Battle Royale in New York City

Transcript

0:00 Welcome to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. It's time to build again, folks. Fascism never made America great, but when progressives build, that's where you'll find American greatness. Tonight's guest is the political director for the New York City New Liberals. He'll be breaking down the New York City mayoral race, whose big primary election is coming up on Tuesday of next week. Make sure to get out and vote. Today, we'll try to answer some big questions. Is Zoran Mamdani serious about abundance, or is this a tactic to play us for suckers? What can we expect from Andrew Cuomo, who's really the best on abundance issues in New York? And if the race comes down to Cuomo and Mamdani, who should abundant Democrats choose and why? That's coming up right now on Radio Abundance. You're listening to Radio Abundance, a podcast by YIMBY Democrats for America. Now let's get to the show. Please welcome your host for the evening, YIMBY Democrats for America Executive Director Steve Boyle. And to kick things off, here's Steve. I'm Donald J. Trump, and I hate these guys.

1:05 Tabitha Kinene, welcome to Radio Abundance. Thank you very much, Steve. Great to be on. I love the podcast, and I'm very happy to be a guest. Hey, we're stoked to have you. We've partnered before. We have partnered with several of the New Liberals. We've partnered with the Bay Area New Liberals on an event in San Francisco. We've partnered with you and the New York City New Liberals on a virtual event with Zellner Meyrie, one of the candidates in this primary election. Some context before we jump into the politics of it. I want to hear about you in a second. But first, can you tell us, who are the New York City New Liberals? The New York City New Liberals, we're a grassroots coalition of pragmatic liberals. We are dedicated to fostering abundance, human rights, and democratic processes. So the global New Liberal, we are the hub of a grassroots movement of center-left activists all around the world. We have chapters in Johannesburg, South Africa, Taiwan, you know, West Coast of the US, Europe, South America, and right here in New York City. So here in New York City, we focus mainly on housing, mobility, immigration, innovation, and market access.

2:09 And you are a part of the Center for New Liberalism. Yes. We recently had one of their founders, Jeremiah Johnson, on the podcast. It's a great episode. Curious what the relationship is between the local groups and a group like the New York City New Liberals and the wider Center for New Liberalism. So we're a chapter of the wider group. But, you know, we're very close to the center. You know, Jeremiah is, you know, our founder, and he lives right here in New York City in Midtown. So I'm good friends with him. And he is very close to this chapter. We have one of the larger memberships in the world here in New York City. Very nice. And you mentioned there are new liberals and different chapters all around the US and all around the world. But if someone out there is listening, and this appeals to them, and they happen to be in one of those cities that might not yet have a chapter, how does one, how does one go about starting one?

3:00 Oh, it's very easy to start a chapter. We have instructions to do it right on our website. We have new chapters popping up every month. The center will give you all the tools. You can link into our Slack for members. We will help you set up an email list and start social media feeds and even, you know, help you fund events. Very nice. And before we jump into the politics and the mayoral race, Tabitha, who are you? I'm a lifelong Democrat. I said I was a Democrat back when I was 10 years old in 1991. And I read about a guy named Bill Clinton in New York Magazine. My father, I'd been supporting Governor Douglas Wilder, first black governor for president, but he dropped out of the presidential race. And I told my dad he should vote for this guy named Bill Clinton. He said, who is that? And I had my three or four talking points. He said, oh, he seemed like a good guy. He voted for him. So he always tells me that story.

3:53 And I always tell him that I was right about Bill Clinton and I've been right ever since we talk about that. I guess my professional background is I was an economics major in college. I've worked mainly in finance. Most recently, I've been a clean energy banker and I've also worked in real estate finance, including doing a lot of mission-based lending for affordable housing and green lending to projects, small businesses, large businesses in New York City, New York State, and also around the world. So you've certainly got the experience to talk about what it takes to build, what it takes to build the green energy infrastructure, to fight climate change, what it takes to build the housing that will lower everybody's rents, and what it takes to build immediate affordable housing. What was your entry point into the world of abundance and your origin story there? And how did you go from being a political activist within your own family with your father to being a political activist in a formal group for the city and the nation? Yeah. So, I mean, as you kind of pointed out, I've been kind of doing the abundance professionally for a while. I've been, you know, building housing and building clean energy for quite some time. And I've always been involved, you know, volunteering for campaigns and stuff, going back to middle school. I was living in New York City in 2004, and I was looking for a Democratic debate watch party. So I was Googling around, and I found this group called DL21C, Democratic Worship for the 21st Century. And they had a debate watch party, and I went to it and got involved with that group and volunteered with them. We all took buses down to Virginia and Pennsylvania to campaign for different candidates. And, you know, that group hosted, you know, various candidates over the past 20 years. And then I became involved with the Center for New Liberalism, pretty close to when it started here in New York City. I met Jeremiah and Tim Burke, who is, he's our chapter leader in New York City.

5:43 So I started going to events and, you know, found like-minded people and got involved with, you know, the book club and supporting candidates and, you know, just being a policy wonk and following all the stuff that's going on in New York City, New York State and international and national policy. Fantastic. All right. I think we've got the setting. Let's get to the politics. We got a lot to talk about because there's a giant mayoral election in New York City, a big election and a flashy attention-grabbing one and a weird situation because it's going to be a bit of an earthquake no matter who wins. And also maybe it's kind of final and maybe it's totally not final, right, in the sense that, yeah, so next Tuesday, so in a matter of days, you've got the Democratic primary election for the New York City mayorship. Typically, you know, New York City is a Democratic town. Sometimes you get, you know, once there was Republicans like Giuliani and then independents like Bloomberg. Well, it's a pretty Democratic town.

6:38 So in an election like that, typically the winner of the Democratic primary is the winner of the mayorship and that person. So that primary election is for all intents and purposes, the general election that might not hold true this year. Right. Because, of course, current mayor Eric Adams, who was once a Democrat, originally elected as a Democrat, hailed by people like Nate Silver as the future of the party is going to run not on the Democratic line. So whoever wins the Democratic primary, Eric Adams is still going to be on the ballot in the fall. There will be a Republican in the ballot in the fall. And then there's two candidates who really are the only two who might win at this point, which is Andrew Cuomo and Zoran Mandani. And both of them are candidates to potentially run on third party lines. So, you know, whoever wins on Tuesday, it still might be a four way battle royale in the fall between Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, Zoran Mandani and the Republican. And of course, what's what's especially complicated that is, you know, the primary is ranked choice. The general election, I believe, is not meaning you could get those four guys. And suddenly, you know, right now, the conversation is all about who do you rank. You've got five slots. So the order you rank them in matters and who you rank versus who you do not rank and leave off your ballot matters a lot. And in the general election, you could have those four candidates with all of their own complications and it won't be ranked choice.

7:57 So that's complicated. And then today, this morning, I know I woke up to some news from the New York Times, which has played this all very weirdly. They were going to not endorse. And then they did kind of a quasi panel ish, quasi endorsement. And then today they did like an anti endorsement. It's being called where they highlighted that Zoran, they do not like Zoran Mandani and they do not like Andrew Cuomo. And they say only those two guys can win. And they say we think Zoran sucks more and Cuomo sucks less. Actually, to quote them exactly, the New York Times says, given these polls, however, crucial choice may end up being where, if at all, voters decide to rank Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Mandani. We do not believe that Mr. Mandani deserves a spot on New Yorkers ballots. His experience is too thin and his agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio's dismaying mayoral mayoral mayoralty mayoralty, I guess. As for Mr. Cuomo, we have serious objections to his ethics and conduct, even if he would be better for New York's future than Mr. Mandani. And so I'll ask you about that endorsement in a second. We will a little bit later talk about the New York City New Liberals endorsements, which not include either candidates. And it's a very interesting moment. It reminds me a little bit of the talking, you know, to sort of dejected Democrats and far leftists in the fall election where you're saying, look, I know you're telling me about Jill Stein and telling me that they need to earn your vote and you're going to sit this election out. But look, this is binary. There are two candidates. And if you want to have an impact, kind of need to pick one of them. Like if you're in New York, because it's ranked twice, your first choice should be your first choice, second choice, third choice, fourth choice should be your fourth. You know, those should be your choices. Go with your heart. But your fifth choice, you need to be picking Cuomo or Mandani because otherwise you're not voting. And it's weird because both of them have warts. Both of them have blemishes. The New York Times is calling that out hard and and they think Cuomo's got less blemishes. I think that's what you think. I think it's debatable. So let's start here. What do you think about this New York Times anti-endorsement and what what impact you think it could have on the race? Well, we tweeted this morning in response to it that we're glad the NYT editorial board read our scorecard over the weekend because it echoes a lot of what we said, which was, you know, we found both Cuomo and Mondani to be lacking. We did. We scored all of the candidates on five different issues. Cuomo scored higher than Mondani. But, you know, for a variety of reasons, we didn't feel like we could endorse a ranking of Cuomo. You know, we had called for him to resign back in 2021. That's one of the reasons. And then we also thought that, you know, Mondani's proposals were very irresponsible. We thought we think that he lacks experience. So we did not rank him either. So similar, you know, similar to what the New York Times is saying, which is both of these candidates fail some kind of test, some some standards that we have, you know, maybe one better than the other. But that we did encourage, just like the New York Times, we encourage everyone to make a choice, make that choice, but to follow their own conscience is the way that we that we phrased it. And we gave, you know, we gave everyone the tools with which to make that choice, you know, with our with our grades on the five different issues.

11:07 Yeah. And it is, I mean, genuinely, it's a it's a fabulous voter guide, right? Like whether you agree or disagree with the conclusions, it's it's very well done. You break out a number of issues, including things like housing and transportation and public safety. You obviously give grades and you do, I think, a fantastic job in a in a short and abbreviated and pithy way of, you know, citing their records and your rationales. It's quite well done. And you mentioned, you know, taking Zoran down a peg for some of his policies. One of the big policies you take him down for is is is the idea of freezing the rent. But he's not the only candidate you punish for that. In fact, folks like, you know, Zellner Myrie and Brad Landers, you know, Zellner Myrie, for example, thought of and we think so here as as the big aggressive Yimby and abundance candidate with with with, you know, the big vision and the big pitch and the big spirit, you know, talking about building. What is it? One million new homes in the next one million years, holding and preserving. I mean, that's huge. And we've been heralding him for for setting that goal and being so aggressive and having the plan to do it. But you mentioned, you know, even in his plans, there is a rent freeze. I think it's for a year. And so Zellner Myrie from you gets a B on housing. I'm curious about that. And then we'll talk about who got an A in just a second. Yeah. So as you pointed out, the B was pretty much about the rent freeze. The rest of his policies, as you laid out, are very, very progressive on housing, very housing forward.

12:29 They they address the fact that we need more supply, that we need, you know, transit oriented developments. He has, you know, he's proposing the largest number of homes and he has the most just the most robust plan for housing. But the rent freeze is what, you know, prevented him from from getting an A. So one of the reasons the rent freeze is bad. So first of all, the rent freeze, you know, it only affects, you know, rent stabilized or rent controlled homes. But that's, you know, it's two million homes in New York City. So I mean, he wouldn't be no one would be freezing, you know, your market rate apartment, right? It's just rent stabilized apartment. But why it affects new development is that any big new developments in New York City has tax abatements. The new program is called 485X, right, where they have to include affordable housing, 20% affordable housing. Now, all of these buildings then would include a rent controlled portion.

13:19 So if you are mapping out the finances of a new development, you're now including a 0% rent increase for the useful life of the building, which is, you know, typically 30 years or more, right? That's a huge, that is, makes a huge difference. Because even with a 3% increase in rent, you know, you're doubling the rent in two years, right? And the reason why, you know, it's unfortunate is because if you're a landlord or, you know, whether you're a small business owner and you're renting out your basement unit in your townhouse, or, you know, you control, you know, several hundred thousand units, your costs are going to go up over time. The cost to maintain the building, to, you know, provide, you know, energy and, you know, replace, replace appliances and whatnot. So if you're unable to simply raise rents to keep up with inflation, then people aren't going to invest and aren't going to build new housing. And kind of the bargain or the trade-off of these inclusionary housing schemes is that, you know, you allow people to build market rate buildings as long as they include a certain portion, you know, 20 or 30% for permanently affordable units. And that is really only feasible if those units can be, you know, maintained, you know, economically.

14:33 It's interesting because you mentioned two policies that are colliding here, right? One is rent freezes, in this case, in already rent-stabilized apartments. And the second one, though, is the mandating that a certain amount of new construction be rent-stabilized. I mean, it's an interesting thing. It's something that, you know, had been both a transitional moment in the Yimmy movement, something that I, you know, I remember a time years and years ago when I was very excited about those sorts of mandates because the thinking was, look, if you, you know, people don't want to because they're scared things won't be affordable. Well, wouldn't the best thing be to let people build but ensure some of it's affordable? Wouldn't it be great if, you know, market rate housing can help subsidize affordable housing? Can't this be a win-win-win? I think it is a positive sum attitude that created that policy. But of course, you have to evaluate how things go. And the impact is if there's a certain amount of a new development that is going to be rent-stabilized, rent-controlled, if that makes the development not pencil out, then of course you get neither, neither the new market rate units that give people new homes and lower everybody's rents, nor do you get the rent-controlled and affordable units that were the whole point of the law, right? You know, 15% of zero is still zero. So I kind of wonder, though, you know, with those two things, right, if you didn't have the mandate that a certain amount be rent-controlled or rent-stabilized, if you did a rent freeze for a year, two years, three years, whether that was just rent-controlled, already rent-stabilized apartment, whether that was a wider subset, like would a freeze on rents be so bad if, A, it was very short-term, and B, if it was combined with not having those mandates in new construction?

16:11 A shorter rent-freeze is better. So, you know, like my reason, one-year rent-freeze is better than a permanent rent-freeze because, you know, if you're planning a building, you say, okay, fine, year one, we'll have the same rent, but thereafter, we can raise the rent in line with our expenses, right? Because in that same, you know, financial modeling, you have to assume expenses go up. So, yeah, a one-year rent-freeze is probably not going to depress new investment, new construction as much as a permanent one, but it is a, I mean, all the, I mean, politics affects everything. I mean, I think it's really just a political concession to, you know, the rent-freeze craze, you know, in this campaign. You know, I thought it was good that Governor Cuomo in the last debate said he'd leave it up to the Rent Guidelines Board. I think that's a better answer. I think their process is just fine. It's nine people who are appointed by the mayor, but they have, what I think is a pretty objective formula. It takes into account costs, takes into account landlord profits. They come up with a reasonable number for rent to go up. I mean, the same, these are the same formulas that the same government uses to decide, you know, raises for their government employees. So I think it's a pretty fair number. I mean, this year's number, you know, ranges from, I think 2.75% to 4.75%. It's not fully decided yet, but that's, that's the reins they're looking at, which is in line with inflation. I think that's a fair, that's a fair number. So, I mean, I think that there, it's true that affordability and particular housing affordability are, is the biggest issue facing New Yorkers. I think all candidates agree on that and trying to get that, those rent increases down, you know, is a good goal, but the way to do it is by increasing supply and by reducing all the impediments to people building housing, especially in New York City, where in New York City, there's not, we don't have the problem of a lack of supply or lack of people who are willing to build homes, right? All we need to do is make it legal to do so and the private sector will control homes.

18:07 Yeah. I think about the question of rent freezes a lot without a clear answer in the sense of both kind of grand political compromise. You mentioned political concessions earlier. And then as, you know, how do you solve both like the very immediate problem and the sort of long term problem? And what I mean by that is, you know, we're dealing with a situation right now where we've failed to build in New York and San Francisco and across America for more than 50 years at this point. That's a huge generational deficit. That's a half century right there. And so in a world where you can build, in a world where we've been building, where supply and demand are balanced, you probably don't have to worry about this as much you because the supply and demand are balanced. And so the rates for apartments and housing matches what people are willing to pay for them and is built to accommodate different people's budgets and preferences. And it serves the consumer. If you don't build for 50 years, you've got this giant long term hole to climb out of. And we know, first of all, that the only way to actually climb out of that hole is to build and to aggressively build. And we know that that rent control can be deleterious to that, right? We've you know, I've had experience with this. I've you know, I really benefited from lucking into a rent control place in San Francisco, but I got to watch everyone who didn't suffer and be immiserated and have to leave the city. We see in cities with rent control that what you get is a bifurcated rate. So you get one group of the chosen random few who get to pay lower rates. But for everybody else, rent control makes their rents go up. We know that rent control stops people from building means that everybody's rents going to go up eventually. But also, we also know that like, I mean, if you had unlimited construction and a giant effort by both private sector and public sector built at the speed of light, how long would it actually take? Right. And less than people think, but still like a moment. And so I sort of wonder, OK, well, what's the is there a temporary bandaid in terms of a rent freeze that can both satisfy the politics there, but also like be an immediate emergency intervention to help people while we also in exchange have the right and the motivation to build ourselves out of this as quickly as absolutely possible, i.e. rent control is a short term bandaid. You know, if you get injured and you you take painkillers, that's amazing to take away the pain. And if you keep taking painkillers, now you're going to be in a world of hurt and addiction. And that's, I think, why rent control can be can be a painkiller, but it needs to be short term. And so I bring this up to say that also, you know, if if the grand compromise backfires on everybody, it doesn't work. So is there a world even outside of New York and Zellner and Zoran and all these conversations, you know, is there a world where there is a grand political compromise possible with a very short term, you know, emergency intervention because this is a 50 year deficit and people are suffering. But that also enables us to as fast as possible, aggressively as possible, climb out of that 50 year hole and, you know, start to build instead of a hole, a mountain. I mean, is something like that possible or will it always, always be negative and actually hold us back from solving the problem? I think there's always going to be a need in a city like New York for low income housing, whether that's what we're describing now as rent control or just, you know, housing that has income limits where people's housing is subsidized by by the government. I mean, it might be people who are formerly experiencing homelessness or, you know, they can they can move into a apartment where the government is paying all or some of their rent for a period of time at the, you know, that's what was done in cities like Houston or supportive housing that's provided for people who are unemployed or have low incomes or disabilities or illnesses or injuries. So that, you know, that can be rent control that can be what's called, you know, supportive housing can be, you know, section eight or section nine. I think we're always going to have a, have a need for that. But I think if you can expand the stock of, say, section eight housing and also expand the stock of how that's just naturally affordable, meaning it's naturally at a affordable to someone, someone who was earning a percentage of the median income, right? Someone at half the median income, say they can afford if there are enough units for them to afford naturally, then there's less need for rent control. So say like I grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, there is not really a need there for rent control housing because you have housing that someone who is very low income can afford, you know, whether it's a, you know, a trailer or a small apartment. And then there's also, you know, you can also have, there's also section eight housing where you can get a voucher to live in an existing, existing unit that might be above your income, but you know, you're receiving a subsidy. But in a place like New York with, you know, the density that we have, it's unlikely that even with a lot of free market supply, that the housing costs are going to go down low enough for, for all people who are very low income to be able to afford. That's how we have a social safety net. And that can exist, like I said, through section eight, section nine, various welfare programs or with, or with rent control.

23:13 Before we get to the, the Cuomo and Mondani of it all, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the man you did rank first and who got an A on housing from you, Whitney Tilson. To be honest, who is Whitney Tilson? Whitney Tilson is a, he's not a politician. He is a former hedge fund and private equity person who also was one of the founders of Teach for America. Because of that, he has education as his number one issue. And as he points out, it's the, it's the biggest thing that the New York City budget spends money on over 40 billion of 110 or so billion of the New York City budget. So he has a lot of pro market solutions to things like housing, education, energy, and transit. He's kind of, he's very comparable to Mayor Bloomberg, you know, they're good friends. And like Bloomberg, he has education as number one policy. He is very, very globally minded. You know, he's very pro-immigration, very pro-innovation. And he, as he pointed out in our scoring, he's really the only, he's a candidate who actually tries to improve educational outcomes with his policies. We even mentioned that they're making an attempt to do so. Most candidates talk about increasing childcare. A lot of them talk about increasing funding for schools, but a lot of them don't even mention any kind of efforts, you know, to make kids learn more or to hold schools accountable for, for not, for not teaching children well. So that was one thing that we really liked about him. So yeah, he scored, he scored the best in a variety of our categories. I think he had three A's and a B and two B's. So we, so we endorsed them. So, I mean, as you mentioned, this election is down to really to two people. And, you know, most likely Tilson will not be the democratic nominee, but we think it's important that we support candidates who share our values and we don't just, you know, endorse the most popular candidate, any candidate who runs, who is viable. You know, so we, we ranked everyone on that second debate state and Tilson has great lifetime experience throughout his career and the best policies. So he is our number one candidate. And then we also like Zelda Myrie, as we discussed a lot, you know, one of the best on housing and you know, he has good experience in the state Senate.

25:28 And then Brad Lander, the current controller, he had a very, very robust set of policies in his, in his platform, very well thought out. I think the experience of being controller has moderated him a bit from from where he was, you know, before he took office, which you can imagine, you know, letting the finances, let's see, like New York would have that effect on someone. And his policies, you know, he's the, as far as New York State Democrats go, you know, he's now kind of a middle of the road between, you know, maybe like a more centrist Tilson and a more progressive Mangani. And then also Adrian Adams, we supported as Ford. She passed the city of yes, as speaker of the city council, which is a Herculean task. She was able to build a coalition and she's very, very pragmatic, not ideological. And as well as the city of yes, the city council, which is a Herculean task, she was able to build a coalition and she's very, very pragmatic, not ideological, and is well liked and well understood by many of the different factions within the city and has a lot of, a lot of support. So those are the four that we, that we chose to highlight based on their positions and experience.

26:35 Nice. And as we've said a couple of times, yeah, I mean, this seems down to the two front runners, Cuomo and Mandani. But if you don't like them, right, this is ranked choice. And so, you know, what you do with that fifth slot on the ballot, that's, that maybe is your binary decision in the election and you're lesser of two evils. But with those first four slots, besides being an exercise in choosing and besides supporting them and besides feeling that you voted, you're conscious. What is the impact for the candidates? But what is the impact for their policies that you like and support to rank the folks who probably aren't going to win the primary, but, but to rank them on your ballot, to rank them first, to rank them in this first floor, first, first four. Spots. If you are a Zellner Myrie or a Whitney Tilson and you don't win this election, what does it mean when, when, when somebody like you or, you know, or I goes in and, and, and puts them on our ballot and votes for them? What, uh, if we run up the score on somebody who doesn't meddle, what is the impact that we can still make with that in signifying, uh, support for some of the policies that they're, that they're a fan of and, and, and touting to the world?

27:37 I think it, it will have an effect on the next administration. So if someone like Zellner Myrie, you know, does very well, you know, on the first ballot and gets, you know, well over 10% of the, of the vote, it highlights the issues that he has been championing, you know, such as housing and transit. And, you know, someone who's, who does well in the, in the primary body can get, you know, a job of the administration, but the, you know, for someone like Zellner Myrie, who's in the, is in the state legislature, you know, it increases his clout, you know, in the, in the state legislature. It sets them up for, you know, future, a future run. So I think that, but the main thing it does is that, you know, it allows you to express which candidates that you, so, you know, despite the fact that, you know, Andrew Cuomo has been governor or, you know, Zora Mamdani, uh, might become the nominee, but allows you to opine on all the other candidates that we have.

28:28 So I think that, you know, Democrats have a pretty good bench here in New York city. I think we'll see, we'll be seeing a lot of these candidates in the future. So, you know, helping them to do well in this race, it helps set them up for those future runs. Very nice. All right. So let's talk about Zoran and Cuomo. The big debate in the abundance world right now is about Zoran because he has been making some little nods to abundance. And the question of course is, is that a signal of, of openness or evolution or the movement being persuasive and compelling and progressive? Is he bullshitting us to get votes? Is he co-opting the word and taking it from those corporate development shills and making it describe what he wants it described? Will, will he go into an, will he, will he forge a combination of abundance and democratic socialism? And will that be a great thing or will that be bad for everybody and be bad for both sides? We don't know. We don't know. The least important thing of the nods to abundance is him saying the word abundance at a rally, because that's a preexisting word. It has a definition outside of politics.

29:28 But he did say government must deliver an agenda of abundance that puts the 99% over the 1%. I don't just, I don't think that's any, that I don't, it could be co-opting. I don't think that's incompatible with abundance. In fact, I think the whole point of abundance, one of the many points is that, is to say there is a 1% that has abundance for themselves. And that has been preventing other people from experiencing, when we talk about housing abundance, there's people, the main obstacle to that is people who have homes and are stopping other people from building their own homes and building homes near them and building apartments. So actually breaking that kind of incumbent, consolidated, privileged status and opening that up to everybody and abundance for everybody, that statement is, I think, not inconsistent with that. It doesn't mean anything that he said it at a rally, although it does make me think, you know, it was right up until that moment, from the moment the book came out until the moment Zoran said the word abundance, the narrative about the politics of abundance was maybe this is good policy, but it's a policy framework.

30:26 It's not politics. It's not a slogan. You wouldn't use it in a campaign. It's not good politics. I mean, if Zoran's using it, it seems like it might, he might think it's good politics. If he's co-opting it, that's doubly proof he thinks the word is good politics. I wrote that down to mention that in our podcast before opening up Twitter and seeing that one of the authors, Derek Thompson, said the same. He said the rapid online shift from abundance is obviously shit politics to abundance is obviously great politics. And it was our idea first. And now we got it back is a nice reminder that people are just making up discourse on the fly. The book is still just 13 weeks old, like everything else in the world. Nobody knows how this is going to turn out. But there's been other really interesting odds. I think the most interesting one was Zoran spoke with John Lovett, friend of the pod, who asked him, are you abundance pilled?

31:12 And Zoran had a long answer, but a few key quotes. One is he said, if you care about public goods, public service, these have to be a primary focus is because any evidence of that inefficiency is then a justification for the elimination of the public sector. So in that conversation, we're not talking about market rate housing yet, but we are talking about the government's ability to build and how they are constrained by process and zoning. Yeah, weakens the ability of government to build and gives ammunition to people who don't want it to. That's an important point. He was asked by, I think, the New York Times what he's changed his mind on. And he talked about the need to build more market rate housing. He also said to John Lovett, I think abundance is really interesting and it's really bringing that focus around housing, particularly and even just the whole thinking of single stairwell versus dual stairwell. All right. What are the very details that we often allied over that have a big impact on whether or not something can actually be brought to pencil?

32:03 So he's clearly reading it. He's clearly thinking about it, even if he's not on team abundance. He is it is he's incorporating it. Maybe that will show up as he considers to think about things like those rent freezes and and, you know, free buses and public transit. Right. But both of which are noble goals. But again, if they backfire, then they're not noble impacts. And then, you know, Sam Deutsch, New York on Twitter is very popular in these circles, mentioned that Zoran wrote a bill giving the MTA streamlined permitting authority to speed up and reduce the cost of subway construction. Zoran, of course, mentioned Tokyo style construction, which is a nice little dog whistle to us and also marked New York paying McKinsey millions of dollars to design a trash can. So there's some interesting stuff happening here. What do you think about this?

32:48 Well, I think of abundance as something that anyone, you know, center to left likes, you know, one of the things, you know, so I'm, you know, I'm a moderate, I guess people like to call me. But I think that people on the left, like Zoran and people in the middle share the same goal, you know, within the Democratic Party, that actual goals of abundance are things that we all want. We all want more housing, more affordable housing. We all want more clean energy. We all want safe transit. We all want more access to health care for people and more innovation. The question is how we get there. So I don't I don't think that Zoran Mamdani is being disingenuous when he says he is pro abundance. Like, you know, I think he answered the question very adroitly, you know, by pointing out making, you know, government run housing or government run things more efficient.

33:37 And I do appreciate that he now realizes the role of private supply in creating housing. So that's that's that's all good. I mean, I think that I think that, you know, the the the abundance critique is a critique of blue state governments. So Democratic governments and how they have put up roadblocks to abundance. So to the extent that someone like Zoran Mamdani is also critiquing, you know, establishment Democrats and how they've governed for, you know, the past, you know, years, terms, decades. And that's it should dovetail well with the leftist critique of the Democratic Party. So I say that to say that I think he he genuinely wants abundance just as much as I do or you do. But him and I probably disagree on, you know, how we how we get there.

34:24 You know, I probably agree more with some of the things that Della Myra is saying. Something like we talked about mandatory inclusionary housing is something that's been criticized on, you know, by the left as, you know, a giveaway to developers. It's called, you know, I would just call it incentive. People respond to incentives and their tradeoffs of things. And yeah, you know, we have tax policy and we are able to provide tax subsidies for things. And I would say we should provide them for things that we want more of, like housing or clean energy or, you know, health care for people who can't otherwise afford it. So I would say that's that giveaway to a developer is a good tradeoff. The same way we give away money to that same developer if he wants to, you know, donate money, you know, to charity.

35:09 Like you, I do think Zoran is sincere. And I think that psychoanalyzing and dissecting his remarks misses, I think, the point, which is what actually matters is not if he's serious now. It matters the unknowable future where this goes and the actual execution. And I bring that up because a few things. So one is, I mean, a couple of really interesting factors here. Yes, the primary election is imminent, but the general election is like four months away. The actual the next mayor will take office on like January 1st, 2026. So that's more than six months away. So there's a lot of evolving to be done. And, you know, Zoran is, yeah, he's a DSA guy. He is. He's clearly far left. But also he is currently running in the primary right now. He's in a Democratic primary. So it's he's speaking to people on the left. He's not trying to win a general election. He's trying to win a primary. And I think we're no strangers to seeing how language and ideas shift a little between the electorate changes and who you're talking to changes.

36:02 I take the most kind of intrigue in some of Zoran's very real relationships. You see him cross endorsing with Brad Lander. He is he's totally close friends with Zellner Myrie, who is, again, I think New York City's top tip of the spear on abundance and Yimby issues. And Zoran is also very close with and endorsed by Chiyose, who is probably the best communicator for Yimbyism from the left and a proponent of some aspects of what I might call Progressive Abundance and talking about, you know, why building housing, building housing. OK, sure, a developer might profit, but it's anti landlord. It's the landlords win when there's not enough when they don't have to compete with each other and they can jack up rates infinitely and they don't have to provide better service. It's when they have more competition that renters are empowered instead of landlords.

36:49 And even when folks, you know, and folks across the Democratic Party will will talk about it. And I think you and I probably both think there's a red herring, you know, BlackRock buying up single family homes and single family neighborhoods. Well, again, the reason they're doing that is because things are so weighted in favor of landlords over renters that that's a market opportunity for them. Not them. That's the problem. It's the market opportunity is the problem. And if you want to tackle that, it's not about banning corporations buying homes. It's about making it so that it's not it's it's less advantageous because because it's renters who have more of the power and rents are going down with more competition. So it's some interesting voices maybe in his head, in voices in his head, whispers in his ear, I think would be a better phrase than voices in his head and also quite a lot of time to evolve. But I think then you get to the actual stuff, right, which is he's you know, if he adopts it and becomes this he's a credible campaigner, right?

37:38 I mean, we take a second acknowledge this has been revolutionary in how well he's campaigned, the videos, the communication. He raised a bunch of money and then he told everyone he would stop raising money and what he wanted was volunteers. And now he has an army. It is incredible. It's everyone on any positions can take inspiration from that. So if he adopts the city, becomes a new messenger, that could be very powerful. If he wins over the left, that could be very powerful. If he succeeds, that would be extremely powerful. If he fails, it will be a problem for everybody. Both the New Yorkers who are affected by that failure, but the entire political situation. If the left grabs onto abundance and fails, that's going to look bad for abundance and it's going to look bad for the left. I think of the mayorship in Chicago with Brandon Johnson, which has failed. It's failed, right? He won the election from the left.

38:23 He's governed from the left and he's failed. And that makes it harder for folks who want progressive things to happen to win. And it reflects on the whole Democratic Party and makes it harder to defeat Republicans at a time when we need to in order to stand up for fascism. And at a moment when abundance is this precarious new thing, as Derek Thompson said, the book is three weeks old and anybody can define it how they will. We don't know what's going to happen. And if Zoran takes abundance, combines it with progressivism and succeeds, it's amazing. And if he takes abundance, combines it with progressivism and fails, it's going to hurt hard. And I know there's a few reasons why people are afraid and not without reason that he might fail, right? Free public transit. Again, nothing wrong with desiring that. But we know that that recently failed in Kansas City, which had been previously cited as an example of why it would work.

39:11 We know that, you know, it costs like $250,000. We know that riders tell us that they'd rather more frequent routes than like to save the $250,000. We know that a tiny fee helps ensure, actually, not just that the service is paid for, which is the most important thing is that there is public transit, however that's funded. But, you know, also a small little, you know, tiny fee helps ensure, A, that the service serves the people who actually like need it and need it most and value it. And B, kind of discourages if you're going to just wander on for free and make trouble for people. It's just a deterrent that actually works, even if it's a dollar, you know. The rent increases we talked about, that that can have really big long-term consequences that undermine the whole project. So there's a lot of questions here. And then obviously all of this stuff, you know, you have to govern. You have to get the votes. You have to work with the other politicians in the city.

39:57 You have to work with, you know, everyone who is actually building. You have to have executive leadership. There's a lot of questions here. So what's your take on all of that? I mean, I try to focus on issues and not kind of psychoanalyze, you know, who means what. You can take the most, I mean, the most cynical view is just to look at what people have done in the past, you know. You know, it's based on someone's, you know, votes, bills, executive experience, you know, how likely are they to do policy X or Y. So there's position, you know, which you kind of talked about. It seems like, you know, someone like Mamdani is coming around to abundance as it becomes more popular and more developed than people engage with it more. And then there's, you know, what is your ability to implement abundance or any policy, you know, once you're in office.

40:43 So there are plenty of people running, like, you know, Lander is a controller. Stringer has been a controller. Adrian Adams is, you know, a speaker of the council. Governor Cuomo, you know, is obviously governor. These people have actually implemented a lot of policies that, you know, I like, some I don't like. They've also demonstrated certain behaviors, hiring practices, firing practices. All these things will affect, you know, how well they can implement something called abundance. You know, so Cuomo, for example, has a lot of executive experience. He's pushed you a lot of progressive reforms like same-sex marriage, minimum wage, bail reform. But he also, you know, fired, you know, Andy Byford, who was, you know, great, the head of the MTA, a great transit brain.

41:28 And he, you know, unlike people like Bloomberg, is not always, you know, hired necessarily the best people. So that, you know, affects his ability to implement things. On the other hand, Mamdani has no executive experience. So he might have the best ideas, but not be able to implement them. And then there's always, like, you know, the salient sort of hierarchy of the ideas. And what are they going to do first? You know, people can waste a lot of political capital doing, you know, some foolish things early in their tenure and then be unable to pass other things. So these are all things that, you know, one has to keep in mind. I think it's our job as, you know, abundance people to push candidates on the issues and have them, you know, adopt abundance policies. But then, you know, but then when they're in office, you know, hold them to account and make sure they're implemented, you know, in the abundance book, you know, one common theme is that, you know, as Democrats, we pass things and we say, oh, we pass this.

42:24 And we're getting X amount of funding for the IRA or for, you know, high-speed rail or for rural broadband. And that's great. But then we don't implement it, you know, partially because of, you know, barriers that we've put up ourselves, you know, on the state and local level. But also just because of, you know, governance on the federal level or, you know, other executive levels. So that's kind of how I think about it. Yeah. And it makes it very hard to judge an upstart like Zoran Mandani, you know. I mean, like, I mean, let's first stipulate that experience isn't everything, right? We've had a, seen the harm of a gerontocracy. We've seen, you know, elder statesmen, you know, forever. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Joe Biden are lifelong leaders and champions. But there's one thing you can't defeat, and that's time. And when time got to them, in both cases, it handed ginormous wins to fascism and to President Trump, who, by the way, is president, which that's good experience.

43:16 That looks good on a resume. But so that sort of, we hate him. So that kind of establishes what's on your resume ain't everything. But also, in 1991, when you were convincing your father to vote for Bill Clinton, if that was before October 18th, Zoran Mandani was not born yet. If some excited fans of his tried to draft him to run for president, that would be wasted effort because he is not eligible to run for president. He is not old enough. And that, you know, New York City is a complicated, dangerous little beast. You've got, in the best of times, you've got a lot of moving parts that require significant executive leadership. And yeah, without that executive experience to judge, we both don't know what to expect. And also, it means in hard times, and there will be many, what will he fall back on in terms of his past experience and what he's learned from that?

44:02 It makes it complicated. Somebody that does have quite a lot of experience, though, good and bad, is Andrew Cuomo. And I wonder if you could kind of dissect his experience, how you weigh it personally, how CNL weighed it in the grades. I mean, how do we think about Andrew Cuomo? So Andrew Cuomo, you know, has spent his life in politics. You know, his father was governor. He was a cabinet official under Bill Clinton, head of housing and urban development in the 90s. Elected three times, and as I mentioned, got a lot done as governor. He, you know, he restructured the tax code. He raised the minimum wage. He banned fracking. He got same-sex marriage passed. He passed best-in-the-nation gun control legislation after Sandy. He passed bail reform. And he did so with, you know, very, shall we say, aggressive executive tactics, you know, including, you know, he formed an alliance with Republicans in the state legislature.

44:56 He's kind of an old-fashioned, you know, New York City politician. But, you know, he also, you know, he disbanded the Moreland Commission, which was, you know, established to investigate corruption because they started investigating him. You know, that was bad. And, you know, he had, in some ways, he was a strong leader during COVID, but he also wasn't honest about, you know, nursing home deaths. And then, of course, he has been accused of multiple, multiple cases of sexual harassment. He was investigated by, you know, Democrat Tis James. No charges were brought. But, you know, he admitted to many of the things that were, of which he was accused. And then he, you know, resigned as governor. So, as I mentioned, at that time, our group, you know, we asked for his resignation.

45:43 I think a lot of people who had supported him for a long time thought it was best for him to resign. So, that's, you know, probably the main, those last things I mentioned, probably his main impediment, if any, of being mayor. He is very weird and challenging to analyze his record, I think, right? I mean, you sort of mentioned, like, he did have, at many times, a way of being able to marshal executive resources to get stuff done, including very progressive things that he deserves our thanks for. And also was willing to cross a lot of lines in doing that before we even talk about the sexual misconduct. But also, he would use that in ways, I think, that deeply weakened the party, right? It was advantageous for him to ally with state Republicans, but we're still feeling the effects of a weaker Democratic Party in New York State.

46:29 And that got kind of dangerous in this last election. New York City and New York State made a big move to the right, and I think you can connect those dots. I mean, he's certainly, I think he probably spent a lot of 2020 assuming he was going to be president and soon. And then obviously had a complete fall from grace. There's obviously the sexual abuse, but also the abuse after the sexual abuse in the interest of, like, silencing and intimidating some of his accusers. My biggest worry is, you know, who is this guy now and what will he do now, right? There was a very weird moment, I think, at the first debate. I didn't write down the exact quote, but I remember, you know, he was at, or maybe it was the second debate. He was asked, like, what was his biggest mistake? And he didn't self-reflect on any mistakes he made. He was like, my biggest mistake is that the party has gone so, you know what I mean?

47:17 And you're like, whoa. So number one, that's not a guy who's, like, analyzing his own record and being honest with himself about both his failures in the aim of, like, self-improvement and, like, learning. But that's also a guy who is, like, angry and angry at the party. And so those, some of those old progressive accomplishments, like, will he come back with a vengeance to prove his creds or will he come back with a vengeance for vengeance? You know what I mean? And I kind of worry about that. So I wonder what you think. And then, I mean, look, brass tacks, if you're willing to share how you rank them, you guys. I'm personally going to rank Cuomo fifth. I'll rank, you know, the way we, we rank them. The needle was ranked them. So Tilson first, Maury second, Lander third, Adrian fourth, and then Cuomo fifth. But I think he's, I guess I agree with, you know, I agree with our scoring. I agree with what the New York Times said, that if we just look at who will be better for New York City's future, it's Andrew Cuomo.

48:08 I think that, you know, as it relates to abundance, I think he has shown himself to be somewhat of an opportunist, which I don't say negatively. I think that, for instance, you know, after 2018, he, you know, made a move to the left and passed a lot of progressive. You know, once the IDC was done and people at the electorate had told him, you know, no more IDC. We want progressive, you know, New York state democratic steaming policies. He passed things like bail reform. And, you know, he's always been good at, you know, getting big projects done, such as the Bridgers and Second Avenue subway. But I think a lot of that bodes well for getting, you know, the abundance thing done, whether it's finishing, you know, the gateway tunnel or more subway expansion or building more homes, things like changing laws, changing, changing city laws to things like zoning to a lot more housing.

49:00 I think he will do what's interesting because there's a lot of, you know, a lot of New York City specific nuances to abundance. So, so, for example, our, you know, our transit, we talked about some of the housing nuances with zoning and tax and tax abatements and such. But like with our transit, you know, the MTA, which controls the subways, buses, you know, bridges, tunnels and Long Island Railroad is not a city organization. It is an organization that had, so its board has 17 members. The mayor only appoints four of those, you know, six are appointed by this, by the governor and seven are appointed by suburban counties. So that's one thing that, you know, when New Yorkers are voting or if you ask them how, you know, how the city is doing, a lot of them will point to, you know, bus wait times or how the subway is running, subway crime. But the mayor is not fully in control of that.

49:46 So the mayor has to work with the state, with other counties, even with New Jersey, with things like tunnels. So, you know, it seems like he should be good at working with the governor. You know, he was a governor, you know, on one hand. On the other hand, you know, people know that him and Kathy Hopewell, you know, aren't great friends. You know, maybe she won't be governor forever. But, so, you know, he, you know, he has experience as governor working with, you know, governors from New Jersey and Connecticut. Maybe he can bring some of those relationships and abilities to the mayoralty. So I think those are, you know, some of the potential positives. And then, you know, some of the downsides are, you know, as you've mentioned, he can be, he can be vengeful and vindictive. You know, maybe after what happened in 2021, you know, he's evolved, you know, he's a little bit older.

50:32 He's, you know, kind of seen downsides of self-behaviors. So, you know, it remains, it remains to be seen. And then, as I mentioned, you know, Izzy, you know, as someone who was in Albany for a very long time and not, you know, living and working in the city as much, is he willing to hire, you know, smart, experienced people who will challenge him and give him good advice? Or will he just stick to the loyalist, you know, who, you know, are suboptimal from a policy performance standpoint? May I ask you a challenging question on Cuomo's housing record? Sure. So there is, in New York, an abundance group that I know I'm a huge fan of. And they ranked the candidates on housing. And, you know, they gave Cuomo an app. And what they said was, as governor of New York state for over a decade, his record on housing was disastrously marked by not pushing for thorough pro-supply reforms and making the bad situation worse by passing HSTPA in 2019.

51:27 His allusions to supply in his current platform are likely to stay theoretical, as shown by his opposition to rezoning low-density neighborhoods and opposition to affordable senior housing at Elizabeth's Street Garden. And that organization was the New York City New Limits. So I'm curious how you respond to yourself. Yeah, he has not been good on housing. We gave him an app. He's been very disappointing on housing. Yeah, and, you know, we gave Mamdani a D. So Mamdani beat him on housing. Lander got a B. You know, he's focused on supply. He demonstrated leadership in supporting the Gowanus rezoning. And he even said recently, New York 1, that he wishes he had supported it earlier. So he has, you know, really come around on housing.

52:13 So, yeah, I mean, Cuomo has not had a great record on housing. And it remains to be seen if he, his housing plan is pretty good. You know, not enough to not get him an F. But one of the things that differentiates him with some of the other candidates to proposing more housing is he has said, especially that he does not want to rezone low-density neighborhoods. So these are, like, some of the neighborhoods outside of Manhattan that have a high demand for more housing and affordable housing, but are low-density, you know, a lot of single-family homes. And he does not want to rezone those to allow, for instance, like, you know, one-to-four unit buildings or even to rezone them around transit hubs, like subway stops. So that was disappointing. And then there was the little street garden question, which the New York Times was asking, asked everyone sort of a list of this question.

53:04 So there's a garden in the Lower East Side. I actually lived pretty close to it for many years. And there's a proposal to provide a 100% affordable senior housing building on that site. And there's been a lot of NIMBY support to have it made as a garden. And he supports, he supports keeping the garden and not building the affordable senior housing, which is disappointing. Most of the other communities. You also include a garden, yes? Yes, which also include a garden. And as someone who lives near that garden, if you walk by it on a nice day in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, there's no one there. There are plenty of other nice parks around. When I just said the new development would include a garden. So there's really no reason besides the fact that you just don't want, you know, if you live in the neighborhood, you just don't want, you know, older, low-income people, you know, living in the neighborhood.

53:54 I don't see any real reason to oppose it. So him being against it was disappointing to us and contributed to his F grade. As we start to come to a close, let's just briefly turn our eyes to them, because there is somebody we have not yet talked about. New York City's current mayor, the incumbent, Ottoman Emperor Eric Adams, ultra corrupt with foreign nations, flirtatious with MAGA and possibly allied with them. Maybe a YIMBY champion with huge success stories. What a weird guy to think about. But I, and I suspect at this point, you know, Cuomo and Mondani, whatever happens on Tuesday, I think both will probably continue, right? Both have flirted with third parties, you know, even if they underperform their polling, I suspect Cuomo's gonna, you know, the fire in his belly ain't going out.

54:42 He's gonna go, well, that was a radical left electorate. I'll take it to the whole population. He's got the money and resources to do that. He'd have to lose by a ton to be truly shamed. Mondani, even if he underperforms his polling, having gotten to this point where he came from nowhere and has been leading in some polling. I mean, I feel like he's gonna think his journey's just beginning. Both of them have ways to run third party. It feels like we're headed towards a four-way battle royale. And one of those guys is gonna be the incumbent mayor. So now everybody's got red flags. Cuomo's got his. Mondani's got his. Eric Adams has them aplenty. But I'm wondering, like, how the hell do we think about Eric Adams? And I mean that in a few ways, right? Like, what, how good was City of Yes? What credit does he get from City of Yes? How should that affect how Yimby Democrats think about him?

55:28 What, besides the Turkish stuff, what stuff in his time as mayor should people who aren't in New York know about and people who are in New York worry about? And, like, how afraid do we have to be about the fact that, you know, having been kind of booted from the Democrats, he's leaning pretty MAGA right now. So, and Trump's got leverage, right? Because he's, you know, the dude has done crimes. But, you know, if the dangling of a pardon in exchange for favors, you know, Trump could have his own little mayor in New York or, you know, who knows? So how do you think about Eric Adams and how and all those red flags and where do you stick him in that against Cuomo and Mondani? I think, well, you mentioned, I think the fact that he is, you know, seemingly allied with Trump will make it pretty hard for him to win in New York City in a general election.

56:15 I mean, the one thing, even people who don't like Cuomo don't, do not think he's aligned with Trump and they think he'll fight pretty hard against Trump, maybe with, you know, equally, you know, bad tactics. But they think that Cuomo elites had that ability and that intention. Adams, you know, was a pretty good executive just from a getting things done standpoint. But now I don't think people believe that he really has the intention of fighting or even the ability, if he wanted to, to fight against Trump. I think that would hurt him. You mentioned his housing record. You know, he did pass the city of yes. It was pretty good on housing. I think we gave him a B on housing when we graded him in 2021. I think he lived up to that. And he's done some good things like, you know, trash containerization and, you know, crime is down. You know, he's elected because he's a former police officer.

57:02 So those things have been good, but he's also been corrupt. And I think that people realize that we can have a mayor that can, you know, is also pro-housing and also, you know, good on crime who isn't corrupt. And more, but most importantly, I think to most voters, that isn't beholden to the Trump. I think that at first, you know, when, you know, the Trump administration dropped the charges against him and he claimed that, you know, he was an ally with Trump and that he did not have to do Trump's bidding or that there was no quid pro quo. But then, you know, he's allowed ICE officers to operate within New York City, which is something he never would have done before. I mean, if you look at, I mean, he's been pretty pro-immigration in his campaign and as mayor, you know, up until this happened, you know, there was the migrants which he welcomed and, you know, was able to house and feed way, way more.

57:53 And I would say way more effectively than, say, you know, the mayor of Chicago did, you know, he did complain about it, rightfully so. I mean, it's inhumane to, you know, bust people around for political reason. No, but he, you know, he worked very closely with city council and communities and neighborhoods to make sure that the migrants, you know, had shelter, clothing and were, you know, enrolled in schools and the like. So I think that, you know, seeing that record and seeing him throw a lot of that over, you know, just for Trump, it's something that most New Yorkers don't like. So I think that will, that will, that will impede him from being elected. Who knows? Who knows on all of this? At this point, who knows what Cuomo will do? Who knows what Mondani will do? Who knows what Eric Adams will do?

58:38 And who knows what New Yorkers will do both next Tuesday and then in the fall and beyond? It's a, you cannot accuse New York of not being interesting right now. This is, this is fun stuff to talk about. I hope it's fun stuff to listen about. I had a great time. If you are listening right now and you want to dive into this more, there's a lot of ways to do that. Some of them are on Radio Abundance. We recently spoke with Jeremiah Johnson, co-founder of the Center for New Liberalism, about many items in the politics of abundance. But a big one was debating abundance and the left and specifically Zoran Mondani. And that was just early in him sort of chatting about abundance that's picked up since. You'll hear a little bit about that in our episode, Rebranding the Donkey, with Paulina Mangubat from the Democratic Party's social media team. We feature the first Radio Abundance NYC update.

59:26 That's Ryder Kessler and Catherine Vaughn from Abundance New York give you a 10-minute lowdown on what's happening in New York and the world of abundance. And right now there's some mayor's race updates. But if you want to know what else is on the ballot on Tuesday or for that matter, what's actually happening with policies at City Hall right now, that is your source for an update. You will get another one of those 10-minute Radio Abundance NYC updates later this week. And then after the election, as soon as the results are in, we will sit down with Ryder and Catherine from Abundance New York and break down the results of Tuesday, June 24th's primary election. And as you gear up to evaluate these candidates, to adjudicate their records, to learn more about them and to figure out who and how to rank, you can check out the New York City New Liberals endorsements.

1:00:13 Tabita, where can you find that? You can find that on our webpage, www.nycnewliberals.org. The voting guide should be right there on the homepage. You can find us online at www.nycnewliberals.org. There you can find our 2025 voting guide and also upcoming events. I'll plug one of them. This Friday, we are having a meet and greet with Whitney Tilson, where Jeremiah Johnson, we just mentioned on the podcast, we'll be having a Q&A with him. That's this Friday at Slattery's Pub in New York City, 6 p.m. That should be fun. Go out there, meet Tavita, meet Jeremiah, meet Whitney Tilson, talk about politics and chucks and beers. It should be great fun. We are giant fans of politics and beers, and we are also giant fans of the New York City New Liberals.

1:01:02 And we are also giant fans of Tavita Kanene, and our eyes are peeled on New York right now. So this was very fun to dive into. Thank you so much for joining us today on Radio Abundance. Thank you very much for having me. You've been listening to Radio Abundance. Join the movement for Progressive Abundance at YimbyDemocrats.org. Yes, we can build again. Yes, we can trounce the fascists. Yes, you can be the difference. This is AI, by the way. You think these jokers actually got Obama? Check in with me in a few months. It'll happen. Thank you for listening to Radio Abundance, a new podcast by Yimby Democrats for America. Now it's time for you to join the movement. We're building a big tent, and it's going to take all of us. Join us, and together we'll fight to build America, defeat fascism, and unleash the era of Progressive Abundance.

1:01:52 Join the movement at YimbyDemocrats.org.