{"id":146207,"date":"2025-08-14T22:36:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146207\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T22:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:36:15","slug":"hakeem-jeffries-bristles-when-grilled-about-zohran-mamdanis-nyc-mayoral-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146207\/","title":{"rendered":"Hakeem Jeffries bristles when grilled about Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral run"},"content":{"rendered":"

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> bristled when pressed about Zohran Mamdani Thursday \u2014 snapping that he didn\u2019t \u201cunderstand\u201d why he was being asked about the New York City Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n

The New York Democrat, during an interview on CNBC\u2019s \u201cSquawk Box,\u201d had ripped President Trump as being anti-free market over his recent decision to replace the head<\/a> of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following a bad jobs report.<\/p>\n

That prompted host Andrew Ross Sorkin to redirect the conversation to the Big Apple mayoral race, telling Jeffries he didn\u2019t understand how the congressman could be both \u201can advocate for a free market,\u201d and also possibly support Mamdani, a socialist, as mayor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to understand why you would spend a significant amount of time asking me about the Democratic nominee who\u2019s not even the mayor,\u201d a visibly frustrated Jeffries shot back. <\/p>\n

Hakeem Jeffries was agitated by the series of questions he faced about Zohran Mamdani. CNBC<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s not a legitimate point to raise about a president who is regularly attacking the free market economy, bullying corporations, bullying universities, bullying law firms,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Jeffries \u2014 one of the several top New York Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul who have yet to endorse Mamdani \u2014 was repeatedly peppered with questions about the front-runner\u2019s far-left goals, such as rent freezes, free buses and city-run grocery stores.<\/p>\n

But Jeffries mostly skirted around the questions and refrained from giving direct answers, seemingly prompting Sorkin to revisit the Mamdani questions again and again.<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn rep and Mamdani met last month for the first time and Jeffries has said they will have another sitdown with the rest of the New York House delegations.<\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani has championed a far-left socialist agenda for New York City. Stephen Yang for the New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had one initial conversation. It was a constructive and candid conversation. It was centered around the community,\u201d Jeffries said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that conversation, he indicated he liked my help in putting together additional meetings with members of the Congressional delegation, as well as leaders in many of the communities that I represent,\u201d Jeffries said. \u201cThat meeting is being put into motion right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffries also contended that Democrats \u201cbelieve in a strong floor and no ceiling\u201d for Americans, meaning they want the government to assist the poor but supposedly aren\u2019t bent on taking down the rich.<\/p>\n

The top House Democrat noted how Trump recently suggested that Goldman Sachs<\/a> should fire its chief economist, Jan Hatzius, who forecasted that households will eventually have to pay about two-thirds of the tariff costs. <\/p>\n

Hakeem Jeffries has stayed neutral in the New York City mayoral race. CNBC<\/p>\n

Hatzius, who is famous for his prediction in 2008 that mortgage defaults could trigger a massive recession, had made a series of grim forecasts about the impact of Trump\u2019s tariffs. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the leader of the free world, the President of the United States of America, he\u2019s in office right now, and he\u2019s attacking the market-based economy,\u201d Jeffries added about Trump. <\/p>\n

National Republican Congressional Committee Spokesman Mike Marinella quickly attacked Jeffries for lashing out on CNBC, telling The Post, \u201che\u2019s more upset about being asked about socialism than he is about socialism itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries bristled when pressed about Zohran Mamdani Thursday \u2014 snapping that he didn\u2019t \u201cunderstand\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,8123,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5372,80,10452,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-146207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-hakeem-jeffries","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-nyc-mayoral-election","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-socialism","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}