New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani —who openly espouses socialist positions and makes statements reminiscent of Karl Marx — received harsh criticism after a video surfaced showing him saying that in the past, he had stopped working and relied on his parents’ money.
“I worked until January, and then I took time away from my job, and one of the major reasons I could do so was because I knew that if I ran out of my savings, my family would be able to support me,” he stated.
“I knew that if I ran out of my savings my family would be able to support me” — Mamdani
Must be nice! pic.twitter.com/22CJRQwNqk
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 15, 2025
Mamdani’s father is a hard-Left professor at Columbia University, and his mother is a successful filmmaker who once owned a $2 million Chelsea loft in New York City, according to the New York Post. “Mamdani attended Bank Street, a prestigious Manhattan private school that now costs as much as $66,000 a year for elementary school students, before graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s best public schools. Next, he studied Africana Studies at Bowdoin College, a private liberal arts school in Maine,” Forbes noted.
Mamdani’s own job history is sketchy, to put it mildly. “Mr. Mamdani’s résumé is comparatively slight,” The New York Times reported. “The son of a renowned filmmaker and academic, he bounced among gigs — working on one of his mother’s movies, as a rapper, a campaign organizer, a part-time tutor and a foreclosure counselor — before winning a seat in the Assembly in 2020.”
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,’ -Margaret Thatcher,” Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich wrote on X.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
-Margaret Thatcher https://t.co/62uMphEupI
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 15, 2025
“The one thing my parents told me: if you aren’t working and you don’t have money, we cannot and will not support you. This guy is very comfortable with other people’s money,” New York Post columnist Kirsten Fleming echoed.
The one thing my parents told me: if you aren’t working and you don’t have money, we cannot and will not support you.
This guy is very comfortable with other people’s money. https://t.co/COZ6anlNWH— Kirsten Fleming (@KirFlem) July 15, 2025
“Classic Socialism: Once I blow through my money, I’ll take yours,” former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright wrote.
Classic Socialism: Once I blow through my money, I’ll take yours. https://t.co/TjLlaP82HQ
— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) July 15, 2025
“A true silver spoon socialist right here,” the X account Western Lensman commented.
A true silver spoon socialist right here
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 15, 2025
Mamdani has proposed building a network of city-run, subsidized grocery stores and nationalizing utility companies. “The Democratic nominee estimates his agenda will cost taxpayers $10 billion annually. His solution for financing the hefty price tag is to increase taxes on big corporations and the wealthy,” Time Magazine reported.
In 2021, at a meeting of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani stated in a video, “Right now, if we’re talking about the cancellation of student debt, if we’re talking about Medicare for all, you know, these are issues which have the groundswell of popular support across this country. But then there are also other issues that we firmly believe in, whether it’s BDS or whether it is the end goal of seizing the means of production, where we do not have the same level of support at this very moment.”
“Mamdani’s socialism nomenclature is no joke or aspiration,” billionaire Bill Ackman wrote in response. “It is the business plan of a movement that he is leading and, for now, winning.”
.@ZohranKMamdani in his own words a three-minute must listen.
Mamdani’s socialism nomenclature is no joke or aspiration. It is the business plan of a movement that he is leading and, for now, winning.
Don’t rely on my summary. Listen to him speak his own words. https://t.co/QLeWGETkIu
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) June 30, 2025
