{"id":258573,"date":"2026-05-05T00:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258573\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T00:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:42:17","slug":"ron-desantis-brands-nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-realtor-of-the-year-for-driving-taxpayers-to-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258573\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron DeSantis brands NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani ‘realtor of the year’ for driving taxpayers to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. \u2013 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mockingly branded Zohran Mamdani one of his \u201crealtors of the year\u201d \u2013 predicting that New York City\u2019s socialist mayor<\/a> will continue to drive taxpayers out of New York City and down to the Sunshine State.<\/p>\n

DeSantis unleashed the scathing quips in a fireside chat on Monday at the 2026 Milken Institute Global Conference here. In a wide-ranging interview, the former 2024 GOP presidential candidate blasted soaring taxes and runaway spending in big cities like New York, Chicago and California.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s good that, like, one guy gets elected mayor and then people feel like they have to flee the city,\u201d DeSantis told me, referring to Mamdani. \u201cWe\u2019d have people come down to Florida all the time, and they responded to all those problems, not by correcting the problems, but electing somebody who was exacerbating the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mockingly branded Zohran Mamdani one of his \u201crealtors of the year\u201d \u2013 predicting that New York City\u2019s socialist mayor will continue to drive taxpayers down to the Sunshine State. Getty Images<\/p>\n

DeSantis took aim at Mamdani over his now-infamous social media post last month in which he stood outside billionaire Ken Griffin\u2019s penthouse<\/a> on 220 Central Park South to promote Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s controversial pied-a-terre tax<\/a> on houses owned by non-residents worth more than $5 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the policies that that mayor ran on are not going to be successful,\u201d DeSantis told me, citing the fact that Griffin\u2019s giant hedge fund Citadel relocated to Miami from Chicago in 2022 \u2013 and has significantly boosted the local economy since.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharles Gasparino<\/p>\n

\u201c(Griffin) has brought jobs, business, all that tax base\u201d to Florida, DeSantis said. \u201cHe has given probably hundreds of millions of dollars philanthropically to organizations in Florida, which, if he wasn\u2019t a Florida resident, would probably give them somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeSantis added Mamdani\u2019s anti-Griffin video \u201ctakes it to another level \u2013 when you show up in front of somebody\u2019s house and target them personally, that\u2019s taking it to a point where, you know, is it reasonable to then think maybe they don\u2019t want me around here?\u201d<\/p>\n

DeSantis added Mamdani\u2019s anti-Griffin video \u201ctakes it to another level.\u201d @NYCMayor \/X<\/p>\n

With the rising tide of progressivism in the Democratic Party, wealth creators increasingly have become targets of taxes and in toxic rhetoric. DeSantis made that point several times during our chat, and had harsh words for Mamdani, who has been at the tip of the spear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you wanted to give realtor the year, I wouldn\u2019t pick anybody in Florida,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cI would pick mayors in New York, in Chicago and some of these governors, they\u2019re basically the best ambassadors for Florida that we could ever ask for. And we\u2019ve seen it, and people have voted with their feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether he\u2019s considering running for president again in 2028, DeSantis said he was open to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows? Like, you never know,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cI\u2019m in my mid-forties You know, maybe beyond that, I think that there\u2019s a lot of runway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffin has brought \u201cjobs, business, all that tax base\u201d to Florida, DeSantis said. Vernon Yuen\/Nexpher via ZUMA Press Wire \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The Florida governor boasted that when he got elected, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 300,000. Now, he said, Republicans hold the edge to the tune of 1.5 million voters.<\/p>\n

DeSantis likewise bragged that Florida\u2019s economy has grown to $1.8 trillion from $1 trillion on his watch. School choice has become universal and crime has tumbled to a 50-year low, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ve got a good story to tell,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re proud of the leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. \u2013 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mockingly branded Zohran Mamdani one of his \u201crealtors of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[558,28,30,29,802,24680,98910,99,412,8527,17601],"class_list":["post-258573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-business","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-ken-griffin","tag-metro","tag-on-the-money","tag-politics","tag-ron-desantis","tag-taxes","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}