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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato here.

You're about to see an in-depth, comprehensive, candid, and very important interview with the mayor of the city of Newark, Ras Baraka.

We talked about the role of the federal government, ICE, and detention centers across the state, particularly in Newark and Delaney Hall.

What's the role of the feds when it comes to mass deportation?

What should local and state officials and congressional representatives be doing?

There's a case study at Delaney Hall and Newark, which is representative of what's going on around the country.

We talked about environmental issues, talked about election integrity.

We talked about the future of the city of Newark, the arts in the city of Newark.

Talked about really the mayor's reason for being bullish and positive with all the challenges cities, like Newark, face.

Why he believes that the future is bright for the city in spite of those challenges and obstacles.

One-on-one, a comprehensive interview with the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka.

Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

More importantly, we are honored to, once again, be joined by the mayor of the, in my view, only 'cause I was born and raised in Brick City, Newark, the greatest city in the state and the nation.

Ras Baraka, who is the mayor of Newark.

Mr.

Mayor, great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me on again.

My pleasure.

- By the way, before we get into politics, policy, and a bunch of other things, tell folks your background, your connection to Newark, your family's connection to Newark, because it is incredibly significant.

- Yeah, thank you, man.

I mean, you know, my family has been in Newark almost 100 years in this town.

You know, my father, Amiri and Amina Baraka, have always been community activists, artists, cultural workers.

They worked on the first election of the first African American mayor, Ken Gibson, later helped Sharpe and some other folks.

But, ultimately, was very instrumental in this city, particularly around the time after the Newark Rebellion and all those other kind of things that were happening, and were national and international poets and writers.

That's their connection to the city.

Obviously, I grew up here my entire life.

I've lived nowhere else but here, except the time I was in college, right?

But this is my town.

You know, I've been an educator here for 23 years.

Started as a substitute teacher, and a vice principal... a teacher, then a vice principal, then a principal in this city.

Then became the councilman, and I ran for mayor at 24 years old against Sharpe James.

Yeah, so I've been doing this for some time now, you know.

Obviously I didn't win mayor at 24, but.

(laughs) - No, no, and also, I interviewed, Mr.

Mayor... Ras, you may not remember this, but even when you were the principal over at Central High, I mean, committed to public schools in the city, we had many conversations.

Let me ask you this real quick, and I promise we'll get into politics and policy.

I often say to people, and you know I grew up on the other end of the city, in the northern part of the city.

- Right.

- And I often tell people there's a Newark mentality, regardless of where one grew up.

Some people go, "What do you mean?"

I go, "You don't understand.

You're not from the city."

And I say the city, I mean, Newark.

Do you believe there is something about a Newark mentality mindset?

- Absolutely, man.

And I think that we have a mentality, you know, most folks in Newark believe that it's us against the whole place, right?

Everybody else versus Newark.

And we have that kind of mentality, the grittiness, we're gonna fight, we're gonna win, you know, all this.

And a love for the city is deep in the city of Newark and the families here.

- Yeah.

And it obviously impacts the way you govern, so let's take a few issues.

Number one, I know our team in post-production is gonna show some video of the ICE agents at Delaney Hall.

We're several months past that incident.

But the significance of what happened at Delaney Hall, when you and several members of Congress, including Congresswoman McIver, there's a case that's pending, we'll follow that, were attempting to see what was going on inside Delaney Hall Detention Center, where people who are here illegally, undocumented, were detained.

What do you take away, Mayor, as the most significant lesson, from that experience, that everyone, regardless of their political ideology, needs to understand?

- Well, one, there is a separation of powers.

And that the democracy that we tout before the world is the reason that people come here in the first place, right?

The fact that they believe that they'll get due process, that they can face their accusers, that they are innocent until proven guilty.

That they are free from unreasonable search and seizures.

That they have the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech.

All these things that we say exist here in our body politic is the reason that people come here in the first place.

And then, when they get here, we can't pretend that now it doesn't exist, because it existed for families generations ago, decades and centuries ago, and it still is alive and well today.

And this is what we protect, this is what people go around the world and purportedly fight for.

So we have to uphold that.

And part of that is allowing government to have oversight to be able to look into the things that other parts of government is doing, right?

Checks and balances.

And without that, you have tyranny.

You know, you have authoritarianism.

And, ultimately, you can't arrest people, elected officials, for doing the job they were appointed to do.

- Were you, in any way, afraid, again, the video speaks for itself, were you afraid for your physical wellbeing that day?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I was afraid and praying that God didn't turn me into a coward, didn't turn my fear into cowardice.

I mean, obviously, because you don't know what they're gonna do, you don't know where you are, where they're gonna take you.

If they were gonna take me to the fifth precinct, I might've felt a little better.

- You were arrested.

To be clear, the mayor, you were arrested?

- Oh, yeah.

Clearly, put in a cell.

- For what?

For what?

- Federal trespass on property that the federal government doesn't own.

Which is part of the reason why there's no case anymore.

- So how quickly did they let you... Let you go.

How quickly did they say, "My bad, you can go, Mr.

Mayor"?

- Well, they never said, "My bad."

But they held me in detention for about five hours.

A week later, they dropped the case.

- We have a series called Democracy in Danger.

The graphic will come up.

We're doing a lot of work around helping people understand elections and election integrity, and devil's advocate question.

- Yeah.

- Someone says, "Well, the feds are coming, in 2026, to make sure that in certain communities, particularly urban communities, where high percentages of Democrats vote, we wanna make sure that those elections are legitimate, that they're not rigged," as the president, President Trump uses the term "rigged" a lot.

Talk to the folks right now who say, "The federal government's just trying to make sure that the elections are legitimate, fair, and free, and why was everybody all concerned about that?"

You say what, Mayor?

- Well, I'll say we have to be leery of that.

For years, we've been having elections in our cities and states for decades that have been unfettered, unimpeded, that have been fair and open.

We've elected people year, after year, after year for decades without any issues.

And you're talking about folks who are trying to gerrymander, who are trying to- - Explain that to folks the gerrymandering of districts and what that has to do with representation, please.

- Yeah, people who are trying to create districts or deny districts.

So draw the lines of the district, the boundaries of a district, to cut certain communities off to weaken people's authority of power, in this sense, to weaken Democrats.

Before, it was used to weaken African Americans or to make sure that we didn't have a group of us together strong enough in the area where we can elect candidates that looked like us.

So they would draw districts purposefully to weaken our communities.

Now, on a national level, it is designed to not just weaken our communities, but also weaken democratic influence to affect what's gonna happen in the midterm elections that are coming up.

And so this is what people are doing, you have the DOJ going into places.

- Department of Justice.

- Department of Justice investigating, and, in my mind, intimidating, folks who worked on elections and election monitors throughout the country, you know, trying to intimidate them to be able to turn over voter rolls, turn over voter information.

For what purpose?

It's mind-boggling.

- And why do you think they're doing it, Mayor?

- Well, I think ultimately what they're trying to do, in my mind, is make sure that they could guarantee certain outcomes for the midterm election.

That's what they're trying to do.

You know, the amount of fraud that people find in elections is so de minimis, right, over the periods of years.

It doesn't even make sense the things that they're doing right now, except that it is a journey to disenfranchise voters across this country.

And we have to be very cautious of that.

- You are part of, and if I'm wrong, I know you'll push back, we've had enough conversations, you're part of a wing, a part of the Democratic Party that is more progressive, that is more clear in your view that the mainstream, historical middle of the road, if you will, whatever the heck that means, Democratic Party, particularly party bosses, why are you laughing?

Mr.

Mayor, there's not one Democratic Party.

- Right.

- There is a divided democrat- That's not editorializing.

There is a divided Democratic Party that has different wings.

And is it fair to say that you are not part of the mainstream establishment Democratic Party?

- That's fair, but I would say there's not one part of the Republican Party or any party either.

I mean, these parties are not monolithic kind of organizations.

They have factions, and ideas, and ideologies that clash with one another, and that's perfectly fine.

It's actually, you know, better that way, in my mind, it's democratic.

But, you know, at some point, we have to figure out how to come together, and I think we do.

This present race that we just won, with Analilia Mejia, is a part of a very progressive wing, as you would put it, of the Democratic Party, who came together with mainstream Democrats and made sure that she won a resounding victory in District 11, just recently, just a couple of days ago.

So I think that the idea that we can get together under one purpose and one direction, it's clear it can happen.

And when that happens, I think we are better off.

- We're doing this program in cooperation with our partners at Kean University and the John S. Watson Urban Research Institute.

So Urban Matters, a series called Urban Matters.

You'll see the lower graphic.

Mayor, what do you believe are the most pressing, two or three most pressing, I don't even wanna say urban issues, but issues disproportionately impacting those who live in urban areas in the state of New Jersey for the Sherrill administration and this state government, through the legislature, as well, to address the most two or three pressing issues impacting people who live in urban communities?

Please, Mayor.

- Well, you know, I always say God is good, because, at this point, he's made our issues, everybody's issues, right?

So the real economic issues that we have in our community are now statewide and national issues, and it has been an issue for us for a while.

Whether it's housing, issues around access to affordable and decent housing.

You know, access to affordable and decent healthcare.

Access to opportunity and education.

These are broad issues now that are not just like fringe issues or issues based on urban and suburban, and urban and rural, these issues are, you know, impacting everybody's community.

It has got such so that the economy here is only working for very few people in this country, and everybody else overwhelmingly are struggling to make a living, to reach the American dream, to own a home, like to pay insurance, to send their kids to college without being in debt.

Or getting sick, and not paying overwhelming health bills that are gonna crush them and their families.

That's key.

But I think one, specifically, that undergirds all of that for us is the issue of equity, which compounds the issues that we have, the issues of access and equity.

Because while this exists, we still have African American women dying seven times more in the hospital giving birth.

I mean, birth, at this modern time, should be a simple process, right?

People should not be dying on hospital beds at that rate.

And so that's a problem, right?

So the social determinants of health are still deeply unequal.

The wealth gap in New Jersey is still not only big, it's growing.

It was 300,000, now it's $600,000.

It is growing in this state.

So those inequities compound the issues that already exist for most Americans in our community.

- It's interesting, what you just described is complex, multifaceted, and incredibly important.

I'm gonna bring it, not down to, but it is a very different level of conversation.

The Newark water situation.

- Right.

- Right?

People read about it, they think they understand it, and this isn't just for residents of Newark.

Help folks understand why it's so challenging to continually provide clean water when the water is going through pipes that have been around for a really long time.

- Well, the infrastructure is really what it is.

I mean, this country, we've been talking about investing in infrastructure I don't know for how long, since probably pre-Obama, and we have not really put the kind of resources in it.

Like, we have not had a real public works kind of investment the way we need in this country since FDR.

Really, we need deep money put in infrastructure.

Not just in Newark, but all over the country.

Roads, rail, air, you see the issues that we're having with air, the issues we're having with roads, the issues we having in terms of supply chain and the sea, issues that we're having with water, with housing, all of these are infrastructure issues.

- But, Mayor, I'm sorry for interrupting, is there the will, is there, in your view, the will, the political will to do what you just described, knowing that it's going to cost way more than most politicians are willing to acknowledge, and I'll say the T-word, could potentially mean raising taxes on certain people?

Do you believe there's the will?

'Cause I'm missing that conversation, Mayor.

I don't hear it.

- Right.

You're right.

- So people talk about the need to do it, but the will is not as large as it should be in terms of, you know, the amount of people that need to agree.

Ultimately, you are, and because we've kicked it down the road so much, the cost is ballooning out of control.

It's out of control now.

And the reality is that, in order to do that, you need to make clear investments, and we have obviously money.

I mean, look, right now we're spending at the tune of billions of dollars a day almost in the war, right?

Obviously, some money exists, right?

It exists to invest in infrastructure, it exists to invest in healthcare, it exists to invest in education or college debt.

I think the money is there, it's clear what we invest in, which means that certain people can't get the tax breaks that they normally get, right?

They are the super wealthy that are gonna have to contribute and pay their fair share in order for this to be sustainable for generations to come.

And we also have to disinvest in these international kind of conflicts, that are really wars, and use those dollars to invest in our economy.

Here's the people that keep saying "American first," but refuse to invest in Americans.

It really is, you know, absurd that people still buy this line, because these folks are not investing in Americans.

They're investing in billionaires, and now, in war, which, in my mind, is really the international opportunity for them to get more resources to the hands of a very few people.

- Let's make it clear, we're taping toward the end of April.

We don't know what the situation will be with the conflict/war between the United States, Israel, and Iran.

We hope and pray that things move in the right direction.

But as we tape this program on the 21st of April, it's clear what the mayor is talking about, where we are in this situation.

Hey, Mayor, I hope this isn't too much of a softball, 'cause I know you like tough, direct interviews, but what's going on with Lionsgate Newark?

I hear all good things there.

Talk to us about it.

- Oh, it's great, I mean, they broke ground.

They're building now.

We're excited.

It should be up next year.

- Tell folks what it is.

- Well, Lionsgate is building studios here in Newark, I think to the tune of seven different stages here in the city, which is, to me, going to spark more development in and around the area that has desperately needed it for a very, very long time.

We're now opening up opportunities for people to be trained in film and film-related jobs through NewarkWorks.

We've already put that information out there so people could come and get training.

We're trying to connect folks to contracts and other opportunities pre-development, I mean, excuse me, post-development of the site.

Not just people that work on the site, 'cause that's what we look at in terms of jobs, but afterwards.

And, you know, the interesting thing, people will say, "Oh, everybody doesn't wanna be an actor," but acting is probably the least amount of jobs that'll be available there, right?

There's so many other jobs and ancillary jobs that are related to the industry that we're gonna be able to create in that area, which brings a lot of excitement for us in the city.

- You know, I'm gonna follow up on that.

We're very much connected to New Jersey Performing Arts Center, our friend John Schreiber there.

You are as well.

I've seen you at many functions there.

It is an integral part of the city of Newark and the state of New Jersey.

So let me ask you, and you started talking about your parents and poetry a little bit earlier on, and I've told you this before, one of the last interviews your dad did, I sat down with him at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and talked about his writing, and his extraordinary impact in the world of literature, and civil rights, and social activism.

Not everyone knows this, 'cause it didn't come out during the campaign when you ran for governor.

The arts are very personal for you, are they not?

- Absolutely.

Yep.

I consider myself an artist myself, you know, right?

I'm a writer.

Been writing since high school.

So a poet, published writer, and appeared on Lauryn Hill's albums.

And, you know, actually Beyonce used one of my poems in her Cowboy tour, you know, which was interesting to me, yeah.

- Did you know that was coming?

- Absolutely not.

You know, her folks called me maybe a few days or so before they decided to use it.

- And did they have to get approval?

Or are you, like, "Are you kidding me?

It's Beyonce, of course, you can use it"?

- A little of both, I was gonna say that anyway, but, you know, they did their due diligence and got permission.

But I would've been like, "Hey," I would've been excited if I saw it, yeah.

- Before we wrap up, I'm curious about this.

For those of us, again, born and raised in the city of Newark, and my mom's still there, and you well know, our family has long history, as well, in the city.

Tell folks, with all the challenges that Newark faces, why you remain optimistic about the future of the city of Newark.

- Well, first, you know, when you're in charge, you don't have the luxury of pessimism, right?

You have to always be optimistic because you can't take people places you don't see.

So you have to feel like you can get people to a place, even in the most terrible and terrifying times, that we can get through it, that we can win.

Whether it's COVID, or lead service lines, or people's SNAP benefits being taken away, you always gotta see the end of the road.

And I am happy about what I see in the city of Newark, the development that's going on, and the development that's being planned, all of the activities that are happening.

The people in the city, the organizations from nonprofits to the corporate community are working hand in hand, and I haven't seen that in Newark in a very, very, very long time.

The kind of cooperative work that people are doing to move the city forward is exactly what we need now.

- Mayor Ras Baraka, the mayor of Brick City, Newark, New Jersey, the largest, even though folks in Jersey City may debate that, and we just had Mayor Solomon on recently, you can check that interview at SteveAdubato.org.

Mayor, I cannot thank you enough for taking time away from your very busy schedule for joining us.

Thank you, Mayor.

- You're very welcome.

Take care.

- I'm Steve Adubato, that's the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn More at RWJBH.org.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

United Airlines.

Kean University.

Newark Board of Education.

NJ Transit.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

The Burke Foundation And by PSEG Foundation.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Media.

And by Insider NJ.

- At the Turrell Fund, we know that all New Jersey families deserve access to affordable, high quality childcare.

Early childhood education supports healthy brain development and provides essential support to power the economy, enabling parents to work, businesses to operate, and communities to thrive.

The Turrell Fund is proud to be part of Start Strong NJ, a statewide initiative to put affordable, high quality childcare within reach of all New Jersey families.

Learn more at TurrellFund.org and StartStrongNJ.org.