{"id":92899,"date":"2026-01-07T22:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/92899\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T22:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:08:10","slug":"michael-rapaport-challenges-zohran-mamdani-announces-nyc-mayoral-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/92899\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Rapaport challenges Zohran Mamdani, announces NYC mayoral campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/n21uklkiyqz4kkid.jpg\" alt=\"Mamdani begins first full week in office\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">NEW YORK &#8211; Comedian and podcaster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/michaelrapaport\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Michael Rapaport<\/a> announced he is planning on running for New York City&#8217;s mayoral office in the next election.<\/p>\n<p>   &#8216;Mayor Rapaport 2029&#8217; <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WNYW\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Rapaport made the announcement on New Year&#8217;s Eve of last year.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The actor expanded on his campaign plans in a <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/ep-1-259-you-are-listening-to-a-fantasy-football\/id923017367?i=1000743237885\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">podcast episode<\/a> linked under the initial post.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;I will be running my campaign on the fact that nothing will be free,&#8221; he stated. &#8220;You will be getting nothing for free.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WNYW\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">This is not the first time Rapaport has challenged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">In July 2025, the prospective mayoral candidate declared Mamdani as &#8220;Zohran the moron&#8221; before telling his audience that he had <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/07\/24\/us-news\/new-york-city-mayor-hopeful-mamdani-nicknamed-zohran-the-moron-by-michael-rapaport\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">no plans to leave the city<\/a>, even if Mamdani declared victory.<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/vv92lg8fk3uo3tgk.jpg\" alt=\"What could Mamdani's first 100 days as NYC mayor look like?\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>   <\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Later in the year, he posted a picture of Mamdani and his wife, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox5ny.com\/news\/everything-know-about-future-first-lady-nyc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Rama Duwaji<\/a>, eating at a Manhattan sushi restaurant that Rapaport called &#8220;one of the priciest joints&#8221; in the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: This article includes information from a social media post made by Michael Rapaport.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox5ny.com\/tag\/us\/ny\/nyc\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York City<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox5ny.com\/tag\/politics\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Politics<\/a> <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK &#8211; Comedian and podcaster Michael Rapaport announced he is planning on running for New York City&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,12,56,63,65,64,87,618],"class_list":["post-92899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-politics","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}