Jon Stewart

The city's a bear for even the best manager.

There are real issues.

What's been your experience

meeting and reaching out with those that look at you existentially because we live in a culture now you're either a savior or the death of us all yeah so what's it like reaching out to that other group you know i don't begrudge new yorkers who are skeptical because they've also lived through tens of millions of dollars of commercials telling them to fear me

You know, they have lived through waking up every morning and seeing a photo of me and just feeling like, oh, my God, because the language that's written around me is as if I'm a threat to the city that they love.

And so when I meet with them, just the mere fact that I don't strangle them within 30 seconds is often a surprise.

So you're doing well based on the low bar that's been set.

And then I think it's an opportunity where, you know, I both can tell them the things that I will do and the things that I won't do, right?

I will freeze the rent.

I won't defund the police.

I will make buses fast and free.

I won't decriminalize misdemeanors.

I will deliver universal childcare.

I won't require everyone to eat halal food.

This is... This is... This sounds like a punchline.

This is literally... You just made news.

This is literally in a push poll to New Yorkers saying that I'm going to make halal mandatory.

And it's like, if you do want to eat halal, go to 34th Avenue and Steinway.

Go to Mahmoud's, but I'm not going to force you to go there.

You wouldn't force them, but you would describe it in such delicious terms that people would have a hard time.