Zohran Mamdani’s opponents say that he is a communist. He says he isn’t. So which is it?
On June 25, 2025, the day after Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, President Donald Trump wrote: “It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor.”
When asked if he really was a communist, Mamdani was definite: “No, I am not.” He claimed that “Donald Trump is attacking me because he is desperate to distract from his war on working people. We must and we will fight back.”
Mamdani also implied that Trump’s real motive was racism and xenophobia: “I have already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, who I am, ultimately, because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for. And I’m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower that he has since then betrayed. When we talk about my politics, you know, I call myself a Democratic socialist in many ways inspired by the words of Dr. [Martin Luther] King from decades ago, who said, ‘Call it democracy, call it Democratic-Socialism, there has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.”
In late February 2021, however, Mamdani, who was then a New York State Assemblyman, was a featured speaker at the online Winter Outreach Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, which on its logo presented three primary slogans: “Cancel Student Debt,” “Defund the Police,” and “Covid-19 Relief.”
Mamdani demonstrated his deep Marxist convictions as he happily reported to the attendees: “I am very lucky in that I have five other DSA-endorsed comrades who are with me in the assembly and the state senate.” He explained that it was important to have such “comrades” because they made it “much easier to run a campaign that will be built around raising class consciousness.” That would involve showing that the various issues of the day were actually “an issue of capitalism.”
Mamdani lamented that “we clearly do not have the numbers, as they are at this moment, to win the radical legislation that we need to bring about.” Consequently, “we have to continue to elect more socialists. And we have to ensure that we are unapologetic about our socialism.” He touted an academic boycott campaign that would prohibit students from studying at universities in Israel that he claimed had developed weapons technology for the Israel Defence Forces.
He touted other socialist policies as well: “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.” That much was in line with the stated agenda of the American far left.
He emphasized the importance of moving from the goals of the day to the overall goal of the movement: “It’s critical, the way that we organize, the way that we set up our — you know, set up our work and our priorities, that we do not leave any one issue for the other, that we do not meet a moment and only look at what people are ready for, but that we are doing both of these things in tandem. Because it is critical for us to both meet people where they’re at and to also organize for what is correct and for what is right, and to ensure that, over time, we can bring people to that issue.”
Mamdani maintained: “I sincerely believe in this political project. I sincerely believe in socialism…. It can be such a lonely experience to be a socialist, and it was for me.” Yet he exhorted his comrades to persevere, emphasizing that the conference attendees must understand “that it is socialism that we are fighting for.” Mamdani listed some pet issues of the left and then reminded his audience of the larger overall goal: “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.”
Seizing the means of production. Trump was right. Mamdani is a 100% communist lunatic.
