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Taking Stock of Mayor Mamdani's First 6 Months, with Matt Wing
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Strategist Matt Wing joined host Ben Max to analy…
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Foreign.
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Hello and welcome to Max Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in. Coming to you on Thursday, July 9, 2026. When June ended, so did the first six months of Zoram Mamdani's tenure as mayor of New York City. And as that marker hit, Mamdani had quite a confluence of events as he hit the six month mark, the passage of his first city budget as mayor, which happened right before the end of June deadline for the start of the new fiscal year July 1st. It's a massive $125.8 billion spending plan. And right before that, Mamdani got a big win as the New York City Rent Guidelines Board passed his promised rent freeze on roughly 1 million rent stabilized apartments. And just before that, Mamdani had a series of political wins as his endorsed candidates won several U.S. house of Representatives and state legislative Democratic primaries. And that was all just the last week of the first six months. But there's a lot to discuss for the entirety of the six months Mamdani has been mayor so far and to look ahead to in what comes next. And I'll be joined momentarily by Matt Wing, a veteran strategist and communications professional who's the founder and CEO of of the firm Wingspan that does communications, marketing strategy and video production. He was an Advisor on Adrian Adams's Democratic primary campaign for mayor in 2025 and to Catherine Garcia's campaign in 2021. He has a long history in public and private sector communications, including work for then Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, then Governor Andrew Cuomo, the company Uber and others. Matt and I will talk about how Mayor Mamdani has done so far on policy and politics, what to make of the 34 year old Democratic socialist mayor who's taken New York and to an extent national politics by storm and the larger movement he's part of what role Mamdani might play in the upcoming elections in New York and beyond, his relationship with other key figures like Governor Kathy Hochul and more. Before I bring Matt Wing on to discuss Mamdani's first six months as Mayor of New York City. Very briefly, if you missed any recent episodes of the show, I a series of great post primary conversations with guests to discuss the outcomes of the June 2026 state and federal primaries in New York, including New York City Public Advocate Jumani Williams, the Chair of the New York State Democratic Party, Jay Jacobs, Brad Lander, who's now the Democratic nominee in New York's 10th congressional district, unseating Congressman Dan Goldman there. Julia Salazar, a state senator from Brooklyn and one of the first DSA officials elected to the state legislature in this new wave of DSA ascension back in 2018. She won her election. Also recently spoke with Jordan Wright, the Manhattan assembly member who's part of a Harlem political dynasty and was in June the only candidate to defeat a DDSA backed challenger. DSA won all of their other state and federal primaries in the city, but Jordan Wright was able to hold off his left wing challenger. So plenty of good ones in the feed for you if you've missed any after you listen to this one, of course. Matt Wing is here. Matt, thanks for joining me. How are you?
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I'm good. Thank you as always for having me on.
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B
Thanks for coming back. So we'll dig into a lot on Mom Donnie's first six months here, but from sort of a communication strategy, messaging angle. What are you seeing from him and his administration here in the first six months? How do you sort of see them communicating with the public, dealing with the press, talking, you know, to the broader world about, you know, who this guy is and how he's being mayor? What are you seeing so far?
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He and his team are running the best communications and social strategy of any elected official in America and any that I've ever seen in my lifetime. I basically feel like a huge dinosaur watching what they're doing on social and all the new cool ways they're communicating to me. Like the top title is he's the Mayor of Fun. He's jumping in a pool with a suit that is one of his highest viewed videos on Instagram, 10 million views. He's doing a World cup raffle, 22.6 million views. He's, you know, his other top views are childcare with Cardi B. That has fed in addition, like pretty favorable press coverage all around. Some skepticism in some of the insider publications, but I doubt any real people see it. Um, and yeah, I mean like I would be an idiot for saying other, anything other than this guy is a great communicator and his team is making
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B
the most of it. I don't spend a lot of time on Instagram, but I understand he's got close to 12 million followers there and as you're you're getting at sort of racks up a lot of attention by video and we knew that was part of the strategy in the campaign. Mayor of Fun, is there any downside there? Is there any risk there? I mean, sometimes. I mean he got elected by younger voters so it seems like that makes sense to continue to lean into a lot of that and giving people that messaging. But is there any concern right now that he's not coming across across as sort of traditionally mayoral enough or substantive enough? What do you. What are you seeing on that front?
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I think the only risk is if you dip into a real crisis for the city, which we haven't had happen yet, and then the advantage of being the mayor fund starts working against you because people start saying, hey, you're not taking really serious issues seriously. He hasn't had that happen yet. Every mayor since from Bloomberg, de Blasio and Eric Adams has had something in their first term that was an unexpected crisis. From Eric Adams, it was undocumented people being sent up from Texas and Florida, which he then had to shelter and provide education for. For Bill de Blasio, it was, ironically, his relationship with the police, even though crime went down on his watch. And for Mike Bloomberg, it was trying to build the city out from 911 and then as a result, instituting a property tax hike. So, look, I'm not good at prediction because I've gotten every prediction I've ever said wrong, but something I think to watch out for is there are some real serious challenges that could come our way. And in that instance, being fun will not help you. It will hurt you.
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B
I want to ask you what's top of mind there when you say challenges could come our way. I do think we've seen from Mamdani, him trying to take serious things seriously. Right. We've seen him try just even recently to be very on top of this heat wave that we just had. I think they learned some lessons from the early cold snap where they were a little bit caught off guard. Again, they had barely been in office. But, you know, I don't think they were out there right away with all the communications that, you know, they have come to realize you have to sort of really continue to flood the zone, as they know generally. But I think they were caught a little off guard by the cold snap around the storms at the beginning of the term. So we've seen them react to that and then try to replicate some of that with the heat wave. We saw him out there the other day around a police involved shooting, you know, having a very serious press conference. None of these are like the major ongoing crises that you're talking about there or something like Covid or something like that. But, you know, I do think we see, you know, the mayor and his administration trying to also make sure they're Taking care of a lot of the serious bases. And we've seen them focus on the substance a lot with his, you know, pothole politics and things like that as well. What's top of mind for you when you say, you know, challenges that could come the city's way?
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So, I mean, I think you bring up a good point on immediate crisis response. That's always part of the mayor's job. And there will always be that, those things coming up probably like every month at two months. But I think when you look at the long term, the biggest risk is around the economic and revenue portion or potential issues that the city will face. So when you look at the jobs that have been growing in the city since 2024, 1 growth has significantly gone down to 0.8% last year. We're continuing in that 0.8% this year, although we haven't seen the first H1 figures. And then when you look at the job creation, what are the number one jobs that are being created? They are in primarily health and social assistance. So low wage, low revenue jobs. Despite that, revenues have gone up beyond the mayor's office's projections. Now, why is that? Well, it's because the bonuses and salaries that we're seeing on Wall street, which are the primary funder of the revenue, have increased. And why is that? Basically, the top tech and AI companies, which have led to the market continuing to boom, many people, myself included, think that at some point we're going to see a market correction or maybe even a market implosion. I am not an expert on stocks. I'm not an expert on Wall Street. That is just gut instinct. But if that were to happen, you know, this, this is an administration that hasn't appointed a president of the edc generally has an antagonistic relationship towards capitalism in the business community, and that's a place where that they're at real risk. If all of a sudden the budget collapses because you don't have the revenue you need, people in the white collar space are out of their jobs, similar to what we saw with the mortgage crisis, well, then it's not very fun. And then also the ideological aspect of the job, which he's really continued to lean into from the campaign to today, serve against you, because those are about values and this would be about a hard reality.
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B
And I know Comptroller Mark Levine is out there warning about AI disruption a lot, talking about whether it could be job losses because they're being replaced by AI work or an AI bubble that could, you know, crash the market in some way. So there's some risk certainly in that area. It seems like though at the moment AI is part of what's increasing, you know, revenue, tax revenue and opportunity in the city. And we'll see what kind of impact it has, especially on some of those entry level white collar jobs that there's so many of in New York City traditionally. Political capital and popularity. The mayor is, it's a very interesting situation and I'm interested in your read on this because he came in super popular to his supporters, but after having won a very narrow general election. Right. Like he, he sort of, you know, didn't have one of these blowouts that we've seen in recent elections where the Democratic nominee just sort of sails to a win. Now it was a special circumstance. He was facing another democr Democrat and Andrew Cuomo and former governor and political dynasty and all that. But still he sort of came in with almost half the city having not voted for him in the general election between Cuomo and Sliwa, but super exciting and popular to his voters. So that's interesting. And now six months in, he seemingly has only risen in popularity among, you know, a number of sort of skeptical New Yorkers who have seen him mostly really trying to focus on the job of mayor and do a lot of the basics and he's appointed a lot of good people and all of that. And then he sort of goes out and adds to his political capital by winning a bunch of these primaries, which again has some people upset with him, including some Democrats, but also sort of gives him more juice. What do you make of the sort of popularity political capital stuff around the new mayor?
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A
Well, first, I think it's important to look at the numbers and the best color comparison is versus the first six months of previous mayors. So Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, their approval, their approval rating was basically the same, 45%, 43%. Mike Bloomberg was hovering at around 50%. Zoram Hamdani is at 55%. So he is by far, well, you know, by a pretty comfortable margin in the last post. In the post 2000 generation, the most popular mayor that we've had in the first six months, all the unfavorables disapproves like you might think, based off of what you said. Oh, his disapprove unfavorable would be higher because his supporters are with him and those who are against him are really mad. Well, that's not true. He has 33% unfavorable, which is about in line with Bill de Blasio. And Michael Bloomberg and lower than what Eric Adams had. So I think that's on the number side. Let's talk political capital. The Knicks win the championship and he runs the table on his congressional endorsements and some state legislative endorsements. That to my mind is maybe the best week any New York City elected official or New York State elected official has had since 2000. The only comparison I can sort of think of, which is not even the same, is when Andrew Cuomo passed marriage equality in his first term, which was a huge surprise. He then marched in the Pride Parade and everyone was just shouting and he was treated like a celebrity. But he didn't have the Knicks winning the championship at the same time. And also he hadn't won a series of what people thought would be close congressional races, but were not. But when you look at those two, I think it's important to look at where the sort of divide in the data is. So a lot of people have been making the case. Well, the lower income folks were with Reynoso and Espeotte and the higher income people and the gentrifiers were with Mamdani's candidates. I don't think that's really true. I think it's actually an age divider, which is the same thing we saw in the MeToo era, the same thing we've seen in a lot of companies. When it comes to Black Lives Matter, there's a huge age gap between millennials, Gen Z versus Boomers. Some of that is anger over the disparity in economic future and optimism. Some of that is just a values thing. And the difference we are seeing is young people who are often considered folks who won't come out for elections are coming out more than they have previously. One big however, and sorry, I'm going on for a long time.
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No, that's fine.
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Again, I'm not going to predict the future because I am bad at predicting things. However, I think it's important to look at the past to inform the present. So when Donald Trump was president in his first term in 2018, we saw a huge surge of unlikely voters and young voters. It crested in 2020, it then went down in 2018, and the Democratic Party as a result returned to a more moderate base. We are seeing to some degree the same pattern emerging, at least in this first cycle, more than in the previous 2018 cycle. More wins, you know, a citywide win, three congressional wins and a lot of state legislative wins. But still, it's sort of like the same up and to the right pattern. We've Seen will it press in the next election and then go down? I don't know, but it's worth thinking about that past pattern. It's either that's the case or there's a fundamental remake of the Democratic Party towards a populist, socialist, anti Israel agenda.
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B
Yeah, very interesting there. As we, as we look ahead to another Trump midterm. This again fits into some other elections that we probably won't talk about, but the ways in which you could have, as you get with just about any president in their first midterm, you know, a backlash to the ruling administration. And you get that which is, you know, can be heightened by, by Trump's dynamics. But we shall see. It's going to be very interesting to see whether there's any element of the moderate backlash to the surging progressives and young, you know, socialist adjacent voters that, that Republicans are predicting and some, you know, sort of moderate to center right voices are predicting. Would be very interesting in coming back to sort of the communication strategy, the, the sort of modern way of doing politics and political communications. And I think this probably, you know, better than me, extends to corporate communications and other things beyond as well, is sort of constant right, flood the zone, constant communications, always be selling. But you also, I think in most cases, especially perhaps politics here, you also have to kind of stand for something and have some substance underneath it. You know, that was a lot of the discussion around the Mamdani campaign was like, you know, a lot of people saying I was just really good on social media. But it was like, well, he's on social media and he's good at it and his team is good at it, but they also have a very clear message and clear promises of policies that he says he'll enact. And those may or may not be good policies for New York and New Yorkers, but they were clear and now he's delivering on them. And again, we can certainly debate if a rent freeze is actually good policy, but there is this approach that is both flooding the zone. I mean, he is all over the place, both in person and on social media. But you also have to have sort of a substance tie in, say a little bit about what you're seeing there. And do you agree that that's the way to do things now, or is there some value in not being a constant presence all the time and not sort of overloading people or being a little sort of two in people's faces?
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A
Well, I think first to start what you mentioned in the campaign, the thing I took away from their winning Campaign and my campaign was obviously not the winning one, was his agenda was focused on outcomes for people that they could understand. Your rent will be frozen, you will get a cheaper grocery store, your buses will be free, and they'll be fast. Right. Most times Democrats talk about what they'll do. He talked about what you'd get. And that is super smart. Any candidate who's not doing that, including national Democrats, in my view, is not evolving to what you need to do. I don't think it was about social media. I think it was about those core values. And you could see it because in his victory night speech he could call out his agenda and everyone could respond because they knew it. That's rare. In terms of flooding the zone, is that bad or good? I mean, like it's working. I don't, you can't argue with success. I was walking down the block today and I saw him talking on one of those like cell phone screens in my feed. Yeah, yeah, that's right in the link towers. I, I, you know, anytime I'm on Instagram, he is constantly in my feed. Obviously like any mayor, he gets a lot of outsized coverage, but he is hard to escape. You could argue perhaps that when you are everywhere talking about everything, people don't know the specific things you're doing. And maybe that's true. I don't know. I guess time will tell. But when you look at his list of promises, rent freeze delivered funding for child care, which by the way was State Senator Zellner's proposal first, but whatever that's delivered, grocery store pilot, it's in motion undelivered fast and free buses. And I don't think he'll get that. And I'm working on the fast part.
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The free part is unlikely.
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Free part also, despite the fact that alliteration makes them memorable, they do not go hand in hand, at least in my view. And then on taxing the rich, he was quick to claim credit, but that wasn't the tax he proposed. So I consider that like a 50, 50 at best.
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Especially because we have nowhere close to. Yeah, yeah, I would not, I would, I wouldn't quite give them 50 on that, but I mean the child care also, I would say significant early progress, but we're, we're many steps away from what the campaign promise was, which was universal free childcare from six weeks and up. I mean that is a enormous child care build out. Now clearly, you know, they're trying to see through the build out of 3K that Bill de Blasio got started and now they're doing the expansion to 2 year olds through 2K with help from the governor and the state. But there's a lot of steps still to come. And obviously, you know, questions were raised about sort of like funding beyond the first two years, which is what Hochul committed to and all of that will get dealt with in due time. But you know, I would just sort of add there's, there's a lot more to prove there. But the rent freeze, obviously, and that, that's the one that I added in the introduction, you know, to. I didn't mention the Knicks championship, but you know, that was right there too. It's like Knicks championship, big primary wins, rent freeze. The city budget deal was a little anticlimactic, but that also came through right after there. So that was really quite a stretch. But yeah, I mean, I think the, the tax increases to fund more of the agenda or just to keep the city budget balanced without having to make a lot of, you know, cuts. That is, that is going to be the next frontier, probably next year. And we know with a lot of these wins, DSA or other lefty candidates in the primaries, there's going to be a much larger left wing contingent heading to the state legislature next year. Obviously we have to see if Governor Hochul wins reelection, which we can get to in a minute. But you know, that's going to be the thing. The day we're talking here on July 8, the mayor and the governor and MTA chair Jan O Lieber and others had a huge press conference event to roll out a joint city state MTA bus plan that again is a huge focus on speeding up the buses, not making them free. That might be a debate for another day. In the city budget. They agreed on an expansion of fair fares, half price Metro cards for people struggling with affordability up to 200% of the poverty line. So affordable transit, and again, that's important because it also covers the subways, not just the buses, which is probably the biggest flaw in the whole free bus idea, but affordable transit. And Mamdani really leaning in with partners on the fast buses part, you know, again, is a significant sort of partial steps towards delivering on that, on that promise. The grocery stores. I don't even know if I want to go there right now. I mean, that one is like perhaps the biggest debatable one about whether this is a good idea at all. And I was frankly a little bit surprised that he was actually moving on it so quickly. I thought that might be one that they sort of pushed to the background. As they're deciding what to focus on and implement. So that one to me actually has a lot of risk to feels like those grocery stores could be boondoggles in building them out. There's all this, you know, all these questions about whether there'll be rough competition for nearby stores that already exist or bodegas. That one to me is a big, a big risk. There again, we can debate about whether these are good policies or not, but it seems like six months in he's making a lot of progress on what he promised to do.
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A
Yeah, but you know, if you're mayor and some of your progress depends on Albany, that's the time to do it. That's when you have the most political capital. That's when you have the biggest mandate. That's when you're most in a position to leverage that mandate. I actually think Governor Hochul's sort of creation of a pied a terre tax was a really smart way to get out of doing attacks she didn't want to do. Implant implementing one that was politically popular and boxing in the mayor into backing it. There was, as soon as she announced it in the Times, a very quick scramble between the city and the state for who was going to take credit, partially, I believe, why the mayor was so quick to film that video. And perhaps, you know, I don't know, billionaires are not the most sympathetic people to complain about things. But you know, maybe an inartful video was because he was trying to claim credit for this so that he could say, I tax the rich. Well, it's not really what he promised. And then all of a sudden like, that's his tax. He can't. If he comes back next year and says, well, I want an income tax, she's going to say, I already did a tax. And you said you taxed the rich. What are we talking about? The second she's got reelection, I think her position will be I don't owe you anything. And it is true that the DSA has put more people in Albany, but last time I counted, they are not in the majority in either the Senate nor the Assembly. And those are institutions that operate on majorities, do have some old fashioned leadership, both in central staff and in their leadership. And I don't. Even if you get both of them on this, the governor is not likely to get behind it. If she didn't do it now in the lead up to her election, why would she ever do it after? Like, it just doesn't make sense, at least to me, I think.
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B
I wonder about that with her, I mean, you know, I haven't been able to really land. I, I go back and forth on that with her because she is, I think she's always. Her center is sort of the center and the center left, right and it's, she's, she calls herself a moderate. She is a moderate. She's from the Buffalo area, represented a red district briefly in Congress. All, all of that obviously has a lot of progressive and liberal tendencies as well, but is a moderate. I think she has very strongly held beliefs that there should be a progressive taxism. But New York has one and it's, you know, there's high taxes and you know, she's as most governors are in touch with a lot of business leaders and wealthy people. She's got to raise a lot of money to run a dominant, you know, statewide campaign. Donors, of course, always want to give to the governor or the mayor in a lot of cases and you know, feel like they're then have some influence and voice and maybe do. But you know, I think she sort of generally believes that taxes are pretty high already, which relatively they are of course in New York compared to other states and that it risks losing some of the people whose tax taxes help pay for things in New York if you continue to raise them. Same on the corporate side with, you know, losing expansion of businesses or, or new businesses. But I don't, I go back and forth about whether she'd be more likely in an election year or after getting reelected to do some small tax increases because I do feel like part of her calculation is around being just not being labeled as someone raising taxes of any kind during an election year, even if it's only on the wealthiest. And also that she's got to, you know, worry about raising money for her campaign. So I don't know.
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A
It's a fair point. You know, we. It'll depend on whether like some have in the past with last names of that rhymes with Shlomo have decided they really want a fourth term and therefore they care about fundraising.
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B
I don't know.
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A
I'm not in the governor's head. I just look from my time there is there, you know, in the chamber in Albany. Certainly my then boss really didn't want to raise taxes as he would often say we have a millionaires tax already which was passed by David Patterson, which has continued since. And I think, you know, if you're the center, center left there is a fear of being behind a tax increase now maybe there's changes to the sales tax or other sort of stuff. But the ideological discordance here, right, is on the progressive socialist left, a anger towards the wealthy and super wealthy. And, you know, yes, the tax is about revenue for needs, but also the tax is about a value statement, at least in my opinion. It's saying, we're not going to let these folks who have accumulated so much wealth and represent the vast majority of wealth both in New York and in this country continue to get away with it. They need to pay a harder price for it. And then on the other side, you know, the center left are saying, oh, no, if you do that, your revenue goes down because they all leave. That hasn't happened in the past. I don't know if it would happen in the future. I do, again, worry about that economic outlook because if you raise taxes, say, on Wall street, while they are such a core portion of your revenue, there's no reason in today's day and age that investment bankers, brokerage firms need to stay in New York City. Like, why does the New York Stock Exchange still exist? I don't know. It could be in New Jersey. And so you could have a real crush on your city budget revenue at a time, by the way, where the city budget revenue grew again, bro, way more than we took in. We took in somewhere around 80 billion. It was 127 billion. And there was a kind of, in my view, a beam, irresponsible move to kick the can down the road on pension payments. That's. I mean, that's for the next person's problem, which is why it's politically popular to do. But we saw that in the Ipeam and Lindsey administration. That's what led to the fiscal crisis in the 70s. And that would be a situation or an unexpected crisis that would not care about ideology, would not care about values, would just be about numbers. And if you got to do layoffs, that's painful.
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B
Yeah, there's, there's a lot there to, to unpack. I, I mean, I also think one of the elements here you got at this is Governor Hochul might win election reelection this year and then decide that that's going to be her last term. I mean, there, you know, we'll see. She seems to have plenty of energy and vigor for the job, but you never know, especially as people are getting older in age. You know, this. I imagine Tom Dinapoli, if he wins reelection this year, will probably be his last turn. You know, there's a lot of this happening, of course.
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A
Will it be his last term?
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B
Well, you never know, will it? You never know. But you know, that type of thing could free her up in different ways to not worry about some of the politics. But again, it is core, I think, to who she is that she doesn't really believe in raising taxes, as she has said, for the sake of raising taxes. Of course, Mamdani's over there going, no, here's the things I want to fund, but she's not there. She's not there with him. I also think the element to this, though, that's at play is what happens here in this general election for governor, around how much she leans into the Mamdani alliance. What's your view on that? What would your advice on that be? Obviously, the governor made a certain calculation after the primary last year. She endorsed the mayor, the now mayor. She endorsed, you know, Mamdani, who had won the Democratic primary. She saw the writing on the wall that he was almost certain to win the general election. She decided to go in with him. He then comes around and endorses her early on this year, which helps get Antonio Delgado out of the race and scare off any other possible lefty sort of primary challenges. So there's something there of a political alliance. They've obviously been working on childcare and buses and other things. It seems like some of her calculation is, I need more New York City Democrats to come out and vote for me, and this guy's got the energy and he can help me get those votes out. Because in 2022, when things were pretty close with Lee Zeldin, it was partly because there wasn't a lot of motivated turnout among Democrats for Governor Hochul, who doesn't have a New York City base. What's your read on that? Do you agree with that? Do you think that would be good strategy for her to really lean in on that? Does it hurt her in the suburbs more than she would be hurt otherwise? What's your sort of read on the Mamdani political capital and Holker relationship when it comes to this specific race that's about to unfold?
- [33:31]
A
Well, you know, obviously Bruce Blakeman is trying to use the association with Mamdani as a negative. And it's fair to say and important to recognize that a statewide election, New York is quite different from a citywide election in New York. You know, Zeldin got awfully close. I would assume part of the rationale of picking Adrian Adams to be lieutenant governor is a thought that Southeast Queens and middle class black voters matter most as the bulwark against the Republican turnout that we may or may not see. And that alliance between them and Westchester and Long Island Democrats is not one that's contrasting. Their values are pretty much aligned. Again, these are older voters, so they're a little more conservative. The word socialism is scary to them. I do not see her leaning hard into the alliance to campaign, nor would I advise it, because at the end of the day, if you're a younger voter, if you're a DSA member or a DSA adjacent member, are you really that motivated to come out for Kathy Hochul? And is the mayor going to lean in the way he did for his congressional candidates? The answer to both those questions is no, at best. Your. Your reaction to her is like, she's fine, but she got booed multiple times by this base because she wasn't supportive of a. Of a tax against the rich. And I doubt they think a pieta terre tax beats that goal.
- [35:00]
B
I think. I think if she wants it, I think he's gonna go hard for her. I. That's what I think. I think if she wants him to really be out there or to be doing videos for her and other things like that, I think he's gonna do it because she has been very helpful to him. And I think he would see it as a further investment in. In next year. And his. His asks, but could be, like I
- [35:23]
A
said, but I don't know.
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B
Like you're getting. I don't know.
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A
That's.
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B
If that would be. It might.
- [35:27]
A
You might say it does more harm than good. I mean, it's. I would be interested in seeing the private polling around that. It was certainly true in at least two of these congressionals. That is endorsement was hugely important. When you looked in particular at the Antonio Reynoso Claire Valdez race, like, that's the most socialist, most liberal district in the state and in the city. As soon as you. As soon as voters knew that Mamdani endorsed Claire, like, the numbers shot up. It wasn't even close. And that was the outcome that we all saw. But I just, again, like, I can't. It's one thing to be running a race where the catch word is Claire was there because she was the first elected official to endorse the mayor. And it's quite another for the mayor, say, to say to his supporters, you got to come out and support Governor Hochul. She's this wonderful lady from Buffalo who did a kind of tax and funded child care. Please do it. I just. I don't know.
- [36:25]
B
I think he can do something better than that based on the buses, stuff the child care stuff the pieta Terror attacks, other help with the city budget. I don't know. There's probably other things I'm not thinking of. I mean, you know, housing stuff. I don't know. I. I could see it if she wants it. You know, you remember in 2022, people like Mark Levine and the Working Families Party started to really sound the alarm that the gubernatorial race was getting closer. They were worried about turnout. Again, I don't know how much impact it had, but certainly they did something to help, you know, ensure that Hochul didn't lose. I think there could be that level of. Again, the dynamics are different here with a Trump midterm. Blakeman, I don't think is anywhere near as strong a candidate as Zeldin. Maybe you disagree, but I think there's going to be a level of concern again, because Hochul doesn't have the New York City base and doesn't, you know, just isn't like a real sort of star vote getter. I think there's going to be some real concern they might circle the wagons there. I do think there's a question of does that turn, you know, more Long Islanders off than it helps? I don't know. Mamdani's polling across the state pretty well. So, you know, he, again, it's early in his tenure, but it's not like he's just, you know, racking up his numbers in New York City. He's got some decent numbers, you know, in other parts of the state as well. So we'll see.
- [37:54]
A
We shall see.
- [37:57]
B
What do you make of how Mamdani, six months in, is handling the Trump relationship? Seems like the obvious answer is like he's handling it pretty well. Trump seems to love him. He charmed him. There's been no huge decreases in federal funds to the city. There's no been no huge increases in immigration raids, even though that is, you know, a major issue. And we've seen challenges around that, around people at, you know, immigration court hearings trying to just do what they're supposed to do, getting. Getting snatched and taken away. But we haven't seen the more extreme version of that, it seems. What do you make of that and how he's handled that and what comes next there?
- [38:37]
A
I mean, I think it speaks to the fact that when you have an affirmative agenda for what you want to do, you don't have to spend all your time focusing on who you hate. And it's a lesson that folks like Gavin Newsom should take and think about because I, you know, I know he's good at Twitter or whatever, but I don't know what he's for. I don't know what he wants to do. And to my mind, that doesn't make him a particularly interesting or strong candidate for president. Part of the reason the mayor can get around some of the previous flack that a lot of Democrats have got around courting Trump or standing too close to Trump is it doesn't really matter to most people. He's focused on what he's delivering, and so he can get away with showing up with a fun newspaper prop. And everyone's impressed because they're saying, oh, he handled it so well. My understanding, by the way, was that was his idea, which shows you how gifted this guy is at communicating. Like I said, again, I feel like a dinosaur and I feel profoundly jealous. But it's been a very good balance. And to your point, of the potential risks you listed off, which, frankly, were at the top of my mind when he was elected, that engagement and embrace, which is far more than most Democrats. I don't know a single Democrat who's been that public about liking Donald Trump. He's been able to get away with, and it served the larger interests of the city. Andrew Cuomo, when he was governor, would often argue, well, I have to play nice to Trump because that's how I get things. But then he would also critique him, but that was seen as kind of a calculated political operative approach, whereas the mayor is just saying, like, hey, we like the same things. We're frankly, we're similar communicators. I mean, Donald Trump has a lot of things. He's also a very gifted communicator. And if you don't take him seriously, he's pretty funny, even though what he does is horrific. But, yeah, I don't know. Mayor's handling it better than I would advise him to. So good for him.
- [40:49]
B
Come coming back to the risks, what do you make of this? The way the mayor's hand. I mean, perhaps the biggest key to the mayor's success so far is the fact that crime is down. There's been no spike of crime. He, you know, kept Jessica Tisch on the job as police commissioner. That's obviously an uneasy alliance, but they're making it work so far. So a crime spike would always be a concern for any mayor. But it seems like that keeping that relationship in a decent place, even if it's not going to last for all four years of a term, seems like a pretty important piece of things. And for that to not blow up. But at the same time, he definitely has somewhat of an uneasy base around some of the ways that he's handling policing. Not following through on some of his reform promises, things like that. Any thoughts there on how he's handling the policing aspect of it? The PD leadership with Tish, and mostly just sidelining the issue of police reform to focus on, again, the agenda that was at the top of, of what he ran on.
- [42:00]
A
Two things that benefit him here. The first is that he can basically act like Commissioner Tisch is a separate entity and he is not her boss. Even though there was some fodder about that at the beginning of his term. That is a protection for him on, I guess you'd call it flip flopping from who he was on the campaign to who he is as mayor. He kind of says, yeah, my position is this and the commissioner's doing whatever she's doing or he doesn't address it. He's good at dodging.
- [42:29]
B
Well, he says, we're having conversations about it.
- [42:31]
A
Yeah, exactly. We're talking about it, we're negotiating. She works for me, but yeah, we're discussing it.
- [42:38]
B
Trying to convince her to do the things I said.
- [42:39]
A
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But the other thing he benefits on, he has a lot of power over that base. Like that. Yes, sure. There have been some people protesting him. It is complete contrast from the last progressive who was in office, Bill de Blasio. Almost as soon as he got there, a lot of his progressive base was protesting him, yelling at him, saying he wasn't going far enough, attacking his administration in ways that I think were stupid and unfair. This guy's got a lock on the socialist contingent in his party. Like they, they're clearly in close touch. He's, they're, I think, the folks he's most concerned with. And so he's got a lot of freedom to do what he wants because what's their top priority in being successful? So if he says them, look, folks like, low crime is key to me being successful. You want me to be getting to do all the things you want as a mayor, you got to give me some slap on that. And they're going to say, yes, sir, and that's that.
- [43:33]
B
You know, the dsa, the New York City dsa, criticized him when he was planning to expand the police force. Then he took that out of budget negotiations and did not expand the police force, which again caught him some flak from some more moderate and conservative forces. City Council Speaker Julie Menon, who we should talk about for a minute as a key relationship and potential, you know, 2029 challenger, not that we need to, to get ahead of ourselves there. But, you know, she said I didn't agree with that, although she went along with it. I assume maybe that's because it was at the very last minute and they had to get a budget deal done. And she trusts, you know, that Jessica Tisch said it was fine for now. But, you know, that was a very interesting back and forth that DSA did go out there and criticize him and then that was the thing that he adjusted the budget on before the final deal. But I also think at the same time, when I had the New York City DSA co chairs on here just before primary day, you know, they very much agreed that the socialist movement and the broader left movement has really backgrounded police reform, criminal justice reform in the last several years to focus on affordability, cost of living and all that, partly because of the backlash to the backlash, you know, around police reform and defunding the police and so forth. But, you know, I think it's been a very interesting calculation along the broader left to really not talk about that very much. And so I think even though he talked about some of those things on the campaign trail, like the gang database or disbanding the strategic response group, those weren't so central to his campaign. So I don't think, you know, he's getting that much up in arms there. But I there are rumblings related to, you know, when you see some of the data that's been reported around, you know, quality of life arrests and things like that. I think, you know, I think we'll see. It's still early, but I think we're going to see how much he does have that base on lock and whether there starts to be more rumblings, you know, depending on what we see moving forward. How, how do you think he's handling that relationship with the City Council and Speaker Julie Menon? They got to a budget deal. They had a handshake. She had all of her Democratic members besides one vote for the budget. But, you know, she's something of a counterweight to him as more of a moderate. She's also very much representative of so is City Comptroller Mark Levine of sort of a more moderate and Jewish wing of, you know, New York politics. Both of them, you know, are potential 20, 29 candidates against him, but nobody's really out there starting any battles now while he's at the height of his popularity, we think. What do you make of sort of how he's handling that and any sort of threats in his backyard badly?
- [46:30]
A
It is Often the case that when you prioritize communications, you have a lot of flak or losses on your political side because you care more about what you say than more about, you know, catering to the feelings of elected officials and politicians and political interests. I think one of the only big missteps I saw was when the City Council introduced their budget and the mayor cut this video attacking them for it. No one would have known about the City Council's budget. No real people, even political insiders would've been like, okay, like, that has not received coverage in the past. I don't know why he felt it was important to put a stake in the ground and basically put his finger in the eye of the City Council leadership along with Speaker Menon. Like, what do you get from that? I don't know. I think there's.
- [47:22]
B
Let me pause you right there for one second, though, because, listen, I know two items doesn't really make a pattern, but he's. If we want to say he's had two real missteps, it's two videos where he called a individual out by name. Quick reaction. Maybe the vetting process wasn't as good as it should have been at City hall, or they just decided to keep going hard and they're not going to slow down. But I think at least on the Ken Griffin Pieta terror attacks video, he's been pretty clear, without saying it was a mistake, that he feels it was a mistake. I don't know if he would acknowledge that it was a mistake to call Julie Menon out by name on that preliminary budget response. But I do think there's some similarities there to those two mistakes. And maybe it's the, you know, the aides who are. Or maybe the mayor himself who are a little more pugnacious, you know, getting out ahead a little bit of a more measured approach on those without calling people out by name when it's maybe unwise to do so. Anyway. You were going to say more.
- [48:25]
A
Yeah. Fighting with people isn't fun. He's good at being fun. You know, the Trump example is great. He's also kind of good at fighting.
- [48:32]
B
Right. I mean, he's kind of good at both. And he knows he's got like a, A very sharp tongue when he wants to. Right. I mean, the debates with Cuomo and.
- [48:41]
A
Sure, yeah, it's a fair. It's a fair point. When he's in the heat of a political battle, that's necessary. And certainly he has specific values he cares about that he doesn't compromise on or at least to the extent he sounds like he's compromising on them. He's not really, but I, you know,
- [48:56]
B
is charming and fun and. Yes. And positive and forward looking. Yes.
- [49:01]
A
I don't know anyone who's gone into a meeting with him and not said afterwards. Oh, he's so nice. He really charmed me. The only other person I've heard that about is Donald Trump, which everyone's always surprised by.
- [49:12]
B
You know, you hear who you used to hear that a lot about? Eric Adams.
- [49:16]
A
Yeah, that's a good. That's a fair point.
- [49:18]
B
Not Bill de Blasio.
- [49:20]
A
Never, never. My old boss, Bill. What do you know?
- [49:24]
B
I used to hear from people who were, you know, they were in city agencies and all that. And he came in as mayor and it was just, it was like raves about, oh, my God. He was, you know, he did. He had a, he, he has a lot of that sort of social, emotional intelligence, and he's a charming guy and he's, you know, can be gregarious. I don't know if that's all gone now that he's been through what he's been through, but anyway. But yes, Mom, Dani has a lot
- [49:47]
A
of that, for sure.
- [49:49]
B
Yeah.
- [49:49]
A
And, yeah, like I said, I, I agree with your sort of examples. Calling people up by name is perhaps, you know, perhaps it gets at a immaturity in the office that isn't really what people want to see. And again, I, I don't, you know, maybe he's. I think it's always good to admit mistakes because then you learn from them. One of the frustrations I always had with Andrew Cuomo was he could never concede a mistake and as a result, never learned from them. And, you know, there were a lot of mistakes in that mayoral campaign, which he should have. He should have learned from in the past and could have. And, and he came close. People forget how close he came to winning, but he didn't learn and he lost.
- [50:31]
B
Well, he did get out there more in the general election. That was one thing.
- [50:35]
A
The bar for more was set very low. When it's nothing to something that is, you know, more is a generous interpretation.
- [50:44]
B
Last couple of things here. What do you think he should do in terms of sort of national profile getting involved in races outside of the city? He seems very wisely to be super reluctant to comment on things outside the city. He had to be, you know, asked into commenting on the Graham Platner situation and said, you know, he thought it was time for him to step out of the race in Maine. But I don't Think he was going to come out there and tweet that or make a statement about it? If he wasn't asked, maybe he would have put something on social media, but I doubt it because he seems to really be trying to stay in the lanes that he's picking. But he's becoming more and more of a star, at least in the left. Do you think he should play elsewhere? My gut tells me he should stay very focused on New York City. If he's asked to go outside New York City in New York State, maybe he wants to consider that in a couple of rare examples, but I don't think he should be playing outside of New York. But what's your read on that?
- [51:53]
A
I agree with you. He's got very little to gain and a lot to lose. When you're endorsing and Congressionals and Senate races in other places, it doesn't really make a difference. You're only, you know, he gets to look really powerful because New York City is one of the most liberal city, if not the most liberal city in America. That is a place of strength. He starts playing in North Carolina, Florida, Iowa, whatever. Like, there's more risk. I think there's two exceptions that I would say. One is a left challenge to Chuck Schumer, particularly if it's aoc, and the other is the presidential primary where if there is a socialist whoever carries the legacy of Bernie Sanders, I think it both makes sense and is true to his values to, to support that candidate. At the end of the day, he is a DSA member. It will look consistent. Maybe they lose, maybe, maybe they win. It doesn't really matter because it's about what he believes, not about political gain.
- [52:58]
B
Yeah, well, one of those two will be aoc, most likely. Right. So he'll be, he'll either be backing her for Senate or president, probably. And it would make sense if she does jump into the presidential primary, that he would be, you know, sort of like a day one endorser. But. Yeah, that's interesting. I, I don't know what your read on this, but, you know, more and more people seem to think Chuck Schumer's not running for reelection in 2028. But we'll see.
- [53:22]
A
That's. This is a guy who has visited every county in New York for a long, long time. Who knows the sort of nitty gritty of politics. Maybe his position in majority leader or minority leader has steered him a little bit too far away from his local roots and too close to D.C. maybe he's been proved right in Maine. You know, I don't know. He should not be underestimated, even though right now he's down. But then again, like, let's be real, unless something dramatically changes, if AOC runs against him, it's a cakewalk. And so in that scenario, I would understand him wanting to go out on a respectable semi high and not a low and deciding to step aside.
- [54:09]
B
What do you make of the fact that Mamdani burned some real bridges with Nydia Velasquez, Antonio Reynoso, Adriano Espaillat, Tish James? I mean, maybe that's the only important one of that list, but he burned some real bridges here. Now he comes out, I don't think anybody would disagree. He comes out sort of net positive in his political capital from winning all these races. But he really did burn some, some bridges with some allies here. I mean, I think, you know, Chiyo, say the city council member who he nudged out of the potential challenge against Hakeem Jeffries, you know, is probably understands that and is maybe over it, I think. I don't know, maybe Alexa Vilas, the city council member who wanted to run in New York 10, who he bumped out of that race to back Brad Lander, maybe she's, you know, probably still not happy about that. So anyway, the list goes on and this is politics. But do you think any of that comes back to bite him?
- [55:05]
A
Again, I'm not good at predicting things. I do think, as I said, it's a seesaw. When you're focusing primarily in communications, your political relations suffer. That has been true. He has embraced the high risk, high reward strategy, campaigning. And with the exception of Lindsey Boylan, that has paid off. But pride comes before the fall. Your friends like a medium.
- [55:32]
B
It was like a. It was like a medium well risk. Right. I mean, again, he did bump ose out of, you know, help bump o say, out of the challenge to Jeffries. Like he didn't go full bore, right? He didn't. He didn't try to knock Richie Torres out of Congress.
- [55:49]
A
Right.
- [55:49]
B
He kind of. He went bold, but not extreme.
- [55:53]
A
Yeah. I mean, look, the DSA has always had a very sophisticated, smart pattern of playing and racing where they think they have a good shot of winning, and that's why they've grown their power. They also have the only serious grassroots door knocking operation in New York City today. No, I mean, like, labor can talk a big game. They're not knocking as many doors. So the institutional left is changing into a more populist left that is just as the septajarians or whatever you call it, like the elder statesmen of Congress and the Senate are for finally starting to move on. You know, Jerry Nadler, certainly Congresswoman Velasquez on their own accord versus getting driven out. That's the natural, as it should be, evolution of politics. If anything, some of these folks may have stayed a little bit too long. But I, you know, like, I don't know. I do, I do again, think that he is, he is probably paying a bit of a political price for some of his actions. People, people don't forget. And later, like right now, he's riding high. There was a time to, to when Andrew Cuomo was riding high, but then when things got bad, why was he in trouble? He had no political friends left. He had burnt them all. Same with Elliot Spitzer. So we'll see.
- [57:12]
B
Right, right, right. Yeah. Okay, so final thoughts. We, we discussed a whole bunch of potential pitfalls for him. Right. It's, you know, the Trump relationship could go sideways. Crime, obviously, always a vulnerability for a mayor. The relationship with Jessica Tisch and the, and the police department, and then the vulnerability on the other side with his base around some of that, the economy. Any other just pitfalls? I mean, Hochul obviously winning her reelection, then losing all patience with him is actually, I think, a possibility that, that could go sideways. You know, once, once the election is through here, there seems to be some concern that Dariel Issavila Chevalier could be sort of a wild card and maybe come back to bite him if, you know, she's sort of a little more of a, I don't know, loose cannon than people, you know, would want her to be more of a. Have a Jamal Bowman type streak.
- [58:15]
A
Well, you know, being a fan of Vladimir Putin is really out.
- [58:19]
B
Wow.
- [58:19]
A
So, you know, I know those are old tweets, but there's a lot of concerning.
- [58:24]
B
Yeah, there's a lot of concerning stuff there. Not to mention ways in which some of her discussion of open borders or prison abolition could, is the type of thing, if she's still talking about those things that could, you know, potentially hurt Democrats because you don't see Imam Donnie talking about those things. But I don't know anything else that's a pitfall here. I mean, again, I think think if he loses focus on so, so this is really interesting to me because he was so focused the first five months, right. On the nuts and bolts of governing, and then in June, he spent a lot of time on politics, and that was primary month and his candidates won. But I think it'll be really interesting now to see if they are not too overconfident. And they realize he's got to get back to the nuts and bolts of governing, not get all excited about all the political wins and go national, you know, that type of stuff. Again, they seem to know he shouldn't do that. He seems to know he shouldn't do that. Learning lessons from Bill de Blasio and others. But I think that's one of the biggest risks right now is, you know, getting a little too caught up in the political momentum and not realizing that a very big part of being successful is just making sure people in New York City know that you're trying to do the job of mayor and do it well on like the nuts and bolts of governing, working on the bigger affordability project, you know, things like that. Any other pitfalls or final thoughts here?
- [59:53]
A
I mean, expect the unexpected, I still say, and maintain that there will be some crisis he cannot predict. And then, you know, I, I would be a little concerned and cautious about your, his standing with black and brown voters. Certainly at the beginning of his term there was some concern around that. The fact that it was the first administration in a long while that didn't have a black deputy mayor. I don't know how many real people know or care about that. But from a practical perspective, it actually can create long term pain because it may mean with your administration, you're not actually in touch with their thinking about that community. And that's where you have danger. Bill de Blasio's success, ongoing success and strength throughout his entire term was he maintained huge popular support with black voters right until the end. And Eric Adams saw a drop off almost immediately, which is a funny comparison. And a lot of that was pre K. People didn't forget about it. Maybe some of it was crime going down. But I would say keep a cautious eye on that because those. Even though perhaps there's a new alignment in the Democratic Party and you have to worry about young people and socialists more than you have to worry about those voters. They're still an important block within the city and if you completely alienate them, that is a vulnerability and one that can come back to bite you.
- [61:21]
B
Matt Wing, let's leave it there. Appreciate the time and thoughts and good talk over the first six months of the Mamdani administration. We'll see what the next six and beyond hold. But thanks for the time and thoughts.
- [61:32]
A
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Sam.
- [62:00]
B
It.