Related Articles
That great popping sound you may have heard ripple across New York City and beyond Tuesday night around 10:30 p.m. wasn’t champagne. It was the sound of a thousand Republican heads exploding at the news that 67-year-old accused sex pest and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had conceded the Democratic mayoral primary to Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist who captured New Yorkers’ imagination with his vision for a more affordable city.
During the primary, Mamdani spoke about his plans to make city buses fast and free, pointing to New York’s fare-free Staten Island ferry as proof that it’s possible. He talked about the mayor’s discretion to select members of the Rent Guidelines Board, which sets the maximum allowable increase annually for rent-stabilized apartments. And he pointed to New York City’s incredibly popular “3-K For All” program, created under Mayor Bill DeBlasio, as evidence that the mayor’s office has the power to extend that program and provide universal child care for kids as young as six-weeks-old.
Democratic voters overwhelmingly backed Mamdani’s candidacyon Tuesday —and Republicans are freaking out. Donald Trump sounded off Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous. He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart, he’s got AOC+3, Dummies ALL, backing him, and even our Great Palestinian Senator, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him. Yes, this is a big moment in the History of our Country!”
Many a frothing xenophobe can’t fathom the idea that Mamdani, a Muslim and a naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in the United States since he was seven years old, has a pretty good shot of becoming mayor now. Famous Islamophobe and Donald Trump confidant Laura Loomer went on a tear after Cuomo’s concession. “WHY DO WE NOT HAVE LAWS THAT SAY FOREIGNERS CANNOT HOLD OFFICE IN THE US??? WHAT THE HELL!?” she screeched.
“There will be another 9/11 in NYC and @ZohranKMamdani will be to blame,” Loomer added.“Get ready for Muslims to start committing jihad all over New York.” Loomer is a 9/11 conspiracist who maintains a close relationship with Trump despite being viewed as a liability by some members of the president’s inner circle.
Following the Democratic primary on Tuesday, though, there was no daylight between Loomer’s toxic rhetoric and the kind being spewed by more mainstream MAGA heads. Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and a high-profile Trump supporter, posted, “24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.”
“A foreign-born Muslim socialist just won the primary for New York City mayor,” Kirk’s MAGA-world fellow traveler Jack Posobiec wrote. “Are we allowed to talk about mass immigration now?”
Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called Mamdani a “anarchist-socialist,” and blamed his victory on “unchecked migration” that “fundamentally remade the NYC electorate.” (Non-citizens, it’s worth noting, cannot vote in New York City elections.)
It wasn’t just the MAGA warriors melting down over Mamdani —the Republican old guard and their media allies are having a similar conniption. “SOS,” the front page of The New York Post blared. On Fox News, Mayor Eric Adams — who dropped out of the Democratic primary after the Trump administration dropped its prosecution against him, and who will run as an Independent against Mamdani in November — got an assist in bashing his rival from Fox and Friends. As the show’s host recited Mamdani’s (extremely popular!) campaign promises, likefunding for affordable housing, free buses, and no-cost childcare, Adams hissed, “He’s a snake oil salesman.”
“New York City’s soul is rotting,” the conservative columnist John Podhoretz sniffed.“If we allow 9.1 percent of registered voters [to] determine the future of New York City, then we deserve the city that we are going to get,” posted billionaire hedge fund chief Bill Ackman, a Trump supporter who donated $500,000 to Cuomo’s Super PAC.
David Frum, the former George W. Bush speechwriter turned Atlantic editor, declared “Well, at least we can retire that faded and false line, ‘antisemitism has no place in New York City.’”
Throughout the primary, Mamdani was dogged by accusations of anti-semitism, despite the fact that he used those exact words — “antisemitism has no place in New York City” —repeatedly, and spoke movingly about his connection to Jewish New Yorkers and their reasonable concerns about rising antisemitism. He also courted support from Jewish New Yorkers, and cross-endorsed the highest-ranking Jewish official in the city, Comptroller Brad Lander.
Nevertheless, on X, the Republican Jewish Coalition warned its supporters to “Evacuate NYC immediately.” Their call was signal boosted by the Zionist group Betar Worldwide. “We urge all Jews to evacuate NYC,” the Israel-based organization posted.
Mamdani supporters, meanwhile, seem to be living for the cope. “If anyone’s leaving NYC out of fears of sharia taking over please lmk I will buy your brownstone and live in it,” the leftist streamer Hasan Piker wrote.
