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How Is Mamdani Doing?

Former Nation editor Don Guttenplan on how Mamdani is balancing pragmatism and principles as he deals with policing,Donald Trump and a tough budget.

Jeet Heer

March 17, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a “Rental Ripoff” hearing at Fordham University in the Bronx borough of New York on March 11, 2026. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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How is Mamdani Doing? w/ Don Guttenplan | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Former Nation editor Don Guttenplan is now bringing municipal politics to the magazine

with a weekly column tracking the progress of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. I spoke to Don

about how Mamdani is balancing pragmatism and principles as he deals with policing,

Donald Trump and a tough budget.

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Former Nation editor Don Guttenplan is now bringing municipal politics to the magazine with a weekly column tracking the progress of mayor Zohran Mamdani. I spoke to Don about how Mamdani is balancing pragmatism and principles as he deals with policing, Donald Trump and a tough budget.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

The Return of McCarthyism w/ Chris Lehmann / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

Republicans are plummeting in the polls in the lead-up to the midterm thanks to the unpopularity of the Iran War and the attendant inflation. As my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann has noted, in an attempt to shore up their fracturing base, the GOP has decided to label all Democrats as communist, a weird rhetorical move now being made by Donald Trump and his supporters. I talk to Chris about this strange and dangerous development.

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Subscribe to The Nation to Support all of our podcasts

Jeet HeerTwitterJeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.


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