Not too long ago, Brandon Johnson was virtually unknown to many Chicagoans. Now, he’s the 57th mayor of America’s third-largest city. His path to power, fueled by a markedly progressive campaign, was pretty unusual. Before taking the helm of Chicago, he was a school teacher, union organizer and county commissioner. Johnson, who lives on the West Side, has experienced his share of some of the city’s biggest issues. But perhaps one of his biggest challenges still lies ahead: leading the city amidst the numerous inherited issues including growing public safety concerns, persistent disinvestment and a downtown that’s emptier than before the pandemic. Johnson joins WITHpod to discuss his trajectory, what he envisions for Chicago, how he plans to turn his proposals into results and more.
Note: This is a rough transcript — please excuse any typos.
Brandon Johnson: You know, the people of Chicago have spoken, you know, in a very resounding way. You know, I came into this race virtually unknown. In fact, I announced my candidacy in Cabrini-Green, right behind the school that I was a teacher, you know, at. And, you know, it was great to be amongst friends who have seen me develop over time. And many of my former students actually attended, you know, my announcement.
And so, because we won, I want to make sure that we’re clear, as many people work to defy in this political season, that we do not have to shy away from our values. We certainly do not have to duck and run from, you know, the particular news outlet that wants to continue to brand our desire for justice and our love for people as some sort of extreme presentation.
And so, that part, the people of Chicago, again, have responded, I believe, in a very bold way. And so, the relationships that I am developing as a result of our win really is a testament to the organizing that played an incredible role in me becoming the mayor of the city of Chicago.
Chris Hayes: Hello, and welcome to “Why Is This Happening?” with me, your host, Chris Hayes.
You ever have a debate, if you’re a sports person you might have had this debate before, which is, like, what’s the hardest thing to do in sports? Hitting a baseball or playing quarterback in the NFL or being a goalie during penalty kicks in soccer. And you can sort of go back and forth on, like, well, what makes it harder physically, mentally, pressure-wise?
I think about that in the context of politics a lot. Like, what is the hardest job in politics? And I’ve got a pretty elaborate system of ranking in my head, which I won’t get into. But I feel quite certain that the toughest job is mayor of a large city.
There’s a bunch of reasons for that. In the case of Chicago recently, Lori Lightfoot was the mayor from 2019 and 2023, and she lost badly. Her reelection bid, I think, you know, got 16 percent or 17 percent of the vote in the first round. And there were all kinds of reasons that people really didn’t like the leadership of Mayor Lightfoot in Chicago.
But the context I kept thinking about was big city mayor is hard enough, big city mayor from 2019 to 2023 is, like, maybe the worst draw you could possibly get because, of course, you’re getting, you know, the heart of the pandemic there and shutting things down and making these very difficult decisions. And part of what makes mayor difficult, I think uniquely difficult, is that cities are, first of all, almost by definition, diverse, heterogeneous places with lots of different populations from different backgrounds coming from different perspectives. Right?
So, you’re, by definition, representing a set of constituents who have all kinds of different differences across all kinds of levels of difference. So, that makes it hard.
Then you’re also an executive, right? So, you’re not just a legislator. It’s not just like, you know, you vote this way or that or you have your little pet initiatives. Like, you got to make things run. And there’s a lot of city services that matter a huge amount to people’s lives, like whether the trash gets picked up, whether the streets get plowed. That level of management is hard.
And then sort of on top of that, the thing that I think really makes being a mayor difficult is that the challenges that any city faces, and particularly different populations within that city, tend to be produced and borne by a bunch of history and policy decisions made above the level of the city government.
Like, the degree of school segregation and housing segregation and intergenerational poverty, that has been produced in any given major city, not really chiefly by policy decisions made by a set of mayors, but chiefly by the nature of American society and the political decisions and social decisions that have been made at all different levels, right, through generations and sometimes centuries.
That has produced, though, challenges that then the mayor has to deal with. And so, I just think that being a mayor is really hard. And it’s particularly, I think, made more difficult by the post-COVID situation. And obviously, if you listen to the podcast, you know that, like, I’m a huge obsessive about cities and how great cities are.
And so today, we’ve got a very special guest, which is our first ever sitting mayor of a major city, Mayor Brandon Johnson, who’s the mayor of Chicago. Now, previous to winning his election, he served as a Commissioner for Cook County’s 1st District. Cook County is the county that’s slightly larger than Chicago and that county has its own government. There’s a county executive and a county board with the commissioners. He was a commissioner there.
Before that, he was a union organizer at the Chicago Teachers Union. Before that, he was a schoolteacher, and he grew up near Chicago.
He was a somewhat surprise upset because he rallied in a city that has long had a kind of legendary machine, right, the Daley machine, for two different bouts with the father and the son and this generational machine politics in Chicago.
Brandon Johnson is a very proud progressive. He comes from the left. He sort of rallied a kind of grassroots progressive movement in Chicago. He was able to defeat in the runoff Paul Vallas, who’s a very known quantity in Chicago who had run for governor before. He had been the head of the Chicago schools under Mayor Daley, actually, when I was living in Chicago.
It was a close win, but it was a real kind of insurgent grassroots versus the establishment dynamic. By and large, Vallas was the choice of, you know, the sort of upper echelon of Chicago corporations and CEOs and institutional players.
And now, Brandon Johnson, having won, has to be the mayor of a city that has all kinds of challenges. And I was just really, really excited that the mayor is willing to take some time to sit down with us.
So, Mayor Johnson, welcome to the program. How are you?
Brandon Johnson: Hey, I’m doing well. Thanks for asking. Thanks for having me on, by the way.
Chris Hayes: It’s been three weeks in office, is that right?
Brandon Johnson: That’s right, three weeks.
Chris Hayes: How are you feeling?
Brandon Johnson: You know, I feel really good. I’m excited about, you know, this incredible opportunity and journey that has led me to this position. I’m still very much in awe and deeply humbled by all of it. And, you know, there’s a great deal of energy in the city of Chicago right now where people feel, you know, incredibly good and positive about the work that we’ve done to unite the city around my candidacy and the work that we’re doing to unite the city around my governance.
Chris Hayes: I want to get into your background and your biography and sort of how you’ve come to this position. But even (ph) before doing that, I mean, the one thing I keep thinking, and it doesn’t matter, you know, what someone’s politics are, you know, where they’re coming from, what their background is, whenever I see someone running for mayor of a major American city, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, New York, I think to myself, man, that looks like a hard job.
And I just wonder like to be real, to be for real, for real, for real, was there like a knot in your stomach? Like, if I was going to bed on the night before the day I was going to be the mayor of the city of Chicago, I would be nervous. How are you processing that?
Brandon Johnson: So, honestly, you know, the night before inauguration, there were two important nights. There’s the night before the day I was inaugurated and then there’s the night of.
And so, I’m with my best friend in the world. It’s my wife. And, you know, before we go to bed, the night before the inauguration, we looked outside and we could see, you know, the downtown portion of the city from where we were staying that evening, that particular hotel. And we just looked at each other. We looked outside and we just laughed, you know, honestly, you know, because, you know, here you have, you know, two individuals that come from working-class families.
She’s an only child, grew up a Cardinals fan. I’m 1 of 10, I grew up a Cubs fan. Somehow, we managed to build our capacity together. And it’s just, we were just sort of overwhelmed by just the, I don’t know, the unlikeliness of all of it.
And then —
Chris Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Johnson: — the same thing happened, you know, after we left the inauguration People’s Ball, you know, where we go to bed, and this time we didn’t laugh.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, we kind of looked at each other and just asked ourselves: what did we just sign up for and what did we get ourselves into?
And we went to bed, and we woke up and all of the buildings were still standing and traffic was awful, which means that my first night in charge, everything was pretty much still the same.
Chris Hayes: I like the fact that you’re pointing out that the most unlikely part of this trajectory is not that a child of Chicago’s West Side has become the city’s mayor, but rather that a Cardinals and Cubs fan have fell in love with each other as the truly strange part of the story.
Brandon Johnson: That’s right. There you go. Exactly.
Chris Hayes: Speaking of which, tell me about where you’re from in Chicago, your upbringing.
Brandon Johnson: Yeah, so my father was a part of the Second Migration. As many people know, there were two big migrations from the South to the city of Chicago where Southerners were looking for, you know, opportunities in the North. And that Second Migration, most of the families landed, if you will, on the West Side of Chicago. And so, my family’s story wasn’t that much different.
Eventually, my grandmother went to the South Side of Chicago. Her brothers went up to Saginaw, and Pontiac and Detroit. But my father decided to raise us just outside of the city of Chicago, about 30 minutes west of the city. And at that time, it was a much smaller town, Elgin.
And just a working class, small village or city, much like many of the smaller towns around a major city where you have, you know, manufacturing jobs, you know, truck drivers, just, you know, the regular working class of the ’70s and ’80s.
And —
Chris Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Johnson: — you know, we spent a lot of time, you know, with family, of course, on the West and South Sides of the city of Chicago. But, you know, grew up in a family of nine siblings. My parents were also foster parents. Get this, my father was not only a truck driver at one point in his career, but he eventually became a public employee, a part of the AFSCME labor movement.
But he was, you know, a carpenter as well. That was sort of his side hustle, if you will. But he was also a pastor. And so, my father, who is a carpenter and a pastor, you know where I’m going with this, Chris, a lot of pressure when your dad is just like Jesus, raising us in this working-class community, three bedrooms, one bathroom, again with nine siblings, plus foster siblings growing up.
I certainly learned the value of faith and the value of having good negotiation skills to make sure that you can leave the house clean.
Chris Hayes: Was it a political household? How did you think about politics? How much did you talk about politics? Where’d you get your politics from?
Brandon Johnson: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you know, in retrospect, we very much were a political household. Yeah, I didn’t see it like that. But, you know, again, because my parents, you know, were pastors and active servants in the community, you know, I remember the long lines outside of my grandfather’s church because my grandfather was also a pastor, you know, where we would pass out, you know, the distribution of food that was made available by the government. Right?
And so, you know, I’m pretty sure you’ve, you know, have heard the reference over years, government cheese, the —
Chris Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Johnson: — peanut butter, the big can of meat. They called it pork. I don’t know if it actually was. But, you know, the raisins and flour, but my parents would distribute these resources, you know, once a month. But again, because they were also, you know, counselors and my father, again, was a part of the labor movement, at that time, the NAACP, you know, in the city of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs was quite active, especially during the ’80s, because those were the years that Ronald Reagan was in charge.
And so, what I’m ultimately getting at, that there were a lot of dynamics that were developing around me that I did not necessarily see as political acts, but they very much were because, as you know, the working class took a very hard hit during the Reagan eras and Reaganomics that, you know, never trickled down through communities.
I saw how my parents responded politically at that time. And I understood politics as service, that we are only as strong as the person or persons who are struggling the most. And that’s, you know, how my faith certainly emerged, where I understood that we have a greater responsibility one to another. But I also saw how the failures of the federal government at that time impacted state politics and local politics that pushed my parents into activation, which helped, you know, develop my sense of political service.
Chris Hayes: Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, for people that don’t know Chicago well, I mean, Chicago was a real manufacturing center, both in the city proper and around it. And as that deindustrialization happened, the sort of disappearance of work really hits Chicago really hard. I mean, you know, Detroit being sort of the other place you start to see this and these other big, you know, Midwestern cities, Cleveland.
But you can still see, I remember even when I was living in Chicago, like, there was still the steel plant until just a few years ago. In fact, Rod Blagojevich’s 2002 election night party was in the steel plant over there on Elston, you know —
Brandon Johnson: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — in the little —
Brandon Johnson: Yes.
Chris Hayes: — the little Goose Island. You know, you had a steel plant just in the middle of the city until very recently. Like, Chicago really felt and lived through deindustrialization in a kind of frontline way. And I wonder, just referencing that, your recollection, can you remember that transformation at some level or what you felt like the trajectory of your family and your neighbors was during this period?
Brandon Johnson: Yeah, I do, you know, remember it. And again, as a child, you know, you don’t always have the full context. You —
Chris Hayes: Right, of course.
Brandon Johnson: — just know that this doesn’t feel good and the energy in my home, the energy in, you know, throughout the neighborhood, that you knew that there was a real struggle, that there was a greater need to rely upon one another for a variety of things, just the basic necessities of life.
And, you know, historically, you know, families congregated together. So, you would live near cousins and aunts and uncles, right? And so, I remember there were times where I had cousins living with us. And at the time, you know, we just thought it was pretty cool to have your cousin who is close in age to you, you’re sharing a bedroom with, and you’re sharing sweaters and, you know, the one bathroom, and didn’t realize that it was because I had uncles and aunts who were unemployed.
Chris Hayes: Right.
Brandon Johnson: And quite frankly, I don’t think we talk enough about this, Chris, that in retrospect, we didn’t have all of the language we have now when it comes to mental health challenges.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Brandon Johnson: But, you know, I can specifically recall going to one of my cousin’s home when we took him back to get some more clothes because he was living with us. And I remember my aunt being in a dark room with the shades and the blinds closed and she wasn’t speaking. And at the time, we just thought that our aunt just didn’t want to be bothered with us. But she was going through this incredible depression, right? So —
Chris Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Johnson: — you know, the loss of employment, the loss of opportunities and the impact that that had on our mental health was just quite remarkable in retrospect that, somehow, we missed all of that.
But, yes, that deindustrialization certainly had profound impact on our local economies, but it also had a tremendous impact on our overall health, the lack of health care. You know, we would have this long orange extension cord from our window to a neighbor’s home so that we could have electricity.
And whenever I recall those moments, and you come home and your water’s not on and you open the refrigerator out of habit, but there wasn’t any food in there, that the number of individuals that would nod their head in agreement, like we remember those days, you know, coming through the ’80s and they were quite horrific. And definitely, it taught me an awful lot about what service means and how political acts can ultimately destroy homes and communities, and quite frankly, a generation because of the act or failures of government.
Chris Hayes: You became a teacher in the Chicago Public School system and then became very active in the union there. How did you sort of find that path? What was that calling?
Brandon Johnson: So, teaching, for me, that was always the job that I wanted. I didn’t know if I would ever find a pathway there just because, you know, the struggle of working and living and paying for college on your own was just an incredible lift, like many Americans and particularly, you know, those of us who are part of the first generation of family members to actually graduate from college.
And when it became clear that the best pathway for me to actually fulfill my ultimate desire of becoming a public school teacher was through borrowing a lot of money as student loans, that’s the route that I took. And I’d sometimes tease that, you know, having to borrow, you know, over $100,000 for someone to tell you what a comma splice was, you know, I certainly know what one is now, but, you know, all the work that you have to go through just to secure an education in this country, which could be a separate conversation, you know, it’s quite taxing, literally.
And, you know, once I fulfilled that goal of becoming a teacher, it was really the dream job that I’ve always sought after.
Chris Hayes: I want to sort of transition to some of the challenges that the city of Chicago faces in all cities. Honestly, I think it’s a fascinating and difficult and exciting time to be the mayor of a big city. But just to sort of finish out this trajectory, you talked a little bit about your experience and the kind of community life of the household.
Like, the politics you have, you’re very embedded in progressive movements. You were endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders. You had sort of rallied a lot of progressive union folks and left folks in Chicago. Like, where did that form of politics, progressive politics, start to kind of form in your mind as like, that’s what I am, that’s the cause that I’m down for?
Brandon Johnson: That’s a great question, you know, and you don’t really think about how your politics develop or emerge often, you know, but for me, I’ve been more reflective about that.
And I think about, you know, how my father interpreted the gospel, you know, my father, before he was a pastor, he was an incredible Sunday school teacher at my grandfather’s church, and how he understood liberation through the lens of equity.
And, you know, most people will be familiar with two fish and five loaves of bread, right? If someone had two fish and five loaves of bread now, they would start a business and they would have, like, this incredible, you know, plan to make a whole lot of money off of that. Right?
You know, my development politics, you know, really is through the lens of, you know, what many people would refer to as Black liberation theology, but also, you know, this real idea of what it means to serve one another.
You know, I remember growing up in the ’80s and my father would lead Sunday school. My mother would spend time with young people. And we would spend a lot of time in the city of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, gathering young people together for many different just activities, just to keep people engaged.
And so, through all of those activities, you were always raised or taught to share, to lean on one another, to prefer someone’s comfortability, even over your own. Right? And so, I mean, I know many people would use certain terms to try to demonize those efforts, right, where, you know, you have those on the alt-right or just even some folks within the Democratic Party, you know, that might look at someone like Bernie Sanders, you know, as this sort of socialist idea that is like the antithesis to what development really needs to look like. Right?
And so, when I think about sharing and distribution of wealth and challenging those at the very top, like Nicodemus, right, that there was a responsibility that you had as a wealthy person to do right by people. And so, it’s through the act of service, it’s through my own faith.
And then I would say, finally, when I became a public school teacher here in Chicago, and I was teaching in Cabrini-Green, USA, where many people are aware of the story and the history around this incredible community. This is a community that my aunt, who was also a Chicago Teachers Union member, she was a teacher’s assistant, and my cousins grew up to become CTU members as well, but they were being raised in Cabrini-Green.
And by the time I was teaching there, my students would wake up every morning, Chris, and out of their back windows, they could see one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the entire world, Downtown Chicago, but out of their front windows they had bulldozers staring them down every single day.
And so, you literally have these economies, multiple economies that exist in one city, where those who have get more and those without, what we do have is taken away from you. So, in other words, my students will wake up in the morning, like all families, many families in Chicago, where they would chase down an economy that’s behind them from the back window while everything in front of them was crumbling. Right? And that’s the tale of two cities that you’re articulating. That’s something that I’ve lived through and experienced.
And so, my politics, quite frankly, emerged out of my faith, out of my upbringing, but out of my real experiences of seeing how austerity budgets, neoliberal politics that shuttered schools, that privatized education, that shutdown public housing and, somehow, we were supposed to be okay with that. And I wasn’t.
And so, that’s what caused me to not just see my role as an educator as a part of this longer continuum of justice, but my role as an organizer, as a role to ultimately see justice prevail.
Chris Hayes: So, I think that nicely segues into sort of how you transition critique into governing, right, which is the Brandon Johnson challenge now, right? Because one of the reasons that I think being a mayor strikes me as a particularly difficult job, although particularly a rewarding one, is that many of the problems and challenges that a city like Chicago faces are the product of both decades of accrued social policy and also policy at levels way beyond the mayoralty.
And there are obviously choices that mayors in Chicago have taken. But even when you talk about CHA, that of course, it was federal public housing. It was managed through this local board. You know, the plan for transformation was a project in D.C. that was partnered in Chicago.
There’s all sorts of entities, institutions, private businesses, and levels of government that through the years have created the problems that the modern city faces, right, inequality, segregation, deindustrialization, lack of opportunity, ghettoization in terms of how redlining has worked and the construction of highways.
And then as mayor, you come in and all these things, like, you didn’t build the highways, you didn’t knock down the CHA, but now it’s all yours. Now, you got to figure it out.
So, I guess the first thing I want to know is, when you talk about this tale of two cities, and obviously it was a strongly contested election, what is your relationship with the establishment of Chicago, of, you know, the local big CEOs, the big employers, the folks that, by and large, were behind your opponent, Paul Vallas, and that I know personally, as having been a reporter in Chicago and lived there, are powerful people in that town.
Like, it’s not that —
Brandon Johnson: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — big a world. And they’re powerful whether you like it or not, right? Like, they do employ a lot of people. They do have a lot of say. There is a lot of, sort of, money and cultural attaché and institutional heft there. And I’m curious what that relationship is like right now.
Brandon Johnson: Well, first of all, we won. Right? And so, you know, that’s something that I’m very humbled by. And the people of Chicago have spoken, you know, in a very resounding way.
You know, I came into this race virtually unknown. In fact, I announced my candidacy in Cabrini-Green, right behind the school that I was a teacher, you know, at. And, you know, it was great to be amongst friends who have seen me develop over time. And many of my former students actually attended my announcement.
And so, because we won, I want to make sure that we’re clear, as many people work to define (ph) this political season, that we do not have to shy away from our values. We certainly do not have to duck and run from the particular news outlet that wants to continue to brand our desire for justice and our love for people as some sort of extreme presentation. And so, that part, the people of Chicago, again, have responded, I believe, in a very bold way.
And so, the relationships that I am developing as a result of our win really is a testament to the organizing that played an incredible role in me becoming the mayor of the city of Chicago. And so, I think the irony in some of this is that many of the individuals that I actually protested and organized against are attaching themselves to my administration.
And what people know about me, especially those who know me and the people who have worked with me, whether they agree with me or not, they know that I know what it’s like to live in a house with limited resources and having to figure out how to survive. And because people know that about me, they know that I’m a good listener. And so, those relationships are developing.
And look, we won without them in many instances where these forces spent resources not just to defeat our larger progressive movement. These were also individuals who were in charge of the city during a time in which they had an opportunity to move in a different direction.
And so, these are individuals who funded efforts to take away people’s retirement security. These were individuals that cut deals with other, you know, private entities that said that they can educate children better, and they didn’t. You know, these are the same individuals who’ve been in charge of our economy for an entire generation now, at least for the last 40, 45 years. And what have we gotten as a result of them being in charge?
And so, if anyone would suggest that somehow our movement that has led to my ascension is problematic, then they’re obviously not looking in the mirror. Right? And so, what I’ve said repeatedly is that there’s enough room for everybody and that the table is big enough for everyone. And that includes, you know, the 80-year-old woman who survives off of her pension and the corporate CEO that makes 300 or 600 times more than the woman who is surviving off of a pension.
Chris Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Johnson: That’s the difference between me and those who’ve been in charge before. Those who’ve been in charge before have constantly capitulated to their extreme interests. My leadership is about bringing everyone together. And that’s the difference that the people of Chicago are experiencing right now.
Chris Hayes: You’re a busy man and you’re a mayor, so I don’t want to take too much time today. So, I thought the best way to do this (ph), I want to focus on just two areas of the sort of challenge. And the first is public safety, because obviously that was front and center in the debate that was happening between you and Paul Vallas, particularly about, sort of, different theories of the case.
So, first let’s start on that. And then I want to talk a bit about education. But starting on public safety, I guess, I want to start with how you think about public safety, particularly because you live in Austin now. Am I right?
Brandon Johnson: I live in Austin. Yes, that’s the West Side of Chicago.
Chris Hayes: Yeah. And for folks that don’t know Chicago, you know, Austin is not the neighborhood the mayor lives in.
(LAUGHTER)
I think it’s fair to say, like, you know, Austin is a predominantly Black neighborhood. It’s on the West Side of Chicago. It has experienced high levels of interpersonal violence through the years. Obviously, that’s not the defining trait of the neighborhood. It’s a thriving community in many ways and a place with an incredible and rich history. But it is not an affluent, you know, professional neighborhood. That is not what Austin is. That’s the neighborhood you live in.
And I would like you to just talk about how you think about the challenge of public safety in the city of Chicago, particularly interpersonal violence, and how important it is to you and how you think about why it has gotten worse in the last few years, particularly ’20 and 2021.
Brandon Johnson: Well, thank you for raising this important issue. I mean, public safety is something that is top of mind for every single person who lives in the city of Chicago. And quite frankly, it’s a challenge for people across America. Right?
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Brandon Johnson: You know, the city of Chicago is not the only place in America where violence has spiked, especially over the last couple of years. But as it pertains to the neighborhood that I’m raising my family in, my wife and I, you know, we love Austin. It’s a beautiful place. We love it.
And, you know, it is one of the most violent neighborhoods in the entire city. In fact, you know, Chris, I would argue, and I don’t think I even have to argue, but I’m the first mayor in the city of Chicago’s history to wake up every single day in one of the most violent neighborhoods in the entire city.
And so, you know, this might sound a little you know, heavy-handed or maybe even perhaps a little bit audacious, but you know, I would argue though that no one thinks about public safety more than I do.
Chris Hayes: Well, that’s what I’m getting at.
Brandon Johnson: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: Like you, I mean, again, and I don’t want to be like, Austin’s an amazing and rich place, so I don’t want to do this thing of like, it’s —
Brandon Johnson: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: — you know, it’s this bad neighborhood, you know, because that happens so much in Chicago. And it drives me crazy because so much of Chicago is so complex, and beautiful, and deep, and also parts of it have very high levels of violence. And Austin’s one of those neighborhoods.
And like, when we have this discussion at the national level, it’s like, you’re a dad, like, you have your family there and you know people that have witnessed gun violence, that have been touched by it, that have lost loved ones. Like, you know firsthand what that does to a community.
Brandon Johnson: Absolutely. And look, my youngest, my daughter, she’s 8, my middle child is 11 and our oldest is 15, and life is different for us now. But, you know, prior to me becoming mayor, you know, having to negotiate when your sons and your daughter ride their bike and —
Chris Hayes: Right (ph).
Brandon Johnson: — where they ride their bikes, you know, these are dynamics that I deal with every single day.
And in fact, you know, it’s an important note, over the last few years, there have been more homicides in the neighborhood that I’m raising my family in, in Austin, over the course of these last few years than many of the other more affluent neighborhoods in the city of Chicago combined. Right?
Chris Hayes: Yeah (ph).
Brandon Johnson: I mean, I believe in the last few years, we’re —
Chris Hayes: Oh, I’m sure.
Brandon Johnson: — talking well over 300, you know, homicides, murders just in my neighborhood. And so, when you ask about how I think about this and how I approach it, I approach it through the lens of someone who is living it every single day. And what that looks like is that we have had real failed strategies over the course of decades now, you know, where, you know, the so-called tough on crime era did not lead to safer communities. In fact, it exacerbated, you know, many of the challenges that have gone unaddressed. Right?
And so, what I’ve said repeatedly and what we’ve already begun to implement in my first three weeks is that we have to have a layered approach, and everyone has to participate in investing in public safety. That’s what we do in safe American cities, we invest in people.
And, you know, whether it’s making sure that, you know, we are training and promoting more detectives so that we can actually solve the violent crimes that do take place, investing in mental health services. I think roughly 40 percent of the 911 calls that come through in the city of Chicago are mental health crises, right, 60 percent of the violence that actually takes place in the city of Chicago, it occurs in 6 percent of the city.
And what I’ve looked at since I’ve been mayor, I mean, we can break it all the way down to districts and by beats. And so, what I’ve —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Brandon Johnson: — implemented is a smart strategy where we deploy law enforcement in the strategic places that are necessary while also investing in programming. We’ve experienced this already where businesses and corporations have stepped up to invest resources in not just after school programs, but also, we are committed to youth employment, not just for summer opportunities but year-round opportunities. Right?
So, it’s a holistic approach to investing in public safety. And that’s not just simply policing and law enforcement. Again, that’s our business community, our social service agencies, that’s the full force of government, all converging at the same time to make sure that we are providing, again, a holistic approach of how we keep our community safe.
Chris Hayes: You just mentioned something there that’s interesting. I did a town hall in Chicago in 2017, down at the South —
Brandon Johnson: I remember that.
Chris Hayes: — Shore Cultural Center.
Brandon Johnson: Yeah.
Chris Hayes: And at that point, the then-president had made it a real, you know, target of his sort of rhetoric and, you know, this really, in my view, really disgusting and (ph) racist stuff about Chicago and, you know, how they’re all killing each other there.
And one of the things that struck me, I remember being in the room and we talked about the homicide clearance rate of the CPD. Now, I forget what the number was at the time, but it was low and it had gone down over the years. You just talked about hiring more detectives. And I remember everyone in the room knew the homicide clearance rate. They knew the number, and it was the right number. Everyone in the room yelled out the number, and it was the right number.
It’s always stuck (ph) with me that the idea that murder goes unsolved as a festering wound, both a sort of psychic trauma but also from just the basic standpoint of law, justice, accountability, that, like, before anything has happened, you have to say, like, that person killed the person that I love. That’s the person that did it.
How important do you think that is since you mentioned the detective part? As a law enforcement part of this layered approach, how important do you think that is?
Brandon Johnson: You know, training and promoting more detectives is incredibly important for the morale of the city of Chicago. And you know, look, the number has fluctuated a bit, but it’s as low as 17 percent, but it doesn’t get much higher than 22 percent overall in terms of clearance.
And, you know, Chris, I’ve sat with mothers in particular who have lost loved ones to gun violence. And many of these women are turning their pain, and this is the name of an organization, literally turning their pain into purpose. And part of the struggle is just having some closure, you know, to the loss of life that has impacted an entire community. And it’s impacted the city of Chicago in a profound way.
You know, Chris, I can’t tell you, man, how much pain and sorrow and grief we’ve experienced in the city of Chicago. And making sure that we are actually solving violent crimes, I believe that that actually works as a deterrence. Right? And so it is important, but it’s not the only strategy and solution, right?
As I said before, we are putting hundreds of millions of dollars now into violence prevention and intervention and disruption. And we’re already seeing the dividends of that.
I mean, there’s been a lot of mischaracterization of our young people in the city of Chicago. And of course, do we have individuals that have lived out their pain in the most violent ways? Of course. But the vast majority of our young people need and want opportunities. They want mental health support. They also want, again, job opportunities as well.
We also have, you know, a dynamic in the city that has gotten out of control, and we’re seeing this around the country. But the fact that we have 65,000 individuals that are unhoused, of which 20,000 of them are young people, are students who attend our Chicago Public Schools.
You know, so having this comprehensive approach where we create an alternative to 911 so that when mental health crises occur, we have mental health crises professionals to show up, that we are deploying constitutional policing strategically, and responding to, you know, where disinvestment has run amok for a generation now. And now, we have the outbreak and the consequence of that to live with and actually solve.
Chris Hayes: More of our conversation after this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: I just want to just talk about the sort of layered approach. I mean, obviously, when talking about sort of levels of interpersonal violence and crime, right, there’s different levels you can talk about it, right?
So, like, it’s obviously the case, I think, and I think you would agree, and most would agree is, like, if you just had a magic wand and you can say like, do you want a society to be richer or poorer? Do you think that will produce less or more crime? It’s like, we all have a sense like, yes, literally (ph), you know, yes, if you had a society in which, like, everyone had a job, there was no poverty, would that have less crime? Certainly.
And then at the micro level, though, there are trends. Right? There was incredibly high homicide rates that came down during the 1990s; quite famously in my city of New York, I mean, from 2,400 homicides a year to 350, an amazing and enormous drop.
What is your understanding of what happened? Because when you talk about these other programs, you talk about youth employment programs or mental health counseling, a lot of that went away during the pandemic.
I mean, it seems to me like this is a big part of the story. I wonder how much you think about that as part of the story of what happened here, which was all the different layers that might keep a teenager connected to sociality, who might make them feel loved or protected or have someone to complain to or a place to express, a lot of that just was gone for two years.
Brandon Johnson: Yeah, you’re right. You brought this up earlier in our conversation and I did skip past this when you asked, you know, essentially the impetus behind, you know, my candidacy and my work and how I see violence in the city of Chicago and, you know, what ultimately are the causes of this violent uptick that we’re seeing, not just in the city of Chicago but around the country. And the pandemic did play a role in the increase of violence.
And I believe there’s a lot of, you know, sociologists and psychologists and, you know, other critical thinkers that have drawn some conclusions from that. And I think that there are some things that are quite obvious is that the severity of poverty in this country was certainly highlighted and exposed during the pandemic.
And couple that with how isolating and debilitating poverty is in this country, and certainly lives out in the city of Chicago, that that exacerbated, essentially, what was already there. And that was a great deal of tension and frustration that had gone untreated.
And now, we’re seeing the manifestation of the outbreak of that untreated trauma. And that’s why, again, you know, we have to have smart policing. We have to solve violent crimes in the city of Chicago.
And if we’re not layering it with the type of investments to help mitigate many of the circumstances, quite frankly, that I inherited, I didn’t create them. But now to the point that you made earlier, it’s mine now. And what I’ve said repeatedly and I’m going to continue to say, it’s ours. It’s all of ours to solve. And not one individual in the city of Chicago or this country can solve, you know, these ailing problems and conditions.
But one other thing that I think is important to note, and this is no judgment against how violence has been interrupted or reduced in other cities. Keep in mind, though, I mean, this might be four or five years old now, but the average price of a home in New York is, what, $1.1 million? The average price of a home in Los Angeles is, what, $700,000, $800,000, right? And, you know, that’s not the case here in the city of Chicago.
And so, what I’m conscious of, that by layering our approach towards public safety and investing in a holistic approach, bringing the full force of government, I’m cognizant of the fact that public safety and having thriving communities cannot come at the expense of working people. Right?
And so, making sure that we’re investing in public housing, affordable housing, a pathway to home ownership, that we’re investing in all of our public accommodations, that’s transportation, that’s also investing in green technology, making sure that the vacancy that has expanded downtown, that we are attracting businesses that ultimately will hire young people not just for summer positions but year-round positions. This holistic approach has to be administered in the city of Chicago in order to create a better, stronger, safer Chicago, but also a better, stronger, safer, affordable Chicago.
Chris Hayes: The point is well taken, which is that, you know, to the extent places get safer, they become more attractive for people who are moving to the neighborhood and can price people out and move people out and end up sort of disrupting the neighborhood such that the people who would have borne the fruits of the stability are not able to enjoy that because they can’t afford to enjoy it now.
Brandon Johnson: That’s right.
Chris Hayes: When you talk about these resources though, I mean, you know, the ARP had tons of money for cities, thank God. It had tons of money for public transportation systems, even more importantly, and in fact, headed off what would have been essentially cataclysmic financial catastrophe for every major public trans system, you know, in the country. That money is going away now.
So, when you talk about resources, like that ARP money is going away. The CTA is going to, I imagine, have a structural deficit. I know the MTA here in New York is going to have, like, how do you think about where those resources are going to come from facing this sort of post-ARP cliff?
Brandon Johnson: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that because it was highly debated and contested during my campaign.
Chris Hayes: Yes. I’m familiar.
Brandon Johnson: Where, you know, everyone was somewhat shocked that you had someone running for office laying out a plan for budgeting.
And I’m grateful that we decided to do that, you know, because it sent a strong signal, again, as I said before, particularly as those of us who identify as progressives or those of us who might be considered left of left, however you want to categorize us (ph). You know, again, we don’t have to apologize for our values. The mess that we’re living in right now is because of, you know, the so-called other individuals who may not identify as progressives. They’ve been in charge, and they have not done a good job at protecting the interests of working people.
And so, you know, I’ll say what President Biden said is that, you know, a teacher and a firefighter should not pay the same tax rate as a millionaire or a billionaire. And, you know, I teased during my, you know, campaign. I’m like, it looks like President Biden saw my budget plan.
You know, this is fundamental to the work that we get to do in the city of Chicago is that, again, there’s more than enough for everyone in this city. You know, the city of Chicago has one of the largest economies in the world.
You know, Chris, I was a Cook County commissioner just a couple of months ago. Many people don’t talk much about local government, and certainly, they don’t talk much about their county board or their board of supervisors. But Cook County government, as you know, is one of the largest economies in the world as well —
Chris Hayes: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Johnson: — 5.2 million people, you know, passing the (ph) multibillion-dollar budgets. And you had the ruling class, if you will, or large corporations and CEOs wanted to cast me as someone who can’t manage multibillion-dollar budgets. And here I am as a local official doing just that.
And so, you know, we’ve looked at a number of things. There’s what we are calling the movement, Bring Chicago Home, you know, where we’re calling for an increase in the real estate transfer tax. I know our sister, Karen Bass, moved on a policy like that in Los Angeles. And I know there’s some litigation that’s taking place right now as a result of it. But it’s very clear that there’s revenue in our major cities that we have not drawn on.
And so, whether it’s financial transaction taxes, jet fuel taxes, I mean, you have, you know, the large airline industries that are polluting the air, right, and all so that we can move our economy globally. And they’re not being asked to contribute to how we actually create clean air, clean water, and clean land and a safe, healthy environment. So, we’ve looked at a number of dynamics of how we can generate revenue.
The part that I’m actually most encouraged by is that, when the state of Illinois fought for a progressive income tax for the entire state, which would have raised billions of dollars for the entire state, that tax was defeated by one particular individual who spent more money to defeat it than he would have had to pay had the tax actually been implemented.
But here’s the part that’s fascinating. Even though the state rejected it, 71 percent of Chicagoans said, yes, we should have a progressive structure where the wealthy or those with means should contribute a little bit more for public safety, for public education, for transportation.
So, I mean, everything is on the table at this point. I’ve made a commitment not to rely upon property taxes as a way to generate revenue, because that in and of itself has been detrimental to the stability of our local economies as well as our neighborhoods.
So, we’re going to work hard with the city council as well as the state of Illinois to find the revenue that’s needed in order to have a better, stronger, safer Chicago.
Chris Hayes: But what I hear from you is that some taxes are going to go up?
Brandon Johnson: Look, here’s the part that I’ve also said repeatedly, because my opponent kept saying, you know, Brandon wants to raise your taxes. And I’ve always said, look, you can’t run one of the largest economy with a bake sale.
I mean, I can’t stand outside on the West Side of Chicago and expect snow cone sales to go up, and that’s how we’re going to fund our schools. And no disrespect to the snow cones on the West Side or South Side of Chicago. In fact, we have some of the best street vendors, which I’m not looking to regulate that necessarily (ph). I don’t want anyone to panic.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, but that is not how you’re going to run an economy. And so, yes, the wealthy in this city, and quite frankly, the wealthy in this country, have to contribute more to a society in which they’ve benefited so much from.
Chris Hayes: We’ll be right back after we take this quick break.
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Chris Hayes: Since we’re on this, I want to stay on this for a second. And then I can let you go. I’m not going to keep you too long. We could even save education for another day because I think this is important.
The sort of most scaremongering rap about you is this, and I’m just going to give it to you so you can respond.
(LAUGHTER)
Brandon Johnson: I’m laughing because I know what it is. But go ahead —
Chris Hayes: Right. So —
Brandon Johnson: Sure.
Brandon Johnson: — it’s basically, and I should be very clear that it is impossible to separate from race fundamentally, I just want to put that out there up front (ph), right, you’re a Black man. You’re the second Black mayor of the city of Chicago. It’s a city with an incredibly fraught racial history. Everyone should just go read books about Mayor Harold Washington in 1983 and the Council Wars.
But basically, the idea is it’s already hard enough coming out of COVID, right? There’s already this huge problem, right? This huge challenge, which is work from home, maybe downtown’s getting sort of depopulated, a decline in commercial real estate.
The fear is some sort of downward spiral. Right? You start trying to raise taxes. That drives out businesses. That drives out investment. People leave, downtown becomes more abandoned. The tax base shrinks. It becomes harder to pay for services. Crime goes up. You know, this is the standard sort of story.
It’s a story people have told, I think, somewhat cartoonishly about some cities in the 1980s, because I think it misses a lot, but that is the version. And there are elements of it that are genuine challenges, like keeping a tax base, like thinking about how the Loop looks if people don’t have to commute into it every day and commercial real estate goes away.
So, like, how are you thinking about that sort of holistic problem, right, which is like Chicago thriving in this new world we’re in, whatever it looks like, where some of the old rules, right, which is like, oh, there’s the major company headquartered here and a bunch of people have to commute into it and they support the businesses downtown. If all that sort of goes away or we’re in some new world, like, how are you thinking about the city continuing to thrive?
Brandon Johnson: Yeah, so first of all, the fact that you’ve made that your last question is really unfair, Chris, by the way.
(LAUGHTER)
But it’s a really good question, right, because, you know, and thank you for naming it, you know, a Black man executive in a major city, there are forces that want to characterize me or the fact that this is the package —
Chris Hayes: Yep.
Brandon Johnson: — that is leading the city of Chicago as some sort of symbol, or example, or a sign of some sort of doomsday.
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Brandon Johnson: The part that’s actually, you know, quite disturbing about that is not just simply of that racist characterization, it’s the fact that we’ve had something, quote/unquote, opposite of that. And you have a greater separation between those who have and those who do not in the history of the world. Right?
As a social studies teacher, certainly, you know, I’m familiar with the Gilded Age. And I don’t want to bore your listeners and put people to sleep. Because I know, as soon as I said social studies teacher, people started to nod off.
But when you think about just the horrific challenges that we’ve had in America and as a society, with individuals who have been seen as the type of leader that people want and how their leadership has failed our economy over and over and over again, it’s not only disturbing for the characterization of a Black man leading a major city as a doomsday, it’s just as disruptive and disturbing to think that the only type of leader who can do that is someone who’s actually failed doing that. And that was the person that I beat.
With that being said, what folks are not reporting on, and because my actions will always speak louder than my words, is that we’ve already had many business leaders and corporate leaders step up and put money into violence prevention.
We have a number of individuals that we’re speaking with on a regular basis about locating their businesses in the heart of the city and not just downtown but also within the neighborhoods that there’s a great deal of excitement that people see and feel in the city of Chicago because of not just my candidacy and my ascension to the office but because of my ability to bring people together.
And, you know, what I can say emphatically though about just that characterization is, you know, not only is it racist and wrong, is that this country, and particularly the city of Chicago, has proven the naysayers wrong every time someone tried to say or attempt to characterize us as anything less than the greatest city in the world. And I’m confident, right, that we’re going to bring new forms of industry into the city of Chicago. And the point that you were making, it’s going to look different than our grandfathers or our grandmothers, right? I mean, this is a different economy and it’s a different political system that we’re in right now.
And so, closing the gap between the fifth floor and everyday residents, that’s a major part of my organizing effort to make sure that people know that government truly works for the people and that you don’t have to have, you know, a society where the only people who benefit from government are those who continue to benefit from government.
And so, yes, I’m excited about the corporations of biotech, and life sciences, and manufacturing jobs and logistics that can be housed in our downtown corridors, but also the small businesses that, as you know, in the city of Chicago where you have second and third generation people —
Chris Hayes: Yeah.
Brandon Johnson: — running businesses that have been, you know, staples for communities across the city.
And so, look, that’s the work that I have. That’s the challenge that we’ve had to overcome in this city and this country for a very long time. And I’m confident that just like a generation ago was able to overcome not only the dismissive nature of that characterization but the racist characterization of that presentation, that we’re going to certainly continue to bring people together and make sure that, again, that there will be more than enough for everyone.
Chris Hayes: Fifth floor of City Hall is where the Mayor’s Office is and where Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago is speaking to me now, if your backdrop is to be believed, unless that’s some sort of home studio that got erected in your home in Austin.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is the new mayor of Chicago, recently sworn in. And everyone who loves Chicago, which includes me and a lot of people that I love, are rooting for your success. Thank you, Mayor.
Brandon Johnson: Well, thank you very much. I look forward to coming back.
Chris Hayes: Once again, huge thanks to Mayor Johnson for taking some time with us. Obviously, he’s really busy and would love to hear your thoughts. Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHPod, email WITHPod@gmail.com. And as always, be sure to follow us on TikTok by searching for WITHPod.
“Why Is This Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Donny Holloway and Brendan O’Melia, engineered by Bob Mallory and featuring music by Eddie Cooper.
You can see more of our work including links to things we mentioned here by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.
Tweet us with the hashtag #WITHpod, email WITHpod@gmail.com. Follow us on TikTok by searching for WITHpod. “Why Is This Happening?” is presented by MSNBC and NBC News, produced by Doni Holloway and Brendan O’Melia, engineered by Bob Mallory and features music by Eddie Cooper. You can see more of our work, including links to things we mentioned here, by going to nbcnews.com/whyisthishappening.