“I 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’m from, who I am.”
Zohran Mamdani, who completed a stunning victory last week to become the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, has laughed off President Trump’s comments labelling him a ‘communist’.
Mamdani, who ran a left campaign focused on the cost of living crisis faced by working families in New York and who has pledged free public buses and city-run grocery shops as well as wanting to raise New York City’s minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030, has drawn criticism from Trump.
The President has called Mamdani a ‘communist’ and warned that he could cut federal funding to New York should the Democrat win the mayor’s race.
Asked about the president’s remarks during an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Mamdani smiled as he told host Kristen Welker why he’s “not” a communist.
Mamdani said: “I 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’m from, who I am.
“Ultimately, because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for, and I’m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower, that he has since then betrayed.”
He went on to add: “When we talk about my politics, you know I call myself a Democratic Socialist in many ways inspired by the words of Dr. King from decades ago.
“Call it democracy or call it Democratic Socialist. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of god’s children in this country.
“As income inequality has declined nationwide, it has increased in New York City, and ultimately what we need is a city where every single person can thrive.”
In an interview with NBC, Mamdani also stood by his proposal to tax “richer and whiter” neighborhoods, arguing the city’s property tax system is unfair. He also told NBC that billionaires shouldn’t exist because ‘I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality.’
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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