, and the one who's really taken with you is Trump. I mean, and what's interesting is that you called him a fascist to his face, a dream I've always had, and with his blessing. And then we saw you, you know, talking to him that day, and he seemed to be madly in love with you that day. There was a bromance roaming. And then now I understand that you're texting each other. Can I see the text?
Mayor Mamdani: I don't have my phone with me.
Behar: Very, very convenient.
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Behar: So obviously you've gone for the charm offensive as opposed to Governor Newsom, who's on the attack. Now, maybe yours is going to work, because we know he's totally egomaniacal and narcissistic, and any time you compliment him, he likes you. Is that your intention?
Mayor Mamdani: I think my intention is about being honest and direct with the president. I think there are many disagreements the two of us have. There's no shortage of them. One thing that we do have in common is that we both love New York City. We're both New Yorkers.
And so for that entire meeting, I made the case about this city and what it can look like for this city if it's a place that New Yorkers can afford or if it's a place that they're pushed out of. And every single policy that the federal administration puts forward, it impacts on this city.
Behar: You think he really cares about New York City? And do you have an award for him?
Mayor Mamdani: I don't have an award. What I will say, though, is that I'm going to exhaust every possibility. I mean, when New Yorkers elect a mayor, they're looking for someone who's going to turn over every leaf to see what is something they can do for the city. That's what I'm going to do.
Behar: Well, good luck.
Hostin: Mr. Mayor, and I love saying that.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you.
Hostin: Mr. Mayor, let's talk about the unfortunate situation unfolding in Minnesota since the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good, which you bluntly called a murder. The Trump administration is reportedly readying troops for deployment and investigating the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of Minnesota for impeding immigration agents. How are you reacting to everything that you are seeing? And importantly, do you worry they'll target New York and you?
Mayor Mamdani: Look, I think, first, I don't know how else to describe what we saw in Minnesota. People ask me, why did I say the word murder? I asked them to look at that video and tell me what they would call it. And we are being asked to not believe our own eyes. It's time to be truthful with people. It is terrifying to see what's happening there. And it's terrifying to see all of this happening in the name of public safety. And I've said this directly to the president, [that] these ICE raids, they are cruel, they are inhumane. They do nothing to deliver that public safety.
In fact, what they do is leave a sense of fear amongst so many. And, you know, I represent a city of 8.5 million people. More than 3 million New Yorkers are immigrants. I'm one of them. And what we've seen this administration do is transform the very places that we used to associate with the American dream. You know, 26 Federal Plaza, you go there, [you have] your citizenship interview, [and] you hope you can start to call yourself an American.
Now it's the sign of the American nightmare. It's where people go there for what should be a routine immigration check-in. They don't know if they're going to get detained or deported. And so my job is to stand up for those New Yorkers, stand up for every New Yorker, and to say that we're going to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that what we're seeing elsewhere is not what we see in this city.
Hostin: What if they send ICE agents here to New York City? Are you prepared?
Sara Haines: Well, that kind of leads to my question because the president is threatening to cut off significant federal funding to New York City and other sanctuary cities next month, arguing you're protecting criminals. Now, is he trying to coerce you to cooperate with ICE? And how will you respond if he makes good on that funding threat?
Mayor Mamdani: Well, what I've said is that our values and our laws, they're not bargaining chips. I'm not looking to have a negotiation with New Yorkers' lives. We're talking about sanctuary city policies. These are policies that used to be defended by Republicans and Democrats alike, ones that keep New Yorkers safe.
And I've told the president this directly, which is that what we are talking about is not people who are convicted of serious crimes. We're talking about people whose crime simply seems to be being in New York City. And if they were to make good on this threat, it would rip the civic fabric of the city apart. And so we're going to use every tool, whether that means the tools of city government, the tools of the court, to make our case direct.
Behar: They're trying that in Minnesota. It's not working. They're overrun by these government agents. So what are we going to do?
Hostin: Masked agents.
Mayor Mamdani: Yeah, I mean, I think-and this is the other thing, just-masked agents. You know, I am trying to inspire amongst New Yorkers a sense of faith and belief in what [the] government can do. And it's very hard to do that when they look at masked agents and see them as another face of a similar government.
Because then they ask themselves, am I supposed to trust or am I supposed to fear? And what we want is for New Yorkers to be able to look to [the] government as a place to solve their problems, not as a place that creates their problems. And I think, you know I've-
Alyssa Farah: Mr. Mayor, if I could jump in. Some of your appointees have come under fire for past social media posts. This often happens when new administrations come in. Your new chief equity officer made several now-deleted comments disparaging liberal white women.
Your tenant advocate tweeted that "Homeownership was a weapon of white supremacy" and called to elect more communists, among other posts. What message do you think this conveys to New Yorkers, and how would you push back on this?
Mayor Mamdani: So what I would say is that if you want to know my views or my opinions, you'll find them in my words, as the mayor of New York City. And I'm someone who's looking to make this a city that every New Yorker can afford. That includes those who are tenants, those who are homeowners, those who aspire to be homeowners. Because from this, we find that stability. And I think, frankly, what New Yorkers are also looking for are the outcomes. And that's what I care about, the outcomes and the excellence we deliver.
And so one example, the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, the executive director that we hired about 20 days ago. In those 20 days, we have taken on a landlord that had more violations than I could count. And we have secured $30 million in guaranteed repairs for thousands of those violations. And sometimes when a politician tells you this, it sounds intangible. It just sounds like stats and statistics that you'll never feel and know.
We have someone in the audience, Josie, who was a tenant that I met on that first day I was the mayor. I went into her apartment. She showed me living conditions that no one should ever see in this city. And I could see and feel the rust falling off my hands. And I asked her, "How long have you been living with this?" And she pointed at her 20-something-year-old son and said, "Before he was born." And now that $30 million, that commitment, that's going to fix her apartment and so many other tenants.
Goldberg: We have more with New York City's mayor when we come back.
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Goldberg: We are back with New City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Behar: So Mr. Mayor, both you and Trump won on the issue of affordability. Both of you did. Interesting. But now he claims the economy is booming, and he's levying new tariffs on our NATO allies because they won't give him a Nobel Prize or support his takeover of Greenland, which we discussed before. What do you have to say about that? I mean, he claims that the word affordability is a made-up word that the Democrats made it up.
Haines: It's a con job.
Behar: Yeah. So, speak [about] it.
Farah: Are you going to take over Greenland?
Mayor Mamdani: No. I think oftentimes [when] you try to talk to a New Yorker, you show them statistics, you show them how good things are, and what they'll show you is their life. And what I hear from New Yorkers is they cannot afford their life anymore.
And it's not about lavish desires that they have. We're talking about housing. We're talking about their rent payment. You know, we're talking about child care, groceries, Con Ed, you know, just getting on the bus.
And, you know, one of the reasons that on January 1st we had our inauguration, that I then went to meet with tenants, is that, yes, it's the inauguration, it's the beginning of a new term, a new administration. It's also the first of the month. And New Yorkers, frankly, don't care who the mayor is. If it's the first of the month, they have to pay their rent.
So that's what we need to be focused on. And I think that's my job, frankly, in the most expensive city in the United States of America. How do we make it affordable, not just in a way I can point to, not just in a graph I can open up my suit and say, "Look at this," but you feel it.
Behar: So how do you do that? What's, like, one thing that you can do to lower the affordability, to make it more affordable?
Mayor Mamdani: I think one of the key things is child care, frankly, because $26,000 is a good deal a year for child care. For a single child, it's more expensive than if you sent that kid to college 18 years later. The other key part here is housing, right? We have-yes. Housing. Look, we have-the housing crisis is the number one crisis in this city. We have 8.5 million people, more than 2 million, [who] live in something called rent-stabilized housing, where every year the city decides if their rent's going up or if it's staying the same.
For the last four years, all they've seen is their rent has gone up and up and up, more than 12 percent. And I told those New Yorkers, I believe they deserve a rent freeze. They deserve to have the peace of mind to wake up one day and know-
Behar: Can you do that?
Mayor Mamdani: You can do that. That's what the Rent Guidelines Board can do, and we appoint every member to that board. And I believe that they're going to see tenants deserve that relief, because landlords are making [a] 12 percent increase in their revenues, [where a] tenants' median household income [is] $60,000.
Haines: Mayor, so last time you were here, you condemned Hamas. But your office has hedged or delayed strong condemnation of pro-Hamas demonstrations. And one of your first acts as mayor was revoking executive orders related to the definition of antisemitism and lifting restrictions on boycotting Israel. A staff appointee, which I know you've spoken to this a little bit with Alyssa's question, had to resign over resurfaced antisemitic social posts. How do you answer to Jewish New Yorkers, which is the largest population outside of Israel, who still don't maybe feel protected under your administration?
Mayor Mamdani: So this is an administration that will root out antisemitism across the five boroughs. And you're right that we signed an executive order on the first day revoking every order that the previous mayor had taken after he was federally indicted. The reason we did that was because it was a day when New Yorkers looked at City Hall and said, I don't know what's motivating these actions anymore. Is it the indictment or is it the interests of the city?
And another order that we did ourselves was to keep the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism. This is an office and an administration that looks to fulfill those words, that commitment we've made, increasing funding for hate crime prevention programming, increasing security for Jewish New Yorkers outside of synagogues and temples, and also saying that the rubric we judge ourselves on cannot be, are we keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe? It has to also be, are we celebrating and cherishing them? Because that's what it means to feel like you belong in a city. That's what we want to do forever in New York.
Haines: Especially in New York.
Mayor Mamdani: Especially in New York. Absolutely.
Goldberg: Oh, look, another break. We'll be back with more.
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Goldberg: We're back with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Mayor Mamdani: One day we're going to get it.
Goldberg: Listen, Z, I'm trying.
Mayor Mamdani: Mayor Z.
Goldberg: Mayor Z.
Behar: It's the H. It's the H that throws you off.
Goldberg: Well, it's also because I'm dyslexic, so it doesn't look like what I'm seeing. And I'm trying to get it right. And I'm just calling him Mayor Z. Mayor Z, Sunny has a question.
Hostin: Okay, Mr. Mayor. Now, this is a midterm year, 2026. Meaning Democrats have a chance to regain some power. You ran such a successful campaign, energizing young, disaffected voters. What is your advice for the party at this point? How can they connect with the way you did with young voters? I mean, I've seen so many young people that voted for the first time because they wanted to vote for you. How does that translate to the Democratic Party?
Mayor Mamdani: No, I think oftentimes there's a condescension that people have when they talk about young voters. They kind of finger wag. They lecture. They tell people, you should just get out there. We don't actually ask them, what would it take to bring you out here? You know, what would it take if we went from lecturing to listening? And when I talk to young people, what I hear from them is they feel like the only way they can stay in the city is if they keep living with their parents or they leave the state entirely.
And we have to make it a place where they can actually aspire to dream in the city and also treat them with the seriousness that they deserve, because what we'll find in our young people is leadership. You know, we always hear stories of parents who bring their kids to the polls. I met a lot of grandparents who told me my grandkid told me if I don't vote for you, they won't let me home. It's a reversal sometimes of who's leading. And I think that can come if we give people an opportunity to tell us what it is they want to see in their politics.
Farah: Well, Mr. Mayor, in light of recent events, there have been renewed calls from prominent Democrats to abolish ICE. I want to know where you come down on abolishing ICE. And if you believe that ICE has any legitimate law enforcement role.
Mayor Mamdani: You know, I am in support of abolishing ICE. And I'll tell you why. Because what we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We're seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law. But instead, what it's doing is terrorizing people, no matter their immigration status, no matter the facts of the law, no matter the facts of the case.
And I'm tired of waking up every day and seeing a new image of someone being dragged out of a car, dragged out of their home, dragged out of their life. What we need to see is humanity. And there is a way to care about immigration in this city and in this country with a sense of humanity. What we're seeing from ICE is not it. And we have not seen that from them in a long, long time.
Goldberg: So, you know, it's really nice to have you here. You make sense.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you.
Goldberg: Because it's important, and, you know, Joy has given you marching orders. And that's very important. But I just want to say, listen, if you can do what you say you can do, you will not only remake the city, but you may help remake the nation. So, I got my fingers crossed for you. Thanks to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. I didn't get the last name, but nobody heard.
Mayor Mamdani: One by one.
