Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 1: This is Griffin from Breaking Points and I'm here seven
Speaker 1: minutes with zoron Mamdani's.
Speaker 3: How's it going?
Speaker 1: How you doing man?
Speaker 3: Too? Well?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: That's a great shirp.
Speaker 1: By the way, Oh thanks Man. I had to buy
Speaker 1: it because the airline lost my luggage on the way here.
Speaker 3: We're not giving them a shoutout.
Speaker 2: This is for you.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with a picture. We interviewed you
Speaker 1: a year ago. It's been a long time since. Man,
Speaker 1: the lots changed. What advice do you have for that
Speaker 1: young Zora on a year ago?
Speaker 3: What date was that?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 1: I mean it says eleven months ago. And we used
Speaker 1: to get like thirty k views on the first one.
Speaker 1: Now we're racking them up.
Speaker 3: There, you know, The reason I ask about the date
Speaker 3: is because about a year ago we went out to
Speaker 3: Fordham Road and Hillside Avenue spoke to New Yorkers. Many
Speaker 3: of them would voted for Trump, and we ask them
Speaker 3: why m And I think the advice that I would
Speaker 3: give that Zorn I would continue to give myself every
Speaker 3: day is listen to New Yorkers and a lot of
Speaker 3: times the political impulses is lecture, tell New Yorkers what
Speaker 3: they should care about. What we found is that the
Speaker 3: best campaign you can build is one that actually reflects
Speaker 3: what New Yorkers are concerned about. It's cost of living
Speaker 3: again and again. The other thing I would say is
Speaker 3: maybe bench press a little bit more, but it's too
Speaker 3: late for that.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna cut the push up contact.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right.
Speaker 1: So you recently released a video about being Muslim in
Speaker 1: New York City and the experience of that. Typically, when
Speaker 1: you've been asked about identity issues, you've pivoted back to
Speaker 1: your core campaign promises about affordability. Why do that video now?
Speaker 1: And do you feel like Democrat politicians have your back
Speaker 1: in this environment where you know, in my personal opinion,
Speaker 1: the Cuomo opposition and the Cuomos orders are hitting you
Speaker 1: with a lot of what I would say is George W.
Speaker 1: Bush era racist attacks. Do you feel like they have
Speaker 1: your back?
Speaker 3: You know, I've appreciated the words of support that I've
Speaker 3: received from a number of leaders within our party, especially
Speaker 3: here in New York City. I do think, however, that
Speaker 3: of many of the Muslim New Yorkers who do not
Speaker 3: have the luxury of being the Democratic nominee for mayor,
Speaker 3: who deal with these indignities every single day. And the
Speaker 3: fact is that this racism is so endemic in our
Speaker 3: city's politics that when one hears it, one does not
Speaker 3: know if it's from a Republican or a Democrat, and
Speaker 3: it's you know, people have asked me why did I
Speaker 3: call it Islamophobia? And I just tell them what Andrew
Speaker 3: Cuomo said, because the evidence is right there. This is
Speaker 3: a man who went on a radio show and when
Speaker 3: the host said that I would cheer another nine to eleven,
Speaker 3: Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed. He later went that same
Speaker 3: day to accept Eric Adams's endorsement. Adam said that he
Speaker 3: was endorsing him to stop a movement of violent extremists,
Speaker 3: to stop New York City from becoming Europe to stop
Speaker 3: a movement that was burning churches in Nigeria. This is
Speaker 3: the kind of islamophobia that the closing message of these
Speaker 3: other candidates, and the reason I decided to say something
Speaker 3: about it is because this level of bigotry, it's one
Speaker 3: that should still shock the conscience, despite how unsurprising it
Speaker 3: may be in this moment.
Speaker 1: So freeze the rent. Let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: course stuff. So we've been hearing talk that Eric Adams
Speaker 1: is trying to pack the rental board with people on
Speaker 1: your way out like a reality TV real estate guys
Speaker 1: getting on there.
Speaker 3: I think she stars in a show called Selling New
Speaker 3: York on the Nose. Eric Adam's Zio, what.
Speaker 1: Are you going to do about that if you're mayor?
Speaker 1: And also, how are you going to stop landlords from
Speaker 1: you know, cutting back on cleaning or safety in the
Speaker 1: buildings if you freeze the rent?
Speaker 3: You know. I think there's a few things. The first
Speaker 3: is the Community Service Society, which does incredible studies. They
Speaker 3: found that actually the rent that's being paid doesn't have
Speaker 3: a significant relationship with the repairs that landlords are doing. Oftentimes,
Speaker 3: and I've heard this actually from a number of tenants
Speaker 3: myself of that they've been paying their rent year after year,
Speaker 3: and a lot of their landlords are actually denying them
Speaker 3: the repairs that they're owed. And so I think when
Speaker 3: we freeze the rent, you know we are doing so
Speaker 3: to provide relief to more than two million rent stabilized
Speaker 3: tenants across the five boroughs. We're not doing it actually
Speaker 3: to punish landlords, because we're actually trying to also make
Speaker 3: it easier for those landlords to maintain those properties by
Speaker 3: helping them take on the rise and cost of insurance
Speaker 3: or the water bill or Coneedison. These are things we
Speaker 3: can do in tandem with our commitment to freeze the rent.
Speaker 3: And look, Eric Adams's attempt to stack the rent Guidelines
Speaker 3: Board is unacceptable. It's a betrayal of New Yorkers. It's
Speaker 3: also a continuation of this politics for the last four years.
Speaker 3: And I continue to be confident in our ability to
Speaker 3: deliver that rent freeze.
Speaker 1: As a renterer in New York, I feel betrayed by that,
Speaker 1: by the Eric Adams things. How about you just said
Speaker 1: I want to talk about ice. We're seeing all these
Speaker 1: ice videos of goons, unmasked people taking people off the streets.
Speaker 1: Are you going to instruct the NPT to arrest ICE
Speaker 1: or other federal agents that break the law in the city.
Speaker 3: Look, anybody who breaks the law in this city has
Speaker 3: to be held to account, whether that's ICE or whomever else.
Speaker 3: And I think that that should be just the standard
Speaker 3: that we have in the city and in this country.
Speaker 3: And what we found is that ICE is a reckless entity.
Speaker 3: It cares little about the law, it cares even less
Speaker 3: about the people that it's supposed to serve, and so
Speaker 3: much of its purpose is to intimidate and terrorize people
Speaker 3: across this country. And we saw that with the recent
Speaker 3: raid on Canal Street. It's not just about the people
Speaker 3: that they threw against the wall. It's about the messages
Speaker 3: the're trying to send to New Yorkers that they can
Speaker 3: do this kind of a thing. And it's possible for
Speaker 3: them in this moment because they have a mayor who
Speaker 3: went on national TV to open the door to civil
Speaker 3: immigration enforcement.
Speaker 1: All right, I want to talk flagrant. In the first
Speaker 1: couple of minutes of flagrant, you got Schultz to say
Speaker 1: that housing is a human right. That's awesome. You clearly
Speaker 1: passed the vibe check. Do other Democrats pass the vibe check.
Speaker 1: What's your advice for them going on these shows?
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's funny. I've I've been running
Speaker 3: for mayor for now more than a year, and that's
Speaker 3: probably the first podcast that a lot of my own
Speaker 3: friends actually listened to I did, and I think it
Speaker 3: speaks to the fact that you have to treat, you know,
Speaker 3: New Yorkers, especially young New Yorkers, with legitimacy as well
Speaker 3: as the places where they actually get their news. And
Speaker 3: so often there's a condescension in our political approach to
Speaker 3: anything that goes beyond traditional media, and I think it's
Speaker 3: time to bring that to an end. My advice to
Speaker 3: anyone going on those shows is just to be yourself,
Speaker 3: because if you're not, they will definitely get to the
Speaker 3: bottom of that pretty quick.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got one more question for you, and then
Speaker 1: I want to hear about the proposals and how people
Speaker 1: can help you.
Speaker 3: Sounds good.
Speaker 1: So we talked about the NYPD we're going to and
Speaker 1: your team's tell your wrap up. So we're looking up
Speaker 1: this quick. Are you going to arrest in Yahoo? Especially
Speaker 1: with this NYPD commissioner?
Speaker 3: Look, I've said time and again that I believe that
Speaker 3: New York City is a city that believes international law
Speaker 3: should have an actual embodiment of an international law. Benjamin
Speaker 3: Nettan Yahoo has been issued in arrest warrant by the
Speaker 3: International Criminal Court, and I believe that is something that
Speaker 3: we should seek to honor. I've also said that I
Speaker 3: will exhaust every legal possibility to do so. If there
Speaker 3: is not a law, I'm not going to create one
Speaker 3: because I'm not Donald Trump, but this is what I
Speaker 3: would actually be looking to do.
Speaker 1: So last question, you know this, They've got a few days,
Speaker 1: but six days, five days? What can people do to
Speaker 1: help you in this time? We have a national audience,
Speaker 1: So what can our national audience do to help you
Speaker 1: at this moment? And let's roll through the right. We're
Speaker 1: freezing the rant, Universal.
Speaker 3: Child can freeze the rent, going to mean buses, fasts
Speaker 3: and redeliver universal childcare. And the way that you can
Speaker 3: get involved to go to zoran for NYC dot com, Forward, slash, gootv.
Speaker 3: If you live in New York City, you can sign
Speaker 3: up for a care amassing shift. If you don't, you
Speaker 3: can sign up for phone banking. Because the reason I'm
Speaker 3: sitting in front of you It's not just the one
Speaker 3: point six million doors that volunteers knocked on in the primary.
Speaker 3: It's the two point one million phone calls that they
Speaker 3: also made, and that can be done from anywhere across
Speaker 3: this country. So on good luck, Thank you, my friend,
Speaker 3: thank you. Appreciate it.