Politics

Can a socialist mayor and Wall Street coexist? New York is about to find out.

Published

8 months ago

November 6, 2025

NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is facing a deeply skeptical business community that has long called the shots in New York. But don’t go looking for the moving vans just yet.

Gotham’s business elite are taking a wary — but open-minded — view of the young democratic socialist who wants to hike their taxes, quotes Eugene Debs and believes billionaires shouldn’t exist.

Kathy Wylde, the president of the business-backed Partnership for New York City, compared the relationship between her constituents and the mayor-elect to the seven stages of grief.

“We’re moving toward acceptance,” Wylde said.

Still, contingency plans are being prepared by some, even as the city’s wealthiest residents consider how to court the incoming mayor.

“Business people, smart business people, going into this are thinking, ‘Watch your ass, you’re in combat,’” said John Catsimatidis, a billionaire oil executive, grocery store tycoon and ally of President Donald Trump. “I talked to him once. He’s a young kid … He never ran anything. If he came in with a job application I wouldn’t hire him to run a supermarket.”

Catsimatidis, who unsuccessfully pressed Republican Curtis Sliwa to get out of the mayoral race to aid former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bid, is weighing his business options.

“What I’m going to do is reduce my exposure to New York,” he said. “I have a lot of businesses in New York, I have a lot of assets in New York. Remember the old expression, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket?’”

Mamdani will take office on Jan. 1, leading a city of 8.5 million residents that serves as the world’s financial and media capital — a money powerhouse that many of the planet’s wealthiest people call home. Now, those same business leaders — long accustomed to sympathetic mayors from Michael Bloomberg to Eric Adams — are adjusting to a leader who promises to upend the city’s economic order.

The mayor-elect wants permission from state officials to raise taxes on corporations and uber-rich New Yorkers to pay for his campaign promises like free child care and buses. His embrace of far-left democratic socialism supported by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders is anathema to the capitalists who have long wielded power in New York City.

The city’s monied class sank millions of dollars into super PACs in a futile effort to stop Mamdani’s insurgent candidacy, which was built on a populist appeal to voters outraged by the cost of living in a deeply expensive city. He did so with a volunteer army of thousands and millions of dollars in relatively modest donations.

Mamdani this week signaled he’s willing to talk with and work with some of the biggest of the biggest capitalists, name checking JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during Wednesday morning remarks.

“It is critically important that we start to embody a style of leadership that does not demand agreement across every single issue,” Mamdani said. “In order to even have a conversation, we need to be able to deliver for New Yorkers, and that means to meet New Yorkers, even those with whom we have any disagreements. So I look forward to having those kinds of meetings, be it with Jamie Dimon or be it with other business leaders.”

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with many business leaders after his upset primary victory and has expressed an openness to working with finance and real estate titans despite policy differences.

Business titans are counting on New York’s moderate Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, to block Mamdani from raising their taxes. And some met with him after he won the primary and others are seeking meetings now — determining whether the untested mayor-elect will be rigidly orthodox or open to compromise.

Wylde views Hochul, who endorsed Mamdani but is heading into her own tough reelection battle next year and wary of raising taxes, as a kind of fiscal firebreak.

The governor opposes hiking income and business taxes. Any deal to do so must be approved by the Democratic-dominated state Legislature and signed by Hochul.

“The governor has done a great job of reassuring the business community since the primary that she will not allow anything crazy on taxes and that she fully appreciates that New York has to stay competitive,” Wylde said.

People in real estate, meanwhile, have been comforted by Mamdani’s embrace of veteran City Hall hands like Maria Torres-Springer, who served three mayors, and respected city planning czar Dan Garodnick, who have worked well with the industry. Others have taken note of the mayor-elect’s increased attention to bringing down landlord costs as part of the equation for a multi-year rent freeze that was a pillar of his campaign platform.

“There isn’t going to be an exodus of people. There are definitely people that are going to leave, but I don’t think that’s going to be a trend — a Wall Street trend or a real estate trend — if in fact the city stays safe and prosperous,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, president and CEO of development firm MAG Partners and a member of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s leading trade group. “If he pays close attention to that, I think people will and should give him a chance.”

Even those who poured money into the unsuccessful efforts to stop Mamdani from winning are admitting he was onto something in a campaign that focused largely on cost of living issues facing New Yorkers.

Scott Rechler of RXR, a major developer, said in a statement Wednesday he’s “ready to work” with the mayor-elect. Rechler donated $250,000 to a pro-Cuomo super PAC in the Democratic primary, and reacted to Mamdani’s surprise win in June by expressing hope he could be beat in the general election.

Steven Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, one of the city’s largest commercial landlords, also put money into a political action committee aimed at halting Mamdani. But, in an earnings call with investors hours before the polls closed Tuesday, he was sanguine. Roth said he was yet to see any pullback in demand for customers because of a Mamdani mayoralty.

“I’m an optimist and believe that everything will work out for the best,” Roth said.

Bill Ackman, the Trump ally and hedge fund titan who was one of the single largest donors in the mayoral race and opposed Mamdani, congratulated him on election night in a social media post.

“If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do,” he said.

In a follow up post, Ackman doubled down on the conciliatory tone. “Mamdani won a decisive election,” he wrote. “He is going to be our mayor for the next four years.”

Dimon, who reportedly reached out to Mamdani on Wednesday, did a sitdown interview with BLN alongside Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a lifelong Democrat who left the party and is running for Michigan governor as an independent. Asked if he could imagine himself doing a sitdown alongside Mamdani, Dimon said he would help someone if they wanted his help, but didn’t give a ringing endorsement.

“I’ve seen a lot of mayors, governors, political leaders — some grow into the job,” Dimon said. “And I’ve seen a lot who swell under the job, they never get around to it. They are so befuddled with politics and ideology. I’m hoping any mayor does what’s right to help the citizens of that city.”

Antonio Weiss, a Treasury official in the Obama administration and investor at the New York-based firm SSW Partners, said Mamdani is “substantive on policy yet open to learning more and to hearing additional perspectives.”

“Mamdani has made a serious effort to expand his coalition during the general election, and that has meant sitting down with people who don’t necessarily agree with him,” Weiss said.

The mayor-elect was a little-known state lawmaker when he launched his campaign and insiders didn’t know him like they knew the past several mayors who, despite widely different politics, were city hall veterans, like Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams.

One view is that Mamdani’s key platforms — free buses, freezing rent — were planting flags to show he’ll take bold steps but his ultimate policies will be more nuanced.

“What he’s signaling,” said Tom Wright, the head of the vaunted Regional Plan Association, “is he wants to fix the problem.”

Sam Sutton contributed to this report.

Politics

‘It’s not very often that you get, like, really great news from Bosnia’

Published

2 minutes ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

No matter the result on Wednesday night, the roughly 60,000 Bosnian Americans who call St. Louis home — reportedly the largest population of Bosnians outside Bosnia and Herzegovina — will have something to celebrate. Many, however, are unapologetically cheering for their homeland when it takes on the country they now call home.

“They are like dressing up in the jerseys, singing the anthem,” said Ibro Tucakovic, a Bosnian immigrant who arrived in the U.S. in 1998 and became the first Bosnian immigrant to seek elected office in Missouri. “Looking at my daughter, when we won against Qatar, she was crying. And so basically they, they can see the happiness in their parents’ eyes, because it means so much to us. So the kids are basically just going nuts over it.”

Mirhad Hasanovic, a Bosnian immigrant who came to the U.S. in July 2001 and is now a legislative staffer running to represent parts of St. Louis’s South County in the Missouri statehouse, said it was “unfortunate” that his two favorite countries are playing against one another so early on in the tournament.

“For Bosnians, this is huge,” he said. “We’re a very small country, so just to be able to be at the World Cup and compete is an achievement in itself. “Kids grow up at the age of three or four, they start playing, they start watching, they start going to all the leagues, so the excitement level is out the roof.”

For refugees whose memories of Bosnia revolve around war and genocide, its first-ever appearance in the knockout rounds has become a way to reconnect with the country they fled.

“It’s not very often that you get, like, really great news from Bosnia,” said Adna Karamehic-Oates, director of the Center for Bosnian Studies at Saint Louis University. “People want good stories that come out of Bosnia, and that’s why they’re so happy.”

Politics

Vance contradicts Trump about bipartisan cooperation on housing bill

Published

27 minutes ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

As a rule, JD Vance seems to go out of his way to say whatever Donald Trump wants him to say, but from time to time, contradictions emerge between the president and the vice president.

Take the recently passed housing bill, for example, which arrived at the White House earlier this week.

As part of an interview Tuesday night with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, the Ohio Republican said, “Frankly, Laura, I would love it if Democrats were willing — you know, not that they will agree with Republicans all the time — but if they were willing to work with us on lowering housing prices, on lowering gas prices, on actually making the lives of American citizens better. You know, we could have some real bipartisan compromise. That’s not what they’re talking about.”

I realize the vice president must be very busy, but it really isn’t that difficult to keep up with the basics of current events. In this case, when Vance said Democrats are unwilling to work with Republicans on priorities such as “lowering housing prices,” he turned reality on its head. It was literally last week when Democrats offered unanimous support for a bipartisan bill to address housing prices — legislation that members such as Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts helped to write.

Democrats recognized that doing so would offer the GOP some election-season bragging rights, but Democrats did it anyway because they have prioritized governing and “actually making the lives of American citizens better” over partisan considerations.

But Vance didn’t just contradict reality; he also contradicted his boss.

Just one day before the vice president brazenly misled a national television audience, Trump was asked about the pending housing bill. “It’s very bipartisan; that means the Democrats like it,” the president saidwhile acknowledging that he hasn’t yet decided whether to sign it.

In other words, when Vance said policymakers “could have some real bipartisan compromise,” he seemed indifferent to the fact that we’ve already had some real bipartisan compromise — a detail that even Trump was willing to acknowledge a day earlier.

Whether the vice president will suffer for publicly contradicting the president remains to be seen.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Politics

Bosnia’s starting lineup is also a map of its war

Published

32 minutes ago

July 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

BELGRADE, Serbia — The nearly four-year Bosnian war in the 1990s set off a massive wave of displacement, with a third of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s pre-war population permanently leaving the country as refugees.

Team captain Edin Džeko, a 40-year-old striker who left his native Sarajevo soon after the war, has recalled playing soccer in the lulls between the daily barrage of sniper fire that defined the siege of the Bosnian capital and says he could never have imagined becoming a world-class player after watching the football pitches in his neighborhood reduced to “fields of scorched earth.”

Bosnia’s squad reflects that postwar diaspora. Left back Sead Kolašinac was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1993 to a family that left after Bosnia descended into war. Right back Amar Dedić was born in Austria after his parents left northern Bosnia during the war, and midfielder Benjamin Tahirović in Sweden to refugees from besieged Sarajevo.

And then there is the so-called Milwaukee Messi: young forward Esmir Bajraktarević, who was born in a Wisconsin to parents born in the eastern town that gave its name to the Srebrenica genocide.