The hosts analyze hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin’s response to NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “pied-à-terre” tax video, which singled out Griffin’s $238 million penthouse to announce an annual fee on luxury properties over $5 million owned by non-residents, projected to raise at least $500 million. They argue Griffin was right to call the video “creepy and frightening” given real threats to financiers’ lives (citing the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and historical attacks like the 1920 JP Morgan bombing), but that Griffin made a fatal “concession” by defending himself through taxes paid, jobs created, and philanthropy rather than asserting his moral right to his wealth. The hosts invoke Ayn Rand’s concept of the “sanction of the victim,” arguing Griffin’s plan to send George Orwell’s Animal Farm to NYC ninth-graders backfires because Orwell was a democratic socialist whose work Mamdani would celebrate, and they recommend Rand’s Anthem or Atlas Shrugged instead.
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Mamdani’s tax announcement: The mayor announced NYC’s first pied-à-terre tax, an annual fee on luxury properties worth over $5 million whose owners don’t live full-time in the city, filming outside Griffin’s $238 million penthouse and projecting the tax would raise at least $500 million for free childcare, cleaner streets, and safer neighborhoods. The hosts place it among a wave including California’s billionaire wealth tax proposal, Massachusetts’s 4% surtax on income over $1 million, and similar moves in Maine, Washington, and Rhode Island.
Real threat to Griffin’s safety: The hosts argue the threat is genuine, citing the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson with “widespread positive support,” the killing of a Blackstone executive’s partner, and the historical 1920 JP Morgan bombing and 1970 Chase Manhattan bombing. They say Mamdani bears some responsibility for putting a target on Griffin’s back by publicizing his address.
The “sanction of the victim”: Drawing on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the hosts argue Griffin defended himself by citing taxes paid, jobs created, and charity rather than his moral right to his wealth, thereby empowering his destroyers by conceding Mamdani’s premise that wealth belongs to the state. They frame this as accepting that he hasn’t “paid his fair share” rather than rejecting the concept entirely.
Animal Farm is pro-socialism: The hosts contend Griffin’s plan to send Orwell’s Animal Farm to every NYC ninth-grader backfires because Orwell was a self-described democratic socialist, exactly like Mamdani, and the book attacks Stalinism rather than socialism itself. They argue Orwell believed socialism was good in theory but perverted by Stalin, comparing it to claims that terrorists “hijacked” Islam.
Rand as the real alternative: They recommend Rand’s Anthem (similar length to Animal Farm) for ninth-graders and Atlas Shrugged more broadly, arguing Rand held that socialism and communism are evil in theory and must lead to destruction, while championing the American ideal of individual rights, freedom, and production “stripped of its inconsistencies.”
