4 Reasons why Trump is afraid of Zohran Mamdani

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Taya Graham:

Okay. I have one simple question for you. Could it be that Donald Trump, president of the United States might be afraid of Zoman Mond, a New York State assemblyman and mayor candidate? Well, we will answer that question on this. Our latest installment of the Inequality Report react, and we’ve got a video you won’t want to miss. Okay. It has been a whirlwind since Rah Ami was the surprise, Victor of the New York mayoral primary. The self-described Democratic socialist beat, the establishment favorite former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. But of course, since then it has been knives out for manami. The mainstream media, democratic elites and nervous real estate billionaires have been targeting him from every single angle, including with propaganda millions in super PAC donations and personal attacks on a man who did nothing more than win an election while the Democratic party sinks deeper into the abyss. Imagine that. But now since none of the attacks have worked, the most unlikely of political alliances has recently emerged. And Steven, you’re not going to believe it,

Stephen Janis :

Tell you when I heard it, I didn’t believe it. I know you’re going to say it, but I still don’t freaking believe it, to be honest with you. It was shocking.

Taya Graham:

I know. It shocked me too. I mean, all he did was win, which is honestly quite unusual for Democrats these

Stephen Janis :

Days at this point. Absolutely.

Taya Graham:

But instead of embracing his success, the pushback from Democrats has gone even further and has become even more bizarre. Democrats seem so upset the mond of one, they’ve taken the idea that politics creates strange bedfellows and turned it into a king size bed of crazy. Okay, you ready for this?

Stephen Janis :

Yeah, I’m ready.

Taya Graham:

Okay. According to reporting by the New York Times and Politico, Donald Trump is weighing in on whether to insert himself into the upcoming November, New York mayoral election, specifically to beat ami. But what’s really shocking is who he called to form the alliance to beat the upstart candidate. Wait for it. None other than Andrew Cuomo himself. That’s right. The New York Times reported that Trump and Cuomo talked on the phone about strategies to beat Mond in the fall, although Cuomo actually denies that this call happened. But still, Cuomo is your typical corporate Democrat who appears to be okay with working with Trump, provided he wins. And just to put an exclamation point on the fact that Manami is living rent free in Trump’s head and why this potential alliance is possible at all, let’s take a look at the clip where he talks about manami in not so glowing terms. Stephen, let’s watch and then we come back. Let’s talk about what he’s really saying.

Donald Trump:

Total lunatic. I don’t know what she’s on. She’s all jumping up and down. I’ve never seen anything like it talking about supporting the communist mayor. And he’s not a socialist. He’s a communist. Okay. This is not a socialist mayor. This is a communist. If you look at any of his policies and go back six months, you don’t have to go back further than that. So they want to put a communist in New York. Now, the good news is we have a lot of power over that because we’re the ones with the money. We send the money, we don’t send the money. It’s up to the house. A lot of power in the White House.

Taya Graham:

That was intense.

Stephen Janis :

Yeah, that was very, very intense. That was like, wow, he seems really upset.

Taya Graham:

So before we get into why Trump might possibly be scared of Manami, why don’t you help me break this video down?

Stephen Janis :

Well, I think what’s interesting about it is they talk about the Trump derangement syndrome, and this is like Momani or derangement syndrome. I mean to call him a communist. What? I’m sorry. Free public transit is communist. I’m sorry. Having affordable housing is communist. I mean, he’s going to extremes. Usually he just calls him left wing nut jobs or right left wing radicals. Now he’s using the C word. Right?

Taya Graham:

Right. He really did bring out the C word. The C word. Like you said, I’ve heard him say left wing lunatics or left wing nut jobs, but communist is actually a new one. What’s going on here, Steven? Why does he seem to be almost desperate to make sure Mond doesn’t win?

Stephen Janis :

I think Ami, and we’ll talk about this really specifically hits on some points and breaks from the democratic neoliberal incrementalists elitist playbook that hires consultants at billions of dollars but doesn’t connect with the people. I think he hits on that and I think Trump realizes that, and that’s why he’s scared

Taya Graham:

Steven. That is the perfect place to drill down into the four reasons Donald Trump might possibly be scared of. Zorah Mond. Okay. Number one, he is not a neoliberal corporatist, typical incrementalist Democrat. Steven, talk to me about it.

Stephen Janis :

Okay. Tell, there’s one word I’m going to use here to describe why this is an important concept to understand of why Trump years won the healthcare. Healthcare.

Taya Graham:

Yes.

Stephen Janis :

Okay. So we watched this 1.5 billion fiasco where the Democrats lost to Trump, and one thing they did not do was ever mention healthcare, one of the most important issues to the American people and an issue that they won on in 2018. A month after that election, you have this tragic murder of the United Healthcare, Brian Thompson. And then the public comes out and all they’re talking about is how much they hate the healthcare system in this country. And Democrats didn’t talk about it, I think because a lot of their money comes from healthcare companies. So they were boxed in. The one thing where they could have beaten Trump or at least made a difference or a difference in the court of public opinion was healthcare. And they didn’t even touch it. And that’s why these corporate centers candidates fail consistently.

Taya Graham:

Okay. I really like where you’re going here because I think you’re pointing out something that just does not get enough discussion. I remember when we talked to Professor Richard Wolf about the economic history of this country. One of the things he pointed out that really stuck with me was that during the Cold War, the reason the tax code and unionization and other working class policies persisted in the fifties and sixties and even partially into the seventies, was because the elites of this country were fighting with the Soviet Union. He told us they felt like they had to provide a better life for the broad majority of people in order to win the ideological battle that democracy and capitalism were better than communism. But he then told us that at the end of the Cold War, equality unionization and the other things that made working class life better just vanished. And the elites started hoarding wealth. That’s when we get into the nineties neoliberalism and what we call the age of the corporate Democrat. And of course the topic of our show wealth inequality and political division. But history aside, Steven, why does Mond not being a corporatist make Trump afraid of Mond?

Stephen Janis :

Well, you talk about the kind of shift and the Democrats in that same period of time that Wolf was talking about were aligned with the working class because they were trying to lift up the working class and create a large middle class. And then the nineties they got corporatized totally. They got taken over by political money and they became less and less able to align their interests with the working class interests. I mean, working class people want real change to their lives. They don’t want more tax breaks for corporations or more tax breaks for people in power. They want something that’s going to materially change their life. And Manami was promising that. And he’s breaking from that past or that tradition of the nineties that started with the corporatist incrementalist Democrats. And that’s why it scares Trump because he knows that democratic playbook is a failure.

It’s a failure for the working class and the working class, high school educated voters that Democrats just can’t connect to anymore. Trump knows that the most dangerous thing is for the Democrats who abandon that playbook and look, tell we have big structural problems, not incremental problems, not problems you can address around the edges, like our disastrous healthcare system like the unaffordable housing. They are big problems. It takes bold ideas, not just saying, Hey, we’re going to pass a little legislation and move it incrementally forward. It takes bold, progressive thinking. And Trump knows, as long as the Democrats stick to the playbook where they don’t address the broad structural problems, he knows he’s good and he knows the Republican party is good, they can just point to failure. And that’s what happens when you try to approach these huge structural issues with incrementalism. It

Taya Graham:

Doesn’t work. Absolutely. And to be perfectly honest, our constituents, our fellow voters, they don’t trust it anymore. They want change and they want it now. Okay, and now let’s go to number two. The second reason that Trump might be scared of Mond, he’s not a kandis. Now, Steven, on a previous show we showed a CNN anchor giving Mond’s opponent, Andrew Cuomo, the opportunity to spout propaganda and to try to discredit his opponent. Lemme just play a really short clip of this before we talk about it.

Kasie Hunt:

Do you think your opponent, would a Mayor Momani help or hurt the morale of the NYPD?

Andrew Cuomo :

Well, look, if you look at his prior statements, I think it would definitely hurt. Literally, he has said he was part of this defund the police movement. He has said that the police are a threat to public safety, that they are racists, that he would dismantle the police department.

Taya Graham:

Okay. Now I get Kagan that is a good card to play against Soran, but why do you think it concerns that Mond is not doubling down on policing? I mean, Trump is using the National Guard to allegedly fight crime in blue cities that he has categorized as hell holes. And just as a little side note, we both went to interview the National Guard in DC with I would say minimal results. But the point is Trump is trotting out the old playbook that Democrats are soft on crime. But why does Mondavi’s promise to use social programs and community intervention programs scare him?

Stephen Janis :

Well, the thing is that what we have learned in blue cities and reporters who have covered this closely is that policing doesn’t work. I mean, policing might be one part or one component of trying to fight crime, but if you don’t double down on social programs, which is what a lot of cities have done that have been successful, you’re not going to lower crimes. So what Trump actually does is he exploits this idea, this lack of vision in the Democratic party. Because really, truthfully, as you not taan, you’re going to talk about the Democrats really tripled down on policing in Baltimore until they didn’t. And it’s an important thing because Trump has ’em there. They pick the wrong policy and then he throws it back in their face. If Manami says, Hey, I’m going to invest in social programs to reduce crime, he’s got a more winning formula. And it also cancels out the whole idea that you’re either for or against police.

Taya Graham:

Steven, I’m so glad you mentioned Baltimore because I have personally lived through all the different strategies they’ve tried with the Baltimore City Police Department. And just for the record, we have had historic drops in crime while our police department has also had historic drops in staffing. I mean, there’s some estimates that say our department is short between 500 to a thousand officers, which is literally a third of the force. Strangely enough, crime has dropped precipitously. But to your point, the Democrats have wrongly back policing. I mean, it’s just so ironic. I mean, here in Baltimore we had zero tolerance policing that led to a hundred thousand people arrested every year for nearly a decade and crime. And in particular, the homicide rate didn’t go down until they stopped doing that. So honestly, the Democrats look bad both ways. And so as long as they keep on trying to out police Trump, I think they’re going to look pretty bad.

Stephen Janis :

So it’s pretty

Taya Graham:

Smart from Adam not to fall into that trap.

Stephen Janis :

Yeah, well, that’s the thing. It is a trap. It is a trap because you have two sort of visions, right? What can the Democrats say in opposition of Trump’s idea of putting National Guard, bringing in all sorts of law enforcement? They can’t say anything because they’ve embraced the same sort of tactics with unconstitutional and authoritarian policing that we wrote about in democratic cities. But if you come with a different playbook and you say, you know what? Policing is fine, but really what’s important is improving people’s lives, having social programs, having a community-based approach to violence, then you have a different vision. And that’s the problem. Trump’s vision. Trump’s idea is to exploit the Democrats for picking the wrong policy and he could just double down on it doesn’t matter. But if you have a different vision, a contrast, which is what Manami has in his campaign, then you can fight it out.

Then you have something to say. If you don’t have that contrast, you just end up looking feeble and weak. And let me say this too, as you pointed out, the idea that Democrats picked policing to solve complex social problems, hurt this city, hurt the people of the city, as Professor Lester Spencer said from Johns Hopkins University, we wrote about this, it basically minimized the efficacy of the most progressive parts of this country. So really the are going to be the Democrats were like 15 years ago. Oh my God, we have to look like we’re tough on crime. We have to embrace policing. But what scares Trump is that if Moham says, you know what? I don’t even think policing is the answer to this question, then you have a different vision and a competing vision that people can pick from. And Trump does not want that.

Taya Graham:

Okay. Reason number three. Okay, Steven, I think number three is kind of interesting and intriguing, and we’re going to call it the Medicare fallacy.

Stephen Janis :

Why

Taya Graham:

Don’t you explain what that is and why that might scare Trump about Mond

Stephen Janis :

Teya It’s a really simple idea. The Medicare fallacy is a way of proving that neoliberalism doesn’t work. And by doing so, it shows that the underlying assumptions in neoliberalism that the market is always the best solution is wrong. So if you look at private healthcare versus Medicare, private healthcare spends between 2012 and 20% on overhead. Medicare spends 2%. So think about that. What’s more efficient? The market-based solution that plays 12 to 20%, or Medicare, which is 2%. So everyone’s always saying, when bomb with the grocery stores, you can’t do that. Government can’t do anything. Well, well, the Medicare fallacy shows that, yeah, government can do something really well deliver healthcare efficiently to millions and millions of elderly Americans. And so what Manami is trying to say here and why that scares Trump is like, no, Medicare is more efficient, so security is more efficient. We’re not going to give our 4 0 1 Ks over to private equity. He’s going to interrupt the whole idea that government should be profitable, or the only way government can solve problems is by monetizing them. And I think that’s why we call it the Medicare fallacy. You just look at Medicare and it’s much more efficient, much more cost effective,

Taya Graham:

And

Stephen Janis :

Benefits more people. So I think by him embracing some of these ideas that aren’t exactly Medicare, but ancillary to that is something that Trump fears because if Democrats start making government work, that’s really going to be a problem for the Republicans.

Taya Graham:

Steven, I think you touched on something so important there, because fundamentally the message that we’re getting from the Republican party is that government can’t do anything right? Which is sort of ironic that that would be coming from people who are in government, but I’ve seen government get things right and I’ve seen them get them right effectively. I get water, I get electricity, I have roads I can drive on. I have a public library I can go to. I get mail. There are things the government can do, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a for-profit, which I think explains why it might be worthy to consider whether or not AMI should have the city investing into a grocery store. It’s

Stephen Janis :

A good

Taya Graham:

Question. Just the idea people have just been vicious about it, saying it’s impossible.

Stephen Janis :

Yeah, no, I mean, this is one of the ideas he’s been attacked on the most is his idea that you can’t run a grocery store. But I think it’s oversimplification. I think what he’s trying to say is we have a complex social problem. People can’t afford to live. How are we going to attack it? Maybe we’ll try a grocery store, maybe it won’t work, but maybe in the process we’ll learn something about how government can work. And the other thing too is that the Democrats always put themselves in defending bad institutions. Instead of saying, we can reform this. A lot of institutions have been corrupted by this idea, a lot of government institutions by the idea that they should serve profit and they should be neoliberal and market-based solutions that make business money but don’t serve the people. If the Democrats would turn around and say, you know what? The main metric we have in governance is how well it serves the people, and we’re going to reform any institution that doesn’t meet that goal, then they’re in better shape right now. They just look like they’re defending waste, fraud and abuse and whatever they say. And that’s because they have embraced neoliberalism and as you were saying, public private partnerships and things like that.

Taya Graham:

Reason number four, okay. Now the fourth reason that I see Trump might be afraid of ami. I mean, it almost sounds silly when I say it, but it actually might be one of the most important. Okay, here it goes. People like him. I know it sounds strange, but the truth is he is charismatic. People connect to him, and he seems authentic to him, at least based on our reporting. And I actually have firsthand experience with this because I’ve covered, actually you were there with me.

Stephen Janis :

I was there,

Taya Graham:

The Republican National Convention. And when I was there, I literally, literally saw people crying when Trump would appear. I mean, it kind of felt like a religious gathering. But when Chuck Schumer goes up to the podium, if people are crying, it’s probably from disappointment because he is one of the key members of the Democratic leadership that has refused to fight back against Republicans during the government funding showdown earlier this year. But I know from talking to people that, except for Bernie Sanders or a OC, and now ami, the ability to connect with the voters is often underestimated and an undervalued skill by Democrats. I mean, let’s think about it. They spent 1.5 billion,

Stephen Janis :

Billion

Taya Graham:

With a B last November, and they lost. And now they’re paying consultants again, the same ones to figure out how to talk to voters. And this is something that Madami seems to naturally understand given his win. But why don’t they get it, Steven? I mean, Dems, okay, let me talk like the kids Dems don’t seem to value the Riz. No,

Stephen Janis :

No, they don’t. They don’t really get that. It’s really funny because I was at the same Republican convention you’re at, as you mentioned, and I was just amazed at how people were connected to Trump in that audience. They felt like it was visceral. They had some deep bond with this man, which I’m a reporter so I can’t express my opinion, but was somewhat mystifying to me given some of the things he had said, and they were just completely enthralled. But every time the Democrats have a candidate that emerges that can have the same sort of connection with their side of the voters or even voters beyond their side, they tend to attack him because I think in a lot of ways it attacks the underlying political economy of the Democrats, which is a consultant class who can take a mediocre sort of play by the rules.

Remember we talked about this, get in line Democrats, which we had the get in line Democratic party where no candidate can jump the line like Trump did for the Republicans. They have to get in line. So they take the assembly line of neoliberal Democrats and say, I’ll make you popular. Just don’t say these words. I’ll make you popular as you point out before, I’ll spend $20 million. We’ll do focus groups with young men and we’ll tell you what to say. I mean, of course they’re going to come out and be bland and not be interesting and not be authentic. And of course they’re going to get outmatched because they’re so circumspect, because there’s been so much money trying to turn them into automatons that when Trump says something crazy, they don’t even know how to respond because there’s no there. And I think the candidates that capture people’s imagination have something other than political consciousness. They have some understanding of what people are really going through some way to connect and be empathetic and not sound totally superficial. So the Democrats just reject them because the entire business economy of being a Democrat is sort of bound in this idea of having you get in line the next candidate, the next one we formulated, rather than someone like Manami, it comes out nowhere and wins it, and then no, look, they’re apoplectic. So I think that’s part of it.

Taya Graham:

What’s even funnier, and maybe it’s sad, not funny, but I’m sure you’ve heard about this democratic think tank called Third Way that put out a list of words Democrats are not supposed to use. Can I give you an example?

Stephen Janis :

Yeah. Okay.

Taya Graham:

It’s kind of like seminar speak, organizer jargon, therapy speak words like safe space triggered, words like that. So when they have to have a conversation like that, they’re having some difficulties.

Stephen Janis :

They have a really perverse od deak, wait, did I say that

Taya Graham:

Right? Yeah. Siro deak

Stephen Janis :

Kind of thing going on here where they’re paying people millions of dollars to tell them what to come out of their mouth because they don’t know what to say. But that’s such, to me, such a bad sort of omen for Democrats as politicians. If a politician doesn’t innately know how to respond to a situation, if a politician doesn’t know what to say in a moment or how to connect with a person who could be a skeptical voter or a person, they’re not immediately aligned with, there’s no amount of money you can spend to cover that up. There’s no amount of training or no amount of lists of words that is going to make a Democrat an effective communicator. It’s innate, it’s natural, but it also comes from people jumping the line. Let’s remember that Obama jumped the freaking fucking line he was not supposed to run. Right? He’s a senator. They’re all like, he’s only been a senator for two years. He jumped the line. He won because he understood he was a political talent, and they’ve got to look for talent, not just people who check a box. And that’s what it sounds like. It sounds like the consulting class. Check a couple of boxes. They need talent.

Taya Graham:

Okay. Steven, I think this really speaks to what you were talking about, about those focus groups, because Democrats are limiting candidates controlling their words while Trump says whatever comes to mind, regardless of how offensive some folks might find it. I mean, how is that supposed to work? I mean, just imagine a candidate trying to be natural and trying to connect to people while being worried about saying a particular set of words. Meanwhile, president Trump can shoot from the hip and say literally everything. And it’s not because the rules are different, it’s because he knows his audience and he connects with them. And there are a lot of people who just don’t like that and don’t like him, and they’re going to get angry with me for even mentioning it. But a candidate has to have a way with connecting with people. Absolutely. It’s so important. I mean, people may not want to accept that Trump has a way of connecting with his base, but you can’t deny it. So a candidate has to have a way of connecting that has nothing to do with focus groups or consultants or paid advertising. And the fact that Mond came out of nowhere says something about the importance of charisma. And there is not a focus group or list or consultant that can conjure that if a candidate doesn’t intrinsically have

Stephen Janis :

It. So true. So

Taya Graham:

True. I’m sure Republicans are laughing as Democrats twist and turn and try to address their historic unpopularity with consultants rather than embracing a candidate. People actually like

Stephen Janis :

That is so Taya. No, but that is exactly what I was trying to say, that you said so much better than I

Taya Graham:

Do. Oh, no,

Stephen Janis :

You are so right. Thank you for saying that. I just hope they listen to you, but I don’t know if they will.

Taya Graham:

I don’t know mean there are a lot of young folks, and I’ve heard this from them, they feel like it’s a gerontocracy.

Stephen Janis :

Oh my God. Yeah. And I think Ali is an expression of that, what, 32, 31 years old. He is a very young man. And I think the average age in the Senate, the medium age is like 64.

Taya Graham:

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was higher, but I’ll take your word for it.

Stephen Janis :

It was something like that. I was real. I was just, was astounded. It’s like an assisted living facility. But it is. And I mean, come on, the Democrats have to get younger. Look, I’m an old man, but I want to see a viable two party system in here. And if they don’t recover in some way, the Republicans are going to rule this country for a very long time.

Taya Graham:

And that doesn’t lead to a healthy democracy having only one party rule.

Stephen Janis :

Right? Right. So we’ll see if the Democrats will actually listen to what Te Graham said today, which I think should be the Bible going forward, but we’ll just have to see because I don’t know if it’s going to

Taya Graham:

Happen. Well, we are available as consultants to write you up our own playbook. No you’re not. I’m just teasing. Okay, Steven, we reviewed the four reasons Trump might be afraid of Mond. And the question is now will the Democrats agree to embrace him?

My

Name is Taya Graham. This is my colleague Steven. Janis, we’re your inequality watchdog and we’re reporting for you.