We want a country where those who are helping to make it such an incredible place, the greatest country in the world, are also not then priced out of their day-to-day dignities.

We cannot have it such that New Yorkers are waking up in the middle of the night asking themselves, can I afford groceries?

When that should be one of the easiest things for them to be able to buy.

[music] Today we continue The Open Mind's ongoing special "Mayors of the World."

After traveling across three continents, a half dozen countries, and a diverse ideological spectrum.

I was delighted to visit with my hometown, New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani.

We explore the civic and cultural life of New York, as well as the mayor's agenda.

And what tangible ways is he seeking to guarantee quality of life for New Yorkers in a country that has long deprived its citizens of economic rights.

We met at Franklin Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park that honors the president, whose policies most dramatically sought to provide relief and security to the American people.

As legislators fail to address inflation and affordability.

I'm curious how the mayor hopes to help people in the heart of their lives.

Because too often a safety net in America is considered only at birth and retirement.

And too often policies in America like the Affordable Care Act, which merely subsidized out of control corporate gouging, are not addressing the root causes of unfairness.

It's in this context that the mayor is laser-focused on reducing the costs of rent and groceries.

Here now is Mayor Mamdani.

Mr.

Mayor, a pleasure to meet you today.

Real pleasure.

This is a beautiful place.

But before we get to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, I wanted to ask you, how much should the cost of the bacon, egg, and cheese be in the city?

When it comes to anything, I'll always say it should be cheaper.

I don't have much experience ordering a bacon, egg, and cheese, myself, but I do order an egg and cheese, with jalapeños on the side.

And what's your expectation, though?

-You know.

I'm -Price wise.

typically getting an egg and cheese with jalapeños on a roll and also getting an iced coffee.

I would say like 4 or 5 bucks.

-Okay.

-Yeah.

-Reasonable.

-Feels reasonable.

And do we still have those 99 cent pizzerias here?

Or has Trump You know, we excise those from the city?

We still have a couple.

It's not the glory days of two bros, you know, $2.75 two slices and a Coke.

But every now and then there are $0.99 place you can find.

Sometimes it says $0.99.

Then when you get up close, it actually has a different sticker on it says, 1.50 now.

That's like your flu vaccine.

When you're driving by CVS or something, there's an asterisk.

It's like "terms and conditions apply."

You actually have to have health insurance.

You know, we make you believe that it's not.

In all seriousness, how about rent?

I mean, what's a reasonable rent?

I mean, look, I think right now it's, what we have is not reasonable, right?

We are seeing in Manhattan the median rent go beyond $5,000.

And when I was living in Astoria, I was living in a one bedroom.

At the time when I got it, it was about $2,000 for a one bedroom because it was rent stabilized.

It was protected from the kind of rent increase that we saw for many in the market.

And yet, we know that this is the kind of stability that too many are searching for in this moment.

They don't have it.

And we know that the definition of rent burdened is anything more than 30% of your income.

And yet for many New Yorkers, it's considered to be regular, that they would be spending 50% of their income.

Now, even that's come to a point where it's considered a good deal.

So we're looking to do everything that we can to deliver rent relief.

You know, I'm glad that the Independent Rent Guidelines Board made the decision to freeze the rent for more than 2 million New Yorkers so they can at least have the sense of stability that one year's rent is going to be the next year's rent.

And we're also looking to build more housing than the city has seen in a long time, so that we can actually reduce the pressure on the supply that we have by increasing that supply.

So you didn't comment on my hat.

So Ill take it off... deference to you and the office.

I'll throw it here.

It's a great hat.

-But, we are Knicks fans.

-We are.

Well get to that in a minute.

We both grew up teenagers in the city rooting for the Knicks.

I was just spending some time with Mayor Chow in Toronto, and she implemented what they call a vacancy tax.

Your pied-à-terre tax.

What kind of revenue is it going to generate?

And what are you going to do with that revenue?

We're looking at raising about half a billion on an annual basis.

And that is money again, that's being raised by taxing secondary homes of nonresident New Yorkers that are worth more than $5 million.

So this is a very small number of homes that are clearly owned by those who can afford to live in the nation's most expensive city.

And we're talking about increasing taxes by a little bit so that everyone in the city can better afford live here.

Let me ask you about the grocery store, I asked you about bacon, egg, and cheese.

Yeah.

Are these the types of things that are going to be available in the city grocery stores that you envision?

What kind of stuff will be there?

So it's not going to be bacon, egg, and cheese.

It's not going to be what you go to a bodega for.

It's not going to be lottery cards.

It's not going to be cigarettes.

It's not going to be alcohol.

We're talking about the kinds of healthy foods that so many New Yorkers feel an anxiety about, whether or not they can afford them on a regular basis.

We've seen the cost of groceries go up by 30% over the last few years.

And what we're going to do is actually deliver cheaper groceries.

We're talking about five city run grocery stores, one in each borough.

For a core basket of goods, whether it's produce, or meat, or seafood, we're going to have a 30% discount compared to typical retail price.

And that will save New Yorkers upwards of $1,000 a year.

And that's money they can actually feel back into their pockets, while they can also bring the very food that a healthy life is built around back into their homes.

Growing up in the city, did you have that feeling when you walked by brownstones and they were not occupied.

They were just dormant.

There was something eerie about that.

Growing up in New York City, a place where so many are desperate for housing, you also see a significant amount of housing that -people are not living.

-Yeah.

And we've even heard from developers of that housing telling local elected officials, don't worry about this building.

There's not going to be additional demand on city services because no one's going to live here.

And so our point is, look, if you can afford to buy a secondary home worth more than $5 million, you can afford to pay a little bit more so that everyone who makes this city what it is can also afford to live here.

Because I'm tired of meeting New Yorkers who, at the end of the day, leave New York to commute back to where they can afford to live.

There are a lot of people working in this city that live in Jersey City, or they live in Pennsylvania, or they live in Connecticut, or they live anywhere that they can find their dollar go a little bit further.

That's not the city we want to have.

So we're here at Four Freedoms Park.

Yes.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the most liberal president, progressive president in our history, elected four times.

-A lot of people don't -Yeah.

remember a time with a liberal lion like that could be leading this country.

He was accused of being a socialist, but he never called himself a democratic socialist.

Why do you call yourself a democratic socialist?

I want to be honest with people about my own politics.

And it's a politics that when I call myself a democratic socialist, it means that I'm making the choice to fight for working people at every single interval.

It means that I believe in democracy, not just at the ballot box, but in other facets of our lives.

And what I've seen and heard from so many New Yorkers is they value democracy.

They believe in democracy, but their faith in it is withering when that same democracy cannot deliver them a meal, that they can feed their families also.

-In the context of Roosevelt.

-Yes.

Do you think today he would call himself a democratic socialist?

It's an interesting question.

I don't know, but what I would say is that regardless of how he would describe himself, he would consider what we are fighting for to be in alignment with that same movement.

I mean, we think about the four freedoms, right?

We're talking about freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of expression and speech, freedom of religion.

These are in many ways still the things that we are fighting for.

I mean, even the idea of freedom from want, if it were to be articulated today, would be described as if it was beyond any person's comprehension of what could be realistic in today's politics.

And yet it is etched in stone here, because it was one of the hallmark beliefs of one of our nation's most iconic presidents.

I think you have to explain that to people.

What freedom from want means, because it's a kind of outdated nomenclature.

What does it mean?

Freedom from want?

It means that you are free from the fear, the anxiety that so many feel every single day because they cannot afford the building blocks of their life.

Want in the context of food, in the context of housing, in the context of childcare, we speak about housing being a human right, and yet we are also comfortable with people being denied it because of how much money they have in their pocket.

And to look at FDR is to look at a vision not just of the country, but also from the Democratic Party.

Where working people's concerns with the party's concerns.

And now, too often it feels like consultant's concerns are the party's concerns, and working people are just people we have to shift along to get them in line.

That's not the politics that we want.

The ignorance of our history sometimes leads to a sense that it's not the politics that we could ever have, when in fact we've had it before.

Right.

And we can have it again.

And whether he calls himself, or would call himself a democratic socialist, he's a North Star for you?

-Yes.

-FDR.

Him, Fiorella, LaGuardia.

Their relationship also is a North Star for what it can look like to have a federal and municipal relationship of partnership.

When you think about the New Deal and all that it created in the city, that to me is also what we should be striving for when we think about Washington.

And so in thinking about what comes after this federal administration, it is also a vision and ambition that is more than just not Republicans.

So I come from PBS Educational Television.

Teach our viewers, in terms of your politics, there's the idea of socialism, democratic socialism, communism.

What's the difference between these things?

Well, I would say, I am a democratic socialist.

That also means I'm a socialist.

When we're talking about socialism, it's also a belief that it should not just be the market that determines the distribution of dignity, right?

It should not be the market that determines whether or not you can afford housing, or education, or a book to read.

Some of the things that we accept in our city, in our country, as now being a part of American life, were at one point contentious.

And if we were to introduce them today, they would be considered contentious.

The idea of a fire department or of a library or of public goods.

That to me is one of the critical pieces of having a socialist vision, is the idea that you should not be priced out of dignity.

If we're talking about things that you would like to have, you know, a nice jacket, a nice car, I can understand, that's not actually part of this conversation.

We're talking about what you need to have.

We're talking about housing.

We're talking about childcare.

We're talking about education.

We're talking about a belief that no matter how much money your family has when you were born, you are still entitled to these things as an American.

And this is not communism.

-No, it's not.

-So what is communism?

Communism goes far beyond this kind of a belief.

Communism is also a theory of our politics that extends way beyond the notion of, the question of, how to deliver on a dignified life here in New York City.

And it's clearly not something you're aligned with.

No.

But, something you're being tagged with.

So do you feel like you need to disown it?

Do you feel like you have to tell people -I'm this, not that?

-No.

I think that that's actually time that I would rather spend describing to them what I am.

Right.

Because what this is this attempt at fear mongering.

It's a tried and tested thing that we've seen in our country before.

We know of the Red Scare.

We know that it in some ways it continues the legacy of it.

What I've found is that New Yorkers care less of how I describe myself.

They care more about whether there's room for them in that description.

And so there are many for whom the word socialism is something they're familiar with.

There are others for whom they don't know what it means.

And what they ask me is, what does that mean in terms of getting my pothole paved?

What does that mean in terms of affording child care?

What does it mean in terms of my life in the city?

And my job is to explain that the reason I believe in this is because it has room for all of us.

When we think of your signature initiatives, another one of them I like to refer to is the "Anti-Scaffolding Initiative."

Yes!

Yes.

Now this pleases me a lot.

Like in addition to finding those vacant brownstones eerie.

I've found it to be un-walkable, un-breathable in the city.

So what percent of scaffolding can you remove from the city, or will you remove from the city?

So I think, first to set the stage when we're talking about scaffolding, there's enough scaffolding that it is 26 times the length of Manhattan.

That's the nature and the scale of what we're talking about.

In terms of the local law that we've just put into effect, we're talking about affecting at least 20% of all of that scaffolding to start to actually ensure that we're bringing it down faster.

Now, some of this comes from whether we're extending an examination time from five years to six years.

Others of it also comes from extending it from five years to 12 years.

Some of it also comes from the utilization of a drone to actually make that inspection, not have to have the labor and time consuming ways that some of these buildings are currently required.

The other side of this is also enforcing our laws, so that there's not an incentive to keep that scaffolding up.

Because, what we've seen is sometimes for building owners, they would rather just keep it up and not have to bring it down.

But now, if you're not making repairs on a 90 day set of time, then the city is going to fine you on that basis.

What share of that is gouging?

Unnecessary?

And what share of that is modernization?

Security?

Like, have you made a calculation of, like, how much scaffolding, how many miles are necessary to keep the city running a pace?

I think that we are still looking to that number because, frankly, we have found a lot of examples of what is not necessary.

We want to push until we get to that final number, Yeah.

because what we're finding is a lot of this is leftovers of a bureaucratic set of decision making protocol that does not actually live up to what we need in the city.

I'll give you one example.

We used to have a set of rules where you could have the scaffolding almost extend out to the entirety of all of the green space at a NYCHA campus, and now we have put a limit of 40ft, so that it cannot extend all the way across.

That 40ft can still provide the sufficient safety.

But it's also keeping in mind that there is a negative cost to the city in terms of public safety, quality of life.

If you allow that scaffold to continue beyond where it has to be.

FDR wanted to save.

He said he wanted to save capitalism from itself.

He said he believed in bold and persistent experimentation.

Do you believe socialism can coexist with capitalism?

I'm showing it right now.

And you're existing in both.

So you believe in both to an extent?

Well, I would say, look, I'm a socialist and what I believe in is to deliver for New Yorkers and what we also know is that New York City is one city that is part of a larger country.

We are talking about an economic system that we also continue to... So, you're malleable.

I wouldn't say that I'm malleable, but what I would say is that my ultimate goal is delivering.

It is not to win an intellectual debate.

We were both teenagers on 9/11?

I was nine years old.

Nine years old.

Okay, so I was on the cusp of teenage years.

I was 12 going on 13.

Did that event, as a nine year old.

Did it change you?

Impact you in some ways?

I remember on that day, the panic in one of my schoolmates, because their parent was supposed to be downtown that day.

I remember all of us being dismissed early from school, going home and having a sense that something had changed forever.

When we're talking about this horrific terror attack, the cost was not just the thousands of lives it stole from the city on the day, but also the innumerable number of families whose lives were forever changed, and the first responders who have died since from the medical complications of having served this city.

We are just coming off of the 25th anniversary of this horrific terror attack.

And it was a moment to honor the sacrifices of so many New Yorkers, either those who lost their lives that day, the families of those who are with us, as well as those who've lost their lives since because of the service they gave to the city on that day, in the days after.

It is something that so many New Yorkers still live with, because it is something that changed the entire city.

Is that your most sacred, solemn duty as we stand here with the bust of FDR, who wanted to protect Americans from fear itself, safety, public safety, security.

Is that your most solemn duty to protect New Yorkers from any kind of violence?

Yes.

That is, to me, at the core of what it means to deliver a life of dignity is a life where you are safe.

That is, been the focus for us since coming into office.

And that safety on a day-to-day level here in New York City is one that we think more of crime across the five boroughs, and we're proud that we've delivered the lowest number of murders and shootings in recorded history.

And we also know that this is not a city where you are ever content.

If there is crime, that means there is work to be done.

The democratic socialist mayor presiding over the least amount of crime that Manhattan or all boroughs have experienced in history?

The least number of murders and shootings across the city in history.

To me, it is at the heart of what we want to deliver for New Yorkers, a city where they are safe, a city that they can afford, and a city that they can dream.

I'll tell you just briefly how it changed me.

-Please.

-I mean, I was, reading the sports pages, are the Knicks home or away?

Can I catch the game on MSG?

Then I opened the paper to other sections.

You know, after that event, before I was in an insular world -Yeah.

-where I was, like every other teenage or on the cusp of teenage years, sports center watching, sports fanatic.

And then I said, "Well, wow, look at these people who perished.

The tragedy, the horror."

So it changed me forever.

I don't think I'd be talking to you today, Mr.

Mayor, if it hadn't happened because it brought into my mind a kind of social conscience about caring for our fellow citizens.

I think when you go to the museum and you get a glimpse into the lives of all those who were stolen from us, you have a sense of just the breadth of New York City and how so many people's lives were forever changed.

The courage, the sacrifice that these families have shown and have given to the city, it is something that we can never honor enough.

Yeah, a cousin, was actually at my mom's second wedding, and then a couple days later -I'm so sorry.

-passed.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks.

So let's look at this person that we both admire.

-Please, yes.

-All right.

Now, he led the country when there were breadlines.

Literally people starving to death.

I just wondered, do you fear that they could come again?

You know, in many ways that hunger, it is a reality today.

Maybe not at the scale, but it is at a level that should still concern all of us.

There are certain parts of the city where you will see people standing in line waiting for a food pantry to open at 8 or 9 a.m.

I spoke to a pastor who told me that people sleep outside of his church in anticipation for the opening of the pantry.

That's the level of hunger in the world's wealthiest city, that's today!

So I am fearful that that hunger could increase.

But I also know that it's not a far off dystopian future.

There are glimpses of it today.

One in four black New Yorkers are living with food insecurity.

This is something that is all too real, and one of the real motivators in us creating a city run grocery store is how do we bring affordability and access back within reach of New Yorkers who are currently being priced out of it?

When I look at him and his example, I also see the importance of responding to these crises at scale.

Too often it feels as if the crisis itself, it is of a different level than whatever our response will be.

Our response will be, you know, a rhetorical condemnation or a study that we commissioned.

It won't be something material.

And that's what we want to deliver to New Yorkers, something that they can live and breathe, not something that they can simply think of.

Is it fair to say that since Lyndon Baines Johnson, there has been an erosion an erosion of the safety net that FDR sought to secure?

I think in many ways, when we talk about Obamacare, that was an important achievement.

And yet what we've also seen is that over those many decades, there have been attempts at taking away so many parts of that social safety net.

What did FDR not carry through that you hope you can for New Yorkers?

I think it's less of what he didn't accomplish and more of how to accomplish what he did for this generation, because we have to continue to succeed.

Success, it cannot be treated as if it is permanent.

Success has to be replicated.

Success has to endure.

We cannot live off the fumes of the past.

And so when we talk about, again the four freedoms.

Yeah.

Those are still things that we are fighting for today.

And when we're talking about freedom from fear and freedom from want, it is almost as if one of the things that most Americans have in common is the nature of how want and fear have come to characterize their lives.

These are still things to be strived for.

These are still things to be delivered for, and also with an understanding that we have to continue to deliver it and to win.

It is not enough to do at once.

And you've started to declare what those concrete examples are.

But how much of the time do you wake up in the city and say, it's me against the world?

I wake up feeling a sense of opportunity, and frankly, that has to do more with the city than it has to do with myself and also with the team that I have the privilege of working with.

Because in that team, you have the level of expertise and the dedication that too often in government has simply been replaced by patronage.

It can never be that you present yourself as if you have a monopoly on the answers.

What you have, however, is the ability to build a team that, through its own work, can deliver you those answers.

And that's what we have been focused on for seven months.

That's what we will continue to focus on.

And how will you assess your progress when you consider a potential re-election campaign?

How will you say that, you know, there was the recovery and reinvestment, in the case of Roosevelt, you know, relief.

How are you going to assess whether you achieve what you wanted?

Have we made New Yorkers lives better?

Public opinion surveys?

TikTok videos?

I think when it comes to that, it's the material things.

Can you point to material things you have delivered to New Yorkers.

So that bacon, egg, and cheese, or that fresh heirloom tomato is not as inaccessible to people?

Whether it is that they can buy produce at a 30% discount.

Yeah.

Whether it is that that pothole is finally paved, whether it is the fact that they've saved more than $20,000 because their grandchild is now in free 2k, or whether it is the fact that for the first time in the nation, the thing that they subscribed for is just as easy to cancel because we have a municipal click to cancel rule in our city.

There's so many ways in which New Yorkers are feeling priced out.

I will measure myself and ourselves by whether or not we've made it easier for them to stay.

Whether they feel they belong here.

-Yes.

-Economically.

I just find it hilarious that Elon Musk, who, you know, basically re-elected President Trump, goes out on X and says he believes in universal high basic income.

You just said you want to make Roosevelt relevant for this generation.

The little secret we all know is that AI threatens to destabilize populations.

That's why I asked you about, you know, could we all be begging on the streets?

All of us.

Not a segment of the electorate.

So, like, the same person is the richest in the world, how do you play this game with these people who seem to have these strange bedfellows?

He's President Trump's top ally, and yet he's out there talking about basic income?

Well, I would say talk is cheap.

Yeah.

And if you really do believe in a high standard of living for everyone, then start to show it in your actions.

Because what we've seen instead from Elon Musk is a financial commitment to the destabilization of working class Americans lives through the way in which he sought to intervene in our politics, both directly and through the way in which he uses his social media company.

We want a country where those who are helping to make it such an incredible place, the greatest country in the world, are also not then priced out of their day-to-day dignities.

We cannot have it such that New Yorkers are waking up in the middle of the night asking themselves, can I afford groceries?

When that should be one of the easiest things for them to be able to buy.

When you think of the next step, let me ask you before I said, are having any semblance of a normal life?

And you said... A semblance of stretching it a little.

-Functional, I guess.

-Yeah, functional.

Can you be mayor and have a functional life?

Yeah, it's never the life that you had.

And it's also a life that has given me more than I could ever ask.

It's also, to be able to live this life with the love of my life is also one that keeps me sane.

As we do this work and we do it to be able to serve and deliver for New Yorkers.

Can people feel priced in, as opposed to priced out in a capitalistic system?

I mean, is that possible?

I think it can be an entire debate of possibility.

What I will tell you is, in this city, which is a city that is in many ways synonymous with capitalism, we have seen so many priced out and priced out doesn't just mean the amount of money that we used to consider as not being enough in the city.

To afford childcare in this city, you are supposed to earn $334,000 for a family of three.

That's how much you should earn to afford it.

Now, obviously people afford it earning less, but it is to their own detriment.

So to me, the better question is how do we price people in today, here?

And that's why I think that yes, I support having a surcharge on secondary homes worth more than $5 million because that's money, half a billion dollars that we can put towards safer streets, stronger schools, a city that everyone can afford.

And for too long we've been comfortable with a working class being pushed further and further out of this city, such that it could only commute into this city.

And I don't want this to be a place that working people have to turn on their TV to see what it looks like.

I want it to be a place where they can build and they can live.

Have people you know change their mind about putting human dignity before profiteering?

I have found that people have changed their minds about politics at large when they see its relevance to their own lives.

Great Depression, 9/11, Covid.

When you're looking here in this moment.

It's one thing to talk about universal child care.

When you deliver it for 2000 families, each of those families understands the importance of it in a way that you could never describe, until they too, had it as a part of their life.

And I've seen those families.

I saw one mother on the day that we announced the more than 2000 students that would now get this, saying that now she could work full time.

These are lives changed forever.

And too often in politics, that's a negative change.

This is finally one that's a positive one.

Mr.

Mayor, thank you for your time today.

Thank you, real pleasure.

[music] Continuing production of The Open Mind has been made possible by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Angelson Family Foundation, Robert and Kate Niehaus, Robert S. Kaplan Foundation, Grateful American Foundation, Draper Foundation, and Lawrence B. Benenson.