Bob Hart (7:45)

Thank you.

Sally Goldenberg (7:45)

Thanks for having us.

Ben Max (7:47)

So we're speaking here on Monday, April 13, which is day 103 of Mayor Mamdani's tenure. One day after his big celebratory rally in Queens where he was joined by many city workers and many supporters and his political hero, Senator Bernie Sanders, joined him on stage for a mid speech interlude to tout the benefits of democratic socialism and how you can be a democratic socialist who cares about the nuts and bolts of governing and the big political project of a more equal society. So before we dig in on Mamdani, Bob, maybe a little 100 mayoral days perspective New York mayors and history here. How do you think about the first hundred days of mayors and any historical sort of precedent here that you think about or anecdotes that come to mind when we're evaluating a new mayor and their first hundred days in office?

Bob Hart (8:38)

Well, it's really funny because Sally and I are both on here because we have institutional memory, supposedly. I have to admit I had institutional amnesia until one of our reporters, Bobby Kuza, was looking at what a recent mayors done over the first hundred days. I had thought that Mamdani was really being sort of narcissistic by doing a big hundred days thing. And then I realized after Bobby showed me like, oh wait, this is something most mayors do. It's something that FDR made historically important by doing so much in his first hundred days in office in D.C. in the White House. So lots of mayors have tried to tie a bow around their first hundred days achievements. Talking about housing in some cases. Fighting crime was obviously a big priority of Rudy Giuliani's taking over from David Dinkins. In Michael Bloomberg's case, the city was still recovering from 9 11. So that was a big part of the first hundred days. How are you going to rebuild New York? And then for Bill de Blasio was sort of hitting a reset. We hadn't had a Democratic mayor in more than 20 years. And so trying to put a Democratic veneer back on the city finally. I'd also forgotten this. How did Eric Adams have to deal with his hundredth day in office? He got Covid. That was another thing the city was recovering from in his first few months was coming out of the pandemic. So these are all the different kind of challenges the mayors have had. And with with Mamdani, obviously it's dealing with administration that was just mired in corruption and a mayor who sort of had checked out by the, by the time he was leaving Office to where we are now. So those are the. That's my 100 days. Cliff's notes.

Ben Max (10:11)

Appreciate it. Sally, your thoughts covering mayor's past. How do you think about 100 days? And does it matter? Does it not matter? What, what should we be doing here marking 100 days? I guess if the mayor makes a big deal about it, we better pay attention and evaluate to. Right.

Sally Goldenberg (10:26)

Yeah. I mean, I think it matters because we all decided it matters. It doesn't, like, actually signify anything other than like, it's a time that everybody kind of has decided both the mayor's Donnie and those before him and the press corps to take stock of what a mayor has done. And so insofar as, like, it's now part of the, you know, a little bit of the tradition, it matters in that way. And I do think, like, by this point point, a new mayor has gotten through some snowstorms and he's gotten through his first preliminary budget, and he's gotten through the beginning of his or is in the thick of his negotiations over the budget with Albany and with the city Council. And that's true of every mayor. So it's actually like, not a bad time to say, like, okay, how is this person acclimating to this new job?

Ben Max (11:16)

Yeah. And so much of what's going on in a mayor's first hundred days is staffing up, dealing with the unexpected or semi expected, like snowstorms. But there's always things that happen. It's New York City. There's incidents. There's, you know, Mamdani got sort of punched in the face by two storms and several, you know, police involved shootings, you know, the snowball fight that went awry in Washington Square park that also dealt with the police. So, you know, a variety of things that pop up. But then at the same time, you're putting your administration together and as you got it there, you have to go to Albany with some, you know, what's your agenda? Almost every mayor comes in because of the power dynamics at play and wants something big, at least one thing from the state government. And you have to win that in your first, you know, basically first hundred days to, you know, to accomplish something you probably have promised on the campaign trail, obviously, Bloomberg with mayoral control of city schools, de Blasio with help with universal pre K. So, you know, Mamdani's got his agenda. And as we're Speaking here on April 13, there's no state budget yet, but it's expected any day now. So, you know, some interesting dynamics there. Bob, if you had one or two things that stood out to you most about Mamdani's first hundred days. What would it be? Is it style, aspects, is it substance? Anything that's most top of mind for you when you're thinking about this new, this new era, as they say?

Bob Hart (12:40)

It's a little bit of both. I think. He's shown himself to be very quick study with the granular stuff that mayors do. He wants. He's embracing the idea that he's pothole politics. Was the sign we saw at the rally yesterday, the idea that sure, he might be ideologically to the left, but he knows what the day in and day out part of the job is. That obscures though are some of the big promises that have been made that as all people who suddenly become executive realize, Jesus wasn't so easy. I can talk about this on the campaign trail, but it's a lot easier getting free buses for everyone in New York City. It's not easy just taxing the rich. It's not something that I can just wave a wand and do even with rent. It's only going to apply if there's a rent freeze, rent stabilized tenants. So there's that. But I do think he does have one semi big win, which is getting the at least a pilot program for what will be like 2k in parts of the city, which is a big deal if you live in one of those neighborhoods. And eventually that's going to be expanded. So that's a win. But I think to your original question, I think the retail stuff, he's just doing stuff every day and it looks like he's enjoying doing the stuff every day.

Ben Max (13:51)

Sally, what stood out to you? You also, if you want to add to this, you interviewed him at City hall with your colleague Dana Rubenstein just ahead of the hundred days and had a lot of great coverage in the Times based on that interview and much more obviously if you're reporting on him and the administration. What has stood out to you from this, you know, the start of this new era, specifically, any other things that stood out from sitting down with him at City hall as he was reflecting on this first hundred days?

Sally Goldenberg (14:19)

Yeah, thank you for that. I think in addition to. I don't want to repeat what Bob said. So a lot of what he said has kind of made an impression on me. I think one area where the mayor seems to be really enacting his agenda is through the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Commissioner Sam Levine seems very empowered to really like go after companies that he believes are bad actors. Sue them, put out policy papers on them. I think they pretty sure they said that they've clawed back over $9 million so far. And so I think that's a really interesting area to pay attention to because it's hard. And we, you know, kind of made this point in the story. It is hard for any mayor. This isn't specific to Mamdani to like enact a socialist agenda. You're in a capitalist city. Wall Street's a few blocks away. The governor kind of controls everything. The federal government controls interest rates. You know, there's just not that much Amer can do to actually enact socialism. Which is why you see Mamdani doing what he's calling pothole politics, which is like modern day take on sewer socialism. So that he's saying, one, like, yes, socialists can govern. And that's really important for him to say because critics think that lefties can't govern. Two, kind of giving people something tangible because so much of what he would like to do is out of his control. And so I think this agency and this commissioner who's, you know, seems very animated and very empowered. I think that's going to be an avenue, you know, through which Mamdani is able to actually, like, enact some of this and like go after corporations that he and Commissioner Levine are believe are bad actors and like, you know, really do something textured that people will look at and kind of point to and say, okay, that's different. I mean, the agency existed before and did this kind of work before. But there does seem to be like a really strong emphasis on it right now.

Ben Max (16:13)

Right. Including under the commissioner at the time, the city, current city council speaker, Julie.

Sally Goldenberg (16:18)

That's right, Julie Menon. We should definitely talk about Menon and Mumdani. Right, right.

Ben Max (16:22)

You know, I found if you paid very close attention to the campaign, I don't think there's that many things that are surprising to you. 1. Now, in terms of Mamdani seemed to me almost surprisingly and to me refreshingly aware on the campaign trail that, that there was this big, outstanding question about whether progressives can really govern. That he knew that if he got in there, especially as turning 34 years old, as he would be coming into power, not having experience in city government, having barely any real government experience or even professional experience given his age, that he would have so many questions about his ability to govern. And he acknowledged that on the campaign trail a lot and talked about public excellence and all these things that I think a lot of people, if you paid close attention, were kind of like, you know, it perked your ears up because it wasn't him just talking about the big, you know, sort of ideological mission. And I think he's followed through on that to a degree I didn't even expect having, having noticed all that in the campaign. The degree to which he's really leaned in on this, you know, pothole politics. Which strikes me as funny given how much potholes is sort of aimed at drivers and so much of Mamdani's basis, people who take the subway and buses everywhere. And of course, you know, potholes can mess things up for buses too. But like, I don't know, that struck me as, as funny and ironic to a degree that he was really put into, you know, office by people who take mass transit. And potholes are such a symbol of drivers. But again, it's obviously also a symbolism about making government work and tackling the small things. And he's really reinforcing that. I'm curious and Bob, I'm interested in your thoughts and Sal, you too. I have been fairly adamant that, you know, there is something here that is Mamdani sort of picking up the progressive baton after four years of Eric Adams from the de Blasio years. And of course the de Blasio project got really rocked off track by two things. One was his interest in trying to become president and his national profile and all of that and his own sort of personal flaws. And then of course, Koch, Covid. And so there were all these issues around the de Blasio tenure, some of which were under his control and some of which weren't, but that, you know, then you sort of had this end of the eight years of progressive governance under de Blasio, crime rates had spiked. The electorate wanted, you know, a more public safety minded mayor went with Eric Adams. That didn't work out, you know, for him and for the city really, given all the corruption and cronyism and so forth. And now we have Mamdani sort of recognizing again what's really been the crisis of New York City. Crime always matters, public safety always matters. But the crisis of New York City for at least 15 plus years, which is the deep, deep affordability challenges. And so Mamdani sort of picked that back up, but with, I think this greater recognition of government really needs to also be showing all the time that it's doing the basics. How do you think about that, Bob? How do you think about what we're hearing from Mamdani is, am I making too much of that? Is it, is it an extension of the de Blasio years or no, I

Bob Hart (19:34)

think your thesis is sound. It's funny. In 2001, when then Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferreira ran for mayor, he ran on this platform about there being two New Yorks. And that was successfully used against him by people saying, oh, you're trying to divide the city. His Democratic rival, Mark Green, oh, this is horrible. But then the message is sort of won. It was a message that Bill de Blasio took. But right before the pandemic, our Courtney Gross did a story about, are the two New Yorks any closer together after X number of years of de Blasio, the thing was, we actually found. We were shocked. We thought the answer was going to be the opposite, that the poverty had gone down. All these indicators that the de Blasio people had been seizing on. We actually did a better job at finding this out than them telling people this. And I think that the de Blasio administration, I think, was a record low for crime in 2019. I'd have to look at the numbers

Ben Max (20:27)

was before COVID right around. It was either close or record, for sure.

Bob Hart (20:31)

Like the. The story of the Blasio remarkably changed, understandably because of COVID and, and how he handled it. And also, you're right, he was very distracted instantly about national politics. He didn't seem to really be interested in the job all that much. And now we're seeing similar policies. To your point, Dean Fulahan, who's the first deputy mayor, who's a veteran of the de Blasio administration. So this might be just like a smarter, slicker de Blasio administration in some ways, but the communication abilities that. This is why we have a mayor de Blasio, I think, have been really. Yeah. Have been really, really in effect, for Mandani in a way that we never really saw that for Bill de Blasio.

Ben Max (21:15)

Well, and Bill de Blasio, especially as mayor Sally, wasn't good at acknowledging mistakes. But one of the things he even did say while he was mayor and he's. He'. He's been more, you know, had more perspective since he left office. But as mayor, he repeatedly cited. Again, this is sort of a cop out answer. But he still did cite that he. His communication with New Yorkers wasn't as good as it should have been. Now, that was a way of him saying, we're doing so many great things and not enough people know about it. Okay, fine, but which was actually my point.

Bob Hart (21:44)

We did a better job finding out about the poverty rate than them putting it out.

Sally Goldenberg (21:47)

Right.

Ben Max (21:47)

And you Talk to people veterans of the de Blasio years and you know, they'll express frustrations that the mayor wasn't taking enough time to trumpet the small wins and wasn't sort of owning enough media cycles and blah, blah, blah. And Mamdani again, seemed to sort of know that you have to. Seems to know and seem to know in the campaign and now into governance that you basically have to be telling a story every single day. I don't know how long he can sort of keep this pace up for, but it's interesting in the approach. Sally, you know, what are you seeing day to day? How are you seeing sort of his city hall and this mayor trying to sort of sell the story, set the narrative and all of that.

Sally Goldenberg (22:29)

Yeah, I think communications are really central for him. Like, I feel like mayors typically value one kind of prong of governing over another. And it's like some are very policy driven. Like, I think Mike Bloomberg was very big on policy and really empowering commissioners to do, you know, things he thought were, were interesting and innovative, especially around transportation and schools, controversial things in the pd. But either way, it was like policy and commissioner independence really drove his merrilty. For Bill de Blasio, it was politics, particularly. He's a political operative and politics was center stage. His intergovernmental division was really the heartbeat of his administration. And some of that is because he had to deal with Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was a much more complicated figure to deal with than Governor Kathy Hochul, who I can think, we can all agree is easier to deal with. And also it was just his interest in his orientation was he was a political animal and he was not focused on communications, seemed to resent it and wasn't. I thought he was fine on TV, but like, wasn't especially good at like, getting his message out. And I agree with you, that can be used as a cop out. But he's not wrong. Like, his, his own calm skills or even his skills, his interest in communicating his story was like nil. With Mamdani, it seem like the intergovernmental politics do not seem central at the moment. I would say communications is his kind of bread and butter, but that doesn't mean he's. I mean, he definitely like comes through the traditional press and he pitches stories and there's, there's. That happens. But the real, like, takeaway is the way in which he communicates to New Yorkers directly through social media and through his videos. And they reach millions of people. And he's doing it, I think one, because it's a medium where he excels. He looks and sounds good when he does that. And two, I mean, let's be honest, he's circumventing a more critical eye in the New York City press corps, and all mayors would like to do that. He just has a base that is, you know, a bit younger and a bit more attuned to social media. Eric Adams tried to do this, but really. And was, I thought, in his own way, quite a good communicator, all other things, all other problems notwithstanding. But he had an older base that read traditional media, watched tv, and Mamdani doesn't. So he's really capitalizing on how his base consumes information and his own natural abilities. And he is communicating everything he does in, like, these sharp, visual, vivid kind of ways. And it's serving. I think, as of now, it's serving him. His numbers are decent, his polling numbers are decent. I'm a member of the press corps, so I'm always going to think that it's really important to go through the traditional press corps, and we're here whether you do or not. But, you know, you have to hand it to him like, he is very creative about communicating.

Bob Hart (25:26)

Well, actually, there's a great moment in the inner circle skit that the mayor put on in responding to the reporters in a video. There's a video where Curtis Sliwa asks him, Curtis Lee was playing the role of a doctor. What do you do? What do you do for a living? And Mamdani says, I'm a content creator. I do a little bit of governing as well on the side. And like any great joke, there's some truth to that. Sure. That, that he's making these. He's making these videos that are very powerful. And you're like, does he have time to actually, like, sit down with Dean Fulahan and talk about the budget? But the videos, they're speaking to his audience. And it's funny talking to his communications team. They. They almost. They know their base is the young people. So the traditional media, we're like their outreach for older people, basically. The New York Times in New York 1.

Ben Max (26:14)

Well, and, you know, I also think it's important, you know, to your. To both these points that, that they're doing all of the above. Right. They're taking an approach that is, they're not shying away, as you said, Sally, from the traditional media, but they're also doing their own content and they're trying to reach out to all sorts of new media. And I don't know the value of, you know, the different ways they're interacting with independent influencers and all that. But that's, you know, that's part of the reason is, you know, that I'm not part of that group. So, you know, but they're doing that as well. They're doing all of it. It again, how much they can keep this up, how well they can keep it, you know, greased and going is. Is, you know, are interesting questions. I also want to say, though, correct me if you disagree with this. His hundred days, you know, are pretty similar to what I've seen. You know, I covered the first hundred days of Adams and of de Blasio. I wasn't around for the beginning of Bloomberg or others. You know, both those mayors came in. Now Mamdani's done it with probably a. More. More close to Adams in terms of the energy and the pace and all that. You know, de Blasio was always a little bit slower and, and all that. But, you know, new mayors come in, they're filling potholes, they're doing the photo ops, they're taking credit for what, you know, was underway under their predecessors. Maybe they're making some splashy announcements about things that they're restarting that their predecessor had canceled or, you know, taking things in a different approach because elected to take things in a different way. But other than some of the pace of things under Mamdani and again, some of this sort of all of the above communication and a little bit of, you know, this and that, it still strikes me as a pretty similar regular way that mayors do the first hundred days. Agree, disagree.

Bob Hart (28:02)

I mean, every, every mayor's had a different. Like I said earlier in our conversation, every mayor's had a different set of challenges. I mean, think about John Lindsay and her first day. There was a massive subway strike. That was hugely his problem. So I feel like the thread that most of them have had had been some sort of a crisis. And I think the mayors, this wasn't recovering from 9, 11 or a once in a century pandemic, but like the snow melt, the snow and then the deep freeze. I mean, we forget now, but everyone was miserable for weeks on end. And that really did present a challenge for him was that, okay, the snow's been picked up, but people are having problems walking around the city.

Ben Max (28:40)

Yeah. You know, one thing I think that's interesting is, is he and his team recognizing something of a formula that's like, you know what, there's a lot of appetite in this city for progressive, technocratic government. Right. That there's a lot of interest in a mayor that will focus on inequality, affordability, but also really dig in on making government work and sort of merging some of these threads that we've seen of. Of recent mayors while also having this sort of energy, New York City patriotism that Eric Adams had coming in. And obviously then, you know, he was befallen by so many scandals and problems, you know, but we have seen under, you know, Koch to a degree and Dinkins to a degree with, you know, the gorgeous mosaic and all of that that we've seen Mamdani celebrating, you know, faiths and everything. So he's, you know, it seems like there's a lot of threads he's trying to merge that maybe create, you know, a sauce of what lots of New Yorkers are really wanting from their mayor. But again, it's hard to keep up all of those things and do all that.

Bob Hart (29:48)

The other thing that he's done that the other. Other mayor, New mayors have done, too, is blame your predecessor.

Ben Max (29:53)

Sure.

Bob Hart (29:53)

And. And that's. That's a beam on. It's like one of his first days in office trash. Lindsay saying, oh, the city's much worse financially. We're hearing that right now from the current mayor saying Adam's sort of cooked the books and the city was in much worse dire financial situation than he originally thought before he entered office.

Ben Max (30:12)

Sally, what do you think? You know, he hasn't done that well so far or biggest mistakes? I mean, Bob makes, you know, I was going to ask you this anyway, but Bob, of course, makes me think of how he's handled the budget picture and threatening this property tax increase that then, you know, he said he didn't want to do, but still has even run away from further than that. Nobody wants that. He's gotten no support for that. What, What. You know, what. Have there been big mistakes so far? Have there been areas of most, you know, question. Biggest question marks? What would you put in sort of the demerit column of the first hundred days and how he's doing and make

Sally Goldenberg (30:48)

me do the tough list? Yeah, I think so. No, no, it's fine. I. I do play this role. I would think of it in two different categories. One is, like, things that I think are political missteps. And I think the one that you have teed me up for is the one I would have answered with, which is threatening a property tax increase of nearly 10% to balance a budget, only to kind of walk away from it almost instantaneously when he learned how unpopular it was. So why he didn't know how unpopular that would be, I'm not clear on. He was hoping to pressure Governor Hochul into raising taxes on millionaires, which is a much more popular thing to do. Not with them, perhaps, but with the Democratic base. But he had already endorsed her in the primary and worked with the Working Families Party to kind of get her lackluster opponent, her Lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, out of the race, thereby kind of rendering his leverage moot. By the time he was threatening her with a property tax increase. So it was a political misstep, I think. By any measure, I suspect he will get enough, you know, help from Hochul. Revenue will come in higher than expected. He will balance the budget because he's legally required to. And, you know, my guess is he does that without a property tax increase. The other kind of unintended consequence for that with him is that he really helped Julie Menon, the City Council speaker, unify her caucus. She has a lot of dissension. She's. She's a centrist. She doesn't like that word, I should say, because she's not here to defend herself. But I would call her a centrist. I think you guys probably would, too, in this day and age. And there's a progressive caucus in the council that definitely agrees with Mamdani more than her, but they don't like the body being attacked. And so Mamdani really helped her with her caucus, which doesn't inertia his benefit, then I would. So I would say that in my estimation is like the biggest mistake. There are things that it's not for me to say are a mistake, but that his base was not happy with. I mean, privately, sources have told me that the DSA was not happy that he endorsed Hochul without extracting any sort of a commitment, at least one that we know of, of a future tax increase on the wealthy. She may do it. And maybe he got that and we just don't know about it. He also walked back a commitment he made on the campaign trail to fully fund and expand a housing assistance voucher program called City faps. It's tremendously expensive. Again, not for me to say it's a mistake, but there are people at Legal, the Legal Aid Society, and others for whom they feel this was like, you know, a real kind of reneging on a core campaign or not a core campaign pledge. A campaign pledge that, like, very poorly has to do with affordability. And some think that keeping Jessica Tisch as police commissioner was a mistake. Many people don't think that was A mistake. But I just want to give like airtime to the fact that that was a controversial thing for him to do, given his position on police reform and his base and the fact that she's like a die hard, you know, kind of like hardcore police person and doesn't agree with him on a lot of issues and those have come to the fore.

Ben Max (33:57)

Right. She's kind of an incremental reformer, wants the department to be run really well and have integrity, which again, was an issue coming especially out of the Adams years, but is not a wholesale, you know, sort of reformer, reinvent the police department, you know, type of police leader. But, you know, the mayor is now advancing his Office of Community Safety, which he hopes will turn into a department, and they have a lot to negotiate around that. And also, as you, you know, got at in your article about, you know, the mayor's sort of learning curve, you know, what's going to happen with some of the. His own police reform promises that he's clearly negotiating and says publicly he's negotiating with his own police commissioner about the gang database and about, you know, the what, what police units respond to protests and, and all that. So there's a lot sort of in the air right now that hasn't been resolved at 100 days. But if Mamdani was going to have a huge crisis in his first hundred days, a crime spike would have been at the top of the list. And we haven't had that right. So that is sort of huge for him. Again, might not have been under his control in any way, shape or form, but he's at least so far avoided that. And that has been sort of vindication in, you know, to, in at least to some people and maybe in just setting the narrative around it that keeping Tish was a good idea. We'll see how it goes in, you know, days, 104 plus. But, you know, but so far it seems to be, you know, at least in the short term, working out for him. Bob, any other mistakes you'd point to? Oh, let me just add. Sorry. To the budget discussion. I do think, and again, I don't know that this seeps through the general public like the property tax increase threat. But I do think he didn't handle the whole budget picture particularly well by, you know, immediately seizing on this $12 billion number over the two years, the current fiscal year, next year, and then very quickly getting it down to seven because he recognized a lot of the increased revenue that people said, you know, should be recognized. And he then he did that and so Immediately it was like 12 billion. Then all of a sudden it's 7 billion, you know, and then he's got it down to 5.4 billion because he got some more money from the governor. So I don't think that made him look particularly good. Maybe that's more to the sort of super insider set. But I think that still matters in terms of how the permanent government folks, you know, view him and how serious he is. And then obviously he got. Got some flack from the ratings agencies because he was also, along with the property tax threat, was including use of reserves when the economy's doing fine, you know, to balance the budget. And that's not really a sustainable way to do it. So I think even more than the property tax threat, you know, the budget. The handling of the budget situation has not been a strong suit.

Bob Hart (36:48)

It definitely gets into his credibility. Can I believe this guy? Just in general, he said one number, one day, before you know it, the number was changing. And so even if it's not that many people, watch, watch. I think you're right. Like, I don't think the average voter cares. It makes people wonder in negotiations with him and stuff behind the scenes, are these numbers solid or not? Talking about. I agree really with everything Sally was saying. The stuff I have would be smaller that we haven't talked about yet. One of them is. Is actually not that big at all. But I was surprised by Is. I don't know who's doing all the scheduling for the. The. For the new mayor, but when elderly people are attacked by someone with a machete at the subway station at Grand Central, and then the cops gun the guy down, this is all the. What the police say, what happened? I preface that. Usually the mayor would be at that briefing. And like, I could think from like, Bill de Blasio to Eric Adam to Rudy Giuliani to Dinkins, they'd all be there. Because this is like, this is the New York stereotypical nightmare that, you know, I'm just standing on the subway and some maniac attacked me and that. And it just plays into that. And I think you want to have the comfort of the mayor telling people, hey, everything's okay. The other scheduling thing that really jumped out at me and the mayor had to do damage control is it's like once in a generation that the city gets a new archbishop and then a person who becomes a cardinal. It's a huge deal. This is a person who's one of the biggest political players in the city, even though the cardinal. The archbishop's not been Elected to anything thing. And in Hicks, the new archbishop, ideologically, I think he probably is very close to the mayor on some issues. And for the mayor not to go to this installation was to me, kind of stunning. You see Julie Menon, who we're talking about, she's sitting, you know, in the front row, smiling like a Cheshire cat. And obviously then the mayor said nice things about the Archbishop. They. At St. Patrick's Day and they've met. But to me, I was surprised that this is a potential. I mean, the. The. His predecessor Dolan, did events with. With Bill de Blasio, and they're very different, I would say so that again, these are not major things, but the things that were on my radar. And I'm wondering who is telling the mayor, hey, we really need to go to this? Or, hey, we really don't need to go to this one.

Ben Max (38:53)

Yeah, those are fascinating choices. I think, you know, again, on the latter, that's the type of thing that can be, you know, splashed across a front page. That, that will resonate with some regular voters. Right. Some regular people. And again, there's many, many people in the city who don't care obviously, about that. But. But that. That will sort of just quickly resonate with people on, you know, their daily lives. Like, voters should have been there.

Bob Hart (39:17)

Yeah.

Ben Max (39:18)

You know, on showing up at the Grand Central Subway crime scene is such a fascinating one, because I've noticed this about a number of other incidents where he doesn't seem to want to go to these things. And he doesn't want to, you know, he, he will address some of them. He obviously had to address the incident right near Gracie Mansion. But, you know, my sense is he doesn't want to own a lot of this and he doesn't want to have to answer those questions. And it's a very interesting sort of PR choice to decide which emergencies and which violent incidents to respond to as mayor. You know, and I think it was something where even Eric Adams did a lot of it early on and then started to skip some more of them when he didn't sort of want to be owning that he hadn't brought crime down quite as much as he had promised. So I think, you know, those are some really interesting choices. So the mayor's biggest campaign promises, let's just spend a couple minutes on those, and I won't keep you guys too much longer. 100 days in, in my view, you know, I think it's a little. A little bit short to judge him on, you know, to what degree he's delivered on some of these like very big promises. But it's important to take stock at this moment. And of course, you know, he's selling progress on some of them. So it's important to evaluate and it's been interesting to watch the mayor and his supporters, they seem to vacillate a little bit on childcare of saying like mission accomplished, we're getting universal childcare done and saying we're. We've announced an important expansion on the road to universal childcare, which is much closer to the truth, of course, and is the truth. Universal childcare from six weeks up, which is the mayor's promise, is, is still very far off. He's made some significant progress in these first hundred days or so. Sally, what else do you see on sort of the major promises? He made a point at his 100 day speech to say we have some new announcements which I don't think they've released all the details of about making buses faster. He's been announcing some incremental pieces of that on the way, but free buses is not happening anytime soon. But under the mayor's control he can really work on making buses move faster. What do you see on sort of the big promise front from him, the

Sally Goldenberg (41:38)

one that I think he'll be able to accomplish in completion will be when the rent guidelines board votes in May or June, it appears that they will vote for a rent freeze. I mean one can't predict that in advance, but it seems to be going in that direction. He has, I believe, appointed the majority of the nine member board at this point. And the data seems to, you know, that's come out so far on costs over the last year would indicate that they would seriously consider a rent freeze. And that would be for the city's million or so rent stabilized units. And that would be for one year leases I believe. So I think he'll be able to say he accomplished that, you know, if we check back in in six weeks and that, you know, and that will give him kind of a clean wind, so to speak, to put it in like crass political terms. He started, he ran on five city run supermarkets, one in each borough I think. And he announced the first yesterday would be in East Harlem at La Marquetta, that the city owns the space and will operate a supermarket out of, as you noted, child care is extremely expensive and logistically hard to do. And he got some early money from Governor Hochul and that was enough for him to say credibly that he's expanding it. But to make it universal, I mean that's probably the hardest and most expensive thing on his agenda. And the bus is. Yeah, he needs, he needs the mta, which he doesn't control. He needs more money. I mean, that's, that's pretty far away from happening. He didn't say he would do all of these things. And to be fair to him, he never said, like, in 100 days, I'll do these things. But yes, they're the. I think the buses in universal child care are, you know, fairly far away. Right.

Ben Max (43:30)

And again, I mean, he was saying in the campaign, you know, during my first term, or even sometimes saying during the time I'm mayor, which of course could be up to eight years, you know, I'll accomplish these things. So he, you know, but people want to see fast progress and they want to see him deliver, or at least the people who put him into power want to see him deliver on these things. There's plenty of people who don't think they're the right answers. And, you know, there's ways in which a rent freeze could further some of the challenges for a lot of distressed rent stabilized buildings. There's a lot to unpack. But in terms of him delivering to the people who elected him, you know, he's making some progress on some issues. And then I think this idea of really taking on moving the buses faster, even if they're not going to be free anytime soon, you know, is a smart one. And we'll see if he can actually make a real dent there, you know, across a broad swath of the city, not just on certain corridors. I have been having conversations and others have been, too, but even just here on the podcast, talking to, you know, State Senator Gustavo Rivera and the Senate Majority Leader, Andre Stewart Cousins, in recent weeks, and it seems like restarting a free bus pilot in the city is very much on the table in state budget negotiations. So we'll see if he can get, you know, again, a little incremental win there on that. Bob, anything else on. On big promises and delivering, not delivering and all that. I think the grocery stores is another very controversial one, which again, is. Is going to be very incrementally done. To me, this seems like one of the biggest areas of risk for him is putting a whole lot of political and actual financial capital into these things and then having them not work or, you know, put nearby bodegas out of business or whatever might happen. You know, these seem like a much riskier sort of promise than, than some of the others. But what are you thinking about some of the big Promises, definitely.

Bob Hart (45:20)

It's going to be the most watched small grocery store in our lives. People are going to talk. The flour is bad. It's expired. But getting back to the original question, I think a win for him is a campaign promise that he's not going to keep keep, which is giving up mayoral control of city schools. It was always sort of confounding to me is the further along he'd go on the campaign trail, the less excited he sounded about getting rid of mayoral control. And like you still, it was still pulling teeth. Our education reporter Jill Jurgensen would comment like, I think he's against marital control. He says he's against marital control. Anyways, it's very clear now that he wants to retain marital control of city schools. Usually if you're elected official, you don't want to voluntarily give up power. I also think that veterans of the Dinkins or Giuliani days might have said, you probably weren't here when we didn't have mayoral control of city schools. And let me tell you about what a massive political headache it was with the board of education, school board elections that no one voted in, filled with cronyism, corruption. So someone got to the mayor and said, you want to run the school system, you want to run the police department, you want to run all these other agencies. So I think that's actually a win for him, even though it goes against what he promised last year, which is he was going to get rid of. Rid of marital control.

Ben Max (46:34)

There is probably, there are probably at least 10 instances of me on this podcast saying, I don't think he actually means that. I think, I think it's something you put on your website when you don't think you're going to win. Which was probably the mindset at the start of the campaign. And it was kind of this old, you know, progressive thought that a lot of progressives have moved away from about, you know, more Democratic governor ordinance, you know, of the school system and all that. Yeah, that was like maybe one of the more predictable shifts of opinion I think we've seen in recent memory. But it's such a good point, and that'll be another test in this state budget is what do they give him, if anything, on an extension? Are they going to, you know, make him come before the legislature, not do it in the budget? Then make him come before the legislature, which, you know, has happened to mayors past. But it seems like they might give him, you know, two years extension and then revisit. And that ties in, of course also with another budgetary and management issue, which is the class size reduction mandates, which he might get some relief on. So very, very interesting there. Sally, you brought this up earlier, and I'm going to let you go in a minute, but will you just say one more word on sort of the intergovernmental stuff? You know, you noted that this was, you know, such a big focus for Bill de Blasio, partly because he had to deal with Andrew Cuomo, but also because he was a political insider mover and he didn't always handle Intergov well, but it was a big focus for him. Mamdani, obviously, huge focus on comms and policy. Intergov has been interesting. He's seemingly first, let me just add to this. He's seemingly handling maybe the most important Intergov relationship fairly well so far for the city, which is Donald Trump, but we don't need to get into that now. Also the second most, or maybe it's the most important, Kathy Hochul handling that pretty well so far. Although I wonder how annoyed she is with him about, you know, all the continued pushes for the tax increases. But say a little bit more about how you see how he's handling, you know, intergovernmental relations. And of course, you know, you're covering City hall the time, you know, the, one of the big aspects of that is the two sides of City hall and the City council.

Sally Goldenberg (48:43)

Yeah, absolutely. And to be clear, I, yeah, I wasn't saying de Blasio did well, just on it to get like, unions in to help him with his politics, in any case. Yeah, I think with Mamdani, I think, you know, he, he won this election, the primary, that is, in this sort of insurgent campaign. And people were like, oh, Cuomo was supposed to be a good politician. Maybe he's not and Mamdani is. And so much of politics is the electoral piece of it. And he did really well. He didn't just win. He defeated an institution and grew the electorate. And so when we talk about politics kind of in the vernacular, I think that's what people think of and that's a big part of politics. But the other part, which is what we're discussing, is how you interact with people behind the scenes who can affect your agenda. So that's like other government officials and, you know, and then like, you know, private sector, permanent government types, labor, you know, religious groups, business community. Anyway, so just to draw that distinction, I think that he, he, he has really struggled with the city council. I, I agree. He's, he's handled Donald Trump. We don't it's like a whole separate conversation. Trump and whether Trump's really going to build on Sunnyside Yards because they had a nice meeting or not. Who knows? Trump's like, can't decide what to do with a war. So I don't think he's thinking about development in New York City at the moment. But certainly those conversations seem to have gone well. Hochul's given him quite a bit of money, although I think Hochul is looking for him to do deeper budget cuts is my understanding from sources. But with the city council, what's like occurred to me, and I referenced this earlier, is that there was an opera first. There was an opportunity to really try to mobilize against Julie Menon, who I think if he had thought about it, would not have wanted her to be the speaker. And maybe he didn't want her to be the speaker. Bill de Blasio successfully campaigned for his preferred speaker candidate. And Melissa Mark Viverito, Eric Adams. Speaker's race was kind of like a hot mess. And then Mamdani, you know, kind of like in fits and starts. His staff got involved, not too much and not on time. And Menon had really sewn up some significant support. But since then, you know, he's, he's kind of like, it turns uninterested and aggressive and neither seem to be working. And I think what has happened with the council, which I sort of alluded to earlier, is that like, instead of picking off the support that he could have naturally picked off with the progressives who don't trust Menon, he's kind of antagonized the institution as a whole, first by proposing a tax increase that they would have had to approve that they were never going to. I mean, these council members are not going to vote for a 10% property or a 9 1/2% property tax increase. So they unified around that, that. And they didn't like his response. He went after Menon. You know, Menon has to kind of constitutionally respond to his budget and he didn't like her response. He did a video going after her. I didn't think it was like that aggressive, but certainly the council took it that way and they rallied once again behind their speaker. And so I think he hasn't really shown inability. And now they're debating whether to allow his Department of Investigation commissioner pick through. They have advice and consent on that. I think that he hasn't really figured out how to, how to split the Progressive caucus away from Menon. That would be the, like, sort of obvious tactic for him to build support within the council, you either do it that way or you do it with money. You know, Bloomberg just gave people not like his own money, but money for projects in their districts. But Mamdani doesn't have that kind of cash right now. So he's struggled with the City Council. He seems to have a decent relationship with Hochul. He doesn't have a lot of major asks in Albany beyond money, which is an, you know, that's a big one. He doesn't have, like, legislative asks where, like, his relationship with the legislative leaders in Albany is being tested. So it'll be interesting when that happens to see how he handles it. But I think, like, writ large, he's more focused on his political Persona externally than internally.

Ben Max (52:55)

Bob, thoughts?

Bob Hart (52:57)

Yeah, I think he's managed up, up very well with Trump and Hochul overall that we haven't seen any public spats. Trump, he's definitely has some of Trump's. He lives in Trump's head to a degree. When John Katz Makitis, the Republican leader, was on inside City hall, he revealed that Trump said to him, what is mom Don? What did mom Donnie say about me? So he, he's clearly on Trump's mind. I think he's avoided any public spats with the governor. Ironically, I agree with, I think everything Sally was saying, saying he's not as good. You know, he's punching down on the City Council speaker. And I agree we've heard much worse rhetoric come out of city, the west wing of City hall about speakers, you know, back and forth between mayors. But this still, to me, jumped out like, you haven't said anything bad publicly about Donald Trump. You haven't said anything bad publicly about Kathy Hogle. We've heard some bad things about Julie Menon, ironically, the person you're gonna have to work closest with.

Ben Max (53:47)

Yeah, yeah. I think it remains to be seen how big of a miscalculation that was. It was, it really caught me by surprise that he went that hard in. And again, I agree it could have been harder, but it, you know, he went pretty hard at the speaker directly right. As they released what to me was a pretty standard, not that controversial preliminary budget response. And yeah, they don't, you know, he was probably frustrated or wanted to point out in a public way that she was not leading a council that was going to join him in calls for taxes, tax increases in Albany. So he, he's frustrated by that or at least wants to have an enemy on that who's not the governor because he doesn't want to upset her too much. Directly, so. But it still felt like a poisoning of the well inside City hall, no pun intended, that, that just didn't make a lot of sense right now. And I know he has a lot more political star power than Julie Menon, but you can already see how she's changed her orientation to him since then and how, you know, now she or representatives for her are willing to give, you know, a semi critical quote on almost anything that people are reaching out for to react to, you know, the grocery store announcement and things like that. So I think, you know, she doesn't have a ton of reason to stay too close to him. I thought they could have made things work for at least a year before things got more divisive. But, you know, we'll see. They'll come together on a budget in June and, you know, it'll probably all work out at least this year with no, you know, no property tax increase, not a ton of cuts to city agencies. And, you know, Albany will send some money, they'll find some more efficiencies and it'll probably work out for at least this year, you know, but we'll see, we'll see how that goes. Okay, last thing. What's something. Last thing you're watching for moving forward about how Mom Donnie will be doing or big tests that we haven't mentioned yet. You know, one of the things I'll mention and give you a second to think about this is there's been a lot of focus. And Sally, one of your stories coming out of your interview with him was on this about the city's economy and the fact that Mamdani hasn't appointed someone to lead the economic development corporation, edc, that helps the city's, you know, job creation efforts. He talked about this in his hundred days speech without any real specifics, but he talked about keeping the city sort of a global economic leader and made some interesting comments that really raised my eyebrows because it was like, oh, he's, he seems to be responding to some of the criticism there, but we're sort of waiting on what that's going to actually look like in a strategy standpoint. So that's one thing for me watching for is the appointment at edc, the economic growth plan out of the, you know, the city, and then how that sort of ties into some of the other plans. You know, they're going to be putting out a lot of plans in the coming months, you know, now that their deputy mayors and commissioners are all, you know, sort of embedded in city government and that will provide the roadmaps for the next few hundred days. But what's something you're watching for going forward?

Sally Goldenberg (56:49)

Sally I'd say two quick things. One is the labor contracts that are coming due. They're expensive. A lot of the city workforce is under contract and those contracts are coming due. And so he budgeted for kind of as a standard measure, a small increase like one and a quarter percent. The increases always exceed that that. And he does have an existential budget problem that he will solve this year, but that will return next year, especially if he raids the reserves, as he is currently proposed to do to get cash. And so how he funds these increases and how that affects his relationship with labor when he is the mayor who got elected with a lot of working class support and certainly in the general election with labor support, I think that's going to be really interesting. That's a rubber man meets the Road moment. And I'm always I'm also because I too, like buildability. I'm a political animal. I really want to see how he does in this congressional race. He in a few of them. But the particular one I'm interested in is The New York 7. Representative Nydia Velasquez is retiring. She's pretty popular. She's pretty progressive by most people's standards. And she wanted one of her own kind of mentees to run. She's backing Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president. And Mamdani and his political team are backing and actually essentially recruited Claire Valdez, who's in the Queens part of that Brooklyn Queens district. It's a pretty like it got nasty between the two camps. And I think it's an interesting race, a really interesting test of his ability. He should be able to pull out a victory in that district in particular. But in doing so, he he really angered somebody who's kind of a stalwart of what what a lot of people would consider not Mamdani's base, but what a lot of people would consider progressive politics.

Ben Max (58:40)

But it's also, you know, it's indicative even to a different degree of the sort of generational change that Mamdani bodies now. He was you know, that was a little bit more of the generational change of a Mamdani versus a Cuomo. But it's still true here. It's like, you know, yes, she's well respected, but she's leaving. And so he wants to fill a power vacuum when he sees it in an opportunity there. But it is fascinating and it's a great test of city politics where you've got Reynosa, who's been a progressive and a progressive reformer and all of that against the even newer wave of progressives and socialists. So fascinating there. Absolutely. His political capital there will be Very interesting. Bob, something you're watching for moving forward here and then I'll let you guys

Bob Hart (59:22)

two are pretty, pretty obvious how New York City makes out with the state budget. It's already late. What will be in there, what won't be in there? We have a good idea, but it's not clear then, obviously, how do the city budget negotiations go, which we've been talking about for a lot of this podcast. They have been off to a rocky start. The third thing, that's probably less predictable, my third thing is in June, the World cup starts, including in New Jersey across the river. And there's gonna be a lot of visitors here. And I'm curious with the city being in the international spotlight even more. And then with this July 4th, 250th anniversary of July 4th celebration, New York, which is definitely becoming a thing now in terms of like, how is the city handling this? Is the president going to be here? Is the president going to go to Gracie Mansion and sit down with the mayor? All of these things. I think it's going to be a very busy June, July politically for the mayor. The congressional primaries for sure, that we've been talking about. But just like what happens when something bad happens at the World cup or good happens at the World cup, what happens with Donald Trump comes here and is there going to be like a big ball drop or not? We're hearing different stories about whether there'll be a time square ball drop on July 4, which could be a huge headache too, for the city as well, but also a chance for the city to shine.

Ben Max (60:39)

Wow. All right. I'm not even going to think about adding to the list, even though I want to. I started us off, so I'll leave it there. Even though this, there's, there's that and so much more. But Sally Goldenberg, Bob Hart, really appreciate all the time and thoughts. Thank you very much.

Bob Hart (60:53)

Thank you.

Sally Goldenberg (60:54)

Thank you. It.