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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared Wednesday that “we need to disband” the NYPD protest unit, while also issuing a call for higher taxes on the city’s wealthiest.
The Democrat previously pledged on X in December 2024 to dismantle the New York Police Department’s Strategic Response Group (SRG).
“Yes, I continue to believe that we need to disband the SRG, and I’m currently in conversations with the police commissioner about the ways in which we can do so that are operational, and I believe that we should do so not on the basis of any fiscal need, but frankly, on the need to decouple the counterterrorism responsibilities within the department from police response to First Amendment exercise,” Mamdani told a reporter on Wednesday when asked about the matter.
The NYPD said on its website that the SRG “responds to citywide mobilizations, civil disorders, and major events with highly trained personnel and specialized equipment” and has “proven to be a critical asset during events like parades, protests, and the papal visit.”
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Mamdani also said New York City is facing a “serious fiscal crisis,” with a “massive fiscal deficit in our city’s budget to the tune of at least $12 billion.”
“Former Mayor Eric Adams handed the next administration a poisoned chalice. He systematically under budgeted services that New Yorkers rely on every single day: rental assistance, shelter and special education,” Mamdani said.
“However, Eric Adams is not the only reason we are here. For over a decade, as he governed from Albany, former Governor Andrew Cuomo extracted our city’s resources using our revenue to address state-level holes while withholding from the city what it was owed,” Mamdani continued. “The result is a stunning fiscal imbalance. New Yorkers contribute 54.5% of state revenue and receive only 40.5% back. No part of this state gives more and gets less in return than New York City.”
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“We will meet this crisis with the bold solutions it demands. That means recalibrating the broken fiscal relationship between the state and the city,” Mamdani also said. “And it means that the time has come to tax the richest New Yorkers and most profitable corporations.”
“We have seen in the politics of the past that in moments such as these, we ask those with the least to bear the greatest burden. And we know that here in the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country, in the history of the world, that we can not only put our city back on firmer financial footing, but also build a stronger city for everyone if the top 1% of New Yorkers pay an additional 2% in income taxes,” he also said.
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and founder of Bulldog Strategies, told Fox News Digital in response that, “Zohran Mamdani needs to learn that being an executive is more than cosplaying in a custom designer made windbreaker, you need a basic command of the facts: Under Governor Cuomo, state aid to New York City schools rose 68 percent, and the state absorbed billions in New York City Medicaid cost increases.”
“Andrew Cuomo inherited an $11 billion deficit when he first took office and managed to close it through hard work and fiscal discipline — words that just aren’t in Mamdani’s vocabulary,” Azzopardi added. “He also hasn’t been governor for the last five years, the exact amount of time that Mamdani — as a state legislator — was in a position to correct any perceived inequalities — except he couldn’t even be bothered to show up for work.”
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