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andrew cuomo
Sanders Says Billionaire Effort to Crush Mamdani Rooted in Fears of Nationwide Progressive Wave
"They are worried that his campaign is an example of what can happen all over the country."
Jul 11, 2025
Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday reaffirmed his support for Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, a fellow democratic socialist facing fierce opposition from deep-pocketed establishment figures who fear the broad nationwide appeal of his people-over-profit agenda.
Faced with the growing possibility that Mamdani would win the June 24 primary, Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, real estate developers, mega-landlords, and others rushed to dump money into disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign coffers. Now that Mamdani is the Democratic nominee, they're pouring tens of millions of dollars into an anti-Mamdani war chest, despite not even agreeing on which candidate to back in November's mayoral election.
In a Thursday interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour—who noted that Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy tour "has been drawing record crowds"—the Vermont senator said that policies like "giving massive tax breaks to billionaires and cutting healthcare and education and nutrition from working-class families [are] not popular."
While acknowledging that "mainstream Democrats" have been unable to galvanize opposition to Republicans' pro-billionaire, anti-working class agenda, Amanpour pressed Sanders about what he would tell New Yorkers who say that Mamdani "has never run anything, and he says, free buses, and... is he antisemitic or not?'"
Watch Sanders' response:
"First of all, understand, he's going to have the entire establishment, the oligarchy, the billionaires coming down on his head, not only because he's demanding that the wealthy and large corporations in New York City start paying their fair share of taxes, they are worried that his campaign is an example of what can happen all over the country when you bring people together to demand the government that works for all of us and not just a few," the senator said. "So, they really want to crush this guy."
"You have billionaires saying quite openly, 'We are going to spend as much as it takes to defeat this guy.' You have Democratic leadership not refusing to jump on board a campaign where this guy is the Democratic nominee," Sanders added. "So, most importantly, I'm going to do everything I can to see that Zohran becomes the next mayor of New York."
Some Democrats have done more than refuse to support their own party's nominee. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) falsely claimed last month that Mamdani had made references to "global jihad" and speciously argued that "globalize the intifada"—a call for Palestinian liberation and battling injustice—is a call to "kill all the Jews."
Freshman Congresswoman Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.) also falsely accused Mamdani of "a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments."
Congressional progressives including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), André Carson (D-Ind.), and Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.)—the four practicing Muslims in the House of Representatives—last month condemned what they called the "vile, anti-Muslim, and racist smears from our colleagues on both sides of the aisle."
Despite the attacks against him, Mamdani is leading Cuomo—who is now running as an Independent—by 10 points in a Slingshot Strategies poll of more than 1,000 registered voters published earlier this week. Mamdani also leads Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa by 21 points and scandal-ridden incumbent Mayor Eric Adams by 24 points.
Observers note that establishment Democrats' reservations about backing Mamdani seem to be fading amid the strength of his campaign. As Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) hold out on endorsing their own party's nominee, critics argue it's time to follow other lawmakers like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jerrold Nadler, Adriano Espaillat, and Nydia Velázquez—all New York Democrats—and endorse Mamdani.
"Mamdani won a record-setting primary victory, and unions, grassroots Democratic groups, and savvy elected officials are rushing to back him," The Nation's national affairs correspondent, John Nichols, wrote Friday. "Now it's the establishment's turn."
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Why Mamdani and Other US Muslims Now Refuse to Play the Condemnation Game
The NYC mayoral candidate and other Muslim Americans should no longer be expected to condemn words that we have never used.
Jul 06, 2025
You must condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada."
That's the demand that some pro-Israel politicians, reporters, organizations, and activists keep making of Zohran Mamdani, New York City's presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor.
The manufactured controversy surrounding Mamdani and this phrase began days before the June 24 election, when a radio host asked Mamdani for his thoughts about unnamed pro-Palestinian activists who supposedly use such language.
For decades, Muslims in America have been held to a ridiculous, bigoted double standard which demands that we condemn violence that we had nothing to do with and renounce comments that we have never made.
Instead of outright condemning the phrase, Mamdani said, "I know people for whom those things mean very different things." He said that some who say it are trying to express a "desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” and noted that the U.S. Holocaust Museum had used the word "intifada” in Arabic-language descriptions of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against Nazi Germany.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other Mamdani opponents seized on his nuanced response, embellished and exaggerated what he said, and loudly condemned him. By the time the dust settled, members of the public and even prominent politicians like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) were claiming that Mamdani himself had actually used the phrase. He hadn't.
In fact, no member of his campaign staff had ever used the phrase or even said "intifada," an Arabic word often translated as revolution or uprising that has been used to describe the largely peaceful Arab Spring protests and that was indeed used by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum until it quietly dropped the phrase.
Yet, even after Mamdani's stunning victory in the Democratic mayoral primary, reporters and some politicians keep demanding that Mamdani condemn the phrase.
During an interview with "Meet the Press” on Sunday, June 29, Mamdani was repeatedly asked why he has declined to do so.
This time, Mamdani said it was not a phrase he would use and that he understood concerns about it, but that he did not want to police speech as the mayor of New York or legitimize President Donald Trump's efforts to deport activists based solely on their pro-Palestine speech.
In other words, Mamdani doesn't want to end up as an evidentiary footnote in a Justice Department deportation filing against a student protester or set a precedent that makes him responsible for condemning every problematic chant shouted at a pro-Palestine rally over the next four years.
Fair enough. But there's another, even more important reason Mamdani shouldn't have to condemn the phrase: Put simply, no one would ask him to do so in the first place if he was not a Muslim.
Think about it. There are plenty of other politicians opposed to the genocide and critical of the Israeli government, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).
Has anyone ever asked them to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada?” Of course not. Why should they have to answer for a phrase they have never used, that none of their staffers have ever used, and that hardly anyone else ever uses?
What's the difference with Mamdani? He's a Muslim in America, and for decades, Muslims in America have been held to a ridiculous, bigoted double standard which demands that we condemn violence that we had nothing to do with and renounce comments that we have never made.
The irony is that Muslims actually have voluntarily and consistently spoken out against acts of unjust violence committed by Muslim extremists so that Americans unfamiliar with Islam understand that such violence does not represent the faith. However, speaking out voluntarily is different from being forced to do so as a condition for participation in American public life.
Only Muslims face this heightened double standard. When's the last time someone asked Sen. Gillibrand—a steadfast supporter of the Israeli government who has voted to fund its genocide—what she thinks of the pro-Israel protesters who recently chanted racist anti-Arab and anti-Muslim slogans while chasing a woman they misidentified as a Palestinian down the streets of New York City
Better yet, when's the last time someone asked former Gov. Cuomo—who literally joined the defense team of indicted war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—whether he condemns the various racist, genocidal statements that Netanyahu and his hand-picked government ministers have made?
To be clear, there are plenty of reasons why most pro-Palestine activists would not use the phrase "globalize the intifada.” The phrase can signify peaceful civil disobedience to one group of people and violent uprising to another group of people. The debate about the phrase distracts from the struggle against the genocide. Most importantly, there is no pressing need to use such a phrase. That's why, again, no prominent leaders in the Palestinian freedom movement have ever said it.
The only people who should have to answer for the phrase "globalize the intifada" are the people who supposedly use it, whoever they are. Mamdani and other Muslim Americans should no longer be expected to condemn words that we have never used, especially while politicians critical of him can vote to fund the Israeli government's genocide without being forced to constantly answer for its crimes.
When he was first asked about "globalize the intifada," Zohran Mamdani could have done what many other Muslim Americans have done over the past 25 years: condemn something he never said, and then move on.
By refusing to play the condemnation game this time and still winning the Democratic primary, he may have helped free Muslims in political life from a double standard that has haunted them for decades.
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Zohran Won by Running for the Tenant Majority
This election was a fight between tenants versus landlords, and we have won the first battle. We still need to organize to win the general, and beyond that, tenant-focused policies.
Jul 02, 2025
New York City is a tenant town. But for decades, in City Hall and in Albany, the real estate industry has used their vast power—manifested through money, networks, and control over major influential universities and civic institutions—to run New York. Politicians regularly see property owners as more deserving constituents—a condition that is downstream from how they are elected in the first place.
Traditional campaign consultants on both sides of the aisle train their candidates to believe that homeowners vote and that tenants—comparatively more transient—have less of a stake in our communities and neighborhoods. This creates a vicious feedback loop: If tenants are more transient, it is because of public policy that doesn’t believe in our right to housing stability. If we do not vote, it is because no one is giving us anything to vote for. If public policy doesn’t favor tenants, it is because lawmakers are accustomed to delivering for the interest groups that they believe elected them.
For too long, a vocal minority coalition of property owners, landlords, and real estate developers have used their vast wealth to buy our elections and control New York City. This is not only bad for tenants, it is a threat to our democracy. They then use this power to marginalize tenants further—blocking tenant protections and writing in new ways to raise our rents.
We need people in City Hall who know that we—not the real estate industry, not the landlords—put them there.
Historically, national tenant voter turnout is lower than property owner turnout, but in New York, a majority tenant city, that isn’t the case. Because we are breaking the cycle.
Things began to change in 2018, when a group of eight Working Families Party-backed Democrats and one democratic socialist lawmaker were elected to the state legislature. During their campaigns, they refused real estate donations, emboldened by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) similar pledge and victory just months before. With the support and organizing of tenants, the New York State lawmakers immediately passed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, a landmark shift against pro-landlord policymaking in Albany.
And now tenants are at the heart of another shakeup. Campaigning on affordability and a promise to freeze the rent for four years, Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-36) decisively beat the establishment-picked Andrew Cuomo, winning the Democratic mayoral primary by 12 points.
At every turn, Zohran was Cuomo’s foil. While Cuomo was every landlord’s favorite candidate, Zohran ran aggressively for the tenant majority, putting rental costs front and center in his campaign’s message. Cuomo accepted millions from the real estate industry. In return, he promised to raise the rent, to expand valuable tax exemptions, and to dismantle the very tenant protection laws he signed into law just six years ago.
Zohran, on the other hand, promised to hold slumlords accountable, build truly affordable homes, and freeze the rent. Again and again, in video after video, interview and campaign appearances across the city the message was relentless: Zohran will stand up to your landlord and fight alongside you. He will use the vast tools of the New York City government to deliver higher quality and more affordable housing. If your landlord doesn’t make repairs, we’ll fix it ourselves and fine them. If they don’t pay, we’ll collect the debt.
Initial analysis show that he crushed his opponent in places like Washington Heights and the South Bronx—places that are both super majority tenant neighborhoods—traditionally thought of as moderate and Democratic establishment strongholds.
This is not surprising for those of us who have worked with Zohran for years. As an assemblymember, he was a dogged advocate for Good Cause Eviction protections, defended rent stabilization against real estate industry attacks, and got arrested in civil disobedience actions protesting rent increases and evictions alongside tenant organizers. He has advocated for non-market-controlled housing for years. Zohran announced his mayoral campaign with tenants’ rights organizations like New York Communities for Change and CAAAV Voice.
And as Zohran laid the foundation for the path to Gracie Mansion, the tenant movement launched a new 501c4 political vehicle—the New York State Tenant Bloc (the organization of which I am the director.) The timeline is not a coincidence: We launched with an explicit goal of building a 250,000-strong tenant voting bloc and using our collective voices and votes to elect a tenant majority mayor.
Collectively, tenants’ rights organizations delivered Zohran tens of thousands of votes. While we were a small part of his overall gargantuan volunteer operation, we were proud to mobilize over 715 volunteers to take action in support of his campaign, week after week. Over 20,000 people vowed to vote in favor of Zohran’s core campaign pledge to Freeze the Rent—and by hosting forums, mobilizing in huge numbers to rent board hearings, and elevating our campaign on social media and the press, we reached countless more tenant voters.
While we are proud of Zohran’s record, we didn’t volunteer in droves for him because of his history. We did it because we know that if we want universal rent stabilization and public investments in social housing that is truly affordable for every New Yorker, we need people in City Hall who know that we—not the real estate industry, not the landlords—put them there.
Now, as the organized tenant movement is on the cusp of having a rent stabilized tenant in City Hall, we must organize more forcefully, in greater numbers, than ever before. We need a mayor and a movement.
The machine that tried to elect Andrew Cuomo is bruised, but it is not broken. The real estate industry is now on the offensive, campaigning aggressively in the press and spending big in the general election. They are threatening lawsuits and engaging in a capital strike: refusing to maintain our homes under so-far unsubstantiated claims they cannot afford to. To deliver on a rent freeze, the mayor will have to call their bluff. And doing so will require strong tenant movement organizing at every level—our buildings, our neighborhoods, our city, our state—to make it possible.
This election was a fight between tenants versus landlords, and we have won the first battle. We still need to organize to win the general, and beyond that, tenant-focused policies. We are determined to turn the rent freeze electoral majority into a permanent political powerhouse. Through this voting bloc, tenants will shape budgets and legislation. We will determine the electoral fate of lawmakers, especially those who stand in the way of policies that deliver truly affordable housing, and yes, frozen rents.
What happens in New York matters for the rest of the country: Our tenant majority was once seen as a unique blip in a country that is overall defined by homeownership. But fewer and fewer people can afford to own their own home, and being a tenant is increasingly the norm. Nearly every major city in the country is majority tenant. Many are unable to afford the rents, live in slum conditions, and are forced to move from apartment to apartment as landlords price us out. And just like in New York, politicians who work for property owners but claim to represent tenants are a dangerous threat to democracy.
Unable to afford basic essentials like housing and groceries, voters are turning to the far-right (which is offering a fascistic solution based on deportation and fear), or they are dropping out of politics altogether and simply not voting.
To stop the spread of fascism, leaders running for local and state office must follow Zohran’s path to victory. Run for the tenant majority. Give us something to vote for, and we’ll go to the polls. Our democracy depends on it.
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