Bradley Tusk on Mamdani Win, Jewish Vote, NYC Economy

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00:00Great to have you with us here in 2025. Let's talk about what we learned last night about the

00:06Democratic Party and the future of New York City. Zoran Mamdani, the mayor-elect this morning.

00:12As I mentioned, you recently published this morning a substack offering some pieces of advice

00:17for Zoran Mamdani. I thought this point was interesting that this is your legacy. This is

00:22not a stepping stone. Explain to us what you mean by that. Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. No New

00:28York City mayor, including, unfortunately, Mike, has ever won an election for anything after being

00:34mayor. People have won for president, for governor, for Congress. They have all lost. So being mayor

00:41of New York City, I would argue, is both the single best job in politics, but also it's a dead-end job.

00:47And so rather than governing for the next election or for something you want to run for in the future,

00:53to the extent that Zoran can do what Mike did at City Hall, what I saw him do at City Hall,

00:57which is just make every decision based on what you truly believe is best for New York.

01:03Any given person may agree or disagree with you on any given issue, but I think the reason why Mike

01:09was a very popular mayor at the end of the day is because he genuinely did what he believed to be

01:15right at all times, regardless of the politics of it. And that actually worked really well.

01:21So I would hope that Zoran would be willing to govern in a similar way.

01:24Well, when it comes to the success of any politician, one of the key determining factors

01:28is who they surround themselves with. And it's early days, of course. Zoran Mamdani just won last

01:35night. But so far, we've learned that ex-Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has been named to

01:40his transition team. We've heard a little bit when it comes to folks working in New York City. We know

01:45that Police Commissioner Jessica Tish reportedly has told her confidants that she will work with Zoran

01:52Mamdani continue to work here. I wonder so far of these early reports, what you make of them in

01:56terms of the team that's being built around the mayor-elect.

02:00I mean, so far, so good in the sense that what you want is to maximize talent around you.

02:06Another reason why Mike was a successful mayor is he just hired the absolute best people he could get

02:11for absolutely everything, just like you guys got hired. And when you put really, really talented

02:17people in roles that are meaningful, and you give them the freedom to do their jobs well,

02:22they will frequently succeed. And, you know, many ways, I remember Mike used to say,

02:26I don't care if someone's a communist, if they're the best person to pick up the trash,

02:30I'll make them sanitation commissioner. I think the same thing is true here. It doesn't really matter

02:34if you are the, when you're the police commissioner or the sanitation commissioner or the buildings

02:39commissioner, what your underlying politics are. What matters is, are you good at doing those jobs?

02:44Jesse Tisch is exceptionally talented as being police commissioner. It's great that she is

02:48likely to stay. You know, we can disagree with Lena Kahn on FTC policy, on what does or doesn't

02:55constitute a monopoly, but that's not relevant to city government, right? For city government,

03:00tech is a question of what they might choose to use as an entity serving the people. It might be a

03:06policy question like, hey, are we going to let drones do building inspections instead of having

03:11scaffolding? But it doesn't get into things like monopolies and market power and whatever else.

03:16So Lena is unquestionably very, very smart. And I think it's great that she's there.

03:20I am curious, Bradley, on this issue of, I mean, I know that there were a lot of sort of more

03:25national and geopolitical issues that came into this campaign. But as you point out, most people

03:29go to the polls and they tend to vote for the local issues, the things that really matter on a

03:33day-to-day basis. I am curious if you have any fear that Mondani might actually try to interject

03:40some of those national and geopolitical issues into his day-to-day running of the city.

03:46He might, but I think he will find that ultimately, it's really not to his benefit. At the end of the

03:52day, the job is to pick up the trash, right? And if you do that well, the voters will appreciate it.

03:59And if you're busy waxing poetic about geopolitics, you know, your base might like it. But his base

04:05is a relatively small group of people. I mean, even if you take the total votes that he got

04:09in the election, we're still talking about, I don't know, 15, 16 percent of the city's total

04:14population. So at the end of the day, if he's going to be a mayor for everyone, then there's really no

04:20need for most of the geopolitical issues. And if you speak about Israel specifically, I disagree with

04:25him on Israel. I'm a pretty fervent Zionist. But with that said, there was an act of vandalism

04:30in a synagogue today. He came out really strongly against it. That's what he needs to do. He needs

04:35to protect Jewish New Yorkers. If he's willing to do that, I'd rather he be pro-zero than not,

04:41but it doesn't really matter. Yeah. And we should point out, he did actually do a lot better with

04:45the Jewish vote. And based on what the polling was originally showing, that he was only going to

04:49track at about 10 to 15 percent and pretty much doubled that. Also, I am curious about just the

04:55general idea of what the business community wants out of him specifically. And I actually had a chance

05:00yesterday to catch up with Stephen Fulop, formerly of Jersey City Mayor, who's going to be head of the

05:07new partnership for New York City. And I am curious just about this idea of these CEOs coming together,

05:12not only trying to chart a path for themselves, but what they then walk into City Hall when they have

05:17a chance to speak with him and his administration and what they really are going to put on the table

05:21for him. Right. I think one of the challenges that a lot of CEOs and a lot of people on the private

05:28equity headfront side have when it comes to city government is they don't really understand how

05:32it works. Like, Mondami is a socialist. I'm a venture capitalist. Literally, the word capitalist is

05:38in my job title. And yet, it just doesn't matter, right? The main impact that the mayor of New York

05:43City has over the local economy is, is the city clean and safe and well run? If it is,

05:48businesses come here, tourists come here, the city does well. And if it's not, the city does really

05:52poorly. He doesn't control interest rates. He doesn't control the supply chain. He can't even

05:57raise taxes without Albany's consent and permission. So as a result, one of the things that I'm encouraged

06:03about with Steve Fulop is he's been a mayor, he understands what municipal government is like,

06:08and he can try to translate what the business community cares about into tangible policies

06:13that matter in New York City. But the bigger thing, I think, for Fulop and those CEOs is

06:18they really need to do a better job building a political structure for the business community

06:24in New York. We don't have that. So when Mike was mayor, the truth is we didn't need it because

06:29between Mike and all the people around him and all the resources, we could all do it ourselves.

06:34But he hasn't been mayor now for 12 years. And the far left, as much as I disagree with them,

06:40does things like recruit candidates, train candidates, do grassroots, do policy work,

06:45all these things that then translate into people winning elections first for things like state

06:49assembly and then eventually for things like mayor. And the business community does absolutely

06:53none of that. The only thing they do, if they do anything at all, is they panic and throw money

06:57at Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams at the last minute. And that doesn't work. And so if Fulop can do one

07:03good thing, it's less about how he interacts with Mondawmi one way or another. And it's about him

07:08building a real political organization and operation in New York City for the centrists,

07:14for the business community, so they can start to actually compete in elections again.

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