Joe Scarborough says most New Yorkers likely don’t find Mamdani’s agenda to be what they need

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on Wednesday that Democrat New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, may not appeal to New Yorkers outside of those who voted in the Democrat primary.

Mamdani secured a victory in New York City’s Democratic primary with 43.5% of the vote, prompting former Democrat New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who garnered 36.3% of the vote, to concede the race. Scarborough said that criticisms of Mamdani coming from The New York Times’ editorial board and The Wall Street Journal suggest that most New Yorkers do not find him suitable to fix the city’s current challenges.

“The New York Times came out with an editorial saying that the winner last night, Mamdani, was not qualified and then you have The Wall Street Journal of course saying that this is no time to elect a socialist who’s saying he’s all for ‘globalizing the Intifada,’” Scarborough said. “I mean, yeah, I don’t know if that’s what a lot of people in New York City think they need right now, but it sure looks like that’s what they think inside the Democratic primary.”

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The Wall Street Journal published an editorial from June 22 which criticized Mamdani’s call to “globalize the Intifada,” in which Alvin Rosenfeld argued that his call would bring “violence” to New York.

“In a podcast interview he claimed the phrase “globalize the intifada” isn’t a call for violence against Jews but expresses a desire for Palestinian ‘equality and human rights.’ That interpretation makes little sense to anyone familiar with the history of the deadly assaults against Israelis that marked the Palestinian intifadas, especially the second one, sometimes called the Al-Aqsa Intifada … That’s what intifada is. To “globalize” it means bringing such violence everywhere, including in New York,” Rosenfeld wrote.

The New York Times’ editorial board wrote that Mamdani ran on a platform that is “uniquely unsuited to the city’s challenges.” It criticized his call for rent freezes, government-operated grocery stores, his lack of government experience or concern for the “disorder of the past decade.”

“[Mamdani] has never run a government department or private organization of any size. As a state legislator, he has struggled to execute his own agenda. A telling example came last year. Given an opportunity to expand a pilot program offering free bus rides, one of his signature issues, he instead engaged in a performative protest that doomed the policy,” the editorial board wrote. “He seems to lack the political savvy and instinct for compromise that has made Senator Bernie Sanders, his fellow democratic socialist, an effective legislator.”

The 33-year-old nominee has promised to implement a variety of free programs, including buses, childcare, and city-run grocery stores. He has also proposed raising the minimum wage to $30.

Mamdani was notably one of the only candidate to not call for a heavier police presence, and instead called for creating a “Department of Community Safety” that would allow dispatchers to decide if counselors and medical professionals should respond to 911 calls instead of police officers.

Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders both endorsed Mamdani ahead of the primary.