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The Brian Lehrer Show

Mamdani's Budget Challenges

The Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC

Bryan, Politics, Arts, Npr, News, Wnyc, News Commentary, Nyc, Daily News, Lerer, New, Public, Radio, Media, York

4.61.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Greg David, THE CITY contributor and Newmark J-School professor, discusses the fiscal challenges Mayor-elect Mamdani faces in balancing the budget while keeping his campaign promises.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Brian Laird on WNYC and with me now is Greg David, contributor to the news organization

0:16.2

the city covering fiscal and economic issues.

0:19.0

He's also the director of the Business and Economics Reporting

0:21.6

Program and Ravich Fiscal Reporting Program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

0:28.2

He's got a new article out in the city projecting some economic troubles awaiting Mayor-elect

0:34.9

Mamdani, called Mamdani's next battle attacking inequality while balancing budgets.

0:41.2

Hey, Greg, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

0:44.4

Always good to be on, Brian.

0:46.3

So is the bottom line, to start out with the bottom line, that the city government and the state government,

0:53.3

having nothing to do with Mamdani, are facing

0:56.5

likely budget deficits in the coming years? That's true, but there's an important part that we

1:03.5

need to get to before we get there, and that's Wall Street is booming, and because it's booming,

1:09.0

the state's problems will be a little less, and

1:11.8

Mondami's problems with his first budget are going to be a lot less than anyone would

1:16.2

have predicted two months ago.

1:18.8

You know, I assume that my first story, the one you referred to after the election,

1:23.0

was going to be, Mamdami faces a huge budget disaster in a budget he must present 30 days after

1:30.1

taking office. Well, that's not going to happen and he has Wall Street to think for it.

1:35.2

Well, how tenuous is that? You know, I follow the economic press to some degree and there's a lot

1:41.2

of speculation that we're in an AI bubble and some kind of correction

1:46.0

or crash or big bubble bursting that would affect Wall Street may be coming.

1:51.1

Well, Brian, I've just spent two weeks teaching that here at the J-school.

...

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