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EXCLUSIVE: Republican New York State Sen. Bill Weber told Fox News Digital about what he believes will happen to New York City in a variety of areas if socialist Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor in November.
“It could be in chaos,” Weber, who represents New York’s 38th State Senate district along the Hudson River outside New York City, told Fox News Digital about the prospect of a Mamdani victory.
“I mean, we even see some of those big issues happening now in the city. Anyone that’s gone into the city recently sees a lot of just unsafe situations.”
Weber, the son and brother of NYPD officers, spoke to Fox News Digital days after the city witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in half a century in Midtown Manhattan, sparking a bitter war of words between all four mayoral candidates about public safety in the city.
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Mamdani has been heavily criticized for previous calls to defund the police, which he attempted to walk back in a Wednesday press conference, which is a critique that has been amplified in the wake of the shooting on Monday.
Weber told Fox News Digital that the police department in New York City needs more resources, not less.
“We’ve got to continue to fund the police department and when you hear rhetoric starting in 2020, and even continuing today with some political figures, including, you know, Mamdani, who could be the next mayor of New York City, in the past talking about defunding the police and really taking a different approach to law enforcement. It’s a real concern, not only now, but what could happen in the future.”
Weber continued, “So I’m hopeful that clearer minds will prevail, and we will continue to support the police department, which is the best in the world, and we need to make sure that we continually support them financially and all the tools that they need to do their jobs effectively.”
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Weber told Fox News Digital he represents a district with either the first or second most Jewish residents per capita in the state and that many Jewish voters have expressed concern to him about Mamdani’s long history of anti-Israel stances.
“A lot my Jewish residents are very concerned,” Weber, who recently penned an op-ed on the subject of Mamdani and Israel, explained.
“They have family that live in the boroughs of New York City. A lot of them commute into the city as well. So they’re very worried about the rhetoric that Mamdani has really spewed over a long time. And you know. Even up until recently, he still refuses to condemn the globalized intifada, which is very concerning because we saw what happened on October 7th.”
Political experts have suggested that the three candidates other than Mamdani need to coalesce around one candidate in order to defeat Mamdani, which Weber said he supports but says it’s unclear whether that will happen or who that candidate will be to form a one-on-one matchup.
“The opposition, whoever that candidate is going to be, they need to really rally behind and unify behind one candidate, whoever it is, and I even offered to be a liaison to try and facilitate one of, or at least getting them all together into a room to have one candidate to run against Mamdani because I’m fearful that the rest of them will split the vote and then Mamdani will sneak in,” Weber said.
In terms of what New York City’s economy will look like in four years if Mamdani becomes mayor, Weber pointed out that New York City drives most of the revenue back to the state in Albany and suggested a bleak outlook if Mamdani, who has been labeled a communist by some, were to win.
“I think he’s very serious about what he’s indicating that he wants to do, which would really be a devastating impact on New York City,” Weber said. “If we chase out building owners, if we chase out the wealthy people to go to Florida or other states that are more tax friendly, it will have a devastating impact not only on New York City, but on New York state as a whole.”
“So, you know, we should take him at his word. He wants to have government-run supermarkets. I mean, these are all code words of what we’ve heard from socialist nations around the world, socialist nations that have failed, and we don’t want to see a failure in New York City. So we need to take him, listen to him, take him at his word and really fight back to make sure that none of those programs get implemented in that. Really, that starts with defeating him at the polls in November.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Mamdani campaign for comment.
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