00:01Talk to the cameras. Okay. I'm Congressman Mark Takano. I'm the ranking Democratic member on the Veterans Affairs Committee. I'm also chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, among other things. I was very eager to meet Assemblyman Mondani. I started to get into my social media feed a lot of the videos around the time of the election in New York and post-election.
00:25And one of the videos that made a huge impact on me, which I thought was brilliant, was the halal inflation video where Zohar Mondani, you know, talks to a halal, a falafel, a falafel stand, and about how much this falafel stand operator has to pay to the city of New York for a permit, $17,000 a year.
00:54And he asked him how much he would charge if he didn't have to do that. His falafel is $10, and that he would charge $8 a falafel if he didn't have to pay, not the city, actually.
01:07It is some operator, somebody who holds the permit. And we learned from this interview that Mondani does with this guy, is that he's not actually paying the city.
01:19He's actually been waiting in line. He's like 32,000th in line to get a permit.
01:24And, you know, the overall impression on me was, this guy is not a communist. He's not a socialist. He's an advocate for small-c capitalism.
01:34And that, you know, he really is fighting for the little business guy that's trying to eke out a living in New York.
01:42Half of all New Yorkers, you know, get their jobs from small business.
01:46And I thought that was a tremendous message. I have a lot of small business people just like that, immigrant business people trying to make a living in my own district.
01:55And I thought it was such an aspirational video. It was very inspiring.
02:00Do you think he made any inroads with people that might not be completely on board with him yet that was in that room?
02:05You know, I came toward the end. I had a conflicting meeting. I'm with a sort of a leadership meeting, a conflict with this meeting.
02:12So I was the – actually, I got the last question in.
02:15There were a lot of other senior members of Congress in that room who I think are very curious about him.
02:24I think they've seen a lot of his social media and think it is really quite penetrating and brilliant.
02:31Congressman, what do you think are some of his weaknesses to winning and what advice would you give him?
02:37You know, I didn't really – I had some questions, you know, about, you know, association with democratic socialism.
02:44And, you know, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained to me the generational divide over this, that people under 40 have experienced watching Barack Obama,
02:59the first person they voted for, be attacked for being a foreigner, you know, from Africa, not a citizen.
03:06I mean, these are all false charges and attacked as a socialist.
03:09And they grew up thinking that this is all baseless and unfair.
03:14And so the people over 40, like me, I'll admit to being over 40, that socialism is a different – the word has a different charge.
03:22And, you know, the critique of, you know, Stalin or even Castro, that that's maybe a kind of debate that we're going to see raised by people maybe over 40 that are going to have a problem with that word.
03:44But that he's a socialist, that he's fighting for small business people, trying to bring down stupid regulations, criticizing Eric Adams for, you know, not moving permits faster, forcing – it's kind of – it's corruption we're fighting here.
04:01Corruption, the corruption that prevents, you know, the corruption that prevents, you know, the dynamism of small C entrepreneurs, small C capitalist entrepreneurs.
04:12No contradiction there.
04:13Trying to get buses to run more efficiently and faster.
04:17These are all things that are improving people's lives.
04:20And I think, you know, Alexandra explained to me that generationally younger voters who are coming into – they are already the majority of voters out there – doesn't have the same charge.
04:36And it doesn't – it doesn't indicate – it's a bogeyman sort of fear that's being put on by older people.
04:43What about his views when it comes to the government-run grocery stores?
04:47Do you think that's a good idea and how that –
04:49Well, you know, you can question my friend, Shelly Pingree.
04:53I don't let her speak for herself, but she's the ranking member, former chair of, you know, the appropriations committee that deals with ag.
05:03There's not a lot of difference between the idea of some sort of public-run grocery and a co-op.
05:08In the state of Maine, there's a lot of co-ops that come together, nonprofit co-ops to, you know, bring down the cost of groceries.
05:15So there's other ways to think about this concept of how do you bring down the cost of groceries and to what extent is the market in New York kind of dominated and, you know, how do you say, overly consolidated in some ways.
05:31And those are legitimate questions to have, and I think, you know, he's injecting some idea about – so it's really – I go to some parts in Europe, and I'm amazed even how in Paris the cost of food is pretty reasonable.
05:47And we should be asking ourselves, why is that?
05:50How is it that we can – and look, if we look at a larger picture, so it's bigger than New York because he's not dealing with the bigger picture.
05:57But, you know, just how there's a few really meat processing plants in our country, meat processing companies, how concentrated that market is and how much of this might be really the failure of our government to do the antitrust activities we should be doing in order to make sure that price gouging isn't occurring
06:16and that there is, you know, price inflation because we're not doing enough to make sure that there's enough competition out there in terms of the food supply chain.
06:28So it's – that's a – that's a higher-level federal issue.
06:31I mean, he's trying to deal with this issue at a very local level, and it's a legitimate one.
06:34People think of New York City as Democrat-run for many years.
06:38Why would going further left resolve these issues of the cost of living?
06:42The most expensive areas in the country tend to be Democrat-run.
06:47Well, you know, I don't – I don't know that left or right – I mean, you're imposing – you're the one imposing the left or right by the premise of your question.
06:56What I see is someone addressing cost of living issues, and I think if you were to run these Zoran Mondani commercials blind in front of self-identified conservatives,
07:08part of the MAGA base, I think they would find Mondani very, very appealing from what he's saying in his commercials.
07:15So without the left or right imposition by the question you've asked, I looked at that halal inflation commercial.
07:24I thought a MAGA viewer would look at that and go, hey, you know, cut out this holder of the license, some other – some guy,
07:39and make the government work more efficiently so that we license all these people, or the whole medallion.
07:45I mean, Mondani kind of got some street cred with the taxi drivers over the – with Bloomberg over the taxi medallions.
07:52I think these are fairly – these are issues that much of the MAGA base would agree with.
07:58You're saying you think some of his ideas aren't necessarily left or right, but like a populism?
08:03I even think populism has a kind of – to some people a pejorative point of view.
08:08I think he's taking on cost of living issues head on.
08:11And I think if you look past all of the labels people are trying to impose on him, I think – I think that's what's refreshing about him and his direct messaging.
08:24I want to lower costs for New Yorkers.
08:25And I think – I think Democrats need to be talking about how we're going to lower costs, but we really mean it.
08:31That what's been happening with Donald Trump is a lot of fakery.
08:34He came in saying he was going to pay attention to the cost of living.
08:38But his policies, his irrational tariffs, his spontaneous tariffs, we just saw a 2.7 percent inflation increase over the past couple of days.
08:50And he's going to want to blame that on someone else like Chairman Powell of the Fed, you know, for not lowering interest rates.
08:57But how can he lower interest rates when the Fed's job is to watch inflation, and under Donald Trump's policies, inflation goes up?
09:03So a lot of talk and a lot of fakery, but I think, you know, Mondani has got a, you know, a platform that I think he can deliver on.
09:13How many people were in that year?
09:14When I arrived, there were like, I'd say 20, 25, and I think people trickled out as before I wrote it.
09:21I think this thing started at 8, and I was very happy to be able to make it.
09:25So, anyway, hey, it was great to talk to you, and it was very exciting meeting, I think, the next mayor of New York.
