SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
lina khan
Pro-Israel Billionaire Who Led Mamdani Scaremongering Now Offers to Help NYC's Next Mayor
One social media user wrote that the hedge fund executive Bill Ackman "went from acting like Mamdani was going to import ISIS to extending a friendly handshake… in like six hours."
Nov 05, 2025
After his resounding election victory on Tuesday night, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's most prominent billionaire antagonist immediately pivoted to kiss the ring of the man he has spent the last more than half-year portraying as an existential threat to the city and the country.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman poured over $1.75 million into the mayor's race with a laser focus on stopping Mamdani, whom he often ambushed with several-thousand-word screeds on his X account, which boasts nearly 2 million followers. He accused Mamdani—a staunch critic of Israel—of "amplifying hate" against Jewish New Yorkers, while suggesting that his followers (which happened to include many Jewish New Yorkers) were "terror supporters."
Meanwhile, the billionaire suggested that the democratic socialist Mamdani's "affordability" centered agenda, which includes increasing taxes on corporations and the city's wealthiest residents to fund universal childcare, free buses, and a rent freeze for stabilized units, would make the city "much more dangerous and economically unviable," in part by causing an exodus of billionaires like himself.
In turn, Mamdani often invoked Ackman's name on the campaign trail, using him as the poster boy for the cossetted New York elite that was almost uniformly arrayed against his candidacy. In one exchange, Mamdani joked that Ackman was "spending more money against me than I would even tax him."
After Mamdani's convincing victory Tuesday night, fueled in large part by his dominant performance among the city's working-class voters, Ackman surprisingly did not respond with "the longest tweet in the history of tweets" to lament the result as some predicted. Instead, he came to the mayor-elect hat in hand.
"Congrats on the win," he told Mamdani on X. "Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do."
Many were quick to point out Ackman's near-immediate 180-degree turn from prophecizing doom to offering his help to the incoming mayor.
"This guy went from acting like Mamdani was going to import ISIS to extending a friendly handshake… in like six hours," noted one social media user.
But Mamdani graciously accepted the billionaire's congratulations when asked about them on Wednesday's "Good Morning America."
"I appreciated his words,” Mamdani said. "I think what I find is that there is a needed commitment from leaders of the city to speak and work with anyone who is committed to lowering the cost of living in the city—and that’s something that I will fulfill."
As Bloomberg and Forbes noted, Ackman was just one of many on Wall Street and from the broader finance world who came to kiss the ring.
Ralph Schlosstein, a co-founder of the investment fund BlackRock, Inc., pledged to work with Mamdani despite their different politics: "I do care deeply about the city, and I’m not going anywhere, whoever the mayor is. I’m going to do whatever I can to help him be successful," he said.
Another former BlackRock executive, Mark Kronfeld, said: "Is it a dystopian, post-apocalyptic environment because Mamdani has won? No."
Crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz even credited Mamdani with "tapping into a message that’s real: that we’ve got a tale of two cities in the Dickensian sense," and asked if the incoming mayor could "address the affordability issue in creative ways without driving business out."
But while Mamdani has left the door open to business, he has made it clear that he will not allow them to commandeer his work at City Hall.
After his victory, he called on his base of largely small-dollar donors to resume their financial support for him in order to fund "a transition that can meet the moment of preparing for January 1.”
He announced that this historic all-female transition team will include at least one renowned titan of economic populism, the trust-busting former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, as well as other progressive city administrators with backgrounds in expanding the social safety net and public housing.
"I’m excited for the fact that it will be funded by the very people who brought us to this point," Mamdani said, "the working people who have been lost behind by the politics of the city."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump FTC Deletes Lina Khan-Era Blog Posts Warning of Threat AI Poses to Consumers
The FTC quietly removed from its website an article titled "AI and the Risk of Consumer Harm" as the Trump administration looks to undercut efforts to regulate artificial intelligence.
Oct 20, 2025
The Trump administration's sweeping purge of government content that conflicts with its far-right ideological and policy project has extended to Federal Trade Commission blog posts warning about the threat that burgeoning artificial intelligence technology poses to US consumers.
Wired reported Monday that the Trump administration has, without explanation, deleted AI-related articles published by the FTC during antitrust trailblazer Lina Khan's tenure as chair of the agency. The headlines of two of the removed posts were "Consumers Are Voicing Concerns About AI" and "AI and the Risk of Consumer Harm."
The latter article, which can still be read here, states that the FTC "is increasingly taking note of AI's potential for real-world instances of harm—from incentivizing commercial surveillance to enabling fraud and impersonation to perpetuating illegal discrimination."
"As firms think about their own approach to developing, deploying, and maintaining AI-based systems, they should be considering the risks to consumers that each of them carry in the here and now, and take steps to proactively protect the public before their tools become a future FTC case study," reads the post, which was authored by staff at the FTC's Office of Technology and Division of Advertising Practices.
The page on the FTC website that previously hosted the article now displays an error message.
Wired noted that the Trump FTC's deletion of the Khan-era blog post is part of a broader scrubbing of government content critical of tech giants and artificial intelligence. In March, the outlet reported that Trump's FTC—currently led by Andrew Ferguson—"removed four years' worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency's landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft."
The mass removal of Khan-era posts marks a sharp—and potentially illegal—break from the previous administration's handling of government-hosted content that conflicted with its views.
"During the Biden administration, FTC leadership placed 'warning' labels on business directives and other guidance published during previous administrations that it disagreed with," Wired reported. One unnamed FTC source told the outlet that the Trump administration's removal of the Khan-era posts "raises serious compliance concerns under the Federal Records Act and the Open Government Data Act."
The Trump administration's deletion of government content critical of AI comes months after it released an "AI Action Plan" that watchdogs pilloried as a gift to large tech corporations and an attempt to hamstring future efforts to regulate artificial intelligence.
The plan calls for a review of all AI-related FTC investigations launched during Khan's tenure "to ensure that they do not advance theories of liability that unduly burden AI innovation."
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in July that the Trump White House's AI plan was "written by Big Tech."
"A serious AI plan would recognize that the regulation to which this administration is so hostile facilitates innovation—it can help us ensure that we have AI for social good, rather than just corporate profit," said Weissman.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Raucous Mamdani Rally Reveals Political Battle Stretches Beyond New York City
"We are here tonight because we are ready to turn the page on the cynical, broken, politics of the past,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Oct 14, 2025
Standing at a podium that displayed the words, "Our Time Has Come," Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and allies made clear on Monday night that the sign referred not only to working people across the five boroughs, but to people across the US whose interests have been abandoned by the political establishment in favor of corporations and billionaires.
Speakers at the rally included leaders who have emerged as targets of the Trump administration, such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, and people who have worked in government at the federal level, in the case of former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, and their comments suggested a focus that goes beyond the city and its upcoming election on November 4.
Khan, who spearheaded the Biden administration's efforts to protect Americans from corporate greed in the form of "junk fees" and megamergers, spoke out against "modern-day robber barons," and made clear that both major political parties are to blame for an economy where corporations and the ultrarich "wield extraordinary power."
"They hold enormous control over our paychecks, our bills, our time, and our futures," said Khan, who has sharply criticized the Trump administration for settling with Amazon in a customer deception case and for letting oil executives "off the hook" in a price-fixing scandal.
"But the good news is that nothing about any of this is inevitable," added Khan.
Mamdani has centered his campaign on making the city more affordable by expanding his fare-free public bus pilot program, providing universal no-cost childcare, and establishing a city-run network of grocery stores to compete with for-profit companies—and has reached out to New Yorkers from all walks of life, spending a day walking the length of Manhattan as well as using social media to engage with voters.
With top Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) refusing to endorse the party's candidate to lead the largest city in the nation, the mayoral race has teed up one of the latest battles between the party's progressive wing and the entrenched establishment—one that will hopefully send a resounding message to the party's leadership, said Khan.
"The days of Democratic leaders choosing to ally with titans of industry over working people are over," she said.
Despite his decisive loss in the Democratic primary in June, disgraced former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is running as an independent and is trailing Mamdani by double digits as he strives to make the state Assembly member's support for Palestinian rights a centerpiece of the campaign.
The tactic, also employed by Cuomo during the primary, has proven unsuccessful so far, with polls showing that support from the city's Jewish voters helped Mamdani win in June by more than 13 points. At the rally on Monday night, the crowd at one point erupted in cheers of, "Free, free Palestine!"
Mamdani turned his attention to Cuomo's enthusiastic participation in the oligarchic political system that's seen the former governor court the wealthy, including billionaire financier Bill Ackman, and tell rich donors in the Hamptons that he expected help from President Donald Trump to win the general election.
In the city and nationwide, Mamdani said, "we are an existential threat to billionaires who think they can buy our democracy."
The mayoral campaign represents “a choice between a mayor for those straining to buy groceries or those straining to buy an election," he said.
The state lawmaker condemned the president's anti-immigrant escalation, which has been on display in recent weeks in cities including Chicago and Portland, Oregon, and his attacks on protesters who hold anti-fascist views as well as left-wing groups that dissent against the president's agenda.
"We are in a period of political darkness,” Mamdani said. “Donald Trump and his [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents are snatching our immigrant neighbors from our city right before our eyes. His authoritarian administration is waging a scorched-earth campaign of retribution against any who dared oppose him.”
"And again and again," he added, "Trump has broken the promise he made to the American people that he would fight for the working class by taking on the cost-of-living crisis."
James joined the rally in her first public appearance since she was indicted by Trump's personal-attorney-turned-federal-prosecutor, US Attorney Lindsey Halligan, last week on allegations of bank fraud. Having successfully prosecuted the president for fraud, James has been a top target of Trump during his second term.
Along with defiantly speaking out against the indictment, which she called the weaponization of "justice for political gain," James said that as mayor, Mamdani would come to the defense of freedoms and institutions that are under attack across the US.
JUST IN: New York Attorney General Letitia James raises her fist in the air after being criminally indicted for bank fraud.
“We are here tonight because we are ready to turn the page on the cynical, broken, politics of the past,” she said at Zohran Mamdani’s rally.
lol. pic.twitter.com/FFSLJupvtl
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 14, 2025
"We are here tonight because we are ready to turn the page on the cynical, broken, politics of the past,” said James. "We are witnessing the fraying of our democracy, the erosion of our system of government... This, my friends, is a defining moment in our history."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular