Is Zohran Mamdani's Plan for New York Economically Possible? — ft. Bradley Tusk

Summary

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Prof G Markets – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Is Zohran Mamdani's Plan for New York Economically Possible?
Date: November 7, 2025
Host(s): Scott Galloway and Ed Elson (Vox Media Podcast Network)
Guest: Bradley Tusk (political strategist, former Bloomberg campaign manager, venture capitalist)

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Overview: Main Theme

In this episode, Scott Galloway and Ed Elson sit down with political strategist and venture capitalist Bradley Tusk to unpack the implications of Zohran Mamdani’s recent mayoral victory in New York City. The discussion centers around whether Mamdani’s economically progressive and democratic socialist agenda is feasible at the city level, what it might mean for New York’s economy and business environment, and how broader trends in political messaging and economic policy inform the future of both the Democratic Party and the country.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: New York Election Aftermath

• High voter turnout: Over 2 million people voted—a 50-year high ([01:41]).
• Mamdani’s victory: First openly democratic socialist mayor in modern NYC history.
• Business vs. politics: New tension between the city’s business interests and Mamdani’s left-leaning platform.

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What Power Does a Mayor Actually Have?

• Limits of authority:

  “At the end of the day, the mayor doesn't really control the economy directly… The job of the mayor… is to pick up the trash… make sure the clean water comes out of the tap. If he governs pragmatically, then I think he might be just fine. If he governs totally dogmatically, then I think we've got a problem.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([07:59])

• **Albany controls most taxes; mayor can’t set interest rates or basic economic policy alone.

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Does Mamdani’s “Socialist” Label Matter?

• Symbolic, not absolute: Mamdani’s democratic socialist affiliation is more an ethos than a roadmap for extreme policies.

• Risk of dogmatism:

  “If you were to take the DSA's platform and truly try to apply that to the mayoralty, then I think New York City very well might be a place where a lot of people wouldn't want to live.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([09:05])

• Key fact: The richest 1% pay about 50% of NYC income taxes—flight of wealth is a real concern ([09:20]).

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Will High Earners Really Leave NYC?

• Immediate exodus unlikely:

  “The odds of anyone this morning picking up the phone, calling a real estate broker and leaving town just because Mandani won last night seem pretty low to me. It will come down to how he governs.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([10:31])

• Real risks: Already a decrease in NYC's share of millionaires, correlating with $13B loss in tax revenue ([10:31]).

• Personnel signals: Keeping Jesse Tisch as NYPD commissioner is read as a sign of pragmatism ([10:31]).

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Ideological Consistency vs. Campaign Rhetoric

• Does Mamdani believe what he’s said publicly?

  “We know he tweeted in 2020, Defund the police. So we know that's where he stood on the issue. Now he's on TV saying, that's not actually what I believe… I actually switched my view…”
  — Scott Galloway ([11:39])

• Tusk’s view: He doubts extreme policies will be implemented—Mamdani studies policy and history, and is “quite smart” ([12:29]).

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Blueprint for Affordability in NYC

• Structural problem:

  “One of the reasons that New York City and so many cities around this country lack affordable housing is that the cost of creating new housing is so incredibly high that it doesn't pencil out for developers.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([17:29])

• Recent ballot measures: New zoning and housing ballot measures passed in NYC to lower the cost/time for new construction ([17:29]).

• Flaws in some progressive proposals:

  • City-run grocery stores: “Government running private enterprise never works. It's a very minor thing.” ([25:04])
  • Rent freeze: “Even though it's only 28% of apartments, my guess is that a lot of people who voted for him… assume it applies to them too.” ([25:00])
  • Election promises as campaign strategy:

    “Of course he [Mamdani] knows [some proposals don’t work]; because he wanted to get elected. He's still a politician at the end of the day.”
    — Bradley Tusk ([24:39])

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Local vs. National Economic Interventions

• On AI and labor: Early adopting companies are already laying off most employees due to automation; government will have to rethink safety nets (e.g., universal basic income) ([17:29], [29:55]).
• Congressional inaction:

  “If you look at… Internet 2.0, there's been no meaningful federal regulation of social media and it has had an absolute disastrous impact, especially on kind of young men.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([17:29])

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Dogmatic vs. Pragmatic Politics

• Bloomberg vs. de Blasio:

  “What made Mike Bloomberg a really great mayor… he acted in the best interest of the city, of the people. And I think the voters understood that, and they were willing to give him a lot of leeway.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([26:40])

• The danger of governing only for the base:

  “If your only goal is reelection for the sake of reelection, then you just govern for the base and you don't care about the other 96%...”
  — Bradley Tusk ([28:28])

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Political Messaging & The Power of “Rock Stars”

• Winning national politics:

  “The people who win the presidency are almost always not the best qualified people. It's people who really resonate with the voters. It's the rock stars… All the normal checklists… do you have this union… does not matter.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([30:57])

• Mamdani’s “rock star” appeal: Charisma, messaging discipline, digital fluency; compared to Obama/Bernie in ability to galvanize energy on the left ([30:57], [32:36]).

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Three Big Political/Economic Ideas (Tusk’s prescriptions)

1. Voting by phone:

   • “If you can get turnout from 8% to 32% in a primary, that's what moves everything towards the middle… That's what ends all of extremism, polarization.”
     — Bradley Tusk ([33:18])

2. Universal basic income (UBI):

   • In favor, citing efficiency and the need to provide basics in an era of AI-driven unemployment ([33:18]), but acknowledges “U” in UBI is controversial, and means-testing is likely more realistic ([37:45]).
   • Skeptical of the inflation argument, suggests giving money to lower-income people “juices everything else in a good way” ([37:45]).

3. Repealing Section 230:

   • Wants to make platforms responsible for content moderation like media companies, believes addiction and polarization stem from regulatory hands-off stance ([33:18], [39:44]).

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Framing the Income Inequality Challenge

• Capitalism’s dual legacy:

  “Where Mandani is wrong in my view about capitalism, is it has far and away been the most effective force in history to help poor people... The problem with capitalism is when you take it to its final logical conclusion... it's really almost impossible to be truly happy because you're on this hamster wheel...”
  — Bradley Tusk ([44:49])

• Social democracy vs. socialism: The real debate is about “making capitalism less capitalistic,” not abolishing it in favor of true socialism ([48:25]).

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The Democratic Party’s Future

• Charisma and relatability as key to 2028:

  • Ed and Tusk agree AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) is a Democratic “rock star”, as is Mamdani, but they view dogmatism and intolerance as political risks ([54:50]).

• Effective messaging means listening, not lecturing:

  “The Democratic Party has to stop being so condescending, stop being so intolerant, stop being so self righteous and like Zoran did, let people feel heard and understood.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([50:41])

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Advice for Mamdani—and the Future of NYC

• Govern for your legacy, not the next office:

  “Run the city as this is your last ever elected position. Don't worry about 29. Don't worry about… trying to be governor or senator one day. Just do what you think is right… The people will understand it.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([53:06])

• Drown out Twitter/the DSA and unions, focus on the whole city. ([53:06])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On progressive policies:

  “Someone from the DMV picking our produce is not going to make prices go down unless you subsidize those stores.”
  — Ed Elson ([16:53])

• On AI layoffs:

  “The companies laying off the most people… are the ones who are figuring out this whole AI game.”
  — Ed Elson ([29:55])

• On charisma and presidential politics:

  “You have to figure out who's the rock star… None of that shit really matters. What really matters is how you resonate with the people directly.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([30:57])

• On Section 230 and tech:

  “I think our addiction to Internet and social media, our phones, is so great that we're not going to stop using it just because people are saying kill the Jews less on TikTok or whatever.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([40:42])

• On business and politics in NYC:

  “If anyone needs Zoran to be a disaster, it's actually Chuck Schumer. Because if AOC primaries Chuck… and Zoran is successful, Chuck's in big trouble.”
  — Bradley Tusk ([60:07])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [07:59] – Powers and limits of the mayoralty, dangers of dogmatism
• [09:05] – The socialist label and NYC’s tax base
• [10:31] – Affluent flight: myth vs. reality, Jesse Tisch as signal
• [11:39] – Ideological consistency vs. campaign strategy
• [17:29] – Housing affordability, ballot measures, rent freeze economics
• [24:39] – Are progressive policies just campaign tactics?
• [28:28] – The risk of governing only for the base
• [30:57] – “Rock star” politicians, political messaging
• [33:18] – Voting by phone and systemic political reforms
• [37:45] – UBI and inflation, efficiency of direct transfer vs. social programs
• [39:44] – Section 230, internet toxicity
• [44:49] – Capitalism, status, happiness, and inequality
• [48:25] – Social democracy vs. socialism, lessons from Finland
• [53:06] – Advice to Mamdani: govern for the people, not your political career

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Tone and Language

• Candid, irreverent, sharp: The hosts mix humor and “no mercy, no malice” directness.
• Policy-savvy and data-driven: Bradley Tusk provides deep insider perspective, but with pragmatic realism and skepticism about both extremes.
• Pop-cultural references and analogies: Frequent callbacks to political “rock stars,” Waffle House, OnlyFans, and more to illustrate points.

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Takeaways for Non-Listeners

• Zohran Mamdani’s win poses more ideological/cultural drama than near-term economic risk, unless he governs in a strictly dogmatic fashion.
• Electoral “rock stars”—those who resonate deeply and authentically with voters—matter more than policy pedigree or institutional support.
• The central economic issue ahead is inequality, which current U.S. capitalism exacerbates—but “fixes” will require both smarter policy and new political messaging.
• Progress is more likely through pragmatic reforms than grand ideological overhauls, whether in New York or the nation.

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Transcript

[Scott Galloway]

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[Ed Elson]

Support for this show comes from Strawberry Me. Be honest. Are you happy with your job? Or are you stuck in one you've outgrown or never wanted in the first place? Sure, you can probably list the reasons for staying, but. But are they actually just excuses for not leaving? Let a career coach from Strawberry Me help you get unstuck. Discover the benefits of having a dedicated career coach in your corner. Go to Strawberry Me Unstuck to claim.

[Claire Miller]

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[Ed Elson]

Download today Today's number 2 million More than 2 million people voted in the New York City mayoral election, the most in a half a century.

[Claire Miller]

True story.

[Ed Elson]

Reportedly in every Asian household, the kids are freaking out is now their parents are going to say what? You're not mayor by the age of 33? And also also add I let's be honest, this is a huge defeat for.

[Scott Galloway]

Perverts all over the world.

[Ed Elson]

But I want the other. I want the other perverts to know that we will rebuild. We will be back.

[Bradley Tusk]

Listen to me.

[Ed Elson]

Markets are bigger than us.

[Scott Galloway]

What you have here is a structural.

[Ed Elson]

Change in the world.

[Scott Galloway]

Distribution cash is trash.

Stocks look pretty attractive.

[Claire Miller]

Something's going to break.

[Bradley Tusk]

Forget about it.

[Ed Elson]

How are you Ed?

[Scott Galloway]

I'm doing very well. How are you doing this call?

[Ed Elson]

I'm less miserable than I usually am. I'm really excited about the election results. You know, I Don't. I would not have voted for this mayor. I'm not. I'm not a New York resident. I always have to feel like I have to do a land acknowledgement to my Jewish brothers and sisters. But the other races, I'm especially excited about the governor's races, even down ballot races. The probably the most important race was the referendum in California and that passed overwhelmingly. But yeah, I'm feeling pretty good this morning. And how about you, how are you doing?

[Scott Galloway]

You know, I have something for you once. One second.

[Ed Elson]

Who's under the table? Is that why you're smiling? Boss, if it has anything to do with my birthday, it was two days ago or. I know, but thank you.

[Scott Galloway]

We gotta celebrate it.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, no, no, actually we don't. We don't.

[Scott Galloway]

We do. We do. It's your birthday. This is Scott's favorite. I mean, it was your birthday a couple days ago. We didn't celebrate it. Your least favorite day of the year. But we have to celebrate it and acknowledge it somehow. Otherwise, what are we doing here?

[Ed Elson]

Okay, box checked. Let's talk about book and my media tour.

[Scott Galloway]

Come on, it's a good day.

[Ed Elson]

It's good when you're 14, like fucking Ed Elson. When you're barreling towards death like Scott Galloway. All I have is like shingles and Crohn's to look forward to.

[Scott Galloway]

I ordered these last night. Come on. This was a lot of effort for me.

[Ed Elson]

You really brought it there. You must be a fantastic boyfriend. It's like when my dad came home for Christmas on the 21st, four days before Christmas and he brought home a quiznart from Sears for my his third wife.

[Scott Galloway]

I could do a little more than a paper hat. Next time. Next time I'll get you the second Ferrari.

[Ed Elson]

Talk about my book, bitch. That's my birthday present.

[Scott Galloway]

Tell us about your book. Amazing book launch. You're all over the place. Number one on Amazon.

[Ed Elson]

I'm number one on Amazon. It's funny, I don't really buy into the modern metrics of a capitalist society, Ed. I have not refreshed my Amazon page every seven minutes, waiting it to fall to number two behind. Fucking let them. Mel Robbins and Andrew Huberman telling me to eat, drink pineapple juice and creatine the rest of my life. I think the key is I, no joke, cried on the View, which felt very masculine in front of four women.

[Scott Galloway]

It was nice though. It was moving.

[Ed Elson]

That was a low light.

[Scott Galloway]

So you've been on the View, you've been on Morning Joe, you were on the Today Show. You were on Cara Swish's podcast. What am I missing here?

[Ed Elson]

I'm not even keeping track. Cbs, pbs, Amanpour, Times of London. And today I go on Fareed Zakari, Anderson Cooper. Anderson Cooper. Today I go on the Daily show with Jordan Klepper. And then tonight I'm being interviewed by Ben Stiller, who I'd be great friends with, but he doesn't drink. It's really getting in the way of our friendship. What's going on in your life?

[Scott Galloway]

I'm just grinding, Scott. I'm just working on this podcast. Yeah, but everything's going very well and we're going to have our. I thought we were going to have our meeting last week. We didn't have that meeting. It's happening this week and we're going to review how the business is doing. I got to tell you, I get very excited for these meetings.

[Ed Elson]

That's because the business is doing well.

[Scott Galloway]

Exactly. If we were doing badly, then I'd be a little terrified. But we good.

[Ed Elson]

I don't think anyone in your generation, maybe with a few of these kids, are being laid off from these information edge companies. I think the majority of people with your kind of certification and your skills and this worries me a little bit. Your life has pretty much been. And I'll say that having. I don't know what you face personally, but professionally, I don't know if there was a malicious clown at a little birthday event. I don't know what happened.

[Scott Galloway]

Without any real knowledge, I'm just gonna go out on a whim and say, your life's been pretty good.

[Ed Elson]

Your life's been a fucking Easter parade. I know professionally. Cause your entire professional life has been with me. That your professional life has pretty much been up and to the right.

[Scott Galloway]

Ye, that's true. It's been. It's been a cakewalk.

[Ed Elson]

You know what? Just for a learning experience. I promise to fix that at some point.

[Scott Galloway]

I can't wait. Well, should we get into our conversation here with Bradley Tusk? We're going to talk about this election, what it means for New York.

[Ed Elson]

Let's do it.

[Scott Galloway]

Here is our conversation with Bradley Tusk, veg capitalist, political strategist and writer. Brad, thank you very much for joining us on Profgue Markets.

[Bradley Tusk]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Scott Galloway]

So we want to get into this election here. The reason why we wanted to speak with you, just to go over your background for our listeners here. So you ran Mike Bloomberg's mayoral campaign in 2009, which he won. You were the campaign manager before that. You Served as deputy governor of Illinois. Before that, you were Chuck Schumer's communications director. Before that, you actually worked for the New York City Parks Department. You were a senior advisor. So you are heavily involved in New York politics, but at the same time, you're also a leader in business. You worked on Wall street for several years. You were an early advisor to Uber. You started your VC firm, Tusk Ventures. So you have pretty deep experience in the New York City political world and also the New York City business world. And these are two worlds which may be colliding after this mayoral election. Many believe they're about to be at odds with one another. So just want to start with the context here, and then I'll throw it back to you, and we'll start very broad. Zoran Mamdani is the next mayor of New York City. What does this mean for New York City?

[Bradley Tusk]

It's an open question. So I think part of the challenge over the last few months is a misunderstanding of the role of city government and of the mayor. So while I did not vote for Mondani, a lot of the sort of rendering of garments to me is overstated. Yes, he's a socialist, but at the end of the day, the mayor doesn't really control the economy directly. The mayor does not set interest rates. The mayor does not control the supply chain. He can't even really raise taxes without Albany. And so, you know, the job of the mayor, of really any mayor, is to pick up the trash. It's to make sure the lights turn from green to red. It's to make sure the clean water comes out of the tap. And if he governs pragmatically, then I think he might be just fine. If he governs totally dogmatically, then I think we've got a problem.

[Scott Galloway]

So you mentioned that, you know, he is a democratic socialist. This wouldn't have a real impact, you know, on markets, on the economy. He doesn't have that level of power. What does it mean, though, that he is a democratic socialist? Does that. Is that important to you? Does that strike you? Is that something that we should care about?

[Bradley Tusk]

Well, it's important in the sense that if you were to take the dsa, that's the Democratic Socialist of America, their platform, and if he were to truly try to apply that to the mayoralty, then I think New York City very well might be a place where a lot of people wouldn't want to live. If you truly believe that the police are evil and should be fully defunded, if you truly believe that taxes should be as high as absolutely possible. If you truly believe that every business and every business person sort of is inherently rapacious and greedy and needs to be punished in some way, then, yeah, that is not a good look for the city. That is the financial capital of the world, the media capital of the world, and a city that relies on the its highest income taxpayers. About 1% of New Yorkers pay about 50% of the city's income taxes. And New York City is a value proposition. At a certain point, if it is too expensive and too dangerous, people can and will choose to live somewhere else. And what that ultimately results in is a lot less money for poor people. It's the poorest among us who need maximum city revenue for Medicaid, for public housing, for public assistance. And if Mondani's policies do cause a flight of capital, the poor people are the ones who are gonna pay the most.

[Scott Galloway]

Do you think that that will happen? I mean, we've seen a lot of people saying, leading up to the election, a lot of wealthy people saying, I'm leaving if he gets in office. You think that's gonna happen?

[Bradley Tusk]

No, I don't. The odds of anyone this morning picking up the phone, calling a real estate broker and leaving town just because Mandani won last night seemed pretty low to me. It will come down to how he governs. One very encouraging sign so far is that he said that he wants to keep Jesse Tisch as police commissioner. She runs the nypd. She seems to be extremely good at it. If she chooses to stay and he lets her do her job, that's a pretty clear sign that he understands that the role of the mayor is to give people a clean, safe, well run city. And if he can do that, he's gonna be just fine. And if he can't, there will be a flight. There already has been. So in 2012, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, New York City had 12.7% of America's millionaires, and now it's down to 8.7%. And that's a resulting loss of about $13 billion a year in tax revenue. And so people can move. City governments are the most vulnerable to that kind of thing. So we'll see. I think in my conversations with him, he gets that, but, you know, the proof will be in the pudding, and who he hires will tell us all.

[Scott Galloway]

You mentioned some of those things that, you know, you're saying if he truly believes xyz, if he truly believes that we need to defund the. I'm trying to remember some of the examples that you gave, but generally speaking, they seem to be slight caricatures, but I'm not totally sure. And I think one question a lot of people are asking is like, what does he truly believe? We know that he tweeted in 2020, Defund the police. So we know that that's where he stood on the issue. Now he's on TV saying, that's not actually what I believe. And I think I don't have a problem with that, personally saying I actually switched my view. But I guess my question to you, having talked with him, what does he truly believe? And those concerns you raised, do you think that those are the kinds of policies that he will actually enact and try to enact as mayor?

[Bradley Tusk]

I don't think so, by and large, because I think he does study history really well, and I think he is quite smart. And when you look at where other mayors have failed, it is typically because they either went way too far on some sort of ideological bent or they ignored. I mean, Eric Adams mayoralty effectively was derailed, probably not by all the petty corruption, but simply that when it came to quality of life, he didn't do a good job. You know, there was a point where New York city had over 5,000 illegal weed shops, which means stores that were openly selling narcotics without a license to do so. And Adam just for years and years, just ignored it. Right. We have scaffolding everywhere. We have such a shoplifting epidemic that if you want a tube of toothpaste, you have to get someone to open up a lock case for you. We have e bikes roaring up and down the sidewalks. And so when the city feels out of control, people blame the mayor. I do think Zohran gets that, and we'll see how that impacts his choices as governing.

[Ed Elson]

I can't help but add on a lot of my Jewish friends ask me why I wasn't being more vocal against Mondami, and I'm like, he doesn't set policy on Israel. It's just we've got bigger battles to fight here than who's in charge of the MTA union negotiations. Anyway, talk a little bit about some of the other races. This feels. As a. As a proud progressive, this feels like a good morning. Typically, in off cycles, it goes against whoever the incumbent president is. So was this a surprise to the upside for Blue or just sort of an average part of the cycle?

[Bradley Tusk]

No, I think. I think it was a surprise to the upside for Blue, in part because Democrats have been having a really rough go of it to just quickly your point at Israel. Look, I'm a fervent Zionist, but with that said, no member of the Israeli Knesset has ever said, wait, before I cast this critical vote, let me see what the mayor of New York. Let's see what it does.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah.

[Bradley Tusk]

What matters is whether and how he protects Jews in New York. I think he gets that. As long as he does that, it's fine. Nationally, look, where you can really contrast Zoran with the other candidates who succeeded last night is whether you like Zoran or not. To his credit, he did have an affirmative agenda. Right. He had a clear vision for New York City. He smiles, he laughs, he's likable. Whereas I think the stereotype right now, and largely it's been pretty true, of the Democratic Party, is just incessant whining and complaining and no real vision, just being against everything. I don't know that Mikey Sherrill or Abigail Spamberger, who respectively won the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia last night, have a clear vision for their states. They have policy positions on their website, obviously, but I don't think it really mattered because voters were expressing their opinions about Trump and about the nation overall. The thing to me that was the most telling was an AB News Washington Post poll came out yesterday morning that said 71% of Americans feel that their grocery prices have gone up. And of independents, 2/3 of them blame Trump for it directly. Based on tariffs and everything else. There are lots of issues that you or me or AT or whoever might scream about on authoritarianism or rule of law or process. I'm not sure that most Americans care all that much about process, but they know what it costs to go to the grocery store, and when they start feeling like it's costing them a lot more money, they start blaming people. And. And so unless you think that Trump is going to totally revoke the tariffs and everything's going to change, you're in a position where this very well might be the same or even worse economic climate a year from now when the midterms head, and you have to be encouraged, if you're a Democrat, at your chances of at least retaking the House. So now, with all of that said, Democrats retaking the House just gets us to a place where Trump can't get his agenda through Congress. But if you have a president that genuinely does not care about rule of law and just does things anyway, and a Supreme Court that seems terrified of him, that may not matter.

[Ed Elson]

So I want to come back to New York just for a second, because what you said about Democrats need to be more than just clutching their pearls. I need the party of ideas. So government sponsored food grocery stores makes absolute fucking lutely no sense to me. It's a low margin business. 83% of bodega owners are immigrants. That's like the last business we want to be in. Someone from the dm. DMV picking our produce is not going to make prices go down unless you subsidize those stores. And ultimately no.

[Scott Galloway]

I love the dmv.

[Bradley Tusk]

I know. Yeah. A big part of the DMV trading is picking the right avocados.

[Ed Elson]

Listen to two of you. Rent stabilization and rent freezes, as far as I can tell, Economics 101, they end up having the opposite effect. They end up actually increasing rent prices, but instead of just being the, you know, the podcaster of no. What as someone who's been a deputy mayor of Chicago, focus on affordability. What are the structural shifts a mayor could enact or even Congress to make life more affordable for Americans? What are the ideas that would in fact bring down prices?

[Bradley Tusk]

Yeah, I mean the first thing is so wasn't paid much attention to but there were ballot measures last night in New York City that dealt with the process for approving construction and housing and they passed. And that's a really big deal because one of the reasons that New York City and so many cities around this country lack affordable housing is that the cost of creating new housing is so incredibly high that it doesn't pencil out for developers. Like, you just made the point on the rent free. So about 28% of New York City apartments are rent controlled or rent stabilized. The mayor does have the power to basically disallow any rent increases for those apartments. Like you said, that just spreads the cost out to everybody else. So if you were to meaningfully make affordable housing easier and if you were to reduce the costs and reduce all of the political burden and nonsense that typically goes on that leads to more housing and just basic supply and demand. If there's a greater supply of housing, then prices will come down. So that that's clearly one thing that we could do. And obviously I'm sure you've had, you know, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on one of your shows at some points talk about their whole abundance agenda. A lot of that would would certainly make sense. The other thing, and this is much more on a national level than local, but it's an issue that you, you talk about a lot on your podcast, Scott, which is, you know, what's the impact of AI going to be. And to me at least when I look at the job numbers, I think that AI is already having an impact. The companies that are laying off the most people, which are the really big tech companies, are the earliest adopters of things like AI. Often they're the developers of it too. And I think by 2026 and 2028 this will be a really meaning. And how we go about regulating AI, how we go about making sure that we don't end up with 26 people who are trillionaires and 19% unemployment is going to be really important. I think Andrea Yan kind of kicked this whole conversation off 15 years ago or so with his book that proposed universal basic income as a solution for AI layoffs. That's going to be an issue that the government has to deal with. And typically speaking, Congress has abdicated that role. If you look at kind of Internet 2.0, there's been no meaningful federal regulation of social media and it has had an absolute disastrous impact, especially on kind of young men. Scott, as you talk about quite a bit. So yeah, I think those are at least two things that I would jump into. Definitely on a national level and someone on a local level.

[Scott Galloway]

We'll be right back after the break and if you're enjoying the show so far, send it to a friend and please follow us if you haven't already.

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[Claire Miller]

Support for the show comes from Crucible Moments, a podcast from Sequoia Capital. We've all had pivotal decision points in our lives that, whether we know it or not, at the time, changed everything. This is especially true in business. Like did you know that autonomous drone delivery company Zipline originally produced a robotic toy? Or that Bolt went from an Estonian transportation company to one of the largest rideshare and food delivery platforms in the world? That's what Crucible Moments is all about. Hosted by Sequoia Capital's managing partner, Roloff Botha, Crucible Moments is back for a new season with stories of companies as they navigated the most consequential crossroads in their journeys. Hear conversations with leaders at Zipline, Stripe, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna Supercell, and more. Subscribe to Season 3 of Crucible Moments and catch up on Seasons 1 and [e-mail] on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Crucible Moments Today.

[Scott Galloway]

We're back with Prof. G Markets. Just going back to the to the rent freeze. Brad I think Zoran is kind of a genius as the more I've gotten to know to learn about him and the way he handles himself in these debates, his social media strategy, his communications. I mean he is like a superstar, like no doubt about it, generational talent. And then there are some policy Proposals in here that have kind of become like the linchpins of this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Freezing the rent is a great example. The city owned grocery store, another great example. And it's very easy to sort of categorically take those down through simple economics 101, you know, freeze the rent. That sort of goes against, it disincentivizes construction. It sort of goes against the abundance agenda. My question, why do you think he put those in there? I mean, I get the sense that he probably has heard why freezing the rent probably isn't a good idea.

[Bradley Tusk]

Of course he knows he want because he wanted to get elected. He's still a politician at the end of the day.

[Scott Galloway]

Okay, so it's, it's all, it's all election. It's all for campaigning.

[Bradley Tusk]

Yeah. Look, people who run for office, in my experience, I've been at this now for over 30 years, are typically desperately insecure. They typically desperately need attention and validation. And they get that by everything that comes with holding office.

[Ed Elson]

I'm running, I'm running.

[Bradley Tusk]

There we go. So look, and keep in mind, when you talk about the rent freeze, even though it's only 28% of apartments, my guess is that a lot of people who voted for him yesterday assume that it applies to them too. They just hear rent freeze and they're like, great, I don't want to pay more rent. The city owned grocery stores. Yeah, look, you know, a couple times in my career I've had the opportunity or responsibility of trying to oversee what really are private sector businesses for government. Whether it's golf courses at the New York City Parks Department or the lottery in the state of Illinois, it never works when the government is trying to run private businesses. With that said, it's a very minor thing. And while the city opening grocery stores is not going to work, if he said, all right, I'm gonna do an initiative with Whole Foods or KRoger or H E B or they're in Texas, whoever, and we're gonna provide city owned land and grants and tax credits and whatever else. Could you do something? Sure. Do I think it would really matter? No. But ultimately there are lots of ways to go about achieving his agenda if he's willing to be a little creative. So, for example, and I'm sure you guys notice this, if you're in town and you're taking the subway, people just hop the turnstiles left and right pretty much everywhere. And because we don't do anything about it, we have no enfor. Of no Real gates or anything like that would lose over a billion dollars a year in revenue to fare evasion. His free bus idea, whether you like it or not, would cost around 630 million. I think you could easily pay for it if you started enforcing the law on fare evasion. So there are ways to achieve a lot of things that he wants to achieve. It may not happen the way he wants to do it. Which really just gets back to that question of are you going to govern pragmatically or dogmatically? A dogmatic mayor would say we must punish the 1%, because that is the top priority of people on the 18th percent or the 12th% or the 9th percent. And I don't really care what, you know, this mayor would say, I don't really care what the economic impact of the city is. I want to achieve social justice for my voters. Or he could be a mayor that just said, I want to maximize tax revenue to spend on the best possible thing. Sometimes that might mean not raising taxes. Actually, you know, what made my. I'm biased, but what made Mike Bloomberg, in many ways, a really great mayor, is Mike made every decision based on what he truly believed was best for New York. You might disagree with him. I didn't always agree with him, but ultimately he acted in the best interest of the city, of the people. And I think the voters understood that, and they were willing to give him a lot of leeway as a result. The voters don't expect to agree with you on everything, but if they know that you're looking out for them, they will generally support you. Another reason why Eric Adams was such a failure is he seemed to constantly be looking out for, like, minor grifting opportunities and for all of his buddies to do that. And the voters had no confidence that he cared about them, so. And by the way, that might be some of what we saw last night nationally as well.

[Scott Galloway]

Just this divide between dogmatic versus pragmatic. I totally agree with you. I think that the campaign was dogmatic, as it should be. I get the sense that he's going to be actually quite pragmatic. I think he's gonna work with establishment Democrats, which. Which is good in a lot of ways, but also maybe bad for the people who voted him in, who thought he was going to completely shake up the system. If you run on a campaign and say, I'm gonna freeze your rent, which is a big thing to say, and then you don't freeze the rent, it sounds like you think he actually will not go through with that. Is he not Losing the base.

[Bradley Tusk]

Well, I think he'll go through with it for that small segment. It's just not what most people. It's not how most people's rent works. Look, it's an excellent question, Ed, because if you look at Bill de Blasio, who is mayor of New York City recently, de Blasio was very smart politically. And de Blasio understood that as long as the base, which was, I think he got 282,000 votes in the primary when he won in 2013, as long as that roughly 300,000 people are happy you're going to get reelected. If your only goal is reelection for the sake of reelection, then you just govern for the base and you don't care about the other 96% of New York City. A truly great mayor, a truly great president, truly great, whatever says. My goal is to create as much total good as possible. And I'm not gonna worry specifically about the political implications of any one decision. If you are the mayor of New York City and you say, I just wanna do the best job I possibly can and that's what governs your choices, odds are you will be successful. And keep in mind, no New York City mayor has ever won an election after being mayor. Lots of them run for president, they run for governor, for Congress. This is both the best job in politics and a total dead end job. The last job and the way to go about it is to say what can I do to have the greatest impact on this city for four or eight years? And if you do that well, your legacy will be incredible and people will love you. If all you're doing is endless political machinations and how do I kind of game this thing out and then triage that thing? You're gonna fail.

[Ed Elson]

I just wanna press pause cuz you said something that was very insightful and obvious and I think the two are inextricably linked. When someone disconnects something that seems obvious in the light of day. You said that the companies laying off the most people were the early adopters of AI and I hadn't even made that simple connection. You're absolutely right that the companies announcing 5,000, 10,000, 30,000 people are understandably and actually the ones who are figuring out this whole AI game. I thought that was very insightful. Anyways, very impressed with you, Bradley. When you look across the landscape, you've run campaigns. You ran a very successful campaign. You ran Bloomberg's campaign. When you look at candidates on either side of the aisle, who do you think is most disciplined and effective and has the most resonant messaging. If you had to pick nominees from either side of the aisle. And I realize we're kind of three years out, but who do you think? Regardless of your own political beliefs, who do you think is just good at this?

[Bradley Tusk]

If you look at modern political histories, let's just start with Reagan. The people who win the presidency are almost always not the best qualified people. It's people who really resonate with the voters. It's the rock stars. Reagan, Clinton, W. Obama, Trump, none of them were the most qualified people. The two who were most qualified, George H.W. bush and Joe Biden, each only served one term. And so if you are either party, but especially the Democrats, stop worrying about who wins the Yale University primary or the think tank primary or whatever it is, and just figure out who's the rock star. I had this idea that I threw out there in substack maybe a month or two ago that kind of said we should do a battle of the network stars for the presidential candidates. And instead of the normal DNC process, or maybe a year before that, put them in real world situations, put them at a Waffle House at midnight and see how they do with the truckers and the cops and the college students. Have them call an inning of baseball on the radio, have them go to a big mall and just see who shows up, who cares, and how it goes. To bring this full circle, one of the reasons why Zoran Mondame won and he's the next mayor of New York City is he is a rock star. He is incredibly good at people. And the more time you spend with him, the more you realize that. And that's true for the presidency, too. And so all the normal checklists that everyone looks at, do you have this union? Do you have this much money in the account? Do you have this former elected official official supporting you? None of that shit really matters. What really matters is how you resonate with the people directly. And if The Democrats want a one in 2028, that's what they have to figure out.

[Ed Elson]

I like this. I think my first idea would be we charge vance with making 10,000 bucks in a week and only give him an OnlyFans creator account. That's my idea.

[Bradley Tusk]

He might pull that off. You're taking a big risk there, man.

[Ed Elson]

He might make a hundred. There's an outside shout, he comes back with a quarter of a million dollars.

[Bradley Tusk]

Maybe in that case, he's like, screw this. I'm just gonna make money online.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, there you go. I think that's what a Lot of people are saying, when you think about the nation and income inequality and polarization and rage, are there sort of two or you've been a big advocate of voting by phone. I'll give you 60 seconds of running room for vote by phone, but then come up with another two or three ideas.

[Bradley Tusk]

So on mobile voting, we live in a world where in my experience, every politician makes every decision solely based on the next election. A handful of exceptions, but there are exceptions. And because of gerrymandering, the only election that typically matters, the primary. Primary turnout is typically about 10 to 15%. So who are they? They're the far left or the far right or special interests. And as a result they dictate not only who wins office, but then what happens once those people are in office? Either you get the absolute chaos and dysfunction of D.C. which is literally shut down, or you get totally one sided governments, whether it's the city of Portland on the left or the state of Texas on the right. And none of that reflects how most Americans feel. There is consensus among most people on most issues, but their voice is not heard because they don't vote in primaries. I ran all the campaigns to legalize Uber around the US and the way that we beat the taxi industry, cuz at the time we were a tiny tech startup and taxi was a really, really powerful industry, is that we were able to mobilize our customers directly through the app to tell their elected officials, hey, I like this Uber thing, leave it alone. And when I realized that that was working, I created this thing called the Mobile Voting Project. And we ran pilot elections in seven states where deployed military people with disabilities were able to vote on their phones. Turnout went up. We then built our own secure mobile voting technology that is free, will all be posted on GitHub by November 14th. And now we are about to start running campaigns in states around the country to allow people to start voting on their phones, beginning with municipal elections and going from there. To me, if you can get turnout from 8% to 32% in a primary, that's what moves everything towards the middle. That's what ends all of extremism, polarization. That's what gets us results. So that's mobile voting. The next thing to me, Scott, would be universal basic income. I really do believe that in the richest country in the history of the world, the notion that some people don't have enough food, the notion that people who are not, let's say mentally ill or addicts are sleeping on the streets, things like that, we just don't need to live in a world like that. There's just too much money. And it's just a failure of sort of imagination and discipline and ability to not prevent that. And so, for example, out of my foundation, we fund and run a lot of the campaigns around the country to do universal school meals so that every kid gets breakfast and lunch. But we should do that, but it should go beyond that. There is nothing wrong with saying that in a world especially where you might have temporarily very high unemployment because of AI job displacement, that we're gonna find ways to make sure that people are okay. And the third one is less economic, but it would be repealing section 230. So section 230 is a provision in federal law that says that Internet service providers cannot be sued for the content posted by their users. And that has led to an absolute cesspool. You guys talk about this a lot, especially in relation to young men on the Internet, has led to epidemics of teenage suicide, self harm, all kinds of different things. And when you have a dominant form of media that is totally unregulated, and when the if human nature, because of our negativity bias, which we have, so that we know how to, like, you know, walk the other way when we see a lion or leave the room when we smell gas, is such that we're gonna always click on the negative headline first. The platforms all know that that's what they feed us. And in order for them to make more money, we continue to sort of destroy ourselves and our society. You can fix that by changing the liability provisions. Most even politicians in Washington agree with it, but they're just terrified of Meta and all of the different companies, and so they don't actually go through with it. But I think that if you could raise turnout meaningfully so that politicians are less incentivized to fight and more incentivized to work together and make sure that people have the basics and take away the toxicity of the Internet, you'd have a much better world.

[Scott Galloway]

World.

[Ed Elson]

So just for the purposes of conversation, and you and I are. We're allies. And even if you're holding the gun differently than me, we're still allies. And one of the things I don't like about the Democratic Party is we have this sort of apostate philosophy where if you don't agree with me. Exactly. You're my enemy. And both of us. So let's talk about ubi. My problem is with the U in ubi, and that is whenever I, both of us are friends with Andrew Yang. I think A lot, Andrew. And I agree with the narrative that there should be a base level, but it's the universal part that I think if you double click on the actual economics of it, make it near impossible to implement and would just create inflationary pressure that nets out any of the UBI payments. Why wouldn't we just move to what I'll call more kind of basic income through things like universal childcare or free vocational programming?

[Bradley Tusk]

You absolutely could do that. And ultimately some of what we talked about is a means test. And there's no reason for you or me to get $1,000 a month in the mail. Right. Although I kind of disagree on the inflationary thing and that I actually think that, and I'm sure you guys have said this at various points, you know, when we make more money, it might get invested, it might get saved. If you're giving regular people more money, I think they're going to spend it. And I think that's actually going to juice the. It could arguably induce inflation, but it would also juice everything else in a good way.

[Ed Elson]

So why not minimum wage? Federally mandated minimum wage at 25 bucks a share.

[Bradley Tusk]

Yes, yes, totally agree. Here's the distinction. So when I was deputy governor of Illinois, I ran the state's budget, and the distinction is if when we got a dollar from you in taxes, by the time that some of that money went to all the different programs you just outlined, half of it got furthered away on nonsense. We had patronage, we had all kinds of pork projects. We didn't need so many different union contracts, so many different things that when the money goes through the government, in my experience, you lose a lot of it along the way. Whereas if there was some mechanism where a dollar of your money then went to someone who's currently making $10 an hour, they get a hundred cents on the dollar. So look, I am absolutely for a higher minimum wage. I am for childcare. There's a lot of things that we can and should do that would make people's lives a lot easier and better. I just know from having worked so much inside of government that the mechanism is so wildly inefficient that the people that you want to help get a lot less help that way.

[Ed Elson]

And then on section 230, and I never like to be someone who defends big tech, but if you did just remove 230 in a blanket way, it would probably. It wouldn't kneecap these companies, it would cripple them. They would probably have to shut down posting for a while. What about the idea and there's just, just some nuance here of removing Section 230 protection for content that's algorithmically elevated.

[Bradley Tusk]

That's a good start for sure. But human beings also have incredible capacity on their own to post all kinds of terrible shit. I think I might disagree with you a bit that, because section 230 is elimination would mean that social media companies are subject to the same types of liability issues as mainstream media that aren't good businesses. Right? But ultimately what would happen is there'd be enough litigation around the country on various things that Facebook, whoever failed to moderate on content and jurisprudence would emerge and it would become pretty clear this is what violates the new law, this is what does not. And especially with the use of AI as a content moderator, the companies would be able to adapt to it pretty quickly. So I just personally think that the risk to them is a lot less. And I think our addiction to Internet and social media, our phones, is so great that we're not going to stop using it just because people are saying kill the Jews less on TikTok or whatever.

[Scott Galloway]

We'll be right back. And for even more markets content, Sign up for our [e-mail] subscribe.

[Ed Elson]

What are you hoping for today in the founders?

[Bradley Tusk]

Scrappy, traction oriented grinders and hustlers who are will blow through every brick wall.

[Claire Miller]

In this building to get to where.

[Bradley Tusk]

They need to be. Welcome to the pitch season 14 where.

[Claire Miller]

Startup founders raise millions and listeners can.

[Bradley Tusk]

Invest on this season of the show.

[Claire Miller]

10 VCs, 7 startups with one shot.

[Bradley Tusk]

To build the company of their dreams. Oh my God, we built the entirely wrong product. Two shots to build the company of.

[Claire Miller]

Their dreams with that intro.

[Scott Galloway]

Let's go.

[Bradley Tusk]

Season 4 Season 14 is available now wherever you listen to podcasts so subscribe.

[Claire Miller]

To the pitch so you don't miss it. This season is presented by Adobe.

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[Scott Galloway]

My friends, we.

[Bradley Tusk]

Have toppled a political dynasty.

[News Reporter]

Zora Mandani will be New York York City's 111th mayor. He celebrated his win last night by thanking some of his constituents.

[Bradley Tusk]

I speak of Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses.

[Scott Galloway]

Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.

[News Reporter]

In other races last night in New Jersey, in Virginia, the Democratic candidates weren't firebrands like Mamdani, but they won anyway. Reporters asked President Trump about the little blue wave this morning.

[Bradley Tusk]

We had an interesting evening and we learned a lot.

[News Reporter]

Have the Democrats learned how to stop losing? That's on today, explained every weekday afternoon.

[Scott Galloway]

Foreign we're back with Prof. G Markets. Just going back to your guys. Discussion of UBI and what would work and what wouldn't work. It all goes back to wealth and income inequality, which is getting worse and worse and worse and which AI is likely to make worse. And of course, this is what Andrew Yang talked about. And it seems as though different people are coming at the inequality thing at different angles. So you've got people saying let's raise the minimum wage, let's have universal free childcare, which by the way, that's part of Mamdani's campaign. He wants to raise the minimum wage for $30 an hour. You got people saying let's go for UBI. You've also got a more socialist bent. Mamdani would fit in that camp, which says capitalism itself doesn't work. We need a completely new system. So it seems, I believe at least, that the inequality problem is the problem. And the question is, how do you come at it? What is your angle? And based on the turnout in New York and Mamdani's win, and also just the energy and the heat that he's creating around the nation, it seems as though, so that is the angle going forward, that there is a socialist bent and that he could be the face and future of the Democratic Party seems scary to capitalists. But I just wanna get your views on. Do you think that is the future?

[Bradley Tusk]

I think everything you said is right. And if you look at Mondami supporters, at least in the primary, we don't really have the general election data yet. They tend to not be the poorest people. They tend to be relatively young, pretty, affluent people, but who are not in the 1% and are angry about that for a variety of reasons and in many ways are the most ardent about things like raising taxes on the wealthy and defunding the police and things like that. Look, ultimately there are two different approaches to what you're talking about, and they're not mutually exclusive. So the first Is how do you substantively solve these problems? I think everything Scott outlined, and Scott and I disagreed on some implementation stuff, but basically that kind of stuff could make a big difference. The other thing to me is really a question of cognitive, of dissonance. So where Maidani is wrong in my view about capitalism, is it has far and away been the most effective force in history to help poor people, right? Since World War II. Something like 3 billion people now have clean drinking water and electricity and much less infant mortality and a much higher standard of living, less people living in extreme poverty. All of these different metrics because of capitalism, because jobs started moving all over the globe, sometimes to the detriment of countries like the U.S. but nonetheless, capitalism has done more to lift poor people out of terrible situations than any economic or political system ever created. The problem with capitalism is when you take it to its final logical conclusion, which is what we do here in the us which is to say the only thing that matters in life is the accumulation of status and money and prestige and Carrera marble and gold plating or whatever else trump effectively. And if you have a totally zero sum approach to life, it's really almost impossible to be truly happy because you're on this hamster wheel where all you're trying to do is accumulate more and more and more and it's never enough. And the dopamine hit from buying something kind of wears off faster and faster each time. And as a result, broadly speaking, if you have a society where everyone is in that rat race and everyone just wants to be at the very, very top, where they're the ones on Instagram with a private plane and a yacht and whatever else, 99 plus percent of those people aren't gonna make it by, by basic math. And as a result, they're gonna feel dissatisfied, they're gonna feel discontent, and they're gonna be unhappy. When you look at the World Happiness report, so the US ranked 24th last year in it, despite being, I would argue, the most successful country in history. I was in Finland this summer and they're always number one or number two. They're number one right now, I think. And I was kind of walking around thinking, people are gonna be like dancing in the streets. They're so happy, they're so excited. And obviously that's not the case. And from what at least I was able to learn from reading and talking to people is not that the Finnish or lots of other countries, people are inherently happier or wealthier or anything else. It's that their view of what makes them Content is very different, right? And if you feel like you can only be content if you just keep accumulating and acquiring, you can't be content. And if you feel like, hey, these are the things in life that matter, my relationships, people who give me unconditional love and support, and I give that to them, things that give me a sense of meaning and purpose, whether it's your work or your hobbies or your faith or whatever it might be, those tend to be the happiest people, pretty much all of happiness. Science and behavioral economics supports that conclusion. And in a lot of other countries, they're able to understand that, I think in part because they don't take capitalism quite to its final logical conclusion like we do in the U.S. so to me, you know, there's the structural stuff that kind of Scott talked about, but there's also a perception thing. I think that has to change too.

[Scott Galloway]

I mean, when you look at those countries, I think some people make the mistake of saying those are socialist countries. They're not socialist countries, but they have less intensely capitalist policies. You know, they do pay for universal childcare. There are more government funded programs. So it's an interesting ideological debate because on the one hand, what we're describing is like, make capitalism less capitalistic or something, which when you say that, it's like, are you saying you want to be socialist? Are you saying you want to be communist? And now we have a guy, guy who won on a platform that has the word socialist in it, which seems so important to me whether or not he actually believes in communism and socialism. I don't think he necessarily does. The point is the word is there. So that's something that we all have to grapple with. So I guess there's the implementation. How does this all actually work in practice? But then there's the dogmatic stuff. There's the ideological side to this. What direction do you think the Democratic Party is going in? Are we in going into a direction that you think is constructive, where we're actually going to make ourselves a little more like Finland, perhaps? Or is this going in a negatively socialist direction that will actually be destructive?

[Bradley Tusk]

I think a lot of that is about the framing, right? So Trump, for example, won the presidency twice, in part because he was able to convince tens and tens of millions of people that he heard and saw their frustrations. He understood that they felt like they weren't getting a fair shake in life. And they felt like if they supported him, he would look out for them and he would get them their vengeance. And by the way Bernie Sanders and Trump in 2016 effectively ran the exact same campaign. Trump just blamed it on brown people and Sanders blamed it on the 1%, but it was effective. I'm gonna get you justice. Zorron, in many ways ran that campaign too. And so I think the first thing is you have to understand that a lot of people are incredibly frustrated. They don't feel like they have what they need. And they do have what they need, but they feel like somehow they're getting cheated by society.

[Scott Galloway]

Well, it's hard, it's hard to feel satisfied if you're seeing Bezos deconstruct a bridge for a yacht and you're struggling to pay for groceries. I feel like that's exactly right.

[Bradley Tusk]

So part of it is helping people understand. Like one of the things that Biden did that was such a disaster is he tried to convince everyone that inflation wasn't an actual problem. When every week people are going to the grocery store and they know it's a problem because they're spending more money. And when you treat people like that, they hate you for it. And so part of it is the Democratic Party has to stop being so condescending, stop being so intolerant, stop being so self righteous and like Zoron did, let people feel heard and understood. And the second thing is, what are the policies that could help bring that about? And a lot of it's in the framing, right? So if you take childcare, if you frame it as, you know, we're now gonna socialize childcare and the government's gonna be in charge of raising your children and all of that, that automatically becomes controversial. If it's, look, everyone needs to work to make a living and people wanna have kids and you gotta do something with the kid all day. And here's the way to best help people make that work for themselves in their lives. I think people will be really responsive to that message. And so I don't think it's a lack of policy ideas that exist that could work. I think it is treating people like idiots, it is condescending to people, and it is effectively living in this little world where, and by the way, if under the current political system, it makes sense, but if you are a Democratic legislator somewhere and all you gotta do is win your next primary because gerrymandering, you're winning your next election and turnout's 10%, then that 10% on the far left and what you read on Blue sky and what you hear from your staffers and from the different kind of institutional players around you is what you believe and how you act. And that might be what you need to do to stay in your job as a state senator or as a member of Congress or whatever it is is. It is not the way to win a national election. And that takes leadership. So part of it is who's that rock star? And then part of it also is who is able to go to the Democratic Party and say listen guys, your message might work for you for your next reelection. It does not work for the party or the country as a whole. Here's where we need to go. That leader has not emerged yet. I'm not sure who it is. But throughout time those leaders have emerged and my hope is we'll find one here.

[Scott Galloway]

You wrote an open letter to Mamdani. You have called for, you said you didn't vote for him, but you've called for the business community especially to embrace him. Figure out a way to work with him and you get offered some advice. What would be your advice to Mamdani over his term now that he is the next mayor?

[Bradley Tusk]

I mean the most important thing, and I saw this from my time working at City hall for my Bloomberg is what I said before, which is just run the city as this is your last ever elected position. Don't worry about 29. Don't worry about he can't actually run for president ever cuz he wasn't born here. But don't worry about trying to be governor or senator one day. Just do what you think is right. Make people, you know, give them the time to explain their positions. Give the time to explain why you're doing what you're doing. And if you do that for the right reasons consistently, the people will understand it. They will generally accept it. They won't agree with you on everything, but they don't need to. They need to believe that you are looking out for them. And I think of all the politicians we've had in recent years in New York City, he has more ability to do that than pretty much anyone. But it does mean tuning out a lot of the noise around him. It means not letting the DSA dictate his positions. It means not letting the unions dictate his positions. It means not reading social media all day. One of the pieces of advice I have in that letter is stop looking at social media. I mean keep making your short form videos. Yes, your comms team needs to look at it, but that is in no way representative. Even with the really big turnout we had Yesterday of about 2 million voters, it's still only like, 70, 23% of the city's population, so, like, 77% of New Yorkers didn't actually vote. And yet all 8.5 million of us are impacted by the mayor every single day. And so if you wanna govern for everyone to be a truly great mayor, you know, stop all the kind of narrow inputs that tend to limit politicians and just do what you think is right.

[Ed Elson]

Bradley, if you decided to get back in the game and you said, all right, you gotta get back in the day, you're gonna run someone's campaign, but you have to pick now, whose campaign would you wanna work for for president in 2018?

[Bradley Tusk]

To me, the only rock star is AOC, but I really don't share her kind of views. And the thing, actually, even more than her views is just this notion of endlessly criticizing everyone, forever deviating from her ideology or her dogmatism, to me, is just a horrible way to live. Look, I would love to see someone who is maybe not a traditional candidate, someone who is built and run a really big company or a really big movement, something like that, as opposed to saying this governor or that governor of the people who are currently in the mix. If you're talking about just sort of who politically makes the most sense, it's probably kind of a Midwestern moderate type, like a Shapiro oral witmer. But what makes sense on paper and what makes sense to voters in the booth are two different things. And so, I don't know, the two Newsom, on one hand may be the easiest to caricature and stereotype and everything else. On the other hand, he's got a lot of talent. He does not seem to be afraid of different points of view or big ideas. And so someone like him, even though I could see all the reasons on paper why he doesn't make sense, I could still see how he could sort of have it in a way that a lot of the governors who are thinking of running probably do not. And by the way, California would be, what, like, the fifth biggest economy in the world if it was its own country? So I don't know. I guess I'm sort of landing on Newsom of the people.

[Scott Galloway]

Is Newsom a rock star, in your view?

[Bradley Tusk]

I think he could be. You know, I think on one hand, he's really, really easy to caricature, but, you know, he's also his caricature. Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton. Clinton. Ronald Reagan.

[Scott Galloway]

Yeah, I think he's a rock star.

[Ed Elson]

So just, Just give me a quick, quick reaction to some different candidates.

[Bradley Tusk]

Mark Cuban, on paper, I love Mark Cuban. He liked Trump as a reality star on tv. What there is there, I'm not sure. And that Luca trade still kind of kills it for me.

[Ed Elson]

I love that. What about a guy like Dwayne Johnson?

[Bradley Tusk]

You know, he is very charismatic, but I. I don't like. Okay, so Ronald Reagan was an actor, but he was also the governor of California. And Reagan had very clear, strong political and ideological views, whether you agree with them or not. He was not stupid, despite what his critics said, and he was not uninformed. So with the Rock just being able to sort of pop into a movie and have the box office receipts go up in and of itself is not necessarily a great candidate. So if I knew more about what he believed in, I could certainly consider it. But I just think what we know right now, now this year, I get it again, he's a Democratic governor in a red state. He's popular, he got reelected. It hasn't so far struck me that he has that sort of other thing. To me, there's something called a vote getting Gene, which is obviously intangible, but some people have it and most do not. Take the Bush family. W. Who was sort of the least impressive between his brother and his father. And him. Him had it. They became president. His brother very much did not. His father very much did not. The Clintons. Bill Clinton has the vote getting Gene. Hillary, for all of her competence, did not. And so I don't know if Beshear has it or not. It doesn't feel like he necessarily does.

[Ed Elson]

So competent, they feel boring. Senator Chris Murphy, who, by the way, I'm a big fan of. I didn't mean to send.

[Bradley Tusk]

Yeah, I mean, I like a lot of what Murphy's done on guns and other things like that. You know, lots of highly competent people with amazing resumes run for president all the time, and most of them never even make it to Iowa. So if Chris Murphy has that kind of intangible quality, he's gotta start showing Vice President Harris. No, I mean, I think the country had every opportunity to choose her, and they've definitively chose not to.

[Scott Galloway]

I think what we're learning is we don't really have rockstars. But I agree. AOC is a rock star. Mandani is a rock star. Bernie is flaming out butt rock star.

[Bradley Tusk]

Yeah, he's very old, but he certainly was. But I think that's the reason why Ed, to maybe consider an alternative process of some kind, which is, let's find the rock star, even if it's among the dozen or so people.

[Ed Elson]

Onlyfans. I'm telling you, first person to make 10 grand president.

[Bradley Tusk]

There you go. All right. Onlyfans it is. So we're adding waffles, Waffle House. Calling the name of a Cardinals game, going to the Mall of America. And now you're onlyfans account.

[Ed Elson]

How much I like that. I like that.

[Scott Galloway]

The decline of America is coming. I see it.

[Bradley Tusk]

This is the fun. Scott is the one that put us over the edge. He moves to England and he's like, all right, now I'm going to like the movie.

[Scott Galloway]

You guys have the only fans. Okay.

[Ed Elson]

I think it's been here for a while. You guys are just waking up to it. Bradley Tusk is the founder of the political consulting firm Tusk Strategies and the CEO and co founder of Tusk Venture Partners, the world's first venture capital fund investing solely in highly regulated industries. Bradley is the author of the My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics, writes a column for Fast Company, and hosts a podcast called Firewall, about the intersection of tech and politics. Previously, Bradley served as the deputy governor of Illinois, the campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg's 2009 mayoral race, the communications director for US Senator Chuck Schumer. There's a candidate. Let's find someone who brightens up a.

[Bradley Tusk]

Room by leaving it.

[Scott Galloway]

Exactly.

[Bradley Tusk]

We didn't get into it, but Chuck would not endorse Zoran. And I think, think because effectively, if anyone needs oron to be a disaster, it's actually Chuck schumer. Because if AOC primaries chuck in 28 and Zoron is successful, I think Chuck's in big trouble. But if Zoran's a disaster, he's going to hang that around her neck.

[Scott Galloway]

Infighting. That makes me depressed.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, there we go. And also his last thing, he was Uber's first political adviser. Bradley, really appreciate your insight and your time today.

[Scott Galloway]

Thanks, Brad.

[Bradley Tusk]

Yeah, guys, thanks for having me. This was really fun.

[Scott Galloway]

This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Isabella Kinsel, Kristen o' Donoghue and Mia Silverio. Drew Burrows is our technical director and Catherine Dillon is our executive producer. Thank you for listening to Proftum Markets from proftumedia. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow and join us for a fresh take on markets on Monday.

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