Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know

For the Season 2 finale, Juan Manuel Benítez revisits the moments that stayed with him — the candid answers, the unexpected turns, and the heaviest conversations of the year. Clips from Christina Greer, Luis Miranda, Micah Lasher, Ross Barkan, Julie Tighe, Frank DiLella, Grace Rauh and Zack Fink, Christine Quinn, Julie Menin, Carmen María Rey, Chuck Park, Erik Bottcher, Dr. Alister Martin, and Ant...

Chuck Park was born in Flushing to Korean immigrants who started out as street vendors on Canal Street, selling whatever they could find on the loading docks of Bloomingdale's. He grew up to become a U.S. diplomat under President Obama, serving in Mexico, Portugal, and Canada — until 2019, when he resigned with a Washington Post op-ed that called the Foreign Service not the "Deep State" but the "C...

Mounting a small play in London costs about £2 million. The same play on Broadway? Around $8 million. That's the math Frank DiLella lays out in this conversation about why Broadway tickets cost what they do — and what New Yorkers can actually do about it. Frank has covered Broadway for Spectrum News' On Stage for nearly 20 years. He teaches at Fordham University. He's a multiple New York Emmy winn...

Dr. Alister Martin is the 45th Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene — an emergency physician, Harvard graduate, and former White House fellow who's been on the job for two months. In 72 days, roughly 450,000 New Yorkers lose their Essential Plan coverage. HR.1 hits Medicaid in January. The CDC has been gutted, the federal government has pulled out of the WHO, a...

DESCRIPTION Ross Barkan covered New York City politics for years before running for office himself. He lost. His campaign manager was a little-known political operative named Zohran Mamdani. That man is now the mayor of New York City. Barkan is one of the sharpest journalists covering the Mamdani administration — and he reveals in this conversation that he is writing the definitive book on Mamdani...

DESCRIPTION Two weeks before Earth Day, Juan Manuel Benítez sits down with Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters. They take stock of what's being dismantled in Washington — clean air and water rules, offshore wind projects, the bedrock "endangerment finding" for climate policy — and what's worth fighting for at the state and local level. Tighe breaks down the stalled...

DESCRIPTION State Assembly Member Micah Lasher is running to replace Jerry Nadler in New York's 12th Congressional District — one of the most-watched Democratic primaries in the country. He talks about the US-Israel war on Iran, Columbia University's 116th Street, Michael Bloomberg's money, AI regulation, and why Democrats need to stop negotiating and start fighting. Plus: his roommate Aziz Ansari...

DESCRIPTION / SHOW NOTES Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso is running for Congress — and this race is more complicated than it looks. He's trying to succeed Nydia Velázquez in NY-7 after 33 years. His opponents include a DSA-backed Assembly member endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — the same Mamdani that Reynoso championed loudly when he ran for mayor. We asked him about all of it. In this...

SHOW NOTES Julie Menin didn't plan on a career in politics. She started a nonprofit to help rebuild Lower Manhattan after 9/11, became a three-time city commissioner, ran New York City's 2020 census — finishing first among all U.S. cities and securing an additional $1.8 billion in federal funding for the next decade — and got elected to the City Council. In January 2026, her colleagues chose her a...

Show Notes Luis Miranda — political consultant, founder of the Hispanic Federation, and yes, Lin-Manuel Miranda's father — sits down with Juan Manuel Benítez to talk about five decades of building Latino political power in New York City. From his radicalization growing up in colonial Puerto Rico to running Fernando Ferrer's mayoral campaigns for mayor, Miranda reflects on what the Democratic Party...

SHOW NOTES He grew up in a fly-fishing motel near Lake Placid. As a teenager, he was suicidal and spent a month in a psychiatric hospital. Decades later, he helped pass marriage equality in New York State, represented Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, and the West Village in the City Council — and three weeks ago, he was sworn in as a New York State Senator. In this episode, newly elected State Senator Eri...

Episode Description Christine Quinn was once the second most powerful person in New York City government. As City Council Speaker — the first woman and first openly gay person to hold that role — she negotiated eight budgets with Mayor Bloomberg and shaped the city's political landscape for nearly a decade. Today, she runs WIN (Women in Need), the largest provider of shelter and supportive housing...

Political scientist Christina Greer joins Juan Manuel Benítez to discuss why the current moment of federal raids, ICE violence and authoritarian governance isn't shocking to Black Americans - it's familiar. From the historical parallels between Nazi Germany and American racial terror to the Republican Party's 50-year strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade, Greer explains how America's "capacity for crue...

Former immigration judge Carmen María Rey joins Juan Manuel Benítez to discuss her August 2025 termination by the Trump administration, what she witnessed in New York's immigration courts during the first months of Trump's second term, and why she still has hope for America despite having decided to leave the country. Rey, who spent her career as an immigration lawyer and now teaches at Pace Unive...

Season 2 kicks off with a special reunion! Juan Manuel Benítez brings together the original Off Topic/On Politics team — Grace Rauh and Zack Fink — to reflect on NYC's political transformation, their post-journalism careers and the state of American democracy. Grace, now Executive Director of Citizens Union, shares how she helped shape Mayor Mamdani's historic childcare initiative and what it's li...

Episode description It’s the book many of my podcast guests recommended –and that I’m also now reading: The Gods of New York . In it, New York Times journalist Jonathan Mahler argues the last years of the 1980’s shaped the city we know today. Previously, in Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning , Mahler had gone back to 1977, when New York was literally and figuratively on fire. Now, he zooms...

Assemblymember Alex Bores is one of the only lawmakers in America who can read both a bill and a codebase — and he's now running for Congress in New York’s competitive 12th District. In this episode, we dig into his push for AI regulation, the super PAC trying to knock him off the ballot, why Big Tech is watching this race, and how a coder’s mindset changes politics. We also talk childcare, democr...

Show Notes Special Book Edition: 25,000 Streams Celebration Recorded in New York City on Thanksgiving Day A milestone episode. After just a dozen conversations, Juan Manuel Benítez Wants to Know has crossed 25,000 streams. Instead of another interview, we’re doing something revealing, personal, and surprisingly political: we’re revisiting book recommendations from our guests. These are the titles...

Ben Smith has been at the vanguard of digital journalism for two decades. In a candid conversation, Semafor 's co-founder and editor-in-chief discusses his mission to fix the chaos of information overload, how Semafor 's unique format tackles trust and transparency, and the surprisingly "boring" ways AI is already changing newsrooms. Plus, he weighs in on the political spectacle of Donald Trump, t...

Antonio Delgado isn’t just New York’s lieutenant governor — he’s now Kathy Hochul’s biggest political headache. In this episode, Delgado tells Juan Manuel Benítez why he’s taking on his own boss in next year’s Democratic primary, why he thinks New York’s leadership is “broken,” and how he plans to fix it. He talks power, loyalty, and political retribution — and then drops the politics to open up a...

On the eve of Election Day in New York City, Juan Manuel Benítez convenes three sharp minds from the New York Editorial Board—Christina Greer (FAQ NYC), Josh Greenman (Vital City), and Nicole Gelinas (Manhattan Institute)—to dissect what’s driving this race: Zohran Mamdani’s momentum, Andrew Cuomo’s bet on negativity, Curtis Sliwa’s recalibration, and whether the city is voting for policy or for a...

Before you step into the booth, hear from someone who’s seen NYC power from both sides. Grace Rauh —former NY1 City Hall reporter and now executive director at Citizens Union and the 5BORO Institute— joins Juan Manuel Benítez to break down what’s actually on your ballot and why turnout keeps sinking. They get into the even-year election fight, the housing/zoning package, digital mapping, and the A...

In late January, I participated in a breakfast interview with New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, hosted by the New York Editorial Board, of which I'm a member. Back then, Mamdani was a progressive underdog in the race - a state assemblymember with ambitious ideas but long odds. A lot has changed since that breakfast. Mamdani won the Democratic nomination and today, he's become somethi...

Brian Lehrer has hosted WNYC's flagship morning show since 1989, and has interviewed every New York mayor since David Dinkins. In this rare in-depth conversation, the notoriously private broadcaster opens up about his life, his craft, and the state of journalism and democracy in 2025. Plus, will he vote in this mayoral election? Brian's picks: Book: "The Bee Sting" by Paul Murray  Park: Inwood Hil...

Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos sits down for an candid conversation about one of the most controversial decisions of her political career: endorsing former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor after years of publicly criticizing him and calling for his resignation. The Colombian-American legislator opens up about the political calculations behind that stunning move, her fr...