October 1, 2025 • 44 mins
Eric Adams is out of the NYC mayoral race! Nate and Maria discuss his tenure as mayor, the timing of his announcement, and what this means for the remaining candidates. And — because it can be hard to remember a time before his multiple scandals and single-digit polling — they talk about the enthusiasm that once surrounded Adams, and what that arc says about the Democratic leadership vacuum. (And yes, they talk about Nate’s tweet).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova and I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Today in the show, look, we're both in New York
City at least part time. We're going to talk about
the New York mayor all raise Eric Adams, the current
mayor incurment mayor of New York dropped out this weekend.
We're talking about the implications for the race, talk about
the game theory behind Eric adams decision, and also a
little bit about this vacuum of leadership that has kind
of compelled a surprising candidates or I'm I'm doning to
(00:54):
be the very likely in my opinion, next mayor of
New York.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Absolutely, and well we'll, obviously, because this is Risky Business,
get some game theory in there, the game theory of
the decision, the timing, all of those fun things. So yeah,
well we're going to have politics centric show for you today.
Before we do that, though, Nate Happy Fall. It is
(01:19):
officially autumn, by the way, so now we're recording this Monday,
September twenty ninth. It is hot as fuck in New
York City. It is muggy, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Great I mean here in Manhattan, Maria, it's a whole
different micro climate than your neck of the woods. But yeah,
it's been a little muggy.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's muggy, it's sticky, but yet it's officially fall. I
was in Vermont this weekend leaf watching. That was beautiful.
But I have to say, you know, whatever, whatever the causes,
climate change, et cetera, the leaf colors are much more
muted this year, and by the end of the weekend
they started almost like everything started falling. I was like, wait,
(01:57):
this isn't supposed to be peak leafs yet, and yet
here we are. But it was still beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
What if climate change made like fawful each better, would
you favor it?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Then? Yes? Absolutely? No, please please?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Does it like pollution make sunsets better? Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yes? Yes, mog makes uh smog makes sunsets more beautiful
because it filters the colors in a funny way, and
so so yes, absolutely, we have we have some silver
Nate in terms of risky business business. On the drive
(02:35):
back from Vermont, driving down this bucolic road you know
about to like exit and get on the highway, open
windows because it's nice fall weather. A fucking wasp flies
into the car, straight into my arm and bites me.
I got stung for the first time, and I.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Don't know how long.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I have no idea I was while I was watching,
I was like, I have no idea. If I'm allergic,
I had better drill because I have a lot of
other allergies. So I was like, okay, I'm ready. And
I'm in the middle of nowhere, Vermont with no cell reception.
So I was like, I sure, hope I'm not because
this ain't good anyway, I'm not allergic. Everything's good. It
just there was swelling. It really hurt, but so yeah,
(03:17):
wasps stung me and I thought flew out of the
car about two out hours later on the highway in
the middle of the highway, no rest stops in sight.
The fucker starts buzzing around in the car. The wasp
did not leave the car. So nay, risky business question,
risk calculus. What do you do you are on a
highway driving like seventy five eighty miles an hour and
(03:39):
there's a wasp flying around like you can't turn off
because you're on a highway. What are you supposed to do?
Because that is you know it can't just go on.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Okay, first of them, Ma, Ria, it's Vermont, right, you're
not like, it's not like multiple fucking gas station with me.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
This is no, no, no, This is now two hours later.
This is now on the highway and either Connecticut. I
think it's in Connecticut. Let's call it Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, pull over to the nearest gas station.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
There was none. Yeah, the nearest gas station was in
like twenty miles Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's the most densely populated state pretty much.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Right. There's a part where it says like this is
the last rest stop for the next whatever many miles.
That's we had passed that point, no.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
End of the road. Put your hazards on and wait
for the right Yeah. Is that more risky than a
wasp sting? I think it's probably a close call. I
think it's a close I was trying to.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Do the risk calculus. I was like, this thing is terrifying,
like if it flies at you, the risk of swerving
and getting into an accident anyway, ended up yet being
able to pull over and get the Wasp out of
the car. Superhero moment, Nate superhero moment. But that was actually,
you know, it's one of those things you don't really
think about in your risk calculus when you're talking about
(04:55):
driving in all of these things. But that was my
I don't know why. Maybe Vermont got mad that I
didn't love its leaves this year, but it was kind
of a final fucking from Vermont on my way out
of the stay.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Rank the New England states from one to six in
terms of what goodness?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Oh man, Well, I don't know. I'm from Massachusetts. You know,
I grew up there, So I'm gonna put Massachusetts first
because my family is there. I went to school there.
You know. There are lots of things about Massachusetts I
don't like. I think that the term masshole is very apt.
There are lots of things about Boston I don't like,
and yet Boston's a beautiful you know, it's a city. Still,
(05:35):
I think I'm gonna put let me see Maine. I
think maybe number two. All the mosquitoes might put Maine
at number three. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Maine is such a fucking clear number one, Like, what
are you even talking about?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Maine is gorgeous, But the mosquitoes killed me, So I'm
gonna put at number two with an asterisk. Fucking the Mosquitoes.
Let's see, I would put Rhode Island probably number three.
It's small, but.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Mighty weird, weird state. Yes, it's a weird set.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It is a weird state, but it's it has a
lot of really beautiful stuff, lots of interesting things. Providence
in Newport. You know, I'm a I'm a fan.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Let's see Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, so Vermont. Maybe Vermont's
number four.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I guess no, No, I love Vermont. I think it's beautiful.
I think they are people there can be like. It's
a really weird state as well, and obviously I have
a personal family connection to Vermont and like for that reason,
I do love it. So maybe we put Maybe I
actually put Vermont before Rhode Island. New Hampshire is going
to be dead last. I hate New Hampshire and I
(06:39):
hate Connecticut. Connecticut and New Hampshire I kind of tied
for last.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
What about you day, Yeah, look, Maine Maine is number one.
Then it gets more difficult. I mean, I like, I
agree that the bottom tier has to be Connecticut, and
I think has to be Connecticut. I like, I don't
dislike Connecticut. In fact, my fucking family, my dad's like
from Connecticut. So maybe I'm gonna put Yeah, I just
don't want to be insulting. I mean, maybe put my
(07:05):
I mean I have.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Family in Connecticut too. My sister, whom I love dearly,
were very close. You know. She teaches and her labs
at Yale, so her family lives in Connecticut. So you know,
I obviously am not going to be anti Connecticut. I'm
not anti any state. We're all inclusive here. On the
Risky Essing the podcast, there's.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
A criteria where if you had to live in a state,
Let's see, you have to live in that state for
eleven months out of twelve per year. You're madded thirty
travel days or whatever, right, and you had to pick
in New England state. Okay. By that criteria, mass choosets
would be.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I'm going to Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
First or second for me? Right, by just overall sentiment, though,
I mean, I don't really you know, Boston is like
a charming European city without the charm, you know what
I mean. I like the layout of Boston.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Hey, I told you I'm not I'm not a Boston apologist.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I like the sports and I don't like the sports teams,
but like you know, I would just go and be
a fucking I would just watch so much fucking sports
if I lived in Massachusetts and go to the Encore
play poker.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, absolutely, I think that Boston would actually be a
good place for you, for like, if you were forced
to live somewhere for a little while, I think you'd,
you know, because of the sports, and it has good sushi. Nate,
you know, no, Maria, I would, Maria, Maria.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
The food in New England is a problem. Literally, fucking
who is a Graham, you know, the guy who had
been in the gram Cracker. He lives like, we don't
want to have food with fucking flavor in it, right food?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And the food in New England is, yes, an absolute
problem everywhere, but at least, you know, at least we
can get decent sushi and Boston. Like in Vermont, I
really wanted sushi, like you do not get sushi anywhere
near where I was in Vermont. Want to die, I
just I was in a sushi mood. I didn't want
sushi and Vermont. I wanted sushi in the abstract and
(08:54):
that's not possible anyway. My WASP staying is getting better.
Fuck wasps. I hate them. I hope I never see
one again, although obviously I will. Let's move on to politics.
So we had some news over the weekend, and again
we're recording this on Monday. You're going to hear it
(09:14):
on Wednesday, so if there are any developments in the meantime,
we will not have caught them. But Eric Adams announced
that he was dropping out of the race for mayor
of New York City. And he did this just a
few days before, you know, the race already passed the
deadline for his name to be removed.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So passed like a while ago.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
A while ago, Okay, So Mayor Adams announced that he
was dropping out long after the deadline to take his
name off of the ballot. And it's a pretty historic
moment because he is going to be then just the
second mayor to not win re election.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And is that true because you think of New York
mayors as having had problematic careers, but I guess they
tend to I guess they tend to get the re
election thing, right.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah. David Dinkins, who was the city's first black mayor,
lost his reelection bid, and that was the only other
mayor who did not serve a second.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Tim Bloomberg changed the rules to run a third time,
and one actually close than you might have expected. But yeah,
I guess I mean the Blasio Bloomberg, Rudy Dinkin's one term,
Ed Katsch, who is Abraham Beam. I was not aware.
I You're named Abraham Beam.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Wait, okay, Nate, So if I'm understanding you correctly, Bean
also didn't win re election.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, he left office in nineteen seventy seven. There's no
Bean Street, I guess anywhere, not well remembered. And there
are a couple of others in the past.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Okay, So Adams is the third in modern New York
City history who has not won reelection. Very small group that,
you know, seems like it's an accomplishment of a sort
negative accomplishment in its own right.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Modern or contemporary.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Sorry, it's something contemporary contemporary New York City. But yeah,
it is very notable that he dropped out, and the timing, Nate,
I think is quite notable as well, because, well, what
happens now with the votes, Right, we talked in the
primaries that the primaries were rank choice voting. That is
(11:26):
not the case right with the general mayoral election. So
it's not the case that you know, oh you know,
if you don't get fifty percent, now we're going to
you know, your your votes are going to go down
to the next candidate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And Adams when he was stepping down announcing that he
was going to be withdrawing from the race also did
something notable, I think when he did not endorse any
(11:49):
other candidate. Right, normally, when people drop out of a
race close to the election, when it's you know, an
election that has so many political spirits inflamed, you want
your votes to go to someone, right, you want to
actually make a statement, and you say, you know, I'm
dropping out, but I think you know Nate Silver is
your best choice for mayor. And instead he's like, fuck
(12:10):
Nate Silver, Fuck all these guys. You know, this guy's
a snake. This Maria person that can't be trusted, she
changes her mind. You know, everyone sucks. That was kind
of his speech, not literally but figuratively speaking. And that
was another interesting choice. So if we're talking about kind
of the game theory of his decision, what it means
other than just like I'm out, this is the timing
(12:34):
and a big fuck you, it's it is a very
I think he's made some interesting choices. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Look, I've actually tried to model in the context of
presidential primaries when candidates drop out, and it's fairly product
They basically drop out when they have no shot, right,
and then more likely to drop out if they were
once perceived to have a shot, meaning that they have
some type of future, but then they fall far behind
enough in the polls the fundraising guys up. But yeah,
(13:02):
he had opportunities allegedly to take various lucrative jobs associated
with the Trump administration. Maybe you'll take one of those eventually,
but like he was gonna lose, probably finish in fourth place, right,
and that would have been embarrassing. So that's that's you know,
he's trying to preserve credibility for whatever future endeavors that
(13:23):
he has. I mean with most canistates of the incentive,
with Eric Adams, I'd say, who knows what's happening in
terms of you know, look, you know it's New York City.
You know, maybe you turn a blind eyed stuff. But
that would be the logical reason he wasn't gonna win, right,
He wasn't gonna win. He was at oh, zero percent
in polymarket. He was at eight percent in the polls,
(13:44):
and so yeah, the game theory is just that, like
there's a non zero cost to embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So Nate, uh, polymarket, how long has he been close
to zero on polymarket?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So according to polymarket, we're full disclosure. I'm an advisor.
It looks like they may be disabled. It's actually hard
to find the Eric Adams graph where it's it's like
now it's zero, but let me take a look here. Yeah,
so it became clear that the next most viable alternative
was Andrew Cuomo fairly early, right, I mean Adams is yeah,
(14:20):
I mean if you're looking back here, yeah, yeah, it's
hard to even find.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
The reason I asked that question, she got a little.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Brad lander back in the day. You know, you got
a lander.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
But the reason I asked the question, right, is that
it was very clear I think to everyone, as you say,
that's why I asked how long his poly Market had
him ut close to zero, that he wasn't going to
win for a long time, and he made a decision
to wait until now to drop out, and not earlier.
Now we could say that, oh, he's just a hubriistic,
you know, person with head in the clouds and just
(14:51):
assumes that he can make changes and that eventually.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
He's harek Adams. We're talking about Maria.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I know, I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
and that he just thought that he could somehow pull
a win out of his ass, but that that is
what it seems like, or or he decided, you know what,
I want to screw over, like I don't like Cuomo
enough that like I don't want him to have time
to consolidate support, right, and so I'm going to spite
(15:18):
weight until much longer so that he doesn't have time
to do the fundraising and kind of no, I'm serious,
like what what are the calculations going through your mind?
Because it's clear and yes, we know that allegedly he
had been in talks to become the ambassador to Saudi
Arabia and that that had fallen through Saudi Arabia, and
(15:39):
so you know, he's been mulling an exit strategy for
a while and the announcement only comes now when there's
not much time to do any to do much of anything.
And I mean, obviously the other part of it is
he doesn't have that many votes. I think he's consistently
pulled in the single digits. Yeah, not like, so even
if all of his votes go to one single candidate,
(16:01):
which again he didn't endorse anyone, so that is probably
not happening. But if that were to happen, that still
wouldn't be enough to change the outcome of the election.
So maybe he did that calculus and was like, you
know what, I'm going to do this in the most
fuck you way possible, like I said, Or maybe he
was just hubristic and up until the very end, up
until this past weekend, thought hey, maybe I can actually
(16:22):
have a chance.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, look, Kenna, in multi way races, you can't have
interesting dynamics right where you basically have castating effects, where like,
if one candy is rising the polls and a voter
is in different between them, then that voter might gravitate
toward whichever candy seems to have the most chance, right Like,
there is some evidence that like Zoren has his voters
(16:47):
and then Cuomo curtisiwa who's the Republican, and Eric Adams
are kind of competing for the rest of the electorate,
and whether that's fifty percent or not can be can
be debated potentially, right, So it's not crazy for somebody
to think that, Like, by the way it happened in
the Democratic primary, where like, you know, Zoran was polling
(17:10):
in a you know, respectable second place in most of
the polls, and originally he was pulling at one percent, right,
And I think Eric Adams even like cited Polymarket at
one point to say, hey, people discounted Zoram before. I
mean's a little flipped around because they underestimated Zoram. Maybe
they will again and have win by any of a
bigger margin than polls show. I don't know, but like,
(17:31):
it's not it wouldn't be crazy for Eric Adams to
think this race could you know, have some unexpected turns
if he didn't have so many hard negatives. Right, his
approval ratings in New York are quite low. The fact
that he's buddy buddy with Trump. There are some Trump
oters in New York more than they used to be,
but does not help him unbalanced with what's going to
(17:53):
be probably a fairly young liberal electorate. Right, So those
hard negatives really because you know, he's had opportunities, you know,
and also he wasn't is the incumbent he was not
intimidating enough to deter Cuomo from running, even when Alma
was frankly embarrassed already in the primary. Is a glutton
for more punishment apparently clearly.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, yeah, And uh, it's interesting because you know Cuomo
has you know, I think all of the other candidates
except for Sila have considered potential deals, right, and Curtis
Sila says, you know, I'm not Sliwa. Sorry, I yes, Sliwa.
This is this is one of those that I my
(18:38):
dyslexia definitely kicks in. So Curtis Sliwa has said repeatedly
that you know, I'm not dropping out and I'm not
given my votes to anyone else, and he's been pretty
i think, consistent about that. And that is the one
candidate who could have probably moved the needle right if
he dropped out.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
One of the things you mentioned, Nate earlier in the
episode was kind of this democratic power vacuum and this
lack of kind of focused direction, consensus on the future
of the party. Now. You and I talked about this
briefly back in the primary, right after zora On had won,
and I think that that's even more true. Now. It's
interesting when the Democratic Party is trying to reach the
(19:42):
Republicans to try to take votes away from a Democrat, right,
Like that doesn't happen that often when they say, Okay,
this Democrat is a little too democratic for us, and
so maybe we want to reach out to our Republican
counterparts to prevent him from becoming mayor. That's an interesting
(20:02):
playbook page.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah. Look, I don't think it's helped I don't think
it's hurt Zora much. That Like there's such explicit attempts
at coordination, where like every week a new hedge from
billionaireuld be like, we can't let this socialist wait, and
let's get all the conservatives together, right, And it's like
you kind of are making the point for Zoren, like
it's a bunch of billionaires trying to crowd him out
of the mayorship, right, and like it's you know, look,
(20:29):
I think a non scandal plagued and actually interested in
being there of New York Andrew Cuomo might have been
a better can eight. I don't know, right, but yeah,
you got locked into some very flawed alternatives early in
New York. It does have fairly strict ballot laws. It
(20:50):
was not possible to get like a a a new
name on the ballot without signatures because the primary was
back in June. And so I know, I have a
lot of respect for Zoran's political talent. But yeah, and
I don't know. What do you think about what do
you think about Cuomo?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I have not. I am not a huge fan.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Did you watch the pandemic briefings?
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I tried. I started out watching the pandemic briefings.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
There wasn't much else to do.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
This is true, This is true. We were all stuck.
I was stuck in my eight hundred square foot apartment
in Brooklyn at the time.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
No I remember like going to like was it New
Year's twenty twenty and I was twenty twenty? Is COVID year?
It's all it seems like happily so long ago now, Maria, right,
And like we were in some fucking restaurant and Brooklyn
outdoors and like a close like the minute at mint anyway,
all these fucking rules about outdoor dying. It just kind
of brings back those people who have like, oh I have,
(21:53):
I kind of have nostalgia for COVID. Fuck you, you know,
I don't know it was you know, maybe if you
were in a warm state, right, but not that winter
in New York. But yeah, look, you know, I think
zarn't also been to the fact that like the establishment
and the Democratic Party has been kind of discredited. Right people,
for better or worse, don't really believe that it's going
(22:15):
to win elections. And also you have all these leaders
who are either you know, neo babies is NEPO or
nepo I guessmotism either babies, Oh, really fucking old, you
know what I mean? Babies? Yeah, and like and like
(22:35):
people are are tired of that, and like the left
has the kind of you know, I mean, I guess
the left gained a lot of cultural power in some ways,
like a certain kind of maybe more cultural woke left,
which I don't consider really the true left. I think
they're just kind of this other thing that's kind of
correlated with the left. But you know, why not why
(22:57):
not give why not give socialism a trimary? We've tried
everything else and we're out of ideas.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
No, I mean, I think that it's a you know,
it's a really interesting and pivotal moment in the Democratic
Party because I mean, we've talked about this to death,
but there is this major power vacuum and lack of
direction and lack of understanding of how to win votes.
(23:24):
You know, it's mind boggling to me that a party
that used to be able to organize so effectively, I mean,
New York was the center of democratic political organization for
so long with you know, Tammany Hall is a drag queen. No, yes,
I mean, actually, Nate, I'm pretty sure there's there must
be a drag queen out there whose name is Tammany Hall.
(23:45):
And if there's not drag queens, if you're listening to this,
please can we have a Tammany Hall drag queen? But
the particular one I am referring to it would be
such a great name. Was a New York political machine
which had influence on a national scale. Started in in
the late seventeen hundreds, had a ton of influence in
(24:05):
the eighteen hundreds, basically engineered, manipulated, did a lot of stuff,
some good old fashioned politics, some more mobby and strong hand,
strong handed to basically control New York for a very
long period of time. I'm not nostalgic for Tammany Hall.
That was you know, we're talking that was corrupt party
(24:27):
politic bosses, et cetera, et cetera. But they knew how
to mobilize votes. They knew how to get to people,
not in the mob way, but in the actual, you know,
mobilizing support way. And you know, I think that we
are now in this moment where there seems to be
(24:49):
just a lack of clear direction of how to get
that popular appeal and what direction to take to actually
be able to attain the levels of popularity that are
needed to win elections, to get candidates who are then
viable not just on a state but on a national level,
right to actually kind of create the next generation of
(25:11):
party leaders and figure out, you know, what does the
future of the party actually look like. And you know,
we've talked a lot about how the Kamala Harris campaign
just completely failed to do this, and U Nate actually
just had a newsletter out last week, I believe about
Mayor Pete and his appeal or lack thereof among different demographics.
(25:34):
It seems like there is a vacuum there. And if
you remember, you know, when we talk about the future
of the Democratic Party, the person who we're talking about
today well, partially Eric Adams. He was once that face, right,
people thought that someone like Adams could be the future
of the Democratic Party. People were so excited when he
was elected, and like that didn't go over so well.
(25:57):
How long did it take for him to appoint his
brother to the police, Like less than twenty four hours,
not literally, but it was just like a few days
after he'd gotten elected. I mean the corruption stuff started
happening just immediately immediately upon election, and that did not
go the way that the Democratic Party thought that it would.
But you know, if people don't remember, like Eric Adams
(26:20):
was not always a disgraced politician. There was like a
history of a lot of support and enthusiasm and excitement
about him as a candidate.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, I wrote a tweet that people like the resurface
in times about like, oh, I think Eric Adams is
one of the one of the five or ten people
most likely to have a bright future in the president
and the Democratic Party, Right, And then the next tweet
was like, by the way, it's because he's Hiberia, so
it might not work out, but it might work out.
People love throwing that back, right, and it's like they
(26:50):
actually they don't actually quote the second tweet, it's all
out of context, but you know whatever, It's the fucking Internet,
so who cares. But yeah, I was one of those
people who thought that, like, Okay, this is interesting because
you have a black candidate who was pretty moderate, especially
on issues like policing where Democrats had moved too far
(27:13):
to the left of New York has never been quite
as woke about police stuff as some other cities. Right,
So I had this template was interesting, right that, like,
you know, given that kind of like the two major
constituencies in the Democratic Party were are voters of color.
I don't know how I feel about that term, but
black what is especially Hispanic Asian American right? And then
(27:36):
progressive liberals within this house, we believe yard science as
the other major coalition partner. Like I thought, maybe like
a minority candidate who's more moderate could interestingly kind of
like appeal to to both and might also you know
one thing that I think is born out by the
literature but by anecdotal experience, who is that like a
(27:58):
woman or a minority candidate tends to read as being
more liberal than they are. Right, people are applying priors
and Adams kind of overcame that with the x cop
thing and just like like no would mistake although he
had pronouns in his bio on Twitter, but no one
would mistake him for like a far left Yeah, okay, right,
And I thought that was an interesting combination for a
(28:18):
party looking for, uh, for moderates. Aren't this kind of
cookie cutter, white person type of thing?
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Oh? Absolutely? And then he had you know, he also
always stressed that he had working classroots, right, which he did,
so that was kind of another appealing thing where it's like,
you know, X cop more more towards the conservative side,
but man, you know, man of the people, kind of
more populist some of the appeals that we see working
from you know, Donald Trump, right, and and the kind
(28:51):
of the the maga like appeals he had that he
had the police, he had the minority. And yes, Nate,
there actually are some good data points, there's good literature
on this that people do make certain assumptions about how
liberal or conservative you are based on how you look.
So if people looked at the two of us and
(29:12):
just saw photographs of us and didn't know anything about us,
they would assume that you were much more conservative than
I am. That's not right, like it's it doesn't. Actually,
these are not things that are born out in reality.
But people use incorrect data assumptions all the time, right,
snap judgments when you see someone and so yes, your
your your point about the fact that that made him
(29:34):
seem like he'd be more liberal, more attractive to liberals,
is correct? You know who was?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Who was? I another you would have a weak spot
for Turkish airlines air mile. I mean, like, I look,
I would hold out for I've never found trinket airlines.
I'm sure it's nice, right, I would hold out for
fucking Emirates or Qatar or something, right. I mean you're
selling you a little cheap there.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
I mean, I've never I've never flown Emirates, but I
have heard that it's really really nice. And I almost
flew in Emirates once to a speaking engagement, and I
was I didn't really want to do the speaking engagement
and it was going to be really disruptive, but I
was really excited about flying Emirates first class.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I got upgraded. When tim on Emirates they upgrade, they're like,
here's a I know, maybe they're trying to improve relations
with the Jews or some.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I've seen it. Maybe you and I would be Maybe
you and I would make corrupt politicians. Maybe all it
would take would be a few upgrades, and all of
a sudden we'd have corruption scandals of our own as
we took the mayoral office. But yeah, what do we
you know, I think that if we're if we're talking about,
you know, back back to kind of the decision to
(30:47):
drop out. Now, I you know, my gut feeling is
that this really isn't going to change the race much, right,
that it was. The timing of the exit and the
tenor of the exit makes it seem that it is
basically not consequential in terms of the eventual results of
the election. Do you agree with that or do you
(31:08):
think that I'm under selling it a little bit. That's
just my gut reaction based on everything we've talked about.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I don't think you're understand I mean, look the math,
Zoraim's ahead about twenty points with everybody running, right, Adams
had about nine percent, right, So if you take the
whole nine and give it to Quormo, then that closes
the guests steps at two eleven, which would start to
be a more manageable gap. Right. However, I'll probably get
(31:35):
two thirds of it, So it winds up like reducing
zornzly to fifteen points, and like fifteen points is a
sizable edge. We still have as of the time we're speaking, Maria,
we still have five and a half weeks to go.
The whole World Series of Poker is almost as long, right,
there's still there's still a while, yes, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
There's a time for a one outer night.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I don't think I think he's trying to an inside straight.
I think we're using that fucking correctly. That analogy, I
mean has odds at polemarker to fourteen percent, and my
newsletter day I said I probably tweaked those down to
ten percent.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
There.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I think prey dependent on Sleiwad dropping out or something.
We're at the zone where like this is not in
the statistical or practical margin of error, right, if Sleeva
drops out, then it becomes actually close. Okay, but you
need like a change in the narrative or something that
like you know, if there were you know, I don't know.
(32:32):
I mean, the problem is like a lot of things
that would be like October surprises would be like like
what if Trump sends the National Guard to New York.
I'm not sure that would help Cuomo, right, I think
that Zori, You're like, this is bad blahlah blah. Resistance
hashtag help him potentially, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, I was actually gonna ask, like, you know, do
we do we think, like, can there be an X
fact or October surprise type of thing that changes the odds?
Obviously this is speculative, but what are polymarkets odds of
SLIWA dropping out?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
About sixteen percent? I mean, there's no real reason to
drop out. He won the it was uncontested domination. He
won there a nomination far and square.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, he won. And he said that he's not like
he has said multiple times that he has not dropped.
He is not going to drop out. I mean that
said so did atoms up until the point where he
dropped out.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, his sons are different. He gets to be on
TV a whole bunch, and he's run for many things
many times. He's a founder of the Guardian Angels. I
guess he's trying to build support for his cause. Actually
kind of an interesting guy, uh, not as conservatives you
might expect. I mean, he's kind of a typical New
Yorker and like on some of like the LGBTQ rights,
you know, kind of slightly woke combined with being quite
(33:42):
conservative on crime and other subjects. Right, it's a certain
type of New Yorker and he I don't think he
beats orin, but like he's been overshadowed by the Cuomo
Adams drama.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, and it seems to me that his calculus is very,
very different from Adams's in the sense that, as you
pointed out, and you know, for Adams, being defeated can
cause embarrassment and can potentially, you know, for his future
political prospects. Not the corruption or bribery or those charges,
(34:15):
but the fact that he you know, lost the election
is what's going to do him in politically. So for him,
you know, it's that kind of calculus. But for Sliwa,
the calculus is actually mostly upside right right now, he's
getting media exposure. It's not negative media exposure. He's getting
to speak, he's getting to voice opinions. Like, it's actually
(34:37):
completely different up until you know, he probably knows he's
not going to win, and it doesn't matter, right because
he is setting up for a better political future for
himself by staying in the race. And so the game
theory I think just is not there for him. Why
in the world would he drop out and give his
votes to Cuomo or to anyone else. That being said,
(34:58):
if he doesn't drop out, then Adams's decision to drop
out basically changes nothing in terms of you know, in
terms of our calculus of who is going to win
the race. Again, we don't know if there's going to
be an X factor. Maybe someone is busy out there,
you know, preparing to drop a bomb bombshell news item.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
You already would have dropped you I would have dropped
it though, right in a two can eight race it's
a little different, right, but you would have dropped the bombshell.
And also you have the primary, and like ran in
the primary, Zoran kind of came not quite out of nowhere, right,
but it was a relatively quick rise. But like it's
been a fucking slow Like, why we have this fucking
primary in June for a general election in November. I'm
(35:42):
not sure I understand that you need that much time
to campaign anyway, It's crazy. You know, the June timing
is supposed to help incumbents because all the rich people
are out in the Hampton's or Vermont Maria, for example.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Wait, is that true? Is that the reason for.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
The June I believe that's that's something that people who
have knowledge about city politics tend to believe, is my understanding.
I phrase that oddly.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, no, No, I get what you were trying to say.
I did not know that. I was always curious about
why the timing was what it was. But I guess
that makes sense. And we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
By the way, Yeah, you alluded to before, like Cuomo
Adams were kind of counting on the machine type turnout
where where you're good at getting your voters out. The
problem actually for Cuomo in the primary was that like
turnout was quite high relative to mayoral primaries, right, So
he probably got the voters he expected to get. But
(36:58):
Zorin brought up people that had not voted in these
primaries before.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, so Zarn in a way was able to activate
that machine better than the old Democratic as stafleablishment could.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Well, But like the machine is, the machine is kind
of fucking, kind of fucking.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Broken, exactly. No one likes the exactly. That's that's the point.
So you know Zora as the individual.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
He is one of those McDonald's ice cream makers. It's like, oh,
you've always broken broken, except there's no scam to get
the repair guy in.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Apparently there's a website that actually tracks those McDonald's machines
and you can see where the ones, you know, it's
basically all broken, but where the functioning ones are. I
found that quite amusing. Never tried the ice cream at McDonald's,
but I for some reason know this little bit of
information and find it very funny. But yes, that's a
good analogy. I think that the you know, the ice
(37:49):
cream machine is definitely broken in most locations in New York,
and Zoron was able to come out with his you know,
mister softy little cart and blare his song. If we're gonna,
if we're going to continue this analogy.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Do you ever eat chain fast food?
Speaker 1 (38:07):
No? I don't often. The only so I've never I've
had McDonald's fries. That's the only thing I've ever eaten
at McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You've never had a big mac.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
No, I've never had a big mac, and I've never American.
I am, I am what I've never You've never had
a big Mack. I've never had a big mac.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Nate would you have one, can still be friends? Would
you have one?
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I mean, if forced to, I might try a bite
just to say I've tried it, but no, I don't's kind.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Of a good sandwich, I don't.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I don't really want one.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I like it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I like burgers, but you know, I'm more of like
a Minetta Tavern, black Pipelburger type of person.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
So you've never been like an airport where like because
they always have the fucking like they have the local
fucking concession. That's some terrible fucking airport specific version, right,
I'm a big fan of You got the McDonald's, You've
got the Wendy's at the airport.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I've never been to Days. I've never been inside a Wendy's.
I've never been to Burger King.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
You've never been inside a wedding.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I've never been inside a Burger King. I've never eaten
anything from either one of those establish men's never been
to Arby's. I have been to In and Out. I've
eaten an In and Out Burger, and I've eaten shake Shack.
But I went to shakeshaf course back when Shakeshack was
in the park. You know when the line was like
all all the way around. I you know, I still did.
(39:28):
That was before I lived in New York, you know,
I was. I was a teenager when it opened, and
I remember being so excited. I came to New York
and I stood in that line for I don't know
how long to get a shake shack, burger and concrete
and that was I think, yeah, that and in and
out is an in and out is I think more
(39:50):
more fast foody. That is the closest that I have
come to trying fast food burgers night five guys. I
tried five guys when five guys first came to New York.
Does that count?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
It's the higher end you got to get into, like
the like anything beyond like Wendy's is too high end. Right,
by the way, my own stock in Shake Shock because
I'm like, they get people, They get people like you,
Maria to eat fast food, and that seems like a
good business model, you know what I mean. People would
never be caught dead sitting foot to McDonald's, right, They're like, oh,
(40:24):
Shake Shock, this is this is premium. This is premium.
Have you had Chipotle?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yes, I have had Chippotle.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Okay, okay, I mean that's that's in the premium zone, sill,
I think, But like, yes, anyway.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I have had Chipotle, uh, and it was actually I
think Chipotle would be my go to if I had
to go to, like if I had to pick a
fast food place, I think Chipotle has the highest quality,
freshest ingredients out of out of the things, that.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Chipotle is the restaurant I've probably eaten at the most
times really in my life, right, yeah, because like I
used to like fucking play you know, when I left
my consulting job, I played poker online for a few years, right,
and I'd always, I don't know, I'd stay up all
night and then be like fucking famished in the afternoon.
I live like equidistant Chicago between like three Chipotles, and
(41:11):
so I would like diversify which are the three Chipotles
I went to? Just like going there so often that
it felt like a little bit, a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
All right, So we went from atoms to our fast
food ratings, from.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Our New England ratings to our fast food rating.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
So let's let's give Eric Adams a rating if you
were a fast food chain, what would be oh to
wrap this up.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Like what's I mean, maybe like a little So here's
here's irony. I don't think that New York City is
doing so badly at all, really, right, Our crime is
lower than incomparable cities. People have left. That part's not great,
but they've kind of left most of these cities. We
have a couple of new airports that have come online.
(41:58):
We got a congestion pricing and a lot of this
is not Adams is doing right, but you know, property
values are doing more than fine. Right, there are still
housing stortages. But like, yeah, if you ask people kind
of how is New York doing? I mean, people are
inherently grumpy in the United States, right, But like so
if people are punishing him for the for the corruption, yeah,
(42:20):
as a mayor, I don't know, it seems okay, right
if people people have trouble decoupling the personal stuff from
like the legislation government stuff, understandably all.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Right, So in total, then what would he be? Is
he a McDonald's, Is he a Wendy's? Is he at Chipotle?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
No, he's like a little you know, little mom and
pop Italian American place where they're still you know, they're
not gonna take credit cards still, Maria, Why why not? Well,
you know, maybe they're not paying their full a lotment
of taxes. Yeah, they have loyal customers. There's some special
rooms in the back. We're not quite sure what's going
on there. Right. The food's pretty good. You gotta stick
(43:01):
to the basics. You gotta stick to the chicken parm
you gotta get the fried netballs and things like that. Right.
You don't want to a venture too far, I feel,
but it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
So if we were going chain, then he would be
closest to like a siborro anti.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Oh my god, I've never eaten a fucking saborro. Well
it's Italian, Maria. I am a respector of Italian American cuisine.
Saborro is not meaningfully Italian.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Okay, okay, fair enough, All right, Well you heard it
here first, guys, Eric Adams, small mob and pop Italian.
Definitely not Soborro siborro.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Let us.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Know what you think of the show. Reach out to
us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. Risky Business
is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
And by me Nate Silver. The show was a cool
production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia,
Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our
executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, But once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova and I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Today in the show, look, we're both in New York
City at least part time. We're going to talk about
the New York mayor all raise Eric Adams, the current
mayor incurment mayor of New York dropped out this weekend.
We're talking about the implications for the race, talk about
the game theory behind Eric adams decision, and also a
little bit about this vacuum of leadership that has kind
of compelled a surprising candidates or I'm I'm doning to
(00:54):
be the very likely in my opinion, next mayor of
New York.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Absolutely, and well we'll, obviously, because this is Risky Business,
get some game theory in there, the game theory of
the decision, the timing, all of those fun things. So yeah,
well we're going to have politics centric show for you today.
Before we do that, though, Nate Happy Fall. It is
(01:19):
officially autumn, by the way, so now we're recording this Monday,
September twenty ninth. It is hot as fuck in New
York City. It is muggy, it is.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Great I mean here in Manhattan, Maria, it's a whole
different micro climate than your neck of the woods. But yeah,
it's been a little muggy.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's muggy, it's sticky, but yet it's officially fall. I
was in Vermont this weekend leaf watching. That was beautiful.
But I have to say, you know, whatever, whatever the causes,
climate change, et cetera, the leaf colors are much more
muted this year, and by the end of the weekend
they started almost like everything started falling. I was like, wait,
(01:57):
this isn't supposed to be peak leafs yet, and yet
here we are. But it was still beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
What if climate change made like fawful each better, would
you favor it?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Then? Yes? Absolutely? No, please please?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Does it like pollution make sunsets better? Is that a thing?
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yes? Yes, mog makes uh smog makes sunsets more beautiful
because it filters the colors in a funny way, and
so so yes, absolutely, we have we have some silver
Nate in terms of risky business business. On the drive
(02:35):
back from Vermont, driving down this bucolic road you know
about to like exit and get on the highway, open
windows because it's nice fall weather. A fucking wasp flies
into the car, straight into my arm and bites me.
I got stung for the first time, and I.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Don't know how long.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I have no idea I was while I was watching,
I was like, I have no idea. If I'm allergic,
I had better drill because I have a lot of
other allergies. So I was like, okay, I'm ready. And
I'm in the middle of nowhere, Vermont with no cell reception.
So I was like, I sure, hope I'm not because
this ain't good anyway, I'm not allergic. Everything's good. It
just there was swelling. It really hurt, but so yeah,
(03:17):
wasps stung me and I thought flew out of the
car about two out hours later on the highway in
the middle of the highway, no rest stops in sight.
The fucker starts buzzing around in the car. The wasp
did not leave the car. So nay, risky business question,
risk calculus. What do you do you are on a
highway driving like seventy five eighty miles an hour and
(03:39):
there's a wasp flying around like you can't turn off
because you're on a highway. What are you supposed to do?
Because that is you know it can't just go on.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Okay, first of them, Ma, Ria, it's Vermont, right, you're
not like, it's not like multiple fucking gas station with me.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
This is no, no, no, This is now two hours later.
This is now on the highway and either Connecticut. I
think it's in Connecticut. Let's call it Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, pull over to the nearest gas station.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
There was none. Yeah, the nearest gas station was in
like twenty miles Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
It's the most densely populated state pretty much.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Right. There's a part where it says like this is
the last rest stop for the next whatever many miles.
That's we had passed that point, no.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
End of the road. Put your hazards on and wait
for the right Yeah. Is that more risky than a
wasp sting? I think it's probably a close call. I
think it's a close I was trying to.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Do the risk calculus. I was like, this thing is terrifying,
like if it flies at you, the risk of swerving
and getting into an accident anyway, ended up yet being
able to pull over and get the Wasp out of
the car. Superhero moment, Nate superhero moment. But that was actually,
you know, it's one of those things you don't really
think about in your risk calculus when you're talking about
(04:55):
driving in all of these things. But that was my
I don't know why. Maybe Vermont got mad that I
didn't love its leaves this year, but it was kind
of a final fucking from Vermont on my way out
of the stay.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Rank the New England states from one to six in
terms of what goodness?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Oh man, Well, I don't know. I'm from Massachusetts. You know,
I grew up there, So I'm gonna put Massachusetts first
because my family is there. I went to school there.
You know. There are lots of things about Massachusetts I
don't like. I think that the term masshole is very apt.
There are lots of things about Boston I don't like,
and yet Boston's a beautiful you know, it's a city. Still,
(05:35):
I think I'm gonna put let me see Maine. I
think maybe number two. All the mosquitoes might put Maine
at number three. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Maine is such a fucking clear number one, Like, what
are you even talking about?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Maine is gorgeous, But the mosquitoes killed me, So I'm
gonna put at number two with an asterisk. Fucking the Mosquitoes.
Let's see, I would put Rhode Island probably number three.
It's small, but.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Mighty weird, weird state. Yes, it's a weird set.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It is a weird state, but it's it has a
lot of really beautiful stuff, lots of interesting things. Providence
in Newport. You know, I'm a I'm a fan.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Let's see Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, so Vermont. Maybe Vermont's
number four.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I guess no, No, I love Vermont. I think it's beautiful.
I think they are people there can be like. It's
a really weird state as well, and obviously I have
a personal family connection to Vermont and like for that reason,
I do love it. So maybe we put Maybe I
actually put Vermont before Rhode Island. New Hampshire is going
to be dead last. I hate New Hampshire and I
(06:39):
hate Connecticut. Connecticut and New Hampshire I kind of tied
for last.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
What about you day, Yeah, look, Maine Maine is number one.
Then it gets more difficult. I mean, I like, I
agree that the bottom tier has to be Connecticut, and
I think has to be Connecticut. I like, I don't
dislike Connecticut. In fact, my fucking family, my dad's like
from Connecticut. So maybe I'm gonna put Yeah, I just
don't want to be insulting. I mean, maybe put my
(07:05):
I mean I have.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Family in Connecticut too. My sister, whom I love dearly,
were very close. You know. She teaches and her labs
at Yale, so her family lives in Connecticut. So you know,
I obviously am not going to be anti Connecticut. I'm
not anti any state. We're all inclusive here. On the
Risky Essing the podcast, there's.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
A criteria where if you had to live in a state,
Let's see, you have to live in that state for
eleven months out of twelve per year. You're madded thirty
travel days or whatever, right, and you had to pick
in New England state. Okay. By that criteria, mass choosets
would be.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
I'm going to Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
First or second for me? Right, by just overall sentiment, though,
I mean, I don't really you know, Boston is like
a charming European city without the charm, you know what
I mean. I like the layout of Boston.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Hey, I told you I'm not I'm not a Boston apologist.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I like the sports and I don't like the sports teams,
but like you know, I would just go and be
a fucking I would just watch so much fucking sports
if I lived in Massachusetts and go to the Encore
play poker.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, absolutely, I think that Boston would actually be a
good place for you, for like, if you were forced
to live somewhere for a little while, I think you'd,
you know, because of the sports, and it has good sushi. Nate,
you know, no, Maria, I would, Maria, Maria.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
The food in New England is a problem. Literally, fucking
who is a Graham, you know, the guy who had
been in the gram Cracker. He lives like, we don't
want to have food with fucking flavor in it, right food?
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And the food in New England is, yes, an absolute
problem everywhere, but at least, you know, at least we
can get decent sushi and Boston. Like in Vermont, I
really wanted sushi, like you do not get sushi anywhere
near where I was in Vermont. Want to die, I
just I was in a sushi mood. I didn't want
sushi and Vermont. I wanted sushi in the abstract and
(08:54):
that's not possible anyway. My WASP staying is getting better.
Fuck wasps. I hate them. I hope I never see
one again, although obviously I will. Let's move on to politics.
So we had some news over the weekend, and again
we're recording this on Monday. You're going to hear it
(09:14):
on Wednesday, so if there are any developments in the meantime,
we will not have caught them. But Eric Adams announced
that he was dropping out of the race for mayor
of New York City. And he did this just a
few days before, you know, the race already passed the
deadline for his name to be removed.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So passed like a while ago.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
A while ago, Okay, So Mayor Adams announced that he
was dropping out long after the deadline to take his
name off of the ballot. And it's a pretty historic
moment because he is going to be then just the
second mayor to not win re election.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And is that true because you think of New York
mayors as having had problematic careers, but I guess they
tend to I guess they tend to get the re
election thing, right.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah. David Dinkins, who was the city's first black mayor,
lost his reelection bid, and that was the only other
mayor who did not serve a second.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Tim Bloomberg changed the rules to run a third time,
and one actually close than you might have expected. But yeah,
I guess I mean the Blasio Bloomberg, Rudy Dinkin's one term,
Ed Katsch, who is Abraham Beam. I was not aware.
I You're named Abraham Beam.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Wait, okay, Nate, So if I'm understanding you correctly, Bean
also didn't win re election.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, he left office in nineteen seventy seven. There's no
Bean Street, I guess anywhere, not well remembered. And there
are a couple of others in the past.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Okay, So Adams is the third in modern New York
City history who has not won reelection. Very small group that,
you know, seems like it's an accomplishment of a sort
negative accomplishment in its own right.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Modern or contemporary.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Sorry, it's something contemporary contemporary New York City. But yeah,
it is very notable that he dropped out, and the timing, Nate,
I think is quite notable as well, because, well, what
happens now with the votes, Right, we talked in the
primaries that the primaries were rank choice voting. That is
(11:26):
not the case right with the general mayoral election. So
it's not the case that you know, oh you know,
if you don't get fifty percent, now we're going to
you know, your your votes are going to go down
to the next candidate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And Adams when he was stepping down announcing that he
was going to be withdrawing from the race also did
something notable, I think when he did not endorse any
(11:49):
other candidate. Right, normally, when people drop out of a
race close to the election, when it's you know, an
election that has so many political spirits inflamed, you want
your votes to go to someone, right, you want to
actually make a statement, and you say, you know, I'm
dropping out, but I think you know Nate Silver is
your best choice for mayor. And instead he's like, fuck
(12:10):
Nate Silver, Fuck all these guys. You know, this guy's
a snake. This Maria person that can't be trusted, she
changes her mind. You know, everyone sucks. That was kind
of his speech, not literally but figuratively speaking. And that
was another interesting choice. So if we're talking about kind
of the game theory of his decision, what it means
other than just like I'm out, this is the timing
(12:34):
and a big fuck you, it's it is a very
I think he's made some interesting choices. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Look, I've actually tried to model in the context of
presidential primaries when candidates drop out, and it's fairly product
They basically drop out when they have no shot, right,
and then more likely to drop out if they were
once perceived to have a shot, meaning that they have
some type of future, but then they fall far behind
enough in the polls the fundraising guys up. But yeah,
(13:02):
he had opportunities allegedly to take various lucrative jobs associated
with the Trump administration. Maybe you'll take one of those eventually,
but like he was gonna lose, probably finish in fourth place, right,
and that would have been embarrassing. So that's that's you know,
he's trying to preserve credibility for whatever future endeavors that
(13:23):
he has. I mean with most canistates of the incentive,
with Eric Adams, I'd say, who knows what's happening in
terms of you know, look, you know it's New York City.
You know, maybe you turn a blind eyed stuff. But
that would be the logical reason he wasn't gonna win, right,
He wasn't gonna win. He was at oh, zero percent
in polymarket. He was at eight percent in the polls,
(13:44):
and so yeah, the game theory is just that, like
there's a non zero cost to embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So Nate, uh, polymarket, how long has he been close
to zero on polymarket?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So according to polymarket, we're full disclosure. I'm an advisor.
It looks like they may be disabled. It's actually hard
to find the Eric Adams graph where it's it's like
now it's zero, but let me take a look here. Yeah,
so it became clear that the next most viable alternative
was Andrew Cuomo fairly early, right, I mean Adams is yeah,
(14:20):
I mean if you're looking back here, yeah, yeah, it's
hard to even find.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
The reason I asked that question, she got a little.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Brad lander back in the day. You know, you got
a lander.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
But the reason I asked the question, right, is that
it was very clear I think to everyone, as you say,
that's why I asked how long his poly Market had
him ut close to zero, that he wasn't going to
win for a long time, and he made a decision
to wait until now to drop out, and not earlier.
Now we could say that, oh, he's just a hubriistic,
you know, person with head in the clouds and just
(14:51):
assumes that he can make changes and that eventually.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
He's harek Adams. We're talking about Maria.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I know, I know, I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
and that he just thought that he could somehow pull
a win out of his ass, but that that is
what it seems like, or or he decided, you know what,
I want to screw over, like I don't like Cuomo
enough that like I don't want him to have time
to consolidate support, right, and so I'm going to spite
(15:18):
weight until much longer so that he doesn't have time
to do the fundraising and kind of no, I'm serious,
like what what are the calculations going through your mind?
Because it's clear and yes, we know that allegedly he
had been in talks to become the ambassador to Saudi
Arabia and that that had fallen through Saudi Arabia, and
(15:39):
so you know, he's been mulling an exit strategy for
a while and the announcement only comes now when there's
not much time to do any to do much of anything.
And I mean, obviously the other part of it is
he doesn't have that many votes. I think he's consistently
pulled in the single digits. Yeah, not like, so even
if all of his votes go to one single candidate,
(16:01):
which again he didn't endorse anyone, so that is probably
not happening. But if that were to happen, that still
wouldn't be enough to change the outcome of the election.
So maybe he did that calculus and was like, you
know what, I'm going to do this in the most
fuck you way possible, like I said, Or maybe he
was just hubristic and up until the very end, up
until this past weekend, thought hey, maybe I can actually
(16:22):
have a chance.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah, look, Kenna, in multi way races, you can't have
interesting dynamics right where you basically have castating effects, where like,
if one candy is rising the polls and a voter
is in different between them, then that voter might gravitate
toward whichever candy seems to have the most chance, right Like,
there is some evidence that like Zoren has his voters
(16:47):
and then Cuomo curtisiwa who's the Republican, and Eric Adams
are kind of competing for the rest of the electorate,
and whether that's fifty percent or not can be can
be debated potentially, right, So it's not crazy for somebody
to think that, Like, by the way it happened in
the Democratic primary, where like, you know, Zoran was polling
(17:10):
in a you know, respectable second place in most of
the polls, and originally he was pulling at one percent, right,
And I think Eric Adams even like cited Polymarket at
one point to say, hey, people discounted Zoram before. I
mean's a little flipped around because they underestimated Zoram. Maybe
they will again and have win by any of a
bigger margin than polls show. I don't know, but like,
(17:31):
it's not it wouldn't be crazy for Eric Adams to
think this race could you know, have some unexpected turns
if he didn't have so many hard negatives. Right, his
approval ratings in New York are quite low. The fact
that he's buddy buddy with Trump. There are some Trump
oters in New York more than they used to be,
but does not help him unbalanced with what's going to
(17:53):
be probably a fairly young liberal electorate. Right, So those
hard negatives really because you know, he's had opportunities, you know,
and also he wasn't is the incumbent he was not
intimidating enough to deter Cuomo from running, even when Alma
was frankly embarrassed already in the primary. Is a glutton
for more punishment apparently clearly.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah, yeah, And uh, it's interesting because you know Cuomo
has you know, I think all of the other candidates
except for Sila have considered potential deals, right, and Curtis
Sila says, you know, I'm not Sliwa. Sorry, I yes, Sliwa.
This is this is one of those that I my
(18:38):
dyslexia definitely kicks in. So Curtis Sliwa has said repeatedly
that you know, I'm not dropping out and I'm not
given my votes to anyone else, and he's been pretty
i think, consistent about that. And that is the one
candidate who could have probably moved the needle right if
he dropped out.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
One of the things you mentioned, Nate earlier in the
episode was kind of this democratic power vacuum and this
lack of kind of focused direction, consensus on the future
of the party. Now. You and I talked about this
briefly back in the primary, right after zora On had won,
and I think that that's even more true. Now. It's
interesting when the Democratic Party is trying to reach the
(19:42):
Republicans to try to take votes away from a Democrat, right,
Like that doesn't happen that often when they say, Okay,
this Democrat is a little too democratic for us, and
so maybe we want to reach out to our Republican
counterparts to prevent him from becoming mayor. That's an interesting
(20:02):
playbook page.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah. Look, I don't think it's helped I don't think
it's hurt Zora much. That Like there's such explicit attempts
at coordination, where like every week a new hedge from
billionaireuld be like, we can't let this socialist wait, and
let's get all the conservatives together, right, And it's like
you kind of are making the point for Zoren, like
it's a bunch of billionaires trying to crowd him out
of the mayorship, right, and like it's you know, look,
(20:29):
I think a non scandal plagued and actually interested in
being there of New York Andrew Cuomo might have been
a better can eight. I don't know, right, but yeah,
you got locked into some very flawed alternatives early in
New York. It does have fairly strict ballot laws. It
(20:50):
was not possible to get like a a a new
name on the ballot without signatures because the primary was
back in June. And so I know, I have a
lot of respect for Zoran's political talent. But yeah, and
I don't know. What do you think about what do
you think about Cuomo?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I have not. I am not a huge fan.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Did you watch the pandemic briefings?
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I tried. I started out watching the pandemic briefings.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
There wasn't much else to do.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
This is true, This is true. We were all stuck.
I was stuck in my eight hundred square foot apartment
in Brooklyn at the time.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
No I remember like going to like was it New
Year's twenty twenty and I was twenty twenty? Is COVID year?
It's all it seems like happily so long ago now, Maria, right,
And like we were in some fucking restaurant and Brooklyn
outdoors and like a close like the minute at mint anyway,
all these fucking rules about outdoor dying. It just kind
of brings back those people who have like, oh I have,
(21:53):
I kind of have nostalgia for COVID. Fuck you, you know,
I don't know it was you know, maybe if you
were in a warm state, right, but not that winter
in New York. But yeah, look, you know, I think
zarn't also been to the fact that like the establishment
and the Democratic Party has been kind of discredited. Right people,
for better or worse, don't really believe that it's going
(22:15):
to win elections. And also you have all these leaders
who are either you know, neo babies is NEPO or
nepo I guessmotism either babies, Oh, really fucking old, you
know what I mean? Babies? Yeah, and like and like
(22:35):
people are are tired of that, and like the left
has the kind of you know, I mean, I guess
the left gained a lot of cultural power in some ways,
like a certain kind of maybe more cultural woke left,
which I don't consider really the true left. I think
they're just kind of this other thing that's kind of
correlated with the left. But you know, why not why
(22:57):
not give why not give socialism a trimary? We've tried
everything else and we're out of ideas.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
No, I mean, I think that it's a you know,
it's a really interesting and pivotal moment in the Democratic
Party because I mean, we've talked about this to death,
but there is this major power vacuum and lack of
direction and lack of understanding of how to win votes.
(23:24):
You know, it's mind boggling to me that a party
that used to be able to organize so effectively, I mean,
New York was the center of democratic political organization for
so long with you know, Tammany Hall is a drag queen. No, yes,
I mean, actually, Nate, I'm pretty sure there's there must
be a drag queen out there whose name is Tammany Hall.
(23:45):
And if there's not drag queens, if you're listening to this,
please can we have a Tammany Hall drag queen? But
the particular one I am referring to it would be
such a great name. Was a New York political machine
which had influence on a national scale. Started in in
the late seventeen hundreds, had a ton of influence in
(24:05):
the eighteen hundreds, basically engineered, manipulated, did a lot of stuff,
some good old fashioned politics, some more mobby and strong hand,
strong handed to basically control New York for a very
long period of time. I'm not nostalgic for Tammany Hall.
That was you know, we're talking that was corrupt party
(24:27):
politic bosses, et cetera, et cetera. But they knew how
to mobilize votes. They knew how to get to people,
not in the mob way, but in the actual, you know,
mobilizing support way. And you know, I think that we
are now in this moment where there seems to be
(24:49):
just a lack of clear direction of how to get
that popular appeal and what direction to take to actually
be able to attain the levels of popularity that are
needed to win elections, to get candidates who are then
viable not just on a state but on a national level,
right to actually kind of create the next generation of
(25:11):
party leaders and figure out, you know, what does the
future of the party actually look like. And you know,
we've talked a lot about how the Kamala Harris campaign
just completely failed to do this, and U Nate actually
just had a newsletter out last week, I believe about
Mayor Pete and his appeal or lack thereof among different demographics.
(25:34):
It seems like there is a vacuum there. And if
you remember, you know, when we talk about the future
of the Democratic Party, the person who we're talking about
today well, partially Eric Adams. He was once that face, right,
people thought that someone like Adams could be the future
of the Democratic Party. People were so excited when he
was elected, and like that didn't go over so well.
(25:57):
How long did it take for him to appoint his
brother to the police, Like less than twenty four hours,
not literally, but it was just like a few days
after he'd gotten elected. I mean the corruption stuff started
happening just immediately immediately upon election, and that did not
go the way that the Democratic Party thought that it would.
But you know, if people don't remember, like Eric Adams
(26:20):
was not always a disgraced politician. There was like a
history of a lot of support and enthusiasm and excitement
about him as a candidate.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, I wrote a tweet that people like the resurface
in times about like, oh, I think Eric Adams is
one of the one of the five or ten people
most likely to have a bright future in the president
and the Democratic Party, Right, And then the next tweet
was like, by the way, it's because he's Hiberia, so
it might not work out, but it might work out.
People love throwing that back, right, and it's like they
(26:50):
actually they don't actually quote the second tweet, it's all
out of context, but you know whatever, It's the fucking Internet,
so who cares. But yeah, I was one of those
people who thought that, like, Okay, this is interesting because
you have a black candidate who was pretty moderate, especially
on issues like policing where Democrats had moved too far
(27:13):
to the left of New York has never been quite
as woke about police stuff as some other cities. Right,
So I had this template was interesting, right that, like,
you know, given that kind of like the two major
constituencies in the Democratic Party were are voters of color.
I don't know how I feel about that term, but
black what is especially Hispanic Asian American right? And then
(27:36):
progressive liberals within this house, we believe yard science as
the other major coalition partner. Like I thought, maybe like
a minority candidate who's more moderate could interestingly kind of
like appeal to to both and might also you know
one thing that I think is born out by the
literature but by anecdotal experience, who is that like a
(27:58):
woman or a minority candidate tends to read as being
more liberal than they are. Right, people are applying priors
and Adams kind of overcame that with the x cop
thing and just like like no would mistake although he
had pronouns in his bio on Twitter, but no one
would mistake him for like a far left Yeah, okay, right,
And I thought that was an interesting combination for a
(28:18):
party looking for, uh, for moderates. Aren't this kind of
cookie cutter, white person type of thing?
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Oh? Absolutely? And then he had you know, he also
always stressed that he had working classroots, right, which he did,
so that was kind of another appealing thing where it's like,
you know, X cop more more towards the conservative side,
but man, you know, man of the people, kind of
more populist some of the appeals that we see working
from you know, Donald Trump, right, and and the kind
(28:51):
of the the maga like appeals he had that he
had the police, he had the minority. And yes, Nate,
there actually are some good data points, there's good literature
on this that people do make certain assumptions about how
liberal or conservative you are based on how you look.
So if people looked at the two of us and
(29:12):
just saw photographs of us and didn't know anything about us,
they would assume that you were much more conservative than
I am. That's not right, like it's it doesn't. Actually,
these are not things that are born out in reality.
But people use incorrect data assumptions all the time, right,
snap judgments when you see someone and so yes, your
your your point about the fact that that made him
(29:34):
seem like he'd be more liberal, more attractive to liberals,
is correct? You know who was?
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Who was? I another you would have a weak spot
for Turkish airlines air mile. I mean, like, I look,
I would hold out for I've never found trinket airlines.
I'm sure it's nice, right, I would hold out for
fucking Emirates or Qatar or something, right. I mean you're
selling you a little cheap there.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
I mean, I've never I've never flown Emirates, but I
have heard that it's really really nice. And I almost
flew in Emirates once to a speaking engagement, and I
was I didn't really want to do the speaking engagement
and it was going to be really disruptive, but I
was really excited about flying Emirates first class.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I got upgraded. When tim on Emirates they upgrade, they're like,
here's a I know, maybe they're trying to improve relations
with the Jews or some.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I've seen it. Maybe you and I would be Maybe
you and I would make corrupt politicians. Maybe all it
would take would be a few upgrades, and all of
a sudden we'd have corruption scandals of our own as
we took the mayoral office. But yeah, what do we
you know, I think that if we're if we're talking about,
you know, back back to kind of the decision to
(30:47):
drop out. Now, I you know, my gut feeling is
that this really isn't going to change the race much, right,
that it was. The timing of the exit and the
tenor of the exit makes it seem that it is
basically not consequential in terms of the eventual results of
the election. Do you agree with that or do you
(31:08):
think that I'm under selling it a little bit. That's
just my gut reaction based on everything we've talked about.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I don't think you're understand I mean, look the math,
Zoraim's ahead about twenty points with everybody running, right, Adams
had about nine percent, right, So if you take the
whole nine and give it to Quormo, then that closes
the guests steps at two eleven, which would start to
be a more manageable gap. Right. However, I'll probably get
(31:35):
two thirds of it, So it winds up like reducing
zornzly to fifteen points, and like fifteen points is a
sizable edge. We still have as of the time we're speaking, Maria,
we still have five and a half weeks to go.
The whole World Series of Poker is almost as long, right,
there's still there's still a while, yes, but yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
There's a time for a one outer night.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I don't think I think he's trying to an inside straight.
I think we're using that fucking correctly. That analogy, I
mean has odds at polemarker to fourteen percent, and my
newsletter day I said I probably tweaked those down to
ten percent.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
There.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I think prey dependent on Sleiwad dropping out or something.
We're at the zone where like this is not in
the statistical or practical margin of error, right, if Sleeva
drops out, then it becomes actually close. Okay, but you
need like a change in the narrative or something that
like you know, if there were you know, I don't know.
(32:32):
I mean, the problem is like a lot of things
that would be like October surprises would be like like
what if Trump sends the National Guard to New York.
I'm not sure that would help Cuomo, right, I think
that Zori, You're like, this is bad blahlah blah. Resistance
hashtag help him potentially, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, I was actually gonna ask, like, you know, do
we do we think, like, can there be an X
fact or October surprise type of thing that changes the odds?
Obviously this is speculative, but what are polymarkets odds of
SLIWA dropping out?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
About sixteen percent? I mean, there's no real reason to
drop out. He won the it was uncontested domination. He
won there a nomination far and square.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, he won. And he said that he's not like
he has said multiple times that he has not dropped.
He is not going to drop out. I mean that
said so did atoms up until the point where he
dropped out.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, his sons are different. He gets to be on
TV a whole bunch, and he's run for many things
many times. He's a founder of the Guardian Angels. I
guess he's trying to build support for his cause. Actually
kind of an interesting guy, uh, not as conservatives you
might expect. I mean, he's kind of a typical New
Yorker and like on some of like the LGBTQ rights,
you know, kind of slightly woke combined with being quite
(33:42):
conservative on crime and other subjects. Right, it's a certain
type of New Yorker and he I don't think he
beats orin, but like he's been overshadowed by the Cuomo
Adams drama.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, and it seems to me that his calculus is very,
very different from Adams's in the sense that, as you
pointed out, and you know, for Adams, being defeated can
cause embarrassment and can potentially, you know, for his future
political prospects. Not the corruption or bribery or those charges,
(34:15):
but the fact that he you know, lost the election
is what's going to do him in politically. So for him,
you know, it's that kind of calculus. But for Sliwa,
the calculus is actually mostly upside right right now, he's
getting media exposure. It's not negative media exposure. He's getting
to speak, he's getting to voice opinions. Like, it's actually
(34:37):
completely different up until you know, he probably knows he's
not going to win, and it doesn't matter, right because
he is setting up for a better political future for
himself by staying in the race. And so the game
theory I think just is not there for him. Why
in the world would he drop out and give his
votes to Cuomo or to anyone else. That being said,
(34:58):
if he doesn't drop out, then Adams's decision to drop
out basically changes nothing in terms of you know, in
terms of our calculus of who is going to win
the race. Again, we don't know if there's going to
be an X factor. Maybe someone is busy out there,
you know, preparing to drop a bomb bombshell news item.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
You already would have dropped you I would have dropped
it though, right in a two can eight race it's
a little different, right, but you would have dropped the bombshell.
And also you have the primary, and like ran in
the primary, Zoran kind of came not quite out of nowhere, right,
but it was a relatively quick rise. But like it's
been a fucking slow Like, why we have this fucking
primary in June for a general election in November. I'm
(35:42):
not sure I understand that you need that much time
to campaign anyway, It's crazy. You know, the June timing
is supposed to help incumbents because all the rich people
are out in the Hampton's or Vermont Maria, for example.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Wait, is that true? Is that the reason for.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
The June I believe that's that's something that people who
have knowledge about city politics tend to believe, is my understanding.
I phrase that oddly.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, no, No, I get what you were trying to say.
I did not know that. I was always curious about
why the timing was what it was. But I guess
that makes sense. And we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
By the way, Yeah, you alluded to before, like Cuomo
Adams were kind of counting on the machine type turnout
where where you're good at getting your voters out. The
problem actually for Cuomo in the primary was that like
turnout was quite high relative to mayoral primaries, right, So
he probably got the voters he expected to get. But
(36:58):
Zorin brought up people that had not voted in these
primaries before.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, so Zarn in a way was able to activate
that machine better than the old Democratic as stafleablishment could.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Well, But like the machine is, the machine is kind
of fucking, kind of fucking.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Broken, exactly. No one likes the exactly. That's that's the point.
So you know Zora as the individual.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
He is one of those McDonald's ice cream makers. It's like, oh,
you've always broken broken, except there's no scam to get
the repair guy in.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Apparently there's a website that actually tracks those McDonald's machines
and you can see where the ones, you know, it's
basically all broken, but where the functioning ones are. I
found that quite amusing. Never tried the ice cream at McDonald's,
but I for some reason know this little bit of
information and find it very funny. But yes, that's a
good analogy. I think that the you know, the ice
(37:49):
cream machine is definitely broken in most locations in New York,
and Zoron was able to come out with his you know,
mister softy little cart and blare his song. If we're gonna,
if we're going to continue this analogy.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Do you ever eat chain fast food?
Speaker 1 (38:07):
No? I don't often. The only so I've never I've
had McDonald's fries. That's the only thing I've ever eaten
at McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You've never had a big mac.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
No, I've never had a big mac, and I've never American.
I am, I am what I've never You've never had
a big Mack. I've never had a big mac.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Nate would you have one, can still be friends? Would
you have one?
Speaker 1 (38:32):
I mean, if forced to, I might try a bite
just to say I've tried it, but no, I don't's kind.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Of a good sandwich, I don't.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I don't really want one.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
I like it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I like burgers, but you know, I'm more of like
a Minetta Tavern, black Pipelburger type of person.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
So you've never been like an airport where like because
they always have the fucking like they have the local
fucking concession. That's some terrible fucking airport specific version, right,
I'm a big fan of You got the McDonald's, You've
got the Wendy's at the airport.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I've never been to Days. I've never been inside a Wendy's.
I've never been to Burger King.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
You've never been inside a wedding.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
I've never been inside a Burger King. I've never eaten
anything from either one of those establish men's never been
to Arby's. I have been to In and Out. I've
eaten an In and Out Burger, and I've eaten shake Shack.
But I went to shakeshaf course back when Shakeshack was
in the park. You know when the line was like
all all the way around. I you know, I still did.
(39:28):
That was before I lived in New York, you know,
I was. I was a teenager when it opened, and
I remember being so excited. I came to New York
and I stood in that line for I don't know
how long to get a shake shack, burger and concrete
and that was I think, yeah, that and in and
out is an in and out is I think more
(39:50):
more fast foody. That is the closest that I have
come to trying fast food burgers night five guys. I
tried five guys when five guys first came to New York.
Does that count?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
It's the higher end you got to get into, like
the like anything beyond like Wendy's is too high end. Right,
by the way, my own stock in Shake Shock because
I'm like, they get people, They get people like you,
Maria to eat fast food, and that seems like a
good business model, you know what I mean. People would
never be caught dead sitting foot to McDonald's, right, They're like, oh,
(40:24):
Shake Shock, this is this is premium. This is premium.
Have you had Chipotle?
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Yes, I have had Chippotle.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Okay, okay, I mean that's that's in the premium zone, sill,
I think, But like, yes, anyway.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I have had Chipotle, uh, and it was actually I
think Chipotle would be my go to if I had
to go to, like if I had to pick a
fast food place, I think Chipotle has the highest quality,
freshest ingredients out of out of the things, that.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Chipotle is the restaurant I've probably eaten at the most
times really in my life, right, yeah, because like I
used to like fucking play you know, when I left
my consulting job, I played poker online for a few years, right,
and I'd always, I don't know, I'd stay up all
night and then be like fucking famished in the afternoon.
I live like equidistant Chicago between like three Chipotles, and
(41:11):
so I would like diversify which are the three Chipotles
I went to? Just like going there so often that
it felt like a little bit, a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
All right, So we went from atoms to our fast
food ratings, from.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Our New England ratings to our fast food rating.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
So let's let's give Eric Adams a rating if you
were a fast food chain, what would be oh to
wrap this up.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Like what's I mean, maybe like a little So here's
here's irony. I don't think that New York City is
doing so badly at all, really, right, Our crime is
lower than incomparable cities. People have left. That part's not great,
but they've kind of left most of these cities. We
have a couple of new airports that have come online.
(41:58):
We got a congestion pricing and a lot of this
is not Adams is doing right, but you know, property
values are doing more than fine. Right, there are still
housing stortages. But like, yeah, if you ask people kind
of how is New York doing? I mean, people are
inherently grumpy in the United States, right, But like so
if people are punishing him for the for the corruption, yeah,
(42:20):
as a mayor, I don't know, it seems okay, right
if people people have trouble decoupling the personal stuff from
like the legislation government stuff, understandably all.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Right, So in total, then what would he be? Is
he a McDonald's, Is he a Wendy's? Is he at Chipotle?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
No, he's like a little you know, little mom and
pop Italian American place where they're still you know, they're
not gonna take credit cards still, Maria, Why why not? Well,
you know, maybe they're not paying their full a lotment
of taxes. Yeah, they have loyal customers. There's some special
rooms in the back. We're not quite sure what's going
on there. Right. The food's pretty good. You gotta stick
(43:01):
to the basics. You gotta stick to the chicken parm
you gotta get the fried netballs and things like that. Right.
You don't want to a venture too far, I feel,
but it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
So if we were going chain, then he would be
closest to like a siborro anti.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Oh my god, I've never eaten a fucking saborro. Well
it's Italian, Maria. I am a respector of Italian American cuisine.
Saborro is not meaningfully Italian.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Okay, okay, fair enough, All right, Well you heard it
here first, guys, Eric Adams, small mob and pop Italian.
Definitely not Soborro siborro.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Let us.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Know what you think of the show. Reach out to
us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. Risky Business
is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
And by me Nate Silver. The show was a cool
production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia,
Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our
executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, But once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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