PolitiFact exists to defend Democrats against Republican attacks. In 2020, they threw their “Pants On Fire” label at Sen. David Perdue for describing his opponent Jon Ossoff as a “socialist.” So it’s unsurprising that PolitiFact would object to Donald Trump and other conservatives online for mocking New York’s new Democrat nominee for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, as a “communist.” This time, it was only “False” on their “Truth-O-Meter.”
Trump drew a “Pants On Fire” last year for calling Kamala Harris a “communist.” But dig into their search engine, and try to locate any time they’ve ever thrown a flag at a Democrat describing Trump or Trump backers as “fascist.” You won’t find one. Right before the 2024 election, CNN’s Anderson Cooper goaded Harris into agreeing Trump was a “fascist.” Nothing happened.
Ella Moore and Amy Sherman made a list of objectionable conservative claims:
President Donald Trump called Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic,” in a June 25 Truth Social post.
Nick Sortor, a conservative podcast host, wrote June 23 on X, “Zohran Mamdani is not even a socialist. He’s a full on COMMUNIST,” sharing a video clip of Mamdani calling for a network of city-owned grocery stores. “Even FURTHER left than Bernie Sanders. He wants government-run grocery stores.”
Ben Shapiro, co-founder of conservative website The Daily Wire, said on his podcast, “The big news of the day: A communist is likely to be the next mayor of New York City.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., also wrote on X that Mamdani is a “communist.”
Somehow, this duo didn’t cite Jerry Dunleavy’s tweet, which pointed out Mamdani’s sweet talk about “Comrade Arya Rajendra,” a Communist Party mayor in India!
Zohran Mamdani is a Communist.🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/LDKPjdCGXR
— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) June 25, 2025
On his Instagram, Mamdani celebrated his victory by quoting Nelson Mandela — who was at one time an armed communist guerrilla with the African National Congress, but why would the liberals remember that against the legend? The words “red scare” were no surprise here:
Accusing Democrats of being communists or communist sympathisers is a frequent misleading attack line by some Republicans. It is a red scare tactic that has existed in U.S. politics for decades, but has been transformed by the success of some democratic socialists, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
And accusing Republicans of being neo-Nazis is what color of scare? They find an expert professor to call this an “absurd slander,” but never object to Republicans being slandered as fascist democracy-murderers. That’s because all of their liberal media allies throw that slander routinely.
The PolitiFact conclusion was typically super-literal:
Mamdani’s mayoral platform proposes making New York City more affordable, including via free buses and day care, rent control and city-owned grocery stores. That is not akin to communism, a system in which the government controls the means of production and takes over private businesses. Mamdani has not called for the elimination of private ownership.
He also hasn’t called for eliminating democracy and political parties, another tenet of communism.
We rate this statement False.
Journalists on the left see all of the socialist goals as wonderful and necessary, but they know that “communism” is too scary a word, and they only use “socialist” when politicans like Mamdani proudly brandish it. But right now, liberal journalists are warming up to promoting the party building a following among young voters by tilting further out to the “extreme left” — although they’ll call you “Pants On Fire” if you call them that.
