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Weltwoche Schweiz
Anhören ( 9 min ) When 68-year-old Joe Germanotta came out as a MAGA-fied Trumper and endorsed Donald Trump for reelection in 2020, he said that things got "a little dicey at home."
Germanotta tells Die Weltwoche that, these days however, he has "better things to discuss with her" than politics. Fortunately, Lady Gaga has been on tour in Europe, promoting her new seven-time Grammy nominated album, "Mayhem," far from the Mamdani mania sweeping New York City and unsettling her Republican father.
We catch up with "Mr. G" via Zoom from the Germanotta's family-owned trattoria, "Joanne," on the Upper West Side.
2015 Kevin Mazur
Weltwoche: New York has been on a roller coaster. You had mayoral elections, last week. First time in history, the capital of capitalism is governed by a self-declared "Socialist." What went through your mind when you heard the news that Zohran Mamdani had won the race?
Joe Germanotta: Actually, I'm quite disturbed by it. The night of the election, I couldn't even watch the election results, I was so nervous. You're categorizing him as a "Socialist," but I think he's got more Communist tendencies than Socialist. Some of his ideas and what he's committed to do in New York City will be a great burden on many of us. I'm concerned about a couple of things that are him not supporting the police, all right? He's going to bring back prostitution to New York City which will bring crime and drugs, probably. He's an advocate of "Trump-proofing" New York City, which I don't understand why Trump is such a hardship that he can't deal with? And I'm disturbed to the point where I'm thinking about moving out.
Weltwoche: Free buses, free education, free childcare, and state-run grocery stores? Sound perfect, doesn't it?
Germanotta: It does sound perfect, but how's he going to pay for it? The way he's going to pay for it is he's going to increase New York City taxes on the residents. And, I mean, free buses? The MTA [Metropolitan Transit Authority], which runs the bus system, they have a difficult time now meeting their budget requirements. They run a deficit consistently. The grocery stores? I don't want to be limited to two loaves of bread. I want to be able to go into a grocery store and buy what I want. And pay for it. His ideas are not realistic, especially in a capital environment like New York City. He's really going to polarize New York when New York really needs to be united.
Weltwoche: You run a famous restaurant, “Joanne." It's on the Upper West Side. What does it mean for people like you, entrepreneurs, restaurant owners?
Germanotta: Well, I think he's going to affect our food costs. I think he'll affect the waiters. He has said that he's going to tax the tips. Trump came out with the policy of "no tax on tips." [Mamdani's] saying that he's going to tax tips.
It's a complicated environment, as it is. And he's going to make it more complicated with the free nature of everything that he's talking about. He can't pay for it. And, to be realistic, he's a 34-year-old assemblyman from Astoria, Queens. He's got no managerial experience. He's never really held a job, [gotten] a private paycheck, right? How's he going to manage 300,000 employees with a $2 billion [correct: $115,9 billion in fiscal year 2026] budget? He has no experience.
Weltwoche: You have been in the City your whole career.
Germanotta: Forty years.
Weltwoche: Take us back to the early days. What was great then? What is missing now?
Germanotta: What was great, then, was the flexibility to run your own business. The businesses that I owned and built, a lot of them were national. So, I had an office in New York City, but the businesses, themselves, were all over the country. It was particularly hotels in the wifi space.
How is it now? From the restaurant point of view, it's been a roller coaster. We went through COVID. We went through a bad mayor. This all started with [former New York City mayor] Bill de Blasio. He was the first Socialist-slash-Communist. I don't know how he got a second term, but he did. He was focused on the wrong things for New York City.
Then, we got Mayor Adams [a Democrat], who I voted for. Why? Because he was going to support the police. He had a police background [as a former captain in the New York Police Department]. We really had great expectations. But, as it turned out, there were some problems. The last part of his administration, I think he suffered from that.
Look, [former New York governor and 2025 New York City mayoral candidate] Cuomo was not the best selection. But if you were going to vote, you had to vote for Andrew Cuomo. Curtis Sliwa [the Republican candidate], he's been on the ballot, I don't know, four or five times? And he never seems to gain enough steam to get enough traffic. What he did was he split the vote. We had, I think it was, the largest turnout in ten years. If Sliwa wasn't in the race, Cuomo would have had a chance.
Weltwoche: Mamdani says, “New York is and will remain a city of immigrants.” Your ancestors were immigrants. They came from Sicily... What is different today compared to the time when your family migrated to the Big Apple?
Germanotta: When my ancestors came into the country, everybody came in through Ellis Island. In order to get in, there was a medical exam, you had to have a place to live, you had to have a job. So, when you came to the United States, you were immediately somewhat productive. And everybody had the motivation to be a self-made man in America. My grandparents, both of them, were shoemakers. They were shoemakers in Italy, and they opened up the shoemaker shop here in the United States. It was a completely different environment. Nobody gave them anything.
The problem that we had was [under President Joe Biden] they opened the doors. We didn't know who anyone was that came into the country, whether they had a clean background. A lot of them were criminals. Let's face it. And, now, we're trying to get them out of the country. I support getting the criminals out of the country. I think there's some good people that are [legal] immigrants that are here in the United States. They pay taxes and they work.
But these individuals [who] came in undocumented, they got a free ride. And now they're trying to extend that free ride with free healthcare. I don't know that we've gotten as many out of the country as we intend to, but the self-deportation that we're offering, I think that's a great plan. If you self-deport, you can come back in. But when you come back in, you're going to do it legally based on our rules in the United States.
Weltwoche: A lot of immigrants, including your family, have contributed much to the country as business owners. You're very close to your whole family and to your daughter, and you inspired her musical career. Do you also talk politics at the dinner table? What does your daughter think about this new communist regime in town?
Germanotta: We really don't discuss it. Since he's come on the scene, she's been on tour. I've got better things to discuss with her. I want to have a father-daughter relationship. I don't want to talk about politics.
Weltwoche: Do you ever give her advice? On her career?
Germanotta: She's past that. I mean, she's 38-years-old. She's on her own to make her own decisions. If she asks me, I'll give her my opinion. How frequently does she ask me? Not as frequently as you would think.
Weltwoche: I heard in an interview that the only thing you ever begged her is: not to sing at [President Joe] Biden's inauguration. Is that true?
Germanotta: (laughs) No comment.
Weltwoche: On this side of the Atlantic, President Donald Trump is not very welcome. He's widely criticized. How do you view Trump's economy, overall?
Germanotta: It's screaming good. I knew that when he got elected the economy was going to be roaring, and it is. If you look at the stock market, every day it's going up and up and up. His policies are strong.
The population might not like him as an individual, but you can't disagree with what he's doing in the country. He's got some very, very strong ideas. I'm hopeful that he can get 100% of them through, to be honest.
Weltwoche: The media over here is cheering on this young "communist," as you call him, quite fairly so, because he has communism at his core. So, this young man [Mamdani], who is biting into the Big Apple, where do you see him going in five years? Will New York be another San Francisco? What are we in for?
Germanotta: Socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried, and I don’t think it's going to work here in New York City -- especially not in New York City. I think there's going to be a mass exodus of the taxpayers that [Mamdani] thinks are going to pay for all these things. I think it's going to be the way New York was about 15 years ago where it was a tough place to live. Some neighborhoods you couldn't walk around in. Right now, it's it's pretty safe, city wide. It's very disappointing that we're going to take a step back like this.
Weltwoche: I can't leave you without getting a valuable piece of advice. Like you, I have a daughter. She's a bit younger than yours. To ask you bluntly: What's the best way to make my daughter as successful as yours? A multi-millionaire performing artist?
Germanotta: Others have asked me this question. It's a simple formula: Find out what they'd like to do and support them in every way. My daughter, she wanted to be an actress and a musician at a very, very early age. So, what we did was we got her the acting classes and the music [lessons]. She started playing piano at five years old. We got her a teacher. They used to come to the home. Then, she was in all the theater productions at her school and the neighboring boys' high schools.
Weltwoche: But you were also tough. You told her, "You know, if you don't have a record contract within a year, I will stop supporting you."
Germanotta: That was her birthday. I didn't say I would stop supporting her. I did support her through her career development.
My wife and I had dinner with her on her birthday, and that's when she said, "Hey, I want to quit college." She was a great student at NYU. She was always a great student through grammar school, high school, middle school. But, you know, she said, "I want to quit school, and I want to pursue my career." My response was, "Look, we put away money for your college education. I'll let you use some of that, all right? And you got a year. Go get yourself a record deal, or you're going back to school." She did. I mean, yes, she did.
She got her first record deal with Island Def Jam. What's his name? L.A. Reid [legendary music producer and writer of over forty #1 singles], and he dropped her from the label. But then, she got picked up by Interscope, right away, and the rest is history.
Weltwoche: We hope we see her more on the screen. ["A Star Is Born"] was such a great success and a great watch. Will we see more of her as an actress?
Germanotta: I think you will. I think you will see more and more of her as an actress over time. She just got nominated for seven Grammys.
Weltwoche: Wow!
Germanotta: Honestly, when I heard the new album, "Mayhem," I called her right up. I said, "Steph, there's not a skip track on this album." And I was right. It's up for "Pop Album of the Year." And her new hit, "Abrakadabra," it's contagious song. That's gonna live a long time, like "Bad Romance."
[Editor's note: Transcription edited for clarity and length.]