New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani reiterated his commitment to socialism over the weekend when pressed on a funding shortfall that could prevent him from carrying out some of his top priorities.
“I believe in it even more than I did the day before [the election], and that’s because of the fact that it is focused on the needs of working people,” Mamdani said during an NBC Meet the Press interview released Saturday. “And working people need that focus, that fight from politicians more than ever.”
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Mamdani was questioned about how he plans to carry out his hopes of freezing the rent on roughly one million apartments in the country’s largest city, as well as making buses free and providing free universal child care, despite facing a $5.4 billion budget deficit. In response, the mayor said he has already made significant progress in closing the budget gap, and touted Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D-NY) proposal for a new tax on residents who own second homes in New York City that are worth $5 million or more as a policy that will advance his goals.
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“We’re so excited to be working with her on exactly that because it will raise half a billion dollars for New York City … on an annual basis,” Mamdani said. “We inherited the largest fiscal crisis that the city has seen since the Great Recession. … When we first came into office, we were looking at $12 billion [budget deficit] and thanks to the work that we did, the savings, the allocations of our reserves, the commitment from the governor, we were able to bring that down to $5.4 billion.”
“I’ve always said that we would accomplish all of these promises by the time that I’m done being the mayor. I’m confident of doing exactly that,” the mayor added.
Mamdani also spoke on the rapport he has built with President Donald Trump, saying the two have “a relationship that is both honest and direct and looking to be productive.” The conversations they share are “ones where we know they have to continue,” the mayor said.
“I think [it] speaks to the fact that Donald Trump is just not the president of this country, he is also someone who’s been a New Yorker for his entire life,” Mamdani said. “We’re both from this same city. It means that our conversations are not just of the scale that is typical with the president, but also granular, about even the things as specific as zoning law changes in Midtown Manhattan.”
The mayor detailed a meeting he held with Trump in the Oval Office in February, one he said was directly responsible for securing the release of a Columbia University student from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Mamdani said the experience pointed to “the worth of a relationship that is both honest and direct and looking to be productive, and that honesty means acknowledging places of disagreement.”
“Over the course of the meeting, I did mention that just that morning, that ICE had detained a Columbia University student. I mentioned to him that this was part of a larger trend that we had seen of five individuals being detained in or around Columbia University,” Mamdani said. “I gave him a list of those five. Three minutes after the meeting, he called me and said he had now made the decision to release her.”
Mamdani was pressed on what he sees as the future of the Democratic Party. He said he’s concerned not so much with bringing in a younger generation of leaders, as people who can articulate a vision for moving forward. When questioned about whether he would like to see former Vice President Kamala Harris mount a presidential run again in 2028, he replied, “I haven’t thought about the candidacies for president at this time.”
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“I think it’s time for a party that reflects the urgency that we’re seeing across this country in terms of hunger, frankly, that is not as much tied just to age but to vision,” he said. You know, we know very well what we oppose. What are we for? … And I really think that that is at the heart of the question for our party.”
“When you look back at the history books of our party, 100 years ago, we had a very clear vision of what we were fighting for, and it is sad that for too many Americans, when they want to look for ambition in the Democratic Party, they have to turn to a history book,” he added.
