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Mamdani Fever Hits a Boiling Point! · Boomer Has It!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: For the past nine months, it seemed as if much of New York has had a crush on its dynamic mayor, Zoran Mamdani, at 34, the youngest mayor the city has had since John Turoy got elected in 1914.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Zamdani has been described as a democratic socialist, a left-wing populist, a progressive, a Trump whisperer.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: He seemed to be able to do no wrong in the eyes of many of his constituents, especially among young people, of whom 75% voted for him.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he's a name all over the world.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: But it all seemed to come crashing down for a moment last week with the fracas at Union Square.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Has the Mamdani bubble burst?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, does it deserve to?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I am JB Miller in London.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Jim Jelamis in Brooklyn.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And this is Boomer Has It.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: JB, the fracas you're citing occurred in New York City's own Union Square on October 7th.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: It was the 2026 candlelight vigil organized by Israel's for peace.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: The gathering was to honor the victims of the third on the third anniversary of the October 7th massacre, which is what it was.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where the mayor was confronted by a rowdy, hostile crowd chanting, wait for it, Mam Dani, Mom Dani, what do you say?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: How many kids have you killed today?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: These were pro-Palestinian protectors, protesters heckling and shouting down the mayor.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: It was a um, I you know, I I think about this now.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was a coming-of-age moment for this mayor in his ninth month of his administration.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: By the way, Perroy, that Perroy mayor, you decided his nickname was the boy mayor.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if we can say that about Mayor Mamdani turning into a man on that very night.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why is he turned into a man after nine months?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: What uh what's what's changed?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think this is the first time we've seen him um publicly facing down a hostile crowd.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: Until now it's been praise and praise only.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting that the that the chant those uh pro-Palestinian protesters um chanted is from the 1960s.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as uh as boomers, we would recognize that as a chant that was that was used against uh President Johnson during the Vietnam War um and other pro-war uh characters of that time.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure if the protesters at Union Square last week were aware that that's where that that rhyme scheme comes from.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's pretty mean um and um and and and tough on Zam Dani, who is expected support.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, it's it's Momdani, Boomer.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: What did I say?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: Not Zamdani.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yum can I say Zum Dani?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not yummy.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Can I call him Yum Dummy?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yumdami, yummy dummy, yummy.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, boomer.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, momdani.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I think your your generational reference is apt because I think um some of us are shocked by that.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: People maybe of our vintage, but I think other people aren't.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: This is business as usual, and it shows how far the goalposts have moved on liberalism.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: They've moved so far.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, I wanted to play a game called Guess the Progressive, and it was about a public official who was for free early childhood education, gay marriage, government-sponsored health care, recreational drugs, decriminalization, women's reproductive health choices, banning environmentally harmful industrial practices like fracking.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not going to ask you to guess because you know the answer, but I'll ask the audience to guess, and I will tell you the answer.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: That liberal progressive candidate was, in the past tense, Andrew Cuomo.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why a liberal like I did voted for him in the primary, mostly because I thought he was the best defense against Trump.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: I was wrong, and that maybe he had changed his ways since his sexualized scandal, sex scandal, whatever you want to call it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, he he really came out uh, you know, and at one time he was he was the country's mayor presiding over the COVID crisis, where the White House failed.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: How do you screw that up?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think only an out-of-touch boomer can screw that up.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: He that could be just as a question, was his popularity ever as good as um as Mamdani's is now?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is that tough to compare um apples with oranges, maybe, because he was the governor, not the mayor of New York.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be mayor of New York after.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess he thought that was maybe the easiest way to get back into back into politics, um, which was uh hubris hubristic uh as it turned out in the extreme.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he probably did his political reputation addition damage, um, with humiliating loss uh to Mamdani in the in the primary, but it didn't stop him.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Remember he ran in the general uh in the in what do you call it in the mayor, mayor oil general election uh as an independent um and and still lost.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um so he uh he's been um sent uh sent packing.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: But in in the height of his um of his governorship, would you say that Kuoma's popularity was on a par with Mamdani's uh until last Wednesday?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: I I would only I can only hazard a guess, and if I would were to guess, I would say his polling must have peaked around the time he was giving public talks on COVID.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: No one tuned in to anyone else but him nationally.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, this is part of the profile of a New York City mayor.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I would ask audience members to try to, you know, guess who is mayor of Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: Globally, global, globally, the reputation of mayor is is is recognizable.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: It was when I was in Spain recently and England, and I'd say the only other mayor, maybe, would be Sadiq Khan of London.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, before him, Horris Johnson, of course.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, well, you are a very, very astute uh international uh mayor follower.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know, I don't know who the mayor of Paris is.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: I do that, and I do some train spotting too.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Train spotting, and you liked the beer when you were here.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: You liked you in the fish and chips, you're you're true anglophile at heart.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you're right about you're right about mayors.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I might reference uh one um Rudolph Um Giuliani, who was an incredibly popular mare for a few weeks um following 9-11.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: He galled it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great analogy to Gorman's popularity.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fair analogy because he was not liked by people like us before 9-11, and we kind of embraced him during 9-11 and the weeks following, and then quickly got tired.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: I got I quickly tired of him.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and now I couldn't imagine he's gone lower.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, I couldn't imagine him lower than he is now in his uh political reputation.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: He pushes an absolute shred.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing uh how low he's gone.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that never happens uh to Mamdani.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um at uh Cuomo has never dipped as low as Giuliani has.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but uh yes, what happened last Wednesday um followed nine months of what I would almost describe as dancing on the head of a pin.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why why that metaphor um occurred to me, but he uh Mamdani could do sounds painful.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the pin, the top of the pin is not the sharp part.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, you're a good good point, thank you.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's just a very small uh surface there.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he was he was sort of walking um a tight rope, maybe that's the the similar metaphor, in that he managed to well, he did alienate, he has alienate, uh alienated a lot of Jewish uh voters who haven't uh liked him, particularly um we both know people who uh think he's um he's anti-Semitic.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think he's proved more popular, certainly than I anticipated him.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: When he was elected, um my feeling was um I was full of skepticism.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I my I said he'd give him six months, see how popular he is in six months, in the sense that New York is a tough gig.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: To be mayor of New York, I would have thought it's one of the most thankless political jobs in the country, just because there's so many competing um constituencies, it's an almost unmanageable uh city like most cities.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um with a weekly crisis.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: A weekly, a weekly crisis from you know, murder, rape, and pillage to flacco the owl.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's just kind of hard to get your hands around the idea of uh governing the city.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I wouldn't have pegged in as uh pegged him as the kind of mayor who would be, you know, fixing potholes um because he seemed a bit like like a ideologue to me.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: But he has been fixing potholes, from what I understand, uh, which is one of the the less glamorous jobs uh of the mayor of New York or mayor of any.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, um behind the the dazzle, um, I don't and no one really gave him much attention for something he's done pretty extraordinary, which he balanced the New York City bullet budget this year, and he's only nine months in.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you do that in nine months.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: I don't I didn't even know how that's fiscally I think you get handed a new budget when you take office, and they were on a fast track, and according to now, I don't know what their fiscal year is, but according to now it's a it's a balanced budget, no, not a deficit, not a surplus, but not a deficit.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it for a guy who's a democratic socialist, he appears to be pretty prudent.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: At least that's the attention.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And his uh sometime pal Donald Trump could learn a thing or two uh from that because Trump has added two trillion dollars to the federal budget of the last couple of years.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that's uh that's a job that's a um that's a job that really could be uh could be learned.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't he also you know go ahead, I interrupted.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't he didn't um didn't Mamdani also recently uh announce he's gonna hand out 70,000 free opera tickets um in a move that was so culturally um popular that there were some grumbling Republicans whose only complaint was they wish that they'd thought of it when they had a Republican mayor.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't when did they have Republican?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I guess Giuliani, was Giuliani the last uh Republican mayor?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, it's uh technically Bloomberg was Republican, but even though he only ran as Republican to win the primary, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't certainly govern.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, your people are pansexual.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: He's pan party, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: He's pan political.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: He's been a Democrat, an independent, and a Republican, not in that order.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I think only um by name, well when we lived in Massachusetts, so that was you know, it's a pretty progressive state.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: My father used to say he was he was um a Republican who could never find a Republican he could vote for.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I thought that was an interesting um viewpoint.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think what he meant was sort of physically Republican, culturally, uh, culturally Democrat.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, there probably were Republicans he could vote for in Massachusetts because we've had a history of uh pretty pretty moderate Republican uh governors and mayors.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, just back to the October 7th fracas.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I think I I think it would be instructive for people of our generation to understand who this mayor is and the the level of his astounding popularity.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it it starts with the the mayoral primary in New York City because he was a come from behind candidate.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: He had he was pulling it 1% under the Emerson poll, and he campaigned on affordability, he he focused on mobilizing young voters, and he did.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the it was it the outcome was amazing, really.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Cuomo had led the polls since tw early 2025, early in that year.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: But here comes Assemblyman Mamdani gained 23 percentage points, and he won second choice votes nearly two to one.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's in rank rank choice voting, which we won't go into because it's like trying to explain the infield fly rule.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, thanks.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't follow very but I think we can really underline that because he motivated young voters.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that you cannot sneeze at because uh aren't they the least likely to come out and vote?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're the most disunderstandably the most disaffected segment, I'd imagine, um, of the um of the population as a whole in and in uh and in New York, um, really jaded.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: They've been left a real book bill of goods by wee boomers.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's the knock.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's your fault.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's my fault.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Take full responsibility for that.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I really like the idea of um somebody motivating young voters.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't um I although I think Trump may have done that in 2024.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot, youngsters.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: But um uh um am I right about that?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: Did it yeah, I I have some data for you.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: The turnout among young voters, this is and this is a very tender age.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: 18 to 24.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: New York is sorry, so you're talking about New York or you're talking about this is in the for the general election for mayor in New York City, turnout among young voters 18 to 29, triple since 2021.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: They made up two-thirds of all new voter registration.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: And in the primary election, this cohort, the young voters, had the highest turnout of any other demographic group in the city.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: All in all, I mean, he defeated Mamdani.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: He won 50.8% of the vote, which sounds kind of you know narrow, but when you take into account the other candidates, it's it's a sound defeat.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you said sorry, he said you said he you just said he defeated um Mamdani.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you mean he defeated?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, Cuomo, I beg your pardon.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh this boomer needs another cup of coffee.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I think that's that's instructive uh too, that if um that suggests that that the um the Cuomo campaign had written off young young voters.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: They assumed they they would be able to get these young voters or didn't uh I mean, right?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't even take them into consideration.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: The Mamdani um campaign must have really taken them into consideration.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and he did they did and the young people were the youngsters, those young'uns were the ones going door to door, actually campaigning for for Mamdani.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Am I did I have that?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Going door to door.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_03: There was an iconic image of him that reminded me of the uh the Obama image that said hope.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: Do you remember that Shepherd Carey poster?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: There's a similar one um with you know, with his, you know, sort of like this colorized version of him in a bright background.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was really kind of dazzling.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: It was in every bar and cafe in in Bushwick.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, where where you know where young people were in the central generation, the word that's um and and millennials and and gen Zers, I guess.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then again, I mean, you know, our our boomer listeners and our Gen X listeners even might might heed a call to take a look at some social media because one thing about him is he speaks, he speaks millennial and he speaks Gen Z and he gets just adoration all the time, up until you know this October 7th.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that begs the question.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: What exactly happened last week?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh something went wrong, his uh political antennae failed him, and apparently he was he was surprised.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe that's an understatement.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: The New York Times described him as um he appeared ashen and upset as he left without addressing the crowd, flanked by his security detail as he walked to a waiting SUV.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and um, and I thought of that line by Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo's father, famous line: you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so here came the prose, right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Something, you know, something failed him, but but he kind of deserved it in my book that day because he was commemorating the third anniversary, is that right, of the October 7th attack um Israeli kibbutz.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he really uh qualified it sounded almost as if he was qualifying the commemoration um with the um uh what being upset about the attack on on Gaza, which I'm with him on 100%, but but that was the wrong day to to kind of you know what uh match try to be um equivocal, I guess, in your it was a it was a massive miscalculation.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I I again he's so savvy when it comes to new forms of communication.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: And the what the example I'll give that, you know, this audience is very lucky because they get to hear how wrong I am all the time.
• 19:28
  unknown: He's gonna be a good thing.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: I know I he appeared on video in front of a uh a high-rise residential building in Midtown, and he essentially he essentially shamed the the billionaire Ken Griffin, who runs Citadel, the giant hedge fund firm, um, for owning a penthouse for which Griffin purchased purchased for get your get your glasses on and write this down, a$238 million penthouse at 220 Central Park Avenue.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, oh my God, he doxxed someone.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: This is this is a incursion on privacy.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's not an incursion at all.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: It was a record-breaking deal.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Ken Griffin bragged about it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was in all the real estate papers.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's public.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: And this was this was part of a you know the beginning of landmark legislation for for uh young Zoran, because now we have in in motion right now a a pied de terre tax.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And can I can I just say if if you if your pied de terre costs 248 million dollars?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh sorry, I thought it was 248.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Only 230.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: What what is his main house?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: What does his principal residence look like?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Buckingham Palace.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I just want to go to my Pieter, my 1400-room pied-terre uh overlooking Central Park.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so um is it gonna pay the is it gonna sell that or pay the Piedoterra tax?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's gonna happen with Griffin?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: You'll have to pay.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so the city's asking, they're saying you don't pay extra property taxes on these properties.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I I forget what the guidelines are, but you know, right now it's in motion, and if you are filing for an exemption, the time is now.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a little more money if you're going to have a second home in the city at this level, at this, at this level of luxury, at this level, at this kind with this kind of capital expenditure.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's not supporting the local restaurants if he's only there part-time.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: He ain't contributing much to the neighborhood.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's always the problem with you know, credit the the second homes.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_03: I I guess so, but you know, and then And back to his electoral influence, we go from his uh being crowned mayor to uh the the 2026 um trimaries, where he blessed a certain few candidates, one of them being Claire Valdez, who defeated my um uh for Congress, who defeated my borough president Antonio Reynoso, who I love.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: And he also gave us Daria Lisa Vila Chevalier, who defeated a defeated a five-term incumbent.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: Five terms.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Chevalier, the the the endorsement of Chevalier, I think, is the worst thing he's he's done as mayor.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: And tell us why.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: Please tell us why.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't like I don't like her, but I have been quiet on this.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she is nuts, and she gives Democrats.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can I say she gives Democrats a bad name?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe she gives Democratic Socialists a bad name.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: She marched uh on, didn't she?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: She she marched against Israel the day after the origin the actual uh October 7th attack.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: She denounced Israel on October 8th.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: On October 8th.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: She's um she recently deleted her Twitter history, which included calls to abolish the police, prisons, and national borders.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_03: She advocated for seizing property.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's against interracial marriage, I think.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, right?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Look it up.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: She's against interracial.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: She's nuts.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: She's truly nuts.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, she gives even Democratic Socialists a bad name.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they've been getting uh less of the bad name elsewhere in the country, but she's bad news.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna become um a member of Congress because that's such a safe democratic seat.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: But um, she is so loony lefty that that um Alexandria um um Ocasio Ocasio-Cortez would not endorse her.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's how far left she is.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think he did us a disservice endorsing her.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that aside, I remember ambivalent.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: And and and part of that discussion for another podcast is whether the DSA, um the DSA um recommendations are are really are really make or break elections or not.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe it's just whether candidates are campaigning better than other candidates.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because Do you think so?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that um that that Chevalier would have won without uh Mamdani's endorsement?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think it helped a lot.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I and I have an answer for you.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: She she beat uh Adriano Espaillot in the Bronx.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: He was a five-term congressman.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: But um I was re reading some political analysis uh from a guy who does block by block reviews of every every election, uh, block by block, who voted.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: And he said he he ran a terrible campaign.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: He he sat on his duff.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: He he ran the campaign like he runs all others uh without factoring in um a new, you know, a new candidate who would be, you know, and he probably had the same reaction that an any other boomer would have is I'm not gonna have a problem with this far-left weirdo, beirdo, if she had a beard, um, you know, far left extremists.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's not gonna be a problem, but it was a problem.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: He's out of a job.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could say um you could say that uh uh AOC defeated a long-term uh congressman, right?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who it was.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: She defeated her.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely did.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: She absolutely did.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: He must have taken her, you know, for granted and taken that seat for granted.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll give you that.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, uh Mamdani was three for three with his endorsements um in the primary.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um and anyway, so last Wednesday, his political instincts somehow deserted him.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: He tried to clean up the job the next morning.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think he did on that?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: What happened then?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: I actually had I actually have the text from it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I think he did a great job.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but let me return to it.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: He said, This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7th.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Pal Israelis and abducted 251 others.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: Wait for it, there's more.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: The suffering did not begin nor end that day.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: It instead continued through the Israeli government's devastating ongoing genocide, he is the G-word, in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 21,000 children.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: Ever since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: Now, talk about moving the goalposts.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, he's really not letting off his his um South Asian Muslim constituency.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he's he's he's holding them close.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: But I I have to ask, is it appropriate on on a day honoring and grieving for people who were massacred in the most barbaric of ways to bring in to bring in the 74,000 in in Gaza?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: Is that is that fair fear or should fair or should be separated?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: What what's your take on what's your take on on um on you grouping those two things together?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I don't think I actually don't have a problem with it.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I may have more of a problem with the timing of it, because if it's inappropriate on October 7th, does that mean it's appropriate on October 8th?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I I I I wonder if you if you leave a little more uh a little more sort of space between those uh maybe that's um maybe that's I think the splitting hair hairs.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's not that I think you to be fully fair, you have to uncouple them.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: You decouple, you have to decouple those two ideas.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um by the way, I let somebody to my mind it should not be complicated to vilify or or to condemn both acts.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: To me, that's not complicated.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: It just it seems obvious to me.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's not anti-Semitic to uh to condemn um you know what's going on in the in the name of the name of Israel.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I separate Israel from what Netanyahu has done.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because just as I separate uh the United States of America what with what you know Trump has been doing, I can separate those two things.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not anti-speaking.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: You're a better man than me.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's not the US.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but it's to me, you know, it's it's uh it's uh obvious that you condemn uh both.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you condemn both, you can do so in the same in the same sentence.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh are are you are you um a bit uncomfortable that just because the numbers are different and that and that somehow makes the attack on Israel less terrible than it was because the numbers of of killed are so much greater in Gaza?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh to me, they're both heinous acts, they're both reprehensible.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: They're they're both reprehensible, and I but I think on October 7th, you're mourning one thing.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: One thing happened.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's like imagine going to a funeral and saying, dearly, you know, we we're we're sad for the dearly departed, you know, but he had some bad habits and he ate too much, so all that cholesterol was bad for his heart, and um, you know, shouldn't have been out so late all the time.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: And you know what I mean?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: It there's there's yeah, no, I do I do know what you mean, but do you but are you saying it's okay on the you know the next day on October 8th, it's okay.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: If he had made it so at one minute past midnight, he says, Oh, by the way, you know, so uh October 7th, only talk about the attack on Israel, leave Gaza out of it.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think past midnight.
• 30:34
  unknown: Listen.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: You look at your watch.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Your watch at your watch.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Manyone's listening to the way after midnight.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um okay, I guess so.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, I wouldn't Okay, I kind of agree with that, but but I don't know.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I and by the way, on that public statement he made the day the day after, he said he made a reference to himself, which I left out, which is that uh if you're asking why I'm saying this, it's it's why I'm your mayor.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I that's why I'm mayor today.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: So in other words, sorry, I totally screwed this up.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what did he say?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I was proud to attend last night's vigil, as I did last year, to listen to testimonies from family members of those who were killed on October 7th and those who've been killed in the three years since.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And all of whom united in a vision for peace and an end to the genocide in Gaza.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're speaking of that genocide, we're speaking of one that has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in the last three years.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: As for those protesting me, I am the mayor of New York City, and this is what I signed up for.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a tough job, and you got it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, is that what he's saying?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: He was basically saying, I'm I'm not going to apologize for you know speaking um and and commemorating October 7th.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it doesn't mean I don't haven't forgotten about the rest of you.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's why I took this job as mayor.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: But then that kind of begs the question why he was so surprised, you know, the day before.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Why when he was um at Union Square, was I mean, because I guess, you know, is it that his own supposedly his own constituency, I mean, this is especially his own constituency constituency, if you think that that he's in any way anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinians were were jeering him.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they were.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: They sure were.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: And why were they jeering him?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because why?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because he said something in defense of Israel.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it it's I I I I read a couple statements from some of the protesters, and they said we want to put pressure on on Zoran, as if he's an international diplomat or a senator or president, or you know, works for the State Department.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: He doesn't.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: He's mayor.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: So it just I think it demonstrates how deep this whole issue is, especially with this giant demographic of young voters who don't really, you know, they don't remember 9-11.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: Not the some of them aren't old enough.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: They certainly don't remember Nixon or Watergate, Watergate, or you know, the Iran hostage crisis during car.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I also don't know, they're not seemingly concerned about some of the genocides going on elsewhere around the world, or, and we did a whole pod on this, the terrible things that their president are doing in their own country.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, there seems to be some kind of, I'd almost call it mania.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get attacked for this, but there is a mania there um for this cause that causes um, you know, like what have you done for me lately?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: The mayor that's seeming seemingly been on their side, uh pro-Palestinian, for nine months.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that also begs the question has no one jeered him for nine months?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Has he just gotten cheers from everybody everywhere he goes?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the first time he hears some jeering, he just collapses like a flower.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's like a snowflake, he melts in public view.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it just seems surprising.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't actually collapse, he just he just fled the scene.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but I think this is the first time between his legs.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think this is the first time the city has ever seen a public scolding.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it it has to have happened on the campaign.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I think on October 7th, we saw we saw the the candidate Mamdani, um, and on October 8th, we saw the mayor of Mamdani.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's when he said, I'm governing, that's why I took this job.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: But I I, you know, again, it's this it's this cohort of 18 to 29.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I have to tell you, the word genocide really grates on me because there are two million Arab citizens of Israel.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: 21% of the population is Arab, mostly Muslim, some Druze.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, there's a psychol psychological cruelty when critics accuse the descendants of Holocaust survivors of genocide.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I I just I consider it a mounting anti-Semitic surge globally.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: Again, to your point, without without looking at other instances of true genocide, yeah, like we saw in Cambodia, like we saw, but no one remembers the Khmer Rouge, like we saw in Rwanda.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: They might not be old enough to know.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there are things going on now.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think um yeah, in the Sudan, I mean, I think there are other other horrible civil wars and things.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, I I separate Israel from uh from Netanyahu.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: To me, um, as a Jew, Netanyahu fostered anti-Semitism around the world.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: He he's the worst thing for the Jews.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: On top of what he's done in uh in Gaza, which is reprehensible, he's he's led to a rise in anti-Semitism around the world.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's just incomprehensible, it's evil, but I don't think Israel is evil.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I'm tired of being told well how to define Zionism by non-Jews.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I find that um uh deplorable and annoying.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh what's uh we've we've had the accusation in comments from some of you accusing us of being ZOS.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: Zeos.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's a new new term for me.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Zionists.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Zionists.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I am a Zionist in the traditional, and I would say the definition of the word, which is the belief in Israel's right to exist.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in that, and that is the definition of Zionism.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: Can't just change the definition of that word for your own liking.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um against Jewish.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the same, I'm I'm a non-Jewish, anti-Israeli Zionist, if only for the fact that a democracy exists like an oasis in the desert, where on any, you know, any given year you can go to Tel Aviv, see one of the most lavish pride parades in in the region, uh where you will not see that for thousands of miles elsewhere.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: It is a it's a that's a good point.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's a it's a pretty fertile democracy.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I'm and I'm pro-democracy.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think democracies are great.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's a democracy that I hope will vote out Netanyahu um in the upcoming election.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can only hope that that that that happens.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it is a democracy.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you make a good point.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: You make a good point.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: I think you know the rise yes, and I'll I'll I'll I'm gonna yes, here's my here's my, you know, sorry, secular Easter egg to you is that um, you know, the rise of anti-Semitism, you know, it probably wouldn't have happened under Yitzhak Rabin.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: It could only happen under Netanyahu.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what a what a cruel rock that guy's a and and a lot of it is, I believe, because he won just like Trump, he thinks or maybe knows that once he's out of office, he's gonna be, he's gonna be um cited or um um what judged uh he uh for um uh corruption.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be cases against him.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he's gonna be hopefully uh brought to justice, just as Trump needed to be elected to get uh rid of all of these these court cases against him.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Netanyahu is in the same position.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe maybe when their terms are up, Trump and Netanyahu will flee to St.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: Petersburg or something.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh hopefully it'll happen sooner than that.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yes, yeah.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he's a he's an awful person and and and he's got a lot to answer for.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I don't, I just I wouldn't march against you know Israel.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't join any of these um pro-Palestinian, pro-Gaza uh marches because I just think they're riddled with um with anti-Semitism.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: I would not feel comfortable in in that crowd.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I don't think it's a fair, it's a fair knock.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um protests against Netanyahu, protests even against the Israeli army, although they're doing what they're told.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean that's a pretty horrible, horrible what's going on.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't think it's complicated.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Am I oversimplifying the situation?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's happening in Gaza?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Bad.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: What happened on October 7th, bad.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: How complicated is that?
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I think we could chew gum and walk at the same time.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: You can have two thoughts in your head.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's easy.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I would say the day October 7th is a is there's something sacred about being respectful to people who died in the most awful of ways and were taken away from their homes and marched out of out of Israel into Gaza and held for over a year, way over a year, many of them, and died in the process.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, um, you know, 9-11, and you probably know this 9-11, which is which is commemorated every every year to mark uh what happened in 2001, the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the Pennsylvania.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: 9-11 is the same day that the that the Chilean coup happened in 1973.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that memory has been blotted out by the 9-11 that happened in uh in the US.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: There is an overlap sometimes of events, um, but until something else happens on October 7th, is Israel has got that date, I think, sewn up.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I think I think we should say for the youngins listening out there, what happened on October 11th in Chile?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's pretty shocking when you think about it.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: It was a coup engineered by the United States.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Henry Kissinger, this then Secretary of State, had a lot to do with that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: There had been a democratically elected um socialist government, uh president, I think, voted in.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: His name was Allende.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: He was a father of the novel, the novelist Isabel Allende, who who dur during and after the coup, around the same time, committed suicide as a result of well, the the president, the father, not the novelist.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was just within within days.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was a horrible event that the the that the US orchestrated.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't they didn't want um they didn't want um Chile to fall um outside of their their political influence.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the result was a military dictatorship for decades, and a lot of people disappeared, tortured, tortured and disappeared.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot, United States.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know on that happy note.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: On that happy note.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's just history, guys.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that happened on 9-11.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: So when you hear 9-11, when you think about 9-11, you think about you think about about the coup in uh in Chile as well.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, this is all it's complicated stuff.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Politics is complicated, and politics ain't being bag.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who coined that phrase, but I've always liked that phrase, and that's something I think uh Mamdani learned last last Wednesday, and and maybe he shouldn't have been surprised.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: If if the if the jeering at Union Square had come from um pro-israel uh constituents or Jewish constituents, um maybe he would have been less surprised, but but they they came from from pro-Palestinian.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: I would have been less surprised.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was surprising.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean he was certainly surprised.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Where does he go from from here?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're a big fan, and you're a good representative of a fan because as you stated, you weren't initially a fan and you didn't vote for him in the primary.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I think you've been on the whole pleasantly surprised by him, right?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's he's been um very, very impressive.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's been a very impressive uh administration so far.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: And um what do you say?
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're the rare boomer who's pro pro um Mamdani.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it it is we discussed this, it's partly generational.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: There are maybe the older you are in New York, the less of a Mamdani fan you are.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's it you know what would be fair, really, would be to say if Mamdani has an anti Semitism problem, I'd say New York has.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: An anti-Muslim problem because the kind of hate that comes from to you know targeted at Mamdani from people of a different age.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: I was talking to my barber who is um from Uzbekistan, and he said, we're gonna have a sharia law under Mamdani.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we hear that here in the UK, uh, that you know, Sharia law already uh is already controlling, you know, constituencies in the north, and it's nonsense, it's utter nonsense.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a real anti-Muslim sensibility from the far right here in the UK.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're saying that's true also in um in New York?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean that's something, you know, we're all sort of blindsided by the anti-Semitism charge, but what about what about the public hating on Muslims and specifically on Zoran Mamdani?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's something we haven't really talked about and is worth examining on another topic.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you said as yourself, why can't you walk and shoe gum at the same time?
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: And Mamdani maybe has a problem with doing that.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: If there is a knock on his being um the anti-Semitic, and I think uh there are uh maybe there are uh you know issues of that, uh uh that help.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, why can't he be um you know pro-Semitic uh and pro-Muslim?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that it just seems it seems inconsistent that if you're a minority.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's sad that we we're we're such binary thinkers in this country.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's true, but that seems to be true just about everywhere.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I would have hoped Mamdani would be uh above that, um, but he isn't.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the and one of the reasons I would hope he'd be above that is he is a truly charismatic personality.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: As you pointed out, he can speak Instagram or speak social uh speaks millennial, speaks Gen Z.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: He speaks millennial media.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Social media there had a had a boomer moment there.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: So and so social media stunned, I can't even remember the term.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um point where Trump seems to like him.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um why is that?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they weird political, you know, bedfellows?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: What that what's that all about?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, I it's interesting because Mamdani did not, he was not strident with with Trump.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: He did not try to be a tough guy, he did not try to contradict him.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: He showed up at the White House with props, a giant newspaper with uh heralding Trump, Trump's cooperation with City Hall.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: He was very, he put on a charm offensive, and he always does.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, we know Trump.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: He likes celebrities and he likes being liked.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that's all there is to it.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: He I and he could be in New York, and remember um Trump's from New York, he's from Queens specifically.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: I remembered back in the 1980s, he was a citywide joke.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's a joke no longer, obviously, but we thought we were done with them.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: He would seem to be a representative of the sort of glitzy um, you know, yuppie era.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he was with, you know, absolutely no taste whatsoever.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: But he still wants to be accepted sort of at the high table, um, you know, in New York, among the the um uh you know, cognizienti, if I can use that term.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so if uh dealing with the mayor of Chicago, you know, or or in LA, he doesn't have that need to be to be accepted.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I could be uh eyeing Zabdani's Zambdani's that's his name, Zamdani's.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's Yam Dani.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yum Yam Yum Yamdani, Mamdani.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: Zoran, Zoran.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we have problems?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's because I'm not in New York.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can pronounce the London Murder's name.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sound it out Zid Khan.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: So Zadikhan.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um Mamdani, sorry.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Apologies, uh Mr.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: Mayor.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so he he sees I could call I should call Trump Trimp just to to equalize things here.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: Tripe.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: So Tripe likes Yam Dami um because he wants to be accepted in the city of his um you know um birth or where he whatever wrong.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's sort of a a hometown theme to his uh uh appeal to I think so, but also my wife has this wonderful um expression in that is think what you were trying to achieve.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a great line.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: And this um Mamdani was thinking what he wanted to achieve, and that was Trump's help.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what getting the um tunnel, uh what the uh New Jersey, the the Hudson um tunnel.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: There was an infrastructure project, or it was a tunnel that had been sponsored in um by Chuck Schumer.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um and you know, perfect example of not handling Trump is Schumer being a tough guy and and sort of doing business as usual in the Senate without taking into account what an idiosyncratic, to use a very polite word, um politician they were dealing with.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Schumer came in with a coalition and said, hey, you can't take this tunnel away from us.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: We're not gonna name the Penn Station after you.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's a way to do it, you're not doing it the right way.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so Trump fooled the funding.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_03: And it's still yeah.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_03: Mamdani, I got it back.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but I mean, other okay, that was good going.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna ask you uh what um you know what what Mamdani has gotten from being a Trump whisperer, but there are other people who have um praised Trump.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we had was it last year's Nobel Prize winner for peace, who was the uh what the independent, the uh the Venezuelan um, I'm sorry, I forget her name.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do you describe her?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, the point was she won her no the Nobel Prize and she was hoping that uh I think Trump would put her in charge of Venezuela.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and she handed over her Nobel Prize to Trump and got nothing for it.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: And when other people have um conceded points to Trump or try to whispied Trump whispers or bend over backwards to him, uh they've gotten nothing for it.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Mum Donny has gotten some stuff for it.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: So by the way, I was wrong about Zum Zum Delicious Donny's.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: He did not single-handedly restore the funding for the the Gateway Hudson River tunnel.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: It it was through a federal court action.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um so what has he achieved?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_03: He's achieved better, just a non-hostile uh relationship with the White House.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I I'm not sure what you get out of it, but being being in battle with the the White House is not a it the White House doesn't come back with anything rational.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you know, it's like it's imagine you know the White House embodied a two-year-old, you know, during the terrible twos.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_03: And it will, you know, it does awful things to people.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_03: It it you know it it exposes people to prolonged li litigation if you're on the Federal Reserve, it or if you're James Comey, you you I know I they run interference and funding.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I hope I hope uh Mamdani gets something out of it.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right, by the way, Maria Karina Machado won the Nobel Prize in 2025 um for her tireless efforts to advance democracy, human rights, and a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule in Venezuela, just to clean things up here.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: And she handed over the physical Nobel, she can't give him the Nobel Prize, he shouldn't get it anyway.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: But she was so sad she handed over her actual uh Nobel um medallion hoping that um that that you know Free Venezuela would get something in return.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he they got nothing as far as the new Nobel Prize winner is um Navi Kele, who served under the International Criminal Court, which is under attack right now.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and she she wrote eloquently and organized against apartheid.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_03: She is apartheid, another word that comes up a lot about Israel, um, that you know uh that is loss on a whole generation.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_03: Probably don't remember Nelson Mandela or or the the you know the collapse of apartheid in South Africa.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: And she's she's someone who uses the G word a lot.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, did sorry, did you just say a minute ago that Mamdani hadn't actually achieved anything through his uh prop whispering?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh something concrete.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I don't think anything concrete, just peaceful coexistence.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then I do kind of question uh no one's ever gets anything out of Trump, no matter what you do.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um you know, he's totally transactional um on his terms.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not even transactional, I suppose, right?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Transactional suggests that uh each side gets something out of it, but with Trump, it's really one-sided.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: So uh everyone seems to be applauding, I shouldn't say everyone, a lot of people have been applauding Mamdani's approach to dealing with Trump.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I say the verdict is out if there's any if any good has actually come out of it.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, we had a nice shooting, and Mamdani came out fairly assertively uh against ICE.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's a battle of wills right now in in the public sphere between um you know the White House and Mamdani right now.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Mamdani is nine months in to Mamdani's um marialty, I can never pronounce that word, and uh he's got a long way to go, and there are going to be a lot of uh issues and problems um, you know, ahead of him.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: He is dealing with a pretty irate constituency, but that's always the case in New York.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's a tough gig.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think he's risen to the occasion most of the time.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I would probably I probably bet on him.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's saying he's a he's a political star.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_01: He came from nowhere, seemingly certainly if he was what you said he was polling under 1% early in the in the primary.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: So he surprised uh just about everyone.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're a New Yorker.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh are you looking forward to the next what three years and three months until the next election?
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: I you know what, I I actually feel good about his his administration.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, I I don't like the word genocide, I don't like what happened on October 7th.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_03: Everything else is appears to be very modern and contemporary, and I'm okay with that.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_03: And if it energizes the electorate, that's even better.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I can't I can't say enough for that.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that's brilliant.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: He energized uh the electorate, and getting young people out to vote is no small thing.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're offered one of those free opera tickets, are you gonna go?
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_03: If I were an opera fan, I thought it's pretty you know, the other thing is he he expanded a grant for artists.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_03: You can apply, it used to be you could apply for a$5,000 grant from the city.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: He doubled that 10.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: So he's art friendly too.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: How is he balancing the budget doing things like that?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: What is he cutting?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_03: All with a balanced budget, but we'll see what happens next year, won't we?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: See what happens, see what happens.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, do you have uh do you have a headquake?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about a film called Late Fame, starring Willem Defoe with Greta Lee, who has been gracing the TV in a film for meant a few last few years, taking it by storm.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's about a man who works at the post office who published a book of poetry in the 1970s and finds himself rediscovered by a group of enthusiastic art lovers called the Enthusiasm Society.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: We should say it's based on a story by Arthur Schnitzler and uh directed by Kent Jones, who I think ran the New York Film Festival for a while.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's got a sort of sort of pedigree um writing and directing credits.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he liked the film.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: By the way, I have a question.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think I think the the movie Eyes Wide Shut was based on an Arthur Schnitzler story.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, am I right about that?
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was a um Austrian uh writer at the turn of the last century, I believe, um, Viennese.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: And something about his uh plots are around catnip to to modern directors, including Kubrick.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um you like the film?
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_03: It was one of those films where I never felt like anything was predictable, and I just wondered where it was going the whole time.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: The I found the ending to be a little sad.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I think they they um lucked out getting Willem Defoe to play the poet.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was an absolute revelation, he was brilliant.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was a bit disappointed by the film.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: It it was um for me, it was a little uh close for comfort.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: Almost too close for comfort.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was um he was he published uh one book of poems in 1979.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was in New York in 1979.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh all the action takes place in the village, um, which was my old neighborhood, uh NYU features in it.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: That was my alma mater.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it had everything in the film to uh to appeal to someone, uh someone like me.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I thought it was a little thin.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I thought Wilm Defle was great.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that actress you cited, sorry, what's what's her name again?
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: Greta Lee.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: Greta Lee.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't like her.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: I thought she she was uh unbelievable in the role.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the women in my household did not like her one bit.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why not?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_03: What what did they have issue with uh with her probably for the same reason as you there's a lavish musical number she does in a in an old man's gay old man's cabaret.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um clearly not a real location.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's no, and and you and and it was long.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: You hear the entire routine and it goes on a bit.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_03: It was really long, but oh my god, she's chewing up the scenery like we never thought Greta Lee could possibly do.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think it was a strange fit for her, you know.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_03: And we both What a voice.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: We both you know what it was.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of these films where I sometimes I wonder, you know, did she executive produce part of it?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's a vehicle to show the the her range as an actor.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe it's a little cynical of me.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's cynical.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it showed range off to good form.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we both know characters like the character that she was playing, who's a very kind of theatrical person who maybe speaks too loudly in cafes and is very always seems to be, you know, performing, very theatrical.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't seem like a natural fit for her.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: She seemed like she was playing the part of someone who was playing the part of someone, if I can put it that way.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the film is interesting as almost like a prose poem.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: I found the first 20 minutes just enthralling to see a man who works at the post office and lives in a third-floor walk-up in a nicely appointed, lonely, one-bedroom apartment, to see him rediscovered by people in their 20s or early 30s.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: And that was moving.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he works how it's brawled.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: He works at the post office, which I took to be a reference to Charles Pikowski, who worked at the post his post office.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they say that in the film.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that's a reference point in the film itself, right?
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't they want to be caught unawares or uh out of out of context.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is moving, and I think it's moving at the end.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to give away the ending, but uh it is moving at the end.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're at all literary inclined or New York inclined and village inclined, uh maybe uh maybe it's a recommend.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair?
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_03: I I would say it's I it's worth watching.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's a there's a it's competing with a lot of other stuff, including your new product placement movie with John Senna called Matchbox that animates matchbox cards.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, what you do these adaptations of products.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they've done have they done Kool-Aid?
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_03: Kool-Aid was actually Kool Aid.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: Kool-Aid was a joke.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: There was a joke around the studio.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it was a well well-made joke because it was a Lego film.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a Lego movie, there's uh Barbie film Barbie film.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_03: I you know, I'm waiting for the Q-tip movie to come out.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Q-tip movie.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was gonna say, um, I saw Digger the other night, which I cannot recommend.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they spent 160 million dollars on that.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: Avoid Digger and go to Late Fame because it's the kind of film that uh could use some support.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: We don't see little independent movies like this so much anymore.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it was um that you know, I enjoyed it.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: I saw it in a movie theater with a crowd that really enjoyed it too.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: I saw it in the London in the London cinema, I should point out.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I was probably the only member in that cinema who had really lived through this moment in New York or the reference points to 1979 and more.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I it's funny because I I was I mentioned earlier I I was gonna refer the film to someone else, and I realized maybe this is a little too close to comfort.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was that.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's some people they may feel us too, but uh it was sweet.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: Late fame.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, on that note, uh we'll let people go on as they will.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening and watching.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm JB Miller in London.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Jim Jalamis recording here from the Twisted Spine bookstore in Brooklyn.