{"id":26653,"date":"2025-06-30T08:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T08:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26653\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T08:27:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T08:27:14","slug":"i-am-not-a-communist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/26653\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I Am Not’ a Communist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tZohran Mamdani<\/a> shocked the establishment<\/a> by becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee<\/a> for mayor of New York City, drawing ire from Republicans who are engaging in mongering tactics against the candidate, including Donald Trump<\/a>, who called him a \u201cpure communist\u201d and \u201ca 100% Communist Lunatic.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo, I am not,\u201d Mamdani said Sunday in an interview on NBC\u2019s Meet the Press, denying that he is a communist as Trump alleged. \u201cI have already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I\u2019m from, who I am, ultimately because he wants to distract from what I\u2019m fighting for. I\u2019m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower, that he has since then betrayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Mamdani: “I’ve already had to start get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, ultimately bc he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for. I’m fighting for the the very working people he ran a campaign to empower that he has since betrayed.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2025-06-29T15:13:34.558Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\tMore than just name-calling, Trump threatened in an interview that aired Sunday to cut off federal funds to New York City if Mamdani \u201cdoesn\u2019t do the right thing.\u201d Mamdani has said if he is elected, he plans to keep New York as a sanctuary city, limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, \u201cLet\u2019s say this: If he does get in, I\u2019m going to be president, and he\u2019s going to have to do the right thing, or they\u2019re not getting any money. He\u2019s got to do the right thing or they\u2019re not getting any money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have to stand up and fight back,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cAnd we haven\u2019t seen that from our current mayor, who has instead been working with the Trump administration to assist in their goal of building the single largest deportation force in American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani, who identifies as a democratic socialist, is campaigning on a platform largely based on economic issues. \u201cI call myself a Democrat socialist in many ways inspired by the words of Dr. King from decades ago, who said, \u2018Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God\u2019s children in this country.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tHis platform advocates for for rent freezes, free busing, no cost childcare, new affordable housing, the creation of city-owned grocery stores, and increased taxation of billionaires. He resoundingly earned more votes than former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in the first round of the primary last week. A Muslim born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani became a U.S. citizen in 2018 after he graduated college.<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani has received criticism not just from the right<\/a> but also from establishment Democrats. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand<\/a> went on an extended rant falsely accusing<\/a> Mamdani of calling for \u201cglobal jihad\u201d when he had not done so. (Gillibrand, through a spokesperson, later claimed she \u201cmisspoke.\u201d) <\/p>\n

\n\tDemocratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday refused to endorse Mamdani, saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t really know each other well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJeffries added, \u201cGlobalizing the intifada, by way of example, is not an acceptable phrasing. He\u2019s going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be clear, there is no evidence Mamdani has ever called for \u201cglobal jihad\u201d or to \u201cglobalize the intifada,\u201d although he was asked about the latter phrase on a podcast earlier this month. On Meet the Press and on the podcast, the candidate responded similarly, saying he does not want to engage in debating what speech is permissible. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words,\u201d Mamdani said<\/a> on The Bulwark\u2019s June 17 FYPod podcast. \u201cAnd that I think it is more evocative of a Trump-style approach to how to lead a country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a Muslim man who grew up post-9\/11, I\u2019m all to familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning,\u201d Mamdani added.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sunday, Mamdani told host Kirsten Welker, \u201cThat\u2019s not language that I used. The language that I used and the language that I will continue to use to lead the city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Mamdani on “globalize the intifada”: “That’s not language that I used. The language that I used and the language that I will continue to use to lead the city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights.”<\/p>\n

\u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2025-06-29T15:19:29.873Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n\t\u201cMy concern is,\u201d he continued, \u201cto start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible takes me into a place similar to that of the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani reaffirmed his commitment to making all New Yorkers safe. He vowed to combat antisemitism, including increasing \u201cfunding for anti-hate crime programming by 800 percent.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe then spoke about pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil, a student detained by the Trump administration after speaking out against Israel\u2019s attacks on Gaza. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has since released Khalil<\/a> following a judge\u2019s order<\/a>, but the administration has detained and threatened to deport more students over their political views<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t believe that the role of the mayor is to police speech in the manner, especially of that of Donald Trump, who has put one New Yorker in jail who has just returned to his family, Mahmoud Khalil, for that very supposed crime of speech,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cUltimately, what I think I need to show is the ability to not only talk about something but to tackle it and to make clear that there\u2019s no room for antisemitism in this city. And we have to root out that bigotry, and ultimately, we do that through the actions. And that is the mayor I will be, one that protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome Democrats have come to Mamdani\u2019s defense, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who posted<\/a> on social media, \u201cWe should all be disgusted by the flood of anti-Muslim remarks spewed in the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani\u2019s victory in the NYC mayoral primary \u2014 some blatant, others latent. Shame on the members of Congress who have engaged in such bigotry and anyone who doesn\u2019t challenge it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani shocked the establishment by becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, drawing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[69,23286,50,67,132,68,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-26653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-kirsten-gillibrand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114771371239610707","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26653","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=26653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}