From “What Next”: How “Tax the Rich” Went Mainstream
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The FT News Briefing presents a special episode from Slate's "What Next" podcast. As wealth disparity continues to grow, politicians in New York and California have suggested raising revenue through taxes aimed at their wealthiest residents. But the proposals have set off an upper-class uproar – and now, it’s a stand-off between the country’s billionaires and its most progressive politicos.
Guest: Stephanie Ruhle, anchor of MS NOW’s The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey guys, it's Mark. Our team is taking a breather over the holiday weekend here in the U.S. |
| 0:05.0 | But we wanted to share a podcast we think you're going to love. What next is the Daily News |
| 0:10.8 | podcast over at slate.com. It features some of the biggest news stories each week, and it's got |
| 0:16.2 | that tongue-in-cheek introspective analysis slates known for. The episode you're about to hear is all |
| 0:21.7 | about wealth taxes. You know the ones in New York and California. As some billionaires threatened |
| 0:27.3 | to jump ship, residents are left wondering, what next? If you like what you hear and you want to hear |
| 0:32.5 | more, follow What Next wherever you listen. You can find a link in the show notes. And now I'm going to hand it over to host Mary Harris. |
| 0:40.0 | Enjoy. |
| 0:47.3 | Earlier this week, New York's mayor, Zoran Mamdani, released this video where he is standing right on top of City Hall and taking what |
| 0:56.4 | amounts to a victory lap. |
| 0:59.3 | New York, it's executive budget season. |
| 1:02.1 | I'm proud to announce that our city's budget is fully balanced. |
| 1:05.6 | He rattles off a bunch of numbers, as if balancing the city's budget was as simple as racking up a high score in a video game. |
| 1:14.0 | And then he gets to his signature achievement, taxing the rich. |
| 1:18.7 | Thanks to Governor Hokel, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Hasty, and months of organizing from New Yorkers, we tax the rich. |
| 1:27.7 | That tax alone will raise half a billion dollars per year. |
| 1:30.9 | And that's not all. |
| 1:31.4 | Thanks to Governor Hogle and our partners. |
| 1:35.3 | What Mamdani is not saying here is that his new tax is nowhere close to what he campaigned on. |
| 1:42.6 | He wanted to raise income taxes on millionaires. |
| 1:46.6 | This tax is a lot more limited. |
| 1:49.6 | It's a higher property tax for people with second homes, sometimes known as Pietitaires. |
... |
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