← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Will Zohran Mamdani Ruin NYC... or Make NYC Great Again? And Meghan McCain on Usha Vance Exclusive
01:09:18
Mark Halperin kicks off today’s show by breaking down why Democratic rising star Zohran Mamdani may have more in common with Donald Trump than meets the eye. From his underdog victory over Andrew Cuomo to his working-class message about affordability in New York City, Halperin explains how Mamdani is reshaping the political conversation—and why some Democrats are uneasy about it. Then, Meghan McCain joins the show to share her exclusive interview with Second Lady Usha Vance. From parenting advice to personal politics, McCain reveals how she landed the rare sit-down and what the media-shy wife of the Vice President really thinks about life in the spotlight—and the MAGA movement.
Loading summary
Transcript122 lines
- [00:00]
Birch Lane Ad
Welcome to Birch Lane where you can find a fresh take on classic furniture and decor. Every piece is handpicked and crafted to last for years to come. At Birch Lane you can explore everything from outdoor sets to living room furniture and everything in between and get fast free shipping. It's classic style for joyful living. Shop now@birchlane.com Are you still quoting 30 year old movies?
- [00:24]
Discover Ad
Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you stuck in the past, Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [00:53]
Mark Calperin
Hello everybody. I'm Mark Calperin. Welcome to Next Stop. I am your guide to Gotham City and the world and also the Editor in Chief of the two way platform. Very glad you're here. Back with us, we had an election here in New York this week for the Democratic nomination for mayor and it's a big deal and I'm going to tell you why I think it's a big deal and tell you why the likely next mayor of New York City is a lot like Donald Trump. Also today, very happy to be joined by my two way colleague Meghan McCain, who had an extraordinary exclusive interview with the second lady, Usha Vance this week. Usha Vance has not sat for an interview like this. She is a fascinating person and Megan's conversation with her we will break it down is one that I think you will find extremely compelling whether you know about Usha Vance at all or not. This is really the most significant interview she's done on camera and it is something to behold. Incredibly revealing. We're also still searching for the right name for this community. We want you all to feel part of something larger than yourself, part of people who like the program. Next up, whether you watch on YouTube or listen to it as a podcast, I had started to settle on Nexters and the backlash was fierce. The backlash was fierce when I floated Nexter. So we're still searching for the name. I want to start though, talking about New York. In my career. I have laughed, I've worked, I've lived my whole life pretty much in Boston, Washington and New York. But I'm extremely sensitive to the perception and the reality that people in New York, including people in the media and Washington, focus too much on those places. New York is a great city. It's My home. But it's not the beginning and end of the whole world. Usually, stories here are overcovered. I think the story of this election here for mayor of New York that has positioned a previously unknown gentleman named Zoran Mamdani to be the mayor is a huge story. And it's a huge story for not just New York or people who like politics, but it's a huge story for the country. And I'll tell you why in just a moment, why the similarities between Mandani and Donald Trump are so significant. I'm a resident of this city. I'm raising my son here. I care a lot about who the mayor is. We've had good mayors and bad mayors, and it's about quality of life for a lot of people. And for the wealthiest New Yorkers, some of whom have left this state and this city to move to places like Florida where they don't pay income tax, quality of life is to not have to step over a homeless person. When you're seeing a Broadway show, that's a reality. But for many New Yorkers, most New Yorkers, quality of life is, can you afford to send your kids to camp or afford the drugs they need, or be able to rent or own a home or to take transportation? This city is really expensive. Eric Adams, the incumbent mayor of this city, says he's going to run for reelection. He'll be on the general election ballot as and independent. I'm skeptical. The business community doesn't know what to do. They don't like Mamdani, but he's likely to be the next mayor. I think the chances of the next mayor are pretty high. And so, as a resident, I hope he does well. He's not an orthodox candidate. And so, in thinking about how to understand why the Democratic voters of this city chose Mondami, I came across an idea that I want to share with you now, which is the similarities he has with Donald Trump. Zoran Mamdani and Donald Trump, they couldn't be more different in so many ways. But that's, at first glance, one of them, of course, the bronze billionaire from Queens, his hair like spun sugar. He's a guy born with a gold telephone already in his hand and whose idea of public service was once memorably described as self service. The other Mandani is a Ugandan Indian American Democratic Socialist who lives in Astoria, Queens, who knocked off a political dynasty by beating Andrew Cuomo with very little more than a clipboard, a conviction, and a killer instinct. For this new media moment, they are wildly different in so many ways. But they are also avatars of the same disruptive energy that has turned American politics into a choose your own reality streaming service. They are similar. Here's why they both began as outsiders. Mondame got elected to the State assembly in New York just five years ago. He'd never held public office before then, if he was known at all. People knew him as a housing activist and a. A rapper more than they thought of him as any sort of political force. Neither of them had paid the traditional dues usually required to win these big jobs. Both of them were told when they decided to enter the races they did, that they were not serious contenders. And, of course, both astonishingly, won Donald Trump the presidency, Mandani, the Democratic nomination for mayor here. And both won by harnessing movements, movements that were bubbling and then exploded like volume volcanoes. They were arrayed against the status quo, and they fought for what they both describe as the forgotten men and women of the working class. Both of them saw the opportunity to play off the money dynasties that they were running against. In the case of Trump, that was the Bushes and the Clintons. In the case of Mondani, it's Mario. It's Mario Cuomo's son, Andrew Cuomo. They used them effectively as foils. Now, look, it would be cheap to lump them together as just calling them populists, but there is also a shared talent for identifying what used to be called kitchen table issues. Trump, of course, with his carnivalesque language, gave voice to the white working class and working class voters in general, disillusioned by the trends, globalization, the devastation from opioid addiction, and the coastal sneering that so many Americans felt. Mondani, on the other hand, he speaks up for the renters of Queens, the gig workers, the stressed parents, and the subway riders with too many delays and too few champions here in New York City or in our capital of Albany. Whenever Mondami talks about housing as a human right or he talks about transit justice, it lands for voters not as a theory, but as the basics. Groceries, rent, asthma medication. So in that way, both Trump and Mandami has mastered the art of the simple and sticky message. Trump talks about make America great again. Mandani has a brand of democratic socialism that skips over the jargon. It heads straight to the people's gut. Both men possess what I call postmodern flair. They wink at the camera. They know they're in a show, and they make that clear. And they invite you, the viewer or the voter, to know it as well. Trump turned politics into a form of professional wrestling, shouting insults, breaking norms, mocking the sacred with the profane. Mondami, though, also plays with performance. He quotes serious historical figures in one moment and then the next he'll drop a TikTok video with meme. Perfect comic timing. He wears his ideology right on his sleeve, sometimes quite literally in the form of branded jackets or tax the rich merch. But he never lets you forget that he's in on the meta joke of modern politics. Just like Trump. Both of them break the fourth wall. Trump calling into cable news shows unannounced in 2016, altering the news cycle whenever he wanted on a whim with a social media post. Mondami, very similar. He records Instagram videos that directly address his constituents. They have all the production value of a well funded college activist group, and yet somehow they work. Because he, like Trump, knows that message discipline in the 21st century means being the message yourself, loving social media and making real life and social media rhyme in some sort of synchronic, synchronistic tandem. Their critics scoff. They call it unserious or narcissistic or both. But what their critics miss, and they missed it with Trump back in 2016, and they're missing it, I think to some extent with Mandami now, is that we're currently living in the age of authenticity as performance. Neither of these guys hides the fact that he's selling something, but they're both very good at it. And that in today's media ecosystem is much more powerful than 100 endorsements from newspaper editorial boards that no one ever reads. Both of these guys have opponents who constantly underestimate them over and over. Trump was dismissed in 2016 and then again in 2024 as a sideshow. In 20? Yeah, in 2024, until he stood with one hand on the Bible when he first got elected and the other clutching the nuclear codes. Mandami likewise was viewed as a long shot nuisance when he got in this race until he defeated a poll blessed frontrunner. It turns out that there's power in being told you cannot win. It becomes a big part of the story, part of the brand. Both these guys have reshaped their parties perhaps more than the parties would like to admit, or can bring themselves to admit. Trump bent the Republican Party into a vessel for grievance, nationalism and a cult of personality around him. Now Mandami is on the coast of dragging the Democratic Party here in New York and nationally to the left to be part of his vision of the future. He's already causing a big national debate about what it means, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. What unites these two guys, perhaps most of all, is their command of narrative. In a world with fragmented attention and lots of media and lots of memeified discourse, both these guys, Trump and Mondavi, they understand that a political figure must be a character. Trump had crooked Hillary and Sleepy Joe and endless tales of rigged systems. Mondami offers his own tales of grassroots uprisings, of billionaires and millionaires thriving at the expense of the people, of landlord lobbyists skulking in shadows, and of brave organizers triumphing against impossible odds. These two guys live in different universes, but they have the same method. Storytelling again, they are not the same. Their politics, their values, their visions for the country, it couldn't be further apart. But style, my friends, is an important weapon. And having an agenda, even if it's a bumper sticker, one that speaks to the movement that you lead, that speaks to the moment that we're in, that is now what will triumph every time against conventional politics. That is what wins elections. Now, in another age, our politics was maybe more serious. Lincoln Douglas or Roosevelt and fireside chats. Now it's more like an improv troupe than the Federalist Papers. We're watching two different one man shows now in parallel, staged on opposite ends of the ideological theater, but each of them with the same stagecraft trick, breaking the fourth wall, acknowledging the audience, letting them feel smart and energized just for watching. In that way, Zoran Mandani, probably the next mayor of New York, and Donald Trump, the President of the United States, are mirror images of each other in both the substance of what they talk about, to try to address the people in the working class who feel frustrated. And in terms of form, both of them are very talented postmodern performers. They're both great political storytellers, and both of them were underestimated until it was far too late for a confused inflummix establishment to figure out how to stop them. So both of them, in their own particular and peculiar idioms, they tell the audience, you're not just watching this. You're a part of this. You're part of a movement. Cue the curtain. All right, next up, I'm going to break down Mondame, what he's saying now that he's the nominee of the Democratic Party, what it means for our politics, and how he is going to move between now and November to try to win the general election. That is all. Next up. Oh, my goodness. It was not supposed to get this bad, you're on top of your bills. And then inflation hit. Groceries, gas, everything shot up. Prices up 26% from just a few years ago. That's 26%. And it's not your fault you've fallen into debt. Let me share with you a smarter, faster, far easier way out of debt. It's called Done With Debt. And they're not like any other debt relief company. They don't push loans or bankruptcy on you. Done With Debt are legendary negotiators who go head to head directly with your credit card and and loan companies. They've got just one goal, to drastically reduce or eliminate your debt altogether. And unlike those other companies, Done With Debt moves very quickly. Most clients see more money in their pocket month one. But a word to the wise, you better hurry because some of their brilliant debt erasing strategies are time sensitive. Do not make another bill payment until you talk to a Done With Debt strategist. It's free, so Visit done with that.com again. That's done with that.com one more time. DoneWithDebt.com Are you still quoting 30 year old movies?
- [13:19]
Discover Ad
Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [13:48]
Mark Calperin
All right, let's talk about New York City and the importance of having a good mayor. We saw with Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg the capacity of a mayor to really change the city to make it work. But people on the left don't think they made it work for everybody. They think it made it work for rich people. This city is hard to run. Subway systems old. We have a huge police force, but we still have crime on a regular basis. And the thing that Mondami focused on more than anything else in the election is the cost of living to make things affordable. Food, shelter, clothing, education, transportation. I said before, he's like Donald Trump in that he is leading a movement and a movement is always going to be a regular campaign. I didn't really focus on him very much and I cover politics and I live here in New York. I want a strong mayor and I think he'll be the mayor. And my hope is to not do what so many people are doing now. How do you stop him, how do you criticize him? How do you make him seem like he'll do a bad job? My hope is people, look, get him, give him scrutiny, and have, have a general election. But since he's the most likely next mayor, what kind of guy is he? How likely is it that the voters who chose him are going to be rewarded and that the city will be rewarded? And how likely is to influence the Democratic Party nationally? There's already Republicans around Donald Trump and others salivating at the prospect of using him in the midterm year after he wins the election, which he probably will. To say this is the face of the Democratic Party, radical, leftist, socialist, and they're, they're moderate Democrats, including some speaking on the record, who feel the same way. This guy is left, there's no doubt about it. But he's also doing something that a lot of Democrats saying they can learn from, which is using social media and effective communication to say, Donald Trump does not have a monopoly on evincing concern for the working class and for having ideas to address their needs. Now, again, maybe not all his ideas are good, but this guy is very savvy. You don't beat a front runner like Andrew Cuomo. You don't win an election in a very crowded field. You don't spring from nowhere as a young man to become the nominee for what some call the second most important, second toughest job in American politics. Unless you have a lot of talent and people have focused on his social media videos, his ability to use, kind of play off other celebrities, I find the guy to be a very compelling guy. And even though his politics are to the left of what a lot of people in my neighborhood in New York would like to see, I'm curious to see what kind of person he'd be. Would he be a better mayor than Eric Adams, who I think at this point is the only other person with the prospect of winning in the general election? Given Adams record, I think it's at least an open question, and it may well be obvious by the time this campaign ends that he would be a mayor, a better mayor than Eric Adams. So here he is on Wednesday night on MSNBC talking to Jen Psaki about his view of how the Democratic Party should learn from his victory. This is B5.
- [16:58]
Meghan McCain
I think it is part of a larger referendum on where our party goes. And I think one of the hopes that we had from the very beginning of this campaign was to move our political instinct from lecturing to listening, you know, at the national level, after the presidential election, we saw that New York was actually the state with the largest swing in the country towards Donald Trump, 11 and a half points, and that that swing took place far from the caricature of Trump voters, instead taking place in the hearts of immigrant New York City. And I went to those neighborhoods. I went to Fordham Road in the Bronx and Hillside Avenue in Queens, and I asked those New Yorkers, the vast majority of whom were Democrats, why they voted for Trump and what it would take to bring them back to the Democratic Party. And again and again, what I heard from them was cost of living was an inability to afford the very things they recalled being able to purchase four years ago. And when they told me what it would take, they said again and again a relentless focus on an economic agenda. And ultimately, in listening to them, we built a campaign that was explicitly about making the city affordable.
- [18:01]
Mark Calperin
Now, if you ask Democrats why he won and you ask Democrats why Kamala Harris lost, I think the most common answer, and the best answer, is you. She did not convince voters that she understood there needed to be a big focus on working class voters, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, and that he's done that. He has talked relentlessly about the working class and prices, but it's more than just saying it over and over as a mantra. You got to show voters that you care and you understand, and you got to make it tactile. You got to make it concrete. He had a ton of videos that spoke to this issue. This is my favorite one. And this video, for those of you watching, you'll see it. For those of you listening, as a podcast, you'll hear it. This is a guy who understands specificity. Okay? He's talking about the cost of something New Yorkers eat all the time. A plate of chicken and rice from a food truck. Here's B2, please.
- [19:00]
Meghan McCain
New York is suffering from a crisis, and it's called halalflation. Today we're going to get to the bottom of this. How much does a plate of halal cost right now from this truck?
- [19:13]
Usha Vance
$10.
- [19:14]
Mark Calperin
$10.
- [19:15]
Jen Psaki
Chicken over rice, lamb over rice.
- [19:16]
Usha Vance
$10.
- [19:17]
Meghan McCain
$10. When you're a street vendor, you have to pay for the food, the plates. How much do you have to pay for your permit?
- [19:26]
Discover Ad
Before it was 22k.
- [19:28]
Usha Vance
20.
- [19:29]
Mark Calperin
17,000.
- [19:30]
Meghan McCain
How much does a license cost if you get it from the city?
- [19:32]
Mark Calperin
I think 400. Who are you paying?
- [19:34]
Discover Ad
The permit owner.
- [19:36]
Meghan McCain
You're not paying the city?
- [19:37]
Mark Calperin
No, no, no.
- [19:38]
Meghan McCain
You pay the permit owner $22,000 just so you can sell this food?
- [19:42]
Mark Calperin
Yes.
- [19:42]
Meghan McCain
And who is this random guy?
- [19:46]
Mark Calperin
Funny, casual, but with a point. Something people can relate to. Republicans and Donald Trump have dominated the Democratic Party now for the last decade in convincing working class voters that they understand their needs and they're going to do something about it. And this guy has the ability to say, I get it with, with illustrations like that, but he also has some specifics. Now, not everybody likes the specifics. He wants to open up city owned supermarkets and food deserts. He wants to make public transportation, public buses free. He wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest. Not everybody likes those ideas. But, but they are ideas that he ran on and they may well be popular in a city that's six to one over, maybe more overwhelmingly Democratic. It's an important, important distinction between him and a lot of other Democrats. And when you've seen and heard praise from him, from Democrats who think on some issues he's too liberal, that's what they've highlighted and they're right to highlight that. So some people are casting his nomination as a big problem for the Democrats rather than what I think some smarter Democrats are saying, which is it's an opportunity for the Democratic Party to say, just like Donald Trump, we are laser focused on the working class of this country and just like Donald Trump, we've got ideas. Now, some people are skittish about him because of his support. His support comes from, amongst others, the two leading members, the two top leaders of the Democratic Progressive Movement. One is aoc, who endorsed him late in the contest. And I think that certainly played a role in increasing his momentum here in the final days of the campaign. So here is a glimpse of the chemistry between the two of them. And you can see in AOC's enthusiastic words just how supportive she is of Mandami. This is B3, please.
- [21:38]
Usha Vance
I am here loud and proud to rank Zohra Mamdani number one for mayor.
- [21:43]
Zoran Mamdani
Of New York City.
- [21:45]
Usha Vance
And make sure that you do not.
- [21:46]
Zoran Mamdani
Rank Andrew Cuomo on your ballot. Don't do it, folks. We are going to rank our ballot.
- [21:51]
Mark Calperin
Zoran, number one. All right, very enthusiastic. Now here is another big supporter of his who also endorsed late in the race, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Being asked what other Democrats should do and what they might do. And in the wake of his, of his friend Mondami winning the nomination. This is B8. We saw the Democratic leaders have put out statements that were nice and kind, but not necessarily outright endorsements. Is it time for Democratic leaders to get fully behind him? Whether the Democrat. Look, the Democratic leadership sadly too often is tied to the billionaire class and their campaign contributions. What the Democratic leadership has got to do is make a choice. Which side are you on? Interesting. Interesting that Sanders is putting that pressure on. And as I said, Bill Clinton's already endorsed Jerry Nadler, the congressman's endorsed. But some people haven't. Why haven't they? It's not because they don't think his focus on the working class is significant. And some of them don't disagree with the policy prescriptions he has. They have questions about some of his past statements related to particularly Israel. Here's one that gets a ton of attention at a time when the United States and Israel and President Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are working very closely in trying to deal with Iran. Here's what Mondami said in the past about the prospect of if he were mayor and Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States for a UN meeting or something else. Here's what he would say. Here's what he says he's for. This is B1. Would a mayor Mamdani welcome Benjamin Netanyahu to the city?
- [23:29]
Meghan McCain
No. As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It's time that our actions are also.
- [23:39]
Mark Calperin
Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu. That's not in keeping with what a lot of New Yorkers would say, the way they'd like to treat the guy. But it is in keeping with his record as being pretty hostile towards Israel, pretty concerned about the Palestinian movement. That, of course, taps into the national question of the Democratic Party being defined by a pro Palestinian wing. So in his interview with Jen Psaki, Mondame tried to address this question of how he feels about antisemitism, how he feels about Jewish New Yorkers. Let's play that B7, please.
- [24:17]
Meghan McCain
My message is that I am looking to lead this entire city to represent each and every New Yorker. And that representation is not contingent on whether or not someone votes for me or someone agrees with me, because the responsibility of a leader is to reach out to all eight and a half million people who call the city their home. And I know that Jewish New Yorkers, like Jewish Americans, are fearful in this moment of anti Semitism. They are fearful, especially after the horrific attacks that we saw in Washington, D.C. and in Boulder, Colorado. And they're fearful also in conversations that I have heard myself about life in this city. And ultimately, it's through the conversations I've had with Jewish New Yorkers that I have developed a proposal for the Department of Community Safety that would include an 800% increase in funding for hate crime prevention programs. Because ultimately, we cannot simply say that anti Semitism has no home in this city or no place in this country. We have to do more than talk about it. We have to tackle it.
- [25:15]
Mark Calperin
So as a resident of New York and as someone who thinks that this guy's going to be the mayor, I don't want him to be at war with the Jewish community or those who believe he's anti Semitic. He's, you listen to that answer. He said he's not. Let's take him at his word. Let's have the conversation. You know, he's not National Security Advisor, he's not Secretary of State. But the mayor of New York City does have foreign policy. He does. If he wins, he will have a lot of Jewish constituents. I think it's incumbent upon the media and those who are skeptical of him and Mandami himself to start to address these issues as he did there. I don't think you could listen to that and say on the face of it, he's hostile to the Jewish community or hostile to Israel. But he does have a different point of view. And it's a point of view that's very different than our other recent New York mayors, all of whom have been aggressively, some might say stridently, pro Israel. He's, he's, he's, he's going to have to deal with that. The thing he said about Netanyahu. He's going to have to deal with these things and he should deal with them the way he did in that interview up front. This is an extraordinary story. If this guy becomes mayor for so many reasons, there should be and there will be focus on his past statements of controversy. There should and would be focus on the reality of the policy positions he's taken on his core issues of helping the economy. There also should be focus, I think, on this extraordinary reality that a young Muslim American went from obscurity at the beginning of this race. He was at 1% to becoming, I think, the next mayor of New York. And it matters not just because New York's a big city. And it matters not just because Democrats and Republicans are going to fight on the meaning and use him as a symbol. It matters because we're in a time of extraordinary change. We're at a time when the establishment is out and outsiders are in, when rising interest in younger politicians, not 80 year olds, but people in their 30s and 40s, that's in the older folks are being phased out. And it comes at a Time when all the other issues in the world, the president's in NATO and he's being called daddy. We're dealing with Ukraine, we're dealing with Iran, we're dealing with trade issues. There's a lot going on in the world. But for most Americans, what matters is what this guy realized he needed to focus on. Not just to win, but to govern effectively and address the needs of the people of this city, which, despite New York's oddness and difference, are the needs and wants of all the people around the country who are in the working class, which is how do we stop this long term trend away from things being unaffordable? This inflation that we went through in the Biden years and after Covid, this question of jobs, this questions of affordability of housing and education and everything else, this is the stuff of life for real people. That has nothing to do with politics. But it is the politicians who play the biggest role, particularly on things like affordability, of the basics, who we must look to to solve the problems. And this guy says he can. Now, I have no idea whether if he wins, and I do say again, I think he will win. I have no idea whether he'll be an effective mayor. I certainly hope he is. And you can't get away from the fact that he won't be the youngest mayor in New York City history, but he'll be one of the youngest, I think the second youngest. He'll be a Muslim mayor. And if you look at our big cities, that's pretty unusual. Here he is again with Jen Psaki on msnbc, talking about his faith and his family Identity. This is B6.
- [28:52]
Meghan McCain
Please think about my grandmother Kulsum and my grandfather Yusuf, and how they taught me from a young age that to be a good Muslim is to be a good person. It's to help those in need and harm no one. And ultimately I've sought to do that over the course of my life, and especially in a time when the mere mention of being Muslim is seen as if it is a slur. It is also an opportunity for me to introduce the fact that being Muslim is like being a member of any other faith. It is believing and belonging in a notion of equality and in solidarity. And I know that it is so meaningful for the million Muslims that call New York City their home to see the fact that representation can be something that exists not just across the five boroughs, but also in City Hall.
- [29:38]
Mark Calperin
Okay, that's lovely. You think about this city and its connection to its Muslim American population and the stress is caused in that after. After 9 11. Okay, 9 11. Almost a quarter century ago, but still fresh in the mind of anyone who travels around the city, particularly going downtown to ground zero. And here we have a young Muslim American, not born in the United States, but assimilated in so many ways. A state elected official now on the cusp of being the mayor of this city, speaking about his faith in such a lovely way, in such an accessible way, I think it's great. And I hope, I hope that he's able to become trusted as a friend of Israel, a friend of the Jewish community in this state and around the world, and also as a proud and articulate Muslim about his faith. All right, this is the time for people to recognize that I am not obsessed with New York. And I normally say we overcover New York, but this man, and this moment is extraordinary. The movement that he is leading to get elected, the possibility, the possibility that he could make this city better. People all over the country, all over the world look to New York. Can the city be governed? And getting this. Having the city be governed is not about, as I said before, helping the wealthiest, making it a friendly place for businesses, big businesses, Wall street, banks. It's not about giving tax breaks to sports team owners. Governing this city is about making it livable and affordable for working class people. Working class people in New York City face slightly different challenges, to be sure, in some ways, and working class people around the United States. But making cities affordable is a huge challenge. And this young man, whether you agree with his policies, whether you're suspicious about his views of Israel and Jews or not, this young man has the possibility to make New York great again. Our last two mayors have fallen short. Bill de Blasio and the current mayor, Mayor Adams, have fallen short in a range of issues. Rent is too damn high, as a great man once said. Food costs too much. Transportation costs too much. Being able to live in our cities, thrive, raise kids, it's incredibly important. And if you can do it here, as another great man once saying, you can do it anywhere. I want him to succeed. I want him to make the city livable and affordable for everyone. Last thing I want to play for you. This is him again with Jen Psaki on msnbc, talking about the power of volunteers on his campaign and the energy that provided in his victory. And I would say the energy that could be provided to help him govern before.
- [32:35]
Meghan McCain
I think the only thing I would really add is this volunteer team that we've built of now more than 50,000 people. They are the New Yorkers for whom democracy had started to lose meaning, it started to lose its relevance to the struggles of everyday New Yorkers. And they are the ones who for so long had not seen themselves in our local politics. And yet they are also the ones who brought us to this point, who knocked on more than 1 1/2 million doors across the five boroughs and showcased that a vision for a New York City, currently the most expensive city in the United States, a vision that would make it affordable, is one that speaks not only to progressives, but speaks to New Yorkers across the five boroughs from Harlem to Bay Ridge, and speaks to the very fact that ultimately, what city government's job is, is to make this city that much easier to live in and actually achieve the very dreams that brought you here in the first place.
- [33:30]
Mark Calperin
So here, finally, is the last way I'll tell you that he is like Donald Trump. Donald Trump got elected against all odds by harnessing the power of the movement that got him elected, to help him govern, to put pressure on members of Congress to carry the day in his agenda, which he's done in his first term to some extent and is trying to do now. Same with this guy. If he's going to see it as mayor, it's going to be by harnessing the energy of a movement. And to do that, he's going to have to make the tent bigger. He's going to have to reach out to the people who are afraid of his being mayor, and that includes some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country who live in this city. I want him to figure it out. I want him to harness that movement. He's a Muslim, he's a socialist, he's young, he's inexperienced. Those things are not typical. But Donald Trump wasn't typical either. And Donald Trump has spoken to the aspirations of tens of millions. This guy speaks to the aspirations of tens of millions. But you know what? It doesn't have to be two different groups. He can win over the support if he does this right, of Trump voters who live in New York. As he has pointed out, Donald Trump improved his performance dramatically in New York State, New York City, from 2020 to 2024. And what I love about him as a politician, as a great story, but also as someone who's going to try to govern if he wins, is he's trying to win over Trump voters. Of all the things that people are missing about him for his prospects of success, for the importance of the story, and for the future of American politics and of the Democratic Party, it's that he looks at Trump voters and doesn't say, I don't want your support. I look down on you. He looks at Trump voters and says, they should support me. They should support my agenda. They should be part of a movement that is focused on new ideas to help working class voters and as he says, the most expensive city of the world. If he's able to do that, if he's able to figure out how to expand the appeal of his agenda and of his party, that'll be great for New York City. And as a resident of New York City, that'd be great for me and my family. So I'm wishing him luck. I'm assuming he's going to win. We'll follow it. He may not. But the, but the reality of a guy using communication and personality and talent to say, here are my ideas for working class voters, that's what Trump did. That's what he's done. And it's an extraordinary story. And it's an important story for this city and for this country, for his party and for the other party. All right, next up, my friend and colleague Meghan McCain with her amazing interview with the second lady of the United States. Stay with us. That's next up. Now let me tell you a story about a guy named Leo Grillo. He was on a road trip and Leo came across a Doberman. This dog was severely underweight, clearly in a lot of trouble. So Leo rescued the Doberman and he gave him the name Delta. Sadly, though, Delta is just one of many animals that needed help, which inspired Leo to start Delta Rescue. It's the world's largest no kill, care for life animal sanctuary. They've rescued thousands of dogs, cats and horses from the wilderness and they always provide their animals with shelter, love, safety and a great home. This dedication and everlasting love to animals is Leo's mission and legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like all of us. So if you want caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, speak right now with your estate planner. Because there are tax saving and estate planning benefits as well. You can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future. Check out now the estate planning tab on their website to learn more and to speak with an advisor. We call dogs man's best friends for a reason. You can help those animals who need it most. So please, right now visit Deltarescue.org to learn more. Again, that's Delta Rescue.org Are you still.
- [37:39]
Discover Ad
Quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days. Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [38:10]
Mark Calperin
Next up, a great interview. Back in the olden days, meaning at the beginning of my career, it was very complicated, common for spouses of prominent politicians and elected officials to be profiled, to do long interviews to reveal themselves about their lives, what they cared about, their family situation that has for a variety of reasons, gone away distrust, particularly between the media and Republicans. But even with Democrats and social media allows folks to get their message out without talking to interviewers. And I think we're poorer for that because I think there's nothing more revealing than to see someone who's a smart interviewer engage with someone in the public eye to reveal what they're like. Usha Vance is an extremely accomplished and successful person. She also happens to be the second lady of the United States, married to J.D. vance. And I've been very interested in her since J.D. vance got into national life. She's an Indian American. She's a young woman in a position of huge prominence. And now as the second lady of the United States, I think it'd be good for the country to know more about her. She's done very few interviews, short, usually not on camera. And we're so lucky now to have about an hour long session between my two way colleague Meghan McCain and Usha Vance. It's available now on YouTube for the whole interview. And with us now joining us from the great state of Arizona is my colleague and friend Meghan McCain, fresh off her interview with Usha Vance. Megan, congratulations. Thank you for coming. And tell folks why you think Usha Vance, who's declined many, many interview requests, including just this week from the New York Times, why did she sit down with you?
- [39:48]
Usha Vance
Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me again. It's always wonderful to be with you. I don't know why she said yes. I never know why anyone says yes to me. I think I just, you know, my pitch to her team was just I have been there. I never, hardly ever give print interviews unless there's some broader mission. I hate giving them. I did one recently only for, for a company thing. But I, I find interviews to be, for the most part, if they're people that, I don't know, very hostile, particularly to conservative women. And I just said to them, I've been there, I'm still there. And I really just want to get to know her. And she hasn't done really very many interviews, and I think the American public is poor for it. I think people are very curious about her, and I want this to be a good experience for both of us. And I just heard the ball rolling that way, and her team was, like, lovely and very easy to work with. And I mean, it was. I mean, it was like a difficult interview to land in the sense that she's a prominent figure and she's very, you know, very compelling. But it was. They were pretty. They said yes pretty quickly. So I'm very grateful and thank you again. I mean, I know it's another. Another project of yours, but I. Having the platform at 2a, I think also helps because I'm not with a network with an agenda, and I think that also makes people more comfortable.
- [41:10]
Mark Calperin
You and I talked the other day about something I referenced in introducing you, which is when your dad ran for president, your mom was profiled and interviewed regularly, and people got to know her well. Before I met your mom, I understood a lot about her heart and her aspirations because of interviews. That is a dying thing. And you've revived it with this interview.
- [41:31]
Usha Vance
Well, that's what I'm hoping to do with my, you know, my job at 2A. It's one of my inspirations for coming to work with the company is, you know, when I was coming up, like you said, it was very common to do, like, People magazine profiles and Today Show. You know, I don't. I started my career at Newsweek magazine doing Back of the Book. I worked in a thing called Tip Sheet, and then I was 21, and I learned the power of pop culture and profiles of, you know, interesting people in pop culture and politics. And I don't think we are less, if you want to just know people for people, because it's still important who the humans are that are going to represent you and their family. So. I don't remember. Sorry, I lost my chain of thought. Just that I'm very. I think it's a dying art. And the media's inability to treat politicians on the left and the right like humans, I think is my gain. And I have, as, you know, I have pitches out to some people on the left as well. I don't want this just to be something for Republicans, but I feel like there's a space that hopefully I And other people can inhabit where people in politics can know that I'm not a gotcha person. I never want anyone to sit in front of me and feel uncomfortable or unhappy or like I've in any way, you know, said something to them or ask them something that they're not comfortable with. I think it's just my background and how I was raised and where I come from, and I'm delighted at the response. And I really think there's. There's a place for this. And I'm really just very grateful to Usha for her time and honestly just having some trust that. That we could do something great together.
- [42:58]
Mark Calperin
Yeah. I say all the time, the responsibility of political journalists and commentators is to do two things, primarily hold all powerful interests accountable to the public interest and help the voters and citizens understand the powerful people in the country. This is not an investigative interview. It's not a hectoring interview. It's an interview to allow people to understand her heart and her head. And again, it's a extraordinary specimen of the genre because no one could watch it without feeling like they better understand her. And. And in this case, it didn't go from a little knowledge for most people to more knowledge. It went from no knowledge for most people, including you, to some extent. Right. You didn't know her before to a lot of knowledge. So let's look at a bit of it. This is the second lady of the United States, Usha Vince, talking about her relationship with her husband, the vice president. Number C1, please.
- [43:46]
Jen Psaki
Do you mind if I ask a little bit about your love story?
- [43:49]
Mark Calperin
Sure.
- [43:49]
Jen Psaki
Because everybody's interested. So you met, my understanding, you met your husband at Y. And I just want to know. I know I saw an interview. You said you were friends first. I also read in his book that he said I love you first. When you first met him, what did you think was special about him? Because my husband and I were friendly first before we got together, too. And there was definitely a moment that I was like, oh, maybe this is a little different. Can you just tell me a little bit about your first meeting and how it turned romantic, Mrs. Vance?
- [44:23]
Zoran Mamdani
Of course. So the first meeting would have been in the library. I think I've told people about this before, where we were just on a tour of the library together, and we met all the people who were in our classes together, and that I barely remember because, you know, it was a tour. There was just this flood of information, and I was really focused on that. But we. I think we were really lucky that we got to Know each other in the best possible setting. We had all our classes together. It was just a really lovely social environment. So I just knew of him as one of the people who kind of held that group together, our small group that was going from class to class to class. Everyone really liked him. He was funny. He didn't take everything too seriously. He was just obviously really good friend material right off the bat. And so I was drawn to him for that reason. And I think that persisted for quite some time. And it really was when he later on in our second semester, when he started to talk more about where he was from and what made him this kind of person who I just found so appealing that I started to think of him in this different way as something other than a friend, but one of the more interesting people I'd ever met in my life.
- [45:36]
Jen Psaki
Sure.
- [45:37]
Zoran Mamdani
And I think that's what kind of set us on the path towards dating and eventual marriage.
- [45:44]
Mark Calperin
All right, Megan, you're a great journalist, but you're also a great intuitive understander of people. What's your appraisal of how she talks about her marriage as compared to some other folks? You know?
- [45:57]
Usha Vance
Well, I said this with you guys earlier on your morning show, that it's very clear they're in love, which, sadly, in politics, you know, that isn't always the case. I really pride myself on being able to read people, particularly, excuse me, political couples. And there's sometimes you meet people and you just, you know, for better or for worse, it's obviously a relationship of convenience or their shared love is political power. And for them, my main takeaway from Usha was just, they're genuinely in love. They have a genuine connection. They met in a really organic, normal way in college. And that she's there supporting him in the last thing she thought she would be as second lady or our next potential first lady. And I don't know, I find so much of it really refreshing because the Vice President and Mrs. Vance Usha are my age, and they have children around my age, my children's age. And I have never experienced anything like that in my adult life. Normally, political couples are much older. They have their grandchildren around, and we. We talk about in the interview the pressure of being like the first millennials in this place. And I found them very normal. When I went to their house, their dog was running around, Their children were around. There's a plague playground in their yard. There's, like, a pool that, you know, the kids could swim in. Like, it just felt like a. Other than it was a naval Observatory. And it's obviously, you know, guarded within an inch of its life. It could have been any other home in, in Washington D.C. filled with children. So found that really refreshing too.
- [47:22]
Mark Calperin
Yeah. So to me, one of the through lines of the interview is they are normal. I mean, she comes across as just such a normal person. Their relationship comes across normal. Their love story, how they met, how they interact. Now here's another way they're quote, unquote, normal in the modern era. And again, people your age, statistically are going to be more attuned to this than people my age, which is they've got a mixed marriage, they're raising three kids with two parents of different religions. Here she is talking about her faith. This is C3, please.
- [47:50]
Jen Psaki
You are Hindu and your husband is Catholic. I'm just curious because I have quite a few Hindu friends in my life, how you incorporate your faith together in your lives and with your children.
- [48:02]
Zoran Mamdani
Well, at the time when I met jd, he wasn't a Catholic. He converted later. And when he converted, we had a lot of conversations about that because it was actually after we had had our first child, maybe, maybe it was after Vivek was born too. I'm having trouble placing the date now. But of course, when you convert to Catholicism, it comes with several important obligations like to raise your child in the faith and all of that. And we had to have a lot of real conversations about how do you do that when I'm not Catholic and I'm not intending to convert or anything like that. So I actually think it was a really helpful thing to happen because we were obligated to have those conversations as a part of his conversion. And it felt like I could be a, a part of it and have some say over the way that our, the direction our lives were going. So what we've ended up doing is we send our kids to Catholic school and we have given them each the choice, right? They can choose whether they want to be baptized Catholic and then go through the whole step by step process with their classes in school. And so far, our oldest child has done that. And we'll see what our second child does. But we make going to church a family experience. The kids know that I'm not Catholic and they have plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books that we give them to things that we show them to, the visit recently to India and some of the religious elements of that visit. So it is a part of their lives. And they know many practicing Hindus as a part of their lives in their own family.
- [49:35]
Jen Psaki
Do you Celebrate, like, Diwali or Holi with them, Any of, like, the traditions.
- [49:40]
Zoran Mamdani
We haven't. We're actually hoping to have a Holi party, so we're looking forward to that next year.
- [49:45]
Jen Psaki
Beautiful.
- [49:46]
Usha Vance
It's great to know.
- [49:47]
Jen Psaki
I mean, you can explain it. It's a beautiful tradition.
- [49:50]
Zoran Mamdani
Yeah, yeah. No, I think it would be a lot of fun. Their main point of access is through spending time with my parents and my grandmother. My grandmother is a particularly devout Hindu. She, you know, she prays every day. She goes to the temple regularly. She'll do her own pujas, and so they access it that way. We spend a lot of time with them. We don't necessarily mark a lot of the holidays at home. What we do is with my family, they'll either call and we'll talk about it. There are certain things that they'll do every year, or we'll see the gods in their home and be there when pujas are happening and all that.
- [50:26]
Jen Psaki
I love that. I think it's so beautiful. I really do. I love interfaith families. And I just think from the outside, you guys seem like you're doing it really flawlessly, and it's really nice to see in this level in our, you know, in our culture and in the country. I just think it's really beautiful.
- [50:43]
Mark Calperin
Megan, it's so funny. When I was watching that part of the interview and she gave her answer, I said, I was thinking to myself, a thought bubble. That's so beautiful. And then you said the exact same thing. It's, It's. It's. It's. It's extraordinary and yet ordinary. Now in modern America, to have the kids, relatively young kids, all under 10, teaching them about the different faiths, not having tension between the two of them, even though they are of different face. The fact that he converted after they had kids is kind of incredible. And, And. And I just find her enunciation of it, her discussion of it with the calm and peace that she brings to it, to just be beautiful.
- [51:21]
Usha Vance
Yeah, I agree. And I think, like you said, it's pretty common in the country now to have interfaith marriages and interfaith families. Just for me personally, and I talk about this in the interview with her, you know, I come from a biracial family as well, and my sister is originally adopted from Bangladesh. And you probably remember this, but people might be too young to remember this, but it was somewhat controversial, and there was some political controversies associated with me having an adopted sister when my dad ran for president in the year 2000. And to see, you know, such a darkness in political history to go to having this beautiful interfaith marriage with the first South Asian second Lady and, you know, it really be celebrated within the Republican Party. Just for me, as a, you know, person who's been around a long time, it was really beautiful to observe. And I also think, look, the elephant in the room, so to speak, is that there's a really high likelihood Mrs. Vance is going to be our next First Lady. And I actually think the way she's describing her faith and their life, again, it feels very normal in so many ways. And I really think the American public are going to continue to embrace it. And I just find so much of it really modern and refreshing. I just really do. I don't know if I'm just biased because I liked her so much after I interviewed her, but I just think I wish the media would focus more on what is so beautiful about this relationship and this marriage. Because sadly, I do think if they were, you know, on the other side, if they were Democrats, if he was the vice president, the Democrat side, I do think there would be more emphasis on how amazing this is for the country. And sadly, because he's a Republican, they're not.
- [52:52]
Mark Calperin
I agree. Now, I don't want to be a snob and say that everyone who, everyone, everyone who's a clerk for Supreme Court justice, as she was, or everyone who went to Yale Law School, or everyone who works at a high powered law firm, all of which she did, I don't say that they're all brilliant, but this lady. And again, it comes through in the interview. She's brilliant. And all her friends say it too. Like, and again, I don't want to denigrate our previous second and first ladies, but she's as smart as any, any spouse or any person in public life. I mean, literally, I feel like she's as smart as, like almost anybody I've ever seen talk for an hour like that. I'm wondering just how smart you think she is.
- [53:28]
Usha Vance
I. Someone. There was some joke someplace that like, she could have been president instead. And I think that's completely true. It comes. She's. She's really. She's obviously very brilliant. I mean, her. She graduated summa cum laude from Yale, which she downplays in the interview. But I was like, oh, sha, please, like, you have to be a special kind of person that's legit. Reach that level. Oh my gosh. I mean, and again, as someone who is like a pretty C student my whole life, like, I can't even Fathom it. But she just. She's. She's highly intelligent, but she's not erudite and she's not nerdy. Like, she's very relatable and approachable, and I think that's an interesting thing to pull off, that you can come off so normal. And she was talking about the things she missed in Cincinnati and, like, the parts of her life that she missed. And again, like, very normal. She's not one of those people. Like, sometimes you meet people that go to Ivy League schools, and I say this as someone who went myself, and they just, you know, they can't stop talking about it. And it's just. That's the only thing that's important. And she really was not interested in, you know, harping on how intelligent she is and her background. Maybe she's just being humble. I don't know.
- [54:30]
Mark Calperin
Her level of humility is also, to me, extremely striking. Like, she just. She acts like, you know, it's nothing special. Now, she did largely, at this point, not previously in their marriage, but at this point, she's given up her career. She's helping. She's helping raise her three kids, although he's a very involved dad. Does it seem like her professional aspirations are on hold as long as he's in public office?
- [54:53]
Usha Vance
No. She said that she was sort of tiring of her legal work and that she was ready for a change. And I actually think, just from what I've gathered from speaking with her staff and people that are close to her, that we're going to be seeing more of her and more. You know, she's doing this literacy summer reading challenge for kids in the country, and I think we. We're going to see an extension of that. And she said, like, she's still figuring out what she wants to do with this enormous platform, but I really. I feel like I. I don't have many talents in this life, but one of them is I have really good instincts about people in politics, and I think you do as well. I think she is well on her way to being a great, iconic American figure. I think in a few years, she is going to be at a very high level. And I think, you know, I don't think she necessarily knows how important she's going to be in the country, but. And I told, again, I told people that work with her, I was like, she is really well on her way to being. And he is. I really like the vice president. I think he's doing a great job. I just. I don't know. I just really like him, and I'm be very happy to vote for him if he runs for president. But he is very lucky to have her. I mean, she is a huge asset to him, and I think she humanizes him, and I think she brings a level of class and sophistication to him that he wouldn't have without her. And, you know, I always think you can tell a lot about a man by the woman he chooses. I just. I always say that you can always tell a lot about a man by the woman they choose to marry. And it says a lot of really good things about the vice president.
- [56:13]
Mark Calperin
Yeah, I agree. I'm not sure she'll become a significant and iconic figure, but she could be. And if she wanted to be, I think she. She certainly could be. Let me ask you about two things. You know, I don't like gossip.
- [56:23]
Usha Vance
Sure.
- [56:23]
Mark Calperin
But I know I love gossip.
- [56:25]
Usha Vance
I mess.
- [56:25]
Mark Calperin
I know you do. So. So one thing. Every profile you read of her, it always says privately, her friends say she's horrified by Donald Trump and she doesn't like maga. Well, that's what I want to talk about. But I'll say, you know, her husband did not seem to like Donald Trump in 2016, so maybe she's gone through the same evolution. What's your sense of how she feels about being part of maga, about being part of the Trump administration?
- [56:50]
Usha Vance
So in the New York Times article you referenced that just came out about her, which I thought was not very well done. For whatever it's worth, they report in it that she has had her own political evolution. And just because she's not, like, tweeting about it and screaming about it all day long doesn't mean it didn't necessarily happen. And I don't think you can be calm second lady in a Trump administration unless you are, you know, on board with a lot of the ideals she says in the interview. Of course, JD And I don't get. Don't agree on everything. Who does? I disagree with my husband on 50% of things. But I do think, you know, one of the things I also relate to with her and the Vice President is I've had my own evolution with Trump, and I've had my own evolution with, you know, where we are in the world. And I think for a lot of people, like, like the Vice president and like Usha and like myself, and I can't speak for her or him, but just from what he said publicly, you know, the left has gotten so radical that you find yourself in a lot of ways, especially in my age range identifying more with the ideals of the right, particularly if you have young kids and you have, you know, a different kind of life than I did, than I when I was in my 20s. So I don't believe she's anti maga. I think that's something ugly people want to say and act like she's, you know, let me tell you something, that is not a woman who's not going to do exactly what she wants to do. She's a highly accomplished, as you said, lawyer and, you know, intellectual. I just don't believe it. And I think it's actually pretty sexist remark to say.
- [58:18]
Mark Calperin
Yeah. Let me ask you about two questions that come up all the time with first ladies and second ladies. One is how big an advisor is she to her husband on policy and political decisions?
- [58:31]
Usha Vance
I don't know about, like, the actual policy, but I think that he, I was told he is obsessed with her and that he adores her and that he's deeply in love with her and that he takes her opinion, like, possibly above all else. I don't know exactly. But I would assume that she is his first person that he goes to. They seem, like I said, they seem very much in love, very much connected, but not in a weird House of Cards way. And just like a, you know, we're teammates and we're together in this. And. And again, I need to emphasize I have not interviewed Vice President Manson. I. I've never actually even met him. I don't know him at all. But this is just what I gather from interviewing her and from talking to people around them.
- [59:09]
Mark Calperin
What's her relationship like, as far as you can see from. With Melania Trump, there's a history of first ladies and second ladies sometimes not getting along. Do they. Did they seem well integrated together?
- [59:21]
Usha Vance
Yeah, I think they like each other. I think they've done events together. I think there's like a respect there. And I actually, you know, I love behind the gates drama of any administration. I actually don't. I think the drama that may be going on in the Trump administration, I don't think it has anything to do with USHO or the vice president or Melania or Trump. From all intents and purposes. I heard they go to dinner, they get along. And that President Trump in particular really admires the fact that she's such an intellectual and she's so accomplished.
- [59:49]
Mark Calperin
All right, two pieces of news in the interview related to a topic near and dear to my heart and yours, which is babies.
- [59:58]
Usha Vance
I know.
- [59:59]
Mark Calperin
All right, so first, sometimes we turn the tables a two way and the interviewer makes the news. Here is you revealing for the first time some news that's now out there, but maybe not everyone's heard. This is Megan McCain. Ushevan C11, please.
- [60:17]
Jen Psaki
I hope you don't mind. I wanted to let you in on something that is private that I haven't talked about publicly yet because one of the things I have so enjoyed about you and your husband is seeing how you incorporate your children in your life in so many ways. You travel with them and you know they're very public with you when you go to different kinds of events. I just saw a picture at the military parade with your children. Like, I just love it. I have two little girls. They are almost five and almost three. And I just am entering my second trimester. I'm pregnant with my third.
- [60:51]
Usha Vance
I know this is a weird way to announce it, but.
- [60:53]
Zoran Mamdani
No, it's wonderful.
- [60:54]
Jen Psaki
I'm very nervous about. It's a boy. I'm very nervous about having a boy and I'm very nervous about having three children. Very. And I keep reading all this horrible data about how people with three kids, it's like the worst amount of kids to have. And I wanted to know if you could share with me and women in America why having three kids is good, how you manage three kids and any.
- [61:14]
Usha Vance
Advice for boy moms.
- [61:16]
Zoran Mamdani
Absolutely. Well, congratulations. That's so exciting.
- [61:19]
Jen Psaki
Thank you for letting me share this with you. We just met 20 minutes ago, so I feel like we're intimate enough for.
- [61:24]
Usha Vance
Me to tell you.
- [61:25]
Zoran Mamdani
I love it. I love it. I love having three kids. I'm a huge proponent of it. I mean, obviously people want to have different family sizes for different reasons. But what I've really enjoyed about three kids is that it's just enough for them all to be kind of of a piece pack. Like the oldest will take care of the youngest one. The youngest is so motivated to be like the older two that she's basically self sufficient and always has been. It's awesome. And I thought zero to one was an enormous shock.
- [61:53]
Jen Psaki
Yeah, me too.
- [61:54]
Zoran Mamdani
Zero feels one way. And one feels like the entire world is turned upside down and you don't know what you're doing and what's up and what's down. Two to three wasn't that bad. And three or four, sorry, one to two wasn't that bad. And two to three was shockingly the easiest of all. So I think you're maybe in for a surprise because, you know, the oldest kid can be helpful and they actually want to be helpful at a certain point. And I, at least in our experience, our third child just thinks that she's a, you know, an eight year old boy at this point she is completely grown up. She does everything by herself. It's great. And then as for the tips about girls and boys, the one thing that I will say is that the growth curves are so different and the way that the timeline of development is really different, that that comes as a little bit of surprise.
- [62:45]
Usha Vance
How so?
- [62:46]
Zoran Mamdani
Well, our little boys, especially verbally were just behind our little girls and they also grew taller faster. So just don't be surprised by that.
- [62:59]
Jen Psaki
My friend told me that you have to like that they just have more energy all the time. Is it true that they like are just more rambunctious and have to like. My friend says she has to like run her son out like a racehorse. Do you have that experience?
- [63:11]
Zoran Mamdani
Running our middle child like a racehorse is definitely a thing. Our oldest is actually very, he's kind of a well mannered, pretty calm kid, but he loves to wrestle and he loves all of these. He's got a lot of energy as well, but he can kind of rein it in. There's just no chance with our second kid who just has to move. So we just try to think of when they were little, we tried to think of life in almost like 15 minute blocks.
- [63:34]
Jen Psaki
Yes.
- [63:34]
Zoran Mamdani
Like what can we do with Vivek for 15 minutes before he then starts trying to tear apart the furniture? What can we do for the next 15 minutes?
- [63:40]
Usha Vance
It's like my daughter, she's an animal.
- [63:42]
Mark Calperin
You and I talk to parents of kids around our kids age all the time and some of them talk about kids in their own kids and kids in general in a remarkably dismissive way. You know, and some, some of them make sarcastic or what I consider to be dark remarks about regretting having kids or what a pain it is. Of all the things in your interview with her that really made me so impressed by her and drawn to her and, and found her appealing is the way she just talked to you about raising kids. It's, it just, it's exactly the way I think about raising kids. It's exactly the way that I think all parents should.
- [64:17]
Usha Vance
Yeah, it was my favorite part of the interview and she legitimately made me feel better. There's a lot of fear mongering that has come when I telling people I'm pregnant. We're having a third. I mean I've had people be like, you're going to lose your mind and your body and you're going to go crazy. Three kids is going to send you to a mental institution and all this stuff. And I was like, that's not productive or helpful at all. And her being so positive about it was like so lovely. I think the thing she's saying about the difference between boys and girls is something I'm definitely heating because I'm in such a girl world. But you know, she just. And also for people criticizing me, announcing that I was pregnant that way, her, her. I did give a heads up like, like this wasn't a complete. Just so we're clear, I would never do such a thing to anyone, spring it on someone. But she was so lovely about it. Even after the interview, she was just so congratulatory. And you know, I'm an older Mom. I'm 40. I had my first kid when I was 35. You know, I think they were, they were a little younger, but you know, they weren't like 22 when they had their first kid. So I, I love her advice. And again, I, I never thought I'd be this person that's like so drawn to people who are open about their children. But I think there's, there's such a thing right now that people don't want to have kids and they're very negative about it. And again, everybody's choice is their own choice. Do whatever you want. But I do not like fear mongering associated with having children. Because for me. Go ahead. And you're a wonderful dad and you love having a child, so.
- [65:36]
Mark Calperin
I do, I do.
- [65:37]
Usha Vance
And expose things by your personal life. Mark.
- [65:39]
Mark Calperin
No, that's okay. All good. When you told me you were, when you told me you were having a boy, I was very happy for you and Ben. I'm very happy about it. And then I didn't, unfortunately, I did anticipate because for whatever reason, you were just a lightning rod for whatever you do. I knew that people would give you a hard time for it. But I also know how happy people are for you. All right, last thing I want to show, speaking of older parents, is Usha Vance breaking a little news here, talking about the prospect of jumping leapfrogging over the McCain number of three to four. This is C12, please.
- [66:09]
Jen Psaki
You have three gorgeous kids. I just met your little daughter. She was walking to go get some crafts. She's beautiful.
- [66:18]
Usha Vance
Eight.
- [66:19]
Jen Psaki
What are their ages? You tell me.
- [66:20]
Zoran Mamdani
They are eight, five and three.
- [66:22]
Jen Psaki
Okay, three kids. Very exciting. Did you guys always want to have a. I mean, I wouldn't say a big family, but as Three children. When did you decide to have kids and how important was having children to your marriage?
- [66:38]
Zoran Mamdani
Well, we decided we. I don't think we would have gotten married if we didn't both know that we were going to have kids because we were both independently very interested in it. So that was never in question. You know, by the time we were married, we knew we were gonna have kids. The number though, that was in question. I grew up with just two kids in my family, and JD has a differently structured family, but he primarily grew up with just his sister. I think what we had decided at the outset is we'll have two and then we'll see how we feel after that. And I thought maybe I would have two kids and I would think, I'm done, this is good. But I just liked having the two kids so much that I think I ended up being the driver for three, which really surprised both of us. And now we're at three, and I think I'm feeling pretty good about this. And sometimes he thinks he might like to have a fourth, but we'll see where that leads.
- [67:25]
Jen Psaki
Do you think it's still open?
- [67:28]
Zoran Mamdani
I mean, never say never.
- [67:29]
Usha Vance
Sure.
- [67:30]
Zoran Mamdani
We do really love having our three kids, but I'm also really enjoying that they're at an age now where, you know, they're a little bit more self sufficient. They play together as this little pack, and we're kind of past the baby phase.
- [67:44]
Mark Calperin
I'm hoping you get a JD Vance interview and ask him about fatherhood because just the glimpses we get of how involved he is, how often he wants to spend time with his kids, how often he makes time for that. It's incredible. And not all busy, important people do it and he does it. And she again, just seems like such an active mom and, and no screen time on flights. She told you in the interview, which some parents would freak out even pondering.
- [68:11]
Usha Vance
I couldn't believe it when she said that. She's very gracious in the sense saying, like, obviously I'm in a different kind of plane than, than like I am when I travel. But, you know, we allow our children to have tablets on planes because I just, you know, it's just really hard to take like six hour flights that way. But I think they're again, they're not like snobby about it. And I also think, you know, I don't know if they'll have another child, like, you know, but if they did, I think like America would have a nervous breakdown with excitement. I think it would be like, because it's Just like an unfathomable thing. Everyone's so old in politics, right? And they have really. I met her little daughter. They have gorgeous, lovely children. So. And I really admire the fact I, I just, I heard that Vice President Vance, sometimes he'll go to the White House, meet with the president and then come home and put his children to bed and then like, either go back to the White House or continue working. And I don't know. I love it. I think it's so cool.
- [69:03]
Mark Calperin
Yeah. Again, whether you're Republican, Democrat, independent, apolitical, this is an extraordinary hour to spend with Megan and Usha Vance and to learn about someone who's very important and extremely impressive. Again, whatever you think of her politics or the administration's politics, she's an incredibly impressive person and in every way, in terms of age, religion, country of origin, parents, just a great American story. And I'm grateful to you for bringing it to two way to the country. Tell people who want to watch the whole interview where they can.
- [69:37]
Usha Vance
You can go to YouTube.com itizen McCain and it's on two way. And it's just, my show is called Citizen McCain. And I really just want to thank you, Mark, again, I, you know, I work with you at your. At two way. And working there has been such a pleasure and such a privilege. There was a period of time that I was like, I don't even know if I want to work in media anymore because I don't want to do mean things. I, you know, and it's not that I can't. My personal commentary can be aggressive and mean when I'm saying it, but I never want to be. I never want to put anyone in uncomfortable situation. So to have this platform where everyone's, you know, respectful and happy about the idea of doing things that are like, nice interviews that make people feel happy is such a pleasure. And I just want to thank you. It's. I'm having so much fun and I just, I don't know, it's like, media can be really fun again and it's really nice. Thank you.
- [70:24]
Mark Calperin
Well, thank you. Love having you as a colleague and so happy about the baby and can't wait to see your two older girls react to their new sibling, which is going to be spectacular. Thank you, Megan.
- [70:36]
Usha Vance
Yeah, thank you, everybody.
- [70:37]
Mark Calperin
Go watch the interview. Thank you for watching this episode of NextUp. I'm grateful to have you part of it. As always, we'd like to keep growing our audience. We're very grateful for the progress we've had so far, but go ahead. Like subscribe, share, spread the word. Available on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts, Apple and Spotify and everywhere else. And there'll be more. Next up. Next up. Thank you for watching. We'll see you soon.
- [71:04]
Birch Lane Ad
Welcome to Birch Lane, where you can find a fresh take on classic furniture and decor. Every piece is hand picked and crafted to last for years to come. At Birch Lane, you can explore everything from outdoor sets to living room furniture and everything in between and get fast free shipping its classic style for joyful living. Shop now at birchlane. Com.