New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday condemned the U.S. war with Iran, saying it has inflated costs in New York City that were already high.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhile this war has exacerbated a cost of living crisis, that is a crisis that existed from even before the time I was running for mayor, and it\u2019s reflected in the fact that we are the most expensive city in the United States of America,\u201d the mayor told NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d in an interview clip released Thursday.<\/p>\n
The ongoing military operation against Iran should \u201cnot just be opposed on political grounds, on moral grounds, but even just on economic grounds,\u201d Mamdani said, pointing to the billions of dollars already spent on the war that he said could be spent on \u201cworking-class Americans across this country\u201d instead.<\/p>\n
The mayor riffed on a lyric from the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s song “Keep Ya Head Up”, telling \u201cMeet the Press\u201d moderator Kristen Welker, \u201cI wish that the words of Tupac from the ’90s weren\u2019t still prescient, but they continue to be true for too many, which is that \u2018we always have money for war and not to feed the poor.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Washington has already spent an estimated $28 billion<\/a> on the Iran war, which began as a joint military operation between the U.S. and Israel in late February and has become deeply unpopular among Americans.<\/p>\n In a CBS News\/YouGov poll<\/a> conducted last week, before negotiations between senior U.S. and Iranian leaders in Pakistan collapsed over the weekend<\/a>, almost 60% of Americans said that the war with Iran is going \u201cvery\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d badly for the U.S. <\/p>\n And the war, which led Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz sending global oil prices soaring<\/a>, has led to rising costs of gas<\/a> across the U.S.<\/p>\n On Thursday, mostly along party lines, lawmakers in the House failed to pass a measure<\/a> that would have required the president to remove U.S. military forces from “hostilities” in Iran.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in Washington earlier this month, President Donald Trump dismissed calls for his administration to expand day care subsidies for families with young children, saying the government has to pay for the military instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,\u201d Trump said to attendees at a private Easter luncheon at the White House. \u201cThey can do it on a state basis. You can\u2019t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani, who was elected in November after running a campaign focused on making New York City more affordable, just passed the 100-day mark in office. <\/p>\n Making child care free for New York families has been a key priority for his administration.<\/p>\n