Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday defended comments he made about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) after he was asked whether language including “monsters” and “dark money” was dangerous or invoked antisemitic tropes.
AIPAC is a prominent pro-Israel advocacy group that supports candidates through endorsements and political spending. Mamdani’s remarks about it came during a Brooklyn rally last week for three progressive congressional candidates he has endorsed in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries.
Speaking at City Hall after a press conference on heat safety and worker protections, Mamdani did not apologize. Instead, he said his remarks were aimed at AIPAC’s support for what he called an immoral status quo in Gaza, as well as the broader role of super PACs and political spending in New York’s congressional primaries.
“I want to be very clear: We’re talking about a status quo where children are being killed on a daily basis,” Mamdani said in response to a reporter’s question about concerns from members of the Jewish community and New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer.
Mamdani’s answer echoed recent warnings from UNICEF. In a June 19 UN News report, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said 265 Palestinian children had been killed in Gaza since a ceasefire was announced in October 2025, amounting to an average of one child killed per day for more than eight months. The report said the child deaths were among nearly 1,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began, according to health authorities in the enclave.
The mayor said that when he speaks about AIPAC, he is speaking about “an organization that has been supportive of the status quo,” and accused the group of defending that status quo through direct contributions and what he called “dark money.”
“When it comes to the way in which they defend the status quo, oftentimes they defend it through direct contributions, as we are seeing right now in New York 13,” Mamdani said. “Oftentimes they also support the status quo through dark money, by filtering money that would have previously been directly from AIPAC, now through other shell organizations whose identities of their contributors are only made clear after an election.”
The exchange came days after Mamdani appeared with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn for a get-out-the-vote rally backing Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, the three progressive House candidates he has endorsed in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries.
At that rally, Mamdani invoked Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, telling supporters that “the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.”
“Now is the time of monsters,” Mamdani said.
He then told the crowd that “these monsters take many forms,” pointing to those funding television ads against Lander, Valdez and Avila Chevalier, those spending more on political contributions than they would pay in taxes, and AIPAC.
He said AIPAC feared “democracy being allowed to run its course” and “an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars,” then accused the group of moving “millions in dark money” to “preserve their power” and “turn us against one another.”
City & State reported Friday that United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, gave $650,000 to BOLD America, a super PAC supporting Espaillat and opposing Avila Chevalier. The outlet reported that BOLD America has spent at least $2.8 million in the race.
In NY-10, Goldman’s AIPAC ties have also become part of the campaign debate. The New York Post reported Monday that a Williamsburg coffee shop refunded Goldman’s coffee purchase and told him in a social media post, “Don’t ever come to Poetica,” while saying his money was “probably coming from AIPAC anyways.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani signs an executive order on worker heat safety beside New York Attorney General Letitia James and Deputy Mayor Julie Su in the City Hall rotunda, Monday, June 22, 2026Photo by Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
Asked Monday whether he regretted those remarks or would clarify or apologize, Mamdani said the line was a reference to Gramsci and argued that his use of “monsters” was broader than AIPAC.
“I was quoting Gramsci, who said that the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters,” Mamdani said. “I used the term to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world, not solely AIPAC, but frankly super PACs at large, who are spending millions of dollars in deceptive and misleading ads that are blanketing airwaves.”
He said that spending was not only targeting Avila Chevalier, who is challenging Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th Congressional District, but also Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman in the 10th District, Valdez, who is running in the 7th District, and other candidates.
Mamdani also said the phrase was aimed at “a politics that, for far too long, has asked working people to lower their expectations,” and “to be satisfied with small victories as their wages grow even smaller.”
‘Monster’ remark by Mamdani seen as antisemitic trope for ‘incitement’
The remarks drew criticism from Jewish leaders and elected officials, who said the language crossed a line from criticism of AIPAC into rhetoric that echoed antisemitic tropes.
ADL New York/New Jersey called on Mamdani to apologize, saying that referring to members of the Jewish community who advocate for causes they care about as “monsters” wielding “dark money” was “shockingly offensive and unacceptable.”
“This is not about political disagreement,” ADL New York/New Jersey said. “It is about crossing a dangerous line by invoking dehumanizing and conspiratorial rhetoric with a long and troubling history in antisemitic tropes.”
The Union for Reform Judaism previously issued a warning about the language increasingly being used to describe AIPAC in campaigns across the country.
“Just as one can oppose AIPAC in good faith, one can oppose and forcefully criticize specific Israeli policies and still support a democratic, pluralistic, Jewish state of Israel and a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. This is a position we have taken on numerous policies and actions of the Israeli government,” the union said in an April statement. “One can also support all of those things and choose not to accept funds from AIPAC. But to single out and disproportionately demonize AIPAC as a distinctively harmful dark-money entity crosses the line into antisemitic tropes about sinister Jewish political influence.”
Chaim Steinmetz, an AIPAC supporter and the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said Mamdani’s comments were aimed at people like him.
“In other words, Mamdani is accusing AIPAC of being a monster that subverts democracy, supports genocide and wants to divide Americans,” Steinmetz wrote on Facebook. “This is pure incitement.”
He said Mamdani was “demonizing” millions of New Yorkers who support the policies AIPAC advocates for and warned that the mayor was “pouring fuel on the fire” at a time when New York already has an antisemitism problem.
Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, also condemned the remarks, writing on X that “monsters,” “dark money” and language about a hidden hand “turning us against one another” amounted to “the oldest antisemitic conspiracy theory in the books” if “AIPAC” were swapped for “Jews.”
“That’s not criticizing a lobby,” Gottheimer wrote. “That’s laundering antisemitism from your podium as Mayor of a city with more than a million Jews.”
Mamdani did not directly address ADL, Steinmetz or Gottheimer by name, but instead defended the substance of his attack on AIPAC and linked it to the war in Gaza and the role of political spending in the closing days of the congressional primaries.
The broader fight over AIPAC has become part of the final argument in Tuesday’s primaries, where Mamdani is trying to help elect a slate of progressive and democratic socialist candidates to Congress and Albany. In addition to Lander, Valdez and Avila Chevalier, Mamdani has endorsed Aber Khawas in Queens’ 12th State Senate District, Illapa Sairitupac in Lower Manhattan’s 65th Assembly District, Samantha Kattan in Queens’ 37th Assembly District, Eli Northrup in Manhattan’s 69th Assembly District and Brian Romero in Queens’ 34th Assembly District.
At the Brooklyn rally, Mamdani framed the slate as an answer to a Democratic Party he said has been too cautious, too beholden to political calculation and too focused on explaining what cannot be done.
“The Democratic Party must change,” he told supporters.