‘Incredibly Saavy’: MSNBC Personality Praises NYC’s Mamdani
Mayoral candidate says he doesn’t want “to police speech”
Opponents of Zohran Mamdani are having a hard time getting one line of attack, in particular, to stick.
These critics continue to hammer the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City over a particular phrase.
But a regular commentator on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program actually publicly praised Mamdani over the the controversy.
Specifically, at issue is the phrase “Globalize the intifada,” which opponents claim falsely is part of Mamdani’s rhetoric.
The intifada refers to Palestinian uprisings against Israel.
Mamdani, who has received a huge amount of national attention since his upset defeat of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo in last week’s primary election, was asked about the phrase during his appearance Sunday on the NBC News program, Meet The Press.
“That’s not language that I use. The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights,” he said. “And ultimately, that’s what is the foundation of so much of my politics, the belief that freedom and justice and safety are things that, to have meaning, have to be applied to all people, and that includes Israelis and Palestinians as well.”
Pressed further by host Kristen Welker to condemn the language, Mamdani replied that he doesn’t believe it’s his job “to police speech,” especially in ways that could be similar to that of Donald Trump.
Mamdani won praise for his answer the next morning when it came up on Morning Joe, which hardly is seen as a bastion of progressivism.
“I found him to be incredibly savvy, actually, in how he answered that, Katty, both for the reasons you said, but also because of clearly who he’s talking to,” commentator Pablo Torre told host Katty Kay. “He’s trying to build a coalition, to use that word, a cohesiveness on the left. And he knows that the people he’s trying to persuade that ‘Look, I’m not your typical candidate,’ is, in fact, a population of people that do not see the ideological or in this case, the verbal, the rhetorical purity test in the same way that I think people who understandably, by the way, just wanted to condemn it. Right? I understand that completely.”
Torre added that he also thinks that Mamdani “is playing a bit of chess here.”
Please support our work…
Please subscribe …