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Zohran Mamdani once said he didn’t believe calling the police was an appropriate response in cases of domestic violence.
Mamdani, the democratic socialist candidate who last month shocked the political world from coast to coast with his stunning victory in the New York City Democratic Party primary for mayor, made the comments in a 2020 podcast.
“If somebody is jaywalking, if somebody is surviving, going through domestic violence – there are so many different, different situations that would be far better handled by people trained to deal with those specific situations, as opposed to an individual with a gun,” Mamdani said.
The comments, which came five years ago in the “Immigrantly” podcast as he denounced New York City’s police department, were first reported by the conservative-leaning Washington Free Beacon.
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Since his victory over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and nine other candidates to secure the Democratic mayoral nomination, the 33-year-old Ugandan-born assemblyman from Queens has faced intense scrutiny over his past comments on policing.
Mamdani, who took a big step toward becoming the first Muslim mayor of the nation’s most populous city, ran in the Democratic primary on a platform that called for replacing police with “crisis responders” in “mental health” cases.
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But Mamdani campaign policy memos don’t define such cases, and it’s unclear if he would push, if elected, to prevent police from responding to reports of domestic violence. The New York Police Department (NYPD) responded to more than 100,000 domestic violence incidents in 2024.
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has congratulated Mamdani on his primary victory and praised his laser focus on affordability on the campaign trail, but she has refrained, as of now, from endorsing him in November’s general election.
The governor, at a news conference on Friday, highlighted that the business community “is concerned about what will happen with the police department” if Mamdani becomes New York City’s next mayor.
“Everybody’s concerned what will happen to the policing of the city,” Hochul said.
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In 2020, amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd, Mamdani publicly referred to the NYPD as “wicked and corrupt,” calling for its defunding and dismantlement.
In one December 2020 viral tweet, he declared, “There is no negotiating with an institution this wicked & corrupt. Defund it. Dismantle it. End the cycle of violence.”
He also linked LGBTQ+ liberation to police abolition, asserting in a November 2020 tweet, that “queer liberation means defund the police.”
Fraternal Order of Police National Vice President Joe Gamaldi told Fox News Digital this week that Mamdani’s past rhetoric is emblematic of a dangerously radical ideology.
“Anyone who still supports defunding the police is completely insane,” Gamaldi argued. “Especially after seeing the horrific consequences on our urban communities. It brought on rampant crime and disorder, historic murder rates in over a dozen cities and destroyed the quality of life for millions.”
Now, as Mamdani eyes the mayoralty, his public safety message appears to be shifting. He has backed away from some of his earlier rhetoric, acknowledging the importance of police in addressing violent crime.
“I will not defund the police. I will work with the police because I believe the police have a critical role to play in creating public safety,” he said in the second New York City Democratic mayoral debate on June 13. “Sixty-five percent of crimes from the first quarter of this year are still not solved. We need to ensure that police can focus on those crimes, and [that] we have mental health professionals and social workers to address and tackle and resolve the mental health crisis and homelessness.”
His current platform includes the creation of a Department of Community Safety to handle nonviolent incidents that he believes would get to the root cause of crime. Mamdani’s public safety plan includes reallocating $600 million from existing programs and raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers to fund the new department.
He has also spoken about reducing police overtime and cutting the NYPD’s $80 million communications budget.
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