In an interview that aired Sunday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) laughed when ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked if he’d seen the Democratic manifesto rejecting socialism backed by lawmakers in the House. Instead, the Big Apple’s mayor defended his legislative agenda laid out by New York candidates aligned with his political view.
“Sounds pretty socialist to me,” Mamdani said with a laugh. The centrist manifesto was delivered by lawmakers after two democratic socialist candidates backed by Mamdani won elections to the House from New York.
“I’m not interested in writing a manifesto or, frankly, in reading one. I’m interested in delivering, and that’s exactly what we’ve been showing,” Mamdani told Karl during his appearance on ABC News’s “This Week.”
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D) signed on to the manifesto that ties the Democratic party to capitalism over socialism and defends a “growing, fair, and competitive economy that rewards hard work, innovation, entrepreneurship and ownership.”
The move by Gottheimer aligns with establishment Democrats who say socialism has no room in the Democratic party while arguing New York campaign victories won’t translate to national races in November.
Democratic socialists endorsed by Mamdani won big in Tuesday primaries across the Empire State ousting incumbent Democratic Reps. Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.) and Rep. Dan Goldman (N.Y.).
Mamdani argued that “at the core of Tuesday’s results was a message from Democratic voters across the largest city in the United States of America about the kind of politics they want to see” in his interview.
The mayor touted results on free childcare, increased public services and other affordable policies.
“We don’t have to ask ourselves what life looks like if a socialist wins. I won last November, and over the course of these last six months, what we’ve delivered for working people are the very things we were told were impossible. We’ve delivered free childcare for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history. We’ve delivered tens of millions of dollars back to tenants who were taken advantage of by bad landlords,” Mamdani said.
“We’ve delivered 165,000 potholes being paved, and we’ve done all of these things while also delivering the lowest recorded crime in our city’s history. That’s what it looks like to have democratic socialism, and what you’re seeing is that New Yorkers experienced this for six months and made the decision that they wanted to see more of it on the national stage as well,” he added.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.