{"id":201582,"date":"2025-10-09T23:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201582\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T23:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:37:09","slug":"colbert-prep-distilled-genocide-into-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201582\/","title":{"rendered":"Colbert prep “distilled” genocide into a “game”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite recent success, Zohran Mamdani still faces many challenges toward becoming mayor of New York City, particularly Islamophobia and biases against Democratic Socialists. In addition to being the Big Apple\u2019s first Muslim candidate for mayor, he\u2019s running against disgraced former Governor and establishment-approved sex pest Andrew Cuomo, who doesn\u2019t miss an opportunity to provoke said establishment\u2019s prejudices against his opponent. But even the would-be high-profile fighters for Democracy can\u2019t seem to treat an outsider candidate with due respect. In a New Yorker profile on Mamdani<\/a>, the candidate revealed the dismissive line of questioning The Late Show With Stephen\u00a0<\/a>Colbert\u2019s\u00a0producers used to work around Mamdani\u2019s belief that Israel shouldn\u2019t be allowed to ethnically cleanse Gaza.<\/p>\n

Mamdani appeared on The Late Show alongside New York City Comptroller Brad Lander during the June Democratic primary. The two candidates had recently endorsed each other in hopes of shutting out Cuomo, a plan that ultimately worked. Ahead of their appearance, Colbert\u2019s producers held a prep call with Mamdani, Lander, and their aides to go over some basic political questions about their positions. It seemed to go well enough, but right before they went on stage, producers threw a couple of curveballs at Mamdani. Per The New Yorker, hours before the segment, a group of prominent Jewish Zionists (the article only names Elie Wiesel\u2019s son, Elisha) demanded that Colbert \u201cgrill\u201d Mamdani on Israel. A Colbert producer thought of a \u201cthumbs-up or thumbs-down\u201d segment, as in \u201cThumbs-up or thumbs-down: Hamas. Thumbs-up or thumbs-down: a Palestinian state,\u201d would do the trick. Mamdani was unimpressed. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t believe what was happening,\u201d Mamdani told The New Yorker. \u201cThat a genocide could be distilled into a late-night game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s advisers were just as unhappy, with a senior adviser telling producers that they wondered why the producers didn\u2019t want to ask about \u201cthe first Muslim candidate for mayor in the history of New York.\u201d It\u2019s an Islamophobic line of questioning foisted on Mamdani throughout the campaign, despite, as the candidate frequently tells people, he\u2019s not running for mayor of Israel. Nevertheless, he offered an answer: \u201cYes, like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist, and a responsibility also to uphold international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert wins first-ever Emmy<\/a>The Late Show With Stephen Colbert cancellation timing was simply a matter of contracts, insists CBS boss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite recent success, Zohran Mamdani still faces many challenges toward becoming mayor of New York City, particularly Islamophobia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-201582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}