Michael Barbaro (host)

And I'd like for this conversation to trace the arc of how you got to this moment, the forces, the ideas that made you the candidate, that first got into this race, the style of the campaign that transformed you from being, I think it's safe to say virtually unknown, into the winner of the primary.

for the Democratic nomination, and the way since that you have tried to broaden your appeal, answer your skeptics in this general election, and finally, of course, what it will look like if you do become mayor.

And somehow we're going to do that in an hour.

You grew up the son of a well-known filmmaker.

Your mother directed Denzel Washington, even.

Mississippi Missile?

Mississippi Missile.

Your father was a college professor who studied, among other things, apartheid and genocide.

As a young man, you become a college activist.

You're focused on progressive politics.

And when you graduate from college,

and start your career in the progressive world, you start to identify not as a Democrat, but as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

And given your bio, being a Democrat feels like it would have been a pretty natural home.

So just let me start by asking about what went into that decision, what you were embracing and what you were rejecting in that identification.

Right, and it's somewhat arbitrary.

So democratic socialism gives you a vocabulary to identify those injustices, those inequities, and say they don't need to be.

Democrats talk about many of the things that you just identified have for quite some time, right?

Childcare, healthcare, affordability.

And I think it's fair to say

that, and this I think was on display at your rally last night, that you have some real objections to the way traditional Democrats have operated.