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MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports November 5, 2025 3:32:07 p.m. EST KATY TUR: So, Jared, is it insane that a socialist mayor was elected here in the capitalist capital of the world? JARED BERNSTEIN: It's not insane, and, in fact, it happened. And it happened by a pretty wide margin. Look, there is a long and mistaken view that what's good for Main Street, or should I say what's good for Elmhurst or Brooklyn Heights, is bad for Wall Street. If this mayor-elect, Mamdani, is able to chip away at the affordability problem, if he's able to make childcare affordable for many more New Yorkers, that's going to be good for the New York City economy. And that's not just me engaging in wishful thinking. There's a great deal of research that shows if people can afford to go to work, your labor force increases and you have positive productivity impacts. So, this idea that making New York City more affordable somehow it makes it a tougher place for the very wealthy to get by, I think is just fundamentally wrong. Another thing to recognize is that the affordability agenda is not the same as the anti-inequality agenda. Yes, Mamdani would like to raise more funds, but he can also support something like a childcare program out of the budget as it exists. So, I think there's a lot of room here for the city to improve on affordability grounds and the rich to be okay. TUR: I wonder if the exodus out of New York is overblown or if it might happen. And, Henrietta, I'll ask you about this. There is an open letter to New York business leaders from Florida saying, ‘Come here, it's great down here.’ There was a move for many hedge funders and bankers to move to Palm Beach during the pandemic. But still, I mean, the city has a lot of billionaires, has a lot of millionaires, has a lot of big companies based here. We offer a whole lot more than Florida or Texas or anyone else has in terms of culture and opportunity and dining and plays. I mean, it is the cultural — one of the cultural capitals of the world, and you can't really — you can't copy it in other places, you can't find a lot of this in other places. So, when these millionaires and billionaires are talking about fleeing New York if Zohran Mamdani wins, do you see that as hyperbole or potentially — HENRIETTA TREYZ: No, I mean — TUR: — something that could happen? TREYZ: — I'm biased. I'm a new Yorker, so you don't need to convince me. I've already bought into that Kool-Aid. But I would say that a lot of these guys are my clients, and I've been working with them for 15, almost 20 years now. And the one thing that I admire most about hedge fund investors, investors generally, is that they can adapt to anything. This year alone, they've adapted to $3.5 trillion in deficit increases; $4 trillion worth of tariffs; the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner; the attempted firing of a Federal Reserve board member; and the government's been shut down for 35 days, and they've got no data to work with. They can adapt to all of this, and they can definitely adapt to Mamdani as mayor, particularly when you consider that they can elect somebody else for governor just in a couple months.
