New year, new mayor, New York

Make Me Smart

Marketplace

Business, News

4.6 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On today’s show, WNYC reporter Brigid Bergin joins Kimberly to talk about New York City’s brand new Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose campaign on affordability caught nationwide attention. We’ll get into how Mamdani is tackling affordability during his first days in office, how the business community is reacting, and how his administration is navigating an unpredictable White House. Plus, the case for daydreaming more in 2026.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

"Gov. Hochul, Mayor Mamdani announce push for free child care for NYC 2-year-olds" from Gothamist
"NYC to provide expansion of free child care in "high-need" areas" from Marketplace
"MAMDANI’S FIRST 100 DAYS: Mayor signs executive orders targeting junk fees and subscription traps" from amNY
"The Mamdani vs. big business era begins as mayor pledges 'economic justice'" from Gothamist
"Politics Trump administration freezes $10 billion in child, family aid to 5 states over fraud concerns" from CNBC
"The new go-to for Napa Valley wine lovers? Costco" from Marketplace
"Google adds proofreading, AI summaries to Gmail with new update" from Marketplace
"Why you should put down your phone and daydream instead" from The Washington Post
"At grocery stores, shopping with a side of biometric surveillance" from Marketplace

We love hearing from you. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email makemesmart@marketplace.org.

Transcript

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0:32.5	Hello everyone. I'm Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. Thank you for joining us, whether you're watching on the YouTube live stream or listening to the podcast. This is Economics on Tap, our weekly happy hour episode. And today, we are checking in to New York City. As you may have heard,
0:57.0	if you turned on the news at all in the last couple months, they've got a brand new mayor,
1:01.2	Zoran Mamdani, and his campaign on affordability really resonated with a lot of folks, even beyond
1:08.0	New York. So joining me today to talk about this is someone who's been paying
1:12.4	very close attention to Mom Donnie's first days and has been paying attention to politics in
1:17.5	New York and covering it for years. WNYC reporter Bridget Bergen. Bridget, welcome to the show.
1:24.0	Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Thank you so much for joining us. Before we get to the news, we have to talk drinks. What are you having?
1:34.4	So, as you mentioned, I've been paying a lot of attention to now Mayor Mom Dani. I covered his inauguration last week, which meant I did not get to celebrate New Year's Eve the way I would have liked to, which is with this cure royal.
1:47.8	It's a little champagne cocktail, Kava with a little creme de cassis, and I actually dropped a little shamboard in there too.
1:55.8	Does that have layers to it? Because I've heard sometimes they do that with layers.
2:01.1	It's supposed to, like if you, I think if you have better crem to cassis than we do and you drop it in, maybe it floats to the bottom and it creates some, like, beautiful aesthetic.
2:13.2	Mine just kind of turned the whole glass pink. But I'm okay with that too. I think it still looks nice.
2:17.3	That works. I love that. I love that. And it's good that you're getting to celebrate.
	...

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