New York state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani responded to Rep. Andy Ogles’s (R-TN) call late last week for his deportation by casting it as merely part of the “smears and slander” that have surrounded his New York City mayoral campaign.
In an appearance on NBC News’s Meet the Press, Mamdani said it’s been “difficult” dealing with scrutiny from some Republicans into his Muslim immigrant background after he produced a shocking win in the Democratic mayoral primary over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo early last week.
“It’s been difficult to have to deal with the regular and repeated smears and slander upon my name and on the very basis of my faith,” Mamdani said. “I think what’s so sad is that this is but a glimpse of what life is like for many Muslim New Yorkers and many New Yorkers of different faiths who are constantly being told that they don’t belong in this city and this country that they love.”
He added that his win last Tuesday, which saw him best Cuomo by nearly 8 percentage points, shows New Yorkers want “a vision that binds us all together,” even as Senate Democratic leadership from the Empire State have withheld any potential endorsements of him.
Mamdani’s comments on Sunday follow Ogles’s letter to the Department of Justice, in which he asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to determine whether Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a U.S. citizen in 2018, “may have procured U.S. citizenship through willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism.”
For support of his request, Ogles cited a New York Post report that detailed Mamdani’s support for the Holy Land Foundation, a nonprofit organization convicted of providing $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas, in a rap song the state assemblyman made in 2017. Ogles also noted that Mamdani has not denounced the slogan “globalize the intifada.”
OGLES ASKS DOJ TO LOOK INTO WHETHER MAMDANI SHOULD BE STRIPPED OF CITIZENSHIP
The Tennessee Republican has also previously blasted Mamdani as a communist and socialist, a characterization Mamdani denied on Sunday despite running on a platform advocating city-run grocery stores, free child care, free buses, and a rent freeze.
“No, I’m not,” Mamdani said when asked by host Kristen Welker on whether he’s a communist. “I’m fighting for the the very working people that he [President Donald Trump] ran a campaign to empower that he has since betrayed.”