This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
At midnight New York time tonight, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as mayor at a private ceremony at an old City Hall subway station, abandoned, under City Hall. He’ll be sworn in by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Then, at a public inauguration outside City Hall on New Year’s Day, Mamdani will be sworn in by Vermont independent senator, socialist, independent senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who is originally from Brooklyn. New York Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will introduce Mamdani. Some 40,000 people are expected to attend an inauguration block party outside City Hall. Mamdani is calling it the, quote, “inauguration of a new era.”
On Tuesday, he announced a number of new positions in city government. Steve Banks, former head of Legal Aid, will be his corporation counsel. He was also head of social services under Mayor de Blasio. Mamdani chose as his chief counsel Ramzi Kassem, former immigration policy adviser to President Biden, one of the lawyers for Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. Tuesday’s press conference took place at Elmhurst Hospital, one of the hardest-hit pandemic hospitals. Mamdani also announced he’s chosen Elmhurst Hospital’s first Latina CEO, Helen Arteaga, as his deputy mayor for health and human services. He’s also announced public education leader Kamar Samuels as his schools chancellor.
This is Mayor-elect Mamdani.
MAYOR–ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI: My sincere hope is that New Yorkers who have long felt on the margins of this city — the homeless veteran straining to survive, the patient searching for the care that they need, an immigrant trying to get by — will feel that they now have leaders in their corner who understand their struggles and care to fight for them. That is the city I want to build, the prosperity I intend to deliver and the leadership that has too long been lacking.
AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Democracy Now! will live-stream Mamdani’s inauguration. It begins at, oh, 11:00, just opening music, and 1 p.m. Eastern is when he is expected to be sworn in. We’ll be doing that at democracynow.org. On Friday’s show, we’ll air highlights from the inauguration.
For more right now, we’re joined by Grace Mausser, co-chair of New York City Democratic Socialists of America, her recent piece for Jacobin headlined “Building Municipal Socialism in New York with DSA.”
Welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us what you’re expecting — Zohran Mamdani has announced his team, a number of members of the team — and the significance, what’s happening this week. They expect 40,000 people at the block party that will be there at City Hall.
GRACE MAUSSER: I think it’s indicative of the type of mayor he intends to be. He really wants to be a mayor for the masses. We’re seeing that with how he’s approaching appointments, appointments of people who have served the public, often in progressive and in public service-facing roles. And we see it in how he’s approached transition teams and speaking directly with New Yorkers, and with how he’s approaching the inauguration, inviting 40,000 people, which is still, you know, less than half of the number of people who signed up to volunteer for him. That was 100,000 New Yorkers. So, we’re seeing him embrace how he actually won, which is mobilizing tens of thousands of New Yorkers. And he’s going to bring that ethos into City Hall.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Grace, I wanted to ask you — in the past, progressive or people’s movements who have come to power in municipal governments often end up with their movement being, effectively, disbanded once the person comes into office. How do you — how does your — what are your hopes, or what are DSA’s hopes, for preventing that from happening this time? And how will that be done?
GRACE MAUSSER: We’ve learned a lot looking at past examples, like how Obama’s volunteer army was disbanded after he became president, and we are working very hard to ensure that that doesn’t happen this time. I think Zohran coming out of a mass movement like the Democratic Socialists of America is an auspicious start to that. He came to office mobilizing, like I said, tens of thousands of people. That was a very intentional strategy. And those volunteers were not just canvassers, but they were, in many respects, strategists, running important aspects of the campaign. That’s how you scale to knock over 2 million doors. And we’re going to — as DSA, as the Zohran administration and as part of the broad coalition of groups and individuals that he’s been able to knit together with his affordability platform, we’re going to bring that same mentality into governance. I think it’s really important that Zohran comes out of these movements, that we know he believes in these types of organizing tactics, and he’s going to continue with that mentality as mayor.
And, of course, DSA, the outside groups that helped elect him are continuing with these tactics, as well. We know just getting a mayor into office, while impressive and very exciting, is not enough. We have to continue to keep pressure on establishment Democrats, on establishment politicians to do things like taxing the rich to fund child care. We know that’s not going to happen without continuous outside agitation and outside pressure, and we are already working to do that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you also about the importance of police reform, five years after the murder of George Floyd and police reform and some people calling for “defund the police” spread across the nation, but it was not a major part of the Mamdani campaign. He did keep as police commissioner Jessica Tisch, an heiress to a major American fortune. I’m wondering how you see police reform developing. And what will be the challenges Mayor Mamdani faces from the police department?
GRACE MAUSSER: Yeah, we definitely expect there to still be challenges with a socialist mayor being in charge of the largest police force in the country. That was known when we endorsed Zohran over a year ago. It was known by Zohran himself as he was campaigning for office. But, of course, that can’t — those types of challenges can’t be a reason for us to shy away from trying to seize and wield power.
With regards to what Zohran is actually going to do on policing, he is certainly committed to creating the Department of Community Safety, to disbanding the Strategic Response Group. He wants to change how policing is enacted. He may not have the power to, you know, completely redo the NYPD over the next four to, you know, hopefully, eight years, but we know that he has plans for scaling back the role of police, scaling up the role of other types of professionals who can actually intervene positively in people’s lives. And we have to — we trust that he has that vision. He has a team around him who’s going to do that.
You know, it would have been great if there was a socialist police commissioner waiting to take over the role from Jessica Tisch. But I think many of your viewers are probably aware no such person, to my knowledge, really exists. So, we have to work with what we have, with the constraints we’re facing. And we know that abolition is a long-term goal. It’s not something that we necessarily intend to achieve within one administration or even multiple administrations.
AMY GOODMAN: And as we wrap up, Grace Mausser, you’re co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America. I think it’s important to explain what democratic socialism is. Mamdani will not only have to take on those that, well, were opposed to him, and particularly as he took on the billionaires. New York Post front page: “Communist Party!” with an exclamation point, “Bernie to swear in Mamdani as left prepares to carve up New York taxpayers.” And on the other hand, you have Mayor-elect Mamdani talking about expanding universal child care, free under the age of 5, free buses and freezing rent increases. Talk about why you organized around Mamdani.
GRACE MAUSSER: So, for us at DSA, we’re a big tent organization. There’s a wide variety of ideologies housed within our organization. But fundamentally, we believe that working people should have a democratic voice, not only in their political future, but in their economic future, as well. And that obviously contains a lot of ideas within it. The reason we rallied behind Zohran is because he is committed to building our project. He has built it alongside us since he first volunteered for Khader El-Yateem back in 2017.
AMY GOODMAN: And he’s not the only democratic socialist in New York state office.
GRACE MAUSSER: He’s certainly not. We have 11 socialists in office, including Zohran. Most of them are in the State Assembly and State Senate. Two of them are in the City Council. And, of course, now one is about to become mayor. So, we are building a collective project together. We don’t simply elect people and say, you know, “Good luck. Don’t disappoint us.” But we actively organize and strategize alongside them, so that we can create a strategy that is both ambitious but also realistic and targeted at the right types of enemies, at the right targets, at the right pain points, to actually move our agenda forward.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you for being with us, and we’ll be getting back to you over these years to talk about how you’re holding Mayor Mamdani accountable. Grace Mausser is co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America. We’ll link to your piece in Jacobin, “Building Municipal Socialism in New York with DSA.” And remember, Democracy Now! will be live-streaming the inauguration tomorrow at democracynow.org.
