City Journal Reacts to Election Night

Summary

---

City Journal Audio - “City Journal Reacts to Election Night”

Episode Date: November 5, 2025
Host: City Journal / Manhattan Institute
Guests: Mike Solana (Pirate Wires), Ralph, John, Additional Panelists

---

Overview

This special live episode presents City Journal’s real-time reactions to Election Night in New York City, analyzing the results, implications, and political dynamics as Zoran Mamdani is declared the next mayor—a signal of an ascendant hard left in New York. The panel, featuring regular CJ voices and guest Mike Solana, brings policy insight, frustration, sarcasm, and concern about the city’s future direction, comparing it to recent experiences in San Francisco and other major metros.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immediate Reactions to Election Results (00:08 - 06:04)

• CJ’s panel openly expresses pessimism about the night’s outcomes, feeling the city has moved decisively toward the radical left.
• General disbelief and disappointment over outcomes in New Jersey and Virginia, seeing national trends toward progressive candidates even when their rhetoric is extreme.
  • Quote (B): "Every single Democrat who clutched their pearls at the things that Donald Trump said… was full of it." (02:04)
• Early expectations for little optimism; most panelists “gave up hope months ago” about a centrist or moderate comeback.

2. Zoran Mamdani’s Victory: What Happened (04:02 - 07:12)

• The group discusses the primary, noting Mamdani’s energetic campaign and deep progressive roots.
• Failure of moderate/Democratic elites to coordinate behind a credible alternative—Cuomo’s failed candidacy cited as emblematic of systemic elite fragmentation.
  • Quote (D): "New York's voting for a communist. It's crazy. Here he goes. He's not even a fake communist. He's fully Marx quoting, whatever…" (04:02)
• Ranked choice voting and polling discussed; DSA's (Democratic Socialists of America) organizing machinery surprised nearly everyone.

3. Why Did Moderates Flop? Comparison to San Francisco (13:49 - 21:57)

• Mike Solana explains San Francisco’s “turnaround” stemmed from elites suffering from policies they could no longer ignore ("everyone shared in the burden").
  • Quote (B): “It didn't matter if you lived in a really nice neighborhood. You were still dealing with people shitting in the street.” (14:51)
• New York, by contrast, has more diffuse elite and industry interests, making it hard to coordinate centrist pushback.
• Real estate, finance, and even within single industries, lack a united front.
• Overcredentialed, uprooted young progressives dominate turnout, while long-term residents or property owners are out-hustled by DSA and Working Families Party organizing.

4. The Structural Left-Ward Shift: DSA and Working Families Party Power (24:06 - 25:08)

• Mamdani’s campaign is described as a successful DSA membership drive—a “hijacking” of the political machine via focused turnout.
• Panel identifies infrastructure and money as the missing elements for centrists; they call for a more ruthless and organized approach by moderates.

5. New York’s Policy Future: Housing, Crime, and Services (07:51 - 13:49; 47:51 - 56:45)

• Housing:
  • Three major ballot proposals remove land use votes from City Council, to incentivize housing supply; described as a rare success of Adams, now set to be advanced further.
  • Irony: Adams’s new housing legacy may be delivered by the same radicals that pushed him aside.
• Crime and Safety:
  • Mamdani is expected to push for the abolition of the NYPD gang database and shift police discipline to the Civilian Complaint Review Board—anticipated to sharply reduce police morale and numbers (currently NYPD is 3,000 officers down since 2019).
  • Quote (A): “NYPD is currently losing 300 officers a month… New York City’s safety is built on the backbone of there is a literal army of police officers in this city. Right. That’s why New York City is safe. And if you just sort of go, eh, we don’t really need it, it will not go well for you.” (51:03)
• Education:
  • Mamdani’s promise to end mayoral control of schools could return NYC to a "corrupt fiefdom" model—dispersed, unaccountable, and prone to political chaos.

6. Legal, Fiscal, & Institutional Constraints on the Mandate (37:10 - 43:14)

• Rent freezes:
  • Mamdani will face statutory obstacles and probable lawsuits if he tries to impose a citywide rent freeze; the Rent Guidelines Board's design and legal requirements significantly limit unilateral executive action.
  • Quote (A): "Zahra Hamdani has spent the past year promising to violate the law if he’s elected." (39:40)
• Budgets:
  • NYC’s strict balanced budget requirement may force more moderation or quick crises for the new administration if federal funding dries up or recession hits.

7. “Gotham Moment” and the Rikers Deadline (58:37 - 60:44)

• By August 2027, the city must close Rikers Island even though borough-based jails are nowhere near completion, risking “decarceration by default”—a major looming crisis for Mamdani and the city’s criminal justice system.
  • Quote (B): "Here is Zoram Ramdani’s first challenge. What are we going to do come August 2027 when not one of those jails is built yet?" (59:20)

8. National Politics and Trump’s Role (53:20 - 54:09; 62:57)

• There’s consensus that Trump will “make New York his cathedral,” leveraging Mamdani’s tenure for political contrast and campaign theater.
• Upcoming gubernatorial contest (with potential AOC candidacy or a Stefanik challenge) could become a high-stakes referendum on New York’s leftward lurch.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On DSA’s Political Machine:
  • (A): “Zhao Hamdani’s campaign started as a DSA membership drive. That was the goal of the campaign. He said this in Politico… their purpose was to build power for the DSA.” (24:06)
• On NYC Quality of Life:
  • (B): “I thought that I would die in New York City as a father, as a husband, as a professional. And it got to the point where you’re nickel and dimed nonstop… you’re getting speeding tickets from some camera for going 36 miles an hour on a six lane highway at 10 o’clock at night when no one’s on the street.” (27:14)
• On Moderates’ Failure to Coordinate:
  • (A): "Andrew Cuomo was able to successfully clear the field, and… there was a comprehensive failure." (17:44)
  • (D): “If you have some high status people who are like, no, socialism’s really bad and these radical leftists are fucking crazy… then I think that’s helpful.” (20:03)
• On the Coming Crisis at Rikers:
  • (B): “That’s exactly where they're going to go come August 2027.” (60:44)
• On New York’s Place in the Country:
  • (D): "Does that bubble burst?... you all have a bit of Stockholm syndrome. It’s actually like not that nice… It’s super dystopian actually, if you just step back and look at it." (30:42)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:08 – 06:04: Pessimism and coverage of early results (NJ, VA, NYC).
• 07:51 – 13:49: NYC ballot initiatives, City Council dysfunction, Adams’s legacy, DSA’s organizational edge.
• 13:49 – 21:57: Comparison to San Francisco’s political turnaround and the structural split in NY’s industries/interest groups.
• 24:06 – 25:08: The rise of the DSA, effect of focused organizing, and elite inaction.
• 37:10 – 43:14: Legal limitations on the mayor and rent freeze mechanics.
• 47:51 – 56:45: Anticipated policy shifts: crime, police, schools, city fiscal health.
• 58:37 – 60:44: Rikers closure deadline and the threats it poses.
• 62:55 – 64:27: Panel closing thoughts, predictions, and sign off.

---

Panel’s Closing Thoughts

• John (61:14): "We’re going to learn a lot about the shape of this administration based on the staffing of it… Who Mamdani picks for first deputy mayor will be an important bellwether."
• B (62:16): "…a sad day for New York… I do love this city and I do think it's going to be worse off… There are a lot of people who can't [leave] and they deserve better than Zoram Hamdan."
• Mike Solana (62:57): "It’s going to be really difficult to discern what’s real, what is Zoran doing versus what is the noise in the pageantry. They’re going to be performing. I think it’s going to be crazy."
• A (63:42): "Now a 34 year old whose first real job was being state [assemblyman] and before that he was a rapper is actually the mayor… of the most important city in the entire planet… We’re gonna be paying attention and we’ll have lots of opinions."

---

Summary

City Journal’s Election Night special paints a striking picture of frustration, resignation, and alarm among New York’s centrist and moderate observers, as Zoran Mamdani’s mayoral victory confirms the city’s hard swing to the left, powered by focused grassroots organizing and fractured opposition. The panel voices deep concern about the city’s future on crime, housing, and governance, drawing sharp contrasts between New York, its rivals, and its own history. As institutional and legal brakes remain, the uncertainty ahead is palpable—summed up in the panel’s final message: buckle up, New York’s ride has only just begun.

---

For more City Journal analysis:

• cityjournal.substack.com
• piratewires.com

(Ad, intro, and outro sections were skipped as requested.)

Transcript

[A]

We're live from New York. This is City Journal special guest Mike Solana. I was saying. I was saying before we got on Mike that we're just gonna go in order of, like, loud anger. So it's gonna be you, and then it's gonna be me, and then it's gonna be Ralph. So it's like, who's gonna.

[B]

Why am I on the bottom of the anger totem pole?

[A]

Cause you try to. You. You pretend to be reasonable when you're on camera.

[B]

This is true.

[A]

You act. You act like you're a reasonable person. I do not act like a reasonable person. I've never. I've never pretended to be a reasonable person. We learned. We learned before we got on Mike that John lives in one of the jurisdictions that is projected to vote for Curtis Sliwa. So he's a Sliwa American in a sea of blue. American.

[C]

The only little speck of red in a sea of blue. I'm holding the line.

[A]

You know, I grew up.

[D]

I grew up in Ocean County.

[A]

Wait, wait, wait. What?

[D]

I said I grew up in Ocean County, New Jersey. So I'm watching all of these results come in from the Jersey governor's race, and they're like, oh, my. And then here's like, this Ocean County. It's just, like, bright red. And I know all about Ocean County.

[A]

I. Yeah, that was. I'm.

[C]

I'm.

[A]

I'm unhappy with that result. That is not a good result.

[D]

What's the result for New Jersey?

[A]

Yeah, Cheryl won.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Oh, yeah. No, they called it almost immediately.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Yeah. And the same thing in. In Virginia, Jason Meara has lost to Jay Jones, the one who talked about killing people's children. So that's not. That's wild.

[D]

They just have. No, that's what J. Jones said was unambiguous. He was like, I want this woman's kids to die. Like, that's just like, crazy. They will vote for anything they.

[A]

As long as. Right. And like. Well, so the other interesting thing, somebody. Somebody was talking about this. Virginians, as a general rule, are more likely to vote for a Republican for Attorney General. Like, there's a, you know, there's a five point effect or something for Virginia and AG specifically, because they just perceive it as a law and order role. And that didn't even matter. Just like.

[B]

But that result, I mean, that really. I mean, essentially every single Democrat who clutched their pearls at the things that Donald Trump said that were allegedly uncouth was full of it.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Great.

[B]

I mean, it's like, why even you Know, like, talk about, like, Trump's effect in terms of the debasing, the quality of.

[A]

Of the discourse.

[B]

I mean, this is a guy who literally said, I want their kids to die so that they can feel the pain.

[A]

And also, what kills the Speaker. Speaker of the Virginia legislature in a sick way.

[B]

Right. And nothing. No social consequences. Like, you know, this. This is why people no longer care to pretend to be reasonable anymore.

[C]

Right.

[B]

That's why I might get. Actually, genuinely.

[A]

We're.

[C]

We're.

[A]

We're frank. Well, we have four minutes until the polls close. I think people I can't actually see, we have this. Like, for those of you who are watching, we have this setup where my phone is perched on top of a. Like, a thing for holding cameras. I don't know what the technical term is for the tripod. A fancy tripod.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Uh, so I don't know how many people are watching us. They could be like, three people, like 100.

[B]

What?

[D]

We're close to 200.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Close to 200. I was not betting on that. Thank you.

[C]

Amazing.

[A]

We'll try not to disappoint you. So we got.

[C]

We got the night might be disappointing, but we'll try to deliver. So this is.

[A]

This is a question. We got three and a half minutes for the polls closed. So I will ask everybody here, where are you? On a scale from optimistic to gave up hope months ago, I will start. I am at. Gave up hope months ago. That is where I am personally.

[D]

Yeah, I gave up.

[C]

What's the measure of success? Is it Mamdani getting a majority, or is it Mamdani losing? That's the thing, right? I mean, I've. I've tempered my expectations. If Mamdani wins with only plurality, I think that means a different kind of guess.

[A]

Mike, are you. Are you optimistic?

[D]

I knew that he was going to win the primary. I was like, cuomo is fucking toast. Mamdani's got the juice. He's definitely going to win. He's the only one who's actually campaigning. Cuomo was talking about Trump. I never thought for a second that Cuomo was going to win that primary. Mamdani won. And the second that happened, I was like, it's over. New York's voting for a communist. It's crazy. Here he goes. He's not even a fake communist. He's fully Marx quoting, whatever, But I know.

[B]

Not.

[D]

Not optimistic. Not even mad about it. Like, I just. I got so used to it so long ago that I'm like, yeah, I feel like he's already running I bet he's like, already the man.

[B]

Well, I think I have you all beat because my lack of optimism caused me to leave the city in 2020. Yeah, I. I was counting on New York City losing its mind well before anybody else at this table. So there you have it.

[C]

Everyone was saying that ranked choice voting was going to be a huge thing, you know, like, it was going to take weeks to get the results of the primary. It was all bs. He learned that night immediately. Kuor didn't even need to say on primary night that mom Danny won. Pretty new. The gig was up.

[A]

So what was interesting there, right, Like, I was a dupe. I was a fool. I believed the polling. And to me, the one iota of, like, maybe I could know, maybe something will surprise me tonight is like, if the polling was that catastrophically wrong in. During the primary, then, like, I can imagine a world in which the polling is catastrophically wrong in the other direction. And like, actually in 20 minutes, Curtis Lei is going to be elected mayor of New York.

[D]

Right. But that's just not the direction that the night is going. That's not. That's not where any other race is going.

[A]

I don't think I saw. And that's the interesting macro question, right? Is like, you know, I was saying to somebody earlier, if Cittarelli puts up a big fight in New Jersey, wins in Virginia, like, that means something about the national environment. Now I'm going to go to all my friends who are like, democrats don't have any chance in 2028. And you're like, you're completely wrong. People will vote for Iraq with a D next to it.

[D]

But at the same time, I don't know what would. What were people expecting, though, for this, for tonight? Like, I just don't know what the positive outcome for Republicans was supposed to be. I just don't think there was really a chance for. I don't think I grew up in New Jersey. I did not think that the republic had a shot. It did not look to me like the Virginia governor had a shot. Even J. Jones doesn't surprise me. It seemed like that's the direction everything was going in. So I just don't. Yeah, I just don't really know. I definitely think. Good.

[A]

So what I was gonna say is, like, to me, the core calculus comes down to, on the one hand, like, the incumbent party in the White House pays a penalty in the following elections, and that's just, like, reliably true voters, thermostatic equilibrium, blah, blah, blah. I can do the political science doesn't really matter. On the other hand, if you read the polling, I would say that the Democratic Party is marginally more popular than Osama bin Laden, but it's only like a ma. It's a matter of margins, right? Like, people hate the Democrats. They're not popular. And so the counterargument is like, maybe there has been a durable shift to the Republicans interest because of that unpopularity.

[D]

It does seem like in New Jersey, though, that the governor is overperforming compared to what is Murphy's last election, which for a Democrat is interesting to me. Like, it seemed like Jersey was closer last time around. So I don't know. I don't know if it's just that.

[A]

My pet theory at Jersey is that there was the last titanic struggle between the Italians and the Irish, because that's what it was. Phil Murphy and Jack Chiarelli. Polls are closing. We should talk a little about, like, what actually, what else is getting voted on tonight and like, what's going on on the ballot for people who are tuning in, who are not New York politics obsessive. I don't know if, John, you want to jump in and like, give us. Give us some sense of what is happening tonight.

[C]

So there are six ballot proposals on New York City voters ballots. Number one is a very technical state constitutional amendment that has to do with forest land way up in Essex County. There was an Olympic sports compound that was built on land that was supposed to be protected forever by the state constitution. I think it's section 19 of the state constitution complex was built on this land. So there is a remedial measure to fix the problem. Very minor technocratic issue. Questions 2, 3, and 4 would facilitate housing supply in New York City in large part by taking away the vote from the City Council. So in New York City, there's an informal practice. It's not in law. It's called member deference. And the idea is that I am, as a city council member, may have redevelopments or rezonings that I don't like. You may have rezonings that you don't like. So if I disapprove of one. Right. You will agree to vote mine down. And if you disapprove of one, you'll. I'll agree to vote yours down. And the City Council basically follows this member deference practice, which means that, and.

[A]

Parenthetically, the City Council is full of crazy people, uniform, literally lunatics.

[C]

It's a genuine question of whether the City Council is the left of Mamdani or not. I mean, like I think they're.

[A]

Yeah, I think they are. To the Lotuma Donna, they're like Sandy.

[C]

Nurse peas in a pot.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So the ballot questions 2, 3 and 4 would take certain rezonings and remove it from the city council's vote and therefore bypass the member deference practice because it's just never going to go to the city council. It's going to go instead to bodies like the City Planning Commission or to a new board created of the mayor, the speaker and the borough president. For question number four, the bottom line is that the three housing land use related ballot questions would facilitate more housing supply. It would complement Mayor Eric Adams greatest legacy, which is the city of yes for Housing Opportunity plan, which was a really historic achievement which showed that you could develop a political constituency in favor of housing supply growth. I think history will be favorable to Adams for this. It's the single biggest land use change in New York City since 1961. And yet they wouldn't.

[B]

And yet they wouldn't reelect him.

[A]

They wouldn't do it.

[C]

The irony here is that now it's past 9 o'.

[B]

Clock.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Well, that's our mind.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Eric Adams would have been better than any of these guys. 100%.

[A]

I can say now, I can say now with great comfort that I took an informal poll of many of my colleagues, like after the primary is like, who are you voting for? And the answer is Eric Adams. Right. Crime is down. Housing is going to be increased. The volume of housing is going to be increased. Yes. He may have taken some bribes. It's hard to say what's going on.

[D]

Who cares though.

[A]

I don't care.

[D]

It's not as bad as communism. It's not as bad as communism.

[A]

What was the bribe?

[D]

It was a first class seat or something. A business class seat. I don't. He's the executive of the most powerful city in the world. He should be flying. He shouldn't have to fly business with a bribe. We should just be paying for him to do it. I don't understand. There shouldn't be a controversy.

[C]

It's called VIP treatment. Right. If you're the most important guy in New York City. Yeah. You get some extra.

[D]

Let him fly business class. He deserves it.

[A]

I would do anything right now.

[C]

And the other thing was like the expedited permits for the Turkish consulate, like that's okay. Bad because it relates to public safety. But it's an indictment of the way our government works that you need to like get in contact with a borough president who then becomes a mayor. To get the thing approved. Right. Let's make the government better.

[A]

I actually think the solution to this is that it should be easier for the Turkish to build stuff in the city of. That seems pretty straightforward to me. But also like, look, many mayors are corrupt. That's like not unusual practice in the city of New York on the scale of corruption. Not that big of a deal. I feel like we should also note for listeners who are not. We have New York one going on in the background. We have. What is it? 36% of the vote is in. Mamdani is at 51 and a half. Mo is at 39.7 and Slu is at 8%. Well, thank God he's in A lot.

[C]

Of that is going to leave both. Yeah. So Michael Lang had sleaver at about 11%.

[A]

And Michael. Michael Lang, we should say, is. Is an election. An elections analyst focuses on New York and was extraordinarily accurate in the primary. So we'll wait and see if you can do it again in the general.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

He's on substack, by the way. I should plug because otherwise our producer will get mad at us. I should plug City Journal substack. Yes. @cityjournal.substack.com also pirate wires, which is just piratewires.com. great website. Both great websites. Parwire's a little bigger.

[C]

We'll catch up to that Great endorsement guy.

[A]

They did have a great endorsement guide. They did great stuff.

[D]

Yes, that was a great collab. Did you see that? The DA retweeted it. She was like so proud to accept the endorsement from Pirate Wires. We get a lot of that now. The voting guide is like the one that we do in SF is like really popular. And the different we actually had. This is crazy. We. After the voting guide came out in the election, this last election took place, I found journalists were sniffing around because people had gone to them and told them that we had like this shady endorsement process in which we wouldn't talk to other candidates that we didn't endorse or something. They were like. The other candidates were mad that we.

[C]

Didn'T talk to them.

[D]

I was like, I didn't know that you even knew we existed. I am like nothing but happy to talk to you.

[A]

Like, this is awesome. So, so. So here's an interesting question. Is like, you have. And we've talked about this. And you talked about this last time too. You have seen. I'm not willing to say that San Francisco is good now, but like, San Francisco is better.

[D]

Like successful San Francisco is The way, man, I've been saying this, I keep beating this drum. It is like the most exciting city for politics, I think, in the country. It has like, just. It's a total, complete violation of the narrative that, that, that. That is, I think, the most well understood. It's a smaller game, though. You have 11 supervisors to New York City's 51 city councilors. And you have. But then what you have is, I.

[A]

Think, sort of similar.

[D]

You have a small group of people who are like, wait, this is crazy. What do we do? And they just kind of started the process earlier. There was a lot of money and a lot of commitment and they started running better candidates. And now there's like a slight turnaround and the mayor's great and. Or as great as you could expect from a Democrat. And like, yeah, things are looking out.

[B]

I've had this theory of, like, San Francisco's turnaround, that part of what caused the injection of sanity into the city's politics was the fact that it was harder for the elite and the politically active to avoid the downside of bad policy. Right. Like, it didn't matter if you lived in a really nice neighborhood. Like, you were still dealing with people shitting in the street and you were still dealing with, you know, homeless people chasing you down the block and demanding that you go to an ATM to give you money. You were still, you know, seeing needles.

[A]

You have to walk through the tenderloin.

[B]

So it was like, you know, in a way, everyone shared in the burden of the after effects of the bad policy decisions in San Francisco in a way that's not necessarily true here in New York. And that gives me pause because it makes me think that we're actually not going to see that turnaround.

[D]

I don't think. I think because LA had. I don't. I wasn't living in New York at the time. It sounded pretty bad. What was going on in Covid that summer of 2020 to me, like, certainly the rioting that there was less rioting in San Francisco than other major cities. There was some massive looting down in Union Square. But, like, less than New York, less than la, like just less all around. I think that the big difference was people. There was this huge microscope on San Francisco or this. Yeah, this accused microscope on San Francisco. Everybody on Twitter lived there and was talking about it. And so it was hard for these local politicians to escape the scrutiny. And they were taken back by it. They were surprised by it. You could tell in the very early stages of that. They didn't. They weren't used to it. They didn't expect people to care about what they were doing. And suddenly everybody really cared. And not only San Franciscans, but, like, people across the country were like, this fucking DA in San Francisco. We gotta get rid of them. And it's like nobody knew. Nobody on their side knew what to do with that. I think that you have to. New York City needs that. You need, like, just a huge camera on every single one of these city council members. They should all be stars. Like, why don't we know their names? They're the legislators of the city, and they're doing insane, terrible things. Everybody should know who they are, and they should be talking about them every single. And they should have to defend themselves.

[A]

The. You know, I think, and I'm. I'm curious you take on this mic, but I think a sort of core dynamic in what happened in this race is I'm going to go out on a limb here and assert something controversial. Andrew Cuomo sucks. He's a terrible candidate. And I think this for several reasons. One is all the sexual harassment allegations, and then another one is all the dead grannies. And then another one is just like, he's not very, you know, he's. He's not very persuasive or personable, and he cried. Yeah. Also. Also he signed all the pro crime bills and he burned a lot of bridges. He burned a lot of bridges.

[C]

A lot of people he turned on.

[A]

No, dude, it made no sense to run him.

[D]

It's crazy that he ran, and then after he lost, it's really crazy that everyone doubled down.

[A]

Okay, but so, so, so what's interesting to me is just like, Andrew Cuomo was able to successfully clear the field, and there was no. There was neither a coordinated effort in the primary to pick up somebody other than him. You know, like, it's not. It wasn't going to be Whitney Tilson, but like, Whitney Tilson, who is a, you know, a hedge funder, very good guy, moderate Democrat, would have been a great mayor, in my opinion. Absolutely. You know, there was nobody in the Whitney Tilson lane who. The. The city's elites do not coordinate around somebody like Whitney Tilson. An alternative who's going to own the modern lane. That wasn't Cuomo. That didn't happen in the primary, and then it didn't happen after the primary is over. Clearly, there was a comprehensive failure to do that kind of. You know, I know that people were talking about, can we get Jessica Tisch, the NYPD commissioner, to step up? Is that possible? And it Just, it didn't work. So, like, what is the failure of elite coordination and how do you get around that? Because it seems like you guys succeeded at elite coordination. You know, Gary Tan succeeded in elite coordination in San Francisco. God bless Gary Tan. Like what. What do New York City's movers and shakers need to learn? What have they. What do they get wrong?

[D]

Man, that's such a good question. I have no idea.

[A]

It's.

[D]

It's just like all of the money and all of the money and all of the smart people are on the center, sort of centrist side. In San Francisco, once we started talking about who was in charge and who was in power, uh, it was very obvious that we needed something different. And the things that we needed were really ground floor things. It was like, you know, crime should be illegal again and people should stop shitting in the streets and the school should be open and we shouldn't be trying to rename them rather than reopen them. Like just basic shit like that. And in New York, I don't. I just don't. Honestly, like, I. I feel like it's not going to work out for you guys. Um, I think that the demographics are totally different. I think that you have a smaller concentration of smart people and you have.

[B]

A lot of smart people who are. You can see that in the polling data.

[D]

And, And I think it's like, I mean, you even see the different. The way that finance is leaving the city.

[A]

It's.

[D]

I, I saw polling or some numbers on that that was down to like 7% or something. You know, I. It's just. It's such a different city. But I. I think it starts with just being ferocious. If you have some high status people who are like, no, socialism's really bad and these radical leftists are fucking crazy. And it's fine to make fun of them. In fact, it's good. In fact, it's high status to make fun of them. You don't want to be seen on their side. If you can do that, then I think that's helpful. In San Francisco, that was a little bit easier because they, uh, you know, it's like it's a one industry town. And so if you had all the elites in that industry who were on the same side, it was like, oh, we're allowed to believe this now. But in New York City, who are you trying to get is like, is your guy really just Bill Ackman? I don't even think he's that. Do people care what he thinks? I. I don't care what he thinks, but I'm not in New York, so I don't know.

[C]

And even here within an industry like the real estate industry, it's fragmented. Your rent stabilized property owner does not have the same interest per se as your developer does. Yep. Right. So they want different things. One wants to be able to make more housing at, you know, more predictably is the most important thing. What people don't talk about is that it takes like two to three years to get through environmental review for rezoning in New York City. And the developer has to bear all of the uncertainty and all the costs of that. And then they have to go through the land use process, the ulurp process that ends in the city council vote that I said has this council member veto at the end of it. So there's just so much uncertainty. But if you're a rent stabilized donor, you just want the ability to change the law and increase the rents a little bit. Right. Whereas in San Francisco, yeah. There is more of a concentration of the tech industry and an alignment of interest. And here we just don't quite have that.

[B]

There are very big app here that I'm really curious to get your take on, Mike, is a lot of overachieving, but. And overachieving. I mean over credentialed really. Like underachieving.

[A]

Down with mobile.

[B]

Yeah, downwardly mobile millennials who don't have roots in New York. They're, you know, first generation New Yorkers who are coming out in droves for Zoran Mamdani and and Ryan Salaam.

[A]

The president had great pieces in the Journal.

[B]

Yeah, no, he's is, yeah, it's great analysis. I just like what's your, your sort of take on that? I mean like he seems to have essentially hijacked the political machine of New York by recognizing that our demographics are just very different. And there's not a sort of pool of old school New Yorkers with roots who have long term ambitions about what the city should be. Rather, it's people who are probably going to be here for five, six years and then go back to their Midwest towns from once they came to start their families.

[C]

Who cares what happens?

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

I mean, I think local politics is always a question of just who wants it more because of this dynamic. It's like not a lot of people are super engaged because at least these really transient cities. You have a lot of that in San Francisco too. It's a super transient city and the radicals, generally speaking, just want it more. And then you have these one party towns. Right. It's like New York City and San Francisco, Los Angeles. It's just there's one political party in charge. And when that happens, then these people go after the races that even fewer people care about, which are the races that lead to something like your mayor endorsement.

[A]

Right.

[D]

So it's like the. In San Francisco, the DCCC was a really important thing for a minute. It was like, who was. Who was getting the official Democratic nomination. And the radicals ran that shit. So it was. For a second, it was even. I think I'm actually have to check in. I'm not actually sure where they are now, but they're just at a disadvantage. You know, like, normal people don't care about local politics. They're trying to, like, live their life. Whereas the socialists are the. I don't know what you would call them. These radical leftists are like, in a constant state of agitation. I think it's the same here, it's the same there. And we have to.

[C]

They're meeting twice a week at the dsa. Right.

[B]

So.

[A]

So, I mean, I think that. And that, I think, is an undertold part of the story. And we've done some stuff on the City Journal. We were talking to Cole about the Working Families Party, which people I think don't understand. Influence of Working Families Party is a, like, northeast. They're in Connecticut, they're in New York. They're in, I think, New Jersey, a couple of other states. But it's a local party that exists to run progressive candidates against Democrats that are perceived as too moderate. And the Working Families Party has a major infrastructure in the state of New York, the dsa. Major infrastructure. Zhao Hamdani's campaign started as a DSA membership drive. That was the goal of the campaign. He said this in Politico. They were shocked they got anywhere because their purpose was to build power for the dsa. But I think part of what you see in these low turnout off cycles, to your point, Mike, in these low turnout off cycle elections where there isn't a lot of interest, people don't know what the stakes are. People don't know what's going on, is if you have any kind of infrastructure, it seems like you can have a great deal of impact. Right?

[D]

Like, yeah, the reason.

[A]

The reason Mohamtani won the primary is just that the DSA did such effective turnout that all the models were wrong because their assumptions with the composition of.

[C]

The elect, that's how far off they organize.

[D]

They just care about it, and then, you know, no one else does. And if you had some Kind of. You need a machine before you can say like, why did our machine not win?

[A]

And.

[D]

And you're just like, you're. You're at zero right now. So you have to build that. You have to get funding for it. Shouldn't be hard Again with people like Akman running their mouth off. It's like, great. Well, now here's the thing. You have to fund. Give us lots and lots and lots of money to fund it. And. And then you do. I think you have to like guilt these people. All these like super, super wealthy people. You needed to be like, you have to give us money. It's just like the only that's. There is no alternative here. We're doing this thing here. Here's the machine. We're going to, you know, gather the candidates and you have to give us money or you're a bad person and we will publicly shame you the way the left does.

[A]

I should say. Our producer just handed us her phone. Decision desk. HQ called it for Zoron. 903. Game's over. Zoram. Donny. Next man. New York City Crime is now legal.

[D]

Rikers island immediately.

[B]

Open.

[C]

It's open.

[A]

It's Gotham. This is where we're living now. This is New York.

[C]

I'll start now. Here you go. Thank you.

[A]

I will be giving this to the dsa of which I am now, by law, a member. Congratulations, everybody.

[C]

We made it. We'll live in our stable unit until we die. That's what follows me the most. New York City is a place where dreams should come true, where strivers should make the most of their lives. And now we're like, okay with the 1936 apartment that like you have that's getting worse every single year and is never going to get better because the economics are impossible. Like that's good enough for the rest of your life because you never leave a rent stabilized unit.

[B]

Why would you?

[C]

It's just like we are changing the ethos of our city for one reason.

[B]

And she gets sick of what this city eventually does to you. It becomes the kind of place where you want to live and raise a family, which you can't do well here. No, I mean, like, you know, I'm born and raised in Brooklyn. I have lived most of the years that I've been in this earth within the five boroughs of New York. I lived in the Bronx. I've lived in Manhattan. I've lived in Brooklyn. I have lived in Queens. I thought that I would die in New York City as a father, as a husband, as A professional. And it got to the point where you nickel it dimed nonstop. You know, you're, you're getting speeding tickets by from some camera for going 36 miles an hour on a six lane highway at 10 o' clock at night when no one's on the street. You've got the city building miles and miles of bike lanes in what used to be parking spaces for residents that no one uses. And now it takes you 45 minutes to find a parking spot.

[A]

At least the guy's going 45 miles an hour on his E bike and runs, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Or you can spend 700amonth on a, on a, you know, on a garage.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You've got like, you know, homeless people walking into parks and starting to bathe in the sprinklers. That should be for the kids. Something I've seen happen in Queens when I was out with my kids in Forest Hills, you know, like. And then you start thinking about the schools. If you're lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where you're zoned for a good school, you inevitably have to deal with the fact that your kid is going to be indoctrinated. And if you care at all about him not being a woke nut job by the time he's or she's 13. And even that dichotomy, Right. Will get you in trouble in a.

[A]

New York City public school day, you.

[C]

Won'T even know because they won't even tell you.

[B]

It's like you can't, you can't escape it. And if you want just a normal family life, this, the message is crystal clear. New York City ain't for you.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I think Connor, Connor Bryan, who's at the Economic Innovation Group and a friend of CJ friend of mine, had a great report looking at the steadily declining share of families with children under five in the city of New York. And it's just been plummeting since COVID And it makes a lot of sense. And this, by the way, you know, I think is, this is an important thing that we who are critical of Mandani need to take away from tonight. Which is like, he is right about the problem. Portability is the problem. He is completely correct. He's totally wrong about the solution. His solutions are really dumb and they will make the problem worse. Is right about the problem.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But there are also people who have and would have continued to be willing to pay the premium if they could take for granted all the other stuff that matters about quality of life, about safety, about being able to ride the subways without, you know, worrying about the crazy guy who's having a conversation with somebody who's not there. Without having to deal with the needles on the floor in the playground in Washington Square park, which is surrounded by houses that cost 2 million, 3 million, 4 million, $5 million. Like, that's the people will pay for the premium of living in New York. They will pay to be close to restaurants. They will pay to have good sushi at 11 o' clock at night. They will pay to have access to cool club like the one that we were just at for a party. We won't tell you where because you weren't there. But like, once you can't take any of those quality of life things, peace of mind becomes significantly more valuable.

[C]

Are you paying more for more or more for less?

[A]

Right.

[C]

It's that simple. And New Yorkers lately have been paying more for less up until really this year. I mean, if also, I want to.

[D]

Say people always think that this New York will persist forever because it's New York. It's this huge magnet for talent and people want to be there. I do wonder how much of that has to do with this giant money machine that was the finance industry. And if that keeps shrinking and there's less money in the city just to fund, just to give people jobs, like do people stop going? And once the tax shifts a bit, you can't fund services. It's just a kind of like doom loop that, that sets off in the city. I don't know that it's this like invincible city actually, because it's not that fun to live. Sorry, last law. Just like, because like you all have a bit of Stockholm syndrome. It's actually like not that nice. It's. You're in a metal tube most of the day. It's like you're breathing in poison. There's crime and trash and shit everywhere. Rats are like. People are always joking about the rats with like the giant slice of pizza or something on the stairs. Like, that's super dystopian actually, if you just step back and look at it. So you're putting up with a lot to be there. And I don't know, does that bubble burst?

[C]

We are steps away right now from the brand new monolithic, enormous J.P. morgan headquarters. It just opened the other week. It holds 30,000 workers inside. And JP Morgan has more employees in Texas than New York City. New York State, actually. So that says a lot.

[D]

Yeah. When I was in Miami, I. There was this tech thing that people would ask about a few Years ago I was here just for different reasons and I never thought the tech thing was going to happen. However, when asked I would be like, wait, but this is like the fifth borough of New York or the sixth.

[A]

Borough of New York City.

[D]

It's like people come down here during the winter and it is a real thing. It's like New Yorkers are here. It's not that hard and it's right there and it's way more friendly in terms of text. And I don't think that's super unlikely. And in fact we don't have to, you know, speculate. We're looking at the numbers declining. So like the number of job of finance jobs in New York is declining. So that that is meaningful.

[A]

You know, I think, I think that there are, there are two arguments against or you know, there's an argument against that and there's an argument for it which is like basically part of how. And I'm suing this line consciously from Rohan Salam President, because I was talking about this earlier. The way that the city has dealt with the departure of capital from the city is a combination.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And I should note that we're watching Mark Levine and Jamone Williams and a bunch of people are getting called by New York one. Alvin Bragg won. Alvin Bragg won despite the address of the pirate wires. We're sorry, that's not great for your, your win loss record, but that's okay. But you know, the city has dealt with this problem in two ways. One is through subsidy and the other one is through regulation. And what they've done is on the one hand, they have taken huge volumes of federal funding. You look at home drying up very soon. Well, yeah, but if you look at home health aides, home health services are the fastest growing employment the city of New York. By some measures, there's no employment growth in New York except for home health services. And all of that is federal Medicaid money. It's how the state manages reimbursement for working as a home health aide in the, in the city. Kathy Hochul has called this like an enormous racket. Those are her words, a racket. But that is like where employment growth is coming from in the state. In the city of New York is from federal Medicaid dollars. That's one thing. The other half of it is if you have an affordability problem, you can seemingly regulate it away.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Like freezing the rent is not the first time that they've tried this. Back in 2019, when Andrew Cuomo was governor, they passed this tenant protection law. Which made it much harder to evict people. And we know exactly the effects of that. We know that it increases costs.

[D]

You just.

[A]

You said.

[D]

I'm sorry.

[A]

I just.

[D]

I want to just talk about Andrew Cuomo for a second. I Now that it's all just completely over it. This is his fault. And I think that people really need to just, like, I really hope that that's the takeaway. This is not Sleeba's fault. This is not Mamdani. Mamdani ran Mandani.

[A]

He won.

[D]

He ran a great campaign. He addressed issues. He won. He deserved it in the primary. He deserved it in the general. Like, I really can't stand. I hate him. I will use the word hate. I think this is like an evil human being, but he fucking deserved it. And Andrew Cuomo deserved to lose. He was so bad. He was the worst. He was a bad candidate then. He was a bad candidate in the general.

[A]

He.

[D]

He made every bad decision he possibly could. The way he handled the Sleeba thing was also, like, there had to have been a win there. He had to have been able to sit him down and figure something out that was like, that was really the not getting Sleeba to leave the race. If that was what he needed to win, then he should have made that happen. And the fact that he couldn't was the third huge thing that he did that was fucked up and wrong. And I just. I really hope that not only him, but the sort of Bill Ackmans of the world who really jumped all in behind him and insisted this was, like, you know, God's gift and he needs to. Everyone needs to just get on board with the fact that Cuomo is. Is his own. He is the reason he lost, nobody else.

[B]

I mean, like, the other thing about Cuomo is Cuomo was exactly the wrong candidate for this moment. Mamdani had a massive weakness on public safety. Cuomo had the worst part of his record on that issue, and he wouldn't.

[A]

Disown it, and he wouldn't disown.

[B]

This is if Cuomo had come in with a genuine mea culpa and said, listen, I screwed up. I fired by people to my left, and I gave in when I shouldn't have. And bail reform and discovery reform and juvenile justice reform and all this other stuff on the police reform front, like, I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have closed 17 state prisons. I shouldn't have closed, you know, another handful of juvenile detention facilities. And if you trust me with this, I will backtrack on all of this and I will make it right. He never did that in high school.

[D]

He thought he was going to win.

[A]

He didn't even say that.

[D]

Yeah, he didn't think he had to do anything because he, he truly believed that he was just going to win everyone back in the primary. Everyone, Mo. Many. All of these sort of like machine Democrats just believed that. And it was this incredible arrogance and, and he got smacked down and then.

[A]

He couldn't recover in the general. It was like, I don't even know. Our, our, our, our producer is telling us that there are questions in the chat and I'm going to pull this. I want to bring this in because I think there's a great answer. Question from live Stream chat. How likely will a lawfare strategy work for the worst parts of a Maudani regime? And we actually have a lot of thoughts on this topic. You want to talk about, what do.

[D]

You mean by that lawfare strategy?

[B]

What is that like using litigation to stop Mamdani on uncertain things?

[D]

Yeah. I want to know from you guys what you think he's capable of. So answer this one and then I would love to just kind of get.

[A]

Him and we can tell you secret communication with Mike. We, John and I were working on this for Power Wire. So we'll have a. Yeah, don't say too much.

[D]

Don't give too much away.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I do want to know.

[C]

Yeah. So, okay, let's start with freezing the rent.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It's his signature proposal. De Blasio got it done three times. But the mayor does not have the ability to control rent stabilized rent increases. The mayor does not have unilateral ability to freeze rents. That power is vested in a board called the Rent Guidelines Board made up of nine members. The mayor appoints all nine, but they are appointed for a term of years and the mayor cannot fire them except for cause. He can fire the chairman, but not the other members. Now two of the other members. It's like an independent body. It's at least designed, contemplated to have a degree of independence from the mayor. Right. And then that is very important.

[A]

And there's a main kind of legal mandate. Right. It has, it has a specific statutory responsibility in what it has to weigh in determining what the rent increase is going to be every year. The members of the board can't just be like we think it should be, 6. There are factors that they are required.

[C]

By law to consider, like operating costs for owners, like property tax increases and like water, sewer race. Right. So the statute is clear. You have to consider these factors. And there are two representatives for owners, two representatives for tenants, and four representatives for the public interest. So there's a statutory scheme in place that contemplates a weighing of interests and a deliberate decision. Now, what Mamdani is basically saying is we don't care what the statute says. The only thing that really matters is getting to a 0% rent increase. So I'm going to put my minions on the board that will only agree to a 0% rent increase. And we're going to basically jettison this carefully constructed statutory scheme. Doesn't matter what they're required to weigh. We're only going to go with a 0%. So if your operating costs are up 5%, doesn't matter. We're only going to agree to a 0%.

[A]

And the problem with this is actually, I mean, it is, it is bad policy, but more importantly, it is flagrantly illegal. Right. Like Zahra Hamdani has spent the past year promising to violate the law if he's elected. And there's a component of New York State law that allows individual civilians who are affected to bring civil suits to enjoin legal action on the part of the mayoralty. This is Article 78 of Civil Procedures. Yeah, which, which, which, you know, I expect an Article 78 suit, like today, like maybe, maybe they have to wait until he's sworn in. But if I am, if I am rent stabilized landlords in the city of New York, I am Preparing an Article 78 suit literally as we speak, if the paperwork has not already been drafted.

[C]

Created a hell of a record. I mean, it's like lawyers say, don't put it in writing. Well, he made a whole campaign about this.

[A]

This is my other favorite one is Montani has multiple times gone on television and said he wants to raise taxes.

[D]

This is.

[A]

How is he going to pay for all his plans he used to raise taxes. Go to Albany and raise taxes. His plan is to raise taxes. He has said multiple times he wants to make sure that whiter parts of the city of New York pay their fair share. He wants to raise taxes on whiter New Yorkers.

[C]

Sounds like equal protection, right?

[A]

My response is that Harmeet Dillon, who is the, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil rights, who lives and breathes to go after this stuff. Hareem Till is going to field day with that one. I expect her to be in his office tomorrow morning. Like that. Flagrantly illegal. You cannot do that.

[C]

But that assumes he's going to get some property tax reform done. So on the one hand, he justifies 0% rent increases because owners of rent stabilized buildings have had their net operating income increase by 12%. And on the other hand, in the next breath, he says, but you know, we could do property tax reform. Well, you would only do property tax reform to help landlords who are really struggling. But I thought they were making too much money because it's like 12%. So what is it? Are they making too much money or are they not making enough?

[B]

But basically you're asking too much.

[C]

Well, I know, I know that he had the chance to respond to this legal question. Totally dodged it every single time. And it's a real challenge. It will come up if and when he gets his RGB Rank Guidelines Board to vote for a 0% rent decreases and then it's in the court. The other thing is that Mayor Eric Adams might reappoint the RGB members who.

[A]

Have expired members, which will delay at what, a year?

[C]

No, I mean a couple of years at least. Because I basically think like five members are expired terms right now.

[A]

So.

[B]

But how long are the terms?

[C]

Two years, three years?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So basically, many of the members of the Ring Guidelines Board have expired terms. Mayor Adams might be able to get them to order them to step down and replace them with new members. And then Zwran Mamdani is going to say, can I please have my 0% rent increase? And they're going to say no. And then he's going to say, well, I'm going to take you to court. And then what are the legal levers that Mamdani has to pull? I don't think they're very good.

[A]

What is his.

[C]

Does he also.

[B]

It's.

[D]

There's a question now of who he is. You know, we've never seen him actually succeed as a policy person. He is a very effective communicator. I don't even know that he wants to be a policy. Like, maybe he doesn't really. Maybe he's not in it to actually change the city. He's in it because he's a theater kid and he wants the attention. But we're going to see and we'll.

[A]

Figure out pretty fast.

[C]

Sorry, it was just called.

[A]

Oh, yeah, New York One also just called it. Sorry, we're watching New York One in the background.

[C]

Literally.

[B]

I just got a text that says, Jesus Christ.

[C]

So.

[B]

I'm not lying. I won't say who it's from.

[A]

We're going to see the camera moving a little bit on our end.

[D]

Sorry.

[A]

Because we're quite sure the phone doesn't die. No, it's all good. My phone is dying.

[B]

There's another question. And Mike, I know you had a question that you wanted to ask us. Before we get to that, there is another question from the chat that I just wanted to put to the group. And really I think this one's for you, Mike, which is why isn't San Francisco seeing a Zoan like candidates succeed right now the way that we are seeing?

[A]

And Mike answers that I want to note that there are other races that we should be watching. We're seeing still stuff. Minneapolis, Seattle, seeing DSA challengers. I don't know what the results are.

[B]

I haven't looked.

[A]

But so you know, it is a national phenomenon. Sorry, go ahead, Mike.

[D]

Well, so I think that the radicals, those sort of like hard left, had a lot more control in the city, like 2020. And so it was hard for them to claim this sort of outsider we're going to change the city thing. It was very apparent that most of our problems were because of them and their ideas. And so we could run against them rather than them sort of like coming up against this sclerotic, decaying moderate machine. However, there are, there are some radicals in the wings, especially for Congress. It seems like probably that's going to go. Scott Wiener sucks. So I think it's going to go to the radical guy. And I don't know, like it's, it's kind of. You see this anywhere. You see young people who are left wing. They're not Democrats. I don't. This is like the high level thing in the country for the Democratic Party is that party is a radical party. That is the future of the Democratic Party. It can only be radical. That's where all of the energy is. And little by little it's going to be like that probably everywhere. But in San Francisco, people have been just very effective at the centrist mobilization thing. And again, we were running against them. So we have this sort of outsider status.

[A]

And I should say Mike had this great piece in the Atlantic a couple of like a month ago about the Abundance faction, which and everything that I have been thinking about that tendency.

[D]

It's just a complete joke. The fact that if you read Abundance, the opening of the book is like, this is specifically not for Republicans. This is only. We're only talking to the left. And I thought, well, if you're only talking to the left and not even the center right, like not even the center, just the left, then you're fucked. Like, you're never going to win because the left is you. If you're only speaking to the left. You have to contend with Luigi Mangian Democrats. People who want to literally kill health care executives and celebrate that. And they're not into abundance. In fact, they want to kill you too. They want to kill the ezra clients.

[A]

Of the world as well.

[D]

Like nobody is safe if, if in the eyes of a communist.

[A]

Yeah, I mean I think the, the, the one. One way to read San Francisco is sort of the macro political level and sorry, the camera's moving around just because.

[C]

Trying to deal with phone.

[A]

One way to read San Francisco at the macro level is that like there will be voter discipline if things really suck. And in some cases the same thing happened with Eric Adams's election back in 2021. Or like Anne, I can't tell you her name, Vietnam outgoing. Probably attorney or equivalent in Seattle who's a Republican.

[C]

Who.

[A]

The city's attorney in Seattle but who won election in 2021. Something like that. Because things just got so bad. We ran this great piece about Christian Brown making the same point about like, when do Republicans win in the city of New York? And the answer is like, things are really bad. Right. Like when was Giuliani going to happen? What, what, what, what was the, like, what was the, you know, what was the 2000 murders?

[B]

Crown Heights.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I think is really what did it for Giuliani because we had 2,000 murders a year. In 19, he first ran and lost to Mayor Dinkins. You know, crime was, was much higher in the late 80s. It was actually starting to go down by 1993 when Mayor Giuliani won. But I think, you know, the Crown Heights riot just killed any, you know, potential sense of confidence in Mayor Dinkins. I think racial tensions has gotten to a point where people just didn't care anymore. And I also think that like the exhaustion of crime, even though it was getting better people, you know, you're talking about a decade of like, you know, well over a thousand murders. And for a good part of that decade, 2000 murders a year. People were just sick of it. And I think also like there was something to the fact that there were parts of the city that the elite and well to do wanted to access, but they couldn't. You couldn't go jogging in Central park without getting, you know, robbed or raped or worse. Like you couldn't go down to the theater without having to walk through or at least around Times Square, which was basically just an open air prostitution and drug market.

[D]

Yeah, the hookers, the famous Times Square hookers.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like Union Square, you know, was Again, just like an open air drug market. You know, Bryant park was an open air drug market. I mean, so it was like all of these places in prime Manhattan where the movers and shakers, like. Like if you lived on the Upper east side in a beautiful apartment, you know, you know, on overlooking Central park, you wanted to be able to. And you worked on Wall street, you.

[A]

Wanted to be able to take the.

[B]

Six trade, but you couldn't without taking your life in your hands. And so it was just like people eventually got sick of it. And I think, yeah, that's ultimately what has to happen for New York. We don't learn our lessons the easy way.

[A]

You know, I think. I think the other point, and this is something Mikey said, but I think is generally true. It's just like part of what happens is just that people notice that things are nuts, right? Like, you can. You can boil the frog for a long time, but the frog does eventually notice that it's getting boiled. Like, There can be 1900 murders a year or 1800 murders a year, but when you hit 2000 people, like, wait a second, I don't actually have to live like this. I could vote for somebody who's not going to do that. But I think, you know, that is made easier by raising the saliency of absurd things happening. The challenge that will exist. You know, I'm being this very actively in our coverage City Journal. You guys thinking about this? Ralph has been. And he's going to keep beating his drum. Being the term about the gang database, which is like, the NYPD keeps a database of who's in a gang in the city of New York, which is like, good, because gang members murder each other a lot and they murder other people a lot, and that's bad. And Mandani very clearly would like to abolish the gang database. Like, he's. He's been quite open about this and just deranged. And we don't talk about it at all.

[B]

It's deranged on its own. But it's scarier because Mandani is going to take office along with a city council whose composition.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[B]

A likely occurrence. Like, there are legit police and prison abolitionists in large numbers on the city council who will pass a bill to abolish the gang database. It will get to Mamdani's desk and he will sign.

[C]

If the city council speaker that gets elected is also on the far left, then you really have an unprecedented situation of like, where are we going? It's totally uncharted waters. At that point.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean the mayor has traditionally been, at least in recent history, a check on the radicals in the city council. That's not the case with Mamdani and Gracie Manchin. So you know, the gang database abolishing that is one thing that I think Mamdani will actually deliver on. That will be terrible. But it's not the only thing. I think he is going to move forward on this like proposal to give final authority over police discipline to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which is basically just a group of cop hating civilians who want nothing more than to charge NYPD members with crimes and get them fired. And that is going to cause a significant slowdown. It is going to cause a lot of reticence on the part of police officers and it's going to be a disaster.

[A]

To pile on there. Very briefly, the NYPD is currently losing 300 officers a month.

[B]

Right.

[A]

The NYPD is 3,000 officers below where it was. That's like the full size of many cities sworn forces. It's $3,000 below where it was in 2019. Yeah, right. Well, yeah, our producer is starting in the National Guard, which like may become necessary.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's where the standoff is. And Madani has promised he's not going to do anything like this. He's not going to hire additional costs, he give cops. He's not going to try to elevate the number of officers like New York City's safety. Because this point of quality blood, New York City's safety is built on the backbone of there is a literal army of police officers in this city. Right. That's why New York City is safe. And if you just sort of go, eh, we don't really need it, it will not go well for you.

[C]

I'll give you another example. New York City's public Schools budget is $41 billion a year. We spend about $40,000 per pupil in the city's public education system. He is promising to get rid of mayoral control. Now that's Mayor Bloomberg's signature education achievement. Where there used to be dozens of small districts that were basically corrupt fiefdoms by locally elected politicos. And Mayor Bloomberg centralized it as one of his first major accomplishments into a Department of Education with a school's chancellor is appointed by the mayor and the buck stops with the school's chancellor and ultimately the mayor. Mamdani is saying, I don't want mayoral control anymore. But he hasn't said what's going to replace it. So you've got this $41 billion behemoth of a system. It's like bigger than states, entire budgets. And, you know, we now have no. I'm not worried, whatever. It's just going to be something. But I won't.

[D]

Zero accountability. People make this, this, this mis. There's a misunderstanding here. People think, well, democracy, right. We should vote for these things. That's more accountability. In fact, what happens is, like, nobody pays attention to those races and then there's no accountability. No one ever knows who's in charge of anything. And the mayor, if you even elect them in, can't do anything even if they make a promise to do something. So it's a huge problem. I think you mentioned Trump a second ago.

[A]

Think that.

[D]

I think that he will actually be a huge part of Mamdani's. And Mamdani will be now a huge part of Trump's presidency. I think the two of them are super attracted to each other. They both are showmen, and I think they're like the perfect foil for each other. I think Trump has more power. He's going to withhold probably money in a bunch of ways. I'm sure courts will get involved. But it does seem like. I don't know. I've never seen. Has there been a president who ever cared this much about who the mayor of New York City was. Trump's going to care a lot. And I think that there's probably.

[A]

Briefly. Yeah.

[D]

The.

[A]

What, Gerald.

[B]

Joe.

[A]

The famous New York fiscal crisis in the mid-70s, and they went to the feds for a bailout and Gerald Ford said no. And there's a famous New York Daily News headline, ford to City. Drop dead. It's Ford to city.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

He did come through with some loans.

[A]

He did eventually give them money. It's sort of a classic summary of, like, how bad New York was in the 1970s. Yeah, I mean, that's right. The other actor who's really interesting here for me is there's going to be a gubernatorial election in the state of New York next year.

[D]

You think Ocasio is going to run that?

[A]

Polling that shows the likely Republican nominee, Representative Elise Stefanik, head of Governor Kathy. Kathy Hochul, by a point. It's early days. We don't know. But if I am Elise Stefanik, I'm like, I want to run against Jorah Mulvani.

[C]

Kathy Hochul has endorsed Zoran.

[A]

Momdonna is on stage holding hands. I could, I. I could see the photos.

[C]

Right.

[D]

Especially a year from now.

[C]

Yes. Like, she looked like she was held captive by this. You know, it was like, yeah, yeah, she made that choice. She did not have to.

[A]

Chuck Schumer did not endorse him. Chuck Schumer did not come out and endorse him today.

[B]

He was asked who he voted for, declined, and he declined to say. He just said, I voted. And I, you know, whatever. Like, I hope New York City will be okay.

[C]

Mamdani didn't endorse Kamala Harris.

[A]

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

[C]

So she could have just said, look, you know, I'm going to be the adult in the room. I'm going to make sure that the city is incapable, responsible hands. I won't endorse Zoran Mamdani, but, you know, I wish him well as a Democratic nominee. She didn't do that. So you got to own it. I mean, you know, it's bad when Bill de Blasio endorses him. Well, that's role model. Now. It's going to be. Well, that's the thing. So, Mike, you made an important point about accountability, right? Well, if you are voting for Zoram Gani because you're going to get your 40 bucks a month frozen on your rent, prospective rent increase, well, then, you know what? The mayor can do whatever the hell he wants, and you're still going to vote for him to save your 40 bucks a month.

[A]

Right.

[C]

The danger, it's like bread and circuses was dangerous in the Roman Empire, not because it gave freebies to the poor, but because it allowed the emperor to do whatever he wanted. And that's basically the dynamic that we are seeing. Like, Mamdani might just hire a bunch of bureaucrats and, like, not. We have $116 billion budget that is just a bonanza for the nonprofit industrial complex, for the teachers unions, for all sorts of government workers. Unions, employment. Bill de Blasio increased government employment in New York city by like, 35,000 jobs. Could anyone have really said that their lives were materially better by de Blasio's administration than.

[D]

That's crazy. That is really crazy. This is my biggest problem with government, and the blot of government is that my life has never gotten better. Like, there's not been a single thing the government has improved in. In my entire life. And I don't think anyone else can answer that, that it has either. So there's this.

[C]

This.

[D]

There's this perennial question of, like, where did the money go? What did you spend it on?

[B]

There's this other thing that's happening right now, which is a federal government shutdown that no one seems to be feeling or noticing, which ought to tell you exactly how much the government is working because the federal budget is way bigger than the budget here in New York. And I don't know, I like all.

[A]

The money that's rolling continues to flow. And this is the challenge, the challenge of Trump cutting off federal funds. It is the case that New York City is strongly dependent on federal revenue.

[C]

Right.

[A]

It's, it's, it's stuff like highway funds. Right. What does the Department of Transportation going to do under. Are they going to go back and pick up. Right.

[B]

Offset the bqe? Well, is that.

[A]

Yeah. We build a second Avenue subway. No. Are they going to go back and take the fight about.

[B]

I can't generate the term for it.

[A]

Charging people extra money for driving congestion. Congestion pricing.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

I don't know. I can get that. Are they going to go activate that fight? I don't know. They've been a legal fighting with that. Are they going to send troops to New York City? I think that New York is in a much more precarious. To your point, Mike, but I think we were saying earlier New York is a much more precarious position than it realizes and that the bread and circuses model only works if you have somebody to make the bread and somebody produce the circuses. And currently New York City is running out of bread makers and circus producers or more precisely funders underwriting there.

[D]

There are plenty of circus performers in New York. I would say they've got those in spades.

[C]

And they're going to see in city halls.

[D]

Yes. Yeah, they're, they're driving the bus.

[B]

There's something else that New York is running out of and that is time between now and August of 2027, which is a date that I want you all who are watching this to understand is a date of very great importance. Why obviously we open the asylum is when we will have our Gotham moment. That is when the jails on Rikers island must by legislative mandate be closed and emptied of all prisoners. Where are they going to go? In theory, they're supposed to go to one of four borough based jails which by the way will only be able to house about 3,800, 3,900 of the 7,000 that we currently have in the county incarcerated on Breakers.

[A]

But they won't be built. They won't be.

[B]

None of them will be ready come August 2027. So here is Zoram Ramdani's first challenge. What is your plan? What are we going to do come August 2027 when not one of those jails is built yet. Are we going to have a forced experiment in complete decarceration in a jail free New York? If that's the case, then absolutely.

[D]

Bring the troops, close the tunnels, raise the bridges. It's a great movie.

[C]

The population of Rikers island is the worst of the worst right now because of bail reform, in part.

[B]

Let me just contextualize this. Do this.

[A]

And then we should. We should do closing thoughts. We have seven minutes left there.

[B]

There was a period of time in which violence, you know, really kind of post 2016 on Rikers island just went through the. What happened in 2016? Well, they got rid of solitary confinement and so they couldn't control any of the inmates anymore. This was a big fight that I was having with the Democrats in New York City. And the de Blasio administration's basic answer was that, well, hey, we've done these bail reforms. We have you know, really decarcerated. And so the reason we have so much violence is not. Has nothing to do with solitary confinement. It's just that we have a higher concentration of really dangerous criminals. Well, guess what? Those are exactly the kinds of people that you don't want on the street. And that's exactly where they're going to go come August 2027.

[A]

All right, all right, we got five minutes left. We want to close out. We're going to offer closing thoughts. Phone might die in the middle of that, so we'll try to be very succinct. John, what are your. What I'll give to you first. What are your takeaways?

[C]

We're going to learn a lot about the shape of this administration based on the staffing of it. Mandani hire experience, people who have, you know, former Bloomberg members, for example, former Adams members. Or is he going to bring the DSA in to govern?

[A]

That's going to say a lot.

[C]

And we will learn in the coming days and weeks.

[B]

My money's on dsa.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So the first deputy mayor in large part runs the nuts and bolts of the city. Who Mandani picks for first deputy mayor will be an important bellwether. The other thing is New York City has a balanced budget requirement. It is the most stringent budget requirements of any major city in the US Governing moderates, people in normal circumstances because, you know, you have to make the numbers balance out somehow. If we have a recession, if we have a federal funding crunch or any number of other contingencies. Well, Mamdani is going to be starting from behind how he manages those challenges concretely, given that he really has not answered for these contingencies in the campaign trail. Like that will be very important, but we will be here for all of it and chronicling it. We're not going anywhere.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

You got anything you want to add?

[B]

I mean, look, I think it's a sad day for New York, to be honest. I mean, I'm generally a relatively happy go. Lucky guy. Those of you who love to insult me on Twitter know that I usually just respond with a funny gif. But this is, this hurts. I mean, I do love this city and I do think it's going to be worse off. I feel lucky that I was able to be in a position to leave the city when we decided that that was the best thing to do for our family. I suspect a lot of other people will make that same choice. But the one thing that guides my work here is that there are a lot of people who can't and they deserve better than Zoram Hamdan.

[A]

Mike, do you have any, do you have any words of wisdom?

[D]

I don't know about wisdom, but it's a prediction. I think that Trump is going to make this his new cathedral. I think he's super. I think he's going to be extremely attracted to New York City. I think it's going to become the canvas for his art. And I think that it's going to be really difficult to discern what's real. Like what is Zoran doing versus what is the noise in the pageantry. They're going to be performing a lot will be crazy. I think it's going to be crazy. I think we're all going to have a lot to write about. Yeah, we'll get to ball.

[A]

I think that's right. I'm going to add to that. You know we are always cautious electoral.

[C]

Politics now zone the ballot proposals.

[A]

Oh well, I don't know what's going to happen.

[C]

Well, I think we'll be okay.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Sorry. Yeah. Let me, let me leave. Closing thoughts. The you know now, now we're in the realm of actual possible decision making now. A 34 year old whose first real job was being state of some and before that he was a rapper is actually the mayor of not a good one. Is what's mayor the largest and most important city Largest in the United States. Arguably the most important city in the entire planet is my response because we're gonna be paying attention and we'll have lots of opinions of what's happening. Listeners, thanks so much for joining us. Cityjournal subsac.com mikepyron.com, go subscribe the great morning email. We also send out stuff sometimes I feel like we can call it there unless. No, we're good.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Thank you all so much. Thank you, Mike. You're the best.

[D]

Thanks for having me. Bye, guys.