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The age of the millennial politician is here — nowhere more obviously than in city halls around the country. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb surprised Ohio’s political establishment in 2021 by soaring to victory at the age of 34. The former Obama intern-turned-Key Bank executive is now the president of the Democratic Mayors’ Association and a rising star within the party.
I met up with Bibb — clad in his signature round tortoiseshell glasses and a slim-cut navy suit suit even on a hot and humid Sunday in July. We talked about his city and its relationship with the federal government — from the impact federal cuts may have on his city’s hospital system to his desire to work with Republicans and President Donald Trump on permitting reform.
Over a plate of mac and cheese at trendy Cleveland bistro Luxe, Bibb said that Democrats at large have missed the fact that millennials are impatient — not willing to wait their turn to run for office, deeply entrepreneurial and chomping at the bit to solve the crises they’ve spent their entire lives navigating.
“When I ran for mayor, a lot of folks — a lot of establishment Democrats in the party — told me to wait my turn,” Bibb explained. “We are impatient about this country, because we know what crises look like … because we’ve experienced them firsthand.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You’re from Cleveland.
Born and raised in Cleveland. I live in the southeast side, in the Mount Pleasant/Union Miles neighborhood.
I’m not that familiar with Cleveland. So tell me what that means, vibes- or identity-wise.
It’s got a crazy identity in terms of its history. At the height of Cleveland’s prominence — and we were once the fifth largest city in the United States — it was a Jewish middle-class neighborhood. Then you have white flight, redlining, and it became a Black middle class neighborhood.
To this day, there’s still remnants of that. When I was growing up in the 1990s at the height of the crack epidemic in the city, it still had a strong Black middle class, still strong main streets. And one of the reasons why I ran was to try to reverse that decline.
In an interview earlier this year, you mentioned that housing was a policy space where this Congress might make some progress. Have you seen anything helpful since then?
Nothing yet. And what concerns me is that with the passage of this “big beautiful bill,” it’s adding to the deficit, which is going to lead to an increase in interest rates, which is going to lead to an increase in the cost of buying a home.
If there was one space where I think Trump could have some real bipartisan support, it’s around housing. He’s a builder, right?
I think every mayor or governor you talk to wants to see Congress support us on permitting reform at every level of government. And every mayor or governor you talk to wants HUD to streamline regulations so it’s easier to build in America.
Are there other places you see a missed opportunity, where interests align?
I know that the administration is looking at opportunity zones and … childcare tax credits.
And then on immigration reform … The best thing for us to do to be a competitive economy is to pass common sense immigration reform. So instead of all this theater and chaos and this other bullshit, let’s get back to work and let’s find common sense immigration reform. Everybody wants a secure border, but we also need to give people a pathway to citizenship, because if we don’t, we can’t be globally competitive.
You have connections with many other mayors because of the Democratic Mayors Association. Is there any housing policy you’re seeing in other cities that excites you?
A lot of us right now focus on permitting reform. Cleveland will be launching that effort this fall, where we’re streamlining the process to upload your drawings and to get a permit from City Hall.
Really proud of the work that Mayor Todd Gloria has done in San Diego, where he has really worked quickly to decrease street homelessness in the downtown parts of San Diego. That’s declined over 60 percent since he took office.
I look at what Andre Dickens has done in Atlanta, where he has taken old shipping containers and vacant lots and made it a homeless shelter where people have dignity and support to get the second chance they deserve.
What about some of the cuts that have come out of D.C. recently, on education funding or Medicaid. Are you finding any ways to backfill these cuts?
I think every mayor in the country will agree with this: There is no replacement that we can find to plug in the gaps from the federal government.
Cleveland is home to our only safety net hospital, Metro Hospital, and they could go out of business if these cuts go through. What’s striking is that [Trump] worked to put some provisions in this bill with Republican senators to help rural hospitals, but nothing to support urban hospitals. That’s gonna decimate our public health infrastructure.
And residents in Ohio are going to feel any impacts sooner, because Ohio also rolled back state Medicaid expansion — right?
Correct.
The state cuts … will put a further strain on hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic, Metro Health and emergency hospitals. It’s an issue of public safety, because people may be committing crimes out of survival now, because we no longer have a strong social safety net.
All these things are interconnected. It’s easy for the president and Republicans in DC to try to say, “Democrat-run cities are unsafe.” But they’re the ones making our country less safe by passing these uncompassionate, crazy bills.
I totally understand that you can’t replace the federal cuts. But you said at your State of the City address that you were looking for philanthropic avenues to try to help in other ways.
I’ll be convening healthcare CEOs and hospitals, I’ll be convening my foundation leaders, to figure out what we can do to stand in the gap until we get change from the federal government.
One idea is how do we start to promote more preventative care to make sure that folks aren’t getting sick before they need to go to hospital. I’ll be working with Metro Health Hospital, our local social safety net hospital, to get folks enrolled in the exchanges before these changes occur so they can get the care they need. And I have a mobile health clinic that we deploy at my department of public health as well. So all of the above is on the table.
You’re a millennial. What are Democrats missing about millennials?
That we’re impatient.
Say more.
When I ran for mayor, a lot of folks — a lot of establishment Democrats in the party — told me to wait my turn. We are impatient about this country, because we know what crises look like … because we’ve experienced them firsthand — from 9/11 to the great recession to two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the pandemic.
But we’re also the most entrepreneurial generation as well.
Follow-up question — though I don’t know how qualified we (millennials) are to talk for them — about Gen Z. In the 2024 election, nationally, millennials stayed the most blue. Gen Z swung toward Trump.
Gen Z sees a rigged system.
But we (millennials) do too, right? Why does it hit different?
I think for Gen Z … they see all the massive amount of wealth being created because of technology and the proliferation of Amazon, Uber, what have you. They don’t understand why we can’t get our shit together and fix this stuff quickly.
They looked to someone like Donald Trump, who is the disrupter, to fix it.
The reason why he’s losing his base on Epstein and the Epstein files is because they thought they could trust him as the disruptor. He would be transparent. We want transparency … and now they’re not getting that.
What do you want Democrats in D.C. to do more of?
Listen to mayors. We are closest to the challenges and the pain of what this federal destruction looks like, but we’re also closest to the damn solutions. We know how to fix America’s housing problem because we’re doing it. We’re fixing public safety in cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, Atlanta. We know how to create good quality jobs with union and labor being a key partner.
The answer to the Democratic Party’s future and problems will not come from congressional D.C. Democrats. It needs to come from America’s mayors and America’s governors.
Your summer playlist — What are you listening to right now?
Drake is solid. I listen to a lot of Jungle, I love Jungle. I’ve been in a classic Jay Z mode too, recently. I feel like Jay Z [and] Memphis Bleak is like my quintessential growing up in this city [in the] summer vibe that gets me in a good mood.
I just sent my barber my [Spotify] day list. It was called “luxury barber shop Sunday afternoon.” And he’s like “Dude, it’s straight bangers.”
You know he’s playing it at the barbershop right now … And they’re like, “this is the mayor’s playlist.”
[laughing] Exactly, yeah.
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