00:00Just a vibe right now in Brooklyn as more voters head to the polls.
00:03Like I said, there's already been record turnout in early voting.
00:07But what are you seeing on the ground now?
00:10Yeah, you know, if you look at the early voting tallies, the neighborhood,
00:15one of the neighborhoods that voted in the highest numbers was Windsor Terrace,
00:19which is not too far from where I'm standing.
00:22Definitely a liberal or center left stronghold in the Democratic voting base in this city.
00:31And they will be a crucial part of deciding who wins today's election.
00:37Now, I talked to Zoran Mamdani earlier this morning just about what he felt as it relates to what would be a mandate, right?
00:45You know, right now, the latest polling has him at about a 10-point difference between the independent in this race,
00:53Andrew Cuomo, and 11 points with Curtis Sliwa.
00:57And he told me any victory is a mandate.
01:00A very confident statement from a 34-year-old assembly member who heads into tonight as the clear frontrunner in this race.
01:08This race has been defined by generational and ideological divides.
01:12And, of course, the late-breaking twist of Donald Trump making that endorsement towards Andrew Cuomo.
01:19Will it have a measurable difference or will it make a difference in this race?
01:24That remains to be seen, specifically because it was such a late endorsement.
01:30And then Cuomo also said that it wasn't an endorsement because Trump didn't call him, so it wasn't really an endorsement.
01:37But Trump is saying that if Mamdani is to take office, what that would mean is that he would not send any funds to you.
01:44I mean, it's been happening for weeks, Miles.
01:46If you look at Donald Trump's Truth Social account or his Twitter feed, it is flooded with endorsements for Cuomo begging voters not to vote for Sliwa.
01:57He's been trying to push Eric Adams out of the race for weeks now.
02:01And it's very clear that the entire MAGA machine is behind Andrew Cuomo.
02:09And it's also interesting that this is someone who left Albany in disgrace, right?
02:13Let's not forget the allegations of sexual impropriety that pushed him out.
02:19He had to resign his position as governor.
02:23Why would New Yorkers then vote him into arguably a more important job?
02:31Yeah, it's important to note that there was contrition, right?
02:35Like, if we think back to 2021, there was a very contrite Governor Andrew Cuomo, you know, apologizing for what he's done.
02:43But now, in 2025, he seems to have done a complete, you know, 180 on that and is saying that they found no wrongdoing, that the five DAs found no wrongdoing.
02:55But he did leave office because he didn't want it to be a distraction.
02:59But when you get down to the brass tacks of it, the big sort of divide here is a candidate in Zora Mamdani who is pitching populist ideas that he thinks can get funded at a certain point that will lead New Yorkers to a more affordable New York.
03:14And then Andrew Cuomo, who is doing basically the typical Democratic talking points, more cops for a safer New York, not to close Rikers Island, but to come up with a new plan on that.
03:27And more cops is a Democratic talking point with tax increases.
03:31I feel like the Democrats have gone recently the other way.
03:34I mean, I remember Bill de Blasio, right?
03:36And Eric Adams didn't exactly clean up the streets either from crime.
03:42It's just fascinating to me that the big money has gotten behind Cuomo as well as the MAGA Republican movement,
03:50all because of this fear that Mamdani will somehow turn this city into a centrally controlled communist economy.
04:00Is it really likely, you know, Miles, and you've covered New York politics for so long,
04:07you understand the ins and outs of how things work at City Hall and the City Council,
04:11that Mamdani, even if he were, you know, full-blooded Marxist communist,
04:18could really push through policies that mean taxing everybody from the middle class up to pay for the poorest people?
04:25You know, the one thing, and I worked for the last, I would say, pretty left-wing mayor in this city,
04:37Bill de Blasio, and the one thing you have to know is that if you run for mayor of New York City,
04:43you could be far right or far left.
04:45You're going to have to come to the middle because this is a consensus city.
04:48You're going to have to work with the city council to get these things done.
04:51The first shot I saw today that Mamdani took against that liberal city council that has been backing him
04:58was to say for rezoning, you know, that's been a big issue in the city.
05:03This park would not have been built without for rezoning.
05:07He said, you know what, the mayor, the city council speaker, you know,
05:10and the borough president should have a say in rezoning legislation and rezoning applications,
05:17not just city council members.
05:18That's the reason why there's not a lot of affordable housing in this city.
05:22And so he's going to have to strike that balance.
05:25But in order to get anything done in New York, you need the city council,
05:29you need the support of the state legislature and the governor, and you need the business community.
05:33He's been making some inroads with the business community.
05:35You saw that with him saying he'd keep Jessica Tish, the police commissioner.
05:38But back to what you were saying about crime, you know, you say what you want about Eric Adams.
05:43Crime numbers have continued to go down in the city and across the country.
05:46But, you know, Eric Adams has done quite something on crime with the teams in the subways and all of that.
05:53So, you know, you have to look at that history, too, that crime is going down
05:59and that, you know, Mamdani, while he doesn't want to add cops,
06:03is saying that what he'll do for crime is to keep this police commissioner,
06:07who he thinks has been doing a good job on crime
06:10and also rooting out corruption in the police department.
Comments