Zohran Mamdani is the new Mayor of New York after winning the election on Tuesday. The 34-year-old defeated independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and, during his victory speech, made a comment about Donald Trump. But while many praise Mamdani’s speech, others were concerned. One CNN political analyst has raised the alarm that the newly elected mayor has changed his character already on day one.
On Tuesday, New York got their new mayor. Zohran Mamdani carried 50,4% of the votes, according to the city Board of Elections. Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo finished in second with 42%.
Meeting with his supporters on Tuesday night after claiming victory, Mahdani, who’s the city’s first muslim mayor, said, “The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older, I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.”
He continued, “New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics, a mandate for a city that we can afford and a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that.”
Donald Trump previously threatened to withdraw federal funding from New York City if Mamdani were elected. During his speech, he made room for a greeting to the president, saying, ”Donald Trump, since I know you’re watching, I have four words for you: turn the volume up.”
While Zohran Mamdami was surely over the moon about the victory, political analyst Van Jones was raising the alarm. Speaking on CNN during election night Tuesday, Van Jones claimed Mamdani showed off a “character switch” as he had won.
CNN analyst ‘raise ‘alarm’ over Zohran Mamdani’s character amid mayoral win
According to him, it was a demeanor far from what the politician had shown during his campaign trail.
“I think he missed an opportunity, I think the Mamdani that we saw in the campaign trail, who was a lot more calm, who was a lot warmer, who was a lot more embracing, was not present in that speech,” Jones said on CNN, per NY Post.
“I felt like it was a little bit of a character switch here,” he continued, saying that the “warm, open, embracing guy” had disappeared.
“There are a lot of people trying to figure out, ‘Can I get on this train with him or not? Is he going to include me? Is he going to be more of a class warrior even in office?’ I think he missed a chance tonight to open up and bring more people into the tent,” Van Jones said.
“He’s very young and he just pulled off something very, very difficult. I wouldn’t write him off, but I think he missed an opportunity to open himself up tonight and I think that that will probably cost him going forward.”
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