(NEW YORK) — He proposed free crosstown buses. He pushed for steep tax hikes on the wealthy—including an 18.5% property tax increase— insisting none of his rich friends threatened to leave the city over higher taxes. He championed millions to build supermarkets in long-neglected neighborhoods.
And under his plan, city workers could give privately raised cash to New Yorkers booking dental appointments or keeping their children in school.
These progressive policies, however, are not from New York City’s Democratic nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Experts said they were from Michael Bloomberg, New York’s billionaire former Republican mayor and a prominent supporter of Andrew Cuomo’s run for mayor.
As Mamdani reshapes the city’s political map, some experts told ABC News a striking parallel is emerging. Behind the labels of “socialist” and “technocrat,” both men share aligned goals: taxing the rich during crises, promoting expansive transit ideas, and bold plans to bring fresh food to low-income communities. Still, experts said, even when policies overlap, most New Yorkers do not see them as similar.
They point out many people know Mamdani as an organizer who has posted that capitalism is a form of theft; Bloomberg as a businessman who built a fortune managing the free market that Mamdani is critiquing. Mamdani identifies himself as a democratic socialist and has stated, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.” Bloomberg is one of the richest people in the world.
Neither Mamdani nor Bloomberg provided statements to ABC News.
Mamdani recently acknowledged in a private meeting with business leaders that he hopes to emulate Bloomberg on a few issues — even as he draws fire from many in the business community, sources familiar told ABC News.
“There’s a resistance from a lot of powerful forces … And it doesn’t have to do with Mamdani’s politics, it has to do with the fact that he doesn’t come from them,” Democratic strategist Peter Feld told ABC News.
Bloomberg spent $8 million backing Cuomo’s failed bid to become the Democratic nominee for mayor.
“If you said which of these things go together, you probably wouldn’t pick Bloomberg and Mamdani,” Christine Quinn, the former city council speaker who helped Bloomberg pass key policies, told ABC News. “But when you peel away at the onion, there’s a lot of similarities.”
Free buses
As early as 2007, Bloomberg spoke about his public transit goals.
During his 2009 re-election campaign, Bloomberg proposed making some Manhattan crosstown buses free of charge. An archived screenshot from his campaign website states, “The MTA should eliminate fare collection…”
At a campaign event, he called the MTA “bloated” and “inefficient.”
The New York Times contrasted observers calling the proposal “radical,” and a Regional Plan Association official saying it “captured people’s imaginations.”
A Mamdani campaign pillar calls for free fares on all bus lines. After piloting a fare-free program on five lines as an assemblymember, Mamdani compared it to Kansas City and Boston’s free programs. Cuomo’s bus plan for mayor includes evaluating the “expansion of a fare-free bus pilot program” that Mamdani championed, and expanding a 50% discount on public transportation for low-income residents.
Regional Plan Association’s Kate Slevin, who served in city government under Bloomberg, said she “can’t remember other mayoral candidates” with a similar plan for free buses. Slevin told ABC News, “When it comes to fares, those are the only two I can remember.”
After Bloomberg won, a transportation website reported he removed the proposal from his website. The plan was never implemented.
Both men faced criticism over feasibility – the MTA controls bus fares.
Mamdani has not publicly highlighted Bloomberg’s old bus proposal, but he’s aware of at least one Bloomberg transportation initiative: in a recent video about expanding dedicated bus lanes, he said, “It’s not a new proposal, Mayor Bloomberg suggested it in 2008.”
Taxing the wealthy
After 9/11, during New York City’s financial crisis, Mayor Bloomberg increased property taxes by 18.5%, short of his original 25% push.
Months later, Bloomberg raised sales and income taxes. Single filers earning over $100,000 were among those impacted.
“[Bloomberg] knew that to make New York livable, you had to raise taxes, and he put that as a priority, rather than to simply cut the budget and vital services,” NYU Professor of Urban Planning and Policy, Mitchell Moss, told ABC News. “Taxes were not a peripheral part of his fiscal policy. They were a central part.”
In a 2007 USC speech, Bloomberg reflected, “As a last resort, we even raised property taxes and income taxes on high-earners,” recalling backlash, saying “raising taxes didn’t make me the most popular…”
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to raise taxes on the wealthy to fix subways, but was not successful.
Mamdani proposes permanent additional 2% tax increases for earners making over $1 million and raising corporate taxes. Bloomberg framed his hikes as temporary, specifically tied to emergencies.
However, even Bloomberg acknowledged that his tax revenue supported broader ambitions.
“Mike Bloomberg raised taxes following 9/11 out of fiscal necessity, not ideology,” Ed Skyler, a senior executive at Citigroup and former deputy mayor for Bloomberg, told ABC News.
At USC, he said increases, “allowed us to close the huge budget deficits, balance the books and continue investing in the future: building new schools, revitalizing old industrial areas, creating the largest affordable housing program in the nation, supporting our cultural institutions, parks, libraries, and universities, and expanding world-wide advertising to attract businesses and tourists.”
Food policy for low-income communities
Under Bloomberg, starting in 2009, dozens of FRESH grocery stores opened. Many are still operating today. The program offered public subsidies to private grocery operators to boost access to fresh food in underserved neighborhoods.
Quinn, then city council speaker and a key player in passing the program, said they always asked: “how do we use the powers of the city of New York to jolt the private sector into action?”
Bloomberg frequently sought to merge public and private efforts—through initiatives like his Green Carts program—which supplied permits for vendors selling fresh produce in “food deserts,” and Health Bucks, which enabled discounted food to be purchased at farmers markets.
Mamdani proposes one municipally owned, nonprofit grocery store in each borough, offering goods at wholesale prices. On “Plain English,” Mamdani said his plan would cost less than FRESH.
CUNY School of Public Health Professor Nevin Cohen said he believes Mamdani’s plan would cost less than Bloomberg’s, too. He wrote a piece titled “Guess What? Government Is Already in the Grocery Business,” mentioning existing markets in Madison and Atlanta.
Mamdani’s idea isn’t new to the city. Former Mayor Fiorello La Guardia created the first public market network and several still remain today. Under Bloomberg, one such market—Essex Market—was rezoned and relocated to a new, modern space.
Cohen said Bloomberg and Mamdani’s plans “are not just similar. They actually had the same underlying goal.”
Cohen said, “Bloomberg very much intervened in the market” and sent an old advertisement of Bloomberg, dressed as a nanny, labeled, “You only thought you lived in the land of the free.”
Quinn also notes that many of Bloomberg’s plans faced resistance, but once implemented, became part of the city’s fabric.
“What is radical on Monday often becomes widespread by Wednesday,” Quinn said.
Neither Cuomo nor Mayor Eric Adams provided statements to ABC News.
Sen. Jason Bean speaks with senate staff during a filibuster on September 12, 2025 in Jefferson City, Missouri. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images
(MISSOURI) — The Missouri state Senate voted on Friday to pass the bill with a new congressional map that favors Republicans, sending it to Gov. Mike Kehoe’s desk and notching Republicans a second win in their efforts to redraw congressional maps to favor the GOP, although the maps are facing a new legal challenge as well.
The Missouri House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to pass the map. President Donald Trump had encouraged the state to redraw its congressional lines mid-decade, and Kehoe proposed a map in late August as what he said was a way to more fairly represent Missourians. The new map would likely allow Republicans to hold seven of Missouri’s eight congressional seats, of which Democrats currently hold two.
It is possible that implementing the map may be decided by voters, as opponents of the congressional map bill can try to gather enough signatures in most of the state’s congressional districts to force a statewide vote on the bill.
During hours of debate on Friday, which Republicans eventually shut down using a procedural move, Democrats continued to slam the new map as detrimental to voters – particularly for voters in Kansas City, Missouri, which would be split among multiple districts. One Republican said he would vote against the map because the Senate did not have enough time to look at the provisions in the bills it is considering.
Democratic state Sen. Barbara Washington, who represents part of Kansas City and is close with U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, whose seat is redrawn in the new map to be much more favorable to Republicans, alleged that the new map dilutes the political power of Black voters and hurts their communities.
“You don’t like our voice, so you’re trying to take it away. You don’t like our power, so you’re trying to dilute it. You don’t like our community strength, so you’re attempting to weaken it,” she said.
“We haven’t even had the opportunity to talk about why, the why behind the new map, the why behind Republicans deciding to erase Kansas City voters and to erase Kansas City values… in this map, Kansas City is erased,” Democratic state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern said earlier.
One Republican Senator, state Sen. Mike Moon, said he would not support the congressional map, decrying the process in the Senate and how it seemed as if the bill was being pushed through because of pressure from Trump.
Addressing his constituents, Moon said that he is “probably alone as a Republican. I don’t know if someone else will join me in this,” and would vote no on the bills because the Senate has not debated and deliberated enough on parts of them. “It’s not because I don’t want Republican ideals to win the day,” he said, but because he’s not “a yes man.”
During a hearing on Thursday by the Missouri Senate’s Local Government, Elections and Pensions committee on the proposed new congressional map, Cleaver framed the new map as discriminatory and as fanning the flames of a mid-decade redistricting war.
“There’s already a plan for California to respond, then another state’s going to respond, then New York is going to respond, then another state’s going to respond, and then Maryland is going to respond,” Cleaver said.
“Democrats have said, you know, we’re going to fight fire with fire, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. But I want to warn all of us, if you fight fire with fire long enough, all you’re going to have left is ashes.”
The congressional map is expected to be fought over in court. ABC affiliate KMIZ reported that voters in districts impacted by the map filed a lawsuit on Friday in the circuit court of Cole County, Missouri, asking for a judge to declare the map unconstitutional and to stop the Secretary of State from using the new districts in future elections.
ABC News’ Grace Sandman and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — National Guard troops have begun 24-hour operations around Washington, D.C., as of Thursday morning, according to a Department of Defense official.
It’s part of President Donald Trump’s plan to address crime in Washington by taking over the city’s police department and deploying the National Guard troops.
Thursday’s National Guard presence in Washington included one small unit deployed to both Union Station and the National Mall early in the morning, according to a spokesperson for joint task force behind the operation. The idea is that residents and tourists would awake Thursday morning to the sight of military presence, according to a person familiar with the effort.
Earlier this week, some National Guard troops patrolled along the National Mall — a relatively safe and quiet stretch of Washington known for museums, monuments and hot dog vendors serving tourists.
Guard members on patrol are not carrying weapons as of now, and they will not have the weapons in their vehicles, according to two defense officials.
A White House official told ABC News that overnight Wednesday into Thursday, the multi-agency federal task force made 45 arrests — 29 of which were immigration-related arrests. Law enforcement teams arrested people on a variety of charges including first and second degree assault, controlled substance possession and distribution, and carrying a concealed weapon, the White House official said.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that overnight Wednesday into Thursday, the FBI and law enforcement partners in Washington contributed to the 45 arrests with 16 arrests “tied to the violent crime surge” and seized three firearms.
“Your FBI will make DC Safe Again,” Patel wrote.
Law enforcement agents conducted a traffic safety compliance checkpoint on busy 14th Street in Northwest Washington Wednesday night, which led to one arrest. A group of protesters spoke out against the checkpoint, shouting at the law enforcement officers, according to video from Washington’s ABC station, WJLA.
Army officials said their mission was to aid law enforcement with logistics support, transportation and administration duties, as well as being visible around the Mall.
“That’s part of our assignment — to go to the national monuments and be present,” Col. Dave Butler, an Army spokesperson, told ABC News on Tuesday.
Trump announced Monday that he planned to mobilize 800 National Guard troops to address what he considered “out of control” crime in the city, as well as taking over control of the Metropolitan Police Department. Trump has made claims about rampant violent crime in Washington, which D.C. police statistics show is actually decreasing. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city has spent the last two years driving down violent crime — “driving it down to a 30 year low, in fact,” she told MSNBC on Sunday.
“It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023, this is 2025 and we’ve done that by working with the community, working with the police, working with our prosecutors, and, in fact, working with the federal government,” Bowser told MSNBC.
Defense officials said the joint task force, led by Army Col. Larry Doane, will run the operation.
The task force includes 800 activated National Guard members, defense officials said. The troops will work in shifts of 100 to 200 troops at a time, and some of them will be assigned to administrative or logistical roles in support of local law enforcement.
Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson on Thursday said the 800 National Guard troops will remain “until law and order has been restored.”
“They will remain until law and order has been restored in the District as determined by the president, standing as the gatekeepers of our great nation’s capital,” she said.
The task force overseeing the activated Guard troops will operate similarly to how the D.C. Guard has handled inaugurations or responding to crises, as it did during the Jan. 6 riots. The National Park Service will play a considerable role because of its oversight of the National Mall, officials said.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart, Kelsey Walsh and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
