Independent Thinking
Independent Thinking is the new podcast from Chatham House.
Each week our director, Bronwen Maddox, will host conversations with leading policymakers, journalists and our own Chatham House experts to provide insight and depth on the big international questions of the week.
Independent Thinking gives you, the listener, the opportunity to engage with the high-level conversations that the institute hosts, and, for Chatham House members, to ask questions directly to the participants in each episode.
Nov 7, 2025
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York’s mayoral race this week – and other electoral successes – energized Democrats in the US and left-wing parties worldwide. The new standard-bearer of the American left is hailed by progressives as a generational shift of leadership – at 34 he will be the first Muslim mayor of New York, and one of its youngest ever.
But he faces opposition from many quarters over his plans to raise taxes on the wealthy. Not least from President Donald Trump, who has threatened to hold back federal funds from the city where he was born.
This week’s podcast assesses the significance of the first major elections of Trump’s second term, and what it means for the Democratic Party’s chances of winning back the House of Representatives in midterm elections next November.
In the US, host Bronwen
Maddox is joined by Laurel
Rapp, director of the US and North America Programme, and
Bruce
Stokes, an associate fellow at Chatham House and a former
director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Center.
Joining from London is Stephen
Farrell, head of News and Comment, who covered the 2013 New
York City mayoral election for The New York
Times.
Read our latest:
Trump’s tariffs face Supreme Court challenge that could have
significant consequences for presidential power
Has Trump’s Asia tour reassured the US’s Asian allies?
Kenya’s conversion of Chinese debt to renminbi reflects economic
pragmatism more than strained US ties
Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by Stephen Farrell.
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