Thanks so much for having us, Brian.

We're excited to have a chance to talk about this.

I'm Andrew, and I'm the dad, obviously, in in this, in this dyad.

And, uh, I, um, talked a lot about, yeah, it was so thrilled when Brian asked us to do this and Casey and I talked a lot about it and tried to figure out which of about, I don't know, 10 or 15 different kind of touchstone aesthetic artifacts or songs or objects like that we could start with and, and uses our main object.

And we batted around a bunch of ideas and then we ended up with, with this one, which I think we both thought, um, worked well as a kind of microcosm and just sort of an origin point, not chronologically, but just like a really interesting example.

So this band, Silver Jews, which hopefully lots of people know, but is still sort of somewhat of a fringe indie band, I first became aware of in the mid-1990s when I was a big fan.

fan of Pavement, which was, you know, one of the great indie bands of the 1990s, which I kind of fell hard for and then learned that they had a kind of connection to another band and that Stephen Malkmus from Pavement sang and played on this album by Silver Jews.

careers.

Hmm

... uh, with Dev and Anthony, coldest day of the year, and then ran to the Hell Gate parties, just so I could corner Will Menaker to try to get that vaunted Chapo bump.

Um, but no, I think the first video, um, I'm curious if you agree, Dev, I mean, you know, obviously, the, the marathon video did well.

The launch video did well, but it really was...

It was the, the video where Zarrin went out to, um, the Bronx and, um, Queens to talk to Trump voters on the street.

Um, especially in that moment where, where certainly the mainstream Democratic Party had, like, nothing but kind of nihilism and contempt for what had happened in the, in the election.

And, like, you know, 2024 was so different because it was not, it was not a r- election that was a result of all the undemocratic features of our system.

That's a cop-out answer a little bit, but, like, it's, it's, it's the only real one.

one of the key people who helped steer Mayor Mamdani's long-shot campaign, who talked to Democracy Now! just before he was sworn in the second time on the steps of City Hall about the significance of Mayor Mamdani's midnight swearing in.

My name is Andrew Epstein.

I was the communications director and later the creative director on Zoran's campaign for mayor.

I'm now an advisor.

And last night we were just below where we are right now in the old city hall station built in 1905, decommissioned in the 1940s when Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor because the trains got longer and the platform was too short.

But it remains beautifully intact in its original form.

Last night, the small number of guests and reporters were brought downstairs, waited on the platform, and a six train.

great filmmaker and the Columbia professor.

But first, this is Andrew Epstein, one of the key people who helped steer Mayor Mamdani's long-shot campaign, who talked to Democracy Now! just before he was sworn in the second time on the steps of City Hall about the significance of Mayor Mamdani's midnight swearing in.

in.My name is Andrew Epstein.

I was a communications director, and later the creative director, on, uh, Zoran's campaign for mayor.

I'm now an advisor.

And last night, we were just below where we are right now, in the old City Hall station, built in 1905, decommissioned in the 1940s when Fiorello La Guardia was mayor, because the trains got longer and the platform was too short.

But it remains beautifully intact in its original form.

Last night, uh, the, the small number of guests and reporters were brought downstairs, waited on the platform and, uh, a 6 train...

Columbia professor.

Um, can you say more about that and how that first video came to be?

be?Yeah, absolutely.

Um, you know, we launched the campaign October twenty-third, twenty twenty-four.

It's funny, the first video I think of is always the, when he ran the New York City Marathon, uh, a couple days before the presidential election.

Um, I'm running to freeze your rent.

He loves a, a visual pun.

Um, later we froze the rent by jumping in the water.

I thought that was a great video.

... to a question about that.

It's painful.

You know, it's, it's really painful, um, to have those accusations, terrible, terrible accusations leveled at, at you when they're not true, and they've never been true and they've never been who he is or what the spirit of this campaign has been about, which has always, in all of his politics, has been about universality.

Every single person deserves the same thing; freedom, justice, dignity, peace.

Everybody, no exception.

Um, that's been what's motivated his politics and to have that twisted into bigotry or hate against any group of people, to have that, um, and then to be relentlessly hounded about a very narrow set of questions-

Yeah.

...