Zohran Mamdani has spent months trying to cover over some of his previous anti-police ranting. It has only been two weeks since he issued a blanket apology for his past statements during an interview on Fox News.
The state Assemblymember and self-described democratic socialist has been dogged on the campaign trail by comments he made in 2020 in which he called to “Defund this rogue agency” when referencing the city’s police department. His stance came during the national uproar over the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. He described the NYPD as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.”
Asked about his previous comments, Mamdani, 33, has said he has worked to make amends with officers in private, though his comments Wednesday on Fox’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum” represented his most public attempt to repair his relationship with the department.
Mamdani told MacCallum that he had apologized privately to a group of officers “for the language that I used.” She then asked if he would also apologize publicly.
“Absolutely, I’ll apologize to police officers right here,” Mamdani said. “Because this is the apology that I’ve been sharing with many rank-and-file officers. And I apologize because of the fact that I’m looking to work with these officers, and I know that these officers, these men and women who serve in the NYPD, they put their lives on the line every single day.”
But there's a part of Mamdani's story that really does not hold up. Because his explanation for the difference between what he said then and what he's saying now is that 2020 was a unique moment in time and his views have changed since then.
He said that the remarks, which he wrote in June 2020 in a social media post in support of the defund the police movement, were made after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis a month earlier.
The comments were made “at the height of frustration,” he said in an interview with The New York Times, and were not reflective of his current campaign or “my view of public safety and the fact that police will be critical partners in delivering public safety.”
So when exactly did the height of his frustration end. It wasn't in 2022, because back then he was still campaigning to defund the police.
“We need to dramatically curtail the power and presence of the N.Y.P.D.,” he wrote on his campaign website in 2022 as he sought re-election to his Assembly seat in Queens.
At the time, Mr. Mamdani called for the New York Police Department to reduce its work force “by 1,300 officers through attrition.” He pushed to “immediately” end police overtime, freeze hiring, cancel new officer classes and “institute a moratorium on all new equipment purchases.”
“We can’t reform our way out of a racist police system that’s working exactly as designed — as a means of control over Black & brown New Yorkers,” he wrote...
Mr. Mamdani clearly held critical views of the department more recently than the turmoil in 2020 after Mr. Floyd’s death.
He wrote in 2022 that his proposed policing cuts would help reduce the department’s budget by $3 billion, and suggested that the savings be reinvested in health, housing and community services. The department, at the time, had a $5.4 billion budget and a budgeted head count of 35,030 uniformed officers.
Those statements remained on his website until the end of 2023. So when did his views shift? Today, the NY Post has pulled up yet another bit of evidence that Mamdani's extremism was not limited to 2020. The clip below is from September 2023, just over two years ago. In this one, Mamdani combines his obvious hate for the NYPD with his obvious hate for Israel.
September, 2023.
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 28, 2025
Zohran Mamdani: "We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the IDF." pic.twitter.com/sr8pQyKvCq
Two years ago this guy was still conspiring to kick the crap out of the NYPD. This wasn't the result of a moment of frustration in 2020. He never stopped being an anti-police extremist or an anti-capitalist, he just learned to lie about it and smile while doing it. And arguably, his anti-police views are the least objectionable thing about this clip.
Why are people so focused on Mamdani’s views on Israel?
— Adam Fisher (@AdamRFisher) October 28, 2025
Because Mamdani’s views on Israel are unambiguously conspiratorial.
“The NY State assembly is a bastion of Zionist thought.”
“…when the boot of theNYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” https://t.co/HTi2tZCa9z
“When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”
— Casey Babb (@DrCaseyBabb) October 28, 2025
Zohran Mamdani sounds more like a member of the Muslim Brotherhood than he does the Mayor of New York. pic.twitter.com/iFjOmlHRSo
Defund the police was a complete and utter failure everywhere it was tried. Even Democrats learned their lesson, but not hard-left Mamdani. People who vote for this guy are going to regret it.
