candidates for New York City mayor took part in the first Democratic mayoral primary last night it was a crowded stage queens assemblymen and Democratic mayoral candidate Zoran Mamani is one of the contenders who took the stage he joins us this morning in our studio good morning to you sir how much sleep did you get last night oh about 5 hours five hours just enough well welcome to Good Day New York we appreciate it why don't I jump right in you are surging in the polls right now your platform includes a variety of issues including free fair buses universal child care city-run grocery stores a rent freeze how can New York City afford this without going broke well there's a very clear way we can do it we can tax Andrew Cuomo's donors the top 1% of New Yorkers and the most profitable corporations ultimately paying for this economic agenda and starting to trump our city is just a question of political will do we want to tax the most profitable corporations in New York State at the same rate as New Jersey if we did that we'd raise55 billion dollars this is at the core of the choice we're putting forward to New Yorkers on June 24th between a politics of the past and a politics of the future so if your tax plan five billion,10 billion corporations and millionaires but what's stopping some of those people from leaving the city and just taking that money with them so what we've seen actually is that the corporate tax it applies to any entity doing business in New York not one that's just headquartered here so whether you're located in Miami or you're located in Manhattan you're going to pay this corporate tax and ultimately I believe there's no entity that's going to stop doing business in a $ 1.3 trillion economy and what I've actually heard from a lot of these corporate leaders is one of the struggles they face is their ability to retain talent because of how expensive the city is i mean this is the most expensive city in the United States of America there are so many people that would love to work at these businesses but they can't afford their rent can't afford their child care can't even afford their public transit sometimes and that's why this tax plan is actually going to make it affordable and better for everyone to call the city at what level do you start taxing people so the top 1% if you make a million dollars or more a year so these are New Yorkers who would be taxed at an increased rate of 2% this is $20,000 ultimately a rounding error if that's how much money you're making and what we found in a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute is the top 1% of New Yorkers actually leave at a rate of 1/4th compared to other New Yorkers and when they do leave they go to other states that are considered high tax states new Jersey California you you work in Albany assemblyman um you already know this is dead on arrival the governor has already said she's not going to raise taxes so then what do you do well when I first got to Albany in 2021 there was another governor Andrew Cuomo who said that any taxes on the rich were dead on arrival as well we said we had to to fully fund the schools that he had starved of educ of of funding for so many years what we ended up doing is overcoming his objections we raised $4 billion and finally sent that money to New York City public schools i've seen firsthand in the legislature the Assembly the Senate there's an appetite for this kind of a tax plan to pay for working class New York but you've also um you know sponsored what 20 bills in the last four years according to the New York Times three or four of them actually came to fruition you know Andrew Cuomo last night said it's not the biggest uh you know uh experience that you can lean on at this point andrew Cuomo should know better than anyone that the most significant battle in Albany is that of the budget every single year we have a $250 billion state budget and I'm proud to have won the single largest investment in the MTA in modern Albany history the same MTA that Andrew Cuomo stole money from to give to upstate ski resorts when they had a bad winter is the MTA that I won $und00 million for an increased subway service bus service and a first of its kind fair free bus pilot so when I talk about making the slowest buses in America fast and free it's because of the results I've seen firsthand having won that bus pilot where we made one bus route free in each burough so much of what your critics have pointed to is that experience and potentially lack thereof especially when it comes to potential fights with the federal government the White House President Donald Trump Andrew Cuomo said last night that Mr trump would cut through Mandani like a hot knife through butter how do you respond to that well you know Andrew Cuomo is right in that I don't have the experience he has of having the same donors as Donald Trump 16 billionaires have given money to Andrew Cuomo he has received money from so many of the same donors that brought us back to a second term of Donald Trump's presidency ultimately I'm responsible to New Yorkers that 20,000 people who have donated to this campaign with an average donation of about $80 is indicative of a hunger for a different kind of politics and that's the politics of putting working people first when you see what's happening right now in the city in terms of the the the the butdding the heads between the White House and city hall uh or or potentially people who want to be in city hall what would you actually do to stop any of those things that are happening you I think one of the most important things is to actually be willing to fight for New Yorkers i'm so excited that this morning I was actually endorsed by Congresswoman Alexandria Okasio Cortez and I'm excited because she's been a leader I've admired for so many years and someone who's shown the ability to stand up to career politicians billionaires Donald Trump that's what we need in our next mayor that's who I'll be because what we've had so far is a mayor who's collaborated with that administration and it hasn't come to any benefit of New Yorkers we're still having New Yorkers being detained we're still having $80 million taken out of our municipal budget by the feds we're still having a sense of fear pervading the five burrows and we need someone who will stand up to it not someone who looks authoritarian in the eye and sees a reflection of themselves all right yes or no because I feel like you did not want to um make a definitive statement on this do you support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state i support Israel's right to exist as a state with equal rights i believe that every state Why not as a Jewish state because I'm not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else i think that in the way that we have in this country equality should be enshrined in every country in the world that's my belief all right let's talk a little bit about defund the police because obviously there were old tweets of yours that popped up last night uh where you called the police department wicked and you were supporting defund the police uh do you regret saying that look I want to be very clear i will not defund the police i will sustain the current amount of police officers we have in our police department and that's because I know police have a critical role to play in public safety and when I speak to those same officers I hear frustration from them as to how they joined the force to take on serious crimes and now they're being forced to respond to nearly every failure of the social safety net we're taking police officers and asking them to be mental health professionals and social workers that's why we've said that we're going to create a department of community safety which will allow the police to focus on their job allow them to tackle the fact that 65% of crimes in the first quarter of this year are still unresolved and hire the mental health professionals to tackle crises like mental health homelessness as well as gun violence all right Mr mandi wish we had the two hours last night that we had for the debate but we want to give all the candidates sort of an equal amount of time and we want to give them all an opportunity to go fishing in our fishbowl here a question that may not necessarily have to do with policy maybe a little bit about yourself here we go do you want me to read it out loud you got to read it out loud what traits do you have that people are often surprised to learn what trait i I can't say they're surprised but I do love food and can you cook i can I can cook talk about being a rapper well that's not that surprising because everybody knows now but I would just say one of my favorite things about running for mayor has been getting a get being able to eat across New York City and just the incredible places that that we have in our city we deserve to have a mayor who eats everywhere sounds like a new policy proposal all right Mr mandani thank you very much for your time thank you so much for coming on