CNN commentators Van Jones and Scott Jennings delivered strikingly different but equally critical takes on New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s fiery victory speech Tuesday night, calling it “divisive” and “a missed opportunity” for the newly elected socialist.
Mamdani, who made history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, claimed a decisive win over independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
But the jubilant tone of his speech, which opened with a quote from early 20th-century socialist Eugene Debs and marked a sharp departure from his typically upbeat, unifying style, immediately raised eyebrows among pundits, including some on the Left.
Van Jones, a longtime Democratic analyst and former Obama White House adviser, said the speech marked a sudden change in tone from the candidate voters had seen on the trail.
“Well, look, I’ve got divided reactions from my friends to this speech,” Jones said during CNN’s post-election panel. “First of all, you’ve got to give the guy the credit. He defeated Democratic Party royalty — the Cuomo. That’s a royal family in our party. Defeated them. Defeated the oligarchs and rich folks who jumped in to try to stop him, and then defeated Donald Trump. So the triumphalism that you see there is earned. A year ago, nobody ever heard of the guy.”
WATCH: @ScottJenningsKY unloads on Zohran Mamdani’s long, angry victory speech:
Oh, are you saying he didn’t — he wasn’t the unifying voice of a generation that you predicted mere moments ago. Axe, where was the — where was the man that you predicted would not slice and dice… pic.twitter.com/KFUOyRRqsU
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) November 5, 2025
Jones acknowledged that many younger voters were energized by Mamdani’s populist tone but argued that the mayor-elect’s speech lacked the warmth and inclusiveness that characterized his campaign.
“I think he missed an opportunity,” Jones said. “I think the Mamdani that we saw on the campaign trail, who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing, was not present in that speech. And I think that Mamdani is the one you need to hear from tonight.
“There are a lot of people trying to figure out, ‘Can I get on this train with him or not? Is he going to include me? Is he going to be more of a class warrior, even in office?’ I think he missed a chance tonight to open up and bring more people into the tent.
“I think his tone was sharp. I think he was using the microphone in a way that he was almost yelling. And that’s not the Mamdani that we’ve seen on TikTok and the great interviews and stuff like that. So I felt like there’s a little bit of a character switch here, where the warm, open, embracing guy that’s close to working people was not onstage tonight. There was some other voice onstage. … He’s very young and he just pulled off something very, very difficult. And I wouldn’t write him off, but I think he missed an opportunity to open himself up tonight. And I think that that will probably cost him going forward.”
Republican strategist Scott Jennings reacted with visible surprise to Jones’s criticism, jokingly pointing out that just moments earlier, Jones had lauded Mamdani as a possible unifying voice for a new generation.
“Oh, are you saying he wasn’t the unifying voice of a generation that you predicted mere moments ago?” Jennings said. “Where was the man that you predicted would not slice and dice the other side?”
Jennings argued that Mamdani’s speech revealed a worldview rooted in class warfare and excessive government intervention.
“Look, guys, he started his speech by quoting Eugene Debs, who ran for president of the United States five times as the Socialist Party of America candidate,” Jennings said. “He repeatedly attacked people in this — I mean, I don’t know. I know my socialists.”
🚨🇺🇸 VAN JONES WARNS MAMDANI: YOU JUST YELLED AT YOUR OWN VOTERS
“I think the Mamdani we saw on the campaign trail — calmer, warmer, more embracing — wasn’t present in that speech.
He missed a chance to bring more people into the tent. His tone was sharp, almost yelling.
The… https://t.co/nM3SfLzWFU pic.twitter.com/ncU6cohj4N
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 5, 2025
“He went after everybody that he thinks is a problem — people who own things, people who have businesses,” Jennings continued. “He said an interesting quote: ‘No problem too large for government to solve.’ … When you think of the world that way, that every problem, no matter how small or how large, is something for government to do, let me just decipher this for you: tax increases as far as the eye can see.”
Jennings warned that such a governing philosophy could drive businesses and jobs out of the city.
“That means the people who need to provide jobs to the young people that you say need jobs are going to flee as quickly as they possibly can,” he said. “I think this was a divisive speech, and he clearly sees the world in terms of the people who are oppressing you and the oppressed — and he said, ‘The oppressed are now in City Hall.’”
Mamdani’s speech, delivered to a raucous crowd in Brooklyn, blended soaring rhetoric and sharp jabs at political elites.
“The sun may have set over our city this evening,” Mamdani began, quoting Debs, “but as Debs once said, ‘I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.’”
He declared that “the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and well-connected that power does not belong in their hands” and vowed that those same workers had now taken it back. “Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it,” he said. “The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.”
Mamdani pledged sweeping reforms aimed at New York’s working class, promising to “freeze the rents for more than 2 million rent-stabilized tenants, make buses fast and free, and deliver universal child care.” He also vowed to “hire thousands more teachers,” cut bureaucratic waste, and “make lights shine again in NYCHA hallways where they have long flickered.”
At the height of his speech, Mamdani turned his attention directly to President Donald Trump, launching into one of the night’s most talked-about moments.
“We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants,” he said. “We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evade taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed.”
Mamdani then declared that “New York will remain a city of immigrants — a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”
“So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us,” Mamdani said. “When we enter City Hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them. A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme, and let us build a shining city for all.”
MAMDANI ISSUES CHALLENGE TO TRUMP IN VICTORY SPEECH
He closed by embracing the very qualities critics have used against him.
“I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older,” he said. “I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”
