On Friday night, just a few hours before the start of early voting, Democratic mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani sat down for an interview with the Hell Gate Podcast in front of a live audience at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.
During our 45-minute conversation, we grilled Mamdani about his desire to keep Jessica Tisch as his NYPD commissioner, and how he plans to combat attempts to undermine his ambitious agenda.
We also talked about the barrage of racism and Islamophobia that Andrew Cuomo and the anti-Mamdani forces have hurled at him in the waning days of the campaign, how he stays alert and healthy while maintaining a grueling schedule, and his one-Red Bull-per-week indulgence.
Also: Mamdani's position on a controversial universal daylighting bill in the City Council, whether he'll bring back real snow days for schoolchildren, and if he'll build affordable housing atop Elizabeth Street Garden.
You can listen to the full podcast episode here:
And, if you enjoy an audio-visual presentation, here's the video of the event:
Why would Eric Adams's police commissioner be different under a Mamdani administration? "Everyone will follow my lead."
Mamdani made major news this week when he announced that he would seek to keep NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch if he wins. Centrist Democrats and the city's well-heeled corporate class cheered the move.
But Tisch's record as police commissioner is alarming to many New Yorkers who believe in criminal justice reform and reforming the NYPD. Tisch has pursued a crackdown on low-level offenses, directed cops to issue criminal summonses to delivery cyclists, many of whom are immigrants vulnerable to ICE, and relentlessly lobbied for changes to the state's bail reform, discovery laws, and raise-the-age laws. Tisch also disregarded the decision by her own NYPD judge to fire the police officer who killed Allan Feliz.
Why does Mamdani think Tisch will suddenly change her tune under his administration?
"Everyone will follow my lead," Mamdani said, suggesting that Tisch will have to implement his policing platform, which includes disbanding the Strategic Response Group, and creating a Department of Community Safety.
"This pick and every pick that I will make will be to further the agenda I've been running on. The fulfillment of that agenda means being able to build a team around yourself, where you might not have agreement on every single question, every single policy, and frankly you need not. But you must have alignment on the position you're being hired for. The police commissioner will follow my lead because at the end of the day, I am the mayor and the one accountable to the people of this city."
Mamdani isn't worried about Mayor Adams's last ditch plan to thwart his rent freeze.
On Friday night, the New York Post reported that Mayor Eric Adams is planning on stacking the Rent Guidelines Board with last-minute mayoral appointees, possibly keeping the Board aligned with landlords through 2026, and blocking the possibility of a rent freeze over Mamdani's first year in office.
Despite this, Mamdani said he still believed he'd be able to follow through on his promise to freeze the rent for rent-stabilized tenants in his first year in office—and hinted at possible maneuvers he'd take to circumvent these appointments.
"My approach to the use of power will be to actually utilize it," he said. "What I mean by that is, you look at Republicans and they seem to have no limits in their imagination to how they use power. And as Democrats it's like we're constructing an ever-lowering ceiling. I think this is a betrayal and is egregious, but I'm confident we'll be able to deliver this."
Universal child care means no means-testing, but Mamdani would allow it to be phased in to reach those who need it the most, first.
Governor Kathy Hochul has telegraphed that she plans on including some form of increased state-funded child care for kids under 3 in her budget for next year, a proposal that's in line with Mamdani's vision for universal, free childcare. But Hochul has previously insisted on the tired Democratic backstop of "means-testing" the state's child care programs, instead of just making it universal. Would Mamdani go along with that?
"You cannot win universal child care in your first year," he told Hell Gate. "But you can advance the vision and the vision is the universality in that it's both affordable and the bureaucracy is not so suffocating that one cannot access it…There's the necessity of scaling it up and phasing it in, but [means-testing] is actually a different approach. You cannot start means-testing and get to universality."
Mamdani would evict Elizabeth Street Garden and replace it with affordable housing for seniors in his first year in office—even if it disappoints his mom.
This summer, First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro killed a deeply affordable housing project for seniors on the site of Elizabeth Street Garden, further prolonging a battle that has raged for years over the use of City-owned land for a privately-operated garden, amidst a massive affordable housing crisis. Mamdani said he'd evict the garden in year one of his mayoralty, and restart the plans for affordable housing.
"My mother really disagrees with me on this, she tells me all the time," he said.
He's going to keep the Citi Bike e-bike speeds at 15 mph
Another act Mastro took this summer: demanding that Citi Bike lower the speed of their popular e-bikes from 18 mph to 15 mph. Just this week, the Adams administration made it against the law to ride any e-bike faster than 15 mph.
But for many cyclists, that rule is unrealistic and untenable (not to mention unenforceable) especially as car drivers continue to break their own 25 mph limit with impunity. So we asked Mamdani whether he'd restore the 18 mph speed limit for e-bikes and tell Citi Bike to do the same.
"I'm going to keep it at 15," Mamdani sheepishly whispered into the mic.
However, Mamdani did say he supported the universal daylighting bill in the City Council.
Mamdani allows himself one Red Bull a week
We wanted to know how Mamdani stays alert. Does he pop Zyn? Chug coffee?
"I do have one thing, which is that I allow myself one Red Bull a week," Mamdani said, adding that it was sugar free Red Bull. He then began a story about how he was prescribed Xanax for his claustrophobia during the 2017 Summer of Hell, when he was often stalled on subway trains underground. He said he never took the Xanax, but it made him feel better to know it was there if he had to use it.
"And now that's my relationship with Red Bull," Mamdani said. "I will just hold the Red Bull. I'll look at the Red Bull, it's in the car. I'll look at the Red Bull, and I'll be like, one a day is really hard…I'll have, like, maybe half a Red Bull one day. And I'll be like, okay, I get to have another half tomorrow. Anyway. This is how I'm thinking."
If it ever snows again in New York City, he'll actually give public school kids a snow day.
During the few days it has snowed during Mayor Eric Adams's time in office, New York City has shifted students to remote learning instead of letting them romp in the snow…with predictably disastrous results.
If it ever snowed again, would Mamdani just let kids have fun instead?
"Its got to be a snow day," he replied, recounting a fond memory of sledding in Riverside Park with friends—and getting a concussion. "Worked out for me!"
Special thanks again to the Museum of the Moving Image for hosting us, the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York for co-presenting the event, Ruth Ann Harnisch for sponsoring the Hell Gate Podcast, and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani for answering some tough questions from us. We're eager to keep asking them.