On Wednesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) stated that he doesn’t understand where the idea that New York City mayoral candidate Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D) is anti-business comes from and Mamdani “seems very rooted in a realistic understanding of where half of New Yorkers get their employment, small businesses.”
Takano said, “Well, his charm and his charisma did not disappoint. And it was a great opportunity for me to get to know him, and it was a wonderful meeting.”
Host Elizabeth Vargas then asked, “Business leaders met with Mamdani yesterday in New York City, and they were not impressed. One said that his complete lack of executive experience, his naive understanding of how the world works, and his rigidly ideological views on socialism make him dangerous. That’s the business community in New York City. What do you make of that?”
Takano responded, “I don’t know which businessman said that, and I don’t know that that’s emblematic of all people who are businessmen. I can tell you that what attracted me to Mamdani and his social media was his video Halal inflation, where he is very much the advocate of small businesspeople in New York City. Halal falafel vendors in New York City who can’t seem to get food permits or food-selling permits, it costs them $17,000 to pay somebody else who holds the permit instead of the $400 that they would pay to a city, which does not seem interested in officially processing their permits, I see him as a fighter for small entrepreneurs. I don’t know where this anti-business idea comes. It’s — he seems very rooted in a realistic understanding of where half of New Yorkers get their employment, small businesses.”
Later, Takano said that a lot of Mamdani’s ideas will have to go through the City Council and there will be modifications to some of them.
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