NEW YORK: President Donald Trump calls him a “communist.” His critics say he wants to defund the police. Zohran Mamdani insists he’s just a guy trying to make New York City more affordable.
Mamdani ‘s meteoritic rise to become the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor has put his past and present policy positions under close scrutiny. If elected, he would be the city’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor. He’d be the city’s most liberal mayor in generations.
But as he tries to broaden his support ahead of the November election, the state lawmaker has shifted more to the center on certain issues — while distancing himself from other potentially damaging political stances.
Mamdani’s opponents — two Democrats, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, and a Republican, Curtis Sliwa — have cast themselves as moderate alternatives to the 33-year-old.
Some top New York Democrats, including US Sen. Chuck Schumer, have been slow to endorse Mamdani. A few, including the state Democratic Party chair and some suburban members of Congress, have said they won’t back him. But more notable names have thrown their weight behind him in recent days, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s top two legislative leaders.
Here’s where he actually stands:
He’s a democratic socialist, not a communist
While Trump and other opponents keep calling Mamdani a communist, he identifies as something different: a democratic socialist. He believes government should play a role in reducing economic disparity, but he doesn’t advocate for a communist system where property is collectively owned.
Mamdani does favor raising taxes on the wealthy to fund proposals he argues would make the city more affordable. That includes free bus service, universal child care, and his signature issue: a freeze on rent increases for the city’s 1 million rent-regulated apartments. Opponents say a rent freeze would harm landlords, who have also been hit hard by inflation.
Perhaps nowhere has the “communist” label come up more than in relation to Mamdani’s proposal to set up a pilot program for city-run grocery stores. Billionaire John Catsimatidis, who owns grocery chains Gristedes and D’Agostino Supermarkets, said the program would “drag us down a path toward the bread lines of the old Soviet Union.”
In an interview with The Bulwark, Mamdani framed his proposal for five stores that would sell products at wholesale prices as a modest experiment. He said if it doesn’t work, “C’est la vie, then the idea was wrong.”
He has also faced criticism over comments he made on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” in which he said that in an economically just world, “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.” But Mamdani said that as mayor, he would be happy to work with billionaires to solve the city’s problems.
He no longer supports defunding the police
After the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020, Mamdani was among a number of New York Democrats who advocated slashing the police department’s budget, and who frequently railed against police brutality.
In one social media post, Mamdani called the department “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” In another, Mamdani wrote, “Defund this rogue agency” on a post sharing video of NYPD pummeling a man who had argued with a police officer.
During his mayoral campaign, Mamdani has distanced himself from these prior calls to reduce department funding, saying they don’t represent his current agenda. Mamdani said he would maintain the NYPD’s staffing levels but also create a new “Department of Community Safety” that would deploy mental health care teams, rather than armed officers, to handle certain emergency calls involving people in psychiatric crisis.
And he has softened his overall rhetoric around law enforcement. In a recent New York Times interview, he answered “yes” when asked if he owed officers an apology for calling the department racist, saying his 2020 comments were made “at the height of frustration.”
Mamdani’s opponents have been skeptical of his shift. Adams, a former police captain, says Mamdani changed his position on law enforcement because voters wouldn’t support defunding the department. Cuomo has said Mamdani is flip-flopping and hasn’t given voters a clear picture of who he really is.
He’s criticized Israel and defended Palestinian civil rights
Mamdani is a vocal defender of Palestinian civil rights and has accused the Israeli government of committing a genocide in Gaza.
He supports an economic boycott of Israel and has promised that if Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited New York City he would honor a warrant from the International Criminal Court and have Netanyahu arrested for war crimes. The US is not a member of the court and Israel denies it is engaging in genocide or war crimes.
Mamdani has repeatedly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling the militant group’s slaughter of 1,200 “deplorable.” He has also said he believes Israel has a right to exist, though without a hierarchy that favors Jewish citizens over others.
That hasn’t assuaged critics who characterize such condemnations of Israeli policy as antisemitic.
Before the primary, Mamdani was asked whether he would disavow the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan some see as a call to violence against Israeli civilians. At the time, Mamdani described it as reflecting “a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights.”
But Mamdani — who has not employed the phrase during his campaign — now says he would discourage others from using the slogan.
Is he connected to DSA
Mamdani is a member of the New York City and national chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, an activist group that advocates for a universal health care system, immigrants’ rights, tuition-free higher education, nationwide rent regulation, a 32-hour workweek, and getting rid of mandatory jail time for some types of crimes, among other issues.
Cuomo, Adams and Sliwa have all heaped scorn on Mamdani for his association with the group. Mamdani says he is running on his own, distinct platform — not DSA’s — and that being part of a group doesn’t mean you agree with all of its goals.
Asked by reporters about his previous support for decriminalizing prostitution, Mamdani didn’t give a direct answer but said: “What I want to do is look at the ways in which the previous administration addressed this issue,” referring to former Mayor Bill de Blasio, under whom arrests for related charges decreased.